All language subtitles for World at War e37 Experiences of War.en

I think Roosevelt was convinced
for a long time before Pearl Harbour

that we needed to get in.

He did everything he could
in a divided country,

such as the deal on the destroyers
and all of that kind of thing.

But he didn't have a united country
behind him until Pearl Harbour.

Then he did.

So that before Pearl Harbour, while
I'm pretty sure that he was convinced

that we must get in,

he couldn't openly take that position.

After Pearl Harbour, he could.

The country turned around absolutely,
at once.

Before that time,
this country was pretty divided

and there was a pretty hot argument

as to whether we needed to get into it,
whether we should,

whether our interests
were really involved and so forth.

After Pearl Harbour,
all opposition disappeared overnight.

The White House became the place

from which all orders
on every subject emerged

and became the centre
of an enormous structure

for fighting the war.

The way in which that happens
in this country is extraordinary.

The president is a far more
powerful man

in time of war, in many ways,
than is the prime minister.

You see, he has no…
His cabinet has no power.

They're simply his appointees
and his representatives.

His power becomes almost absolute
in time of war,

and no one questioned it.

Now, I think Roosevelt used this power
with great discretion.

For one thing, I don't think he ever
interfered improperly with his military,

and his military men made mistakes,

but he kept the power centred
in the combined chiefs of staff

and in our own chiefs of staff.

Of course, there's a nice story
if somebody would write it up.

Never was a war in history

where allies,
the military part of allies,

worked together
with such mutual confidence

and such integration of efforts
as in that war.

And that was centred
in the combined chiefs of staff.

It wasn't a piece of decoration.

That's where the great decisions
were made.

And that operated with great skill.

I think Sir John Dill should have
the credit for a good part of that.

(interviewer) As well as knowing
Roosevelt, you knew Churchill.

What were relations like
between Churchill and Roosevelt

when Churchill came to Washington?

—Many people think he dominated.
—Oh, I don't think he did.

I don't think anybody
ever dominated Roosevelt,

not even his wife.

But I think Churchill
had a great influence on Roosevelt,

and quite properly so.

In general,
a very good influence indeed.

What influence did the British have
on the strategy of the war?

Well, as I said a moment ago,

every great decision of a military type

was worked out in the combined chiefs.

Now, of course, for most of the war,

the strategy in the Pacific
was an American strategy.

It had to be.

The British were there
but had very minor power.

But as far as the war in Europe
was concerned,

the strategy was worked out jointly,

and it was genuine
joint discussion, consideration.

You know the long arguments
about the timing of Overlord.

There was disagreement on that timing.
But how did it get worked out?

It got worked out
in the combined chiefs of staff,

approved by Churchill and Roosevelt,
and that was it.

(interviewer) What was the mood like
in the White House

during this period of early disasters?

(Bush) Well, of course, it was a pretty
gloomy thing after Pearl Harbour.

But it didn't take long
for it to recover.

And it's strange to look back
on those days.

I knew, all of us that were
in the middle of it knew,

that we were very close
to losing that whole damn war

on account of the submarine.

We nearly lost the first war that way,
and we nearly lost the second one.

I don't think the people in this country
had any idea

that we were close to the rim,
but we were,

and anybody that was in the act
knew it.

What were the problems getting that
particular antisubmarine device to…?

The problem was getting new weapons
into operation.

At the height of the anti…
at the height of the submarine war,

there were about 40 ships being sunk
for each submarine that was being sunk.

The Germans were building submarines
faster than they were being sunk.

We were losing ships
faster than we were replacing them

and it looked very bad indeed.

Six months later, the ratio of sinkings
had dropped down to nearly one to one,

submarine to merchant ship.

What had happened in the meanwhile?

The British introduced their
antisubmarine rocket

in the Bay of Biscay,

which was a magnificent weapon
against the submarine.

I saw it tested in Britain
and it scared the tripe out of me.

Terrifying.

Americans introduced
the Mark 10 mine, so-called,

which was a target-seeking torpedo,

which you could drop
on where a submarine sank

and it would hunt it out
and run into it.

Centimetre radar, which could pick up
a periscope in the sea.

Magn… Magnetic detection.

Forward-thrown depth charges.

And there were three or four more.

A dozen weapons came in
right at that time and changed the tide.

And also the introduction
of hunter-killer groups.

Now, on that
the British were ahead of us.

You asked me a minute ago when the
decision was made to build an A-bomb.

Well, there wasn't any such decision,

but there was a time when it first
became recognised that it was possible.

And the thing
that turned the tide on that,

there were any number of reports from
the Academy of Sciences and so on,

but it was a British report

that really made everybody feel that,
after all, it probably could be done.

Now, of course,
we way underestimated

the time and the money
that would be required.

But the first real conviction
that the job could be done

came from a British report.

What would you consider the greatest
scientific achievement of the war?

Scientific? Well…

You mean the one that involved
the greatest technical difficulties.

Well, certainly you'd have to put
the atomic bomb

as one of the greatest.

But next I'd put the proximity fuse

and after that, radar,
and particularly centimetre radar.

Of course,
you people were ahead of us on radar,

but when we got going,
we produced the short-wave radar,

which was an enormous advance,

and the Germans,
incidentally, never got it.

Made quite a difference.

Proximity fuse. Think of it.

When they first presented that to me,

it came up on appeal because some of my
people had turned it down as impossible.

And I talked to four fellas
and finally said to them,

“I think it's impossible,
on the face of it,

but I will not stop four of you guys
that think it can be done.”

“Go ahead and waste your time,
beat your brains out trying to do it.”

But think of what they proposed to do.

They proposed to take a radio set
as big as a baking powder can,

put it in a shell, fire it off,

so it would press down on its support
with the force of a ton.

It would contain thermionic tubes,

little glass tubes
with filaments in 'em,

and they'd expect it
to be in operating condition

after it got out of the gun.

Now, on the face of it, it's…

…out of this world, yet they did it,

and I think it's the greatest technical
accomplishment that I know of.

You must have been approached
with several fanciful ideas.

Well, of course, we got any number
of perfectly absurd ideas.

And the fact was this—

you couldn't make
an intelligent suggestion

unless you knew
the conditions in the field,

and of course
the general public did not.

So that you wouldn't expect suggestions
from the public to mean much,

and they didn't.

The suggestions that meant something

came from the groups of civilians
and military men working together,

largely young men,

who knew the entire conditions
of warfare in a particular field

and from that,
saw where advances could be made.

The lesson the Second World War
taught us was to keep out of war.

And, fortunately, I think
the atomic bomb has done just that

for the last generation,

and I hope and trust
it'll do it for another ten generations.

And by that time,
the world may have become sane,

so that we won't need that.

But you can be sure of this—

no country, no ruler,

no group of rulers,

is going to take its country
into an atomic war.

For one reason, because they will know

that no matter what else happens
in that war,

they themselves will not survive it.

If they're not eliminated by the enemy,

they'll be eliminated
by their own people.

As long as we have an atomic standoff,
as we have today,

I think we can rest in our beds
with safety.

(interviewer) People have described
the desert war as very gentlemanly.

(man) Well, it was, really,
because it could be possible,

I get captured today
or my company gets captured today,

and while we're moving up
to a rendezvous with the Germans,

our people come and relieve us, away
we went and they were the prisoners.

That often happened.

I can remember when we came back
to the Gazala Line,

which you must have read about.

We'd got a chap on point duty there
dressed up in a military police uniform.

As these chaps were getting up to him,
he was directing 'em back.

They all thought he was a military
policeman. It was a German dressed up.

The British officer went up
and soon squared him up.

Spoke to him in German
and he, thinking he was the same,

he told the officer what he was doing.

When we enclosed Tobruk,

we saw Tobruk
couldn't be conquered by us,

and therefore some areas
were mined

because we wouldn't have
that the British attack us.

And one night…

Mines could be laid
only during the night,

because otherwise
they were a target for shooters.

And one troop of us was laying mines,

and in the darkness
suddenly stood a figure,

and that figure talks in English.

“What are you doing here?”

And much surprised,

one of our soldiers answered,

“Wir legen Minen.”
“We are laying mines.”

And the English answered calmly,

“That's exactly the same what we do.”

And then he returned to his troop

and both troops made their work calmly.

Nobody came the idea to start shooting.

And after the work was terminated,

both were away in the darkness.

(McGee) We were moving up
from Derna to Benghazi one day,

and as we were going along the road,
there were some Egyptians shouting out,

“Eggs for chai.”

So we pulled up and we fished out
a couple of bags of tea

we've had in the toolbox
for quite a while.

It'd got well soaked in diesel, so we
hung it up in the sun for about an hour

and then we said to 'em,
“Eggs for chai.”

We got two tea cases full of eggs
for two sandbags full of diesel tea.

Next day when we were coming back,
the wogs turned out in force.

They were firing everything
they could get hold of at us.

Before the fall of Tobruk,

in 1941,

when we lost the Battle of the Cyrenaica

and were on the way back,

one day I stood on the road

near the sergeant of the panzers.

And I asked him…

“Tell me the truth,

how many intact panzers
you have still now?”

And he said,

“This morning we reported seven.”

“But the truth is,” and he whispered
in my ear, “we have 16.”

“But if Rommel knows that,
he attacks immediately.”

I worked for two years
in a British prisoner of war camp.

And the first thing I learned
that the British were human too,

because we had had
quite a bit of propaganda,

“They are snobs and they consider
themselves the lords of the world.”

Then I learned they had
a wonderful sense of humour

which I liked very much,
and I even copied nice little jokes

on the English politics,
on German politics and…

What else did I admire?
The many cheering remarks.

Every cloud has a silver lining.
Cheer up, better days are coming.

I never forgot them all my life,

and I even used them later on.

And…

Well, they didn't bring
so much political news.

They talked about Stalingrad being lost,

and since 1942,
when I started in this job,

they always said, “Hitler has lost
the war and Germany has lost the war

and we'll soon be home.”

But we thought it was just
a sort of cheering up news

for the family at home
and just to stand it all through.

I liked the wonderful love letters.
I learnt quite a lot from them.

And later on, when I was in love,
when I met my husband,

I never wrote love letters in German,
always in English.

And when I wanted to give
nice little messages to him—

he worked as export manager
in another factory—

behind my reference,
I put “I love you”, just initials,

or “te quiero mucho” in Spanish,

but I learnt it all from
the English letters.

Yes.

(interviewer)
You were very young girls.

Now, what was your attitude
towards the British?

Well, at first it was a slight reserve.

We never had seen British…

I never had seen
British soldiers before.

When I was at this language college
in Hamburg,

I had English and American teachers,
but teachers were different people

and, in Eichstedt or in Warburg,

there were 3,000 officers,
very good-looking people.

And, well, despite all the propaganda—

“You mustn't fraternise and look at
them, they are our enemies.”—

we did, we were young girls.

And we got acquainted with them,

with their ways of writing,
with their ways of life,

because for two years I've always read
the letters of the same people.

I knew Aunt Mary and cousin so-and-so

and I even knew when they were lying
to other girlfriends

as being the only one.

And we learnt a lot from that.

It was the most interesting
part of my life.

Young girls today have…

It was a tragic war, but still for us it
was very interesting to have such a job.

In 1943, they were allowed parole walks.

All the officers signed a parole card
and no guards,

just a German interpreter or an officer
was accompanying them to the film.

They could see cinemas
with German captions.

And the German actresses
were considered very bad.

They all wrote it home.
They whistled melodies.

They made sometimes nasty comments
on the German newsreel,

sometimes also on British politics.

They called the British politicians
“chimney politicians”

or “fire politicians”
sitting by the fire.

And one day they went to the German
forest with a German officer,

and he had a girlfriend in the woods and
he said to them, “Just be good boys.”

“I'll be back in two hours,
then we march back to the camp.”

And he didn't come back
by the time agreed upon,

so they marched back alone,
the British officers,

and reported to the German
camp commandant, “One is missing.”

And he started shouting at them.

Because he was 180% Nazi,
they always made fun of him.

And he was shouting,
“I'm cancelling that” and all that.

And then they said,
the senior British officer said,

“Oh, just pipe down.
Sonderführer so-and-so is missing.”

And these incidents
were reported home by all 3,000.

In 1943,
there was a very, very big escape.

63 or 66 escaped.

They were celebrating
the birthday of the English King,

and the German camp staff was invited

and we girls were allowed to look
from the windows.

Normally we weren't,
we mustn't look at the prisoners.

And there were sports games,

and the Scotch bagpipers
were playing and waving their kilts,

and it was a big do.

And next morning there was
all excitement in the Kommandantur

and we didn't know what was on,

and the German security officer said,
“Good God.”

“Whilst the show was on,
63 prisoners escaped

and I'll be court-martialled,”
and so on.

But within a week or a fortnight,
they had them all back.

They didn't get punished.

They only were punished

for abusing German uniforms, you know,
with Hakenkreuz,

or if they tried to escape
as German generals,

then they got solitary confinement.

But most officers were happy

when they had had
a little bit of solitary confinement

because they were getting
on each other's nerves.

Same people living together
in a small place for years.

And they always wrote home,
“I just returned from a little holiday.”

During the first days of April,
the Americans came to my village.

I was watching on the window.

When I saw the first khaki-clad figures
crouched, coming into the village,

I cried because I thought,
“Everything is lost now.”

And a moment later
there were voices downstairs,

we were living in a school building,
and they called me down

because I was the only one
in that village speaking English.

And American reporters were there,
and the first thing they asked,

“Are there any hidden
German soldiers here?”

I said no. “Have there been soldiers?”

I said, “Yes, dead soldiers
and dying soldiers in our church,

but nothing else.”

Wounded soldiers, they were brought
from fights to the church.

Then they asked, “Where did you
learn your English?” I said, “At school,

and I worked for two years
in a British prisoner of war camp.”

Then they wanted to know
how they were treated.

Then they said,
“Come on, can you work for us?”

And they threw all the farmers
out of their houses

and I was fully engaged
from early morning to late at night

helping farmers here
and doing interpreting and so on.

They were searching everything

because this village was surrounded
by heavy, large forest,

and there was
an underground movement, Werewolf,

and there was talk that Werewolf
was hiding in the forest.

And whilst I was doing office work
in this Kommandantur,

the American soldiers
had to search the woods every day.

And when they had walked
for a few kilometres,

they came home,
they came back to the office

and were dead tired
and blisters on their feet and…

Then we thought,
well, you know, they are not good.

And sometimes rough manners, putting
their legs on the desk in front of me

and rolling the stockings down
and scratching their legs.

Then I was a bit furious in working

and then I thought to myself,
“Wait and see.”

“We still have V-2
and we still have Hitler.”

“He will teach you a lesson.”

But that was stupid,
but it was just out of…

I couldn't stand that behaviour.

They gave weapons to the Russian
civil workers working with the farmers

and every day there was trouble.

Can you tell me what your reaction was
when you heard of Hitler's suicide?

Yes… I was working
in the American Kommandantur

when it was announced
via the German radio.

I thought,
“What a lousy bloody coward.”

“He sacrificed them all
just for his madness.”

And I wouldn't go through it again

and I am perfectly with my son
when he says,

“I refuse to be a soldier.”

I'm anti-war and anti-military.

I told my husband once,
“Thank God that you weren't in the SS.”

“I never could love you if I knew
that you had been an SS soldier.”

We hit the beach
around 6:30 in the morning.

I think we were 12 minutes
off schedule, late.

And on the way in to the beach,

we had quite a few people
that got seasick.

They were these little landing craft.

It was very rough,
and we pottered around

from two o'clock in the morning till
about four, just going round in circles,

waiting for everything to get organised,

and then finally made the run
in to the beach.

I've forgotten what time it was,
but it was a long time out there.

It was very cold
and very uncomfortable.

And we had quite a few people
seasick then.

We landed at…

Our landing area was dictated
by the presence of the beach obstacles,

and we had to land
to the seaward side of them,

so that we were about 400 yards
from the actual sea wall.

And there were quite a few areas
where, of course,

I don't know what you call 'em,
channels of some sort

where there was quite deep water.

People would get up to their necks
before they knew how deep it was.

We had a great deal of difficulty
getting the men to move,

because there was a great deal
of enemy fire,

and they would take cover behind
some of these assault craft

obstacles that were there
to catch assault craft.

They were…
They were, oh, about the size

of a 10 or 12-foot telegraph pole
or telephone pole,

with a telemine on the top of it.

And people just would try to take cover
behind one of these poles.

Well, it didn't provide any cover,

so you just had to force 'em to move.
Didn't matter how you did it.

I had… It so happened I'd sprained
my ankle in the marshalling area.

I had to go ashore
carrying a cane instead of a… rifle,

and I used it to very good effect,
to just whack people till they moved.

And it was…
It was not much fun, obviously.

But it was very rough getting up there
because the sand was wet and deep

and people would sink in, and everybody
had a heck of a large load to carry,

so that the men just were worn out
when they got up there.

And, of course,
we lost quite a few on the way up.

In fact, in that 400 yards,

I would say that I might have lost
25% of my command

before we even got to the sea wall,
and…

…of the…

…four officers that were killed
in that area on the beach,

from my company,

I think three of them were killed
right almost at the water's edge.

They led the troops off and…
except my executive officer

who followed me off the assault craft,

and he was the last one off,
and he was… he was killed.

Well, there was
a great deal of confusion.

In fact, we didn't realise
what some of it meant.

For instance, we thought there'd been
a lot of aircraft shot down

because the water was just covered with
these little bright orange life rafts.

Well, they were actually survivors
from the tanks, the wader tanks.

They weren't actually wader tanks.
We called them DD tanks.

They had a canvas thing
and they swam in the water

and used the motor of the tank to push
themselves by means of a propeller.

Well, I think 99% of them swamped,

just went down into the drink.

And the troops,

the tank crews, had been able
to get out in most cases

and were in these orange rafts

which we didn't realise… recognise
the meaning of until we got ashore

and found that all these tanks that were
supposed to be with us weren't there.

They later brought in a few
of what they called wader tanks,

which were unloaded at the water's edge
and then came in.

They'd been waterproofed
and they could move up the beach,

but very few of those actually came…

had much influence
on the initial situation.

It was actually
just the assault infantry that…

that had to shoulder the burden.

(interviewer) General,
could I ask you first about the tactics

that were used
by Eighth Air Force fighter units,

firstly in defending
the large bomber formations?

There was a… I'd like to break it out
into two categories,

one we might call generalised tactics
and another more specific.

The generalised tactics,

I don't recall the specific time
during the war that this occurred,

but when I was first over there,

we had quite clear directives that the
first job of Eighth Air Force fighters

was to protect the bombers.

And concomitant to that was that
we would fly close to the bombers,

where they felt comfortable
by seeing us and where the notion was

we could do a better job
of protecting them from enemy attack.

Shortly after General Doolittle took
command of the Eighth Air Force,

we in the fighter business
made a plea to him

that that was not the correct
general tactic,

that we could do a better job
of defending the bombers

by getting out
further away from the bombers

where we could engage the fighters

before they had a chance
to get in so close,

and this was due to the high speeds
that were involved.

When we were flying close escort
to the bombers,

the fighters, German fighters,
would appear and they moved so fast

that by the time we could drop our tanks
and take any particular action,

they'd already… they'd already fired

with whatever degree of success
they might have attained

and they're on their way home,
on their way to the deck.

And we prevailed on General Doolittle
to agree with that,

so that he changed our directive

from the first mission
of the Eighth fighters,

Eighth fighter command fighters,
to protect the bombers.

The first mission
was to destroy the Luftwaffe.

Now, with that,
we started moving way ahead…

…and quite a bit higher
than the bomber stream.

In this way we were able
to engage the enemy fighters

while they were forming up
for the attack,

and we had considerable success
in doing that

and it turned out to be
a very significant tactical advancement

in our ability not only to wreak more
havoc on the German fighter force

but also actually
in protecting the bombers.

There was a temporary hiatus
when we first started that,

where we had a slight increase
in the bomber loss.

But after that,
the bomber losses continued to go down

from there on
right till the end of the war.

Now, in the particular sense,
in our group, for example,

we experimented with various
and sundry types of formations,

keeping whole squadrons together,
separating in flights.

And we finally came to the conclusion,

although all other fighter units
didn't do it the same way,

that as we would go into the bomber
force, we would be in a group formation,

very much like the Royal Air Force
started in the Battle of Britain,

and we'd fly a high squadron,
a medium squadron and a low squadron,

and the squadrons
in visual sight of each other

but each squadron fairly intact.

And when we rendezvoused
with the bombers,

then we would then divide up
into three squadrons,

one going well ahead
of the bomber force

and usually up-sun
from the bomber force, and high,

and another one
fairly well behind the bomber force

and at about a level
with the bomber force.

And then the other squadron
we had a roving squadron,

and they would usually break down
into two flights of eight ships

and fly around the bomber force

and a little closer
than these other two formations.

Generally speaking, the squadron
that went high and up-sun and a way out,

would always keep the bombers in
sight but almost out of sight,

and that was the squadron
that had most of the successes.

We would find the Germans would be
coming up through the overcast,

they'd be forming with other units,
getting ready for the attack,

and we would have altitude advantage,
we would have the advantage of the sun,

and we had the advantage of being
organised and ready and looking,

and at least initially
they didn't expect it,

and they were very successful.

The other two squadrons would pick off
those that did get through,

and, well, their position
was not quite as lucrative,

in the sense of numbers of enemy
aircraft that they could get at.

They were still necessary
and effective

in preventing such few
as did get through

from actually getting to the bombers.

Generally, we would be assigned
a time period

or a geographical portion
of the bomber stream

in which our job was to stay in the air
and to protect the bombers

in the way
that I've just been discussing.

Then there would be a time
somewhere in that bomber stream,

usually when you were taking them in,

or another fighter group would
pick 'em up, say, in the target area,

take 'em through the target area
and part of the way out,

and then somebody else would pick them
up, take them the rest of the way out.

When we had the mission
of the penetration portion,

where we would take the bombers
into the target,

when it was our time
to leave the bombers,

we would then descend
to medium and lower altitudes

and form in a very wide group front.

How well organised that was would depend
upon what had happened before,

but if we had not
engaged the enemy at that time,

we'd have a wide group front

and we'd fly out
usually at medium altitude.

Sometimes we would run into
enemy fighter formations in the air.

They'd either be coming back
or they'd be climbing up

and we would engage them
at that time.

Many times, however, though,
we would not run into any in the air

and we'd find an airfield
which had a lot of planes on them,

usually fighters, and, as I told you
just before the interview started,

in some cases you'd come to an airfield
with several in the traffic pattern,

in the process of landing
or in the process of taking off,

and of course they were particularly
“duck soup”, as we used to say.

What, in your view, was the most
memorable action that you undertook?

Well, the most memorable one to me
is quite clear,

although there are a couple of others.

On the first of January of 1945,

the Luftwaffe made,
during my tour over there,

the first and certainly the last
major effort

to attack on our side of the lines.

And that, as you may recall,
was during the Rundstedt's salient

or the Battle of the Bulge.

And a rather large fighter,
German fighter force,

if I recall,
it was in the neighbourhood of 600,

came over and attacked enemy…
attacked our friendly airfields

in Belgium, France and Holland.

At that time, I was stationed
at a base called Asch in Holland

and we were going out on a mission.

The weather was kind of bad
on the ground

and there were only there at Asch
a squadron that I was leading,

and a P-47 squadron on that same base
had taken off just a little earlier,

and a Polish Spitfire squadron at Ghent,

I believe were the only ones that got
airborne in all the Allied air forces.

Just as I was going…
starting down the runway,

I saw a lot of flak
off the edge of the field.

I called our control, asked if there
were any enemy aircraft in the area.

He said, no, there weren't.

And about that time, I saw a 109
that was headed directly at me,

while I was still on the ground
without flying speed,

and anyone who flies knows that an
airplane is a pretty clumsy instrument

when it's still on the ground.

So that's memorable in the sense
that I saw there was nothing I could do

and my view was that I'd had it.

Fortunately for me, this German pilot
apparently saw a C-47

at a revetment
just at the end of the runway,

so instead of continuing
his attack on me,

he pulled up, did a wingover
and started down, shooting at this C-47,

which put his tail right in front of me
just about the time I get airborne.

I pulled the gear up immediately
and had my sights on him

and shot him down before the wheels
had fully retracted in the well.

By this time, there were enemy airplanes
all over the airfield

attacking targets on the ground, which
apparently had been their instructions.

And I got all 12 of my airplanes
off the ground.

We had a very successful engagement
with the enemy

almost entirely
within sight of the field.

Up until the time that I was drafted, I
was holding a shipyard job as a welder,

and I was doing real good,
making good money,

working a lot of overtime.

We were building ships over
in the harbour there in Terminal Island.

And then all of a sudden
here comes the draft notice.

You're reclassified
and report for induction.

And so there was nothing I could do.

I took care of my business
and secured everything

and I had ten days in which to do it,

and I reported to the induction station
and from there it was goodbye.

Well, I was very scared, which is normal
in a situation like that.

And me, I…

My thoughts were, well,

that I was there for a purpose,
to follow the orders of my superiors,

which I had been indoctrinated in.

I carried my rifle
and ammunition and all,

and it was a matter of getting
the enemy first before they got me,

and that was my feeling
when I went in there.

Well, it all started when they told us
to move into the lines

on the southern part of that island.

So our battalion,
the one that I was with,

was committed to take Sugar Loaf Hill.

So we organised ourselves, and…

…E Company, which I was a part of,

was given the task
of assaulting the hill first.

So we moved up…

…and as we moved up, we found out that
another regiment had been there before,

and they had been
practically annihilated, so to speak.

There was very few survivors left
from that original force

that went in there before us.

So… here we position ourselves

and we move in.

So E Company took the task of assaulting
the hill, got up to the top,

and, hell, we sat over that night
in those foxholes,

shelled every minute
of that first night that we got there.

And it was intense,
it was something out of proportion,

something that had never
been experienced.

To me, it was something new
that I had never been into before

and it was a very trying experience.

I couldn't gather myself at all.

I couldn't find myself
sitting in that deep hole underground,

trying to get in deeper.

What was I doing there?
And my mind was turning all over.

And every time
a shell landed real close,

it seems like a gigantic hand
or some big monstrosity

could pick me up and slam me
at a thousand times my weight

square down on the ground again

and leave me practically senseless
and passed out.

But I'd recover again
and continue holding my own there,

trying to see the thing through.

Very little that I can remember as to
what did happen after that first night,

outside of the fact
that the Japanese counterattacked.

They came at us. We held our ground.

With grenades we stopped the force,

but we expended all our ammunition,

and the casualties had been so heavy,

due to all the shelling and due to
all the exposure to the enemy fire,

that we were called to withdraw,
so we went back down the hill.

By standards up until that time,

very few Japanese gave up.

They all met… If they were not killed
by us, they killed themselves.

And…

Towards the…
the middle of the campaign there,

in the southern part
of the island there,

they begin to see more or less
that it was a hopeless situation.

A lot of them begin to weaken and a lot
of them begin to give themselves up.

Some of them were shot
by their officers

when they were on the verge
of turning themselves in or giving up.

But there were some instances
where they just surrendered

and they didn't wanna have
no more to do with the war.

They'd had it.

And…

They had… They still had
in their system, though, the treachery.

There'd maybe be a group of Japanese
walking with their white flag,

maybe three or four of 'em,
so we'd let 'em come into our lines.

The next thing we know, they'd have
a grenade on 'em or something

and as they approached us,

the thing'd blow up and maybe hurt
a few of us guys, you know.

And I remember one instance, one group
of Japanese that was giving up,

the guy in the middle had a Nambu
machine gun strapped to his back.

We didn't know this.

As they were approaching,
the guy waving the white flag,

as they were approaching,
the one in the middle fell to the ground

and one on one side grabbed the…
and he started firing at the marines,

at our group.

Of course, we were set for 'em

because we were told
that they were so treacherous,

not to expect them to live up
to any commitment

that they would surrender
or give up or what have you.

Well, we wanted to take prisoners.

The main thing to get information

and another thing,
the pride of the marines,

to try to show
that they were vulnerable,

that they were weak, just the same
as we were, they were human beings.

In other words,
the fanaticism in 'em that they had,

in this imperial army of the Japanese,
to die for their emperor,

was instilled in their minds so much
that they were told not to give up,

and if they were seen in a situation
they were gonna be captured

to kill themselves,

and that's what would take place.

Well, my feelings towards them were,

up until the time
that my good friend got hit, well…

…I didn't think much outside
of that they were our enemy.

But after my close friends begin to get
hit and a couple of them getting killed,

I begin to develop a sense of
a little discord towards them and anger,

because, well,
they were doing all this to us.

And it seems like…

…they wouldn't… they wouldn't show
any mercy towards us whatsoever.

They saw the situation
where we had 'em surrounded

and they'd still continue to fight.

Now, why the situation was like that,
I never could understand.

With all our force,
the battleships out in the harbour

and all our airplanes
and all the army and marines on land,

and they still wanna shoot back at us.

It would have been easier for them
to give up and consider it that,

let the homeland take care of itself.

We were not invading
their main islands yet.

But in their minds, I suppose,

that they thought they would be
effecting a delaying action of some type

and they figured
that the more they held us up

and the more that they got of us,

well, the easier it would be for their
home islands to defend themselves

because they wouldn't have
that extra power to contend with.

Something went wrong with me, you see.

Here I was, a perfectly healthy person,

going to war, defend my country,

with all my heart and all my power,

indoctrinated in all the ways
of doing war and defending myself,

keep from getting killed.

Well, at a particular instance,
suddenly I wasn't there any more.

When I came to,
I was lying in a bed dressed in white,

white sheets, white clothing,

and I'm groping around for my rifle.

And I see myself all in white
and I see other guys around me

laying in bed, also in white,

and I'm trying to remember,
“What happened? Where am I?”

“Where's my rifle?
What am I doing in white here?”

And I'm trying to remember
how I got there, but I can't.

Vaguely, vaguely, far away,

I can remember that a flash of lightning
struck, and that was all.

From there on, it was touch and go.

Sometimes I would be myself
and sometimes I wouldn't.

Well, time went on.

The next thing I knew,
I was in Texas.

How I got there, I'll never know.

Whether it was a plane
or whether it was a ship,

or how, I don't know,
but I was in Texas.

And I was there for several months,

and the records show
that I was discharged there at Texas,

at Fort Worth, Texas.

From there, I was transferred down here
to the Veterans Hospital in Los Angeles

and I spent another year or so there,
better than a year, recovering.

But after I got in LA,
I began to pull myself together

and I was beginning to realise
that I was in the wrong place.

What was I doing in a hospital?
There was nothing wrong with me.

But there was other guys
in there with me, in this ward,

that seemed to be…

…silly persons, you know.

And at the time,
I had never had any contact

with persons that were mentally affected
or what have you.

But I suppose that they had
a little of everything there, you see.

Well, I was finally… I was finally
discharged from the hospital,

not… not because
I had anywhere to go.

It was that my family, my family,
my immediate family,

my aunt, to be truthful
about the whole thing,

she investigated about me
and found out where I was at.

She said, “We're taking you home now.”

And I fell into her arms,
crying and sobbing,

and I said, “What has happened?
Where's my family?”

She says, “Well,
you've gotta know it sooner or later.”

“Your wife is running around
with other men

and I've been over pleading with her

to come down here to the hospital
and get you out of here,

but her remarks are
that you're not getting out of there,

you're staying there until she says so
and you're gonna rot there.”

“That's when I thought I'd take
the situation into my own hands.”

So when I found that out,
well, I was very depressed.

It didn't affect me mentally,

but I felt very sad and heartbroken,
and I did go to see my wife.

I met her and she told me
that… she was out with other men,

but it wasn't her fault, that the
situation just worked itself that way.

And I said,
“Well, look, I wasn't here.”

“For the sake of our two children,
well, I'll forgive you

and I'll forget about all this.”

“We'll never talk about this.”

So she says, “Well, OK.
We'll try to make a go of it.”

And so later on she said,
“Well, I have to go over to this house

where I have some things to bring over.”

So she took off with the two children,
which were at that time five and six,

and she never returned.

From the time that I was…

…well, I call it wounded…

…you see…

This was in 1945,

and I was discharged
from the hospital in 1947.

And finally,
after I gathered myself together,

after the…
disappointment with my wife,

well, I begin to…

…to realise that I had to live a life
and do the best of it.

If things would have been normal
with my wife,

maybe she would have waited for me.

But the war did break up our home.

We tried to realise that…

…at any rate,
anything good can come out of a war.

I would say yes.

This was is a historical question,

but what came out of that war

was that we former soldiers
of German army…

…certainly of the Afrika Korps,

we got the experience
that our former enemies…

…respected our kind of…

…of fighting in that war,

the like… the same manner
as we respected their way to fight.

The fairness of that war
on the African… in the African desert

was the reason why we now have

a growing and good friendship

which will be better and better
from year to year,

and has been…

…has been built up already
five, six years after the war

between us, the old former soldiers
of the Afrika Korps

and the British Middle East forces,
the Australian, the New Zealand…

…the Free French troops
and soldiers round the world,

and as just this meeting
of the Afrika Korps has shown,

by 500 guests of foreign countries

from our former enemies,

which are real, real good friends
to us now,

like, vice versa, we to them.

This I would think and I am convinced
is a very important thing

to form and to fasten
the peace round the world.

And that's what we not only are wishing

but what we are prepared to fight for.

As seriously as we fought as soldiers
during the war,

fighting for the peace now in the world,

for we who have been on the front
in this war,

on many fronts, different fronts,
we know what the war means.

And we are convinced

that no possibilities must be avoided

to ensure that peace, enduring peace,
round the world.