First Call

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor I was a seventeen year old high school senior. I was wrong thinking Pearl Harbor was in Alaska but I was certainly right in thinking that all of our lives would be drastically changed. The impact was global.

The next day we assembled in the Central High School auditorium and listened to a radio broadcast of President Roosevelt's "Day of Infamy" speech. For my parents who had three sons of military age it was a day of terror. Years later my father would tell me that many a night my mother cried herself to sleep not knowing whether her boys were dead or alive.

I finished high school and worked for nearly a year in an artificial limb factory. I started with feet and ankles and might have worked my way up. Many an hour I worked with chisels and gouges and I think I was the best chiseler they had.

I didn't have to go into the service. My boss could go to the draft board and convince the people that many men would lose an arm or a leg in the war and it would be our job to put them back on their feet so to speak. He did this for many employees but one of my brothers was already in the Army Air Corps. Many friends were in uniform and the name "draft dodger" was something I didn't want to hear. Also I felt a deep patriotism which I would like to believe is still alive in young people today.

While my boss was on vacation I went to the draft board and volunteered to be inducted. Before long the fat was in the fire. My induction was May 14, 1943, at Ft. Meyer, Virginia and inductees were given a week to set their house in order. The bus left for Camp Lee, Virginia May 21 and I had a window seat.

Induction centers, I suppose, were about the same all over. We had our shots, took our IQ tests, had interviews, got uniforms and listened to the bugle play "taps" on those first homesick nights in camp. We knew we were not going to stay and we were correct. On May 25 we left Camp Lee by train and went to Petersburgh and on through Roanoke. We slept on the train, had breakfast in Cincinnati, lunch in Indianapolis, and supper in St Louis. I called home from St Louis and did not tell where we were going (with the Articles of War fresh in my memory) but it would be still farther away. Prior to this I hadn't been any farther from home than Philadelphia (about 150 miles). On Thursday May 27th we had breakfast in Kansas City, lunch in Topeka, and supper in Camp Philips.

Other members of the 275th were on the same train. I'm pretty sure Stuart Collins and Percy Watson were on board. I'm very sure that Roy Agee was along. We became fast friends right away and have been ever since.

DeLoyd Cooper is the Historian for the 275th Armored Field Artillery Battalion Association.
Copyright © 1999 DeLoyd Cooper. All rights reserved.
Revised: November 4, 2004