INTERVIEW OF GEORGE COLLINS
Transcript Number 004

Welcome and greetings to you from our friends and veterans of World War II Remembered, as they share their lives with you during the turbulent years of 1937 through 1947. These years changed forever the political and economic thinking and structure of practically every region on the face of the earth. 

Today, the program concerns veterans who served their country with pride and distinction during World War II. In any branch of service, whether Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, or Merchant Marine, they all have a story to tell. Our purpose today is to inform the American public of the sacrifice and experiences of these gallant men. The interview today is from the Randall Library at UNCW on video-tape, so their military duty and experiences will always be remembered by the citizens of the United States. 

My name is Joseph James and I live at 1921 South Churchill Street in Wilmington. This is Mr. George Collins, my interviewee. 

INTERVIEWER: George.

COLLINS: Yes. 

INTERVIEWER: Your current address?

COLLINS: 3823 Antelope Trail, Wilmington, North Carolina.

INTERVIEWER: The branch of service?

COLLINS: Army, Coast Artillery.

INTERVIEWER: Your highest rank or grade of service.

COLLINS: Lieutenant Colonel. 

INTERVIEWER: Your duties actually were in the artillery. Right?

COLLINS: Well, not really. I have to explain that.

INTERVIEWER: Well, the first thing I want to ask you is were you inducted or were you enlisted? 

COLLINS: No, I was inducted.

INTERVIEWER: What date was that?

COLLINS: October 15th, 1941.

INTERVIEWER: Now, tell me about your first period when you were inducted.

COLLINS: Well, World War II for me began in 1939/1940. I listened to FDR's fireside chats and I saw the things that were going on in Europe and I determined to do something with the time that I had. The Government offered a CPA program, Civilian Pilot Association. So, I took that and got my pilot's license and then determined that I would go to San Diego and enlist in the Naval Air Corp, which I did. They turned me down. My angle of conversion to my eyes was too great and that's from living out on the desert in Arizona for so long that I couldn't look at a distance and back at the instrument panel in a split second. It took me a little bit of time to get where I could do that but they turned me down. 

I went back to the university. I was attending the university and I got a deferment. I kept that deferment and when it came time to go, I asked for another one and they wouldn't give it to me. So, I went ahead and was drafted. I didn't figure that one year's time out of my life would have made that much difference. I was drafted on October 15th, 1941 and went to El Paso, Fort Bliss, Texas.

INTERVIEWER: That was your?

COLLINS: That was my induction station. The boys that had already graduated, were going in and going to the Pacific in the early battles. So, I knew that with my background, I thought I'd be chosen for veterinarian school or something of that nature. That's when I didn't know about the Army way. The next thing I knew after the induction, I was taken out and put on a troop train going to Fort Warren, Wyoming in the quarter master. That ended my hopes for the veterinarian school. 

INTERVIEWER: You had no choice?

COLLINS: I had no choice. They sent me up there, it was cold, and we were out on the range. On Sunday, December 7th, we were sitting around the barracks and they announced that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. I thought how far away Pearl Harbor was, but little did I know how close it was. In December, they loaded a bunch of us up and sent us to San Francisco to the embarkation station out on Angel Island. That's just one step beyond Alcatraz. It was a staging area for enlisted men going overseas. I stayed there three months.

INTERVIEWER: Were you still in the quarter master corp?


COLLINS: I was still in the Quarter Master Corp. We did KP and that was the main thing that we did while we were there. Of course, I still had no rating. I was a $21.00 a month man. While I was there and nothing going on, I went up to the PX and they were feeding the officers there. I got a job for $2.00 a day waiting on tables, but I got good meals while I was there. I did that the whole time I stayed there. It was a tiresome thing just waiting and waiting. Finally, after about five months of staying there, they put us on a ship bound for Hawaii. That ship was an old liberty ship. We had two destroyers as escorts and we zig zagged all our way to Hawaii. 

I got there and was stationed at Fort Armstrong. There was not much going on and they were just trying to find a place for us. What they had to do was integrate us into regular Army units. They were building a new fort out on the windward Oahu over Kaneohe Bay to protect the Naval Air Station. We were out there at that brand new fort and for a little while, I was happy in Hawaii. They put me to beautifying and planting the landscape for Fort Hase, the new fort. I was in my glory, so I went into the University of Hawaii and got keyed up with the horticultural department and they furnished me all the plants I needed. The Army furnished me transportation and help. We started out with putting in grass and flowers. We even had a vegetable garden. That was the good service I had. While I was at the university, I met a professor that I had at the University of Arizona. He was raising vegetable crops so the Hawaiians could raise their own vegetables. 

Out at this fort, we had to chip in a dollar a month so we could buy fresh vegetables. The first thing I did was start a victory garden. I did that and then they changed us to the quarter master maintenance unit and we actually went to work fixing trucks that were broke down. The regular Army outfit that we were had no ratings at all. Every Saturday night, the regular Army personnel would drink paint thinner, Aquavelva, or anything they could get their hands on. About 11 o'clock, they'd haul them all up to the infirmary and pump their stomachs out, bring them back, and the old man would break them Monday morning. He'd take their rating away from them and that gave us some hope. The next weekend, he had promoted them back to their regular rank and they did it all over again. It was tiresome actually not doing anything and we weren't able to get a rating. 

Finally, after about a year at that, I found out that the Coast artillery was looking for some OCS candidates. I put in for that and came back to the States and went to OCS Coast Artillery, Fort Monroe, Virginia. It took three months to become a ninety day wonder, which I did and it turned out real good for me. 

While I was in Virginia, I met my wife. When I finished OCS, the Army gave me a choice and that's something the Army seldom does. They said I could go to the West coast or I could stay on the East coast. I said, "Well I've been on the west coast, let me stay on the east coast." So, they sent me to Fort Macon in North Carolina as a coast artilleryman. We had a battery of 9" guns at Fort Macon and we had a battery of 9" guns out at Cape Lookout.

INTERVIEWER: Where is Fort Macon located?


COLLINS: Actually it's Beaufort and Morehead City. We served there both at Fort Macon and out at Cape Lookout. During our time there, we didn't actually protect anything except the ships that were being built in Wilmington. They'd come down there and go into a staging area or they could have a shakedown cruise out by Cape Lookout. Cape Lookout and Fort Macon protected the entrance. Now actually, the submarines did sink some ships in Wilmington on their way down to Morehead City and Fort Macon, but not after I got there. We were alerted several times, but nothing ever came of it. Anyway, while I was there, I was stationed for maybe three to six months at Fort Macon and then they transferred me out to Cape Lookout. While I was at Cape Lookout, I decided to go ahead and get married. So, I came to Wilmington and got married and went back to Fort Macon. I was on a rations boat that carried rations out to the island and I took my wife with me because there was a coast guard station at Cape Lookout for the lighthouse. The coast guard families that lived out there lived at Cape Lookout. I had a room with kitchen privileges with one of the Coast Guardsmen. I put in a field phone out at their cabin and I had a jeep and I could run back and forth to the battery without a problem.

INTERVIEWER: That was your honeymoon cottage? 

COLLINS: That was my honeymoon cottage. Well, when we got there on the supply boat, they met us with an ambulance and they put me on a stretcher and hauled me back up. They said they knew I couldn't walk. That was a fun thing that happened. 

INTERVIEWER: Was your wife from the Wilmington area?

COLLINS: My wife was born in Rocky Point, but she lived here in Wilmington all her life. Just to back up a little bit. While we were at Fort Monroe, we went to church one Sunday and a lady friend invited us to her house for dinner. We accepted and my wife was visiting from Wilmington and I met her then. We went ahead and finished the ninety days at a coast artillery school and I got my commission. They gave me ten days leave to get to Fort Macon. Well, I had a brother in the Army Air Corp in Boca Raton, Florida, so I went down to see him. I got down there and the first day I arrived we went fishing. We came back from fishing and his wife met us and said you have to call the office. He called and they said, "You're leaving in the morning." So, he left and went to Africa and I didn't have anything else to do, so I came to Wilmington to spend the rest of my leave time and then reported out to Fort Macon. 


I spent the time there and when the invasion of France was taking place, they thought they were going to loose a lot of junior officers in the invasion. They put out an order for a bunch of first and second lieutenants and one or two captains that took us to Fort Meade, Maryland. We were issued all full field equipment and we were on standby to go over and replace the troops that were knocked out. We sat there for a month, nothing happened and the invasion went better than expected. They didn't lose that many people. They had this group of officers sitting there and waiting with nothing to do, so they broke us up and sent us to different places. At that time, the National Guard from Wilmington, North Carolina had been sent to Trinidad to watch out for the staging area of ships. They would build ships in Wilmington and they would send them down there for their shakedown cruise and they had to be protected. Well, in Trinidad, we had gun batteries and search light batteries. Then, on Chacachacare and Mona Island, you've heard about these on these rum coca-cola songs, they had gun batteries there and they were just two rocks that stuck up about 4,000 feet with the gun batteries placed on top of those. We serviced those. We had two gun batteries and headquarters battery was in Porta, Spain.

There wasn't anything on the Island Chacachacare, where I was sent, but iguanas lizards and a leper colony. I spend my time there learning to be an artillery man. Walking the island, I think I saw every iguana lizard there. I met most of the lepers. My highlight of that time was the Christmas that I spent there. The leper colony put on a Christmas program for us and we had a wonderful time. I did a lot of fishing when I was there. I forgot to say, in the beginning, that when we went down to relieve the National Guard from Wilmington, we relieved the officers. All the enlisted personnel were Puerto Rican, so they had Puerto Rican soldiers and American officers. I can speak pretty fair Spanish, so I got along with them. I'd go catch fish and I'd get a big grouper, maybe eight to ten pounds. I'd take them and give them to the Puerto Rican boys. They'd cut its head off and make fish soup out of it and throw the body away. Another thing while I was there, I did catch an eight foot shark, and I got his teeth and his backbone. I made a swagger stick out of his backbone and necklace and earrings for my wife out of his teeth. 

I was transferred from there to the Island of Trinidad. There was a search light battalion headquarters and I was motor transportation officer, search light officer, and PX officer. Well, in the morning, I'd get up and eat breakfast and go down to the motor pool and do what was necessary in the line of the motor officer. I would get my jeep or my car, go by the PX and get me a couple of handfuls of Hershey bars, and head out for the search lights. When I'd get to search light number 1, they would have a big mess of soft shells crabs fried up for me. I'd eat them, we'd have a class on searchlight operation, and then I'd head out for the next search light. Well, on the way, I had to cross over a lagoon and I'd get on top of the bridge and get my fishing pole out. I'd throw the line out into the water and there were these silver kings that got so big. They were breeding and they were about three to five pounds. They could hit your bait, and if you didn't catch them, they'd knock it clean across the river. Then, I'd go on to the next station. Every fish I caught there, some lady would come running over to get it. 

INTERVIEWER: You wore quite a few hats there with all these jobs?

COLLINS: Oh, yes. I did, but I enjoyed it. I kept busy and I had the jeep and I could do whatever I wanted to. I did have a monkey and I caught it. The monkeys there were real small and this one would go in your coat pocket.

INTERVIEWER: You probably had a name for it, too?


COLLINS: Yes, I trained him and he would go with me. One morning we were going to the PX and walking down the road and I wasn't paying any attention. All of a sudden, that monkey hit me in the back of the head and jumped up all the way from the ground. That opened my eyes, I looked, and there was a big python snake stretched all the way across the road. He saw that the snake and he was looking for something high.


I raised orchids while I was there. I have pictures of some mud volcanoes that came up just like a regular volcano, except they didn't erupt. They just kept flowing all the time with mud. Finally I'd got them to say I'd had enough and they were gonna give me four to five days recuperation. I hadn't had leave in all that time. I came back to the States with my orders that read, "This officer understands and will return to his overseas station when he finishes his four to five days." Well, I knew there wasn't enough men in the Army back in Trinidad, so I shipped all my stuff home. When I got home, of course, the war was nearly over. I got back home and spent my four to five days and they sent me back to Fort Munroe for disposition. When I got there, they had no more use for coast artillery. They decided to turn me out. In January of 1946, I got out with six months pay. I went back to school and finished school. 

INTERVIEWER: Did you go back to Arizona?
COLLINS: I went back to Arizona and finished school. I didn't lack but about one semester. I finished that and had always looked forward to finishing school and going into agronomy of some sort; either in economics, horticulture, or landscaping. That didn't work. When I finished, my wife wanted to come back to North Carolina, so I did. I went up to Tabor City and taught school for a year but I couldn't make a go of it up there. We had no place to live and we couldn't find a place. We came back to Wilmington and I did my transformation from Army to civilian life at Rainey Chevrolet here in Wilmington. I learned that business as a Quarter Master in the Army. I went to work with Rainey as a service manager. I worked there for ten years and went to the Pontiac dealership and worked there until I retired. Now, I'm just an old has-been trying make a go of it. It's been good to sit here and talk with you. 

INTERVIEWER: You stayed in the Reserve, didn't you?

COLLINS: I did stay in the Reserves and I had twenty nine years of service. I got promoted when I was in the Reserves. As I said in the beginning, I left with a Lt. Colonel rank.

INTERVIEWER: You'll get a nice pension from the service, too.

COLLINS: Right. I do. 

INTERVIEWER: Twenty nine years service, that's wonderful.


COLLINS: I enjoyed every bit of it. I feel that I did a little bit of good and I guess it wasn't meant for me to be on the front line. My brother that went to Africa, was in intelligence and he flew in the P38 as an observer. He was 6'6" and I could see him all bottled up in the back of that P38 as an observer. Anyway, he made it back alive. My youngest brother was an engineer on the railroad. So, that took him as a Master Sergeant and sat him over at the invasion of France. He went in as a BAR man. They have a three man crew and he was the ammunition man. They went ashore and when they finished the invasion part of it, they put him driving a locomotive. The German aircraft blew the engine up with him in it but it didn't kill him. It ruined his hand where he couldn't use it. That was my family's experience in the war. There were three of us and all of us came back.

INTERVIEWER: I want to thank you, Mr. George Collins, for taking time to share your military experiences with us today. I know we all appreciate it. 

COLLINS: It's been a pleasure for me.

INTERVIEWER: I have a little quote here I saw in the paper the other day. I just want to mention it. "Thank you" a good word. As a veteran, you probably don't hear these words very often. Anyone in this country who has ever bought a home, gone to church, attended school, or started a business, owes a great debt of gratitude to all our veterans. We say thank you very much. 

COLLINS: One thing that I would like to say, the churches here in Wilmington on July 4 all have Veteran's Day celebrations. They have a wonderful program and they give the veterans all of the praise, the honor, and glory that they deserve. It's wonderful to be in a country that remembers what we've done and takes care of us.

INTERVIEWER: Thank you very much. I appreciate it. 


END OF INTERVIEW