Wide-ranging oral histories from Grand Valley, Capital Area District Library, and Michigan State that capture the perspective of citizens and veterans across the state.
Edward Johnson was born in Greenville, Michigan in 1919, and was drafted into the Army in 1941. After training to be a mechanic at Camp Boyd, Texas, Johnson joined Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division. He went to England with this unit in 1942, and stayed with it through campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, Normandy, the Hurtgen Forest, Battle of the Bulge and the invasion of Germany, ending up in Czechoslovakia when the war ended.
Date Created:
2012-02-28T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
Stuart Padnos was born in Michigan in 1922. He attended the University of Michigan and enlisted in the Army Reserve after Pearl Harbor. He was called to service a few months later where he took part in the Army Specialized Training Program. Padnos began taking engineering classes, but was later called up for infantry training due to a shortage of recruits. Stewart was later assigned to the 78th Division and sent to fight in the Hurtgen Forest, where he was captured and sent to a German prison camp. He remained there until he was liberated by the Russians, and eventually found his way back to the US.
Date Created:
2008-06-30T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
William Schrader was born in Alpena, Michigan on October 19, 1929. He entered the Army on July 31, 1948, and served in Germany near the end of World War II. After WWII, Schrader went to Korea and served in the Korean War. After Korea, Schrader switched from Infantry to Airborne. After joining the Airborne, Schrader married and he and his wife went back to Germany. Schrader spent 113 days in Lebanon during the Lebanese Crisis, and afterwards, went back to the United States and joined the Special Forces, eventually becoming a Green Beret. In 1962, Schrader left and trained guerillas in both Laos and Iran before going to Vietnam in 1965. Schrader left Vietnam and served in the United States for several years before returning to Vietnam in 1969, where he again trained Vietnamese forces.
Date Created:
2010-05-20T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
Eugene Smith was drafted to the United States Army in the 1940's. He was stationed in Calcutta, India for a total of 28 months. Although the American troops deployed to India at this time were intended to attack Axis supply lines coming from the country of Burma, Smith was not actively involved in this mission and served as a military policeman. His duties consisted of primarily base patrol with occasional prisoner safeguarding. The base which Smith was stationed was highly underdeveloped and demanded fast adaptation by new recruits who had been thrust into highly dangerous positions from a previous life of suburban factory work. The 44-day voyage to India presented Smith and the other young American men with unfamiliar situations including attacks by Japanese submarines, hurricanes, and extended sea travel. Smith was discharged on January 1st 1946 and returned to his home in Wisconsin to attend Marquette University funded by the GI Bill of 1944.
Date Created:
2006-05-31T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
Noella Le Duc was born in Graniteville, Massachusetts in 1933. She grew up playing baseball with the boys, and when she was sixteen, a friend of her mother's introduced her to one of the AAGPBL players, Rita Briggs, who arranged a tryout for her in 1951. She played in the AAGPBL from 1951 through 1954, first with Peoria and later with Muskegon and Fort Wayne. She was primarily an outfielder, but also tried her hand at pitching and catching.
Date Created:
2010-08-05T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
Jan Viveen, born in 1918 in a small village in North Brabant in the Netherlands. After completing high school in 1936, he was drafted into the Dutch Army in 1936. At the time of the German invasion in 1940, he was manning an antitank gun on the banks of the Erft River, and stayed there until his unit was ordered to surrender. He spent about four months in a POW camp before being allowed to return home. After that, he worked in a rail yard and aided downed Allied airmen. In the spring of 1945, he was sent to a labor camp in Germany, and remained there until the liberation.
Date Created:
2010-09-07T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
Phil Owens was born in 1984 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He enlisted to the Marines and undertook boot camp in San Diego, California. After graduating in 2003 he was educated for supply operations and administration at Camp LeJune in Jacksonville, North Carolina. His role involved training, keeping track of inventory and serial numbers of gear, and budgeting. Additionally he trained to use specialized weapons in machine gunner school such as the MK19 grenade launcher and the M240. Owens returned to the 3rd Marines battalion in California before being sent on two tours of duty to Iraq. From 2004 to 2005 he was situated in Fallujah where the Second Battle of Fallujah was taking place. The second tour was located in Haditha Iraq. In 2008 he was honorably discharged from the Marines and continues to participate in a variety of groups for war veterans and working as a clinical athletic trainer.
Date Created:
2015-05-24T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
Robert Vickers was born in Lexington, Kentucky, on September 25. 1944. He was in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps at Eastern Kentucky University and received a commission as an officer in the combat engineers of the Army in 1965. He decided to become a chaplain and attended seminary for three years, then went to the Chaplain School in 1969. He stayed in the Army Reserve until January 1975 when he went on active duty. His first assignment was at Fort Carson, Colorado, with the 1st Battalion of the 77th Armor Regiment, for 15 months. He was stationed in Wiesbaden, West Germany, with the 76th Infantry Brigade from March 1976 until June 1979. He studied at the Advanced Course for Chaplains at Fort Wadsworth, New York, then went to Fort Devens, Massachusetts, in January 1980. He left Fort Devens in May 1983 to study at Vanderbilt University then serve at the Chaplain School. He was stationed at Fort McPherson, Georgia for four years, then did a tour in South Korea with the 2nd Infantry Division. Robert's last two assignments were at Fort McClellan, Alabama, and at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, where he retired in 1996.
Date Created:
2016-10-26T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
Woodrow J. Tromp is a WW II veteran who served in the U.S. Army with the 32nd (Red Arrow) Division Company I, 126th Infantry Regiment from 1940 to 1945. In this account he discuses his time with the National Guard before and after it was federalized as part of the U.S. Army. In addition, he discusses his training in the U.S. and Australia, combat experiences in New Guinea and the Philippines, along with problems caused by terrain and disease.
Date Created:
2008-01-24T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
Interview of John Richard "Dick" Rossi by filmmaker Frank Boring for the documentary Fei Hu: The Story of the Flying Tigers. Dick Rossi served in the American Volunteer Group (AVG) as a Flight Leader for the 1st Squadron, "Adam and Eves." He joined the AVG in 1941 after being discharged from service in the US Navy, where he had been assigned as a flight instructor at Pensacola Naval Air Station. He arrived in Burma in November 1941 and began training on the P-40 airplanes, but had not yet completed his training when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Though officially attached to the 1st Squadron, he was also temporarily assigned to both the 2nd and 3rd Squadrons. In this tape, Rossi discusses his reaction to the news of Pearl Harbor and the following days being on alert. He also goes into detail on his first battle with the Japanese and how Chennault's training was put into practice.
Date Created:
1991-02-06T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
Wallace Ewing was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on September 11, 1932. He recalled listening to news reports on the radio about the attack on Pearl Harbor, but remained unworried about the global events of the Second World War. After graduating high school in 1950, Ewing pursued the NROTC program at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He participated in three overseas cruises and training exercises, but was forced to abandon his training when he was told he could not be married and become a Midshipman. Ewing and his wife started a family in East Lansing, he finished his degree at Michigan State University, and he became a university English teacher and later Dean at a small college.
Date Created:
2017-05-22T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
George Meyers was born in Coloma, Michigan on August 6, 1926. George spent his early years on his parent's farm, but they had lost it during the Depression. Both of George's older brothers were already in the service and fighting when he received his draft papers in 1944. George went through basic training for the Army at Camp Hood in Texas and then went through extended training before being sent to Luzon. George served as a replacement in the 32nd Infantry Division and was later sent home after being injured by a grenade.
Date Created:
2007-07-30T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
Albert Ohanesian was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1924. He wanted to enlist in the Army immediately after Pearl Harbor, but was too young, and was drafted late in 1942. He tried to get into the Army Air Corps, and tested well enough while in basic training at Camp Grant, Illinois, to qualify, and was put into a program to give some college training for flight school candidates and sent to Butler University. He did well there, but his program was shut down and he wound up at Camp Polk, Louisiana, assigned to the 58th Armored Infantry Battalion in the 8th Armored Division. He sailed for England at the end of 1944, then shipped over to France in early 1945. His division passed through Belgium and joined the 9th Army in the Netherlands before crossing the Rhine and proceeding across Germany and into Czechoslovakia.
Date Created:
2010-08-31T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
Fay Orvis was a soldier during World War II in the United States Navy. He worked as a minesweeper during his time in the service and spent time in Okinawa and Saipan. His account describes different duties performed on the minesweeper and onshore in California and on various islands, as well as incidents involving kamikaze attacks and mine explosions.
Date Created:
2008-04-03T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
Frederick Rawsthorne was born in St. Helena, England, but migrated to the United States at an early age with his family. He returned to England with his family, then ventured back to the United States, with his family yet again. His family struggled to support itself during the Great Depression. Frederick found work, and then became a machinist's apprentice at Ford. During his apprenticeship, he joined the Marine Corps and was stationed in noncombat zones throughout the Pacific, eventually Japan. After WWII he became a full time machinist. He was laid off in 1949 and went to work at the post office in Trenton, MI. Eventually he rose to high status as postmaster of his town and master of his Masons' lodge.
Date Created:
2006-08-08T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
George Steele was drafted into the Navy in 1943. He had previously gone to a technical high school and was able to continue such aviation and mechanical training while in the Navy. George spent most of his service in Guam after the Japanese invasion. He was there for about two years while the Navy was giving technical support to the Marines. After his time in the service George became a draftsman at an architecture firm.
Date Created:
2007-10-30T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
Ben Jerzyk born in 1945 in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. He was the oldest of eight other children and his father was a World War Two veteran. He attended college and trained as a physical therapist and was drafted into the Army in June 1967. He trained as a medic at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. He was deployed to Vietnam in mid-December of 1967 and was stationed at Cat Lai with the 133rd Medical Detachment Company. He spent eleven months in Vietnam during which time he lived through the Tet Offensive in early 1968. After returning home from Vietnam he completed his service at Fort Carson, Colorado in early 1969.
Date Created:
2014-05-22T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
Larry Rosencrans was born in Muskegon, Michigan in 1948. After high school he was drafted in 1967 and his basic training took place at Fort Knox, Kentucky. At Fort Polk, Louisiana he underwent his AIT training before being sent to Vietnam in 1969. Near Pleiku Vietnam at Camp Enari he underwent more training, and then he was assigned to the 4th Infantry Division. In the jungles Larry would participate in a number of missions until 1969 when he left Vietnam. From 1970-1972 his mechanical repair skills came in handy in Fort Hood, Texas where he worked as a heavy duty mechanic, then later as a motor pool clerk.
Date Created:
2015-11-24T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
Thomas York was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1927. His family moved first to Oklahoma, then to Michigan. York enlisted in the US Air Force at 16, and after graduating at 17, entered active duty on July 1st of 1945. York underwent basic training at the base in Biloxi, Mississippi. York re-enlisted after his 6 months of duty were finished in the US Army Air Force. York was sent to Caserta, Italy, where he served for a year as a medical clerk. While at Caserta, York met British military personnel and German prisoners of war.
Date Created:
2010-01-13T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
Demo Christopoulos is a World War II veteran who served in the Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 261st Infantry Regiment, 65th Division. He enlisted in the Army late in 1943, but did not go to Europe with his original training company because he was too young. He eventually sailed with the 65th Division, which joined the 3rd Army in time to participate in the spring offensive in 1945. His unit pushed through the Saar, crossed the Rhine, and then fought their way across the Danube, and ended the war in Austria. Christopoulos remained in Europe until the spring of 1946, with his last assignment involving screening SS prisoners held at Dachau.
Date Created:
2011-07-14T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries