WENDLE: Fine, thank you.

ZARBOCK: And what is your name?

HAYES: What is your name?

WENDLE: My name is Gale Wendle.

HAYES: What's your full name, Gale?

WENDLE: Jessie Gale Wendle, Jr.

HAYES: All right, great. And you were born?

WENDLE: Ju- July 30, 1925.

HAYES: Great.

ZARBOCK: I'm gonna start off asking you the first question and sort of recede into the woodwork from then on. What event or events led you into the military, how old were you, where did this [break in tape] take place, and just tell me about in the beginning.

WENDLE: Well, I was eighteen when I went in early in uh.. I was just gonna graduate that year. I would become eligible for the draft in- on my birthday. And uh.. early that year, as I remember it, they uh.. announced a program that they wanted to get graduates from high school into a uh.. a program of uh.. training for possible engineering, science, and so forth, degrees and eventually so you could come out with a commission. And I took the test that they had and passed the test.

ZARBOCK: Where were you living at the time?

WENDLE: Wilmington, Delaware.

ZARBOCK: And what year is this?

WENDLE: 1943.

HAYES: And you're a native, that's where you're from?

WENDLE: No, from Pennsylvania, in the central part of Pennsylvania, uh.. from Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, which is in the coal country. Uhm.. took the test, passed it, and I got notice that I passed it and they said, "Wait to be drafted," so uh.. I registered for the draft.

HAYES: If we could digress for a minute, you were in an interesting point in '43. What month of '43? Is this June, July?

WENDLE: Well, July was when I would be eighteen.

HAYES: Right, right. What was it like, I ask this of many veterans, for that year and a half the war was raging? Was there just an expectation on going or I want to go? In other words, what was the mood in the sense for you as a high school student?

WENDLE: Acceptance that I'm gonna go.

HAYES: Yeah. Friends were already leaving?

WENDLE: Some of 'em. Uh.. not all, not- some of 'em had jumped and- that were old enough to get in had gone, but not very many. And uh.. earlier that year, I thought I'd try to- I got in the National Guard to see if I could get a little prior military experience, type experience and so I did that. And then when I got accepted, you know, in the army, I resigned from the Guard.

HAYES: So you even served in the Guard knowing you were gonna- but I mean it wasn't an onerous duty. I mean you wanted to go.

WENDLE: Yeah. Yeah, not accept that's a- that's something we're gonna do. It had to be done. It had to be done.

HAYES: And was that the same sense on the home front?

WENDLE: Oh, I think it was for the- you know, I don't think there was any question. You know, as time came up and you became of age, why this was the thing to do for sure.

ZARBOCK: What was the military situation globally at the time that you first went into the army? The Africa campaign was over, is that correct?

WENDLE: It was over.

ZARBOCK: And the forces had landed in Italy.

WENDLE: Italy and see I don't know when- when that was. They had landed in Africa in November of '42.

ZARBOCK: But the invasion of the mainland of Europe had not taken place yet?

WENDLE: Oh, no, no, uh uh.

ZARBOCK: So there you are, you're now a solemn member of the United States Army. Stuck up your hand and swore to protect and defend?

WENDLE: Oh yeah, right. I'm surprised that- that uhm.. they gave me the choice of the services after I feared that I couldn't make the navy 'cause I kind of wanted to go to the navy. And after it was over, I was sort of glad because you were just a little target as an infantryman as opposed to that big ship that's out there. [laughter]

HAYES: That's one way to look at it.

WENDLE: Yeah.

HAYES: So you're living in Delaware at this point?

WENDLE: Um hmm.

HAYES: And so where did you end up having to get shipped to? We always are fascinated by the movement.

WENDLE: Yeah. Well, we into uh.. Fort Dix, New Jersey after we were sworn in in Camden and uh.. went to uh.. Fort Dix, New Jersey and that's where they parceled 'em out to all the military posts in the country. But I went in with a crew that uh.. were similar graduates and we wound up being sent down to uh.. Fort Benning.

HAYES: Georgia.

WENDLE: Yeah, Fort Benning, Georgia.

HAYES: First time you'd ever been to the Deep South like that?

WENDLE: No, I was in the Deep South when I was two and a half years old.

HAYES: Oh, okay. Did you have any memory of that?

WENDLE: Yeah, I have some memory of it.

HAYES: Do you really? Oh, gosh.

WENDLE: It may be repetition of uh.. stories, but I- I can remember and I could visualize some things that happened uh.. with uh.. it was uh.. it was an interesting time in Georgia. It was uhm.. that was where they had the officers candidate school, the parachute jump school, so there were a number of paratroopers there.

ZARBOCK: How long was basic training in those days?

WENDLE: Thirteen weeks.

ZARBOCK: And your basic infantry weapon was an M1?

WENDLE: M1, um hmm, yeah.

HAYES: Now you're a tall, thin guy. I mean was this grueling beyond reason? You could do it at that time. I guess you were young and..

WENDLE: Well, I- I could do what we had to do. I never was good at rope climbing, you know, pulling- pulling myself up on a rope. But climbing over a- a wall or something like that, I could get over the wall and- and go through the obstacle course that way. Uhm..

HAYES: Any stories that stick in your mind from that thirteen weeks or is it just a blur?

WENDLE: Oh, it isn't exactly a blur. It's uhm.. I guess uh.. the thing I'd say, it was mighty cold in Georgia in that period of time.

HAYES: Really?

WENDLE: Well, I went in- in uh.. October, in the middle of October, so we spent the winter months uh.. there and uh.. the uh.. barracks that we had, if you could call 'em barracks, they were tarpaper huts with uh.. screened areas and windows too. And during the day, the- there were wooden flaps that uh.. or the night rather, when we were in 'em, the wooden flaps over the screen. During the day they had to be up so the place would air out and you could uh.. could turn off the- the little potbellied stove that we had. And it got mighty cold there so it was a- it was a cold time, but we were spending most of our time out anyway and it- and it was a good preparation for the future. [Laughs]

ZARBOCK: Go, Badgers!

WENDLE: Yes.

HAYES: Paul's old stomping ground.

WENDLE: Is that right? Well, I never made it there.

HAYES: You never made it?

ZARBOCK: You missed a good thing.

WENDLE: Yeah. We uh.. we were there for awhile after basic training and we were waiting for trains to come in and parcel everybody out 'cause we all had assignments to different schools. There were in our battalion I guess about uh.. a thousand or fifteen hundred and they must have had six companies down there 'cause I was in the sixth company. And uh.. this is called uhm.. an ASTP training outfit, so yeah, I took infantry basic. Uh.. we waited I don't know how many weeks and then we started to retrain again and 'cause since the trains couldn't come in for us. And then finally, we did. We- we got out on trains and we all wound up in the 94th Division. We never saw a school.

ZARBOCK: What year and month was this approximately?

WENDLE: The approximate month, uh.. you mean when we wound up in the division?

ZARBOCK: Yes.

WENDLE: It was approximately March, April of uh.. '44.

HAYES: So the whole program you signed up for they just ignored?

WENDLE: They- they stopped it, yeah.

HAYES: So they just needed people and they said, "Too bad?"

WENDLE: No, they had- actually had groups in school. Uh.. Henry Kissinger was one of the ones that went through ASTP apparently. I didn't realize that, but I got an article on ASTP you might find interesting and uh.. he was one. There were some two hundred thousand that were in the program.

HAYES: Where they would go and get advanced training at a university, then go in as an officer or just as still enlisted?

WENDLE: Well, the idea was that I thought as an officer at the time. At- at least it was an opportunity to get a commission.

HAYES: So now you're put on the train and said what? "You're now a member of..?"

WENDLE: Well, we wound up in the 94th Division and we were parceled out to all of the companies in the- the three regiments that were there and I don't know how many w- wound up in any of the artillery. Maybe we were all- since we all had infantry basic, I assume they all went into the infantry regiments.

ZARBOCK: What camp were you located?

WENDLE: Camp McCain, Mississippi. It's near Grenada or Grenada whichever- I think they pronounce it Grenada down there. Uh..

HAYES: Well, I mean what did you feel about that or it didn't matter at that point? I mean I thought you had an agreement to go to college?

WENDLE: Well, that was- that was an understanding, but this is where we were needed so this is where we went. Uh.. they apparently uh.. the division had been training- the 94th had trained out in Camp Phillips, Kansas and then they did some maneuvers in uh.. I don't know whether it was in Tennessee and uh.. then wound up in Camp McCain, Mississippi and they were happy to be there out of Kansas because they spent the winter in Kansas and that's a- and some of the summer too. And uh.. they- they supplied fifteen hundred troops to the 89th Division to bring them up to strength to ship overseas. So there was a big hole and we filled the hole.

HAYES: And this was not a returning division from battle, this was a newly constructed..?

WENDLE: Which is that then?

HAYES: The one you went into?

WENDLE: No, that had not been anywhere. I mean it had been training. I forget whether it- I think it started out in Michigan. I've got a book at home and I can't remember the whole s- story on where they started.

HAYES: So now you're still in the Deep South.

WENDLE: Um hmm, still in the Deep South. And uh.. we trained there.

ZARBOCK: What were your NCOs like? Were they experienced, or were they battle experienced?

WENDLE: Uh.. in basic training- in basic training?

ZARBOCK: No, once you got to your division.

WENDLE: I don't think they were battle experienced. There might have been some somewhere, but I don't think they were battle experienced. We had uh.. some regular army NCOs over in basic training who provided the cavvy for that. So uh..

ZARBOCK: So you're all on-the-job training?

WENDLE: Uh huh, was- yeah. I- I- that's my impression of all the NCOs over there. Uhm.. even uh.. I'm assuming that the officers, I don't know of any of the officers that had battle experience at that point.

HAYES: So keep plugging. You're now still training with an anticipation of going. What was the scuttlebutt? Where did you think you were headed?

WENDLE: We didn't know where we were heading, but uhm.. with the training we were getting, the clothes we had, cer- certainly thought it would be Europe. And uh.. you know, you'd have all sorts of things to go over, little- little- something we didn't have in basic training, at least I don't remember any live ammo uh.. infiltration courses you went through. You- you do- you do in an infantry there where they're firing over your head and setting off nitrostarch charges and things, you know, muddy holes, and uh.. everybody just continued on that kind of training, night problems, maneuvers.

HAYES: And now at this point, do you have a group of guys that you then identify with and this becomes your unit?

WENDLE: Oh yeah, yeah. I was with the uh.. Company B 376th Infantry.

HAYES: And how big is a company?

WENDLE: The company's about a hundred and ninety.

HAYES: And then how would you break out below that, into squads?

WENDLE: Four- well, four platoons.

HAYES: Platoons?

WENDLE: Yeah, there were three rifle platoons and a weapons platoon. And uh..

HAYES: So who were your buddies, the platoon?

WENDLE: Yeah. Well, that was it and then the squad. We came in in- in March to an outfit that only lacked a few so they were- here I'm- with the ASTP on with everybody that's eighteen or nineteen and now I'm in an outfit that ranges in age from eighteen to thirty-seven.

HAYES: Really?

WENDLE: Yeah, there was a big spread in there. Some of the fellows were fairly well up in- [laughter] well up in years at that time. Thirty-seven, that's a long time.

HAYES: And you were a fill-in, so did you have a sense that you weren't part of the corps?

WENDLE: No, no, once we were there, we were there. And uh.. no, I didn't feel uh.. I felt that hey, these guys know what's going on and I don't know what they're doing, but uh.. they didn't uh.. I- I guess I- I don't remember all the things they said about the ASTPers, but, you know, you're smart alecks or something. [laughter] Anyway, uh.. I- I felt uh.. at home with them, as much as I would with anybody else.

HAYES: Yeah, and you were accepted very quickly then.

WENDLE: Yeah, yeah.

ZARBOCK: Where were you living? Were you in a barracks or living under canvas?

WENDLE: No, in a barracks at that point. We had uhm.. pretty decent barracks over in Camp McCain.

ZARBOCK: Two-story wooden..?

WENDLE: No, that was a single story. That was a single story.

ZARBOCK: Luxury.

WENDLE: Lux- yeah, single story. We- we didn't have to go up a step.

HAYES: Bunk beds and all that kind of stuff?

WENDLE: Yeah, bunk beds, double-decker. Uhm.. it was a fairly long building, take- take a whole platoon. And uh.. it was uh. a group of- this business about getting into the group where I was in the 4th platoon, the weapons platoon, and then before we got ready to go overseas I got transferred to the 2nd Platoon. Now I'd lost another group of friends that I had there, so it- it was just a little shifting around, but, you- you know, you become acclimated to it.

ZARBOCK: Years from now when this tape or the transcription is read or the tape listened to there may be some confusion as to what is a weapons platoon? Take a few minutes.

WENDLE: Weapons- weapons platoon would have uh.. 30-caliber machineguns and 60-millimeter mortars and these are uh.. field-mounted machineguns you carry and sort of have a tripod and mount a machinegun on it.

HAYES: So what was your specific duty?

WENDLE: Well, I still had a rifle. I was not uh.. I was, you know, support in that.

HAYES: So you were part of the platoon, but your job was to protect and work with the machinegunist and a mortar person?

WENDLE: Yeah, I was not uh.. on that. And then we got- we got some training with uh.. with the mortar. And I don't remember firing a machinegun at all, but I knew about 'em and feeding the- the belts and so forth. And that was uh.. that was an extended training. It was mighty hot in Mississippi.

HAYES: Isn't it always?

ZARBOCK: That may be a master of understatement, right? [laughter]

WENDLE: Yeah. I do remember a couple uh.. division parades where we marched in review there and I'm sure that there were a couple that kind of passed out from the heat standing in this hot sun. There was an undersecretary of the army was down there. His name was Patterson and they reviewed us once.

ZARBOCK: What about weekend passes? Did you have any? Could you get off post?

WENDLE: Well, in- yeah. Uh.. in uh.. Fort Benning I think we were restricted for the whole thirteen weeks. Finally got out after that and uh.. one thing about that, I always thought there was plenty of milk in uh.. you know, I guess the guys I heard were from Wisconsin or something, plenty of milk to drink, but we had uh.. twelve guys at a table and we got two quarts of milk every day in the morning for breakfast and that was our milk and we probably got milk in other things. But uh.. so after we got our first pass, I know that was one of the things I wanted to do was drink a lot of cold milk. I went into town into Columbus, Georgia.

HAYES: Oh, that was nice.

WENDLE: That's I guess maybe I had two weekend passes there. And I got a- a furlough, ten-day furlough in June sometime and uh.. my folk- my dad worked for Hercules so and uh..

HAYES: Oh, interesting.

WENDLE: You know, he was out in Lawrence, Kansas at an ordinance plant that they had built for the government. That's why he was able to get down, right down- down south from- from Kansas. Uhm..

HAYES: Yeah. All right, so now you're gonna get shipped out. Is that the next stage?

WENDLE: Yeah, well, I could say that the morning we woke up and- and uh.. turned on the radio and heard that they had landed over in Europe, that was an exciting morning, uh.. June the 6th. And we were- we were waiting and we hadn't heard anything yet, but about the middle of July, we got uh.. word that we were- were getting ready to go. So uh..

HAYES: And at that point, you assumed it had to be Europe, right?

WENDLE: Yeah, uh.. with what we had. You know, I didn't uh.. didn't think it was interesting of course with the concern about uh.. sabotage and so forth during the time, I mean all the trains that we- I can't remember how many trainloads we had leaving uh.. McCain, uh.. all different directions to get to New York and we wound up in uh.. Camp Shanks, New York which was just a port of embarkation. So uh.. I was saying that uh.. I- I wrote something down for my kids to- to save as I- we got off on these trains.

HAYES: I know. So this was just thousands of guys on a train heading to New York?

WENDLE: Yeah. And I- I told the kids uh.. in- in Wilmington, Delaware of course where there was a period before I got into the war that uh.. northeast corridor came from Washington, New York and Boston, Pennsylvania Railroad was just train after train going up there. In Wilmington, they had uh.. shipyard building uhm.. all along that corridor, uh.. you know, got all the oil industry. And uh.. it was just busy and they did a remarkable job hauling- hauling people in and war materials up there.

ZARBOCK: Spend just a minute if you please and reminisce. You're on this troop train, one guy on the upper bunk, two guys in the lower bunk. You've got canteen cup, cover and cork. Remember that phrase? You've got the whole nine yards. What did you do during the day? By the way, did you get three meals a day or was it two meals?

WENDLE: I don't remember now about that. I never- I never felt hungry, so we got enough to eat on the trip.

ZARBOCK: Okay. How would you spend the day? Playing cards?

WENDLE: Just talking, playing cards, and just talking uh.. about what's going on.

ZARBOCK: In those days, just about everybody smoked too, didn't they?

WENDLE: Yeah, most guys. I didn't smoke. I- I uh.. when we got PX rations which we did overseas uh.. I always traded my cigarettes for candy. That's why I probably lost a lot of teeth.

HAYES: But your lungs are good.

WENDLE: My lu- yeah, my lungs are all right for that.

HAYES: Oh, is that right? When you would go visit and people would reach out and..?

WENDLE: Yeah, at church.

HAYES: So now you're in New York and ready to go. What was your mode of transportation, a troop ship?

WENDLE: Um hmm, yup, a very- a nice large troop- troop ship. We went over on the Queen Elizabeth.

HAYES: Isn't that? You told me that before. I couldn't believe it.

WENDLE: We went over on the Queen Elizabeth and our battalion uh.. was assigned duties over- on the way over which was a great deal for us because we had permanent bunks locations and everybody else shifted every twelve hours. Some were in cabins and most of the other ones were out on the decks and in the hallways. And uh.. every twelve hours they traded places so somebody had a place to lie down. And it was an interesting- interesting trip going over. We went over alone. The only thing that we had uh.. for protection was speed and a- a deck- some deck guns.

HAYES: That was it? How many guys do you think were on that mission, any idea?

WENDLE: Well, there were- there were roughly fifteen thousand in the division.

HAYES: And they were all on that boat?

WENDLE: Yeah. Uh.. well, there..

HAYES: Ship, excuse me.

WENDLE: There was a preliminary cavvy going over.

ZARBOCK: Advanced party maybe.

WENDLE: And uh.. but that was a small party relative. And then there were several thousand British on there too. I mean the British were of course manning it and there were [clears throat] guys I think must have been coming back from the South Pacific that had made it back to the States and were on their way back to England.

HAYES: So there were British soldiers you mean?

WENDLE: Well, not soldiers, but there were some airmen on it as I remember.

HAYES: Interesting. So fifteen thousand on one ship.

WENDLE: Um hmm. Now, there was a case we had two meals a day. And our- our company pulled KP and that wa- that was pretty neat. Now, two meals a day is six servings of each meal. All we had to do as KPers was to take the- the food that the British prepared and put it on the table and clean up the things after the fellows left. They had their own mess kits and we didn't have to mess with that. We didn't have any food preparation, but it was cleanup and- and get it ready and get it out and serve it.

ZARBOCK: That's right. Each one of the soldiers had their own mess kit. You didn't have a metal tray?

WENDLE: No, no, [clears throat] that's right. They- they used their own equipment.

HAYES: But you said you got permanent quarters out of that duty. What does that mean? You get cabins or just a..?

WENDLE: No, we had- actually, our- our group was in- our company I guess was in- in the lounge. They had rigged up all the- the bunks in the lounge [clears throat], so we had it pretty luxurious in a way.

HAYES: [Laugher] In a sort of way.

WENDLE: Right.

ZARBOCK: It's really not gracious living.

WENDLE: No, it wasn't that way, but it..

HAYES: But you didn't have to be on the deck.

WENDLE: Didn't have to be on the deck.

HAYES: And what time of the year now are we in?

WENDLE: August 6th we left New York.

HAYES: So the weather was not so bad?

WENDLE: Extremely hot in New York and terrible out there. I- I made it all right for about a day and a half and then I sort of got up one morning and smelling- I think they were boiling cabbage for the first meal of the day and that kind of got to me and I got nauseous and I begged off and they let me get back into the bunk for awhile and I didn't lose anything, but the weather cleared up the next day- or in terms of temperature got cool in the North Atlantic and that was fine the rest of the way.

HAYES: Seasickness, did people have a problem with that?

WENDLE: No, no, heck this big ship, wasn't bad weather or anything at all, but the- the temperature and the- this odor of the cooking got to me one morning and so I- I was able to stay it for awhile and the next day I was fine.

ZARBOCK: How long did it take you to cross the Atlantic?

WENDLE: Five days.

HAYES: Five days?

WENDLE: Pretty, you know, pretty darn fast one.

ZARBOCK: And where did you debark?

WENDLE: We came into Geroch, Scotland, up the Clyde.

ZARBOCK: What was the name of the town?

WENDLE: Well, I think they call it Greenock, but I heard 'em say Geroch. Greenock uh.. Scotland. And uhm.. went in there, a beautiful sight to- to go up the Firth of Clyde. Uh.. in the afternoons just- you can see uh.. late afternoon twinkling lights along the shore. It looked like a Christmas yard. Uhm.. some of the Scotsmen came on board and we were talking with them a little bit. Here it is about the 11th of August or 12th of August and uh.. [clears throat] it was kind of cool. He said yeah, "Summer's very short." He says, "I went in one afternoon to take a nap," and he said, "when I came out, it was- summer was over." That's one of the things I remember he said.

HAYES: Okay, and now you're gonna go over. You're not coming over as a replacement division, you're really coming over as a..

WENDLE: No, as a division.

HAYES: As a division. And from England then to where did you land?

WENDLE: We landed on Utah Beach. D Plus 94, very- sounded very significant, you know, the 94th Division's landing on D Plus 94. All planned back in.. Sounds that way.

HAYES: And by this time, it was what, just a major transshipment point, the damage from the invasion had been cleaned up pretty well?

WENDLE: Yeah, well, there were still things that you could see uh.. around there, but we didn't- I don't remember getting my feet wet, you know? Uh.. we went uh.. we got off the ship offshore and threw an LCI over the side on the rope ladder and then hit this bobbing LCI uh.. with our equipment. And- but they were able to run that thing up onto something that I- I remember from reading Winston Churchill's stuff after the war that he insisted on building a lot of five-foot square or cube- five-foot cubes that they could weld together and make piers. And when we landed, they came in and plopped us in front of the LCI down on this pier that- that's what I relate it to, just the area.

HAYES: And how far in at this point? I mean were you into France at that point quite a ways or not that far?

WENDLE: Oh yeah. Yeah, they had captured Brest. They had bypassed St. Nazaire and Oran and Patton was moving to the east. And uh.. I don't remember at- at that point, you know, I'm not sure whether they had captured Paris, liberated Paris, pretty close to it.

HAYES: And you're what, pushed into trucks and here we go?

WENDLE: Well, we walked for a long time a- after we got off the..

HAYES: You walked? [laughter]

WENDLE: That's one thing we did. We- we practiced walking quite a bit. Uh.. it had been raining quite a bit before we got there and uh.. when we got there in the afternoon it was clear. But we got off when it got dark and then we were walking on muddy roads and you could hear guys slipping and- and you could hear a butt of the rifle hitting the ground when the guy caught himself. And uh.. we walked and walked and walked and finally we wound up in a meadow somewhere where we dropped for the night.

HAYES: So when you finally got positioned, what was the duty of your division? What was your responsibility then?

WENDLE: We weren't to take- we weren't to attack, we were to contain and keep them from getting up with anybody else and getting out and caused consternation in the rear lines. So uh.. so we had a- had a group there. The division did take some actions at times just to straighten lines, to shorten lines to a better position. My recollection around uh.. St. Nazaire, it was pretty flat where we were. And we had a lot of Free French there too. They were also.

HAYES: Oh, interesting. And so was this artillery duels, that kind of thing?

WENDLE: There were some ar- artillery. I don't remember specifically any- any artillery falling on us in the St.- in this- where we were at the St. Nazaire area. There were some fire fights on patrol.

ZARBOCK: But basically essentially it was Germans surrounded by allied forces?

WENDLE: Yeah.

ZARBOCK: And you were to wall them off and make sure that they couldn't join other German forces which were now to the west.

HAYES: Was it a hundred percent encirclement? Did they have an escape route or not an escape route?

WENDLE: I haven't looked. I- I keep wondering that myself after looking at the area 'cause the- the Loire River came in there at St.- at uh.. St. Nazaire and up the river was Nance and uhm.. that was in our hands 'cause we used to get passes, like afternoon passes sometimes to get off the line. If we were in reserve, we could get back into Nance for an afternoon. Uhm..

ZARBOCK: And what would you do?

WENDLE: What, in- in Nance?

ZARBOCK: Yeah.

WENDLE: Well, the fellows would go and- and uh.. drink, a lot of 'em, and they might visit some houses of places you wouldn't want to be. But uh.. and if some of 'em found a way to find some food over there, they might buy some uh.. potatoes that were fried in something that looked like mineral- or uh.. crankcase oil. [laughter] Uh.. I know that would be the thing. You'd take your rifles in with you. You had your rifles and stack 'em up in back of the truck and there was a guy put on guard there.

HAYES: 'Cause you didn't know if at any point they were gonna call you right back.

WENDLE: Call us back, sure.

HAYES: Yeah. And how far was this, a couple miles?

WENDLE: It wasn't that far. I would, you know, from where our position was we might have been fifteen miles.

HAYES: And what was the day? I mean you're not guarding the Germans, you're facing the Germans. Did you send patrols out to try to kill 'em? I mean is that the point?

WENDLE: No, the patrol had to find out where they are and what's their activity. Uhm.. I don't know that I knew about the grand plan of the line, but I went on a patrol, fortunately didn't get- hit any booby traps, but there were booby traps that went on. Uh.. that was around the St.- St. Nazaire area. And we- periodically we got pulled back off the line and- and uh.. some uh.. other part of the outfit that we would put on.

ZARBOCK: And again, you're sleeping under canvas?

WENDLE: No, no. This is outside or whatever you could rig up, maybe a pup tent, canvas that way, or if you could rig something up in a hedgerow and put a little shelver over your head. Uhm.. I guess basically the pup tent here and there.

ZARBOCK: But it was every man for himself?

WENDLE: Well, the squad, right. They were every man for himself that way.

HAYES: And have you to this day still kept in touch? Do you know those people that you worked with day in and day out?

WENDLE: No, no. No, I know- I know more uh.. one friend that I- I do keep in touch with was an acquaintance after we were both out of the infantry and back into another outfit.

HAYES: Interesting.

WENDLE: Uhm.. but uh.. part of it's uh.. the short term that I was in with them. You know, and then I got separated from 'em. I never went through the whole- the whole thing that they did.

ZARBOCK: How did you get separated, where and when?

WENDLE: Well, we were uh.. to go back through. We were there most of the fall of uh.. '44 in that area. We got sent over to Lorient one time, posted over there and uh.. along in December we were taken off line for reserve duty for our division. But uh.. of course the Bulge had started at this point and we heard all the rumors of what's going on uhm.. and then we heard that we're gonna be replaced. We heard this 66th division had had a loss. And so uh.. at the end of December we trained uh.. trained up again, got on forty and eights, the old forty and eight cars.

HAYES: Now what is that? Tell us what that is.

WENDLE: Forty men and eight horses, or eight horses, I shouldn't say and eight horses, but forty men or eight horses on a car capacity.

HAYES: That's what they called 'em, forty and eight?

ZARBOCK: Forty and eight, yeah.

WENDLE: Forty and eight. There were a lot of the old uh.. World War I uh.. Legion guys had posts, you know, and this was a forty and eight group, so..

ZARBOCK: And again, for the record, their boxcars are about one-third to one-half the size of our boxcars.

WENDLE: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

HAYES: Pulled by just an old engine of some sort?

WENDLE: Oh no- I'll tell you one thing, over in Europe they have smooth rails. They u- uh.. use a welded system and you don't have uh.. clickety click, clickety clack that we had over here. Uh.. I always liked the clickety click, clickety clack, it sounded neat, but they had a smooth- smooth rail. Now, moving around France on these forty and eights it took us a little while to get from uh.. our assembling area over to where we were going, which we didn't know where we were going when we left.

HAYES: Now was the air war won at that point so you weren't vulnerable to the Luftwaffe or was this always a risk?

WENDLE: No, we- we were not- we didn't have any problems with it where we were in Brittany.

HAYES: And were they using air observants to help you as far as this containment went? Would you see planes every day or not?

WENDLE: No, we didn't see a lot of planes. There might have been some spotters up, some uh.. light planes like uh.. Taylors and uh.. that's from the artillery group, but uh.. no, I didn't- we were fortunate we didn't have- have to contend with uh.. air attacks. This was uh.. you know, sort of a quiet thing, a quiet period.

HAYES: But were people still dying in these skirmishes?

WENDLE: Well, there were some- there were some wounded and some loss of life while we were there. I remember one- one duty that I had was helping a fire town to observe. That was my post for a period. I got up and climbed this tower up there and I looked around and all the trees were kind of shot off about the level of the- the fire tower's observation from artillery before, I assumed. I think I did maybe uh.. a little artillery spotting at that point.

ZARBOCK: I'd like to call you back to your initial entrance into the military. I thought you said you had a little difficulty with an eye?

WENDLE: I have a sleeping eye.

ZARBOCK: Did that as an observer bother it?

WENDLE: No, it didn't bother me. I mean I can s- you know, see pretty well this way. Uh.. that- that part didn't bother me, but it's uh.. if I- if I close this eye, then you become a little- I- I see you, but your features are not as clear.

HAYES: But together, they were..?

WENDLE: Together I was all right, although a little later on after I got out of the- after they gave me a- a physical after getting out of the hospital, the uh.. guy said, "How did you get in the service with that eye?" And I said, "Well, here I am."

HAYES: Well, in 1943, a lot of people got into the service. [laughter]

WENDLE: Yeah. Well, that's true because on that uh.. even though I told you that there were some guys that were turned down, a couple ahead of me that day were turned down when I was taking my physical because of their weak eyes. But when I got there, they passed me.

HAYES: And I bet you those guys a few months later may have had much stronger eyes when they came back.

WENDLE: They pro- they probably came back yeah. They were turned down temporarily I think. You know, I don't know whether it was because I had the A12 program list on there that they took me uh.. or not, but it did..

HAYES: Now you're on these special boxcars and you're heading to..

WENDLE: Yeah, cold as all get out.

HAYES: And you're moving to another location, right? So continue that story then.

WENDLE: Well, it took us several days to get across from the Brittany Peninsula area over to where we were going. And uh.. it was kind of interesting. We got through Paris, we- we were in the yards in Paris. I didn't see much of anything up there. It was just a- a stop till- till they switched around I guess cars and- and engines and whatever. And uh.. it was a gray afternoon with a little bit of pale sunlight, cold and snowy. And uh.. and we kept on, then, moving. Uh.. I don't exactly remember where we- where we got off the trains, but we uh.. got onto uh.. trucks and we wound up in uh.. some manufacturing complex over there where we spent a night. I can't remember the name of that. It was n- it was near- near Sanville I think.

HAYES: Just over the hill.

WENDLE: Yeah, a little- little town by the name of Sierck.

HAYES: Now, you're still in France at this point?

WENDLE: No, we're in- now in Germany.

ZARBOCK: How do you spell the name of the town? Do you remember?

WENDLE: Uh.. well, the- where I think it was was S-i-e-r-c-k, Sierck. And uh.. and the next morning while it was still dark, and we spent the night in some German houses and uh.. the next morning very early we got out and we started to march and uh.. went over the hill down into a little town of Wochern, that's W-o-c-h-e-r-n, and we were on the front. And I mean we were the outpost line. We were relieving I think a cavalry outfit that was- was there.

HAYES: This was a pushing front; this is not a containing front now.

WENDLE: Well, it's not- not the same as it was back in- in Brittany, no. Now you're up in the active area and so we spent probably a very pleasant week in the snow, no- no uh.. very- no heavy activity, no uh.. artillery coming in. Oh, you could hear the big stuff going overhead and that was- that was about it.

HAYES: Now, during this attack, what are you doing?

WENDLE: Well, we were a little reserve so as soon as- when I say reserve, we were right behind them, we were in the woods behind the two guys. There- now this is in an area between the Saar and Mosel Rivers. It was called a Siegfried Switch Line. Uh.. I don't know who coined that term, but apparently the Siegfried Line was back of the Saar River. And this was uh.. coming out from the Saar River in a series of uh.. dragon's teeth and pillboxes and things like that. And it took quite awhile to get- get through that, but once we got up there, I don't remember uh.. falling back to the original position anywhere. It took a while to go up and back and up and back a little bit, but they- we never- never relinquished Tettingen as far as I know. They lost some houses in the frontline. And they lost some houses in another area right away.

HAYES: But are you shooting yourself?

WENDLE: I'm- I'm as a messenger at this point. Mostly headquarters and uh.. all that. I was running around at night taking the password around to the different outposts. It was snow. Of course what we uh.. liberated some sheets or tablecloths or something so it looked white instead of our khaki against the- the snow.

ZARBOCK: It was supposed to have been one of the bitterest winters.

WENDLE: It was.

ZARBOCK: In the history at that time.

WENDLE: In the history, yeah. It was a cold winter all right, a lot of snow. When we started off that day I know eight or ten inches of snow on the ground. And uh.. we were in the woods and they were shelling uh.. the attack. Of course, there was answering fire from the Germans. Airburst uh.. so you'd hear pieces of shrapnel whizzing around. And uh.. this attack had gone so well that they committed the other- the other uh.. company forward and asked us to move up into this town of Tettingen. And we were there for- I don't know, like reading back, I- I don't think we were there more than a- a day it seemed to me, but it was a couple of days apparently we were in the town and then they moved our company out to be sent into the woods to defend the flank.

HAYES: So you guys had captured this?

WENDLE: Yeah.

HAYES: So it was a well-constructed..?

WENDLE: It was a well-constructed wooden situation there in the middle of the forest. And then we had outposts all along the- the edge of the forest _____________ left flank of the town. Well, while we were out there then, a major attack occurred back on the town, not on us, but back on the town, you know, the tanks and- and uh.. infantry and they took a terrible toll of their infantry on that.

HAYES: The Americans did?

WENDLE: Yeah. I mean they- they killed a lot of Germans.

HAYES: Oh, I see, 'cause they were entrenched in the town and they tried to retake it?

WENDLE: In houses, yeah. Some of the fellows said that a tank pulled up right outside the window, but they couldn't depress their gun long enough to shoot 'em. Eventually, they got these guys with the bazookas, but lots of times it was very frustrating they say, bazooka rounds bouncing off the tanks and those German tanks were armored very well. But there were a lot of- a lot of guys that uh.. did well on.

ZARBOCK: Again, for the purpose of the future viewers of the tape, what do you mean when you say password? There's a password and a countersign. Tell me what..

WENDLE: Yeah, a password and countersign. So you know that uh.. you're talking with a friend and not a- an enemy if a guy can't give you the response to the password.

ZARBOCK: Well do a little role playing with me. What would be a password?

WENDLE: I don't recall any specific one right now, but you can imagine one that uh.. might have to do with baseball and uhm.. something that an American would know and a German might not uh.. and might not guess it anyway. So you could uh.. give 'em the name of a baseball player and some guy might respond as the team.

HAYES: Oh, interesting.

WENDLE: Well, I- I don't know that that ever occurred, but that's what I would, you know, think of.

ZARBOCK: Who would develop the passwords?

WENDLE: Christ, that must have come down from higher somewhere.

ZARBOCK: You got a printed list?

WENDLE: No, I didn't get a printed list. They- it always came down as uh.. this is the password for today.

HAYES: And then you had to go around and around and say it to everybody.

WENDLE: Yeah, that's right. That was one of the things. Then after a few days of all this stuff, I- I would say they rotated us back and forth in and out of the line quite frequently. As I look at some of uh.. some of the things, it looks to me like, you know, there's a steady, steady, steady diet of- with uh.. when I say out of line, I mean you're back a little ways and uh.. maybe get a change of clothes or something like that.

HAYES: And what do you think the temperature was at times?

WENDLE: Well, it was well below freezing uh.. 'cause the snow wasn't melting, that's for sure. And uh.. so the next day they had a- an advance in our particular area. Again, we were coming up from the rear and the company ahead of us got uh.. messed up in a Schu minefield.

HAYES: What's that? Tell us what that is.

WENDLE: A Schu mine is uh.. a mine that's not made with metal. It might be in a wooden box or a plastic box with a detonator in it. Apparently, they're not detected by the regular minesweeping equipment, so you walk out on there and you get your foot blown off or a leg. And the worst of it is guys crawling out of it set off some other ones too so there were a whole bunch of 'em that were- I don't remember how many that were in the minefield that had- had blown-off feet. And we were ordered to go around 'em and continue the advance uh.. which- which we did and fortunately didn't wind up in uh.. another Schu mine field.

HAYES: I'd never heard that term before. Is it one you use, Paul?

WENDLE: I think it's S-c-h-u.

ZARBOCK: Yep.

HAYES: Oh, S-c-h-u, Schu.

WENDLE: Yeah, Schu. Not too bad to say, I mean if you set it off and blow it off with the shoe too with the foot in it. Uhm.. they- they did- they did call for some help to try to clear that. Your light is blinking up there. Does that mean..?

HAYES: Yeah, we're just about done and I think this would be a good spot here. We'll just change the tape.

HAYES: Okay. We're on tape two, World War II Oral History Program with Paul Zarbock, Sherman Hayes and Gale Wendle. Now I think - I've almost forgotten here. You're in Germany, back and forth up in the line, doing all kinds of duties.

WENDLE: Going forward and--

HAYES: Did you get back to protecting the machine guns and the mortars?

WENDLE: Oh, no. Well, other than the fact that we were ahead of 'em. They're usually-- No, the machine gunners would be up close, but the mortars might be a little bit behind.

HAYES: Okay. Okay. I'm trying to get a sense of what you're doing. For a while you're up being an observer and then you're running messages. It sounds like you--

WENDLE: That's mostly-- Yeah. That's- that's what I was doing - the messaging at that point.

ZARBOCK: Now this must have been December 1944.

WENDLE: Well it was uh.. December/Jan-- This was January.

ZARBOCK: Do you remember anything about Christmas Eve?

WENDLE: Uh.. Christmas Eve.

ZARBOCK: Interesting.

WENDLE: Well, yeah. We- we happened to be lucky and we were back in a French chateau on- off- uh.. off duty at the time. We had uh.. we were in reserve.

ZARBOCK: "We." How many "we?"

WENDLE: Well, this was our company. We had uh..

ZARBOCK: About 200 men?

WENDLE: Yeah, roughly. And I- I say that. It may have been our platoon, you know, out of the- out of the company, but we were lucky. We- we were not there at the time.

ZARBOCK: So you got a roof over your head.

WENDLE: We had a roof over our heads. We played cards and we uh.. washed our equipment and we cleaned up. We got a Christmas tree.

HAYES: Oh, wow.

WENDLE: _______________ Christmas tree and uh.. wrote letters, got mail.

HAYES: Gale, I happen to know you outside of this interview and I know that you're an outstanding singer. Were you singing during the war? I mean did you sing at all? I know that's an odd expression, but he's a near professional singer and I just didn't know if you were able to exercise or do that.

WENDLE: Only in chapel sometimes and that was about it. But not- uh.. I didn't do any solo work that I remember.

HAYES: It wasn't quite conducive to--

WENDLE: No, it wasn't quite that. I mean the other duties just kind of kept us away.

ZARBOCK: During that time that you were on and then back off the line and then back on the line, back off the line were you ever attended in any way by a chaplain, a military chaplain?

WENDLE: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We had chaplains, chapels and uh.. had communion at times.

ZARBOCK: They were up on the line with you.

WENDLE: They were with us at here and there.

ZARBOCK: Protestant and Catholic?

WENDLE: Yes. I- I don't remember specifically. I think the one that I remember was a Lutheran uh..

HAYES: Well that's not all bad.

WENDLE: [Laughter] Is that right?

HAYES: Wisconsin. I mean what was--

WENDLE: Yeah. I mean-- But yes, we had--

HAYES: And you were a churchgoer before you went into the service.

WENDLE: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

HAYES: And so whenever you could get a chance, you would participate?

WENDLE: Well at that point now, the church was coming to us because of where we were. But uh.. the services happened in the chapel.

ZARBOCK: But it was Christmas Eve in a chalet in--

WENDLE: Yeah, in France.

ZARBOCK: In France.

WENDLE: Yeah. This was before we got our move up to general.

HAYES: Yeah.

WENDLE: Before we got into the forty and eights. It was uh..-- That was a good Christmas except for the fact that we're wondering what's going on now with the Bulge and uh.. what's happening with the guys back in St. Nazaire and Lorient. Are they going to try to pull out and upset things in the back? I mean those were all sorts of concerns that they had. So--

HAYES: And about the Bulge, even though that was happening, you as a foot soldier were getting information from that? Where you getting newsletters or papers, or people telling you about it?

WENDLE: Well Stars and Stripes used to come out and we'd copies of Stars and Stripes from time-to-time. So there was news coming out. And at first, the officers would pass down the information that they got the best they could. Yeah. We- we got pretty good information in a way about what's going on with the Bulge anyway. Where we went on line I should say was right south of the Mozel River, just off Luxembourg. We were in the- the spot. The Bulge came here and we were down in here, just-- By the time we got there, they had it pretty well--

HAYES: Contained.

WENDLE: Contained I think.

HAYES: Interesting.

WENDLE: Just contained.

HAYES: Now were casualties and folks passing through you on the way back? Did you always see this all the time from other--

WENDLE: There were some. I think-- Well, first, the fellas that were shot up with the Schu- the Schu mines and they had to pull out. Uhm.. I didn't see that many over in Tettinger but there were some there. Uh.. Some German prisoners coming down as we went up. Some guys were escorting-- These guys were young. I would say they were younger than we were - 16 or 17 maybe.

HAYES: The Germans you mean?

WENDLE: The Germans, yeah.

HAYES: Wow.

WENDLE: They were pulling real young ones.

HAYES: Interesting.

WENDLE: At least that's what I saw there.

HAYES: Yeah.

WENDLE: And we got pinned down for most of the day up there. Uhm.. This was after we had been out there for a while and uh.. we had the- the 8th or the 8th or the 10th Armored. They were there with us for a bit 'cause there were German tanks in the woods opposite where we were. We were down in a little place that we had little protection from the fire. And evidently they decided a- a- a different path, a different attack approach and uh.. bringing another group in. We pulled back off the line, you know, after being pinned down for this day and uh..

HAYES: For the person that doesn't know what that means, what do you mean you were "pinned down for a day?" What does that mean?

WENDLE: Well I mean just uh.. you were not in a good position to keep from getting shot directly. I mean to me, they could- you couldn't advance. So you're- you're in place. You're pinned down.

HAYES: So you're basically laying on the ground?

WENDLE: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

HAYES: With your rifle--

WENDLE: In the snow. Then uh.. at the proper time of day, I mean you could- another outfit could move in. You were relieved under darkness and then uh.. march back. Spent the night out in the foxhole with a dead German right outside. Uh.. In fact, I thought- I was looking for a blanket, something to keep warm, and I thought I found one, but I- when I grabbed it, there was a German inside it. It wasn't a- it wasn't a blanket. It was his coat. So I just jumped down into the foxhole that was there, spent the night in the woods.

HAYES: And what is frostbite? What do you mean by "frostbite?" You mean your feet were frozen.

WENDLE: Feet - yeah. Fros- frozen feet. That's what- that's what they labeled it.

HAYES: And this is really a common thing that was happening I would guess.

WENDLE: That plus trench foot, which trench foot-- The business of being damp and so forth I think is more the- the key on the trench foot. They labeled me frostbite and they sent me to the hospital and uh.. loaded us up on the train and- and uh.. the next thing I know I'm in Paris. From Paris they sent us to England by plane and we wound up in a- in a uh.. what do you call it - station hospital I guess was the different categories that they had. This was up- sort of toward I'm going to say Worthington. Does that- that doesn't sound quite right.

ZARBOCK: What was the treatment protocol for trench foot?

HAYES: Or for frostbite?

WENDLE: Well, it was, I mean, yeah. It was trying to get your circulation back and uh.. it was exercises in bed and uhm.. three shots of whiskey a day. It was uh..--

HAYES: That was the treatment - three shots of--

WENDLE: Well, that- well that was one of the things to dilate the blood vessels and get- get moving and you- you did these-- Pick your feet up, behind the bed, over the side, back up and down and uh..--

HAYES: Were the hospitals warm, though?

WENDLE: Oh, yeah.

HAYES: I was going to say because a lot of good it'd be if it was--

WENDLE: Oh, no. This- this was-- I mean I- by this time, I was back in a- in a solid hospital and uh..-- But yeah, that was one of the things that we were there for a while before they decided that this was the thing they ought to do. So I'm not a drinker, but I drank my Hagen ______________ Scotch. This is what they gave you.

HAYES: What I find curious is okay, you're incapacity because of this and you're cold and it happened to lots of people, but you were with a guy and a group doing a job and then you're gone. Do they go pull another person in?

WENDLE: Oh, yeah. Lots of replacements coming up.

HAYES: Okay. I'm just saying it was like one day you're here and--

WENDLE: Well, did you look at the uh..-- I don't know whether you're watching this Band of Brothers.

HAYES: I didn't. Paul did.

WENDLE: Well just last night I- I happened to tune one section. It said they were D-Day and they lost 65 men out of their company and of course they're going to get replacement sometime. They don't come immediately and uh.. that's- that must be a tough break in time when you join an outfit as a replacement, and I didn't have to join an outfit as a replacement on the line.

HAYES: On the line.

WENDLE: Yeah. I joined it as a replacement during training, which is a much better time to do it.

HAYES: So as far as you know, they just kept going. They found somebody else and made another runner and--

WENDLE: Yeah, they did. They did keep going. They kept going and they- the- the division did pretty well. They uh..-- I didn't realize it at a time, but our battalion did get, they had a unit citation for that first action in the Tettingen Butzdorf area. I didn't realize that.

ZARBOCK: By the way, the hospital in England is staffed by whom? Americans or Brits or a combination?

WENDLE: Americans. It was American doctors and American nurses.

ZARBOCK: So you had American food?

WENDLE: Yeah. I had more or less American food, yeah. A lot of uh..-- I remember uh.. they had great- great bread, baked bread that we could uh.. get something during the day. There was uh..-- In our ward, there was a little place where there was a little bread or something leftover. You could get a little piece of bread and- and toast it on the- on the stove that was sitting there. Just throw it on top of the stove.

HAYES: So how long were you then in kind of an infirmary mode? I mean was this weeks?

WENDLE: Well, I went, you know, I went in uh..-- I left them at the end of January and I didn't get back into circulation until April, uh.. late April I was on my way back, and then of course where do you go? They weren't sending me back to my outfit. I went through the replacement centers.

HAYES: This was in England?

WENDLE: In England.

HAYES: Yeah.

WENDLE: But uh.. pass through a replace- a replacement center there and then hit the place over in- in France and uh.. One of the centers in France I think was in an old Dupont plant and uh.. so we went- we were stationed there for a little bit and then sent out. And I wound up with a 815th signal service company in Brussels, Belgium, which is a-- This guy- these guys had been over in Europe, in- in England since very, very early in the war. They had, you know, I think they must've been over there in January of '42. I don't know that we any over there before that, but uh.. they were over there to set up communications for what was going to come. They were mostly all AT&T or Bell people, central office people.

HAYES: Really?

WENDLE: Yeah. Yeah. They could deal with cities. I mean deal with communications from cities.

HAYES: So did they train you, or just say you're now in the signal corps?

WENDLE: No. Now, I became a driver.

HAYES: Oh, a driver.

WENDLE: I was already able to drive.

HAYES: The wisdom of the Army.

WENDLE: Well, they didn't have to do anything except the guy showed me how to uh.. drive a weapons carrier. You had to double- double clutch the thing instead of a straight shift.

HAYES: Oh, I love it.

WENDLE: So I just drove a jeep and I drove guys around. I- I happened to get to uh.. the Brussels Airport when uh.. Truman flew in for his ___________________ concert. Uh.. There was a meeting over there.

HAYES: Interesting.

WENDLE: Uh.. We were all out there that morning.

HAYES: Then you later, after this became a chemical engineer. I mean were you starting to talk to these people about communication, or you were just a soldier?

WENDLE: I was just a soldier. I was doing whatever they wanted me to do and uh..- so- and happy to be alive at that point.

HAYES: Yeah. Now what about your feet?

WENDLE: They were doing all right.

HAYES: In other words, were there lasting effects that you felt from this?

WENDLE: Well, you know, some, but not- not- I didn't lose anything.

HAYES: Yeah. A lot of people lost toes.

WENDLE: Well people that were in the Air Force that flying high, they're the ones that really uh.. lost-- They didn't decide- they finally decided that I had trench foot, but that- that's not what they said when they labeled me going back. That was after the doctors interviewed me about four to six weeks after I was back in the- in the hospital and they said, "Well, how did your- what'd you have? Did- did- did your feet sweat?" And when I said, "Well, yeah my feet sweat," and then they decided well, it must have been trench foot and not- not- not frostbite. I don't know.

HAYES: It could have been a combination. I mean in minus degree temperature--

WENDLE: It was cold, you know.

HAYES: So you're now a driver in what city?

WENDLE: Brussels.

HAYES: And that had been captured for some time.

WENDLE: Yeah, that was- that had been held for some time. See, I just arrived there the week before V-E Day.

HAYES: Okay.

WENDLE: When is that? Is that the 10th of May, or the- very early in May. And we ran a celebration there and uh.. Brussels was a great place to be because they- they rotated troops back there for rest and relaxation and they had uh.. uhm.. Channel- they call it Channel base or Channer base, Channel in Normandy, Channer base uhm.. section there and they had a theater there that uh.. had good- good uh.. acts also. It's like the circus or musical acts and this was some place where the troops could come and-- Of course, most of that was after the war was over, but they did have something there as a rest area before that.

HAYES: So the day that they announced it, were you out then in that parade and that celebration?

WENDLE: I wasn't in any parade, but I was downtown, do you know what I mean, hanging on the trams, trying to ride downtown. Uh.. It was- it was a great day. Happy that it was all over.

ZARBOCK: Where were you quartered in Brussels?

WENDLE: In a school. I was uh.. in uh.. an area known as Laeken. It's L-A-E-K-E-N, and uh.. they're sort of out from central Brussels, but it was still Brussels I mean and uhm..--

HAYES: So now what happened? Once the war victory is done did you start to then see just tens of thousands of troops start to move back, or how fast did it happen for you?

WENDLE: Well, the way- the way it worked after the war was that they had a point system that uh.. you had a- uh.. a point for every month you were in service and I think it was two points for every month you were overseas. So uhm.. that and then- and every point for, or five points for a campaign and five points for a medal. Something like that. And uh.. I think the first guys left had about 90 points and so they- they started moving them out on that basis and then-- Of course, they had to keep certain elements together in there.

HAYES: Your old division was now in Czech. Oh, my goodness.

WENDLE: They went through the Saar area over and they did get called up then to uh.. contain and mop up the Aurora area where they had bypassed Aurora. Going so fast, they- they just bypassed a lot of it. So they called up and took-- We were in the 3rd Army and they took 'em up and I think they were in the 9th Army at that point.

HAYES: But you're still in communication. I mean you're still in the signal corps.

WENDLE: I'm in the signal corps now, yeah.

HAYES: Were they starting to disband your group quickly or not?

WENDLE: Uh.. After about two months, I got transferred to another signal outfit, but it was a signal service or a signal depot company and that was in Charleroi, Belgium and that was- uh.. their service or- or the depot company had all the- the equipment - radios, all sorts of signaling equipment. It was stored in uh.. an old Pittsburgh Plate Glass plant and they wanted to get that place free of- of all this equipment so that they could get the businesses back going and uh.. at that point, we had uh.. a lot of captured Germans there. They were the ones that were doing the brute force work and uh.. the cooks - they were all German. Uh.. Mess was very good. They're good bakers and so uh..

HAYES: Probably Lutherans, Paul.

WENDLE: So uh.. at any rate, that was a- that was a time when we were packing up equipment to send it farther into Germany or to start getting it ready to go over to uh.. the South Pacific. And there were- there were some outfits that uhm.. I think probably came out of Europe and- and depending I guess on their time and made it back through the States onto the way of- to the Pacific. Of course, this is May and uhm.. I didn't see a chance of getting home for quite a while. So uhm.. I think it was gonna be months and months before we had enough points to- to get out.

HAYES: I never heard that term.

WENDLE: Yeah. Lucky Strike--

ZARBOCK: Chesterfields.

WENDLE: Chesterfield.

ZARBOCK: Yeah.

HAYES: They named the camps--?

WENDLE: They named 'em that, yeah, and uhm.. the one I was in was uh.. right outside Charleware.

HAYES: In France.

WENDLE: In France, yeah. Yeah. But that came- that was near the end of January of '45 before I got that far along. So I was in Charleware from probably August of '44 until January of '45 and then I wound up with enough points to start the trek home.

HAYES: So two years of your life? Is that about it, or even a little bit more?

WENDLE: It was twenty- twenty-nine months.

HAYES: He knows exactly - 29 months.

WENDLE: Nineteen months overseas and- and 29 solo. So uh..--

HAYES: Did you get to come back in the same luxury liner that you went over? [laughter]

WENDLE: No. We got a victory ship. It was the Ernie Pyle, a well-known figure. You know, Ernie Pyle.

HAYES: Right - Ernie Pyle.

WENDLE: That was a-

HAYES: Who got killed. Did he not get killed? He was a cartoonist, right? No, a writer. He was a writer.

WENDLE: He- Yeah, he was a writer there and the GIs friend. Uhm.. He spent a lot of time with the troops. I never met him over there, but uh.. he was great.

HAYES: Did it seem a lot longer than that?

WENDLE: Well it seemed longer, yeah. We got in a storm coming home and uh.. I didn't get sick. But the place I get sick is when it does this just a little. I didn't lose anything, but when it got like this - up and down and bouncing around and- and making the ship shudder uh.. it didn't- uh.. it didn't get me. The weather was cool enough. In February.

ZARBOCK: Again, to give it a little bit of a tone and flavor of that type of transportation, when I went overseas, we were seven high. How high were you and would you explain what I meant when I said "seven high?"

WENDLE: Yeah.

HAYES: What does that mean?

WENDLE: Well the bunks, they got 'em in a rack over here. Uhm.. Pipe rack was a kind of a canvas on it, strung up along the pipe and I guess they folded up on ya when it weren't occupied. But there must have been six high I think, or four or six high in- in ours. You were seven?

ZARBOCK: Yeah.

WENDLE: Wow. So uh..--

ZARBOCK: And in order to get in the bunk, what would you have to do?

WENDLE: You'd climb up all these things.

ZARBOCK: And you really all have to get in like putting a letter in a mailbox in order to get in them.

WENDLE: Oh, yeah. You know, you had about, I guess about that much space.

HAYES: Oh, God.

WENDLE: Now on the Queen Elizabeth, I had this much space.

HAYES: Yeah, luxurious.

WENDLE: Luxury line.

ZARBOCK: But you had, or we had to make up our mind - do you want to sleep on your belly or do you want to sleep on your back? Once you're in, that's where you're going to be.

WENDLE: Yeah. I didn't remember that this was quite that- quite that close there on the way back. I--

HAYES: Yeah, but you were also so glad to be coming back, right?

WENDLE: Oh, yeah sure. Uhm.. I do remember in this storm that there was a crap game going on down the end of the aisle that I was in and this fella kept walking by every once in a while. And I decided I was going to go up on deck and get a little air and I walked back. The next time he walked back, he was going over and checking the side of the ship and made sure that it wasn't cracking 'cause we had read about one of the- uh.. the liberty ships cracking while I was at- uh.. in Alaska.

HAYES: Really?

WENDLE: Yeah. Just- just cracked it by the weld somewhere and so he was- he must have read that too 'cause he was going over, inspect the side of the ship.

HAYES: He wanted to get home.

WENDLE: Yeah. Well it was a great day coming into New York Harbor.

HAYES: Oh, tell us about that. That's great.

WENDLE: When I first, that's kind of a dim memory other than to say it was wonderful to see the Statue of Liberty and a familiar sight like that.

HAYES: Now when you disembarked, were family notified, or anybody there?

WENDLE: No. Nobody was there. I went to- uhm.. right outside New Brunswick, New Jersey. Uhm..--

ZARBOCK: It's not Fort Dix is it?

WENDLE: No. No. Fort Dix is down by Trenton so uh..- but this is pre-- I actually was separated at Fort Dix, but I- I got this one right. I get mixed up. Now Camp Shanks is in New York and- and Fort Dix was down there. But this was another one right outside of New Brunswick.

HAYES: No. No. No. I know your wife's name is Virginia. Ginny.

WENDLE: Hmm-mm.

HAYES: And you've been married for a long, long time. Did you know her during the war, or did you have her as a correspondence or a correspondent?

WENDLE: Poor correspondent for me. I was- I was the worst writer. I got the chaplain to visit me in the hospital over there because I hadn't written home and my folks were worried and uhm.. I thought they deserved some- some visit. But anyway, uh.. uh.. no, Virginia and I lived two doors apart uhm.. when I was in- when I lived in Louisburg. And uh.. so we were friends for a long time before. She's known me since I was probably uh.. six years old.

HAYES: So did she write during the war then?

WENDLE: Yes, she did. Uhm.. Well, she wrote- she wrote after the war.

HAYES: After the war.

WENDLE: After the war, yeah.

HAYES: Well, one of the reasons I ask that is that I'm always amazed as people still got mail through this whole process, and I don't know how it happens. So did you get mail call and things came from your folks?

WENDLE: Oh, yeah. I got-- Yeah. V-mail - the little sheets that were photostatted and- and sent over. Uh.. I wish I had some. I wish I had saved a bunch but uh.. yeah, we got all mail. It was amazing. We got- got packages on occasion. I don't remember overseas now getting a package but I- I- I must have. Uhm.. But letters, yeah.

HAYES: Isn't that something? I just think that's--

WENDLE: I think- I think it's great I mean that they get the- the mail. I think it's good.

HAYES: So now you're at Fort Dix ready to get out, right?

WENDLE: Hmm-mm, and going through all the stages of signing whatever I had to sign to get out.

HAYES: [Laughter] Were they encouraging you to stay in? I mean there was a certain element of shouldn't you re-up, or was there any of that going on?

WENDLE: I don't remember that there was that much. There wasn't any pressure on me to do that. Uhm.. With so many being discharged out of that, I don't think there was that- that emphasis at the time. I don't know. How many did we have in the service - 12 million total.

ZARBOCK: And the policy was shrink the services.

WENDLE: Yeah. Shrink it.

ZARBOCK: So really, reenlistment came along '47, '48 when the Cold War began to bubble up and--

WENDLE: Yeah.

HAYES: You didn't stay in the Reserve or anything like that?

WENDLE: No. No. One of my friends uh.. while he was away in he service uh.. he got uh.. I guess impatient and- and went off with somebody else, uh.. his girlfriend and- and he came to see us when we first moved to Wilmington, Delaware after I got outta college. This was uhm.. probably a week before the Korean War started and he was kind of at loose ends and uh.. he said, "Well," he says, "I just joined the Naval Reserve" because he had been in the Navy during the war. A week later he got called up because of the Korean War. So he's back in the Navy now and I just started a job and had a child and a wife.

HAYES: So you went back to school very quickly after that. Or went to school.

WENDLE: Went to school right after the war.

HAYES: Even though the Army didn't honor your commitment to go to college, you've decided to go.

WENDLE: No, but- uh.. but the GI Bill put me through school.

HAYES: Okay. I wondered about that.

ZARBOCK: Where did you graduate?

WENDLE: Bucknell, Pennsylvania.

HAYES: And in chemical engineering.

WENDLE: Chemical engineering, yeah. Oh, I didn't tell you that my assignment at- at the University of Wisconsin was in electrical engineering 'cause they wouldn't let me take chemical engineering, which surprised me because there's a chemical warfare branch too and I thought, "You know, gee whiz. That's- I- I want to be a chemical engineer anyway."

ZARBOCK: Yeah. Well I'd like to round that off. Have you ever been on the campus of the University of Wisconsin?

WENDLE: Yes. Uh.. Well, I say yes. I think that's where we met. I went out there to uhm.. sort of in later years at one of the bu- uh.. conferences here and I went out to a conference that was held there.

ZARBOCK: It's a lovely campus.

WENDLE: Yeah. I- I don't remember a lot about it because I was in- indoors most of the time, but I'm sure it is out there.

HAYES: Well Paul, why don't we end with the question that you always end with and I think it's a good one.

ZARBOCK: Looking back at those events, there's nothing to compare to with warfare. Warfare is the single separate social event that doesn't reappear from time-to-time. I mean that's an amber block. What did you learn from all of that? What would you tell your children and your grandchildren?

WENDLE: Well it's not a pleasant experience, that's for sure, in the active area. Uhm.. But I'd say it's uh.. an honorable thing when your country is attacked to defend it and it needs to be done. Keep your head down if you're in it for sure, but do your duty. That's the main thing I see out of it. Do your duty and uh..--

ZARBOCK: Other people have said, "One of the things I learned, I was a teenager. I learned self-reliance and I learned to share."

WENDLE: Hmm-mm. Yeah.

ZARBOCK: That unless you supported your buddies and your buddies supported you--

WENDLE: That's right.

ZARBOCK: It was hell on earth.

WENDLE: Oh, yeah. You bet.

ZARBOCK: So you learned to live in groups.

WENDLE: Right.

ZARBOCK: And also take care of yourself.

WENDLE: Yeah. For sure. One thing I- I should have said somewhere along the line; uh.. the Boy Scout experience was a tremendous help to me.

HAYES: Oh, interesting. You were an active Boy Scout?

WENDLE: As long as I could when I lived in the- in the town 'til we moved to Wilmington, Delaware. Then I lost touch with them. Uhm.. I was on my way to, you know, getting enough for a first class, but that's where I stopped. But the camping experience and the outdoors experience was a big preparation for being in the infantry.

HAYES: Interesting.

WENDLE: Just uh.. you know, how to get along in the outdoors.

HAYES: Plus you must have thought while you were in Europe that Georgia looked pretty warm about now, right?

WENDLE: A bit warm, all right. Yeah.

HAYES: [Laughter] So you thought it was cold and boy, it couldn't get much colder than--

WENDLE: Yeah. It was- it was- it was a cold winter all right. I'm amazed that we didn't all come down with pneumonia or something like that. It's just a matter-- I guess we were in pretty good shape because this was miserable, miserable uh.. weather to be outside and I don't remember being that cold. Uh.. Now we didn't have good shoes at first and the worst of it is I just got these things they call shoe packs just before I- I got out into the woods again. The shoe packs were rubber up into here with uh..- or leather up here and rubber down below and they had a- uh.. a half-inch of insole felt, supposedly there to keep your feet warm, but didn't quite do it. It made 'em sweat and maybe that was the bad deal.

HAYES: Yep. That's what they found out later I think.

ZARBOCK: One of the worst things you could do is to get a coat of mud on your shoes and not kick that off. I saw some young kids; their boots were muddy. Well, they didn't last very long because it was insulating the cold into the shoe.

WENDLE: That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

ZARBOCK: And a wet shoe with mud on top, you might as well head for the orthopedic ward. Well.

HAYES: Listen, thank you very much.

WENDLE: You're welcome. I don't know that I had much of a story to tell you.

HAYES: Oh, we loved it.