Chapter XIV
THE GOOD OLD U.S.A.
Arrived at Hamilton Field, North of San Francisco, at 2130; time changed to midnight. Had a fine steak dinner and off to bed.
Sept. 12, '45: After breakfast we were transferred to the Letterman
General Hospital at the Presidio in San Francisco for a P.O.W. Survey.
About 1500, I was hurriedly routed out of my room and driven back to
Hamilton Field. Judy was arriving from Washington, D.C. on the first
Constellation ever to make a non-stop flight to the Pacific Coast; it
took eleven hours and one box lunch.
At 1600, the big plane, carrying my precious cargo, gently sat down on the runway. In a few minutes, I had my lovely wife, Judy, in my arms-a moment that I prayed would never end.
Vivian Raulston, John's wife, had come from Washington with Judy. I was able to tell her that John wanted her to bake him some brownies. John came home about three weeks later by ship.
The Army took us to the Saint Francis Hotel, where they had made reservations. The room, 1123, was beautiful, considering the price - $6.50. Mr. London, the manager, brought fresh flowers frequently.
Each day I had to return to Letterman Hospital for my survey. Wt. 140 lbs.
Judy came to the hospital each afternoon to take me to dinner. We
tried a different restaurant every evening: Lamps of China; Sam's Fish
House; Julian's Steak House; the Manger Upstairs; the Blue Fox; and
Alfred & Segunda.
Many wives were coming to see me to get any possible information about their husbands, sons and brothers. A few I knew: Illa Gillespie, Tempie Williams, Jean Manning, and Crystal White. '
Sept. 13, '45: I spent the day in a telephone booth at the
Hospital sending some two hundred messages to families of prisoners, courtesy of the American Red Cross and the American Telephone Co.
About a dozen generals arrived at the hospital from Manchuria; immediately they wanted to know how I got Judy to the West Coast, when they couldn't even get commercial travel. I had to let them guess.
Actually, Vivian's sister, Vera, was the girl friend of Col. Dudley Fay, the Chief of Army Air Transportation, and he had a son who had been a prisoner of the Germans. He was sympathetic and repeatedly told Vivian and Judy, "When your husbands, John and Gene, are liberated, I'm going to see that you girls get a ride to the West Coast." So Vivian and Judy arrived at Hamilton Field on time, but actually without any official orders. Of course, I couldn't tell the generals that; they would have court-martialed me.
Sept. 15, 45: "Pappy Boynton" and his men arrived at the St. Francis. I thanked God for that fearless aviator who had been awarded the Medal of Honor.
We were now getting daily calls from Colonels Dudley Fay and Larry
Smith in Washington, wanting to make arrangements to fly us to Walter
Reed Army Hospital. Our answers were always "NO!" Now we were in no
hurry! "We'll come by slow train with stops in Lincoln, Nebraska, and
River Forest, Illinois, to see our families."
Sept. 17, 45: We started east in our bedroom aboard the Union Pacific, through the gorgeous Rocky Mountains. When the train stopped at stations, I was amazed to see husky young women, balancing themselves along the tops of freight cars, brake persons, no less. It had taken many dedicated people, doing many strange and often hazardous jobs, to bring the war to an end. I felt grateful to each and every one of them.
We spent a couple of happy days with Judy's family in Lincoln and two more in River Forest, before proceeding on to Washington, where I became a patient on Wards 1 and 4 at Walter Reed General Hospital.
Judy lived in an efficiency apartment at 906 at 2000 Connecticut Ave., near Holton Arms School, where she taught during the war.
About the second week we were in Washington, one of Judy's teacher friends, Peggy Snow, arranged for us to get invitations
to her father's cocktail party for the top brass in Washington. General Snow, the Chief of Engineers in the Army, sat me in the center of the party, where I was a curiosity and subject to much questioning. Many important persons came to look me over and ask, "Are you having any difficulty adjusting?" My answer was always the same, "If somebody gave you a Lincoln car, would you have trouble adjusting?"
General Leslie Groves, the "Father of the Atomic Bomb," asked me, "What did you think of the, Atomic bombs we dropped on Japan?" I answered, "General, by dropping the bombs, you saved thousands of American lives that would have been lost if the U.S. had been forced to invade Japan. Also, you saved thousands of P.O.W.s lives; we could not have endured many more months of captivity. Actually I'm sorry you didn't drop more bombs on Japan!"
"Colonel, we only had two bombs and we dropped them both!"
"Thank you, sir! You saved my life! I am very grateful to you and
the brave crews that dropped the bombs!" The general look relieved.
"Colonel, I'm happy you are back; this country owes you and your friends a great debt. You gave us what we needed most, TIME."
Washington was overrun with military personnel. To me the amazing thing was the youth of the officers; generals in their forties and thirties; colonels in their thirties and twenties. I wasn't jealous! I thanked God for each of them. They had done a bang-up job.
Two months passed at Walter Reed. I wasn't dying as predicted in Manchuria. In fact I was getting better, gaining strength and weight each week. I was able to walk several city blocks at a time.