Interview of Paterson, James G. (Part 2)
Transcript Number 501

9 JULY 2003
Paul Zarbock: Good afternoon. My name is Paul Zarbock, a staff person with the University of North Carolina at Wilmington's Randall Library. Today is July the 9th in the year 2003 and we're interviewing James Paterson. Good afternoon. How are you sir?

James Paterson: Very well, thank you.

Paul Zarbock: Would you tell me first, for this World War II Veterans’ Reminiscence Project, when did you go into the military, where did you get into the military and why did you get in the military?

James Paterson: Gladly. When I entered Princeton University, which by the way was a land grant university in those days, ROTC was compulsory for at least two years of your undergraduate curriculum.

Paul Zarbock: I'm sorry, what is ROTC?

James Paterson: The Reserve Officers Training Corp. And (clears throat) unless you had a physical disability or a- a lab schedule that uh.. did not permit you to attend classes or drills with the ROTC, you were indeed uh.. compelled to join. However, I didn't need any compulsion. I was born of a Scots father and a Canadian mother, both of whom had lost brothers in World War I, and I had a first cousin who was flying Hurricanes in the RAF, RCAF I should say, the Canadian Air Force, so I was very much involved in the hostilities abroad.

Paul Zarbock: Now a Hurricane is a single-engine pursuit plane, is that correct?

James Paterson: Correct. It was the forerunner of the Spitfire, and not a- as adept at avoiding the uh.. German aircraft. In fact, uh.. my cousin got shot down three times before he was invalided home. But not to talk about him and to get on with uh.. with the subject. I stayed in the ROTC along with 60 plus of my classmates, and we were all commissioned in June of 1941 and I was ordered to active duty, reported to Governor's Island, New York on the 25th of June 1941 as a Second Lieutenant, Army of the United States and assigned to Fort Sill to the Battery Officer's Course Number 12, which included the entire West Point contingent of graduating cadets who had elected to serve in the artillery, so our class got very, very special attention for the nine to 10 weeks that we were at Fort Sill during the summer of 1941. At the conclusion of the course, the class was assembled and told that they were being divided between two recently formed Armor Divisions, the 3rd Armor Division at Camp Polk, Louisiana, and the 4th Armor Division at Pine Camp in upper New York State, now known as Fort Drum. I, because I was living uh.. in the northern part of the country uh.. was assigned to Pine Camp, which was the most sensible thing the Army could do and I much appreciated being a little closer to home and a little closer to New York City, etc. etc.

To make a long story short, one of my classmates and I drove from Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in an old beat-up car I had, to Pine Camp, New York. Now mind you, driving from Fort Sill, Oklahoma to Pine Camp, New York in 1941 was an experience. We didn't have any interstate highways with traffic lights everywhere. It was easy to get lost. General direction we had, time we didn't, so we did a lot of sleeping in the car (laughs) once we made our way up to Pine Camp. Things proceeded at pace. The- one of the things that might interest younger persons today was, I was made the motor officer of one of the artillery battalions, and the battalion commander, who at that time was a- was a major, handed me a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and said, "You will ride this as a motor officer so that you can ride up and down the convoys and determine whether anybody's truck is not behaving properly," and I said, "Sir", I said, "we're in upper New York State, this D- Harley Davidson isn't gonna be worth a hoot and holler come the middle of October. There's no way that uh.. that this vehicle should be in use beyond that time." Well, he didn't pay much attention to me, but after two corporals, who were also riding mot- motorcycles, had broken their legs by the 1st of November, he saw what I was talking about and we then got Jeeps, turned the motorcycles in and that's the last time I've ever been near a (laughs) Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

On the weekend- the first weekend in December, one of my fellow second lieutenants from Yale, as a matter of fact, uh.. a fellow by the name of Ellis Knowles [ph?] and I decided to go down and pay a call on my sister, who was a senior at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, and I made a telephone call. She was indisposed but fixed us up with two of her roommates, whose names I remember but for the uh.. confidentiality purposes I don't think I'll give them for this particular dissertation. However, we went down on a Friday evening, spent Saturday, uh.. had a wonderful time, saw a football game and then our- before we departed the next day, we invited our two lady guests to Sunday brunch or dinner at the Old Drover's Inn in Poughkeepsie, New York, uh.. a famous restaurant that's still in existence, and we were seated in full uniform, Sam Brown belts, etc. when the owner/proprietor got on the amplifier, the loudspeaker and said, "I have startling news for all in this restaurant. The Japanese have just bombed Pearl Harbor, and all military personnel are ordered to report to their bases forthwith." Well, Ellis and I looked at each other and we'd just ordered roast beef and roast potatoes and all the fixins' and I said, "Ellis, we can handle this." So, I got up and I approached the owner and I said, "Let's talk in the kitchen for a moment." And I said, "Listen, the wo- the world isn't gonna turn on whether we go back now or whether we go back 40 minutes from now, but in order not to embarrass you, we'd like to trade our jackets and Sam Brown belts for the waiter's white jacket." He said, "Done." So we hung up our military jackets and put the white waiter's jackets back on, rejoined the girls at the table to a round of applause, I might say, from all who were seated in the same restaurant.

As we neared the base that evening, private stepped out from the sentry box with his rifle at port arms and said, "Halt. Give us the password." We didn't know the password, (laughs) we hadn't the faintest idea what he was talking about and told him so. And he said, "Well, I'm supposed to get a password and I can't let you go further without a password." I said, "Call the officer of the guard please." And he called the officer of the guard and the officer of the guard said, "Let 'em through, let 'em through." We- we all knew each other and- but that was the beginning, and within the space of two weeks, our unit had received 15,000 drafted recruits into the base. It was tents, this is the middle of December now, it was tents, it was cold. The coal stoves had to be kept going in order for people to sort of be able to maneuver, but the- the go-ahead was there. It was quite incredible. They wasted no time. And most of these were from metropolitan areas: Boston, Hartford, uh.. the New England areas.

Paul Zarbock: Had any of these 15,000 had any military experience?

James Paterson: They were all draftees. Might have- some of them may have had in previous time but- but all these were draftees, and no, they had to be issued all the equipment, and uh.. start from re- start from the beginning, which took us off of our mission, which was to learn how to become armored force uh.. soldiers as opposed to infantry soldiers, and uhm.. we were- we became train- uh.. trainers of trainees. Well, we must've been reasonably successful, (clears throat) because by the middle of March we were instructed to send 50 percent of our f- of our regular force to Fort Knox, Kentucky to organize the 8th Armor Division. This is the way these divisions expanded, and I was one of the cadre to go to Fort Knox.

Well, (clears throat) on arrival in Fort Knox, the first thing you do is to find out who the base commander is and uh.. who your unit commander is, and I found out that the- not only did we have the base commander but we had the chief of all the armored forces, a general by the name of Norman Brooks, who was a graduate of Norwich Academy in Vermont. You may've heard of it as a well-known military school, but uh.. a private military school. Well, Norman Brooks' daughter had married a very close friend of mine by the name of Raymond Potter Campbell, graduate of West Point, class of 1941. So through his good offices, I was introduced to the top general in the armored force, which was a unique thing as it turned out in- in my short but interesting, I think, military career. And I went to the armored force school, uh.. which was a little different than the artillery school because it not only addressed uh.. artillery weapons mounted on tanks but also the other armament on the tank, 50 caliber machine guns and whatever else they had.

Paul Zarbock: You're still the second lieutenant?

James Paterson: Still the second lieutenant. My promotion came through in June, almost to the day uh.. that I'd been commissioned, one year later. I think this happened to all the reserve officers who were ROTC products uh.. at the end of their first 12 months of active duty. We were in under the Thompson Act, so theoretically I was gonna get out after a year, (laughs) but that didn't- that didn't uh.. happen. And in June, on or about June 20th, something very strange did happen.

I was asleep in the bachelor officer's quarters, and I was awakened to find a captain in the military police standing alongside of my bed, packing a .45 caliber sidearm and with orders in his hand for me to repor- to accompany him to re- to report to a warehouse down near the railroad depot. I was ordered to pack my footlocker, my duffel bag and to leave instructions as to what to do with everything else that was left behind, including a- a military overcoat that I had bought while I was up in Pine Camp, which we desperately needed for the winter, but certainly didn't need in Fort Knox or. I had no idea and neither did he as to what this was all about, but there was a driver, the captain of the MPs, another MP and myself in this Jeep towing a- one of these little trailers with my gear in it. And when I got over to the warehouse, I was told that there would be nine other officers and 200 noncommissioned officers from various and sundry armor divisions that were then in existence. What our mission was we had no idea and we were given all sorts of shots.

We were ultimately loaded on several cars of this passenger train, and I don't know whether the train was hauling any gear from Fort Knox or not, but we left that- early that morning, around 4:00 a.m. in the morning, and rambled through the countryside. Nobody knew where we were headed except those of us who'd had some knowledge of the area and knew we were headed north. We wound up in Fort Hamilton outside of Brooklyn, New York, overlooking the Narrows uh.. and at Fort Hamilton we were told to organize ourselves, to find out who was the senior officer amongst us, and he would be the detachment commander. We were given a designation Armored Force Detachment, and I must confess that I've- I've forgotten the number. We had a wonderful view of New York Harbor. We had more shots to take. We got- again we got re-equipped. We were totally tropical, all of our gear was- was uniforms, everything was geared for the tropics. And we were then- the commanding officer uh.. turned out to be George Bacon, he was senior by two days to another captain, (laughs) which shows you how close it can come in the military situations, so he assumed all the rights and responsibilities of the commanding officer and he gave the remaining nine officers- one was p- appointed executive officer and then the others were given other responsibilities, but later uh.. somewhere around the very end of June, we were told that we would be boarding ships in the Harbor on the 1st of July.

Paul Zarbock: Now this is 1942?

James Paterson: Nineteen forty- forty-two, June of '42 uh.. June/July of '42. And we looked out and there were nine ships in the Harbor, anchored three, three and three, all facing the Narrows. Now to get to these ships, you have to cross a busy Cross Bronx Expressway, I think, not the Cross Bronx, uh.. in any event, it runs around the- that portion of Long Island, out past Coney Island and then down the eastern shore, and sure enough, on the 1st of July, which was the beginning I think of the 4th of July weekend, we assembled, uh.. everybody hoisted his pack, grabbed his sidearm or rifle, whichever it was you were assigned, and it was just a short distance we marched and the MPs halted the traffic on this major parkway as we crossed, and people got out of their cars and it was just a thrilling moment. They get us a wonderful sendoff. The barges that were to take us to the- to the uh.. convoy were moored just on the other side of the road, and we all had barge numbers and so we got there and we- we had the- the number of a ship and the number of the ship was displayed over both sides of the ship. I found out that I was to be the commanding officer of the M.S. Tarn, a Norwegian motor ship with a Norwegian captain and a Norwegian crew.

Paul Zarbock: How do you spell the name of the ship?

James Paterson: T-A-R-N. Not to be confused with the Byrd [ph?], but as the captain told me very proudly, he says, "It's a fjord, a tarn is a fjord." And I had not known that then, but indeed that's what he told me. And uh.. I found out that I was in command of 12 troops. (laughs) That was all that was assigned to this Norwegian freighter, but he was loaded to the gunnels with what turned out later to be 300 Sherman tanks and 100 self-propelled 105s, which the British dubbed the "Priests", 'cause it looked like a priest standing in the- in the uh.. pulpit, and uh.. these nine ships, this convoy, were probably at that time the most important convoy that had ever sailed from the U.S. We didn't know where we were going, but we were carrying the most modern equipment that we had. General Marshall had personally stripped every armored division of this weaponry in order to send it somewhere.

Well, that night we left the Harbor and proceeded out to sea. I cannot remember whether it was the third morning or the fourth morning. We got up, we were doing calisthenics on the hatches, which were the flat place on the- on the deck, and had finished the calisthenics when the aft-most- the rearmost ship on the starboard side called the Excalibur was torpedoed. Now this ship was carrying, as it turned out later, 62 of our detachment and the 1st Lieutenant, sorry, yes he was a 1st Lieutenant, we'd all made 1st Lieutenant in June. It was Fred Stanford, class of '41 at West Point, artilleryman. He would- he and I were the only two artillerymen in this detachment; the rest were all tankers. And I said, "Oh my God, there goes Fred Stanford and 62 of our guys." The Excalibur kept going forward. The uh.. the blast of the torpedo blew the hatches into the air, which was the last time we ever did calisthenics on our hatches after watching those things go up, and in about less than three or four minutes, the- the ship disappeared. But we had four destroyers at that particular time as escort, one in the forward area, one in the aft area and two port and starboard, but they were scurrying around dropping depth charges and- and uh.. we- the- the commodore, who was in the center ship, uh.. ordered the convoy to speed up, maximum speed, and uh.. before too long we had air cover from Bermuda. We had lots of PBYs and other aircraft over us. Uh.. that night uh.. we were j-

Paul Zarbock: PBY is an amphibious twin-engine aircraft.

James Paterson: Amphibious twin-engine aircraft, which was based in Bermuda, uh.. the- the squadron that was covering us was based in Bermuda. And the uh.. we were joined that night by the cruiser Juneau, uh.. and four other destroyers, so we had- suddenly we had a Naval presence that was quite awe-inspiring and very reassuring. Uhm.. the commodore's ship uh.. was a Dutch merchant ship.

Paul Zarbock: I'm sorry, the ship that was struck, the Excalibur?

James Paterson: The Excalibur went down.

Paul Zarbock: Was there any salvage?

James Paterson: Uh.. we left the scene. We- with- within minutes we- we'd sped out of the area. A destroyer, I assume, was left behind to han- hand- or maybe two to handle whatever.

Paul Zarbock: Survivors, mm-hmm.

James Paterson: Survivors, whatever. So, and I'm trying to think of the name of the uh.. of the Dutch ship. It'll come to me.

But in any event, that uh.. convoy proceeded with the Juneau captain in command. He was calling the shots. Now, we basically were doing about nine to 10 knots, which is not very fast, and it's- it's- it was consuming fuel, and I don't know what the orders were, Juneau's captain had or the commodore had, but before you knew it, we were putting into Recifedesan uh.. Recifedu uh.. the Brazilian port Recife something, something, which is on the easternmost point of Brazil, Pernambuco- Recife de Pernambuco, and we put in there to refuel. Now, Brazil was not at war with Germany at that time, and the German consulate had offices on the docks, buildings on the docks, and they were sitting there looking at the deck cargo, look- counting noses and- and uniforms, and uhm.. just having a hell of a time.

The Juneau captain and the commodore called a meeting of all the officers on the uh.. ships between ships' captains and uh.. see all the troops on each ship and we found out at the meeting that not a soul had been lost on the Excalibur. Every member of the crew, every member of the detachment, had been picked up, and that evidently the torpedo had hit forward of where the ammunition was stowed, but it opened a gaping hole so that the- the forward uh.. force of the uh.. vessel had just brought water in and it just, the weight of the water just took it under, down to the bottom. At that point we were told where we were going.

We were going to Egypt to the British 8th Army with all of this equipment. Now mind you, this was before the Battle of El Alamein, which was in October of the same year, 1942, and the- there would be one more refueling stop that would be at Cape Town. We had to go clear around. Can't- couldn't go through the Mediterranean with this convoy, it was not secure enough. So, we headed out. The Juneau fella said, "We're going over to uh.. Ascension Island and then down the west coast of Africa."

But what we didn't know was that we- when we started out for Ascension Island, we didn't know that we were gonna link up with a convoy carrying 100,000 British troops as replacements for the British 8th Army. It was a monster convoy, and on our way from Ascension Island down to Cape Town, the vessel that I was on, the tarn, being a motor ship, was burning oil, not coal. It wasn't a steam ship, it burned oil. And the convoy was so slow that residue had built up in the funnels and all of a sudden we started to spark. Now the Juneau came alongside and said that, "Captain, do something about that sparking." Now, the captain's English wasn't very good, and he says, "You talk to 'em." So I said, "All right." So I got on the loudhaler and said uh.., "We have a problem, according to the captain, that the speed of the convoy is too slow and this is building up in his funnels and unless he has an opportunity to s- to go full throttle for an extended period, it's gonna continue to build up." The Juneau said, "We can arrange that," the captain of the Juneau. He says, "You tell the captain to stand by this evening," and he said, "and we'll take him off the convoy, 'cause we can't have this sparking in the convoy, and he'll put out full blast, he'll be f- he'll be tailed by one of our escort destroyers, but he's to run that vessel at full tilt for as long as he can and join us at dawn tomorrow." (laughs)

That evening at dusk, we peeled off from the convoy and we started chasing our tail around the- the uh.. South Atlantic Ocean trying to blow the stacks clean. I don't know that- that the problem ever could've been solved that way. I think that what you really had to do is to get in there with some sort of fireman or whatnot and scrub it out. But the convoy finally arrived off of Cape Town, and you can imagine refueling all these vessels was no easy task.

Paul Zarbock: Now, how long was this transatlantic trip, how long did it take you?

James Paterson: The whole trip from beginning to end, we left on the 1st of July and arrived the 3rd of September with two stops for refueling, actually three stops but two for refueling and the third stop was at Aden before we went into the Red Sea to put balloons fore and aft on each of the ships going up the Red Sea just to prevent the German Messerschmitts from strafing the vessels. They flew the balloon up about 1,500 feet, which might not have stopped the strafing but woulda kept them from really getting down low, and they had these big iron cables dangling from them. So your stern and your bow, here you were sailing along under two small dirigibles. (laughs)

One of the interesting things that happened in Cape Town was that they tried to give at least our detachment 24 hours ashore, not necessarily at once, because we were there for three days, but uh.. 12 hours and then a- another 12 hours. I don't think they let the British troops ashore 'cause they hadn't been a- at sea as long as we had b- by that time. And uh.. my turn came and uh.. I was escorted off the ship into a barge, little tender that took you to the shore that the ship was standing off, having refueled, and got to the harbormaster's hut, well, the hut was bigger than a hut, to find a bevy of absolutely gorgeous Cape Town, South Africa Junior Leaguers, who were anxious to meet an American officer. They had not seen an American uniform, and uhm.. I don't know how they arranged it, whether they flipped a coin or what, but I- I had a delightful escort with automobile and gas who took me to see the sights of Cape Town, fed me a delicious lunch at the Cape Elizabeth Country Club and brought me back to the- (laughs) to the vessel about 6:00 p.m. this- that evening, and I'll n- I'll never forget that uh.. little stint ashore that I had. It was just remarkable and- and very, very hospitable of the- of the South Africans.

Well, we went along from there up through the channel between South Africa and Mozambique and put our balloons on at Aden, and then we got up to Port Tewfik. We couldn't go through the Suez Canal for obvious reasons, it was too close to the combat area.

Paul Zarbock: How do you spell the name of the port?

James Paterson: Port Tewfik. T-E-W-F-I-K. And this is where we offloaded the tanks and the ammunition, and this was no small chore, believe me, because these tanks and s- self-propelled 105s were all Cosmolined, they all had to be cleaned up. And while we were doing this, in comes the vessel.

Paul Zarbock: Excuse me, again for the purpose of the tape, Cosmoline is what?

James Paterson: Cosmoline is a preservative in uh.. arm- uh.. arms and weaponry uh.. against salt water damage or any kind of uh.. it's a rust preventative.

Paul Zarbock: It's a gooey, sticky stuff.

James Paterson: Oh, it's- it's miserable uh.. to- miserable to put on and miserable to take off. (laughs)

Paul Zarbock: Mix Vaseline and tar and you may almost get it.

James Paterson: That's exactly right. Well, while we were doing this in port, in comes the- the West Point, which was the old uh.. America, the liner America, carrying not only our detachment, every single one of the detachment members, but the complete cargo that had gone down with the Excalibur plus a dividend of more weaponry and tanks and self-propelled 105s and uh.. in addition to that they brought in some ordinance people, they brought in a medical detachment, American, with nurses, doctors uh.. to set up a station hospital in Cairo, because there were a lot of air crew on board. The airport uh.. that had been designated to be the American airport was up and operating and we were flying missions uh.. in support of the British from this airport. So there was enough uh.. of Am- of an American presence there to justify a- a field station. Well, we were based uh.. outside of Cairo at a place called Heliopolis, which is now the uh.. international airport for Cairo, and there we received the 7th Armored Regiment, better known as the Desert Rats, and the 10th Royal Horse Artillery, the Honorable Artillery Company, the oldest territorial regiment in Great Britain to- to take the self-propelled 105s or Priests.

Paul Zarbock: What was your living conditions like? Were you sleeping under canvas or barracks?

James Paterson: We were sleeping un- sleeping under canvas, eating under canvas, our mess was under canvas, but we were very fortunate in that we had a British major who was sort of in charge of all the housekeeping, which left us free to do what we were supposed to do, instruct the British in the use of this equipment. Remember, the British are on the metric system. The British uh.. had- had different methods of doing things and- and uh.. our whole approach was very different. Ordinance was a- was a big item uh.. how to order spare parts and so forth. And on top of that, none of us, none of the detachment had ever seen the equipment before. We- all we had were textbooks, manuals, and so we had (laughs) a monumental chore, but I must say the British were pros. These guys were combat-hardened and they were delighted with what they had. It was so much better than what they'd been using, so that uh.. basically it was big smiles all around. Everybody was very comfortable with one another, and they were outta there by the first week in October and we got our next batch in about a month later because they needed us to be available when they were gonna- gonna be needing replacements or uh.. advice and counsel at their various and sundry ordinance depots, repairs and- and so forth. (clears throat) The Brit- the British were uh.. extremely pleased (clears throat) with the weaponry and its- and- and uh.. I was asked to go up with George Bacon, the uh.. detachment commander, to evaluate the damage on the battlefield after the Battle of El Alamein, and we went up with two British jeeps and- and uh.. two British drivers.

Paul Zarbock: Take a minute and describe and define, you've mentioned the Battle of El Alamein several times. Was it pivotal? Was it crucial?

James Paterson: Yes.

Paul Zarbock: What was it? Give us a few minutes of that.

James Paterson: Well, the Germans had come startlingly close to capturing Alexandria, and they were halted at a ridge that range to the coastline known as El Alamein, and...

Paul Zarbock: They were stopped by British forces?

James Paterson: Stopped by the British and the colonial forces that they had. And uhm.. Rommel uh.. had to regroup and he very clo- very nearly pulled it off. It was just before the British counterattack, he came close to breaking through at El Alamein, but that exhausted his forces and left him ripe. Now, the British had had this shot of 100,000 replacements. They never called them replacements, they called them bodies, which was- I thought was brutal, but- but that was the approach, and they put them in there and then they had this new equipment. Uh.. I was not eyewitness to the attack, but I understand from those that were there that the first thing to do was to clear the minefields, and the sappers, as they call their engineers, were led by bagpipers in Scottish kilts who played them into the minefields and stood there and played whilst they cleared these passageways. Uh.. there were other tactics employed also. They had uh.. revolving uh.. drums on the front of tanks and chains were strapped to the drums so that the chains flung out and hit the ground and set off the mines.

Paul Zarbock: They would flail the ground.

James Paterson: Flail the ground ahead of the tank, ahead of the armored vehicle.

Paul Zarbock: But El Alamein was really the, am I correct, the tidal high mark for the German offensive?

James Paterson: For the- for the German offensive that's as far as it went.

Paul Zarbock: Lots of fighting after that, but never got closer to.

James Paterson: Never got beyond, never got beyond El Alamein.

Paul Zarbock: I'm sorry.

James Paterson: No, well thank you, but- but uh.. you're absolutely right. This- this is true. To make a long story short, we- Bacon and I went out and- and uh.. this turned out later this was at the request of Norman Brooks, General Norman Brooks, who I mentioned earlier, he wanted a firsthand report and had uh.. suggested that the detaching- detachment commander and uh.. lieutenant James Paterson might be the two officers sent out to do this.

Uh.. on our return, to our amazement, we were ordered to report to General Norman Brooks' headquarters. He had come to Cairo to receive the report, and uh.. together with some of the British officers, we presented it and uh.. as we were getting ready to depart, his aide came over and whispered in my ear, "Are you free for dinner?" I said, "Yes, indeed I am." He said, "The General would be pleased if you would join him." So I had a- a very special moment and through him was able to send greetings back to my family, 'cause he would call his son-in-law and that would be trans- those- those feelings would be transferred. So that- that was very nice.

Well, the following month, Dec- let's see, in December I got promoted to Captain. I don't know how, why or when and neither did anybody else. I was the only one in the detachment (laughs) to get a promotion outside of the first- the- the- Freddie Stanford, who was a West Pointer, and his was automatic, and he'd get- came through with his class. So that was nice. Then we got the 2nd New Zealand Armor Division, which was changing from an infantry division to an armor division. They got- it was- it used to be the 1st New Zealand Infantry Division and this- and now you're gonna be an armor division, gonna make you the 2nd New Zealand Armor Division. And the commanding officer was General Freyberg. Uh.. some will remember that name, famous winner of the Victorian Cross during World War I, and he was something, I'll tell ya. The guy was- he- he had the greatest attitude, fear- totally fearless, never slept, best I could tell he never slept. He was constantly around his officers and men, and- and just a wonderful personality. A real tofer [ph?] and by that I mean he consumed volumes of alcoholic refreshment but never showed it. He- he- there's an unwritten rule in the- in the Commonwealth mess tent that if the General is there, you can't leave until the General leaves, and he used to stay there (laughs) 'til three and four in the morning, well everybody was totally exhausted. Now this was not in the- in battle situation, this was where we were in- in the Heliopolis in the camp where we were teaching 'em how to use this equipment. Being typical Kiwis, they no sooner had arrived than they set up a rugby field. They had a rugby pitch as they call it, they started to play rugby every evening. So there was uh.. they were totally different from the British, who were much more reserved, and uh.. of course a famous- a famous remark was uh.. when he was showing them- when Freyberg was showing uh.. another general around and the other general said, "Your men don't salute much, do they?" And Freyberg says, "No, but if you'll wave, they'll wave back." (laughs)

Paul Zarbock: (laughs) Oh dear.

James Paterson: Well, that uh.. was what we did until the conclusion of that campaign, which was in the spring of the- of the following year uh.. and uhm.. as we approached the end of- of uh.. the North African campaign, the- query was, what was gonna happen to the detachment? Then we received word that the 5th Army, which was headquartered in Sidi Bel Abbes, Algeria, was establishing a French training section. They were gonna train up the Free French in the use- in the use of our equipment, so our detachment was assigned to General Clark at the Free French headquarters, and I was ordered to go over as a forward liaison to make arrangements to receive the rest of the detachment who would come over by boat.

Well, I said, "I'm gonna need some help," one other, at least one other person, uh.. if for no other reason then to carry some of the stuff that we were- we- we needed, that were of a personal, confidential nature. And so we- battle- battlefield promotion to our 1st Sergeant, a guy by the name of Ed Nestle, [ph?] who was a late-20s, wonderful, noncommissioned officer, and we made him a 2nd Lieutenant, and uh.. told him that his- one of his new jobs was to come along with me and we would set up he- set up our place over in uh.. Algeria. We got on a C3 plane, he and I did, which had bucket seats along the side, and a bunch of bird colonels, one or two brigadiers and two pilots and a bucket that passed up and down the aisle, 'cause we weren't gonna fly over 500 feet. This was still very much enemy-patrolled area, but when you fly 5 hu- 500 feet above the desert, you're in for one bumpy ride, and I'll tell ya, this plane would go up 100 feet, down 100 feet at the drop of a hat. And besides that, it was hot, there was nothing- we- we- we were just sucking hot air through the- the vents fro- off the desert. We- it was hotter than the hedges, so we all put- we put down in Tripoli, and you never saw a more miserable bunch of colonels and generals (laughs) lying around on that sandy ground. They were in terrible shape. I was very fortunate, I didn't- it didn't bother me any, but poor Nestle was in- he was really trouble.

And we- next stop was Constantine, I think it was Constantine. It was a- an airport in Algeria. It wasn't Morocco, and I- I may have my- I may have my cities mixed up a little bit there, but it was a military airport out in the middle of nowhere and we were to pick up a Jeep together with a map of various quartermaster depots where we could gas up, because gas was a big problem, to- on our way to Sidi Bel Abbes was- which was the- the old headquarters of the French- French Foreign Legion. And uhm.. as we did this, the guy that- the sergeant that was issuing the- the equipment and- and giving us a little food and n- nourish us along the way, said, "Don't use this after 5:00, and for God’s sake don't light a fire." He said, "The place is crawling with bandits or civilians acting as bandits. They're starving, they're- they've been- there's been a brutal war and- and they'll steal from anybody, you, the Germans, any- anybody that- that's- so just be careful where you hole up for the night." Because we had to spend one night on the road. And uh.. we were also basically navigating. I mean, there were- there were no signposts (laughs) and it was open country. Well, it was- shall we say it was a challenge.

Paul Zarbock: Your vehicle was a jeep or a truck?

James Paterson: Jeep, jeep. And uh.. we got there. And I was to report to a General Kingman. Now the orders had been signed by order of General Kingman and signed by this aide-de-camp, D.H.K. Flagg, F-L-A-G-G. Well in school, I went to prep school at a school called The Gunnery in Washington, Connecticut. There was a D.H.K. Flagg two years ahead of me and I went to Princeton and D.H.K. Flagg was two years ahead of me there, so we knew each other very well, and this was- I had noticed this was Lieutenant D.H.K. Flagg, and so I walked in, froze in front of him, stared right through him and said, "Captain Paterson reporting as ordered, Lieutenant Flagg." (laughs) Lieutenant Flagg looked up and he says, "I had a hunch it was you, you son of a gun." (laughs) So that evening we celebrated seeing each other again and uh.. it was uh.. it was wonderful having somebody that I'd known for that long to report to- report in to, and uh.. he was equally glad to know that- that he knew somebody in this bunch that was coming in to help o- help out.

Well, during my years at Princeton, I had uh.. taken the civilian pilot training program, which taught you how to fly a Piper Cub. They gave you, during the course of the school year, I got 40 hours dual and 40 hours solo on the Piper Cub, and of course got my license. Now that was part of my, shall we say uh.. my- my 201 file, that I could fly a Piper Cub. And Piper Cubs were just coming into vogue for observation purposes in that area of the theater. And so there were several around, and uh.. we didn't have computers in those days but- but your- your MOS, your Military Occupation Serial Number would reflect and did reflect in my case that I had this- this ability. Well when word got out that there was a guy that could fly the Piper Cub, and the next thing you know I'm up in- flying the things around, and the purpose of this was that we were gonna issue to various- various Free French troops our Sherman tanks and self-propelled 105, and uh.. we would assist in instructing the personnel as to how to use it.

What we had, however, was a major, major language barrier. The officers were basically French. Some of them spoke English. I- I'll go to say 50- 50 percent had some command of English, but then they in turn had to communicate with the Goumiers. The Moroccans and the Algerians actually made up the "Free French forces" and the bridge there was a noncommissioned officer who could speak French and whatever the dialect was of the unit that you were trying to get through to- to educate. Well after uh.. three or four weeks of- of this, I decided that there was no way that I wanted to go into Italy, which was absolutely where we were going, with the Free French, because it was tough enough teaching somebody who spoke the King's English let alone uh.. I wasn't about to pick up the Arabic or whatever it was uh.. that they- they were speaking, I just couldn't do it. And so I started to cast around.

Now my other artillery officer, Freddie Stanford, his father was Division Artillery Commander of the 34th Infantry Division, and they were resting, training and regrouping on the shores of the Mediterranean at a place called Ain el Turc, so I said to Freddie, "Are you gonna put in for transfer?" and he said, "Jim", he says, "I've already done it." I said, "Well, would you put in a good word for me?" and he said, "Sure, be glad to." So then I told D.H.K. Flagg what was up and he said, "You can't do that to us", he said, "You're far more important here." And I said, "I've been doing this type of work long enough" and I said, "You're an artilleryman, you can take over, you can do what I'm doing, you took the same ROTC course that I did, you do it." So the next thing you know, orders came through for Fred Stanford and I to report to the 34th Infantry Division at this place called Ain el Turc. He was assigned immediately to one of the battalions of the 185th, and I was assigned at the Division Artillery Headquarters as their S- their personnel and supply officer, S1 and 4, and I will pause now if I may while I regroup (laughs) my thoughts.