|
Mr. Bernard (Bernie)
Stutman, 81, of Shandaken, New York,
was interviewed on December 27, 2004 by Elsie Saar,
a volunteer at the Pittsfield Branch of the National Archives and Records
Administration.
I was born July 4, 1923, on the
borderline of Russia and Poland, in the small town of Woloczysk, Russia,
currently in the Ukraine. I remember hearing how young men of the town would
cross over the border to escape the military who would come on horseback to
take them for the Army.
My father Morris, a
tailor, immigrated to the United States in 1923, got his citizenship and
sent for my mother and me. We had to enter the United States under the
quota system. The quota for Russia being filled, we immigrated first to
Cuba where we lived for a couple of years. From there we entered the United
States under the Cuban quota. We arrived in 1928 when I was five years
old. All new immigrants of the Stutman family stayed with Aunt Sadie, a
dressmaker who lived in Manhattan, until we got on our own. My mother died
when I was seven. My father remarried a wonderful woman who I called
Mother, and we lived in Harlem and on Tinton Avenue in the Bronx.
When I attended school I
couldn’t speak any English. I spoke my native language of Yiddish and
Spanish that I had learned in Cuba. I had to communicate with the teacher
through a Spanish-speaking student. After six months or so, I had learned
the English language.
I graduated from high school in
1939, whereupon I trained at the Delhante Institute as an airplane
mechanic. I worked for about two years in this trade in New York and in
Hatboro, Pennsylvania, before joining the Army.
In 1942, I got my letter from
the President, I was drafted! I entered the Army in January 1943 at the age
of nineteen as a Private. I was sworn in on January 11, 1943, at Whitehall
Street, New York City. From there I was sent to Fort Dix, New Jersey, for
several weeks of quarantine for disease control. I received inoculations
and was then sent to Ogden Air Depot in Ogden, Utah, for basic training in
maintenance and supply. The other men and I traveled across country in
freight cars, with the shades drawn. It was on this train that I saw two men
with patches on their sleeves and realized I was in the Army Air Force.
From Utah, I was sent to the air force base at Warner Robbins, Georgia, near
Macon, for overseas training, rifle, drilling, etc. and got my uniforms to
prepare me for that area. All in all, I stayed in the States about nine
months. Although I had training as an airplane mechanic, due to my ability
to type, the Army made me a clerk-typist, as the need was greater in that
area. I was in charge of the office where I dispatched general supplies,
medical supplies and personnel such as airplane mechanics.
In November 1943 I was sent to
the European Theater of Operations (ETO) and assigned to the 44th
Air Depot Group. The group’s mission was to repair and supply bombers and
fighter planes during the raids on France and Germany. I traveled by ship,
a big convoy, from New York, up the North Atlantic and after two weeks
landed in Scotland. We slept in hammocks, four high, and were not allowed on
deck except for fresh air if we were sick. Once there was a big loud bang
on ship, the men thought we were torpedoed. However, some supplies had
broken loose in the hold and banged against the hold of the ship. We had
two meals per day as it took two hours to feed all of us for each meal,
that’s how big our group was.
About this time, while
corresponding with another fellow in 1943, I discovered that the Army had
made a mistake and had sent my unit to the ETO instead of CBI (China, Burma,
and India).
From Scotland, I traveled
south to Wattisham,
Ipswich, Suffolk, England, arriving on November 5,
1943. By this time, the German’s V-1 Buzz Bombs were attacking our base.
The buzz bombs were unmanned aircraft, like missiles, filled with scrap
iron, glass, etc. They would fly over, usually during movies or meal
times. They had flames coming out of the tail. When the flames stopped,
the bombs would drop and blow up. Some servicemen would stand there and
take bets on how long the flames would last. When the flames stopped, the
servicemen ran in the opposite direction. The base got hit and there were
casualties. The buzz bombs came every night or every other night.
In December 1944 in England, we
were treated to a special honor at the USO, a performance by Glenn Miller.
We had a buzz bomb attack then also. Our group was the last to see Glenn
perform before he left for France and his plane disappeared.
On D-Day, June 6, 1944, everyone
worked 24 hours around the clock, everyone had to work to refuel the planes.
The sky was black. Planes would land, refuel, load more bombs, and take off
again. Everyone had hands on. The landing at Normandy took several days
until we got a foothold in France.
Five and a half months after the
Normandy invasion, on November 27, 1944, I was sent to Merville, France, not
far from Belgium. We flew across the channel in bombers, sat on gangplanks
with the bomber doors partially open. I stayed in France until the end of
the ETO. Once while on leave, I got to see Maurice Chevalier in southern
France in the French Riviera. On May 8, 1945, VE Day, the French brought
out all the good wine from the basements and had music and dancing in the
streets for a few days.
After the end of the war, I
still needed more points before I could go home. I volunteered for the
German occupation in Germany. On October 12, 1945, I was sent to
Oberpfaffenhofen, south of Munich, not far from Garmisch. In Germany the war
was over, regular Germans were glad to have the Americans there. Here we
lived like kings. The Army had taken over apartment buildings outside the
base where I was stationed. We had individual rooms, girls came in every
day to make the beds, do the laundry, etc. I was in charge of the supply
office while in Germany and held the rank of Personnel Sergeant major.
With other troops in Germany, Bernie is on
the far right
While on a two-to-three-day pass
in Germany, I went to Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the Bavarian Alps and skied
the Zugspitze. It was so warm that we stripped to the waist. I went to the
Olympic stadium in Garmisch-Partenkirchen with a chaplain and prayed for
snow for a festival. The next morning we got up to three feet of snow.
I left Germany on January 15,
1946. traveling on a freight train in a boxcar called “40 and 8”, a World
War I expression meaning forty heads of cattle and eight men. However,
there were no cattle in our boxcars. We slept on hay on the floor. We
traveled from Oberpfaffenhofen, around southern Germany and France, and up
to Le Havre, France. The journey took about two weeks, through small towns
and villages. In these small towns and villages, there were “latrines” that
were like shower stalls with built up peddles for feet to stand on and
upright steel rods to hang onto. One had to climb on the pedestals, hold
onto the bars, and use the hole in concrete.
In Le Havre, about 500 of us
troops were loaded on a banana boat for home. The boat cruised through the
south, the Azores, to Bermuda and up to New York. It was very nice. We
arrived in the United States on February 3, 1946. I was discharged on
February 8, 1946, at the Fort Dix, New Jersey separation center. My total
time overseas was about two years, totaling just over three years of
service.
Although I was never in combat,
I was always behind the lines. I entered the service as a Private, served
as Personnel Sergeant Major, and returned to the States on January 15, 1946.
After being discharged, I went
back to the Bronx and took a year off. I worked at various endeavors until
taking a job working for United Merchants Manufacturers, a holding company
for companies such as Robert Hall clothes, Contact Paper, etc. but was
primarily into fabrics, both wearing and household, bedspreads, drapery, in
the United States and South America. I worked for 35 years, until 1988, as
production manager for draperies and bedspreads, which were sold to hotels
and motels all over the United States. My offices were on Fifth Ave and
1407 Broadway in New York City. For the last several years, I worked at
Camp Timberlake, a summer camp for children age 5 to 17, in Shandaken, New
York as a security guard. Currently I’m life member and Senior Vice
Commander for the New York Post 2738 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Mt.
Tremper, New York. In a year and a half, I will be the Commander of the
post. We are always looking for new members. If you are a war veteran,
consider joining your local VFW.
In 1983 my wife Marie and
I bought our house in Shandaken where we were weekenders until I retired,
and we moved up permanently in 1988. Marie and I have been married for
almost 35 years and have raised two daughters. |
|
