ww2
Uncle Vernon in WW2 (part 4)
After graduation, I was given a delayed enroute furlough to Ft. LaughtonWashington, in or near Seattle. As our train (not a troop train) approached Seattle, I could see people along the river swimming. Later on at the train station, I saw people wearing overcoats. I found out later why that was. In the evening or afternoon, temperatures can be mild or warm, but after the sun goes down, it can get really cool. While at Ft.Laughton, we waited for our orders to see where we would be sent. While waiting for our main occupation was a parade each evening. When our orders came through, and were posted, the procedure was that everyone was restricted to the Post. In other words, no passes to go into Seattle. Of course everyone wanted one last fling in town, as the barracks was nearly empty and everyone was gone. I also went to the orderly room to try to get a pass into town. The sergeant explained to me that I was on the shipping-out list, and could not get a pass. (He had been accepting bribes all day for passes). I asked to see the company commander and he gave me the pass pretty quick, free. While in Seattle that evening, one of the things I remember well was that on a commercial building door was a list of doctors that had offices there. One name was Sommerer, and the other, Albrecht. We went to Yokahama via the Great Circle Route, which is supposed to be the shortest route. When we went past Alaska, they said we were close enough to Alaska that if it had been a clear day, we could have seen land.
Our ship was the U.S.S. Marine Adder. It was operated by the Merchant Marines. It was fresh out of dry dock, and really ship-shape. I was really fortunate that on the entire trip over and back, I was never called on for K. P. (Kitchen Patrol) or Guard Duty.
I again slept in what the Navy called a “sack.” The army called it a bunk bed. I didn’t have the top sack, but I sure felt sorry for the soldier whose head was so near my feet. There was no spare between the feet and the head, and about six (people?) top to bottom. The weather was rough, to the extent that when we passed another ship, sometimes we could see it and sometimes we couldn’t. We would be down in a trough and couldn’t see far. Of course, we crossed the International Date Line to get to Yokahama. That’s when you skip a day going West, and do a day twice going East – I believe it is. (after in life while in London, I have a picture of me in front of the first meridian in Greenwich, England.) From Yokahama, we were taken to the 4th Replacement Depot which was an old Japanese Army camp. Then I was assigned to the 720eth Military Police Battalion, which among other things was assigned the job of providing military police for the International Military Tribunal (Far East) – the Far East designation was to distinguish it from the International Military Tribunal that had already concluded its proceedings in Nurnberg, Germany.
Uncle Vernon in WW2 (part 2)
Back to my WWII adventures: After being sworn in at Jefferson Barracks, they didn’t have any uniforms for us to wear, so they sent us to Ft.Leavenworth to get uniforms. From there, I was assigned to take Basic Training at Ft. Knox, KY. We left in the evening on an army troop train. The train was pulled by a steam locomotive. They lack the power to start a train, so to do so, they reverse the engine to get slack between the cars, then full steam ahead. I was on the top bunk of the car and every time the train stopped and started, the noise and jerking was so violent that I would raise up and bump my head on the top of the car.
One of my first observations as a soldier was that so many 17-18 year old boys think about when they become soldiers is that they have to drink, smoke, gamble, and in general, be a little wild. Quite a few of the boys gambled and the ones that did the winning had bags of money. Somehow I don’t know if they thought I looked mean or just big, but somehow, I became the “bag man” for the money. Ha!
The Army wanted its people to be volunteers and not be draftees like me, so I signed over to the Regular Army, known as RA, as opposed to the draft designation, which was A US (Army of the United States.) On Friday night, when we would have our G.I. Party (cleaning of the barracks) for Saturday a.m. inspection, I usually wound up dusting the top of the duct work near the ceiling.
Uncle Vernon in WW2 (part 3)
On the day that we practice driving tanks, it was very hot and dry and the dust on the road was very thick. The exhaust pipes on the tanks pointed straight down in the dust. When we stopped for lunch that day, no one knew any one, as we were all dust, sweat and mud-covered. It reminded me of sheep shearing on the farm because after being sheared, the sheep didn’t recognize each other and would fight – ha!
Our main firearm was the MI rifle. We also trained with the carbine rifle, the 4 SC submachine gun, the 50 & 30 C machine gun, the 75 mm and 76 mm and 90 mm tank-mounted cannon. When I got into the Military Police Detachment, I was given a 45 caliber pistol which I had never seen or fired before.
Back to Ft. Knox, KY for our graduation parade which was quite impressive. There were probably 1000 or more on the parade ground. It was very hot. We were told this might happen, or would happen, as we were marching in company and battalion and regimental formation. The tension was so great that soldiers were falling to the ground all around. We were instructed to step over them and proceed with the march as if nothing unusual happened. Of course, there was a whole convoy of Army ambulances lined up to haul away those that had fallen. They rushed in between company formations and took the fallen away.
Uncle Vernon in WW2 (part 1)
Memoirs of my draft, induction, and military Service
in Japan and World War II from 1944-1947
by Vernon P. E. Sommerer
Henley, Missouri
I was nearing my 18th birthday and would be required to register for the draft (military service.) I/we applied for an agricultural exemption. The forms were complicated and accuracy was important. The government had mandated that federal employees were to required to assist in filling out such forms when asked to do so. Since the folks had been involved with the Farm Home Administration since the Thirties, we knew this man very well. So when he came to the question, “How long has the applicant been engaged in farming,: he thought for a while and wrote down ’18 years, of course.’“ I was 18 years old, which bring sup the subject when does a farm boy begin farming. Mahlon helped Mom gather eggs when he was one year old.
Daddy convinced Dr. Hill that he (I) was disabled or something, so he Dr. Hill, wrote a note for the government to that extent. (I’d like to have seen what it said) The Army honored it for one month, to the tune of $270.00 per month. The next month, they cut it down to $70.00 and after that it was cut to $37.00 from then on. Part of that was taken out of my pay check.
Freda Beck was a Red Cross worker during the war, and she made out the paperwork for me/us regarding the parental allotment. (I will now go back to my pre-induction physical exams at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis on December 18, 1944) The “shrink” asked me who I slept with, and Uncle Herbert was with us the, so Mahlon slept on the floor and I slept with Uncle Herbert. That’s what I told the “shrink.” I have often wondered if that was why I was given a 4F classification. The second pre-induction physical, which I passed, was at Ft.Leavenworth in August of 1945. We left Ft.Leavenworth about 4 p.m. and got to Kansas City by bus and had supper at the Mulebach Hotel which, at that time, and many years after, was one of the most famous hotels in Kansas City. We got to Jefferson City about 12 – 2 a.m. Around 2 a.m. I took the Springfield MO bus out to Brazito. At 2 a.m., no one was awake at Brazito, so I walked home and it was really dark. On the road down to the house above the barn, I had a sudden call from nature. So I stepped off the road a few steps, after which I needed tissue real bad, but knowing about the rattlesnakes in our area, I took the first thing I could feel on the ground. It turned out to be a bad choice and I thought I was going to die—the pain was so bad. Lucky for me, it didn’t last long.
Uncle Vernon Missouri Veterans Interview
We’re going to post Uncle Vernon’s World War Two memoirs over the next few months, and this seems like the perfect way to start them off. We’ll be breaking the memoirs up into small chunks to give people a chance to talk about them here on the site, then after we’ve had a chance to talk about them, I’ll put them up as a single document.