A "War Story" in response to Zoe. Kind of long.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

In a General Questions thread I mentioned that the Army lost me for three months (and upon review I find it was longer than that) and Zoe then asked where I was.

While I was at the Overseas Replacement Depot at Camp Kilmer, NJ I filled out a lot of forms. A will, insurance beneficiary, etc. One of them was a change in my allotment of pay. Since I really wasn’t going to need a lot of money I had all of my pay except the minimum, I think is was about $25, and my flight pay sent to my wife.

That was in late October of 1944. I finally wound up with the 344th Bomb Group in Pontoise, France just nort of Paris in late Novermber. In March of 1945 we moved to Florennes, Belgium and shortly after we arrived there I got a call to come up to the Orderly Room.

When I got there I was handed a clipboard of papers about 3/8 to 1/2 inches thick. It seems that the Army for one month had given me my full pay and also sent the increased allotment to my wife so I owed Uncle Sam about $250 or so.

Well, the stateside finance office involved had no idea where I was so they notified the Army’s main Finance Office which started a search. A request was sent to the 12th AF in Italy first where it traveled through the various Air Force groups there. Each time it stopped at a command, they responded with a form saying “Subject Officer not in this command.” thus adding a sheet of paper to the growing file.

Next the whole mess went to the 8th AF in England. Same routine and by this time the file is getting pretty big. Finally the 9th AF was reached with each Fighter and Bomber group it went to dutifully adding their endorsement. And, at last it got to my group and squadron and me, at Florennes.

That’s the reason that I found the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan so funny. The idea that an officer in a whole big room full of clerks typing out death notices for families would discover, on the spot, that Ryan’s brothers had been killed and he was the sole survivor was so ludicrous that I nearly left the theater so my laughter wouldn’t ruin others’ enjoyment of the movie

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If I may, I have a few questions. How often did things like you describe happen during WWII? I would imagine all the time. Also, my father was in the navy in the 50’s and 60’s serving mainly on the old diesel subs…and my mother would routinely travel with him to the Mediterranean and stay at different ports where he would be spending long periods of time. Never thinking to ask how she managed this, do you think this was a common practice during non-wartime? Well we were in Korea in the 50’s…so I guess it would have been wartime technically.

How was communication during WWII with family? Non-existent? Or very difficult?
As for saving Private Ryan, my father and I cried at the end. We had family in it, tho I never knew them as I was born in 1969, but the emotion was still there. Did you like the rest of the film?

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David, just be glad that they didn’t start with the 14th or 20th instead of the 12th! Imagine how thick that file would have been then.

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Actually, I exaggerate some. For effect, you know. At the time of WWII it would have been unreasonable to expect a regional finance office to know where an individual soldier was. In fact no high level headquarters would know anything about individuals. I suspect that my name wasn’t even known at our group headquarters. They probably just circulated to the squadrons to find the answer.

When something bad happened to an individual it was his unit that started the ball rolling, if a ball was going to roll. I suspect that the Japanese lost track of a lot of people during withdrawals from the Pacific Islands and didn’t really have the time or the resources to follow up and get a definitive answer. Just like happened to us at the time of any retreat.

As to Saving Private Ryan, it was a good enough movie as movies go, I guess. However, it was based on a false premise about sole surviving sons as this site details. It was also replete with anomolous happenings and just plain absurdities. Fine if you want to be entertained, if that’s the right word, useless as anything else.