L. Curtis Raynes

              Eric Walz History 300 Collection
L. Curtis Raynes – Life during WWII
By L. Curtis Raynes
October 26, 2002
Box 1 Folder 18
Oral Interview conducted by Meghan Raynes
Transcript copied by Luke Kirkham September 2005
Brigham Young University – Idaho
MR: Where were you born?
LR: Spokane, Washington. I was born on September 30, 1918. Right after World War I
ended.
MR: How old were you on December 7, 1941, the day that Pearl Harbor was bombed?
LR: Twenty- four.
MR: What do you remember about that day?
LR: I was in an artillery battalion in Alaska; we were out cleaning machine guns,
cleaning 20 mm antiaircraft guns. Beautiful morning for December, somebody came up
yelling, “ Sarg, hay Sarg, we’re in war, the Japanese just had a terrible strike on Pearl
Harbor” and I said, “ The heck you say.” And I left [ the] guns and went to the radio shack
and turned on the radio to see if I could get any additional information and I did and it
was all bad. So I remember that day very well.
MR: Did you serve in the armed forces during the war?
LR: Oh yes!
MR: Where did you serve?
LR: I served in Alaska for 2 ½ years, maybe 3, and then we went to Europe and I was in
Europe from sometime in November, until June of the following year. We came back
across the Atlantic, we had a beautiful trip back, but going there was pure hell because
we were in a convoy, a troop ship and a convoy. While we were in the center of the
convoy to protect it nevertheless there were submarines around and it took us two weeks
to get across the Atlantic Ocean and it only took us five days to get back.
MR: What was your rank, assignments, etc.?
LR: All the way from yard bird to Staff Sergeant. I probably had more time as a staff
sergeant than a yard bird.
MR: Did you meet and make any new friendships during the war?
LR: Oh yes, still visit with them once in a while. Less it be said any other way, war is
just plain hell. Some of the things you see are absolutely crushing and heart breaking,
and that’s the way life is sometimes. We in the United States were kind of isolated from
Europe so we didn’t have the problems they did. The only wars we’ve had were the war
in Cuba and the Philippines then the Indian Wars, but most of those were small side
engagements outside of World War II, which was a tremendous operation.
MR: How did the military train and prepare you for combat?
LR: Well in my case, I was a radio operator, so I attended code school. And I learned
how to march of course, and learned how to handle a rifle, which I already knew because
I had had a rifle all my life. We lived down in a part of Oregon where it was normal for a
kid to have a gun or two. We didn’t have any problems with them like they have
nowadays for some reason, I don’t understand that. Anyway, my most note- worthy
training was when I applied to go to radar school and I worked very hard and passed it
with flying colors. Then I came back to Alaska and became a staff sergeant. Then I was
a staff sergeant from there on out.
MR: How did your assignment help the war effort?
LR: Well, I have to say that singularly except if you were in a trench battle or a cannon
aid, the average soldiers’ contribution was very small. It was a tremendous number of
men. Of course you don’t really want to give up your life if you can help it. The work
that I did and the service- that was toughest on the enemy. I was in charge of a radar set
that was programmed to capture the position of mortar shells and relay the trace and
characteristics and relay the path that it took from where they landed. And then we’d
back plot it and that because it followed a pretty near perfect parabola. And it was very
difficult for the German soldiers because if they shot more than two rounds, the third
round before they could get the equipment picked up, we’d fire on that location. So I was
about five hundred yards from the front line as a general rule, if you could view it that
way. I worked to get the position of German troops who were firing mortars. And we
were successful enough that after a few weeks on the front with that equipment anytime
we turned it on the Germans would stop shooting. So then they reversed it, so anytime
they wanted send out a platoon to explore what was going on, they would ask me to turn
on the radar and immediately all gunfire would stop. That would be easier on our troops
that way. Of course it was bad for the Germans because they didn’t know exactly what
we could kill but they knew we really had something. So as a radar technician that was
probably the most valuable thing I did. But I did work as a communication sergeant for
quite a while.
MR: What did you do as a communication sergeant?
LR: I operated a radio station in Alaska.
MR: What kind of equipment did you use in WWII?
LR: Strangely enough at the very end of the war there was so little equipment around that
we wrote home and had our parents and family send our radio amateur equipment to us
and we used that. But after a month or two, why the army finally got regular standard
two- way communication stats.
MR: Was there any top- secret equipment used?
LR: As a matter of fact there was. We handled a lot of code for something called S2, a
branch of the service that took care of spying on the enemy. So we used to copy code for
them. We decoded messages for them.
MR: Is there anything you wish they had told you?
LR: The truth of the matter is, I tried to volunteer first off but they wouldn’t have me
because I couldn’t see well enough. Then they drafted me through the same sort, same
office with the same doctors, and they put me in the artillery. When I tried to get back
over into the signal corps, my outfit wouldn’t have it because I was too valuable for them.
They asked for an extension of the rules so that ended that. So I stayed in artillery all the
time I was in Alaska. When I went to Europe I worked out of the 15th army headquarters.
I was part of a group of men traveling and using this radar. That was the 15th army
headquarters.
MR: What was your image of Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito during the war?
LR: Routers. I felt they were very bad people.
MR: Do you remember anything specific that you felt about any one of them?
LR: I never saw them; Germans killed Mussolini, because he wasn’t any good to them.
They strung him up, either that or the partisans did it I don’t know what it was, but we
didn’t kill him. He was dead before we got there. As far as Hitler, I think he suffered
from some form of insanity. He postured and screamed at the populants and they
screamed back. We used to listen to them over the short wave radio based in Berlin and
it was pretty discouraging to listen too. But we had the last word however.
MR: What was your opinion of the war in the pacific?
LR: Terrible, terrible for all people concerned, it was terrible. Too many lives lost. We
won the war but with terrible costs to us. The Japanese lost it and they certainly had a
terrible loss. We out sharped them and beat their fleet. I think it’s a good thing they used
the atomic bomb because it saved a half million of our men that we would have lost
going to shore. Because they were sent from beach to beach, and that would have been
terrible losses.
MR: Did you know much about the atomic bomb before it happened?
LR: Nope. Although I heard that we had a new weapon, I didn’t know that it was an
atomic bomb or what it would do, I just heard we had a new, secret big weapon.
MR: What was your reaction when you heard that they dropped the atomic bomb on
Japan?
LR: I have [ to] say selfishly that I was pretty happy because I figured I would be home
pretty soon and that was the case. I was in the United States when it happened. You see
when the war with Germany ended long before the Japanese war ended. From the time
the war ended I happened to be down in Santa Fe area, in the Bay of Bisque. We were
working on a bunch of trapped Germans that we were shooting back at. When the war
ended I can remember the French citizens came out and walked up and down the streets
of this small town singing their national anthem, the Marseilles. And everybody was
singing and crying at the top of their voices, “ Vivo Kaput,” which means, “ The Germans
are done,” and various other things. And they invited us in to have a glass of wine to
celebrate. It was some of the best wine I ever had in my life. We had the most choice
wine that night. Shortly there after we were called to go up into Germany and act as
occupation troops. We went up into Germany and they made me the first sergeant in the
outfit. We were there for several months and then caught the ship home.
MR: How was it like living in Germany right after the war?
LR: Very, very quiet. The Germans were pretty badly beaten. Most of their big cities
were all just trash heaps. There was a terrible loss of life.
MR: Did you meet with much hostility while you were there?
LR: No, we just had to do. I didn’t try to socialize at all. All I wanted to do was see that
we got the guards posted and call headquarters if there was trouble. There never was any
trouble.
MR: When did you first hear about the German Concentration Camps?
LR: When I was up in Alaska. They were just as bad as the worst thing you’ve ever
heard about and they were ten times worse than that, I can only imagine. We heard
polish agricultural slaves for servants when we went to Germany and they told us their
story. I don’t want to repeat it, not a happy one. They told us how the Germans treated
them and it was pretty bad. Not all Germans followed the party line but most Germans
did. As soon as the war was over and they lost, of course they tried to make friends with
everybody. But personally felt that not being able to speak German very well I best off
keeping my distance. I saw to it that the men under my command did the same thing.
MR: How did your life change as a result of WWII?
LR: I lost four and a half years of it.
MR: Do you feel that you did your duty?
LR: Yes ma’am, I did. I’m a decorated veteran.
MR: Do you regret those lost four and a half years?
LR: No, because if we hadn’t done that, the next stage was to come over to the United
States. It was a very bad political setup.
MR: How did you contribute as an individual and in your community to the war effort?
LR: I don’t know, I wasn’t at home when the war started, I was overseas.
MR: How did your family react to the war?
LR: I think we have company. Come in. It’s your dad, we’ll have to finish this later.
MR: We were talking about your family during the war; how did the war affect them?
LR: Well, my dad was very concerned when I went to Europe. I was over there and I
was having to sleep in a piece of equipment and I only had one blanket so I asked him for
what’s called a palming needle so I could sew up some blankets and make myself a
sleeping bag. So my dad sent me this palming needle, which I ceremoniously returned to
him once I got back home. And that was a great thing. The war in Europe was really a
terrible thing, and it would do right for any farther to worry about his son going to Europe
in those days. I think in one battle we lost 50,000. People don’t seem to comprehend the
extent of war.
MR: How did your mom react?
LR: She was a very religious person and she put her faith in the Lord and knew that I
would be alright.
MR: Did Uncle Link serve in the war?
LR: Yes he did. Uncle Link was in the air corps if I remember right.
MR: Were you able to correspond very much with your family?
LR: I never did correspond with Link. Link was married to Beth at that time in the war.
He was just a kid when they were married. I used to write to write to mother as often as I
could which was generally twice a week, and I got that many letters back. I know I
complained to her about some things, and she gave me some rationals which helped me a
lot.
MR: Were those letters a source of comfort to you?
LR: I’d have to say in the long run, as I look back on it now, yes. On the other hand, at
that time I was so busy, sometimes didn’t get a chance to do what I wanted to do. I was
traveling a lot of the time I was in Europe. I think I crossed France four times if I
remember right.
MR: What places did you see in Europe, Granddad?
LR: Well, France from the western most border to the northern most border. Not to the
south of France, never did get down that way. Saw Belgium, parts of Belgium and
Holland, and another little buffer country in there, I can’t remember the name of it right
now. Then I saw a lot of Germany after World War II. We were on duty on the Rhine
River. We ran patrols on the Rhine.
MR: In the community that you grew up in, you lived in Oregon at the time, right?
LR: Yes.
MR: How did it affect the area during the war? Do you know very much about that?
LR: Never was home, couldn’t tell you much about that. I left before the war started and
come back a month or two after it was over.
MR: Did you know any young men who did not return from the war?
LR: Oh yeah, some of my dear friends didn’t come back.
MR: How was that to know that you made it back and others didn’t?
LR: Well, all I can say is put your faith in the Lord, and some do and some don’t. Other
than that, I didn’t have a big battle experience, I had a smaller field. We had about
90,000 Germans penned up in a sea port. We stayed on their perimeter for several
months to keep them in. After all, when they were there they were feeding themselves
and doing their own guard duty. But they use to shoot their artillery at us and mortars at
us occasionally. And from time to time we would bite back. So, yes there was shooting
around and shells dropping near by. But I think it sums up pretty well by a little French
girl who came up to our compound one day. I said, “ Do you know that your right out in
the middle of a battle field?” And she said, “ Yes I do.” And I said, “ While why don’t
you get away from here?” She said, “ But this is my home.” What can you say to that?
MR: Did you feel lucky that you served in the European theater as opposed to the Pacific
theater?
LR: Well, we all had our good and bad. A lot of men lost in the pacific theater too, you
know. I hold nothing but respect for them. Any man, money, marbles, or chalk, you
have to respect them, the pacific theater veterans of World War II. On the other hand we
had our bad times too. It was a different war altogether. Once you reached the
beachhead one time, from then on it was a land war. I didn’t get to Europe until
sometime in the latter part of November or the first part of December, I’ve forgotten.
The Battle of the Bulge was just over. We were ordered up as replacements for the Battle
of the Bulge, but I was never used for that. They found out I was a radar man and they
picked me off the team to work in a radar position.
MR: Do you think working in the radar section of the army saved your life?
LR: I hate to say a yes or no on something like that. It’s too iffy all the time. This radar
thing, I was 500 yards from the front lines in it. So it’s hard to say that.
MR: What are some of the most vivid memories of the WWII experience that stand out in
your mind?
LR: Talking with Polish slave girls. That was terrible. Our outfit went up to a
concentration camp and asked for some girls to be house- keepers for a place where we
commandeered. Where we had about a hundred men or there abouts. So they cooked
and washed dishes, and cleaned, swept floors and all that sort of thing. But from time to
time we got a chance to talk to them. We had a person in the outfit who was a Polish,
and spoke Polish very fluently. These were Polish girls, some of them very pretty. I
never will forget this one beautiful girl except that her hands and feet were all knarled. It
looked like she had been working in the barn yard. And that’s about what she did. They
used to use human beings in places of horses to draw the plow. She was a horse. The
girls told various stories, but most all of them were bad. I remember one of them lived in
a little town in Poland and the Germans came at them and ran everybody out of the
houses and into the field. Then they went through and picked out the ones they thought
would be good workers. Then they shot the rest of them including her mother and father
and everything else. Younger children, kids from about ten years old up to about fifteen
for boys, and twenty- five for girls. They marched through the snow for a day, mostly
with bare feet until they get to a railroad sighting. Then they put them in a cattle car and
sent them to Germany. They were four days getting to Germany and they didn’t give
them any water or food during those four days. So they had them all in there and if you
were hearty enough to live, you lived, if you don’t you die. So she made up her mind that
she was going to live. A lot of them died. A really lucky gal, you know. All the ladies,
and all of the women we had told terrible stories about how the Germans enslaved them.
Not very good.
MR: Did you have a lot of bitterness towards the Germans?
LR: I didn’t personally. They were fighting a war. In both cases it was something like
us, it wasn’t our war we were just the participants. On the other hand, the Polish men, we
couldn’t turn those people loose after World War II because they would go out and kill
Germans with anything they could get. If they could get a butcher’s knife they’d use that,
or anything. So we couldn’t use those men for help because they’d kill Germans. The
war was over but you couldn’t tell them that. Pretty difficult.
MR: How do you think the world changed as a result of WWII?
LR: There were so many changes. I think perhaps the biggest single change was the
center of power of the world changed. If there was a world leader, back at the beginning
of the war it would be Germany and England. Germans pretty well enslaved, conquered
France, Belgium, Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Turkey, Italy, and a large portion of
Europe. Of course the United States getting there, it was their duty to conduct campaign
so they could release the maximum amount of people. And we did, however, part way
through the ending negotiations with Russia. Russia, who had by the way, the Germans
had killed twenty million Russians. Hard to conceive, but they did, they killed twenty
million Russians without even thinking. Russians, were obviously were kind of put out at
the Germans, and they treated them pretty rough when they came back at the end of the
war. By negotiations, we said we would stop at the Rhine river or there abouts. Our
armies came up to the Rhine River and stopped there, and we waited to meet up with the
Russians. I have to say, England was no longer a world power when it was over. If there
was a world power at that time, it was the United States. So the centers of power did
change. That’s the biggest thing that happened as a result of World War II. Other than
that the Japanese lost their influence in the Pacific, while they did the other countries,
many of them because independent again.
MR: Do you feel that World War II was for the best?
LR: No war is good, but when one considers what would of happened if the Japanese and
Germans had ruled the world. One is forced to say there was some good on a national
scale that came of it.
MR: What is the most important lesson we can learn from WWII?
LR: I think that democracy is the ultimate form of mankind’s governing body. It was
democracy that won World War II.
MR: That’s pretty much it, is there anything that you would like me to include, any
memories, or something important?
LR: I could talk on for hours about this.