Society of Our Own

I was moved to Nijmegen, got that all set up and then, now we're into June, the war is over and we're trying to keep troops happy before we can get them home. The bottleneck now is ships getting back across the Atlantic. Ships, ships, ships. Getting them home. So by this time, I was working for Guy Simmons, I was a general staff officer grade one, they'd call it, general staff officer, so that means I'm on his direct staff, his little circle of people that help him run the army. So I am promoted way up, I'm getting farther back all the time, but the war is over and so he put me in charge of the city of Amsterdam, which they turned into a big leave centre. So I had a good time there for six months, from June till December of ‘45 and they closed the leave centre and I came home.

From that day till this, we've had a society all of our own. You get two World War II Vets together, I don't care if they are air force, navy or anything, they can immediately bond with one another. I have always said a, I don't, a brother, a comrade of mine or anybody that's been all through World War II, I alway feel I could trust him with my life. You know, I didn't feel he'd ever steal from me, I didn't think he'd ever, you know, he might steal from somebody else, but not me. But we had a, and it still is there, you get three together or two together, right off the bat they're friends.