Dawkins, Gerald
Gerald Dawkins: World War II
Interviewed by Lisa Spires (Midwest City Rotary Club Interview)
Interview Date: April 22, 2004
Q: When and where were you born?
A: I was born in Prague, Oklahoma in 1926.
Q: When did you first begin thinking that the US might be involved in World War II?
A: When I was in junior high in ’41 and Pearl Harbor was bombed.
Q: And you were in junior high?
A: Yea.
Q: Did that occur after the attack at Pearl Harbor, or did you think that the US involvement in the World War was inevitable prior to the attack of Pearl Harbor?
A: The first I heard of war was Pearl Harbor.
Q: OK. Like I said, some of these are redundant questions.
A: That’s all right. Hey, I’m in the insurance business, we have to ask questions over and over.
Q: Oh, that’s true. What was your reaction and the reaction of your family and friends when Pearl Harbor was attacked?
A: Well, we worried because there were a few neighbors who were in the service and they started hitchhiking. They went into town in Prague, which did not have an interstate, but a four-way stop. Every time a serviceman stepped up to raise his hand, a car picked him up. They all went back to their base.
Q: Wow.
A: And I was a little boy watching them.
Q: And you just hopped on with them?
A: No, Mam! I didn’t hop on with them! I just went back to school.
Q: Oh, OK. Let’s see, how old were you in December of 1941?
A: Fourteen.
Q: And were you already in the military in December of 1941?
A: No.
Q: If not, were you drafted or did you enlist?
A: I was drafted.
Q: OK.
A: I tried to enlist. My father wouldn’t sign for me for the navy, so I went into the infantry and got shot at – and got shot.
Q: How did the other men in your area feel about serving in the military?
A: Everyone was eager. It was the most popular war in the history of the world.
Q: Yea. How did you family, wife, or girlfriend feel about you going off to war?
A: Well, since I was the youngest child, my mother was worried that something would happen.
Q: Oh, yea.
A: Because a cousin had already died in the war.
Q: Wow, ok. In what branch of the military did you serve?
A: In Europe, I was in the 10th Armored Division, and came home with the 45th Infantry heading for Japan and Harry Truman dropped the bomb and stopped the war.
Q: OK. Where did you undertake basic training?
A: Fort McClellan, Alabama.
Q: OK. What was that experience like, and please elaborate both on your training and your interaction with men from all parts of the country.
A: That was a different experience. I heard people – I went to the south, but I came back with somewhat of a Yankee accent because most of the troops were from the north. And I went to the sunny southland where we camped out and snow was 4 inches deep and one time. And – in running or whatever, I could outrun everyone in my whole division because I’d been a high school – had been a distance runner in high school. So I usually on the 30 mile marches would carry someone else’s pack.
Q: Oh, wow. Did you make lots of friends that way? (laughing)
A: I was barely 18. Yea, I made friends that way because they were bigger and tougher, and I was too little and couldn’t fight, but I could run.
Q: Let’s see, after basic training, where did the military send you?
A: After basic training, I was admitted to officer’s candidate school and the Battle of the Bulge came along and they cancelled all officer training and sent me directly to Europe when I joined the 10th Armored to help break free of the Battle of the Bulge.
Q: OK. This next one has a lot to do with that. In what capacity did you serve during World War II – your duty, rank, the places at which you served?
A: My rank got no higher than private first class, and I was a machine gunner with a 50 caliber machine, and worked with a Browning automatic rifle in the armored infantry division.
Q: Wow. In terms or your own experience during World War II, under what kind of conditions did you live and work. And elaborate on as many aspects as possible from food to clothing, etc., and so forth.
A: In World War II, we had some of the comforts of dorms. Of course, along line of beds, and if you had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night you walked 50 or 100 feet on the snow to go. But anyway, that’s neither here nor there. I’d never seen a ship or an ocean, and I went in February – I saw the Atlantic Ocean – and I went – got on a ship in New York and for 14 days we were on a ship – a Liberty ship – that flip-flopped back and forth like a row boat. And finally landed in France – about a third of the people got seasick – I did not. We landed in France, got into a boxcar and rode several hundred miles toward the front. And slept like bums all over the floor on the boxcar. And I reached the 10th Armored in a truck under German fire. And we entered Crailsheim, Germany, where I learned to shoot and try to stay alive. They called me “kid” because I looked like a kid, and I was younger than anyone else.
Q: You were the youngest one in your. . .
A: And then we – we liberated Dachau in Germany and saw those Jewish people starving to death that they hadn’t burned yet.
Q: Yea.
A: And they killed half of my company, even though it was only in combat about six weeks.
Q: Good grief! What kind of contact did you have with people back home?
A: We wrote letters and one time I got busy having fun right after the war ended and I didn’t write home for about four weeks and my dad had gone to the Red Cross, and the day he went I had . . .
Q: Oh, no.
A: . . .I sent another letter home. It took a letter about 10 days to get home.
Q: Oh, really. OK. What kind of correspondence did the military permit?
A: They let us write letters and opened enveloped and they censored out anything that they didn’t want me to write.
Q: OK.
A: They furnished free cigarettes!
Q: For writing?
A: No, just free cigarettes to anyone who wanted cigarettes.
Q: Oh really?
A: The tobacco companies got the government to pay them and tried to get . . .
Q: Oh how neat! How very interesting!
A: . . . as many people hooked on cigarettes as they could.
Q: Oh! How very terrible! OK, let’s see. . .
A: I did finish my service in army intelligence.
Q: Oh, really? OK.
A: Which is the spy division, similar to the FBI and the CIA.
Q: OK, that’s kind of one of these questions. I don’t know, let’s see, it says if you feel comfortable talking about combat, please describe the combat experiences you had, if any.
A: Yes, I feel comfortable. I do now – I didn’t want to when I came home. Charles Keller joined the 10th Armored the day I did and a week later they him shot right in the heart and he died right beside me. He was one foot away.
Q: Is that Keller?
A: K-e-l-l-e-r.
Q: OK.
A: And other people died, but that’s the one I knew the best.
Q: Right, right there beside you.
A: We had to – shared the same room the night before.
Q: Ah, I can’t talk about it – I’ll end up in tears! It’s, ah, I don’t know – that would be hard.
A: One night in the mountains in Germany – this will be good – the Germans were shooting and we couldn’t raise our head up. We were in a ditch with water running down out of the mountain – ice cold, and my arm was in the water, and I told the fellow from Brooklyn, “I think my dad didn’t let me join the navy – I’d be in a nice warm bed tonight.” He said, “Yea, or you might be in a shark’s mouth.”
Q: Oh, that’s true! What was your most memorable experience during World War II, combat or otherwise?
A: Probably the most memorable was as we were advancing into Germany with our armored equipment – well, some days we had a red banner, some day we had green banners, some day white, some day yellow – on our vehicles so that our bombers would know it was us.
Q: Yea.
A: And you could see our B-17s and B-24s as far as the eye could go – it was impossible to count them – heading into Germany showing what the industrial might of America was. I don’t know how they went back the other way from England because they were picked up from France and England both. And there was just thousands of airplanes in the air at the same time. And you’d hear them after a while bombing the targets ahead of us.
Q: Wow.
A: That was impressive. I mean to tell you, they were almost wing-tip to wing-tip.
Q: I bet, they’d have to be. Do you have any idea how many there were actually?
A: I just know there was hundreds and hundreds and maybe thousands.
Q: yea.
A: As far as you could see. And there was fighter planes mixed in with them because the – the bombers couldn’t change their altitude and the fighter planes would chase the other planes – enemy planes away.
Q: OK.
A: I saw my first jet the day Roosevelt died.
Q: Oh, really.
A: I was shooting – I was still dumb – I was shooting at it from my machine gun and they taught me later to get off of the vehicle and get out to the side of the road because they strafed the vehicles.
Q: Ah.
A: But an 18 year old the first week in combat felt brave! And dumb!
Q: Brave and dumb! Well, how long did you serve during World War II?
A: Two years.
Q: OK. After serving during World War II, where did the military send you or were you immediately discharged?
A: I was discharged.
Q: OK. What kind of reception did you receive when you got back into the United States?
A: Wonderful.
Q: Were you a school teacher?
A: Yea, I went to college – after I got out of the service I went to college and became a school teacher. I’d been a farm boy up until then.
Q: That’s not one of these questions? Actually, my ex-husband’s grandparents said “Oh, yea, I believe he was a school teacher,” so I guess . . .
A: Who was that?
Q: Jack and Maxine Windsor? They are from Pointon City.
A: Well, I was principal of Carl Albert for 20 years.
Q: OK, well, they live in Harrah now. We live in Harrah.
A: But that was the Carl Albert area.
Q: Anyway, grandpa had mentioned – or actually it was grandma – she knows all the dates and the names and the birthdays and all that and thought that you had been a school teacher. Let’s see, in terms of your war experiences, how did those experiences affect, if at all, your relations and interactions with your family, friends, spouse and/or your girlfriend?
A: Had no girlfriend – I was too young. Everyone acted happy to see me at home, and it was a great experience. I had never been 50 miles from home when I went in the service. I had never ridden in a train until I went into the service. I had never seen an ocean. I had never been on a ship.
Q: You grew up quick?
A: Yea.
Q: Do you still keep in touch with some of the people you served with?
A: Yes, I do.
Q: Are they around this area?
A: One of them lives at Spencer now.
Q: Oh, really, how neat! How has your World War II experience impacted your life.
A: It probably removed provincialism from my life. My life – world ended probably 40 or 50 miles from home. And then I found out there was an entire world out there. . . .
Q: Right.
A: I have been back to Germany and I have stayed in German homes and they have stayed in our homes and been a lot of friendships developed since then.
Q: Did it have any affect on your views of other wars the US became involved in after World War II?
A: Well, I’d say that after World War II, I think it was a very necessary war, but I question the necessity of some of them since then. I started off supporting the Vietnam War and then decided we should get out of it. My position’s just like Paul Harvey’s.
Q: What?
A: He said, “As a long-time supporter,” I was listening to my radio one day, “I supported the war in Vietnam. I’m now reversing my position.” I said I thought the same thing.
Q: Yea. Let’s see, the last question, what kind of general observations and conclusions to you have about World War II and your World War II experience?
A: World War II, I think, was very essential, and got rid of a tyrannical government and showed the solidarity of Americans – no one wanted to be opposed to the government or to each other – it solidified everyone’s thinking. And I’d say the hot heads that wanted to be hot headed could shoot at the enemy instead of each other.
