Kathleen Lee
Brent Lee
Mr. Thomas
U.S. History X, Period 7
10 May 2006
This interview was conducted on April 30, 2006 with my grandmother, Kathleen Lee. My grandma is the wife of an Air Force Pilot and the sister of a Marine. This interview shows what life was like for her family back in the mid-1940s when World War II reached its peak. The interview examines the emotions that her family felt in regards to her brother’s involvement in the war, as well as the nature of life in the United States of America for families of American soldiers. This interview discloses the fears and anxieties that many American families felt while their loved ones fought in World War II overseas.
Brent: The purpose of this paper is to find out what life was like for the families of soldiers because [your brother] Tom was a Marine and Grandpa was in the Air Force. He never served in the war did he?
Grandma: He never did. The war ended just as he was getting ready to serve. He had completed all his training out in California. He was a bomber pilot, and he would fly out in his fighter plane and he would do his exercises you know dodging around the planes. He was getting ready to go overseas and the war ended.
Brent: Where would they practice?
Grandma: He was out in, oh it’s called…I can’t think of the name. There’s an Air Force base out there and there was a bunch of sand and deserts and they would just practice the bombing out there. That’s what they were doing, that’s what they would practice. He would talk about being out practicing over the ocean and one of his engines died on him. That was kind of a scary experience, but he never did get overseas.
Brent: Had the war kept going he probably would have then?
Grandma: Well the European war was over first, and then Japan I’m not sure how longer that was.
Brent: Well I think the European theatre ended in mid-45 and the war with Japan ended in August because the bombs were dropped on the 6th and 9th, which was Mom’s and her dad’s birthday, and then I think the Japanese ended on the 11th, which was Grandpa’s birthday.
Grandma: Well you know [Grandpa’s] mother did not want him to go into the war, but they had a very good friend who was a monsignor, a priest here in Indianapolis, and Grandpa Mike told him how bad he wanted to get into the Air Force. The monsignor went out to Mike’s mother and told her it was unfair that Mike wouldn’t get to serve, but she said, “No, no he can’t go, he can’t go.”
Brent: So did he join the Air Force in 1941?
Grandma: Yes, but there was just a lot of training that went into it, and he would go around to different bases around the country, and then he was classified as pilot because the big thing back then was whether you were classified as a bombardier or a pilot, and he was a pilot. Then he graduated and got his wings, and they shipped him out to California where he did some more training.
Brent: Now where did he get his wings?
Grandma: It was down in Indiana, some small town, and there was a camp down there, and I figured that they would be assigned to bases near their families so the families could visit them. He had invited me out for the wing ceremony, but back then it was hard for civilians to get plane reservations during the war. I worked for Newsweek, and they got me tickets to come out and watch the ceremony. They changed the date of the program and I wasn’t able to come out. So I never did get out for the ceremony.
Brent: So you were still living in New York?
Grandma: Yes.
Brent: With Tom, that was his choice to go into the Marines.
Grandma: Well, he graduated in June, and back then they had the draft.
Brent: But they didn’t enact the draft did they?
Grandma: Oh yes, oh yes they did. People would be drafted into the Army, unless they made the choice to join the Marines. He and a group of four friends all decided that they were going to join the Marines. They joined the Marines and were shipped out to a hell camp in South Carolina and then put into active duty three months later.
Brent: What year was this in?
Grandma: Oh gosh, well he graduated in 1943, and he went in a year later.
Brent: So this was 1943?
Grandma: Yes. He was over in Okinawa and in some of the really bad fighting for a year or two. Those guys were in bad shape; they would fight in rice patties and treacherous conditions. And then they sent him to China for R&R, or rest and recuperation, because he had dysentery and had lost weight. He looked terrible, and he was they would build him back up before sending him back, but my dad died during this. In the world today, getting from one place to the other takes no time at all, but during the war, there was so much red tape. Tom didn’t even get back for the funeral. My dad died in January, and he didn’t get back until April. That’s how slow it was to get him released. He was up in a base in Connecticut where he was dismissed.
Brent: So he was dismissed before the war ended?
Grandma: When did the war end?
Brent: 1945.
Grandma: Well he was sent back in April, and the war ended when?
Brent: It ended in August.
Grandma: So yeah he was sent before the war ended, but he was in good enough shape to comeback. He was fine for a long time after getting back, and after I got married, he went to college down at Xavier. My mother was living out here at the time with Mike and I. Tom wanted to get into Notre Dame, but you had to know somebody there. The government paid for his tuition, and he went down to Xavier. He really liked it there. Then he and my mother went back to New York because he felt like he had more options in New York since there were so many people who my father knew.
Brent: When Tom enlisted, what were the feelings of your family?
Grandma: Well my mother was a wreck, she was crushed. She was very fragile, but my father had served in World War I, and he knew how Tom felt.
Brent: So kind of the patriotism involved with serving?
Grandma: Yeah. He realized that Tom was going to do what he wanted to do, and he respected his wishes that Tom didn’t want to serve in the army.
Brent: So your dad served in the Army?
Grandma: Yeah. I guess he and Tom had talks about it, but Tom went and served. Of course he was eighteen and probably didn’t need any signatures or permission. It was very hard on my mother. My dad would have Tom write letters to him at work, and Dad would read them and see if they were appropriate for my mother to see. He was very protective of my mother, but usually the letters were censored.
Brent: Now I remember you telling me that Tom would try and sneak things into his letters that would give you clues about how he was without the letters being censored.
Grandma: Well there was this one time where Tom and I would play at a tennis club, and we both got really good. There was a guy up there who would play there. He was a bit older and in his early twenties. He was a neighbor, and his name was Russell. When Tom would write home, he would mention Russell all the time, and my dad got a map out and there were the Russell Islands. This was where Tom was.
Brent: Did he tell you that after he got back?
Grandma: Yeah he did. There were other codes he had, but that is the only one I can remember. So those codes gave us an idea of where he was, but sometimes it wasn’t great to know where he was, and you know Ernie Pyle, well we used to read his columns, and he was with the 1st Marine Company, and that was who Tom was with. Pyle was always mentioning different guys, and we would always hope he would mention Tom. Tom wasn’t a bashful guy either. He wouldn’t hold back. We were sure that he would be getting a message through Ernie. I don’t recall whether he saw [Ernie Pyle].
Brent: So were the letters pretty frequent?
Grandma: They were kind of spread out depending on where he was and how much he was fighting. But he did a pretty good job of writing. There wasn’t much he really could write about.
Brent: So the letters didn’t really represent a good atmosphere?
Grandma: No, we kind of knew what the deal was. My dad had a pretty good idea about the conditions, and just through the stories we read in the papers. You just never knew. I remember when he came home he went through a bad period. He was fine when he got back, but then he was dwelling on things, and he just wanted to talk about stuff. My mom and I would listen, and he was telling us about one time when he was in a rice patty with seven guys fighting and he was the only one to survive. Those things prayed on his mind. That weighed on his mind because he watched so many friends die. Just a lot of things like seeing guys get blown up.
Brent: There was some stuff he wouldn’t even feel comfortable saying?
Grandma: Yeah. But he finally got over that and finished school, got a good job. He did well. He was proud of the Marines and the time he served.
Brent: What was your feeling with him and the war?
Grandma: Well, I worried. I worried a lot about my mom. We went through it and dealt with the shortages. My dad smoked cigarettes, and he’d have me go down to the lines to get him cigarettes. Everyone had people in the service, but everyone had a good feeling about everyone else. It was a bad time, but there were good times as well. Then I worked at Newsweek, and we would send magazines to the troops. I had a lot to do with the Army. I was a secretary, but I would take orders, and it was kind of interesting.
Brent: So when the war came to an end, your family was pretty relieved then?
Grandma: Well this is kind of ironic how it happened. My brother was still fighting in the Asian theatre when the European theatre ended. I remember there was a big celebration in New York, as well as other cities. My dad and I got in a tiered bus and watched everyone dance in the streets, but my mom went straight to bed and didn’t want to hear anything of the celebration. There were many people with guys still over there, but you had to be happy for those who would get to come back.
Brent: So it was kind of bittersweet?
Grandma: Yeah. He didn’t get to come back until April of 1946.
Brent: So that was the time for his R&R?
Grandma: Yeah.