November 11, 2019 • 24 mins
On this first episode of SERVICE, World War II veteran Pasquale D’Ambrosio of the Army’s 96th Division shares how the Great Depression and natural disasters affected his Keene, New Hampshire community even before the United States joined the war in 1941. Then, why he loved military food, how the drop of the atomic bombs might just have spared his life, and what he saw of hunger in the South West Pacific theatre.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
He spent potatoes and another ship peel potatos and basic.
I think she was talking about the guy she's been
dating down and you camp, go out and Georgia. I
was on KP three or four times and it was nice.
Just got the potatoes field they got. They made meals,
(00:26):
but we brought them. Hi. I'm Jacqueline Proposo and that's
me a few years back with my grandparents Pasqual Enhancing
d Ambrosio. Every generation of the American side of my
family has served in the armed forces as far back
as the Civil War. Yet, even though I'm a food
writer and it's my job to interview people, I felt
(00:48):
uncomfortable starting conversations with the veterans in my life, the
family members and friends and military men i've dated, because
their life experiences in the service have roamed so far
across time and space from mine as a civilian, I
didn't know how to welcome them to the table and
respectfully invite the complexity of their stories. Until now. My mother,
(01:11):
Glory was a wonderful court. We ate a variety of
foods that people nowadays never heard of, like chicken feet.
My mother had a very hard time. She had three
sons in the rolling combat. My brother and two of
his friends joined the Navy. My father was upset because
of Afro American background, the Navy own accept them as
mess attendants. Coming out of depression, the immigrants in Japan
(01:35):
really went wild. Instead of five acres or ten acres,
they would go to a thousand acres. Welcome to Service,
Stories of Hunger and War A production from I Heeart
Radio and Me your host, Jacqueline Proposo. Everybody eats right.
Most of us eat for more than merely sustenance, and
(01:57):
how we eat can connect us with home and family
and friends. But then, how does a personal food story
change when a civilian becomes a soldier, or a sailor,
or a fighter pilot or a wartime nurse. On Service,
We're going to explore the food stories of individual veterans
and wartime volunteers from World War Two through today. This season,
(02:19):
we'll hear from those whose lives were changed on December seventh,
ninety one, when the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor
and President Franklin D. Roosevelt led the United States into
the World War. We start with Pisqualdy Ambrosio, my papa,
unlike most of the veterans will hear from this season. Pat,
as he's known to friends and loved ones, did not
(02:41):
see active combat. We'll hear later on what kept him
from the fray, but his story sets a scene of
how war immediately and irreversibly touches communities, in this case
community still reeling from World War one stock market crash
and the great depression that followed, which greatly affected the
earth the lives of these veterans and their families into
(03:02):
the start of the war. And so now from his
home in Bridgeport, Connecticut, let's slow down and sit with Pat.
The Ambrosio I was born in Keene, New Hampshire, November
the eleventh Veterans the amesist and I grew up in Gain.
(03:26):
My mother came from Toto de Pasta, which is up
northeast of Rome. My dad came from outside of Sladino,
a little town of Campagna, which was a mountain town.
At eight, it was the first girl, Mary died. She
was sixteen when she died. It was Mary and Doris.
(03:46):
My first Pascual died when he was five nineteen twenty three.
He died at Influenza, and it was Rabbit and Gain
Keene lost the law influenza, and then Mike and then
Antonette Josephine me into. He had eight hours small town
factory town. They had a woolen mill which my dad
(04:08):
worked for years. They had k Felts which made all
the nail clippers and stuff like that. They had that.
They had a toy company that made cast iron toys
and during the war it become a war production of
some kind. My dad had a garden in the back
hundred feet white and hundred and fifty feet long, which
(04:31):
he had to spade by hand, shoveled by shovel didn
end it. He had corn, tomatoes, He had rube bob
which they used to make a lot of rue bob
pie and horseradish great hush then with the extra peppers.
My mother used to make jas a relish in pickles,
and she had mason jars as two quarts because they
(04:52):
didn't have a feether, so she put in four or
five years a corner and cann it and it would
last a solid year long. When you open them up,
it was almost as if it was fresh. And I
think three six we had our first flood. In that fall.
My mother had did all this Canning and mcquart John Mason's.
(05:15):
They had him all over the suller preserved for the winter,
but the water came in within two inches of coming
into the house. Everything had to be thrown out. It
was sort of sad because the border was floating up
almost the end of the house. My father was up,
my older brother Mike was with the Red Cross because
me Georgephene and that that, and my mother was just
saying the Rosary like crazy, you know. It was Sunday morning,
(06:00):
ye yesterday, December seventh, nineteen one, a date which will
live in infamy. The United States of America was suddenly
(06:20):
and deliberately attacked by naval and their forces of the
Empire of Japan. Well next to a neighbor, Joe Dennis.
He had joined the nineteen nine and he was a
cook on a destroyer stationed to prel Harbor. But his
ship was out to sea when it happened, so Joe
(06:42):
was saved. Whatever happened to him during the war after
the war, I don't know. But she had seven sons
and they were all in the service. Keene had a
lot of kids who went in Mike was twenty three
years old. He joined the Navy. Six months after he
got married. He came home September. I wasn't home to
see him. Went on the Frieda. He got killed in October.
(07:08):
I was a usher in a movie theater at that time,
fifteen years old, fifteen sixteen, and Tony was six or seven.
And he came and he was crying like crazy. Jesus,
Mike is missing in action. The ship was brand new
s S. John Carter Rose, and they had twenty six
thousand barrels of high octane gas put in on the
(07:30):
number one and number two old, along with jeeps and
planes and whatever they took. And they went from New
York down to South America. And from South America they
went across to go to Sura Leoni. They got torpedoed
at night, but it didn't work. The two submarines come
up and torpedo them in the morning and it hit
the gas and it blew out the whole top. Now,
(07:54):
Mike was a gun is made on a five inch
gun at the bout right on the top. And two
of his shipmates came to the house. Had happened so fast?
He's myself and two or three got the guy who
kept blown into the water when we were saved, so
we never knew what happened to Mike. The only thing
I know he must have fallen down in the fire.
(08:15):
That's probably how he died. So he was listening missing
in action for a year after year to claim dead.
Five of his classmates that graduated were all killed in
World War two to five of that one class, the
(08:45):
John Carter Rose sank October of the sixty one aboard.
Seven others died along with Michael Joseph d Ambrosio. The
survivors were helped into lifeboats. The Germans gave the medical
supplies and bread pointed them towards Venezuela. Non listed are
living today. Starting in World War One, families would hang
(09:08):
a banner in their window with a blue star for
every member they had in service. So Joe Dennis's mother
had seven blue stars hanging on her banner. After Mike died,
as was tradition, his blue star was changed to a
gold one. This is why we refer to blue and
gold star families today. After the break so this is
when President Druman says dropped to bombs. Stay with us,
(09:50):
Welcome back to service. Stories of hunger and war from
My Heart Radio I'm Jacqueline Reposo, and we returned to
psquality Ambrosio story. In September of nineteen forty, Germany, Italy
and Japan signs the access packed and President Roosevelt put
the draft into place, requiring men between twenty one and
forty five to register for what could be a one
(10:12):
year term. Here are pat enhancing again at their supper table,
remembering how this affected their families and how things quickly
escalated when the United States then joined the war in
December of nineteen forty one. Nineteen two nine, that was
the big parade where we said goodbye and all of
them supposedly for one year, some of them once never
(10:34):
came back. That's why I can't stand prades to this day.
Little by little we kiss boys goodbye. My brother Billy
went in in nineteen forty two, by brother Victor went
in nineteen forty three. My cousin Mitty. They were black
chaper flat seed. So yeah, these acts broken, I don't know,
(10:57):
want to feel fitting mended and he ended up with
the Marine Battalion that work into your achieveda never table.
By the time Japan surrendered in August of nine, roughly
fifty million men's registration had been approved for the draft,
(11:18):
and ten million been called to join the armed forces.
Let's return to a few months before this, in the
spring of President Roosevelt's death in the middle of his
third term, has left Harry Truman president, and Pat is
now eighteen. By the time I turned eighteen, the war
was almost over. I got drafted, I took basic don
(11:41):
and Georgia infantry basin. We went down on the pullman.
We went across country of pullman's. We used to have
to walk suilty kitchen ka and then come back, pick
up our plates and go to our pullman and sit
down and meet in our chairs, and they would come
in and make up the bunks. At night we used
to sleep in pullman caused and I saw it like
that because used to get the bed, used to hear
(12:03):
the clicking, the click click, and it would put you
to stleet. By the time I got on board ship
to go overseas, it was sometime in the early potto July.
We were going out at the Golden Gate at ten
o'clock at night. We stood on board ship and saw
(12:25):
the lights of Oakland dimmer and dimmer and dimmer at
night until it was gone, so we went to Manila.
From Manila, we went to Mindoro that was with the
NINETI Division, and we were slated to invade Japan. Remember
the first nineteen can you Shoe, which is in the
(12:46):
southern part was heavily fortified, not only by the army
but by the civilians. And someone said, I don't know
if it's true or not that they had found inland
they had barrels of barrels and barrels of oil with
gas with lines out into the Japanese harbor. That if
we had invaded, they would have released this oil, they
(13:08):
would have come to the top and they would have
settled on fair. Truman found out that the invasion of
Japan would have been wished twice the size of Nomande.
So this is when President Drumans has dropped the bombs.
The British, Chinese and United States government have given the
Japanese people adequate warning of what is in store for them.
(13:31):
We have laid down the general terms on which they
can surrender. Our warning went unheeded, Our terms were rejected.
Since then, the Japanese have seen what our atomic bomb
can do. They can foresee what it will do in
the future. The world will note that the first atomic
bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was
(13:55):
because we wished in the first attack to avoid, in
so far as possible, the killing of civilian But that
attack is only a warning of things to come. If
Japan does not surrender, bombs will have to be dropped
on her war industries, and unfortunately, thousands of civilian lives
will be lost. I heard Japanese civilians to leave industrial
(14:19):
cities immediately and save themselves from destruction. So they dropped
the two bombs, and that's when the war was in it.
(14:42):
They celebrated. They bought a caribou or shot a caribou.
We had meat for the first time in a long time.
My mother has sent me a package with salami and
a bottle. Who made wine at salami had mold on it,
so one of the cooks is no, no, no no.
He washed it with vinegar. So we ate the slamy
and we drank my father's wine. That's how we celebrated.
(15:09):
I had a friend that I got drafted with, and
we were on Manduro together and we used to walk
through the jungle to the village and he used to
like what they called the bulluts, which is our n egg,
and an egg would get almost three quarters were toured.
They used to crack this embiopo and the Filipinos used
to eat this somehow, and he used to love them.
(15:30):
I could never eat them, but it was a popular
dish in the Filipinos they call the bulluts. And then
a couple of girls used to come in and we
used to pay him to do our laundries to give
them food. You know. The saddest thing when I got
over there, they were so hungry. What we didn't eat,
we used to put the barrel to it and they
used to pick it out of the barrels. So instead
of that, we used to just not eat deliberately and
(15:53):
give these people the food from our mis cats because
they were so hungry and so destitute for food. They
had it tough. Oh they had had. People don't realize
the trouble they went through with the Japanese and all.
And then the division had captured maybe Japanese, which we
had prisoners of war, and I remember them. They lived
(16:15):
in tents and they come out in the morning and
they would work doing manual work around put the floors
in the tents and the sides of the tents and
doing the cleaning of the yards and stuff like that.
But they were treated with respect. They were treated with respect.
But the food was good. In the army. I enjoyed it.
(16:36):
They had hot meals in the kitchen. There was cooks fresh.
It was good cooking. They used to have something like
brown Hamburger. Used to call it ship on the sled
s os and I used to put this on toast
in the morning and I used to love it. I
don't know, and the guys used to say, you're great,
but it was so good. Once in a while I
used to still make it here, the brown gravy over toast.
(16:57):
They used to love it on mashed potatoes. The food
is good. I liked it. And even the sea rations.
They were like extra lash cracker jack boxes and then
that they had a dried biscuit. They had a little
package of three or four cigarettes, something like jerky, which
wasn't bad. It was tasty. This was our dinner instead
of hot dinners when you're out in the woods, are
out on training. I remember one time I was on
(17:20):
KP the size and says, let's do something special, and
somebody suggested take the bed seats, and we put the
bed seats on the tables, because we eat on bed
tables like your picnic tables today. We put the bed
seats on the tables, cut up to sura and put
the suri and glasses and put them on the tables
like bouquets of flowers. And then the guys came in,
(17:40):
sat down and up. My first Thanksgiving, well, I wasn't
a picky. I was very very lucky. I liked I
liked everything. After the war ended, we started the dispose
of some of the equipment that was on the island.
They didn't want to take a back to the States.
(18:01):
We had to load it on rafts. The guns a
hundred and fifty five hours hours that they had a
four inch piece of it. Used to load them in
from the back. I used to have to turn around
and push it in and then pull the lanyard when
they said fire. And after that we took another LSD
or whatever it was. The LSD is a big landing ship.
They used to load the tanks in the jeeps in
(18:21):
the drugs to men and Now. And we set up
at men and Now and this is when I joined
the field out terry. I used to miss Atlanta. My
mother had a four by four board and my sister
George Phine, he used to make the pool lantern spread
it on this board. We used to sit on this table.
(18:41):
My mother used to put the sauce on the pool
and as kids used to square off. This is my
portion and my sister and hurt portion, and my sister
Georgephine used to have our portion. We used to plender
off the board. And that's what I missed because they
had macaroni. But it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't
like the macaroni was the best they could make. But
that's what I missed. That's what I missed. I was
(19:08):
in communications. I was up on top of the telephone
pole hooking in electric clients to SiGe and says, you
get down here, you're going home. Your kidding. I came
down so fast my spikes slipped stupidly, you know. I
grabbed the pole and I come down the pole like
this to splinters from the new pole got ripped through
my shirts and I got to the bottom and this
(19:31):
little Filipino boy was laughing like hell, I took a
stone I hit and has with it. I was so nervous.
It's crazy and hurt, you know. And then I started
to laugh at the kid, I say, what could you do?
You know? So I had to go to the medics
that they're taking splinters out of me and they're putting
I dine or something on it and nearly killed me.
I didn't bother. I was coming home. Coming back. We
(19:58):
hit on a Sunday morning and there was a Catholic
mass being said on that as we were coming underneath
the Golden Gate. We went back into Oakland. This is
where we this embarked. We got loaded on cattle cars,
which I liked because we had permanent bunks. We could
sleep during the day. Our food was traded the same way.
We used to have to walk through the cooking area
(20:19):
to come back with our meskets, go back to the
cattle cars and need it. But the food was hot.
And this is the way we came across the country.
Back home in New York, I had the Duffel bag.
I put that in the locker. I kept a little
overnight bag. And I got out of Penn Station and
I started to walk up Fifth Heaven and I guess
(20:41):
I saw the umpire stable, so like a country boy,
I'm looking up in the sky and I can't see it.
So is that time a chad is sixty cents foot
service people to go in. So I went in there
and took in the elevator to the Eliot floor. The
Eliot floor at that time had a buy in a restaurant,
so I was having old fashions. So I thanked two
(21:02):
or three old fashions. I had something to eat. I
went up to the hundred and second floor and I
had a few more drinks, and then this big god
come up and he says, you okay. This guy took
me inside the spiral and then we got up there.
I said, you know, I've been drinking no eases. It's
not uses. It's the building. Empire say, building sways back
(21:22):
and forth. Up on top of the Empire Stayed building.
They had the phone. So I called up my mother
and father says, hey. I says, I'm on top of
the Empire State Building. He says, what, I'm on top
of the Empire State Building when you're coming home. But
I'm not coming home until I see New York. By
the time I took the elevator down. The elevator coming
down the eighty of four came down so fast I
(21:42):
almost threw up, and a little by little I walked up.
I ended up in Central Park, but Tavern on the Green.
I had a little bit to eat. Then I took
a taxi pack to the Sloan's wam c A. That's
been the rest of his service, running the movie projector
at a GI hospital in Long Island. He returned home
(22:04):
to Keene, got married to Hansen, and joined the National Guard.
When they moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut with their three young children,
he continued his service there. They had nine grandchildren, nine
great grandchildren, and three great great grandchildren. Hanseen passed away
in April, her stories passing with her. You may have
caught that Pat's birthday is Veterans Day, or taking him
(22:27):
to Tavern on the Green. Like many family members of
those who have served, I hadn't heard the details of
these stories growing up, and what always read like humility,
my Papa only vaguely referenced that if what I later
found out to be called Operation Downfall hadn't been stopped
by the drop of the atomic bombs and the surrender
of the Japanese, he wouldn't be here today. I guess
(22:50):
that means neither would I. It's part of the discomfort
in talking about winning a war an unsettling gratitude. In
our next episode, we dig deep into unsettling gratitude with
Frank da Vita, a Coastguard gunner's mate who faced four
major engagements and also shared Pat's distaste for military MACARRONI.
(23:12):
Until then, I invite you to invite your loved ones
to the table, and, if so inclined, share their stories
back with us at Service podcast dot org and at
Service podcast on Instagram and Facebook, where you can see
photos of Pat, the John Carter, Rose, Maria d' ambrosio
and her gold Star mother's uniform and more, as well
as find resources around what we're learning. You can also
send messages to our veterans There Service. As a production
(23:35):
of I Heart Radio. This episode was produced and edited
by me Jacqueline Roposo. Gabrielle Collins is our supervising producer.
Our executive producer is Christopher Hassiotis. Our art is by
Girl Friday. Thank you for listening, and thank you those
who are serving and those who have served. Two
He spent potatoes and another ship peel potatos and basic.
I think she was talking about the guy she's been
dating down and you camp, go out and Georgia. I
was on KP three or four times and it was nice.
Just got the potatoes field they got. They made meals,
(00:26):
but we brought them. Hi. I'm Jacqueline Proposo and that's
me a few years back with my grandparents Pasqual Enhancing
d Ambrosio. Every generation of the American side of my
family has served in the armed forces as far back
as the Civil War. Yet, even though I'm a food
writer and it's my job to interview people, I felt
(00:48):
uncomfortable starting conversations with the veterans in my life, the
family members and friends and military men i've dated, because
their life experiences in the service have roamed so far
across time and space from mine as a civilian, I
didn't know how to welcome them to the table and
respectfully invite the complexity of their stories. Until now. My mother,
(01:11):
Glory was a wonderful court. We ate a variety of
foods that people nowadays never heard of, like chicken feet.
My mother had a very hard time. She had three
sons in the rolling combat. My brother and two of
his friends joined the Navy. My father was upset because
of Afro American background, the Navy own accept them as
mess attendants. Coming out of depression, the immigrants in Japan
(01:35):
really went wild. Instead of five acres or ten acres,
they would go to a thousand acres. Welcome to Service,
Stories of Hunger and War A production from I Heeart
Radio and Me your host, Jacqueline Proposo. Everybody eats right.
Most of us eat for more than merely sustenance, and
(01:57):
how we eat can connect us with home and family
and friends. But then, how does a personal food story
change when a civilian becomes a soldier, or a sailor,
or a fighter pilot or a wartime nurse. On Service,
We're going to explore the food stories of individual veterans
and wartime volunteers from World War Two through today. This season,
(02:19):
we'll hear from those whose lives were changed on December seventh,
ninety one, when the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor
and President Franklin D. Roosevelt led the United States into
the World War. We start with Pisqualdy Ambrosio, my papa,
unlike most of the veterans will hear from this season. Pat,
as he's known to friends and loved ones, did not
(02:41):
see active combat. We'll hear later on what kept him
from the fray, but his story sets a scene of
how war immediately and irreversibly touches communities, in this case
community still reeling from World War one stock market crash
and the great depression that followed, which greatly affected the
earth the lives of these veterans and their families into
(03:02):
the start of the war. And so now from his
home in Bridgeport, Connecticut, let's slow down and sit with Pat.
The Ambrosio I was born in Keene, New Hampshire, November
the eleventh Veterans the amesist and I grew up in Gain.
(03:26):
My mother came from Toto de Pasta, which is up
northeast of Rome. My dad came from outside of Sladino,
a little town of Campagna, which was a mountain town.
At eight, it was the first girl, Mary died. She
was sixteen when she died. It was Mary and Doris.
(03:46):
My first Pascual died when he was five nineteen twenty three.
He died at Influenza, and it was Rabbit and Gain
Keene lost the law influenza, and then Mike and then
Antonette Josephine me into. He had eight hours small town
factory town. They had a woolen mill which my dad
(04:08):
worked for years. They had k Felts which made all
the nail clippers and stuff like that. They had that.
They had a toy company that made cast iron toys
and during the war it become a war production of
some kind. My dad had a garden in the back
hundred feet white and hundred and fifty feet long, which
(04:31):
he had to spade by hand, shoveled by shovel didn
end it. He had corn, tomatoes, He had rube bob
which they used to make a lot of rue bob
pie and horseradish great hush then with the extra peppers.
My mother used to make jas a relish in pickles,
and she had mason jars as two quarts because they
(04:52):
didn't have a feether, so she put in four or
five years a corner and cann it and it would
last a solid year long. When you open them up,
it was almost as if it was fresh. And I
think three six we had our first flood. In that fall.
My mother had did all this Canning and mcquart John Mason's.
(05:15):
They had him all over the suller preserved for the winter,
but the water came in within two inches of coming
into the house. Everything had to be thrown out. It
was sort of sad because the border was floating up
almost the end of the house. My father was up,
my older brother Mike was with the Red Cross because
me Georgephene and that that, and my mother was just
saying the Rosary like crazy, you know. It was Sunday morning,
(06:00):
ye yesterday, December seventh, nineteen one, a date which will
live in infamy. The United States of America was suddenly
(06:20):
and deliberately attacked by naval and their forces of the
Empire of Japan. Well next to a neighbor, Joe Dennis.
He had joined the nineteen nine and he was a
cook on a destroyer stationed to prel Harbor. But his
ship was out to sea when it happened, so Joe
(06:42):
was saved. Whatever happened to him during the war after
the war, I don't know. But she had seven sons
and they were all in the service. Keene had a
lot of kids who went in Mike was twenty three
years old. He joined the Navy. Six months after he
got married. He came home September. I wasn't home to
see him. Went on the Frieda. He got killed in October.
(07:08):
I was a usher in a movie theater at that time,
fifteen years old, fifteen sixteen, and Tony was six or seven.
And he came and he was crying like crazy. Jesus,
Mike is missing in action. The ship was brand new
s S. John Carter Rose, and they had twenty six
thousand barrels of high octane gas put in on the
(07:30):
number one and number two old, along with jeeps and
planes and whatever they took. And they went from New
York down to South America. And from South America they
went across to go to Sura Leoni. They got torpedoed
at night, but it didn't work. The two submarines come
up and torpedo them in the morning and it hit
the gas and it blew out the whole top. Now,
(07:54):
Mike was a gun is made on a five inch
gun at the bout right on the top. And two
of his shipmates came to the house. Had happened so fast?
He's myself and two or three got the guy who
kept blown into the water when we were saved, so
we never knew what happened to Mike. The only thing
I know he must have fallen down in the fire.
(08:15):
That's probably how he died. So he was listening missing
in action for a year after year to claim dead.
Five of his classmates that graduated were all killed in
World War two to five of that one class, the
(08:45):
John Carter Rose sank October of the sixty one aboard.
Seven others died along with Michael Joseph d Ambrosio. The
survivors were helped into lifeboats. The Germans gave the medical
supplies and bread pointed them towards Venezuela. Non listed are
living today. Starting in World War One, families would hang
(09:08):
a banner in their window with a blue star for
every member they had in service. So Joe Dennis's mother
had seven blue stars hanging on her banner. After Mike died,
as was tradition, his blue star was changed to a
gold one. This is why we refer to blue and
gold star families today. After the break so this is
when President Druman says dropped to bombs. Stay with us,
(09:50):
Welcome back to service. Stories of hunger and war from
My Heart Radio I'm Jacqueline Reposo, and we returned to
psquality Ambrosio story. In September of nineteen forty, Germany, Italy
and Japan signs the access packed and President Roosevelt put
the draft into place, requiring men between twenty one and
forty five to register for what could be a one
(10:12):
year term. Here are pat enhancing again at their supper table,
remembering how this affected their families and how things quickly
escalated when the United States then joined the war in
December of nineteen forty one. Nineteen two nine, that was
the big parade where we said goodbye and all of
them supposedly for one year, some of them once never
(10:34):
came back. That's why I can't stand prades to this day.
Little by little we kiss boys goodbye. My brother Billy
went in in nineteen forty two, by brother Victor went
in nineteen forty three. My cousin Mitty. They were black
chaper flat seed. So yeah, these acts broken, I don't know,
(10:57):
want to feel fitting mended and he ended up with
the Marine Battalion that work into your achieveda never table.
By the time Japan surrendered in August of nine, roughly
fifty million men's registration had been approved for the draft,
(11:18):
and ten million been called to join the armed forces.
Let's return to a few months before this, in the
spring of President Roosevelt's death in the middle of his
third term, has left Harry Truman president, and Pat is
now eighteen. By the time I turned eighteen, the war
was almost over. I got drafted, I took basic don
(11:41):
and Georgia infantry basin. We went down on the pullman.
We went across country of pullman's. We used to have
to walk suilty kitchen ka and then come back, pick
up our plates and go to our pullman and sit
down and meet in our chairs, and they would come
in and make up the bunks. At night we used
to sleep in pullman caused and I saw it like
that because used to get the bed, used to hear
(12:03):
the clicking, the click click, and it would put you
to stleet. By the time I got on board ship
to go overseas, it was sometime in the early potto July.
We were going out at the Golden Gate at ten
o'clock at night. We stood on board ship and saw
(12:25):
the lights of Oakland dimmer and dimmer and dimmer at
night until it was gone, so we went to Manila.
From Manila, we went to Mindoro that was with the
NINETI Division, and we were slated to invade Japan. Remember
the first nineteen can you Shoe, which is in the
(12:46):
southern part was heavily fortified, not only by the army
but by the civilians. And someone said, I don't know
if it's true or not that they had found inland
they had barrels of barrels and barrels of oil with
gas with lines out into the Japanese harbor. That if
we had invaded, they would have released this oil, they
(13:08):
would have come to the top and they would have
settled on fair. Truman found out that the invasion of
Japan would have been wished twice the size of Nomande.
So this is when President Drumans has dropped the bombs.
The British, Chinese and United States government have given the
Japanese people adequate warning of what is in store for them.
(13:31):
We have laid down the general terms on which they
can surrender. Our warning went unheeded, Our terms were rejected.
Since then, the Japanese have seen what our atomic bomb
can do. They can foresee what it will do in
the future. The world will note that the first atomic
bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was
(13:55):
because we wished in the first attack to avoid, in
so far as possible, the killing of civilian But that
attack is only a warning of things to come. If
Japan does not surrender, bombs will have to be dropped
on her war industries, and unfortunately, thousands of civilian lives
will be lost. I heard Japanese civilians to leave industrial
(14:19):
cities immediately and save themselves from destruction. So they dropped
the two bombs, and that's when the war was in it.
(14:42):
They celebrated. They bought a caribou or shot a caribou.
We had meat for the first time in a long time.
My mother has sent me a package with salami and
a bottle. Who made wine at salami had mold on it,
so one of the cooks is no, no, no no.
He washed it with vinegar. So we ate the slamy
and we drank my father's wine. That's how we celebrated.
(15:09):
I had a friend that I got drafted with, and
we were on Manduro together and we used to walk
through the jungle to the village and he used to
like what they called the bulluts, which is our n egg,
and an egg would get almost three quarters were toured.
They used to crack this embiopo and the Filipinos used
to eat this somehow, and he used to love them.
(15:30):
I could never eat them, but it was a popular
dish in the Filipinos they call the bulluts. And then
a couple of girls used to come in and we
used to pay him to do our laundries to give
them food. You know. The saddest thing when I got
over there, they were so hungry. What we didn't eat,
we used to put the barrel to it and they
used to pick it out of the barrels. So instead
of that, we used to just not eat deliberately and
(15:53):
give these people the food from our mis cats because
they were so hungry and so destitute for food. They
had it tough. Oh they had had. People don't realize
the trouble they went through with the Japanese and all.
And then the division had captured maybe Japanese, which we
had prisoners of war, and I remember them. They lived
(16:15):
in tents and they come out in the morning and
they would work doing manual work around put the floors
in the tents and the sides of the tents and
doing the cleaning of the yards and stuff like that.
But they were treated with respect. They were treated with respect.
But the food was good. In the army. I enjoyed it.
(16:36):
They had hot meals in the kitchen. There was cooks fresh.
It was good cooking. They used to have something like
brown Hamburger. Used to call it ship on the sled
s os and I used to put this on toast
in the morning and I used to love it. I
don't know, and the guys used to say, you're great,
but it was so good. Once in a while I
used to still make it here, the brown gravy over toast.
(16:57):
They used to love it on mashed potatoes. The food
is good. I liked it. And even the sea rations.
They were like extra lash cracker jack boxes and then
that they had a dried biscuit. They had a little
package of three or four cigarettes, something like jerky, which
wasn't bad. It was tasty. This was our dinner instead
of hot dinners when you're out in the woods, are
out on training. I remember one time I was on
(17:20):
KP the size and says, let's do something special, and
somebody suggested take the bed seats, and we put the
bed seats on the tables, because we eat on bed
tables like your picnic tables today. We put the bed
seats on the tables, cut up to sura and put
the suri and glasses and put them on the tables
like bouquets of flowers. And then the guys came in,
(17:40):
sat down and up. My first Thanksgiving, well, I wasn't
a picky. I was very very lucky. I liked I
liked everything. After the war ended, we started the dispose
of some of the equipment that was on the island.
They didn't want to take a back to the States.
(18:01):
We had to load it on rafts. The guns a
hundred and fifty five hours hours that they had a
four inch piece of it. Used to load them in
from the back. I used to have to turn around
and push it in and then pull the lanyard when
they said fire. And after that we took another LSD
or whatever it was. The LSD is a big landing ship.
They used to load the tanks in the jeeps in
(18:21):
the drugs to men and Now. And we set up
at men and Now and this is when I joined
the field out terry. I used to miss Atlanta. My
mother had a four by four board and my sister
George Phine, he used to make the pool lantern spread
it on this board. We used to sit on this table.
(18:41):
My mother used to put the sauce on the pool
and as kids used to square off. This is my
portion and my sister and hurt portion, and my sister
Georgephine used to have our portion. We used to plender
off the board. And that's what I missed because they
had macaroni. But it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't
like the macaroni was the best they could make. But
that's what I missed. That's what I missed. I was
(19:08):
in communications. I was up on top of the telephone
pole hooking in electric clients to SiGe and says, you
get down here, you're going home. Your kidding. I came
down so fast my spikes slipped stupidly, you know. I
grabbed the pole and I come down the pole like
this to splinters from the new pole got ripped through
my shirts and I got to the bottom and this
(19:31):
little Filipino boy was laughing like hell, I took a
stone I hit and has with it. I was so nervous.
It's crazy and hurt, you know. And then I started
to laugh at the kid, I say, what could you do?
You know? So I had to go to the medics
that they're taking splinters out of me and they're putting
I dine or something on it and nearly killed me.
I didn't bother. I was coming home. Coming back. We
(19:58):
hit on a Sunday morning and there was a Catholic
mass being said on that as we were coming underneath
the Golden Gate. We went back into Oakland. This is
where we this embarked. We got loaded on cattle cars,
which I liked because we had permanent bunks. We could
sleep during the day. Our food was traded the same way.
We used to have to walk through the cooking area
(20:19):
to come back with our meskets, go back to the
cattle cars and need it. But the food was hot.
And this is the way we came across the country.
Back home in New York, I had the Duffel bag.
I put that in the locker. I kept a little
overnight bag. And I got out of Penn Station and
I started to walk up Fifth Heaven and I guess
(20:41):
I saw the umpire stable, so like a country boy,
I'm looking up in the sky and I can't see it.
So is that time a chad is sixty cents foot
service people to go in. So I went in there
and took in the elevator to the Eliot floor. The
Eliot floor at that time had a buy in a restaurant,
so I was having old fashions. So I thanked two
(21:02):
or three old fashions. I had something to eat. I
went up to the hundred and second floor and I
had a few more drinks, and then this big god
come up and he says, you okay. This guy took
me inside the spiral and then we got up there.
I said, you know, I've been drinking no eases. It's
not uses. It's the building. Empire say, building sways back
(21:22):
and forth. Up on top of the Empire Stayed building.
They had the phone. So I called up my mother
and father says, hey. I says, I'm on top of
the Empire State Building. He says, what, I'm on top
of the Empire State Building when you're coming home. But
I'm not coming home until I see New York. By
the time I took the elevator down. The elevator coming
down the eighty of four came down so fast I
(21:42):
almost threw up, and a little by little I walked up.
I ended up in Central Park, but Tavern on the Green.
I had a little bit to eat. Then I took
a taxi pack to the Sloan's wam c A. That's
been the rest of his service, running the movie projector
at a GI hospital in Long Island. He returned home
(22:04):
to Keene, got married to Hansen, and joined the National Guard.
When they moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut with their three young children,
he continued his service there. They had nine grandchildren, nine
great grandchildren, and three great great grandchildren. Hanseen passed away
in April, her stories passing with her. You may have
caught that Pat's birthday is Veterans Day, or taking him
(22:27):
to Tavern on the Green. Like many family members of
those who have served, I hadn't heard the details of
these stories growing up, and what always read like humility,
my Papa only vaguely referenced that if what I later
found out to be called Operation Downfall hadn't been stopped
by the drop of the atomic bombs and the surrender
of the Japanese, he wouldn't be here today. I guess
(22:50):
that means neither would I. It's part of the discomfort
in talking about winning a war an unsettling gratitude. In
our next episode, we dig deep into unsettling gratitude with
Frank da Vita, a Coastguard gunner's mate who faced four
major engagements and also shared Pat's distaste for military MACARRONI.
(23:12):
Until then, I invite you to invite your loved ones
to the table, and, if so inclined, share their stories
back with us at Service podcast dot org and at
Service podcast on Instagram and Facebook, where you can see
photos of Pat, the John Carter, Rose, Maria d' ambrosio
and her gold Star mother's uniform and more, as well
as find resources around what we're learning. You can also
send messages to our veterans There Service. As a production
(23:35):
of I Heart Radio. This episode was produced and edited
by me Jacqueline Roposo. Gabrielle Collins is our supervising producer.
Our executive producer is Christopher Hassiotis. Our art is by
Girl Friday. Thank you for listening, and thank you those
who are serving and those who have served. Two
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