Paul Cavicchia

Sandy Hook, Gateway NRA, NPS
An Oral History Telephone Interview with Paul Cavicchia
Citizens’ Military Training Camp (CMTC)
1935-1936
Interviewed by Mary Rasa, NPS
July 13, 2004
Transcribed by Mary Rasa, 2011

This image and the above are from the CMTC Camp at Fort Hancock in the 1930s.

CMTC Battery A on Parade Ground.

Photos courtesy of NPS/Gateway NRA

Editor’s notes in parenthesis ( )

(Editor’s note: The Citizens’ Military Training Camps existed between World War I and World War II from 1921 to 1940. Select Army Posts throughout the country hosted these young men for a one month training session. It was done with the intention that many men would later become Reserve Officers. At Fort Hancock, the camp was set up just north of Officers’ Row near where the present day Post Chapel stands.)

Mary Rasa (MR): Today is July 13, 2004. I am on the telephone with Paul Cavicchia. My name is Mary Rasa, Sandy Hook Museum Curator and we are going to conduct an oral history interview. Could you tell me first of all when and where you were born?

Paul Cacicchia (PC): I was born in Newark, New Jersey February the 2nd, 1917. I was a boy. (laughter)

MR: Where did you go to school?

PC: Lafayette Street School, Lincoln School, West Side High School, American International College in Springfield, Massachusetts, Rutgers School in Newark and American Institute of Banking in Newark.

MR: Okay. Did your father or grandfather serve in the military?

PC: Neither.

MR: Okay. First of all, tell me how you became involved at Fort Hancock?

PC: We had a summer home in Water Witch, Highlands and our bungalow was on Seadrift Avenue alongside the marina which is now filled in. If you were to take our street and diagonally go across the Shrewsbury River we would be where your Military Police building was at Sandy Hook which is now one of your, I guess, guest stops for people wanting information. It was a brick building for the Military Police. It was about half way down the Hook.

MR: Okay. So, when did you join the CMTC?

PC: 1934 as a student of West Side High School. Everybody in those days had to go down to Camp Dix which is now Fort Dix for Basic Training. The following year, the Red Course, I signed up for Coast Artillery which is very hard to get into. A group of my friends from my school (got in). My dad got the group into Fort Hancock and me not wanting to use his name, I used the name of United States Senator W. Warren Barbour and he wrote a letter for me. And we all got to Fort Hancock the same time in July of 1935 and we all became tent mates in Battery A.

MR: Tell me a little bit about your father’s career.

PC: Well, if you got about an hour and half I could start off.

MR: Well, a brief one. (laughter)

PC: A member of the New Jersey Bar. (He) became involved in politics in 1912 and 1915. (He was) eventually one of the founders of Rutgers Law School where he taught professor for five years without pay. (He) ran for city commissioner in 1929. The first American of Italian descent to enter politics in Northern New Jersey. He went to Congress in 1931. He became minority leader of the banking and currency committees and one of the bills was the FDIC, the Federal Depository Insurance Company bill where bank accounts are insured and President Roosevelt gave me the pen that he used to sign the bill.

MR: Was your father an immigrant or were his parents’ immigrants?

PC: They were all born in Italy in the province of Campobasso and they came to the United States in 1888 when dad was nine years of age.

MR: Oh, okay.

PC: And they landed in Newark.

MR: Tell me, could you explain a little bit what exactly the Civilian (Citizens’) Military Training Camp was?

PC: Your Basic Training was strictly Infantry, all phases of Infantry and it was a really rough course. And for the second year, we were allowed to choose the branch of service we wanted to go into like Field Artillery, etcetera, etcetera, but I chose Coast Artillery to be at Fort Hancock.

MR: Well, could you explain why the reason that this organization existed? Like what the purpose of it was?

PC: After World War I, a group of industrial leaders got together and felt that young people weren’t prepared for military training and they started a private organization for themselves where they voluntarily went to an Army camp and took military training. And as a result their ideas broached out from one idea to another and eventually had Congress pass a bill the Citizens’ Military Training Camp and Congress appropriated the money every year for such a camp.

MR: And how many years were you in it total? Two?

PC: Three.

MR: Three.

PC: I didn’t go back for my fourth year because at the end of my third year which was ’36 and my gang all left for college the following month. We scattered all over the country and when we came back the following year we weren’t interested in military training because some of us went to work for summers, others of us stayed at college doing college work for the summer.

MR: So, when you were here your camp was set up almost in front of Officers’ Row?

PC: Our camp was in front of the Post Theater. If you took a picture of our tent you could see the Post Theater right in back of us.

MR: So, did you go to the theater often?

PC: Every night. (laughter)

MR: Do you remember how much it was?

PC: I think it was either free or was 10 cents I think. We had two batteries, Battery A and Battery B. We were all in Battery A and at the beginning of our street was Headquarters and across the street was our mess hall, a permanent brick building mess hall and every morning we had our Reveille, had our breakfast, made our beds, bugle call came out. We walked to one of the railroad cars, flat cars they took us to the gun battery. Our outfit was the first one to work on the Railway Artillery guns. Up until that time all the boys worked on the disappearing guns.

MR: Did you ever get a chance to work on the disappearing guns or did you just work on the railway guns?

PC: We worked on the railway ones because our, that summer as I said, was the first time that they put all the boys on the Railway Artillery guns and from then on it was Railway Artillery, not Coast Artillery guns.

MR: So, were you working in conjunction with the regular soldiers of those units or did you have your own instructors?

PC: Some of the soldiers were assigned to the CMTC group. They were assigned like our maintenance officer, our tailor officer, maintenance officer, so forth and so on.

MR: So did you operate the 12-inch mortars or the 8-inch?

PC: We operated the 8-inch. We all worked on the Railway Artillery and I was on the operating, I was chosen for the Headquarters operating car where everything was done inside, plotting and so forth and so on. And some of the boys were assigned to the General O.C. Ord, the mine planter boat. And they went out during firing practice. Towed the target a thousand feet between them and the target when we fired the guns.

MR: Did you ever hit the target?

PC: Well, we tried to, but Bill Alverson was on the boat. He got seasick and we were asked the next day what our position was during the firing and what we did. They came to Bill Alverson and they said, “Where were you?” He said, “On the Ord.” They said, “What did you do on the Ord?” He said, “I leaned up against on the railing and vomiting all the time.” (laughter)

MR: So, were they extremely loud those guns?

PC: Loud?

MR: Yeah.

PC: I thought our ears were going to pop off. As a matter of fact, the boys that worked on the gun itself to locate the range it was right alongside the gun. He had a huge wheel to turn the gun to, to reach a certain direction I thought he would be deaf for life because he was right next to the gun and that gun went off BAH BOOM. You heard it.

MR: Now, they had to put big arms off the railway car to keep it in position.

PC: That’s right.

MR: So, when they fired it was there a huge hole in the sand or..?

PC: Not too much. It shaked a little, but not too much. They had three railings on each side of the car, of the engine, of the truck, like they do the firings today only louder. They had three stanchions on each side.

MR: And what were you typically doing during the drill?

PC: I was in the Headquarters Battery on the plotting board. We would get our orders and we would plot the information of where the supposed target was. Then we would radio out to the gun. Turn your gun to such and such a place.

MR: Okay and did you enjoy doing that?

PC: Loved it. Loved it. Everybody loved the CMTC. No one complained. No one complained. To a lot of these boys don’t forget, it was horrible depression years and that was their change from their home life and something they were denied all those years. For instance, three good meals a day, clean bed, clean sheets. This was very important to everybody for them especially and in the afternoons we had our hour or so off and I walked down to the Shrewsbury River and I had my swim or the other boys went out to play baseball.

MR: So, it was an enjoyable experience.

PC: Wonderful. I would do it a thousand times if I had to do it all over again. So does everybody else.

MR: So, there was also in your area how many people slept in your tent?

PC: Five.

MR: And was your mess hall a wooden building right there?

PC: No it was a permanent brick, stone building.

MR: And I guess there was also a latrine there?

PC: Yeah. We had a latrine at the end of our street. We took our showers there, but that was a temporary latrine. Incidentally the West Point Cadets, the third year cadets when they made their tour during the summer they always stop at Fort Hancock and they used our tents.

MR: Oh.

PC: I have a picture of the tents lined up one morning at Reveille. I also have an old picture of them walking to the guns when the Coast Artillery guns were being fired.

MR: How many men were, or I guess they were boys, stationed with you at one point in time?

PC: I think there were, I am taking a guess I think maybe about two hundred.

MR: Okay.

PC: And we had a regimental parade every night at quarter to five.

MR: On the Parade Ground?

PC: Yeah. 52nd Coast Artillery Band led the parade. And Saturday mornings everybody on the Post paraded. 7th Coast Artillery led the parade, 52nd behind them. We were behind the 52nd. They had a group of recruits there practice training one summer and they were in back of us. Incidentally the drum major never used a baton. He used his rifle. (laughter) Doing his twirls around leading the band. He was good that in 1935, Fordham University sent their drum major for the coming football season down to Fort Hancock so the drum major of the band could train him doing his duty leading the Fordham Band.

MR: That is pretty impressive. Tell me what other types of social activities? You said they played baseball. You went swimming. You went to the theater.

PC: At Saturday nights, we would have a dance in the YMCA building or a building similar to the YMCA. We had a building there but I think they built a bigger YMCA during the War.

MR: So, did they bring in… they had like busses for the girls...?

PC: They had a the ferry that left Battery Park and they brought the girls over, but the dance was over at 11:30 and they all had to be on the boat at the same time. They chaperoned or ushered them to the dance floor and from the dance floor back to the boat because if they missed the boat they would be walking around the sand at noon time trying to get out of there. (laughter)

MR: Did you ever attend any religious services while you were there?

PC: Every Sunday, church calls were blown. And we all lined up in such a way that the Jewish people in the group was on the beginning, Catholic people were in the middle and we Protestants were at the end. So, as each boy reached their theater where they were going to have the services they would drop out. We were the last group and we dropped out at the Presbyterian area. The band stayed with us and participated in our services by playing church tunes and so forth and so on.

MR: Okay, did you…

PC: One interesting incident that you might be interested in was when we were at Camp Dix. They blew the whistle. Everybody out for church. So, my group would naturally be the last one and I took my time going of the company street and one of these old sergeants from World War I, they came out and he said, “Are you trying to cut church?” I said, “No sir.” He said, “Well you didn’t go out with the first group.” He said, “What’s your name?” I said, “Cavicchia.” He said, “What nationality is that?” I said, “Italian.” He said, “Well, all Italians are Catholic.” I said, “I’m not Catholic. I am Protestant.” He said, “I can’t believe it.” He said, “You are going on KP.” He brought me to the company street. He looked it up and he said, “My gum, you are a Protestant.” But the original soldier when he blew the whistle for the sound, I had left and he said that Jews in the beginning, Catholics in the front and Protestants at the end.

MR: Was your mother, was she not Italian?

PC: Well, my mother was French, Auger. A-U-G-E-R.

MR: Oh, is that why you were Protestant?

PC: No. The Cavicchia’s were brought up Protestant.

MR: Even it Italy?

PC: No. In America here.

MR: Okay, that is interesting.

PC: The grandparents came over with four little, three little boys and they went to church that Sunday and it happened to be a Protestant minister and he took care of them, gave them clothes. Grandpa came over here with two dollars and fifty cents in his pocket. Gave him fresh clothes and two days later he directed my grandfather to the oil work at East Ferry Street for the Pennsylvania Railroad cleaning switches for his first and only job. He worked there until he was eighty years of age.

MR: Okay.

PC: Today, they don’t do that. They go on welfare.

MR: Did you…

PC: Incidentally that was one of the reasons when Social Security was first proposed in Congress, dad was one of the leading advocates for Social Security because of his father having to go to work for so long a time in his life. There was no retirement age in those days.

MR: Right.

PC: You worked and worked and worked.

MR: Did you ever attend any sporting events?

PC: Where?

MR: At the Fort.

PC: Oh, sure. We had a championship game at the end of the season between A Battery and B Battery and A Battery won the championship that year and the next year we lost and B Battery won. But everybody was there for the baseball game but we had to get back in time to dress and shower for our parade at five o’clock that night. Wednesday afternoon was our day off. As soon as we ate we went out for the ballgame.

MR: Did you ever take any excursions to New York while you were there on the boat?

PC: Yes. Every year they gave us a trip. My first year, we went up on the Ord to the Bronx’s and we paraded at the Polo Grounds where the Giants baseball team was. We saw the Giants-Dodgers Game. We paraded along the field and the band gave a concert during the game on the side. Bill Terry was the manager of the New York Giants. He presented a plaque and we gave him a plaque. Don’t tell me what the plaque read. I don’t know. (laughter) And after the game we paraded back to the General Ord. We came back. Our following year they took us to West Point. That was a long trip. We paraded to the pier. Wwe took the Ord. We took the boat up to West Point, got off there and they gave us a bus tour of the Academy. They gave us a nice hot lunch and we came back. Boy, we were tired when reached Sandy Hook that night. That was a long trip by boat.

MR: Does anything especially humorous come to mind about your time out here?

PC: Well, everything was humorous. We had a lot of fun. We had a little Polish boy from Brooklyn. He was telling us how he liked to take a shower at Fort Hancock everyday because they didn’t have enough water at home. He took a shower everyday and sometimes he took a shower twice a day. (laughter) Then they had another fella. They couldn’t get him to undress. They took him, stripped him from his uniform one day and they hung it on top of a cabinet. They said, “If you want your clothes you go to the water bare assed and go in the water and get washed and come back.” (laughter) But that was very, very few. We liked everybody.

MR: Is there anything else that stands out in your mind about the Fort?

PC: Yes. Colonel Kessler at thirty-five was commanding officer and graduated West Point. They were all graduated from West Point. And he said his one ambition was to be commanding officer of Fort Hancock. And prior to going to Fort Hancock he was actually at the Presidio in San Francisco which is a very, very big Army base naturally. He got to Fort Hancock and he presided our ceremonies and August he had a fatal heart attack. When they gave him a big write up in the paper they mentioned the fact that he had presided over the CMTC ceremonies and that he was very proud of it. I am sorry that I didn’t have that article because I have always wondered what paper that article was in. I would have like to have a copy of that for my scrapbook.

MR: Did you ever meet members of the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps)?

PC: They had a CCC Camp prior to you entering the Fort. They had this old airplane hanger believe it or not that was built in World War I and I think the CCC helped to tear that hanger down. But the CCC boys were brought to the Fort every morning. Construction work, cleaning the streets, paving, cementing, painting, laundry, plumbing work, whatever their category was and they did a very, very good job. Because they were under the command of the Army and they had a program at the Fort. Which house had to be done, which had to be repaired, which house had to be painted which sidewalk had to be fixed, so forth and so on.

MR: Did you ever meet any of the members and talk to them?

PC: Very, very nice fellows. In those days they were paid $25 a month and the government kept $20 away for them and gave them $5 cash so they could buy cigarettes or soap or whatever they needed. The $20 was put into a bank account in their name and when they left the CCC the got a bank statement and got the money from the bank. (They were paid $30 a month and given $5. The $25 was sent home to help their families.)

MR: So, they made out pretty well.

PC: Yes, because, don’t forget it was the depression years and a lot of those boys had nothing. As a matter of fact, there are a couple of buildings at West Point that was built by CCC and they are still standing. You had a lot of talented people in the CCC.

MR: In the CMTC, did you get paid or was it just a camp where you went?

PC: Camp. We didn’t get paid. We were given railroad tickets. Central Railroad of New Jersey in Newark and we got off the train at Highlands and we walked across the old drawbridge to the beginning of the Post and the MP on duty there would call for an Army truck to come up and get us and bring us down to the Fort.

MR: Now, how many of you would have come in at the same time?

PC: From Newark?

MR: Yeah.

PC: Oh, there were about eight or nine of us from Newark.

MR: Okay. So, it was quite a big group coming.

PC: Yeah. Everybody tried to get into Fort Hancock. Everybody tried to get into Field Artillery. Everybody tried to get in the Infantry and those camps were limited by the numbers. I mean if they had the money they would have gotten a thousand people if they had the chance. It was very, very popular CMTC training. And I know I carried a lot of that training for the rest of my life. I mean, for some fellows it showed them how to be a man.

MR: So after you left Fort Hancock you went to college and then did you get drafted for World War II?

PC: Yeah.

MR: And where did you serve then?

PC: I took my Basic Training at Fort Ontario, Oswego, New York which was a military place encampment. From then on we had to go to Camp Drum (New York) for our overseas training in the field and so forth for firing to show us how to get under the barbed wire and all that baloney. While I was up there, a group of officers came and picked us out. They were opening a new eastern branch of the United States Disciplinary Barracks in New York outside of Poughkeepsie. That was in the building they were taking over was to take place of Sing Sing New York. A real modern penitentiary. We were brought down there to man that post. No training in that type of work but they told us how to man a penitentiary and that was a lot of work and sorry to say that penitentiary was for all the bad boys in the Army. Rape artist, drug artist, robbery artists, you name it they were there. As a matter of fact, it got so bad that I really feared for myself and I went to a Catholic priest who was very, very popular with the boys. As they always say, if you have any problems take it the chaplain. I went to see him. I asked him if he could get me transferred off the Post. He said, “You have two choices. You are either going overseas or you are going to say in the United States.” I said, “Well, I take my chances.” They gave me a ten day furlough. They made me report to Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania at the end of my ten days. Before you know it we were being shipped. We later found out to New Orleans to Panama and they put me in the 6th Air force which was another thrilling experience. The 6th Air Force was a very, very thrilling experience.

MR: What year was that?

PC: 1944.

MR: So, where did you end up going overseas then?

PC: ’44.

MR: Where were you?

PC: I was in New York State before I went there. Panama?

MR: Yeah.

PC: We landed in Fort Randolph on the Atlantic side and they put out a list of where we were going to be stationed and when I saw 6th Air Force I went over to Howard Air Force Base on the Pacific side and the 6th Air Force was assigned to different units. They assigned me to the 48th Base Headquarters Air Base Squadron on the Atlantic side and that was at Fort Randolph. I came back there and I was in the security intelligence military police.

MR: So you stayed there?

PC: Yeah.

MR: Until the end of the War?

PC: Yep and the 6th Air Force traveled to Bermuda every day from the Galapagos Islands on the Pacific side. The 6th Air Force guarded the Panama Canal and all of Central America. We just weren’t at the canal we were all over Central America. The Navy intelligence lost a Japanese Aircraft Carrier or couldn’t locate it temporarily, Panama Defense would be notified immediately. So we would be put on alert.

MR: Now did your experience having been through the CMTC help you in your military service later on?

PC: Oh, sure.

MR: Did you notice, were there a number of men in the service that had gone through the CMTC?

PC: Some of them did, not all of them but at that time most of those boys were college students and graduates and much older than I was. One of the boys was playing football for Tulsa University, Tulsa Oklahoma and they gave him a write up when he came out of Panama for the following football season, 1946. I still correspond with him. He made the, not All-American, he made honor roll for the football gang at Tulsa University. He was a very good football player. I should say Hall of Fame for Tulsa.

MR: Now when you got out of the service what did you do as your profession?

PC: I was appointed to the Essex County Prosecutors staff. Prior to that, I worked for the Army allotment. Getting the money from the soldiers sent to their families. I joined them during the War before I went in the service. My job was offered to me when I came back. I went there. Lennar Leonard was appointed by the governor as Essex County Prosecutor. He appointed me to the staff and I was there for thirteen years. But St. Louis, Missouri wanted me to go out there and form their department out there. The military records and I said, “No.” And I always regretted that I never went. When I was in Panama John Hynes was VA director in Washington when dad was a member of Congress and President Truman appointed him Ambassador to Panama. And I wrote Hines a letter and said that my dad had a lot of dealings with him when he was the VA Director and Hines sent for me and another fella. We had to dress up our ODs (Olive Drab uniform), fly over to the Pacific side, Quarry Heights, the Commanding General’s Headquarters. We were interviewed for the State Department.

MR: Oh.

PC: And again I said, “No.” Another time I could have kicked myself. (laughter) Because they said, “If you want the job we will give it to you. We will give you, we will discharge you from the Army give you a ten day furlough, expenses paid from the states and back. Bring your family back with you, your lodging and your in State Department services.” I said, “No.” But one of the, my fellas stayed in. Made a career of it. He said, “Boy, you missed something of your life.” But, you know, you are young those days. You want to get home. You want to forget this and that and everything.

MR: Were you married during World War II?

PC: Yes.

MR: Okay. Tell me about later on you became back involved with Fort Hancock and knew the officers here?

PC: Well, Fort Hancock was always in my blood. I wrote a letter one day to the Adjutant got the letter. They were waiting for me and one Saturday I breezed into the Post. The Adjutant looked at the letter and said, “We have a pass for you.” He gave me a pass and then we had a commanding officer by the name of George Pierce. For a number of reasons he didn’t like me. He didn’t like anyone who went down there like that. He chased me out to the Main Gate one day and told the MP to take my pass away from me. He didn’t want me to have (a) pass anymore.

MR: What year was this around?

PC: Oh, that was about 1950, 1951 or so. And I didn’t make a big stink about it. Then we got a new officer, Colonel Hayes and I wrote Colonel Hayes a letter and he wrote me back and said, “Come on down I want to meet you.” And as soon as I got down he gave me a permanent pass.


MR: So, this was in the ‘70s right?

PC: Yeah. Or 60’s in there or ‘70s. Whatever it was. They made me an honorary member of the Fort Hancock Officers’ Club. So, I also joined the NCO Club which was the old mule barn for two bucks a year. And every Saturday, I made it my point to go down to Fort Hancock with the boys and I would come home and my wife would take the dog out and she would wait for me and I got home and took a shower and we would go out for supper. So, that was my routine every Saturday.

MR: You were also at the deactivation ceremony in August of ’74?

PC: No. I missed that. George Moss was there with Colonel Hayes and I missed that. Actually, somebody gummed up and they didn’t give me the notice of it and I could kick that person in the fanny right now.

MR: Now, was the August ceremony or the December ceremony?

PC: December.

MR: Did you make the August one when they dedicated Guardian Park and the last missile group left?

PC: Yes.

MR: What was that like?

PC: Well, to me it was really interesting because I had been there before. Just to watch the expression on the people. Oh, you know. Don’t forget they also were in charge of the property over on Portland Road which is now a park. That was originally the base that they put up a 16 (inch) Coast Artillery gun but they took it down at the beginning (end) of the War when Coast Artillery became obsolete. But they turned it over to the Air Force. They put this missile program over in the Air Force. Then when they gave the missile program back to the Army, the Air Force moved out of there and they put that property in charge of Fort Hancock. Now Major Casey one day came out to the Fort as he did every year to make a survey of the Fort and he said, “What? You people are in charge of Fort Hancock are also in charge of the property up on Portland Road?” He said, “We can’t have both.” So, he made the recommendation to have the Commanding General’s Headquarters moved from Fort Hancock up to Portland Road which I think was a very crazy idea because everybody was traveling back and forth from the Fort up to Portland Road every day all day long.

MR: I just need to flip the tape so hold on for one second. Okay. Side Two, Paul Cavicchia speaking about the deactivation of Fort Hancock. So, when the ceremony happened on August 15, 1974 they were deactivating the last missile battalion but they were also dedicating the monument to the soldiers who were killed. Do you remember any of that?

PC: No. I remember reading about it in the paper but I don’t recollect that very much.

MR: Do you remember them firing the howitzers off?

PC: Yes. I have a group of howitzers. They had twelve of them I think. Three rows of four. I have a picture of one of the armor done before he could have a picture. A rare picture of not the bullet, the canon going out before when the camera was snapped, the projectile.

MR: Is there anything else you would like to talk about Fort Hancock?

PC: Well, if you have four and a half days I would be happy for you to come. (laughter)

MR: Anything else about the closing of the Fort? Did it seem very sad?

PC: It was very, very sad because by the flip of a pen that was done so that nobody could do it since 1892 because it was a powerful Fort. But a guy comes along with a flip of a pen. The Fort is closed and I raised holy hell about that. I said, “If you close the Fort they are going to pick on other units.” And before you know it they started to take a battalion out of Fort Monmouth. So, they eventually closed up Fort Dix. But they used Fort Hancock as an ego to do it and that’s why I raised holy hell. I said, “When you start with one, they are going to start with the rest of them.”

MR: Did you ever see any missile exercises?

PC: No. No. They had parties go there as guest but whenever PR called me up I was not available. I may have been in court or out of the city or out of the state. But they always had me on their mailing list. They always gave me the courtesy of calling me up.

MR: Oh, that was nice. Evidently they were quite interesting. Anything else you would like to say?

PC: Well, it’s a very historical Post. They should restore the history again as soon as possible of all those buildings making a modernly and allow people to go there and see what a wonderful place that was. And what an important place it took part in the history of this country.

MR: Okay, well thank you very much for your time.

PC: Don’t forget they had the Headquarters of the Harbor Defense of Sandy Hook and that commanding general was also the commanding general of Fort Hancock and he was in charge of the Forts at Fort Totten and Tilden on the Rockaway’s, Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island and Fort Schuyler. Fort Hancock was the (inaudible) of that whole area.

MR: Okay. Well, alright I am going to end the tape now.

END OF INTERVIEW