Living History in Our Community

Jim Burns' Story — World War II and 82nd Airborne Veteran
Here I was, a kid, raised in a working class row house neighborhood, Grays Ferry, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the Great Depression, never having traveled more than 90 miles from home (to the New Jersey Shore) and that on only a few occasions. In those days not many people traveled far from home let alone to other countries. There were no televisions, computers, Interstate highways, or jet travel.

Jim Burns, 1945

We hear a lot on the news now about obesity in children. Back in the late 30’s and early 40’s this was not a problem because there were no fast food places like MacDonald’s or Burger King, etc., and the kids played outdoors most of the time. We were very active playing games and walking a lot.

When I went to high school I had to walk a little over three miles each way. You could ride the trolley cars for fifteen cents round trip, but most kids would rather save the money and walk. Some would occasionally hitch a ride on the side of a trolley car or the back of a truck. There were no school buses provided for us and no one complained about walking. Grammar school children attended neighborhood schools, which were usually within five or six blocks from their homes.

The U.S. population, one hundred and forty four million, was much less than half what it is now. People lived in cities, small towns or on farms. Housing developments came along after the war. Wages were very low back then but so was the cost of living. On my first job with Strawbridge and Clothier department store I was paid thirty-five cents an hour. Later on I was promoted and got fifty cents an hour but six months later I was hired by another company at one dollar an hour.  Sixty dollars a week was considered a good paying job.

 

Induction and Army Training
Now I was having the greatest adventure of my life, doing things that I’d only imagined from old World War I war movies. It was February, 1943, and I was a soldier in the United States Army. I felt so proud to be wearing that uniform and undergoing gung-ho infantry training and the thoughts of the glory of fighting the enemy in the defense of my country.

Before going into the service my biggest fear was that the war might end before I was old enough to serve. Many of my neighborhood friends had already enlisted in the Navy, Marine Corps, and Army and some of the older ones had been drafted. My mother was dead set against me going into the service, and understandably so, and that prevented me from enlisting. But when I was old enough for the draft I went to my local draft board and asked that my name be moved to the top of the list.

They were very obliging and on January 25, 1943, I was called up. I was given a physical examination at the National Guard Armory at 32nd and Lancaster Avenue in Philadelphia and was sworn into the army that same day. On the 1st of February, I departed by train from the old Broad Street Railroad Terminal to the New Cumberland Military Reservation (across the Susquehanna River from Harrisburg) in Pennsylvania, along with a couple of hundred other young men.

Upon arrival at New Cumberland we were assigned to barracks, issued our uniforms and given a series of immunization shots for small pox, typhoid, tetanus, and typhus. The following day we were given an aptitude test so the army could decide what type of unit we would be assigned to.  The cadre there seemed to delight in shouting orders at the new arrivals; “Fall in,” “Fall out,” “Attention”, “Forward, march,” etc.; even the PFC’s were barking orders at us. Within a few days the new arrivals were split up and shipped to different army units throughout the country. I was looking forward to being sent to an army camp or fort in the deep south or out west. Instead, I ended up taking my training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, Fairmount Barracks and Tobyhanna in Pennsylvania, and Fort Meade, Maryland. Training consisted of physical exercising, close order drill, weapons classes, combat field training, care and cleaning of equipment, 10 and 20 mile marches with full field equipment, firing ranges, guard duty, kitchen police, etc.

One day during basic training my name appeared on the duty roster as a driver for a convoy the next day. I told the sergeant that I didn’t have an army driver’s license, that I’d never even driven a car in civilian life let alone a big army two-and-a-half ton truck loaded with troops. He said, “your name's on the duty roster to drive and that’s what you’ll have to do.” Well, the troops in my truck got the jerkiest ride of their life. It’s a wonder they all didn’t suffer from whiplash. The army trucks back then did not have automatic transmission but had two sets of gearshifts, that required double clutching, the details of which I wont go into. I did manage to keep up with the truck in front of me, though, and somehow managed to get through the ordeal without causing an accident although the truck’s gears took a beating. Later on I took the driver training course and got my army drivers license.

I soon learned that there was no democracy in the army, or probably in any other branch of the services, but that didn’t dampen my love for it. I accepted it as the military culture, a way of life far different from the civilian life that I grew up in. It was regimented and far more disciplined. The first time I was put on guard duty I was assigned to guard G.I. stockade prisoners on work detail. Each guard was given three prisoners to guard. It was similar to the southern road gangs except that most of these prisoners were serving no more than three to six months for things like going AWOL (Absent Without Leave). If one of your prisoners attempted to escape you were to order him to halt three times and if he didn’t then you were to shoot him, in which case you would then be fined one dollar for the bullet and then transferred to another army facility. I never saw this happen but this is what we were told.

Army life was never designed to be easy and like it or not we had become government property. The initials G.I., soldiers were commonly called GI’s back then, stands for Government Issue. This didn’t quite make sense to me because I wasn’t issued by the government, my army clothing and equipment were. We were not allowed to have any articles of civilian clothing or any non-issued military clothing. Only a certain percentage of the men were allowed a pass to leave the camp at night and were required to be back before midnight bed check. A weekend pass was good from Retreat Parade (6 pm) on Friday ‘til midnight on Sunday.

Anyone who served in the army during the war will remember the Saturday morning full field inspections and scrubbing the barracks floors and washing the windows the night before with the proverbial warning, NO PASS NO PASSES. Also, the 6 am reveille formations on cold, dark winter mornings when the sound of the bugle would startle you from your sleep. It always seemed to me that I would no sooner get to sleep when I would be rudely awakened by the fast staccato sound of the bugler sounding reveille, so different from the night before when I would be lulled to sleep by the slow tempo of Tattoo followed by the mournful strains of Taps, the soldier’s last call, with the distant echoes of bugles in other sections of the camp. The lights had to be out in the barracks at 9 pm at the beginning of Taps.

Some men, in order to get a few extra minutes sleep, would fall out at the last minute wearing overcoats over their underwear. I remember one morning when the captain ordered the company to drop all overcoats. Appearing not to notice the state of undress of some of the men, he proceeded to give a lengthy sermon on the importance of military discipline and obedience to orders while everyone stood at attention with teeth chattering especially those in their underwear. This was quite an effective strategy in getting the men to be properly dressed for reveille formation.

When coming back from pass late at night to a dark barracks, lights out at nine, you could usually expect to find your bed short sheeted, or something worse, courtesy of some of your barracks buddies. The barracks were arranged with two rows of upper and lower bunk beds. If I remember correctly, on the first floor there were twenty-four beds on each side and at one end was the latrine and showers, a row of toilets and urinals and a row of open showers, no privacy at all. The second floor was similar except for the latrine and showers but had individual rooms at one end for the corporals and sergeants.

The interior walls were unfinished, just open studs (2 X 4’s) and for each bed there was a shelf over a wood rod for hanging your uniforms in a specific order and completely buttoned up. The shelf above was for your garrison cap and helmet and your boots and galoshes were lined up underneath one side of your bunk. The floors were unstained wood planking. The barracks were heated by coal furnaces but had no insulation so they tended to be a little cool during the cold weather. The beds had to be made up the army way, with the second blanket tucked in over the head of the bed like a hood, and the blanket stretched tight enough so that the inspecting officer could bounce a half dollar off of it.

KP (kitchen police) was the most miserable duty in the army. A towel hung over the end of your bed so that the CQ (Charge of Quarters) could locate your bunk to wake you at 4 am. Yes, 4 am ‘til 7 or 8 pm. Pots, pans, dishes and silverware were washed in scalding hot water with that dark yellow G.I. soap that was so strong I think it could be used for paint removal. We had to chop up a large bar of the soap, put it in a can similar to a paint can with a lot of holes punched in the bottom, and hang it over the hot water faucet to fill the sink with steaming hot soapy water. Next to it was another sink with hot clear water for rinsing. The hundreds of pieces of silver ware was then put into a mattress cover and shaken by two men until dried.

The long wooden tables had to be scrubbed after every meal as well as the floor, ashes had to be emptied from the coal burning cooking stoves and the grease pits emptied. Of course there was also the tons of potatoes that had to be peeled by hand and at meal times you had to work on the serving line. It was non-stop all day long and you could rely on seeing your name on the duty roster for KP or Guard Duty at least once every three weeks.

Training on the pistol range consisted of the target shooting range and the combat range. On the combat range you had to walk along a path with your pistol in its holster, silhouette targets would pop up from behind bushes or fake buildings and you had to draw your weapon and fire at them. I got the second highest score in the company of one hundred and eighty men. I was always a good shot with a rifle but pistols were new to me so I felt proud of myself for doing so well.

 

Stateside duty followed training
After months of training, my unit was assigned the job of guarding steel mills and power stations and escorting enemy war prisoners captured in the North Africa campaign. They were brought by ship to Hampton Roads, Virginia and loaded onto prison trains to be transported to various prison camps in the south, Midwest and southwest. On one such trip we took a trainload of Italian war prisoners to Fort Wayne, Indiana and another time a load of German prisoners to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The coaches used were older ones with wooden seats, the windows were screwed shut and the lights were kept on twenty-four hours a day. We had one man on duty inside each car armed with a billy club and in between the cars were soldiers with Thompson submachine guns observing the prisoners through the door windows on each end of the coaches. The trip to Indiana took about four days and the one to Mississippi took five days.

Prisoner of war trains got a low priority on the railroad and had to keep pulling onto sidings to let other trains pass. Trains carrying troops or tanks, trucks, artillery, etc. had top priority. None of the cars were air conditioned, not even the cars used by the soldiers guarding the prisoners, and the soot from the coal burning locomotives always managed to get inside even though the windows were closed. We were ordered not to have conversations with the prisoners but sometimes we did speak to a few of them who understood English. They were fed twice a day in their seats and were only allowed to get up from their seats to go to the toilet after getting permission from the guard. The Italian prisoners seemed happy to be out of the war but some of the Germans were arrogant. Most felt they were going to win the war and we would all be at their mercy. Some even believed that New York City had already been bombed.

 

Getting ready to ship out
After these assignments I was transferred to a unit in Fort Meade, Maryland, that was getting ready to be shipped to the European Theater of Operations. Fort Meade is situated midway between Baltimore and Washington, DC. Second Army Headquarters is located there and at that time it was also home to the Third Cavalry Division. During my time there I was able to get a couple of passes to visit Washington, DC. It was my first time to visit our capital and of course I was thrilled. It was quite different than it is now but with limited time and on foot I really didn’t get to see very much. If I had been more familiar with the city I could have got around by trolley cars and buses.

Our outfit moved out by troop train, early in December, 1943, to Camp Shanks, New York, which was an overseas deployment camp. It was a cold bleak place with one story wood barracks with none of the comforts (ha ha) of a regular army camp or fort. There was a PX (Post Exchange) or the semblance of one, located in a small one story wood building. All they sold there were the bare essentials, such as tooth paste and tooth brushes, razors and blades, shaving cream, chewing gum, cigarettes, small candy bars, soda and near beer (nonalcoholic beverage) which tasted somewhat like beer if you had a good imagination. (Back then, alcohol was not allowed on military post for enlisted men.) There was a jukebox there which didn’t seem to contain more than a few records. The only song I can remember from there was “My Shining Hour,” which must have been the favorite because it was played so often that it became seared into my memory. Whenever I hear it now on the radio my thoughts go back to Camp Shanks and I can see it in all its bleakness. 

One night I was put on duty guarding three stockade prisoners who were confined in one of the barracks. They were to be released once the troop ship set sail. This night they were sitting on their cots marking their clothing and gear. After a couple of hours of marking their things and talking to each other I let my guard down and turned to look out the window of the barracks door. It never entered my mind that they would try to escape being as they were going to be freed in a few days. The one called Alex, from Cleveland, Ohio snuck up behind me and before I knew it he had pulled my Colt .45 pistol from its holster and jammed it in my back. “Put ‘em up”, he said. I did so and turned around to face him; that’s when he laughed and gave the pistol back to me. One of the other prisoners, a very rough looking guy lunged for the pistol but I pulled the slide back and threw a round into the chamber and pointed it at him and the others and made them sit back down on their cots. I don’t know what might have happened if he had got hold of my pistol. I never let my guard down again after that!

Big Alex really was a friendly guy. He was in the stockade for a minor offense. He later became one of my close friends and drinking partners. A few months later, in England, I was transferred to another outfit and never saw Alex again.

 

Crossing the Atlantic aboard the Queen Mary
We were at the camp for about a week and a half getting our gear ready for the trip overseas. We marked all our new issue stuff with our last initial and last four numbers of our army serial number. One dreary foggy night they loaded us onto two and a half ton army trucks and drove quite a way up along the Hudson River to what looked like a marshy area. There we loaded onto ferryboats in the dark and proceeded down the Hudson to the shipping piers in Manhattan. Each ferryboat pulled up along side the troop ship and we boarded through hatchways in the side of the ship. All was done quietly in darkness and fog. Everything seemed so surreal.

Our ship was the RMS Queen Mary, stripped of all its luxuries including wall paneling and fixtures and painted battleship gray. Normally this ship carried up to two thousand passengers but as a troopship it carried fifteen thousand. The ship was fitted with canvas bunk beds on metal frames fastened to the walls, four beds high and set in rows. Normally the stateroom I was in was built for one or two passengers and we had sixteen soldiers in that room with all their equipment. We were able to take off our boots and jackets but slept in our clothes. There was no place to hang anything but there was a sink to wash our hands and face, no shower though. Other troops had to sleep on the floor in the corridors and on the deck of the enclosed Promenade Deck.

As soon as we were all on board the tugs pushed the Queen out into the river and we set sail without any escorts. The queens sailed on their own and not in a convoy with destroyer escorts. Sinking either of the Queens, the Mary or the Elizabeth, was a prize that all German submariners were eager to get, especially since they sailed loaded with fifteen thousand troops each on their eastbound voyages to Britain.

To the best of my recollection we were fed twice a day in shifts. This must have been a monumental task due to the vast number of men on board. Each meal took hours so there really wouldn’t have been enough hours in the day to serve three meals. The dining rooms were fitted with long bare wood tables and wood benches, each seating about thirty men with barely enough room between tables to move about. We filed through the chow line with our aluminum mess kits and after the meal we had to line up again to wash and rinse our mess kits in large containers of soapy and clear hot water.

I was soon to be thrilled at my first sight of a foreign country after a turbulent voyage crossing the broad Atlantic Ocean on a crowded troop ship fraught with the dangers of explosive mines, enemy submarines, and violent stormy seas. It was all so exciting and adventuresome though sometimes I felt a little uneasy about the prospects of the ship being torpedoed and sinking in the icy cold ocean with no other ships nearby. Surely all 15,000 of us would be lost.

During the course of the war more than five thousand ships were sunk by enemy submarines and aircraft, the majority of these in the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea. Many of those sunk were just off the east coast of the U.S. and in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. A few of the ships sunk were carrying troops to Europe. We heard that a wolf pack of u-boats were pursuing us and we had to sail up close to Iceland to avoid them. The whole trip we sailed in a zigzag pattern relying on speed to outrun the subs.

Photo: Taken from a February 1978 Smithsonian Magazine article about this incident. Click here for a pdf file of the article and illustration.

At one point while laboring through extremely heavy seas we were hit broadside by a giant wave approximately 100 feet high that nearly capsized the ship. I learned later from an English seaman who was on the bridge at the time that the captain said if we had rolled 2 more degrees we would have capsized. Years later this incident was written about in an article on giant waves in the February 1978 edition of the Smithsonian Magazine. Had the ship rolled over it would have been the worst transportation disaster in history, far worse than the sinking of the Titanic.

Thousands of soldiers were seasick and many of the men swore that they would never get on another ship even if it meant staying in Europe. Fortunately for me, I never got seasick. Of course time would dim the memories of how seasick they were and they would be all to glad to get back on a ship to get home. I sometimes wonder, how many of those men on that trip never got the chance to come back home.

When we got within a couple of hundred miles from the coast of Scotland a PBY Catalina seaplane flew out to greet us and keep watch for any German subs. Later a couple of Canadian corvettes (like small destroyers) came out to escort us into the harbor at Grenock, Scotland near Glasgow. As we came into view of the land we could see houses and small cars moving along the roads. Every one was excited at getting their first glimpse of a foreign country. It all looked so different to us.

 

Landing in Scotland
On December 29th, we debarked and were marched in groups to some large buildings where we were fed. We ate British rations at British army mess halls where we sat at long wooden tables. From there we marched to a train station and boarded a troop train for our journey to England. It was dark by then and all the windows on the train had shades drawn so that no lights would show outside. A lighted train would have been an easy target for the German Luftwaffe to bomb or strafe.

We traveled south all night long and when it was daylight we were allowed to pull up the shades. We were all eager to see what the country looked like. The countryside looked quite beautiful, but the freight trains we passed made most of us laugh because they looked so tiny compared with the large American boxcars, which we were all used to seeing. The ones here looked like toys. They had only four wheels and no automatic couplers but disk bumpers and chains to hook one to the other.

I was living my dreams. Few people traveled far from home then. When people did travel any distance it was usually by train or Greyhound and Trailways buses and internationally via ocean steamers. Very few families owned a car and relied on public transportation. The people traveling domestically by air were usually business executives, movie stars or the wealthy.

Now here I was seeing parts of America that I’d only read about or seen in movies and best of all seeing and visiting some of the great cities of the world though not at their best as they were damaged by aerial bombings or artillery bombardment and were blacked out most of the times. Still I was impressed by them and the whole time getting closer to my destiny, armed conflict with a tough and ruthless enemy.

 

Wartime London
I was in London during many of the air raids. The Luftwaffe used to raid twice a night, usually early in the evening and later around one or two in the morning. The British had hundreds of barrage balloons flying over the city to stop the planes from coming in low to strafe or dive bomb. The balloons were moored to winches on the ground by steel cables by which they could be raised or lowered. They were located in many of the city’s parks and manned by the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) the British equivalent to our Women's Army Corp. (WACS). They also had antiaircraft guns in most of the parks manned by artillery troops and the ATS.

The city had a lot of air raid shelters and some people used the Underground (Subway) for shelter. Some families actually lived on the subway platforms sleeping on cots or bedrolls. When the air raid sirens would sound all the lights would be turned off and blackout curtains drawn over windows and doorways. In the movie theaters they would flash “AIR RAID NOW IN PROGRESS” on the screen and the movie would continue. The picture would shake a lot when bombs dropped nearby or from the concussion of antiaircraft guns and rockets firing nearby. I know of one theater that was hit by bombs killing scores of patrons.  If you chose to go out doors during a raid you stood a good chance of getting hit by falling shrapnel from the antiaircraft projectiles exploding in the sky. The Underground trains still ran as well as taxicabs with their little blackout headlights.

One night I was talking with one of the WAAF girls at her barrage balloon site in Green Park next to Buckingham Palace when the sirens sounded. They had a shelter at the site alongside their barracks but I didn’t want to go in it. We stood under a tree with very thick branches to keep from getting hit with falling shrapnel. One of the German bombers got hit and exploded and a three and a half foot piece of its aileron landed near us. I picked it up and later sold it to another Yank in one of the American Red Cross Service Clubs for twenty dollars in English currency. That was a lot of money in those days. The base pay for a private was fifty dollars a month. The soldier was happy to get a souvenir and I was happy to get rid of it, as it was too big to carry around or store in my barracks bag.

In England all American were called Yank or Yankee, even the southern boys who didn’t seem to mind most of the time. I have heard some southern soldiers say, “Don’t call me Yank ‘cause I’m a southern American.” Back then the army also had a magazine called Yank as well as a newspaper, published by enlisted men, called the Stars and Stripes.

Click here to continue for Jim's battle experience and life in the 82nd Airborne.