Thies: Born in 1930 in a town called Arkwright, New York, which is half way between Buffalo, New York and Erie, Pennsylvania, along the lake plain.

MA: Okay, What can you tell me about your parents? What was their background.

HT: My mother's parents were from Poland. They lived on a big farm, I remember as a kid they used to have the priests up a lot. They had a retreat up there at the farm as a matter of fact. My parents, or my father's parents, were old line German people from Germany.

MA: So both your parents are first generation Americans?

HT: Yeah. And all farmers.

MA: So you grew up on the farm?

HT: I grew up most of my childhood on the farm, yes.

MA: What type of farm was it?

HT: We basically had grapes, milking cows, raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes.

MA: Okay. What was your parents' education level?

HT: They got through grade school and that was about the extent of it as I recall.

MA: Was farming their only occupation? Did they do any other?-

HT: No. Both my parents were living on the farm when they were courtin' and they made the decision to move into the city of Dunkirk and my dad worked for a few years at a place called Dunkirk Radiator where they made radiators for heating systems. And my mother worked for years for Van Rault till they pulled up and left all their employees dry when they moved to Puerto Rico.

MA: So then later they moved back to the--?

HT: My, My folks separated when I was very young.

MA: And your mom went back to the farm?

HT: No, she stayed in the city and raised four kids on relief, now called welfare.

MA: Did you ever see your father after they separated?

HT: I saw my dad once in a while, probably till I was about 14. He re-married and had a second family, which has nothing to do with this, I've tried to make contact with them but they refuse to make contact with us so . . .

MA: So what were your childhood interests? What did you do?

HT: Basically farming, animals, out doors, living on a farm. I loved it. Maple sugar time was a big time where we collected the sap and the maple sugar. Then I went to a one-room school house. As a matter of fact when we moved from one farm to another farm they took me out of school, out of grade school, and again, this was a one room school house, so I could help drive the milking cows to the new farm. It was a distance of about seven miles. So we actually moved the cows along this dirt country road. I'm sorry, I just--- (laughter)

MA: No, no, this is what I want.

HT: We moved from one farm to another. My two uncles who helped raise me built a new barn that still stands to this day, and that was back in 1940.

MA: So why did you move from farm to farm? Were you--

HT: My grand dad had three sons, and when the three sons were home, they worked the land because it was a huge farm. And a daughter, in fact, my aunt was struck by lightning and killed on the farm. But he [my grandfather] had to get a smaller farm, the big farm was just too much for him because, the boys, my uncles and my father were moving on to the city, to jobs in the city if you will.

MA: How many brothers and sisters did you have?

HT: I had two brothers and one sister.

MA: Were you the oldest?

HT: I was the oldest of four kids, and my two brothers and I were in the service at the same time as a matter of fact, and there's quite a spread in our ages.

MA: So, did you have to take on the role and responsibility of a father?

HT: Yes I did as a matter of fact. My mother worked two jobs and I worked from the time I was 11 years old if you can believe that or not. We worked part time at a farm out in a place called Sheridan, New York. We used to take my two brothers and sister out there on the farm when my mother and I were working.

MA: Was your family hit hard by the Depression?

HT: Yeah, very hard, very hard. We were hit hard. I can remember living on ketchup sandwiches. Ketchup and mayonnaise and sugar sandwiches. I can remember going down one of the main streets in Dunkirk, the town my mother was living in. I can remember going and picking up the dried apples and the flour. No, we, we had some tough times.

MA: Can you remember, did you benefit from any of the New Deal Programs?

HT: Yeah, I can. I can remember. In fact, I can remember, I must have been 10 or 12 years old. I can't remember my kids birthdays but I can remember some things. I can remember going down to the middle of town when Franklin Delano Roosevelt came through on a whistle stop train tour and standing in the crowd listening to Franklin Delano Roosevelt speak from the rear of the train. Yeah, they had the, also, they had what they call the C.C.C.

MA: Civilian Conservation Corps?

HT: Yeah. Again I was probably what, 9 or 10, and I can remember I had four uncles at one time that worked in the C.C.C. and they would leave on Monday, oh actually Sunday night and come back on Friday night. And that's the way a lot of people kept their families together was thanks to C.C.C. I can remember I think the pay was twenty-one dollars a month as a matter of fact in the C.C.C., and they worked hard. They did a lot of work in the state parks at that time.

MA: Now, how did your family feel about Roosevelt?

HT: I have no recollection, I don't-- To be honest I don't think politics were a factor because we were so poor and, again, we didn't have the benefit of TV or anything like that. We used to listen to Jack Benny, and, with a big furnace, we heated this big house on the farm. The furnace was in the basement and there was an open grate over the top of the furnace, and that's how we heated the house. But again, I don't think politics were a factor because we didn't have the media to get the stuff to us like they do today.

MA: Now, you said your mom worked two jobs. Where did she work after the radiator company?

HT: After--? No, she worked on farms. My dad worked for U.S. radiator. My mother worked for Van Rault, she had like 17 years, and that's a tragic story. There was over 2,000 girls working there, ladies. And the company literally moved out at night and left these people with nothing. My mother had like 15 years. Absolutely, the town has never recovered from it as a matter of fact. And then she went to work at Red Wing canning factory. Ah, where they do tomatoes and raspberries, and strawberries. And she worked there until she got Alzheimer's so bad that she couldn't work anymore. In fact, she had two brothers and a sister that worked at the same canning factory. Kraft Foods owns it now.

MA: Now in this area, was it common for women to work?

HT: Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah. Because again, your talking about farm people. With farm people, that's the way it went. If you were a farmer you worked, period. I can remember the days of being on the farm, excuse me for rambling Michelle, we used to grow a lot of oats to feed the cows during the winter, and corn. I can remember [that] socializing was unheard of, we didn't do much and it was a big event when the threshing machine would come, which is a big machine that was run by tractor and belts, and my grandmother would be cooking for two days. And these guys would come in, it was like a big party, and they would be there for three quarters of the day threshing all the oats and have a big meal out in the yard. Good times.

MA: So it sounds like sometimes you lived with your mom in town and other times you lived on the farm?

HT: Yeah, because she was so poor and she was raising four kids. And there was no WIC or food stamps or-- There was nothing, there was absolutely nothing. And so we would, my sister and I, would live part of the time with my mom and part of the time with my granddad. In fact, I was fifteen years old and I was hired out as a hired man. That's how poor we were. I was hired out to this other farm over in Stockton, New York. I was 15 years old and I got ten dollars a month and room and board. And, they finally were able to bring me back home after three months. But that was not a good time in my life. I'm sorry, go ahead.

MA: No, this is good. Why did you feel like you had to grow up too fast?

HT: Well, it's, again, back there, all you had, all you had then really was your family because you didn't have movie theaters, you didn't have television, you didn't have the things to do, you didn't have the transportation to get around like you do today. Family was, I think, was much more important than it is now. And I had my old, for example, I had my old Holstein calf there, called Snicklefritz, and it was just like a dog. She was, she would follow me up the steps to the veranda, but, anyhow.

MA: So it was a lonely time?

HT: Yeah, it was. I walked, not to get away from what you want to get at I guess, but I walked an average of twelve miles in the winter time when there was a snow storm. Let's say ten miles, between ten and twelve miles. Back and forth to school.

MA: Wow.

HT: In fact they didn't have school buses when I went to school. They would hire somebody with a car and there was four of us from what they call Arkwright school district. And at that time there used to be school taxes, they had a tax specifically to pay for the schools. But again, it was all family then.

MA: Was schooling seasonal where you had winter and--?

HT: No, no but they would, as a matter of fact they would make arrangements for us during haying time and more so in the fall when it was time to get the corn in plus the grapes and stuff like that. In fact I had an uncle lose all his fingers on one hand on what they call a silo filler. You know those big round silos? They have a machine that chops the corn and blows it up there. He was feeding it through and his hand got caught. But that's another story. See, my uncles dug, they put in our own septic system up there. They dug our own wells. We had a natural gas well. That was back in the days when there was gas refrigerators. A lot of people-- Yeah natural gas refrigerators. Name of Servall, that was the name of the gas refrigerators.

MA: I know you were between the ages of 11 and 15 when America was involved in World War II. Did you follow the events of the war before American involvement? Do you remember anything about?--

HT: I don't remember much prior to the war. Although I can remember my granddad saying that he thought because of his German ancestry that we may have problems. In fact it was kind of a family joke about my mom being Polish and my dad being German as the reason for the fights that broke them up. I don't recall much prior to the war itself. I recall some things during the war period because of the pronounced effect it had on our life styles.

MA: Did you have any family back in Poland or Germany that you knew of?

HT: Not that I, not that I know of, no. I know there was some Polish, on my mother's side. Aunts and uncles but I-- They tried to do a family tree. In fact I've got one in my room somewhere. It goes all the way back to Germany. No, I dont know of any to answer your question. No.

MA: Being German and of German and Polish ancestry, were you especially worried about what was going on? Did they discuss Hitler or his actions or where --?

HT: No, I, I don't remember much discussion in the family. I know we all sang our, you know after the war got going pretty good there was, there was a bunch of Hitler songs that were around that we kids used to sing poking fun at him but, I don't remember much conversation. The concern as I recall was with the young guys going in the service and we had a lot of our family that served in the combat zones.

MA: Did anybody in your family serve in WWI? Does your family have a military history?
HT: Yeah, you know, I know they did, but I'm not sure who it was.
MA: I know you were very young, but did your family talk about America becoming involved in the war?

HT: I don't recall in conversation because again, the only way we got our information was from the local newspaper and Gabriel Heater at night. Can remember listening to Gabriel Heater at night on the radio and Walter Cronkite and the other fella, I can't think of his name.

MA: Edward R. Murrow?

HT: Yeah, I remember listening to him. But politics weren't a big thing as I recall. The local politics were big, and the biggest thing in local politics was who was going to be the road boss, what they call the road supervisor. Because they were responsible for taking care of the roads. Now these were all dirt roads, so that was the big thing, to get the right road supervisor and so there would be a way to get around the roads.

MA: So you're saying there was a more local interest.

HT: Yeah.

MA: Do you remember when you heard the news about Pearl Harbor? Do you remember how you felt?

HT: Ah, I remember the announcement but not as well as I do the atomic bomb announcement. I don't honestly recall where I was. It was on a-- Yeah I do remember as a matter of fact. It was the same house, same room where they announced the atomic bomb. Yeah, my mom was, it was on a Sunday I believe. I was watching the kids. My mother was somewheres. I don't remember that much about it.

MA: Do you remember how people reacted? Was it shocking or-

HT: Yeah it was, it was. You know, I can't be more specific but it was a topic of conversation. Again I can remember worrying on my granddad's part because he had three boys at the age and in fact, no, I don't recall much about it.

MA: Now, these were your uncles who were of the age?

HT: Yeah.

MA: Did anybody in your family serve? Were they drafted or did they enlist?

HT: Three of my uncles on my mother's side, enlisted, and of course there was a big thing going on about draft deferments then. They were deferring quite a few people in our area, because right across the street from our house, my mother's house, as a matter of fact, was a huge plant and its still there. It was a huge plant that made locomotives in what they called American Locomotives Company. ALCO Locomotives, which is still around today. They switched over to making what they call Long Tom cannons, they were 155 millimeter cannons. There was some concern that the-- No, I had my mother's three uncles, and my grandfather only had one son. My uncle Bud was drafted. He had a deferment because he was working on a farm, and he also had one young child. And he went in, I remember it so well, he went in when Joyce was just a year old and Aunt Grace was pregnant with Lorraine and he was drafted. He felt he would have to go so he did. He went in the Navy and never got back for two years.

MA: The people who left, did you understand what they were doing over-

HT: Yeah, oh yeah.

MA: Now the people who were deferred, how did they feel about that? Did they want to go? Did they feel embarrassed?

HT: I dont recall. Uncle Bud who actually raised me, he took the place of my father, I don't recall him being embarrassed because he was working from sunup to sundown on the farm because milk and food were a high priority so . . .

MA: So they had their role to play?

HT: Yeah, oh yeah. Absolutely, yeah.

MA: Did anybody in the area put pressure on them to enlist?

HT: I don't recall any.

MA: They didn't give them any trouble?

HT: No, no. I know my mother's three brothers all enlisted and all wound up in the Army in combat.

MA: And, you said, they all came back?

HT: Yeah, two of them not in the best shape, but yeah all four of them who went in all came back.

MA: Did you write to them when they were overseas?

HT: Yeah. I did I can remember the V mail. God, I can remember the V mail, like it was yesterday. I didn't know what it was at first. Yeah, and they used to write as often as they could. It was kind of a surrealistic thing. I can remember my Uncle Frank being in the Battle of the Bulge and getting a letter from him talking about having trench foot. I didn't know what trench foot was and my mother didn't know what trench foot was and we couldn't figure it out, what trench foot was, you know.

MA: So what would you write to them about?

HT: Oh, things were fine, how things were going on the farm because my mother's parents were on in age and they had a big farm with a lot of what they call milkers- cows that were being milked. I don't really recall that much.

MA: Did you try to keep it upbeat?

HT: I think so, you know being that age. You can't be too depressed I guess. [laughter]

MA: [laughter] You were at an impressionable age. Why did you think we were fighting the war? Do you remember any of your thoughts?

HT: Ahhh, basically it all hinged around the "dirty Japs" and Pearl Harbor. And Hitler, we, I think back now, there was not, well of course we didn't know about the Holocaust until the war was actually over really. It was mostly the Japanese who bore the brunt of our wrath because of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

MA: Did you discuss this in school at all? Did your teachers ever tell you anything?

HT: I don't ever recall a conversation in school, but again this was farm country and our priorities were more getting up in the morning, taking care of the cows, going to school and getting back home and doing the work on the farm, even in winter time. I know there was the rationing of food [that] was a big factor, as was gasoline. But I dont recall any conversation ever in school about it, to be honest. My granddad used to talk about it, but no, I don't.

MA: Did you ever have any problems because of your German ancestry?

HT: No a bit. Not a bit, nope.

MA: Now, you say because you lived in farm country you were just concerned with day to day life. After we entered the war did your life change much? Was it a noticeable change?

HT: Oh, after we were into it for a while, sure. Because everyone went on gas rations and being on a farm, we were better off. There were A cards and B cards as I recall. You put the sticker on your windshield. Yeah we got an extra allotment because we were on the farm. In fact, my granddad used to have us use the horses a lot to save the gas ration. Food was very- food itself was rationed. Sugar, you just couldn't get. Butter, there was no butter, but we lived on a farm so we made our own. Margarine, those were the days when you used to get margarine and have to add the color to it. You used to have to add and knead the color into it. The big thing was syrup. That's where I got my like for honey and maple syrup because there was no sugar around. But again, we were fortunate because we had our own milk, we had our own meat.

MA: How did you feel about the rationing?

HT: I never resented it, no. It was a thing to do, it was like the aluminum drives we would have where the families were urged to turn in cookware. There was a lot of those drives around.

MA: Did you participate in them?

HT: Well, being poor we didn't have that many pots and pans. [laughter] I don't recall, per say. I can remember taking the aluminum foil, not aluminum foil, tin foil off cigarette packs, cause back then that's how bad they wanted it.

MA: Did you ever have any air raid drills or blackouts?

HT: Oh yeah. Sure [laughs] After the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor, I can remember us putting blankets over the windows. It was a scary time just for awhile. They were talking about invading California for crying out loud and they were talking about coming in from Canada and we were right across the boarder. Right across the lake from Canada.

MA: Were you scared?

HT: I dont recall ever really being scared, no I don't. Cause guns, we were brought up with guns. So it wasn't a big deal that guys were using guns, that wasn't the issue.

MA: Did you ever wish that you were older so you could enter the war?

HT: Yeah. I did, I did. But I learned later that I was thankful that I couldn't.

MA: How come?

HT: There was a lot of guys that never came back, there was a lot of guys that never came back.

MA: How would your community respond when it learned that somebody had died?

HT: Well, the paper used to run a list of the casualties. You knew as soon as the family did, who in our neighborhood was dead. It seemed to run in families too. We, in fact, I wasn't aware until we were home a couple, three years ago, back to Dunkirk. I was at the cemetery, we lost, there was quite a few Thieses that were killed during the Second World War. I wasn't really aware of this- cousins and that kind of thing.

MA: Would you say that the war was something that was present in your everyday life?

HT: Absolutely. You couldn't get away from it. I think a lot of it had to do with once you had family members in combat. Even before they went in combat, because you knew nine out of ten guys were going to go where they were using real bullets. Again, the only media was newspaper and everyday the top headlines "Twenty-seven Bombers Lost" and "5,000 men Lost on Iwo Jima" or whatever, so, yeah. And then you had the rationing of course, and then the labor. It got to the point where there were so many guys gone, and then the ladies started going in. But the labor force, now you're talking farm country and food processing plants, they were really strapped for help, and a lot of people got used to working double shifts. This place that made the guns, they started making tanks. I mean those people were working weeks at a time without a day off.

MA: Did your mom take a war job?

HT: She was still working on the farm and at Van Rault and they were making clothes. They switched from making underwear, or if you will lingerie, to making I dont recall what, stuff for the Army. I dont recall exactly what.

MA: As an 11-15 year old boy, did you feel that you had any type of role in the war effort? Did you feel like you had a responsibility?

HT: I dont know if I felt I had a responsibility, but I think we maybe tried a little more because again being in the food producing, where we put out a lot of milk out there and we put a lot of strawberries and grapes and potatoes and tomatoes. So, ah I'm not sure, I just have a sense that we did.

MA: Did you ever see the war portrayed in films or song?

HT: Oh sure, it will come back to me, the couple of songs we used to sing a lot about Adolph Hitler. We didnt get to the movies very often, that's for sure. But we did listen to the radio a lot.

MA: You used to like to sing those songs?

HT: Yeah, and they were on the radio. You know a couple of them would be on the Hit Parade as a matter of fact. God, I wish I could remember the name of them.

MA: "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition"?

HT: Yeah! That's one! I used to play that as a matter of fact. I used to play that when I was- I used to play in beer saloons on my accordion.

MA: Really?

HT: Oh yeah, I was telling my friend yesterday when we were in Boston. Yeah my sister played the violin, I played the accordion, my two brothers played guitar. In fact we even made a recording and we tried to find it, but we could never find it, the recording that we made. But yeah, "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition". I'm talking-- when I think of the one about Hitler I'll let you know.

MA: I dont know. I know Good-bye Mama I'm off to Yokohama.

HT: Yeah, there was a lot of them around.

MA: So, would you say the atmosphere was very positive about the war?

HT: Well, yeah I think it was and if for the only reason, you hoped that the guys you knew who were over there were going to come back. You could only hope that they would but you knew some of them weren't. See my family, my immediate family was very fortunate, because they all came back.

MA: What are some of the major events that you remember?

HT: During the war?

MA: Yes, during the war.

HT: I remember for example, the first B-17 that was shot down over Pearl Harbor. They were coming in the day of the attack. His name was Colin B, Kelly. And he was the first pilot shot down, and Roosevelt gave his, he had a newborn son, and President Roosevelt gave him a scholarship to West Point. I remember a couple of times servicemen coming in. I remember very vividly, for example, there was, I lived in Dunkirk with my mother and the farm was in what they call Freedonia-Arkwright and in between was a decent sized fairgrounds. I remember German prisoners being housed there. And there was some very bad feelings, in fact, they tried, the labor market was so tight they tried using the German prisoners in this canning factory, Red Wing canning factory at that time. The animosity was so bad against them they could not use the German prisoners of war.

MA: Were you ever frightened that these German prisoners were right there?

HT: No. Well, because they were not considered real, I guess purebred Nazis. There were never any problems, it was just a lot of, there was a lot of hatred toward them. Well, they were there you know, and the people in town who had lost family members, ah . . . I can remember seeing the guns going out from the factory across the street, the Long Toms. They started building their new, its still there, it never got used, they were building a new fighter strip, an airport right along the lake because it is so level there it was easy to build. Being a scout and marching out there for the dedication of the airport. I can remember my uncles coming home on leave, one of them, two of them. I remember, my mother when she found out that both her brothers had been shot up pretty bad; she was not a happy lady for a while. I can remember my grandmother doing a lot of knitting. That's another thing they used to do, the ladies on the farm, used to call it the Grange. Used to go to the Grange hall and do a lot of knitting. They used to collect a lot of socks. I dont know why socks, but socks were a big thing they used to collect to send over to the guys. Packages they used to send over. The V mail, I remember that . . .

MA: Now you said you remembered the dropping of the atomic bomb.

HT: Yeah.

MA: How did you feel about that?

HT: Ah, the way it was announced, it was in the afternoon, it was like 3:11. I was home with the kids again. Mom must have been working. I, it just struck me as being something monumental, I cant tell you why but just the way the announcement came over the radio. It was really-- It made an impression on me.

MA: Did you feel happy, did you feel it was justified?

HT: I always felt it was justified. But I'm prejudices being an ex-veteran. I think they could, I think they should have used it sooner. Yeah, I think it was justified, it saved a lot of lives.

MA: Do you remember the atmosphere of your town on V-E Day and V-J Day.

HT: Yeah, it was a happy time. Yeah, it was like you see a lot in the movies, happy people. Again we lived on a farm but town, the first town where I went to school, it was a little hamlet called Laona where I used to go down. I used to drive horses down to get our food, like the coffee and stuff and the make believe sugar. I used to drive the team of horses down like I said so we could save on gas rations. Yeah it was a good time. It was a good time for my mother. She had brothers in the service. It was a good time for my granddad, yeah it was a good time. It was like everybody just went "Ahhhh" (gives a big sigh of relief) you know its over with, its over with.

MA: Did your life change at all after the war ended?

HT: Um, I was going into high school and so the jock part became part of my life so . . . I can remember how glad I was to see my uncles when they came back. They didnt come back together. I remember where I was too when my uncle Bud came back because he was like my dad to me. They were older though, God they were older. I remember that. Four years, five years, three years, they looked like they had put on 20 years. They, they were like that until the day they died.

MA: So they were very changed?

HT: Oh yeah. They were old before their time. You know they were where you're shooting real bullets. I think it makes you grown up fast.

MA: Was their personality changed?

HT: They were quiet, I was talking to my friend yesterday when we were up in Boston. You could always tell the guys, and it was something we learned, you could always tell the fellas who served in combat. Cause they would never talk about it. Anybody who's been in the service will tell you pretty much the same thing. The guys who brag about being in combat, you can almost make a bet and win that they weren't in combat, cause the guys who were in combat just won't talk about it.

MA: So after the war, you went into high school. Tell me a little bit about your life after that.

HT: In high school, you can cut this out later on, I was a real country boy, I was a real country boy. Used to go out in the barn in the morning and clean out the gutters in the barn and go to school with manure on my feet and smell, and I wasn't the only one. There was two classes in the school, the farmers and the kids who were from in town. Very poor, like I say. The coach talked me into going out for the football team and basketball team when I was a junior. We had some good years. In fact the last year we were so poor, I went back with my mother. True story, Michelle, the town of Fredonia, New York kept me if you will. There was two diners where I went and I got my meals and there was a clothing store, it's still there, where I was allowed to pick out clothing. They had-- My granddad, just didn't have the time because- and my uncles, after they came back from the war, had their own lives to live. There was people who would drive me back and forth when the roads were good because they didn't have late buses then. If you were a farmer and stayed for football practice, or something like that, basketball practice, and the school bus left, you had to get home on your own, and like I said earlier, I walked many a night home. I had several scholarships offered to me.

MA: College scholarships? To play football or basketball?

HT: College yeah. To play football and basketball.

MA: What were some of the schools?

HT: Colgate, University of Miami in Florida, Miami of Ohio. As a matter of fact, when I came back from the service in 1953, I had a full scholarship to Michigan State for football. A friend of mine went out to Kellogg Center and we stayed there, met the coach Duff Dauchery. But, my mother was still trying to raise three kids and I came back home and I never did go to school. But I had several-- I played a little semi-pro football, played football even after I was married, which I shouldn't have done.

MA: Now it seems like times did not get better for your particular family.

HT: No, they did not, they did not. That's one of the reasons, to be very honest that your future husband's mother and I moved. It was absolutely- This is a very depressed town, very, very depressed, very little industry, mostly all farmers and most of farming work is stoop labor. The Americans today are not big on stoop labor. You understand what I mean by stoop labor?

MA: Could you explain it?

HT: Stoop labor is basically bending over all day long and picking beans or tomatoes, picking strawberries, or picking up potatoes. Grapes are not really stoop labor, and grapes are big there but now they have machines. There was nothing, absolutely nothing. As a matter of fact, when I was a kid, my uncles, God, things come back. They built a very well known school there and, a state college. The State College of Fredonia, New York, it's a well known music school. And my uncles used horses to help build that college. They didnt have construction equipment like they have today. They had a team of horses, they pulled these dirt scoops and that's how they did it. I remember taking their lunches down with my granddad. That's how they built this college, using teams of horses instead of Caterpillar tractors. But no, its still a depressed area back there, its a lot of, its not a good area to be from.

MA: After you graduated from high school, you had the scholarships. How come you didn't go to college then?

HT: Ah, because my mom was raising the three, my two brothers and my sister. She-- We were poor people, we were poor, there's no other way to put it.

MA: Now you joined the Army?

HT: My army serial number is US 51059723. US is a draftee and if your serial number starts with RA you enlisted. So that's how you know if somebody- But I volunteered for the draft because that way I would not have to serve for three years. I also got to go in when I wanted to and not to Korea. So I volunteered for the draft and . . .

MA: Did your family's military history, your uncles' experience in WWII, did that play a part in deciding to enter the draft early?

HT: No. I knew I probably would get drafted. So I wanted to get it over with while I was young enough. And I'm glad I did, it was a good experience. No, it was something you knew was going to happen so . . . You got it out of the way, moved on with your life.

MA: Now you were in the Army?

HT: Yep. Army Security Agency.

MA: How did you get chosen for that?

HT: You know I dont know. Well you took tests, okay, and I had my choice of going to Officers Candidates School and becoming a second louie, second lieutenant, or a chance to go to Airborne. So I didnt figure I was cut out to be an officer so I signed up for airborne which was after basic training. And then they picked a few of us out and asked if we would like to go into the Army Security Agency, which we knew nothing about. Which is interesting by the way. The Army Security Agency was formed around 1939. And there's a place called Vint Hill Farms Virginia. I was assigned there for a few weeks. In Vint Hill Farms, Virginia, which is right near the Skyline Drive, in a town called Warrington, they actually had, in their original code room-- They copied code. They copied Japanese code or German code, Italian code. They actually had a copy of the Japanese transmission about the attack on Pearl Harbor. Seems far-fetched but they had it, but none of the authorities would believe them because this agency was so new. They had no faith in them. I was glad that I picked the Army Security Agency.

MA: So you actually saw the transmission?

HT: Yeah, it's quite well known. They dont publicize it but people who were in the agency, they actually knew that the attack was coming on Pearl Harbor but they could get nobody to pay any attention to them. In fact, this agency, the original name of this agency was the Army Security Service, and they printed up letterhead that said ASS [laughter] True story. So I went into the Army Security Agency and went to school for a number of weeks in Vint Hill Farms and Fort Devins, Massachusetts. We used to sit there for eighth hours a day, learning to copy code. And some of the guys used to lose it, and there was three stories to this building we were in and they finally wound up putting iron bars on the window cause the guys were jumping out. In fact, I meant to mention, when I was taking my basic training, this is when the Korean War was starting, and we were so short of supplies, that I can remember a Congressman coming along and asking us if we had enough. We didnt even have what they call patches to clean the weapons. I was in basic training with Vic Damone, can you imagine that. I used to go over to the telegraph office and if I was going to get home, my mom, poor as she was, would send me twenty dollars. Vic Damone would go in there and get a five hundred dollar wire!

MA: I'm not sure who that is.

HT: Oh, he's a singer, from the same era as Perry Cuomo and those guys. He was a big time singer.

MA: And he was drafted?

HT: Yeah, he was. Then I finished school and I went over on a troop ship, which was an experience, to Austria, was stationed very, very near Hitler's lair in Bergesgarten. Funny story. I can't tell you about the advanced crew that went over there and got in some problems. I was transferred to a place near Stuttgart, Munich Germany called Heilbron, which is very interesting. Do you want to hear the story?

MA: Sure.

HT: Heilbron was a city in Germany that was very famous during pre war and during the war. Pre war they made motorcycles and during WWII they switched over to ball bearings. The Army, Navy, and Air Force, that's what made them run: oil and ball bearings. The British came over and bombed them and lost a lot of planes and the Germans butchered a lot of the British fliers that were parachuting to the ground. The Americans came back with high altitude bombing and killed something like 18,000 civilian people. That's where those pictures are that I have. Our compound was on a hillside and there was a mass grave with over, I don't know, 15,000 Germans buried in it. And, for example we were never allowed to blow the horns on the trucks cause there was a mass grave right there.

MA: How come? Out of respect?

HT: Yeah, out of respect. It was, again, Heilbron was down in the valley and we were up on one of the slopes. On Sunday afternoons you could see for hours people start coming up in the morning. One of the interesting things by the way is that all the time I was in Germany I never found, never came across a German who fought the Americans, they all fought the Russians. That was their way.

MA: How were you received by the Germans?

HT: We were taken only for what good we could do to them. One of the unknown things, by the way, Michelle, its always been, its always bothered me a lot, this was in '51 or '52, six years or seven years after WWII. But, at that time, there were American servicemen being killed by the Russians at the border. There was a unit of the army called the US Army Constabulary, and the US Army Constabulary was charged with patrolling the border between Russia, Czechoslovakia. And they used to go out in these armored vehicles and, I never saw anybody killed but I saw the vehicles and talk to the Constabulary, they used to come back shot up. We were shooting at one another all this time over there. Lots of American guys were killed. We copied the Russian code, all top- secret clearances. They lost the clearance for three of us guys, put my family in a tizzy. I was just starting to go to Army Security Agency school, I don't remember the timeframe, but the FBI came around to investigate us, because again, we had to have clearance. And one day, one of the neighbors came over and said to my mother, because when I went into the service I was living with my mother, "You know the FBI's asking about Harry?" That scared her really badly. I mean I had to- some tough times there. They lost us- one of the stories you'll hear about- they lost clearance for three of us: Thies, Thienn, and Thiennerson. For something for like three months, I didnt do anything except play cards and play basketball because we weren't allowed to copy the code because we didn't have the clearance.

MA: Was it a high stress job, copying the code?

HT: Yeah, absolutely. One night we were sitting at a place called Hof, Germany. If you look at a map, Hof is at the end of an outlet and it's surrounded by Czechoslovakia as I recall. We copied the Russian code, and I wont go into any of the details but you could tell when an Army group or an Army company or Army division was moving because the radio traffic would change. One day we were sitting in Hof [laughs] and all at once, it looked like everybody was heading in our direction, and we though "Oh God, we've had it!" We didnt, but boy there was some dirty underwear there that night, I got to tell you. One night one of our guys got drunk and went over the border and we went over there and got him back. God, coming back from the border one night, and I got some pictures of the wreck there, we were going down this hill, now it was two Jimmys. Jimmy's are trucks, the big GMC trucks, Army trucks. One had a radio hut on the back of it, and in the radio hut was a dog. The other one had another code hut on it. Going down this long steep hill, going back from Hof to Heilbron, we had to go through Nuremberg to get there. We went through Nuremberg a lot of times. We were going down this hill in a snowstorm and there's a guy with a flashlight waving. So the first driver going down thought he was to go another way. He made a left turn, went right over this hill, and you see the picture of the truck. The only one that got hurt was the dog. Our truck got wrecked. Anyhow, down the bottom of the hill, what happened the Germans drove tandem trucks, like you see here now, and he had jackknifed also. Down the bottom of this hill was a little cluster of homes maybe, I don't remember, it was just a small village. So we went down the next day for food and warmth, and they wouldn't have anything to do with us. We were out there for three days and two nights, and it got so bad, that we were actually firing at people in the night because they were trying to, yeah.

MA: The Germans were trying to-?

HT: Yeah, trying to get at us. That's how they felt about us. Yeah.

MA: They didn't want you there?

HT: No, they didn't want us there, they hated us. We did some stupid things too. To this day, the German language, the German words that I remember are not words I would use in polite conversation, but that's what we used there.

MA: Were you still carrying the image of the Nazi with you?

HT: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. We were not well liked. I think you could understand why if you saw the destruction. Now this is like six years after the war. But whole, I mean block after block of Nuremberg, there was nothing but piles of rubbish like you see in the photos. I can remember going past the stadium where Hitler used to have those big rallies. That wasn't in such bad shape. I can remember being stationed at this fighter airport, ex-airport, there was a perfume factory when we were there. We had machine guns set up. Now this was in peacetime. I have pictures in the house somewheres. I hope I can, I wish I could find them. Fifty caliber machine guns set up around the house to protect ourselves. That's how we lived out there. Again, I'm not sure if it was all the Germans because we were copying the Russian code, it was no secret.

MA: Did you ever try to intercept Chinese intelligence?

HT: No, nothing much. We did have guys working in the Pacific cause there was a big, big language school there, the Presidio in California. It was like a 2 year course I think for Chinese and Russian. If fact, I turned down a chance, I didn't want to re-enlist to go. Nah, it was strictly Russian.

MA: Do you speak Russian?

HT: No, I'm sorry, this was radio code. But they did have voice. Very few of the military people of the time used voice. It was mostly radio transmissions.

MA: Was there any focus on intercepting German code?

HT: No, they had no military service then. The Germans they were busy with the-- I remember the honey wagons. Do you know what honey wagons are?

MA: No.

HT: Back then because they were still trying to rebuild the infrastructure, and the sewers, a lot of the sewage was still out. Honey wagons were tanks on wagons, they came along and collected the people's human sewage. I'm talking in big towns now. Munich, Stuttgart, Heilbron.

MA: So what were the everyday lives of the German people like?

HT: They were coming back, and one of the interesting things was to me-- Am I getting too long winded?

MA: No, this is great.

HT: See we were at this Heilbron and they absolutely hated us, the people in town. We had no place to go, and there was a trucking company there at our compound, [and] it was all black. In fact on the day we got, when we came from Austria up to Munich, the train station was still bombed out, but they were using it. We were picked up, we got in around 2 o'clock in the morning and this company picked us up and it was all black. Cause the services hadn't been integrated back then. And there was some bad feelings, but one of the things that happened very soon after we were at Heilborn at the 302 Comm-Recom, it became very evident within a few days, how much we as Americans were disliked by the Germans. [And] how the whites were disliked by the blacks. I mean it was bad. In fact, one time they screwed up real bad and sent a white guy into this trucking company. Now what made it worse for us, there was two barracks. There was three buildings in this compound, the Army Security Agency had one building, the black trucking company had this other building, but we ate in the same mess hall. We had what they called a serviceman's club on the base. The white guys, we couldn't even go to it with the black guys. The blacks were there before the white guys got assigned there with the Army Security Agency, and the blacks had convinced almost every German we came into contact with, and by then we had learned to speak enough German to get by, they had convinced a lot of Germans that they were the Native Americans. And they thought that we were the intruders if you will, in America. They had reversed things. The black guys had got the Germans in our area to think that we were bad guys if you will. There were some tough times there.

MA: What do you think explains the racial tension? Were there any black people in your community?

HT: Where I came from, there were none. There were two Jewish families, as I recall.

MA: So it was your first exposure?

HT: Oh absolutely. Even when I went through basic training it was not a factor because we were with all white guys. We had a culture shock when we went over there. It was really bad, really bad.

MA: Was the tension on both sides?

HT: Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I can tell you some stories, I'm not going to go into it, but there was a, nah I wont go into it. Suffice to say there was a big chain link fence around this whole compound for our protection, as much as anything, and to keep people off from our equipment.

MA: Going through post-war Germany, did you see any of the concentration camps?

HT: Yeah. Yeah, its-- I have never been at ease with this thing, speaking from a personal viewpoint. I have never been anywhere near at ease with hearing the Germans did not know about the atrocities going on with the Jews, for one very simple reason. Not too far from Heilbron, well, it was Munich. Near Munich you could, and we did it, you could actually walk, and I can picture it to this day so well, its on a street with, its a long street with an incline, and you, and this is in 1952. You could actually walk up along the barbed wire and look down into the concentration camp. And I swear to this day, there was an odor coming from there. And you could not live there, being a German, and not know what was going on in this concentration camp. No, I have never forgiven then for that, to be honest.

MA: Did you ever try to talk with the Germans about this?

HT: Well, yeah. For example, when we were out, not only in Hof, but at the airport where we had, where we were copying the Russian code from, we lived the good life. We lived in a German house that the army paid for. We had a housekeeper and we had a cook. And there would be like eight of us guys, eight servicemen and two Germans there. They had learned to talk English a lot better than we spoke German. So most of the conversation would be in English. But again, I never came across one German who would ever admit that he ever had done anything against Americans. And I could understand why they said they always fought Russians. And even at the main bergs in Heilbron, where we had the whole company assigned, we had a German barber, it cost us like a buck a week to have somebody clean our room- none of these people ever fought the Americans. And they were as nice as pie to us, because I guess its like a cruise ship. The nicer you are, the more tips you get. But they were not good times. You didnt dare go to town, you just didn't dare go into town. Of course, we were not angels, I'll tell you quite frankly. Like I said for three months, I didn't do anything but play basketball and cards. I used to draw, when we saw draw, I would go down to the motor pool. I'd have to get approval, and get a truck and we would go up to another Army base to play basketball cause we had a pretty good basketball team. I'm sure you can visualize these old German towns, and a lot of them had got the glass store fronts back up. So, if you take one of these big army trucks and you are going pretty fast, and you put it into second gear and back off on the gas, and it starts backfiring and you're going through these German towns with the
widows, it does a job rattling those windows, I'll tell you. [laughs]

MA: Did the German people try to make it clear that they weren't Nazis?

HT: Oh of course. Oh yeah, they never were. There were some good people we came across, but for the most part, they absolutely hated us. I remember one night, we did go into town, about five of us and this is when we had just come up form Austria into Heilbron, and like I said, we knew a little of German. We saw something that had to do with dance. This is only to prove the point out, it wasn't all Germany, it was some of us, and it was like six of these young GIs in their uniforms, 21, 22 years old. And we went in to this place and we thought there was a dance going on. You know, it was a dance recital for 10, 12 year old girls. And you know, here comes there American storm troopers and well, there was some . . . I can remember going into the first building over there In Munich and we were out and we had our beer and we had to find a bathroom. We went in and we couldn't figure out where the heck the bathroom was. It was just a trough in the floor where the men went.

MA: You had a unique experience, you got to see post-war Germany and the impact of WWII on Germany-

HT: Yeah. I was in Germany when they had the horrific floods in Holland and Denmark. And we did a lot of work for the Danish and Dutch people. I dont recall the exact year, but we sent quite a few guys down there. I didn't go myself. Austria was beautiful. But there was a lot of war wounds still, like I say, Munich, Stuttgart, Heilbron. Heilbron was, they were starting to rebuild the infrastructure but didn't have a lot of, like I say the honey wagons were out all the time. Food wasn't a problem. One of the problems I remember in post-war, we were on what they call Army script. And, another problem that we had, the Americans weren't very nice, a lot of them weren't very nice with the young people in Germany. Cause we had some guys in our unit and the blacks, they almost absolutely ran wild over there.

MA: Do you think that relates to because they were Germans and because of WWII or was it more that they were away from home?

HT: I think the conduct, number one, that was exhibited could not be excused. And it was nothing nasty, it was borderline. It was because we were young smart-ass GIs. I think the blacks were just getting back at the whites for what they went through. Let me tell you, all the good looking women were with the black guys. The white guys wound up with the ugly women over there. The Germans were, they just didnt like us. They would, they used us, cause, as I started to say, I can remember some of the problems you had with the American script. Because, that was the currency. It wasn't just the Army. This was the currency that the German economy was being rebuilt on. The way to do business there was with cigarettes, and beer, and food. I say, I dont recall a shortage of food, but I can remember how the guys who worked in the mess hall would make up sandwiches and peddle them downtown for favors, so . . .

MA: Now you said your tour ended in 1953?

HT: 1953, yeah.

MA: What did you do when you came home?

HT: I went to Michigan State on a scholarship. Well, I say I went down there to visit. Duff Daughery was the coach. Well-known coach in his day. Jack Everts and I went down. I went down there, I didn't stay. I came back and started working.

MA: How come you didn't stay?

HT: It gets back to my mother having the three kids. I had to come home. I will tell you, true story, interesting story, I tell it quite often. I came back and of course in those days you didn't fly anywhere. As a matter of fact, we were so poor, for one Thanksgiving, my two brothers came up. I paid for my brothers to come up to Fort Devins and they had Thanksgiving dinner with me at an Army base. That's how poor they were back home.

MA: This was in '51?

HT: Yeah, '51. One year, in fact I can remember, we talk about it often, we were so poor that one Christmas we didn't have a Christmas and I took my two brothers to the movies, that's how we spent Christmas Eve. I-- Anyhow, I came back from overseas, got discharged, had a few bucks in my pocket, got off the train, which was right in downtown Dunkirk. I walked a half of block where there was a Loblaw food store and that's where I worked before I went in the service, it was a food chain back then. I went in to see my friend, his name was Ray Nowaky, and Ray says, "Harry I got someone I want you to meet." And I said, "OK," cause Ray and I were good friends. He took me down in the basement and there was two girls cutting cheese and, you've hear this story before.

MA: No, I haven't.

HT: Ask my wife, there was two girls cutting cheese with their back to me. They both had on white uniforms with a headband with green around it, and he says, "Harry I want you to meet these two girls." He says, "This is Annette Puliuno." He said, "This is Joyce Fox. She does?" I didn't get it but anyhow, its true. We talked for a couple of minutes, we started going back up the stairs and I says, "Ray, I'm going to marry that girl," and a year later I married her. That's Brian's mother. True story. I got off the train, met her and said I'm going to marry her.

MA: That's the first place you went after you got home?

HT: Yeah. And I met Joyce and a year later we got married. I think that tells you something. I went long-winded I apologize.

MA: That's OK, you are doing great. What would you like today's generation to remember about the WWII homefront experience?
What do you think is important?

HT: I think, and I will allude to something that happened here, last Sunday, Halloween Day. I had Brenda, her husband, and my other daughter over with her husband. And Brenda's girl is going to school in New Milford as you know, and they have the big reconstruction program so they want the kids to give up a lot of their holidays so they can get the construction started in May. And my daughter was bitching a little bit because the kids in New Milford were going to have to go to school on Veterans Day. But the veterans got together and petitioned not to have them go to school. My daughter really wasn't too keen on the veterans insisting on school being closed. I really let my daughter have it. I says, you know, something's really wrong with this world, cause you don't give the veterans the respect that they are due because they saved this world. Not me, the WWII veterans, and Tom Brokaw has done a big thing on it. I'm very sensitive about that. I'm very sensitive about the way veterans are treated, including myself. My own kids don't respect what I did for them and that bothers me.

MA: Do you think the people on the homefront deserve some respect? Do you think that you played an important role?

HT: I didn't do anything to save the world. I put my time it and made it a little bit better for the people, but I didn't do anything like the WWII vets, those are the guys and girls that we dont give the respect, we dont acknowledge what they did for this country. We just dont acknowledge it. Not my generation, the WWII generation. They just- I don't know if I answered you question. It's like the Holocaust. In time, the Holocaust will be put in the back and not much will be happening with it, the same way with the veterans. All these people who gave their lives. It's like the Sullivan brothers. The Sullivan brothers in WWII, that lady lost all five of her boys in the Navy. They named a ship after them. It was five brothers. They wanted to stick together and they were all assigned to the same ship and it was sunk in the North Atlantic, and all five of the boys were killed. In fact, the government after that passed a law where you couldn't have two members of the same family serve together, cause it happened in several families during World War Two.

MA: So this is something you remember reading about?

HT: Yeah, I remember that very vividly, the Sullivan brothers, yeah. See, there's things like that I do remember. And I say, the U.S. Navy named a ship for them after the war, The U.S.S. Sullivan.

MA: I asked you a lot of questions. Is there anything you feel we didn't cover, anything you'd like to say about your World War II experience? Or what you saw in post war Germany?

HT: Ah, I don't think Germany would be the vibrant country that it is today if it wasn't for the help the Americans poured in there. I dont mean myself I'm just--The Marshall plan. Yeah, the Marshall plan. I think Russia owes this country a lot for the lend lease agreement they had with them. No, I'm glad I served. I feel good about having served. I just wish a lot of people in the United States would feel good about the veterans that did serve. And the veterans who are serving today. It's like being a cop Michelle, these, you know, really. It is. People just take it for granted that young people are gonna work, there gonna work on Saturdays and Sundays and holidays and forsake their family and the general public takes that for granted. And it's not right. I don't mean to lecture, I apologize.

MA: No that's all right. Final question: How would you overall characterize your, your homefront experience? Was it one of happy times--?

HT: During World War II?

MA: Scary time? Or?

HT: No, hard times. Hard times, worry times because of the family being in the service. Basically hard times. Poor times, we were poor and that didn't make it any easier. Then the shortages. I remember it as being a hard time. I remember, it was not an easy time. It was not easy to go hungry a lot of days and not easy not to have clothes and-- It's not easy for a mother who wants to give her kids something and you know she does but . . . But I was telling this friend by the way, as poor as my mother was, and she never finished school, none of the family in that generation did. But she made all her four kids finish school, and again we were so poor. We, we went days without-- We couldn't even afford dentists. I used to have, this is gonna sound vulgar. I used to have infected teeth so bad, before I went to school in the morning I would take a pin and stick the puss bags, and drain the puss out of my teeth and go to school because you couldn't afford it. I forgot what I was gonna say. But as poor as we were, as poor as we were, my mother, it used to cost her 25 cents a week, we had to take music lessons. And upstairs in this attic is an accordion, a 120 key base accordion that she bought for me 50, 60 years ago. I still got it. I dont know how she did it but she . . . So there's something to be said for the old generation. She made sure her kids got through school and made sure we all learned to play an instrument. God bless her.

MA: Definitely. Well, thank you so much.

HT: Yup, sorry I got long winded.

MA: No, you did an excellent job and I mean, I not only got World War II, I got Korea and, a lot else.

HT: Yeah I had, I had a very good friend, John Metzger, a very good friend. So one of the things again, people . . . Can I get started on the Korean War for just a minute?

MA: Sure, go ahead.

HT: The Korean War, it wasn't a war, it was a police action. Thank God I didn't go where they were using real bullets cause I made every effort to avoid going there. I didn't want to get shot. I lost some good friends there. I lost a very, very close friend who was a second lieutenant, didn't even last twenty minutes in battle when he was shot. I had a friend of mine from the high school team that was on a boat going to Korea and they pulled him off and they sent him to Annapolis. I had another friend who went over and lost both his legs over there. There was two other guys from the football team that got killed and never came back. And people don't know what went on over there.

MA: How do you feel about it?

HT: Very bitter, very bitter. Very bitter. I was very emotional-- I was fortunate enough last April to go down and see the cherry blossoms. I saw the new-- Ah, not the Vietnam one, the Korean War and-- And it's so a-typical what goes on today. They hired some half-ass sub-contractor that screwed up that monument so bad that they've got to re-do half of it.

MA: Really, which part?

HT: The front half with the pool, it was all shut down in April. They had to all take it out. Over half the memorial had to be taken out, it was what, two and a half years old?

MA: It's fine now, I was there three weeks ago.

HT: Was it really? Yeah. They screwed it up so bad, in two and a half years they had to re-do it. What? Four million dollars I think it cost them to re-do it. No, I'm very bitter about-- I actually am bitter about this Korean thing. And thank God, I say. I make no bones about it, I wanted to go where they weren't using real bullets.

MA: So you didn't feel that it was a war that you supported?

HT: All politics. It was absolutely so political. And were finding out now some of the things that went on that led to that war. There was no-- and, and egos. I mean, you-- If somebody would look into what MacArthur's ego cost in terms of American lives. People would- just to satisfy his ego, and he's one in a long list of egomaniacs who sacrificed . . . There's something wrong with the political makeup of our country when politicians can sacrifice 5,000 American people for their ego, but that's . . .

MA: One last question? What could we do to make Korean War veterans feel better. Can we do anything to make it so it's not the Forgotten War anymore?

HT: Oh, I dont think there's anything that anyone can do, I just think that's the way it is going to be. I have no answer to that, its just an empty feeling to know you lost good friends for something that had no point to it. At least with WWII there was, and there really was no point to it, there was no point to the Korean War, absolutely no point and all. Those guys went over there and got killed. It's a damn shame.