World War II, 1942-43, by Paul Whitty

From MemoryArchive

Who: Paul Whitty (and Frank Whitty)
What: Memoir of WWII

Preface

Much as my own father, Fred Whitty, was reluctant to talk about events from his past, it took me a number of years to convince his brother Paul, my uncle, to share his experiences during World War II. Unfortunately, what was to be a series of interviews, ended up being only this one; the hardships of life interfered, and the time was never right again to talk about the past. I set out now, some years after his death, to record this tribute.

Patriotism and service to our country have been important values for the Whitty family. Paul and Fred’s uncle, Freddie, served in the Army during WWI. Their father, Frank, was in the Coastal Defense during that conflict. Paul served in the Army during World War II, as did his brother-in-law, Ed Dunn. My father, a member of the Civilian Defense Corps, was denied enlistment due to medical issues. As his contribution to the “War Effort,” he managed the procurement and construction of Fort Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts. In the subsequent generation, Paul’s son, Paul M. Whitty, saw Army combat duty in Vietnam, and I served in the Navy on board the submarine U.S.S. Piper (SS409) during the mid-sixties. All have been “Proud to Serve.”

As any veteran will attest, there is a cross-generational, cross-service bond that allows for and fosters open, frank communication at a level that is denied the average civilian. Paul was a great interview. We shared some stories and some laughter during our meeting. It was all good.

Prologue

Paul W. Whitty was born on March 9th, 1918. The United States was engaged in World War I. He was raised in South Boston, Massachusetts, the youngest of the three children of Frank W. Whitty and Grace D. (Dame) Whitty. He graduated from English High School in 1935. I asked Paul to share his memories after he graduated and before going to war.

“This was the middle of the Depression , and I took any kind of job that I could…dishwasher, anything that was available at that time. I sold ice cream at the Park Square Burlesque on Washington Street. I think they called it Minsky’s. It was quite an embarrassing situation for me. I used to go around and shout out the different ice creams that I had. Instead of saying delicious, I had to say de-lick-a-tiss.”

Paul laughed, almost blushing at this memory.

I reminded Paul that the war in Europe began in 1939 when he was twenty-one years old. I asked about the public awareness and how he and his peers felt about what was happening over there, and whether he had any political sentiments at the time.

“I tended to follow the thinking at the time that it was a horrible thing. And I felt that we should do something about it. I was just thinking about before that.”

“I eventually went to work for a lumber company. The Diamond Match Wholesale company in South Walpole, Mass. I worked there as a tallyman. I was in my early twenties.”

I then reminded Paul that he was twenty-three when Pearl Harbor was attacked in December of 1941, and he was married in January of 1942. I asked him if he recalled what he was doing just prior to the attack.

“In 1940, early 1940, I went to work at Fort Devens. Working with my older brother. We received all the lumber used in the building of Fort Devens. It was a day and night job. We worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week.”

I asked if the inevitability of our entry into the war was why this facility was being built.

“Yes. That was the reason. At the time, my cousin, his ship was blown out from under him. His name was Jack Daly. [Son of Gertrude (Espie) Daly] That made me very furious at the Japanese. He wasn’t killed. In fact he was on-shore and manned a machine gun during Pearl Harbor. Nothing happened to him, but he was involved in the action. That caused a patriotic fervor, and I tried to enlist in the Navy at the time. I was turned down because of a malocclusion. I told them that I wasn’t going to bite the enemy.” (laughter) I thought it was unfair. I was drafted shortly thereafter. And joined the Army. That was in March of ‘42. “

I mentioned again that he was married in January of 1942. and commented that he had still attempted to enlist.

“Yes. I tried to enlist right after the marriage. “

I commented that his new wife must have been somewhat relieved when the Navy turned him down. But you were then drafted in early 1942, and your wife was pregnant with your first child, Dianne, who was born later that year in October. How did you and your family react to your being drafted?

“There was no possibility of a deferment. As for my wife, her father, and her two brothers served. They both flew, one for the Marines and one for the Navy. The father was with the Coast Guard. A Captain on a Coast Guard ship. He was involved with the military from that point on.”

What was your parents’ reaction?

“There was such fervor, that nobody held back, restrained, or thought for a minute about not going into the service.”

You went into the Army in March of 1942. Where did you go for basic training, and were there any events leading up to your going away?

“It wasn’t the norm to have any kind of going away party. The United States was at war.”

I described the war in North Africa and asked if he was cognoscent of what was happening.

“I only knew what I read in the newspapers. My experience in the Army were pretty much what it was like for most. I went to Fort Eustis in Virginia for my basic training. I was put into an Anti-Aircraft division for training. At that time, the only means of detection that we had were sound locators. My first job was on a sound locator. It was a practically worthless system. We’d track airplanes by sound. We had three receptors. We were supposed to narrow it down by the sound. Where the plane was coming from. We had a searchlight, attached by cables to this locator. The searchlight would follow the locator. The system was involved in the coastal phase. It was called the Coast Artillery. I served for a while. Then I was offered to go to officer training. I turned it down because my wife was about to have a baby, and I had a better shot at seeing her if I passed it up for the time being. That was in late summer of 1942.”

I asked whether he remained stationed in Virginia.

“No. We were shipped out to a port in Georgia. While I was there, they were putting together a group to tour the country and put on an exhibition of warfare. I joined that because with that outfit, I had a much better shot at getting a leave to go see my wife. So, as a result we toured the United States. We started off in Philadelphia and went to most of the major cities. Eventually, they kept us off the east coast because of the blackout conditions. We went to Chicago; then Des Moines, Iowa; Louisville, Kentucky; Dallas, Houston, and most of the other major cities in the United States.”

I asked him what his duties were and what the group did.

“Our purpose was to show an antiaircraft division in action. We had planes that would fly over the city. We’d try to get them with our searchlights. “

Why was the government doing this?

“It was a War Bond effort. Although the Army had a lot to do with it, Ringling Brothers ran the whole show, even though it was a military operation. They taught us a different method of marching to appeal to the public. It was called the ‘Army War Show.’ When I went to Atlanta, I met Margaret Mitchell. I had a few conversations with her. She was really something. The furthest west we got was Omaha, Nebraska.

Concerning his brother-in-law, Eddie Dunn, I asked when he had gone into the military.

“He went in after me. I had one or two correspondence with him, but very little contact.”

Then what happened?

“The tour came to an end. I think that was about January of 1943. I rejoined my old outfit, the three-fifty third. At the time, they were at Virginia Beach, actually camped out on the beach. This was in advance of being shipped out overseas. We were preparing to go overseas. Incidentally, I did get to see my wife and my baby.”

“We then went to Fort Dix in New Jersey, and we embarked from Ellis Island for our trip. It was on a Liberty Ship. It was a very harrowing journey. It was mid-winter in the North Atlantic, about February. It was very, very stormy weather. It took us three weeks to get to Africa, which we didn’t know was our destination. We had to sail north to evade submarine activities, and we took a very circuitous, torturous journey. We were in convoy, but it was very hard to keep convoyed. The seas raged. It was really terrible. You’d think the ship was going to break apart. One of the ships that most of our outfit was on, not the one I was on, was forced back to re-embark later, so we went on with about half of our outfit.”

And where did you land in Africa?

“In the port of Oran. We landed in the very early morning. We put all our gear on the dock. We went down there and waited all day in the pouring rain, waiting for some trucks that were supposed to come and pick us up. It was very late before we had a chance to load, and they took us out probably ten or eleven miles out in Algeria to a town and put us on a hill. And it was pouring, pouring, and they told us that this was where we were sleeping that night. They had a pile of straw that they had brought in. So we put the straw down on the ground and pitched our pup tents, as well as we could. We woke up early the next day to sunshine. I had the bad luck to pull guard duty that first night also, and it was kind of a miserable situation.”

How many men were in your unit?

“There were seventy-five to a hundred of us. It was very warm and humid and we started to make the best of life as we could. We went to a little town nearby, and we got a hold of some of their local wine. When we got back the wine was doped. About fourteen of us fell sound asleep. And we didn’t wake up for a day (laughter). Because of the confusion, no body noticed we were missing.”

What was your rank at the time?

“I was a PFC. We were waiting. There was a lot of confusion with half our outfit being left back in the United States. We were in a very confused state at that time. Subsequently, we were put on detached service to another antiaircraft unit.”

Did you stay in Algeria?

“Oh, no. I don’t remember the name of the town we went to, but being detached we ended up with the shit jobs. We were assigned to set up our searchlight in the middle of an ammunition dump! (laughter). They had built some kind of a colored paper that we were to put on the searchlight. And have it pointed straight up in the air, and planes would fly around it at various levels, and when we got information that a raid was coming, we would point the searchlight in that direction of the raid, and the planes would go in the direction of the raid. These were night fighter planes.”

So your searchlight seemingly creating a target for the enemy. Were these German planes?

“German and Italian. In spite of the fact that this was supposed to be a restricted area, there were camels walking through this ammo dump. We dug ourselves a latrine, and covered it over, and the next morning someone thought we were hiding something and they dug it up.”

“I had an incident that happened in March, which was a very embarrassing and trying incident for me. It was on my birthday, March 9th. We were given permission to go to Oran on a leave, and I went to Oran and did the usual things. And my buddy, Dave Crocket, disappeared from us. And somebody said that he was in a restricted area. I went to get him, to help him, to see if I could get him back to meet the truck so he wouldn’t get in trouble. I went into a bordello to get him. I got him, but just as I got him, the military police came in. They threw us in a dungeon, a real dungeon, with a channel around the outside of the cell. It was a large holding cell, and that was for a urinal. And it was so cold, even though this was in the middle of Africa, we huddled together. There were probably thirty or forty prisoners at the time. They woke us up the next day, and they asked if anyone volunteered to sweep the sidewalks. We volunteered, Dave Crocket and I, and then we went back to camp. The punishment was to be given out there. When we got back to camp, we were put on a duty of covering these little caves on the hillside that the Arabs had been using for bathrooms. That was supposedly our punishment.”

“Then the balance of the men arrived from our outfit. That was around April. And they set us up in a region of the Atlas Mountains. We had then a very primitive radar called the two-six-eight. It extended arms in probably twenty feet in each direction, about forty feet wide, with an oscilloscope and so forth. And we learned something about friend-and-foe, IFF, and the various methods of detection. Before we began, we set up camp there. My friend, Jim Lauderdale, and I decided that we would build a stone hut instead of using the tent. So we bought a donkey for a thousand francs, which was twenty-dollars, and we hired a mason. We hauled water up the side of the mountain to use to mix the mortar for the hut. We had some very amusing experiences in that area with our “hut.”

Were there any raids at that time?

“No, but we had some strange experiences. I’d like to talk about the characters that were there with me. There was a fellow from Georgia. I think his name was Buckley. A tall, thin ‘cracker’ with a strange attitude. He started to treat the Arabs. They would come to see him as a doctor. He had the old blue ointment that the Army gave us. He had jars of it. The Arabs would come every morning for ‘treatment.” He did some weird things.” (laughter)

What were they paying him with, contraband?

“Booze, francs, whatever. He got another guy that was with him. He was a rather a dumb guy in the outfit, and he would put an alarm clock near him in the dark, ticking. He’d tell him that the Arabs were going to blow him up. He had him in such a frightened state that the guy had to go to a psycho outfit, and he was shipped back to the United States.”

“About the time we were getting ready to leave, we wanted to get rid of the donkey, to sell him. So Crocket set up an auction situation and got all the Arabs up there. Unbeknownst to us the donkey was pregnant. The Arabs didn’t like this way of bidding. They were very angry. We had to beat them back with bayonets. (laughter) I think we got about two-thousand Francs for him. A hundred percent profit on the donkey.”

“There are some incidents I can’t even tell you about.”

I know. We all had those in the service. Was there any military action?

“Not anything of substance. One night they were testing us for a raid with all their sophisticated equipment. The order came at night and it was too late for us to do anything. So we took the searchlight off controls, and handled it manually, unbeknownst to the rest of the outfit and the radar crew, but fortunately we got lucky and we caught the plane on the first run, just by manually pointing the thing. We were praised for our diligence.” (laughter)

So where are we now?

“We went on to the coast. To a town named Jijel. And we got air raids every night that the weather was good. And it was good most nights.”

What kind of weaponry did your unit have?

“Just machine guns. Water-cooled fifty caliber machineguns. There wasn’t a lot available to us. They were mounted on a trailer. You’d lean back to fire them.”

Are you still a PFC?

“No. I lost that because of that Crockett incident.”

What else happened?

“Air raids every night. When the German planes came in we’d catch hell. When the Italians came, they were about five miles off the coast. They’d drop their bombs over the water and turn around. This is the truth. (laughter) We’d always know if it was the Germans or the Italians. We looked forward to the Italian raids.”

Had the North African ground fighting ended by then?

“No. Oh, no. One of the strangest, funniest incidents was when we had a sergeant called Seiber. He was a gung-ho, real GI type. He was giving us a gas mask drill, where we were supposed to put on our gas masks. In the meantime a raid had come in, a red-one alert, which was a major raid, and we didn’t put on our gas masks. And threatened that he was going to do this and that to us. He had the habit, every day, of putting a can of gasoline in the latrine and lighting it up to burn off the gas. Buckley, one morning, went in and put a whole five-gallon can of gas in there. And when the sergeant came to light it, there was a terrific explosion, and the wooden seat burned up. So they had a song, ‘Who Blew the Hole in Sergeant Seiber’s Shithouse?’” (laughter)

Are you in tent encampment, isolated from the Arab population?

“Isolated to an extent. There was no place to go. Jijel was on the seacoast. And it was some sort of a resort, such as there would be prior to the war. It was a very beautiful area, Hawaiian like or like Florida. We did have some contact, but not much.”

“We were there two months, and then we moved up towards the Kasserine Pass. Things were quite grim at that time. We didn’t know much of what was happening. There were all kinds of rumors, and we moved up into that area. You’re never really aware of what’s going on, but we had the Stars and Stripes (the official military newspaper) about once a month. We knew that something was going on at Kasserine. We took an awful beating there. We ran into Rommel’s army, which made a big attack. Instead of falling back and going out to sea as they were expected to do, they decided to attack the Americans, which was a very clever maneuver, really, Instead of being driven into the sea, they drove us back into Kasserine.”

“It was the most horrible battlefield that you could ever see. Littered, littered with dead and dead tanks, and everything was very devastating.”

This is your first real experience with the horrors of war.

“Yes.”

You’re about twenty-five, twenty-six years old at the time. You have a wife and daughter back home.

“Yes.

Were you brought in as an anti aircraft division?

“Yes. But with the possibility that we would be converted to something else, like infantry. We went into the Kasserine area and got pushed back. The whole Army did until Patton came. He drove them back, and we were detached to the British 8th Army. Our whole outfit was. We served under the British for a period of time. I think maybe we were under the British prior to the Kasserine. There was never a lull.”

“Then we moved to Bizerte, which was the drop off place for the invasion of Sicily. We put an antiaircraft ring around Bizerte. We got really hit very hard by the German and Italian planes. It was constant, almost every night, the fighting. After Kasserine, the Germans withdrew. They had gained some time and held us up.” EPILOGUE

At this time, Paul was tired, and he asked that we take a break. Unfortunately, we never resumed, and his further experiences in Africa, and those later in Europe were never recorded.

What I do have in my possession, however, is a letter from Paul to my father, Fred, which was written on June 29, 1943, just two days before I was born. I believe that it is important to read beyond the language. Military personnel were constrained as to what they could write about, and all letters were read by a censor before being sent home. Another awareness for the reader is that these words are penned by a young, twenty-five year old soldier, whose thoughts are of his wife and first-born daughter, whom he has only seen once, shortly after her birth.

Dear Fred,

As I write, I am sitting under a big beach umbrella sipping a long, cool Tom Collins. A portable radio is blaring away, but the music is disturbed somewhat by the crackling of some big palm fans manned by an able body of Nubian slaves.

Just think, Fred, one of those Nubes the government issues to each man as a body servant just dropped a tray of fried chicken on my new suntan trousers, which I take pride in as they are a foreign cut made in some city in the old country. Philadelphia, I believe. Oh well, to hell with it. I’ll order a dozen more pairs in the morning.

Well, Fred, today I feel editorial minded, so I will endeavor to write in an editorial manner and see if I can straighten out a certain friend of yours whose various vociferous opinions on military matters should make him lay claim to the title of four-star general in charge of a theater of operations to include any cities and towns similar to Gardner, Mass, which should be his general headquarters, as it probably has the largest output of rocking chairs in the country.

Now I shan’t name this fellow as there are hundreds like him in those United States of ours and it is much better to have my wrath cushioned somewhat by enveloping all of these street-corner commentators rather than have the direct rays descend on an individual. Besides, if I were to verbally flay one man, the recoil would bother my conscience to no end.

Now, you may wonder why I bother getting hopped up at all over something you may dismiss as the unintelligible mutterings of the ignorant, but you know, Fred, that these people are possessed of some sense and a good knowledge of argumentation and that in some instances they are a definite menace to our country. Why so!

Well, we are all gullible to a certain extent, and if we don’t know much about a subject, and someone comes along that sounds as if he does and he talks loudly and convincingly from day to day, we slowly find ourselves being weaved into his pattern of thinking. And when we, soldier and civilian, get to think something is so, that funny thing called human psychology hates to have us admit otherwise, even though all our opinions are based on hearsay and not first-hand knowledge.

Now I don’t intend to write a book correcting these hindmost authorities on military affairs, but I would like to challenge these know-nothings about the disparaging remarks about the British as a fighting race.

Now you recall from those few eastern reports, the dark days of Tobruk, when there was a small force struggling valiantly, see-saw like across the sands of Eqypt. It is thus group I am acquainted with.

La Huitieme Armee; feared and respected by the Arabs, disliked but respected by the French, but one of the best damn fighting forces in the world according to the American soldiers here in Africa.

During this outfit’s sojourn here in Africa we had reason to be directly connected to the eighth army at one time. We ate British rations, we smoked British cigarettes; why, we even acquired Cockney accents, but the payoff came when we began demanding time off in the afternoon for tea.

Well anyway, always having been an extrovert to some extent, even as you yourself, I welcomed the opportunity of drawing many of these eighth army boys in conversation, and I extracted some stories that would make your hair stand on end. Boy those fellows certainly have guts, and if looks mean anything, look our Mr. Boche because they’re not through with you yet. And as for those rocking-chair generals, if they still hold to those opinions of theirs, I’d hate to be in their shoes if they should accidentally be overheard by some of those fellows.

Well, Fred, I understand from the various letters I have received that you have yet to hear from me since I have been in this country. Well, strange as it may seem, I have written you three letters before this one and I have no doubt that you will receive at least one of them before this letter gets there. I am sorry to have bored you with this jumble of words, but please be reassured as I intend to write you a much better letter next time. Which could be well titled “Trading Amongst the Arobbers” or “Barnum Was an Amateur.” Why, I just heard a story now about a cook who was cutting up bits of foliage to use as spits for some Porterhouse steaks he was broiling for dinner, and he cut his finger clean off. Come to find out he had purchased one of the Arab rings and his finger had become discolored; he cut it off mistaking it for just another branch.

I have some doubts about this tale though because anyone knows he wouldn’t bother cooking Porterhouse steaks for dinner when they are so common we use them for breakfast.

Well, Fred, I don’t want you to imagine this as an afterthought on my part but I am writing it last because as you close this letter I’d rather have it fresh on your memory.

It concerns your new baby, which no doubt has been born by now. I want you to know that I will love the little one just as I love your Esther and your Janet, and if I ever think I am suffering in this God-forsaken land, just remember one of these days when the clouds gather themselves up from the mountains and depart for the heavens, I will be on that boat heading home. Just think of the pleasure I’ll have seeing my nephews and nieces for the first time, and just think of the fun I’ll have with my own little Diane. As for Marie, I guess I can’t even describe the feeling I’ll get when I see her again. I wish you the best of luck.

Your Brother Paul

Written by Frank Whitty, MFA January 1996—Stoughton, MA July 2004—Middleboro, MA