Audio
Jack R. Lehmkuhl
Transcript
Jack: 00:07 1933 I got a telegram directing me to report for duty on the first of May. So anyways, I reported on the third. They built the first CCC up in Park Meadows on the big old flat road going into Yosemite. They had five camps in Yosemite and the got transferred in the business to get [inaudible 00:00:27] in Fresno. I stayed with that post til 1939 and decided to get back into civilian life. It just lasted a year and I got called back in in the spring of 1940.
Brian: 00:42 I see, spring of 1940. Right to harbor defenses?
Jack: 00:45 Pardon me?
Brian: 00:46 Right to harbor defenses?
Jack: 00:47 Yeah so then I was there in 1941 then on until General Stockton and I left in 1942 and went to Texas, that was the end at Fort Scott. Those were interesting years. I have a few, I think, interesting experiences that happened. On the first blackout after Pearl Harbor, my biggest problem was trying to get the lights turned off on the Golden Gate Bridge. Everything else was black and that thing was sitting there with all the lights on as an invitation to bomb it. I had to phone all over. I had to phone somewhere in Hayward, somewhere in Santa Rosa. There are more jurisdictions mixed up with that thing. So we made an arrangement immediately that I would have a phone and I would alert them if we were in a green state or yellow state. In 20 minutes I would turn off all the lights. It worked out fine.
Another one was in the spring of 1941 we had a maneuver where theoretically paratroopers were dropped on the Presidio Golf Course. The purpose of it was to see if we as harbor defense could defend our own rear, which obviously we couldn't. Our commission was to shoot at battle ships coming in. So the result was in the War Plan they put a provision that in the event of hostilities at the time of infantry, or not personnel, to set up a perimeter defense to defend our rear. I was up in the command post and about 3:00 in the morning this lieutenant colonel came up and identified himself and said he would set up this perimeter defense and there was a machine gun nest at each corner of our command post, our command post looked right out to Golden Gate. So as soon as it was dawn, I went out and there were three men with a machine gun. The three men, they were all Japanese. Of course we were all a little trigger happy at that time so I made a call to General Stockton and they were taken off. But they were just as loyal as anybody else. That's another crazy thing that happened.
Then another time, one real stormy night, we had of course the harbor defense had all the way from Fort Funston on the south and Fort Cronkhite in the North. We had observers down as far as Half Moon Bay and almost up to Drake's Bay. Got a report that there were signals being flashed out to sea. Well it turned out that up in the top of those towers of the Golden Gate Bridge there was a red signal that flashed as an interval. There were some homes up on the Marin side, called Wolfback Ridge, it was going in one window and being reflected out another window. It looked like signals going out to sea so we had to send somebody to check that thing out.
One night, it was real early after Pearl Harbor, there was a blackout. Of course we had sonar for tracking. We were tracking a submarine that was approaching the Golden Gate Bridge. Our big worry was it one of our own or was it an enemy submarine. Again, I was going all over trying to identify it. This blackout came and somebody down at the Presidio decided they'd be a hero and they pulled the master switch. We couldn't communicate and we lost track of the submarine and everything. We didn't know. Our big worry was that it might have come on in the Golden Gate. Laying on the bottom, there was a net gate that extended all the way from Marin County clear across to St. Francis Yacht Club that we controlled. So we were a little bit worried. Much to our astonishment, the only gun that we had that fired into the bay was a little three inch cannon that was over at Fort Baker that have never even been activated. But anyway, it turned out that nothing came of that.
Brian: 05:27 So that was during one of the early blackouts?
Jack: 05:30 Yes, one of the early blackouts. We were tracking, of course sonar was top secret in those days. Turned out that nothing came of it but we were worried for a few days what was going to happen.
Another thing that's just kind of amusing that you probably know, when you put on camouflage, you have to change it with the seasons. So General Stockton said we better get ahold of a plane somehow and get over on our set up and seconds. So, we started up at Cronkhite in an old color driven observation plane. We checked everything out so this pilot said "The minute we get through down at Funston, I'm going to get right down on the deck and come in that way because these guys are pretty trigger happy." Which we were in those days. So he got right down on the deck and we made the turn right by Mile Rock Lighthouse. Just a short time before, we'd extended a great big line out to the Mile Rock Lighthouse to give us information on any activity because the fog had come in and we couldn't see. We were always afraid of motor torpedo boats will come dashing in.
So anyway, we ran right into that thing. I swear, that plane came to a complete stop. I was looking down at those rocks thinking it's going to be an awful cold swim in from there. We limped in under the Golden Gate Bridge and made an emergency landing at Crissy Field.
Brian: 07:05 Oh my goodness. So you're saying the line was above the water?
Jack: 07:09 Yeah, it was an overhead-
Brian: 07:10 Oh I see.
Jack: 07:10 A big telephone line and everything else. It'd only been in there a week or so. The pilot didn't know about it and I didn't think about it.
Brian: 07:10 Okay, well that must have been pretty frightening. I mean, so close to the water you couldn't-
Jack: 07:10 I say it was an old time plane anyway. It was really a very interesting for all us. It was funny, before this happened he was flying so low I was like Jesus, he's going to scrape some of those rocks that are out there. But anyway, that's the whole set up. That's about all we know, to give you background.
Brian: 07:49 Oh that's fine. So HDSF had control of the Golden Gate Bridge as far as the blackouts and turning on the lights?
Jack: 07:57 Blackouts and that sort of thing. You have to give them some warning or there could be quite a pileup of all that if you just put that thing in darkness.
Brian: 08:06 I see, I see. So HDSF must have had control of the area along the water? Was that it? I guess it was close to the Forts.
Jack: 08:15 More or less.
Brian: 08:16 Yeah.
Jack: 08:16 Of course our mission, like I say, was to shoot the artillery guns out of there at any enemy. We have a few antiaircraft guns but very few. It was not the extent of it. I have a book right there, if you can reach that.
Brian: 08:34 Oh this thing?
Jack: 08:35 Yeah. After things were going along, things got pretty calmed down. When you came in there as a new officer, you'd had to hunt so many damn places to get information of what it was you wanted to do. So in the middle of the night, I got all the information together. This is the original copy of everything together. So when you reported to duty, you read through that and you knew just about everything that was going on.
Brian: 08:35 Yes.
Jack: 09:16 [crosstalk 00:09:16]
Brian: 09:16 Oh yeah, I hadn't seen this before. This is very important.
Jack: 09:23 Just at the time I was getting it ready was about when General Stockton and I got transferred to Texas.
Brian: 09:30 I see.
Jack: 09:32 But that other book that's going alongside it, see we went into a big antiaircraft training summit and I ran into the same problem that's in there. So I wrote that book and that's one of the reasons I got that contributed to getting that Legion of Merit decoration. Also later the Bronze Star. So both of those books, the one there especially, that was it for 26 weeks training center. Every hour for 26 weeks was covered in that and what you should be doing day and night. It has no relationship to Fort Scott.
Brian: 10:20 This has a lot of vital information. In fact, the type of information that I could use in this book. I mean this was done at the time so it's got to be the most accurate of all.
Jack: 10:34 Back in the peace time days, the Army number one weren't given enough funds to fire their guns.
Brian: 10:42 That's right.
Jack: 10:44 Coastal artillery, most coastal artillery in San Francisco is called the Honolulu of the coast artillery. Usually you would escort to Oregon or up to Washington or way out in the boondocks. There's not a great deal to do. So they drifted into sort of a ennui that they didn't keep things up to date.
Brian: 11:04 Yes. So then once war came-
Jack: 11:10 So I just finally put all this stuff together so if there was a new officer coming he could do what was expected to be done and when and where and so forth.
Brian: 11:28 Is there ... I mean I don't mean to ask this in disrespect, but-
Jack: 11:34 I don't know if that would be of any interest to you-
Brian: 11:37 It's of absolute interest to me.
Jack: 11:39 Would you like to borrow it?
Brian: 11:40 I would like to borrow it. I mean, I realize this is your heirloom, this is something that is very valuable for you and your family.
Jack: 11:50 Well that's the initial working copy.
Brian: 11:55 Yeah.
Jack: 11:55 We finally printed whatever it was in.
Brian: 12:00 But I'd feel a heavy responsibility for borrowing it but I would like to borrow this book.
Jack: 12:10 Well you're welcome to. It just sits on a closet shelf here.
Brian: 12:14 Oh I see. Somehow I feel compelled to leave you a check for a major amount of money just in case somehow my house caught on fire or something.
Jack: 12:21 Well, don't worry about that. That has no monetary value as far as in that case.
Brian: 12:28 Oh but it has historical value.
Jack: 12:29 That's right.
Brian: 12:31 It has real historical value. Wow, it will take me days to pore through this and get the information out of this book. But it's the best bit of information I've come across so far. It would really help to make things really accurate.
Jack: 12:51 Well why don't we go down to lunch now because I'm starving-
Brian: 13:00 Okay.
Recorded in a restaurant (background noise reduced)
[crosstalk 00:13:00]
Jack: 13:00 Chain of command.
Brian: 13:00 Yes.
Jack: 13:04 It's funny, everybody knows about General MacArthur but very people ever heard of General Richardson. Actually, MacArthur had that little command, I call it little geographically, down in the Southwest Pacific. We had the entire Pacific Ocean from the United States to and including Asia. Another ironic thing, General Nimitz, Captain Nimitz had a Naval ROTC field at the University of California just like the Army had theirs. So I went out to [USFO 00:13:49] and he had Nimitz in command of everything of the whole Pacific. So I used to have to go every day to his staff meetings and come back and bring my General Richardson up to date on what was expected. He never knew me but I knew who he was.
I actually never saw a shot fired in action as far as the whole war. One time, we got a report that the entire Japanese fleet was X number of miles off show following the flank speed. This older general who's son had been up in the Bataan march, was of course upset about his son and also nervous. I sat down and figured out from the data I had where they were and the times, et cetera. I finally got him calmed down to the place where Colonel, if this is true, which I'm sure it is not, the Japanese fleet would be going through Reno right about now. There were several reports like that.
Brian: 13:04 Yes, yes.
Jack: 15:04 it turned out that no PBY was doing the reconnaissance work. Sent a message to indicate [crosstalk 00:15:20] a fishing boat and they didn't answer. Then he came and reported to the commander. By the time it got to Washington it was the whole Japanese fleet.
Brian: 15:28 Yes. That was a fellow by the name of Colonel Baldwin was his name, that you had tried to calm down.
Jack: 15:37 That's right.
Brian: 15:42 But he wasn't in command of any of the tactical units. Wasn't he in supply at that time?
Jack: 15:47 No, there was another battalion or something that came in there, it was part of the bigger corps, he was the commander of that. It was more of a field artillery than actually coastal. Again, they were in connection with the defense of our rear. I think they had other round missions.
Brian: 16:16 But he had no authority to get the harbor defenses to actually come up to alert?
Jack: 16:26 They put him, see we had this command post which was manned 24 hours a day. Of course because of seniority he was there. I was actually running the show but he was the commanding officer. He had his old chair and he'd tell me what he wanted done. After a while it became so routine it was almost like the Japanese were never going to get through our shores. That's about the time General Stockton and I-
Brian: 17:00 I see.
Jack: 17:00 See the coast artillery became obsolete the day Pearl Harbor happened. That's why we immediately went to antiaircraft training. Our first place was Camp Wallace in Texas, training replacements. We were not training a division or a battalion or whatever. You were X, Y, Z, number of [Crosstalk] we were training the men who were going to take their place, [crosstalk] Virginia and Georgia, there we were training actual antiaircraft units. We'd go out with the whole crew. [crosstalk 00:17:45]
Brian: 17:53 The harbor defense command post, that also had Navy personnel-
Jack: 17:58 Well I was going to get to that.
Brian: 18:01 Oh.
Jack: 18:02 We were at the harbor, harbor defense command. Then when they got the Navy, they sent a naval detachment so we had actually two head people at harbor defense command which was our mission and the harbor [inaudible 00:18:39] control post. Those were two commands that worked all at the same time. Ironically, the Naval officer, I'd always said the Navy could never function without coffee. The first thing they sent up was a big coffee maker before they sent any machinery to operate. We always joked about it. The senior officer on duty for the Navy would go to bed and I couldn't. I'd be up all night. This one chap was an Annapolis graduate and had [crosstalk]. I had an intercom, of course, and he had one right by his bed so about 3:00 in the morning I'd buzz in. I'd say "Joe, don't bother waking up. There's not a damn thing happening."
Brian: 19:39 Did you ever get written up in the Golden Gate Guardian?
Jack: 19:43 Pardon me?
Brian: 19:43 Did they ever do an article or anything about you in the-
Jack: 19:45 Not to my knowledge.
There was one other officer, they made a movie about him with Robert Redford. He and I built the first CCC camp together. We were both second lieutenant. He went back to Fort Scott and then he was sent to Sacramento. He was in district headquarters in Sacramento. He headed up, he was in what they used to call the War Department before it became the Department of Defense. Told him to make a study, I've forgotten what the science was. Remember the Germans had that special force outfit? I forgot what they called them. The lightning jobs, they went in fast and come out, they were trying to develop ... General MacArthur and several other top generals met him. I've forgotten. Anyway, he came back and he was given a job to make a study of how to set up this special force. It started looking for somebody to command. They were supposed to be able to make one of their actual mission plans to make a parachute drop in Berchtesgaden and kidnap Hitler.
Brian: 19:45 Oh I see.
Jack: 21:41 And crazy other things. So anyway, they were looking around for someone to command that. Several generals all of a sudden developed medical problems and retired. So they said Fredericks you've made this study, you do it. So he had the special service. One of his missions that he got mixed up in was when the Germans had that Mount Messina up in Italy. He was there and he said, well they had about 8% casualties but he got the men and they were dog tired. They're sitting up there shooting right down our throat. One interesting little side light, when you're operating in a muddy condition and you have a muzzle cover up your guns. The damn muzzle guns we had were so inadequate that by the time you were target locked and you got the damn thing off it was gone.
So Fredricks had this special force. Mark Clotz was the next eschalon. So Fredricks ordered I don't know how many cases of whiskey but it was the first time that liquor had ever been distributed to troops because [inaudible 00:22:55] so tired and morale was so low I figured that would work. They also had I don't know how many million condoms. Put the rubber right over the barrel, shoot right through it. Put another one on. I actually saw this letter from General Clark to General Fredricks, "What the hell are you doing up there fighting, fucking or drinking?" A letter between two generals.
Brian: 23:26 Yeah, I guess they did the movie but there was a book that came out about it first.
Jack: 23:48 Yeah, book first. Visited with him after the war and I said here you get this dream command, he had a [inaudible 00:23:48], he said "You're the guy that doesn't exist." What do you mean? "There's an expression that there's no such thing as an indispensable. I asked for you three times, every time the report would come back that he's indispensable and can't be transferred. So I'd probably be dead if I didn't hold this outfit.
Brian: 24:12 Yeah, well could be. So you never knew that he had been asking for you?
Jack: 24:21 Well I kind of assumed that he would. But there were situations where if they want you some place else you didn't have much to say about it.
Brian: 24:40 Do you know if he ever got to, if he lived long enough to see the film that came out about him with William Holden?
Jack: 24:40 I've seen the movie.
Brian: 24:48 Yeah, but do you think he had? Because he's not alive anymore.
Jack: 25:00 Back in Fort Scott and for a while he was down in Hollywood supervising the making of the film. So I'm sure he saw the finished product.
Brian: 25:10 He should have felt honor that he got William Holden to play his part. I mean that's ...
Jack: 25:13 Yeah, one time, trying to think what the occasion was, there was a play called The Drunkard at the Palace Hotel. My wife, for my anniversary, Bob and his wife invited us to join them at the Palace Hotel to see The Drunkard. I'd become very close friends. So I go and that first CC Camp was the first shipment we got. We were expecting heavy timbers to put in the foundation for screen doors and moving paper let's cut some trees down. So they actually started out cutting trees before they got their supplies set up.
Brian: 26:25 The people that came into the CCC camp, how much of military training were they given? What was the regimen that they-
Jack: 26:36 I'll tell you. We got together when we were stationed at Fort Barry for a few, couple of weeks before we went out. I was teaching these fellas right face and left face, just so I could move them on in training and stuff. Staff guard was running around stop, stop. The driver came down and said lieutenant and major so and so wants you to report to him. So I go up and report. This is when there was some rumors that the CCC was the secret army being mobilized. He says I want you to teach them right face and left face because of this situation. So we couldn't get anything having to do with direct training.
However it did work out in the timeframe that an awful lot of them became officers and were invited to officer training school.
Brian: 26:36 Oh I see, you mean the people that came in to CCC-
Jack: 27:32 A lot of college graduates and everything else. They were out of a job [crosstalk 00:27:41]
Brian: 27:41 That's right.
Jack: 27:50 As a matter of fact, one of the CCC chaps that I had, now the name has left me, is now the head of the Chamber of Commerce for San Francisco, it's right out my mind now.
Brian: 28:05 But you couldn't give them orders, whatever time they had to wake up. I mean you couldn't drag them out of bed or any of that?
Jack: 28:13 Oh yeah, that was administrative. If we were in a National Forest, the Forest Service did, they were the ones that took them out to do these various jobs. If you were in the Parks Service range, our job was to feed them, house them, take care of them medically and that sort of thing.
Brian: 28:13 I see.
Jack: 28:27 So we was outside the building every morning to make sure they were all there. [crosstalk 00:28:48]. So we bathed them, housed them, fed them.
Brian: 28:58 Was this the secret army that certain people thought that FDR wanted to set up?
Jack: 29:02 No, the European people, England was almost the war at that time. Shortly thereafter it did break out.
Brian: 29:02 Oh I see, I understand.
Jack: 29:02 Then the of course our relationship with the Japanese was pretty strained.
Brian: 29:02 Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack: 29:15 See it was supposed to be run by the Department of Labor. The Department of Labor, at the last minute, realized they didn't have the logistic ability to be out in the cold and et cetera, so that's why it was dropped in the Army's lap on 24 hours notice.
Brian: 29:58 When was the Civilian Conservation Corps ended?
Jack: 30:02 Well nationally, yes. There's still in California some-
Brian: 30:02 Yes.
Jack: 30:05 But national institution, oh I guess about 1939 or 40 wasn't it? Again, at that time there was the Thomason Act, if you remember, with that group of officers. They were really then realizing that eventually they were going to [crosstalk 00:30:40].
Brian: 30:49 Before the Thomason Act I would imagine most of the officers in the Army were West Pointers were they?
Jack: 30:52 Well yes. However, there were a few, like I remember one Major who was in command of the CCC of the Fresno district. He was a calvary officer and had been an enlisted man. He had taken certain courses. But there were very few in comparison to the way it is now.
I think it was Mustangs if I remember correctly.
Brian: 31:12 The what?
Jack: 31:12 If you were not a West Point graduate you were a Mustang as opposed to a cadet or whatever they called it.
Brian: 31:56 Somebody else that I had talked to had mentioned to me that when reserve officers and Thomason Act people started coming in, the West Point regulars, the officers were given temporary rank of captain or something like that to keep them above the-
Jack: 32:14 Well we had a funny situation that evolved after the war. Probably I was a first lieutenant by the time I went. I almost immediately became a captain in the timeframe of the reserve officers. Then, when war was eminent, they called for bosuns throughout the service. There were three of us reserve officers and there were three or four West Point graduates. General Stockton mixed up on who got promoted when, just the mechanics of it. He sent our three and the three West Pointers and the mechanics of the reserve set up operated faster so they ranked us as captains and we ranked them as majors.
Brian: 33:17 I see.
[crosstalk 00:33:17]
Jack: 33:17 We all had separate jobs. But there was a certain-
Brian: 33:17 Yes.
Jack: 33:25 Mainly the wife was the one that resented it. I know one wife was talking to my wife and said I'm going to take my rank to so and so. You don't have any rank. Your husband has rank but you don't have any.
Brian: 33:25 Yeah.
Jack: 33:42 It got so big it really didn't make any -
Brian: 33:49 Oh here's something I wanted to ask you. You helped General Stockton draft the notice that went out to call all HDSF personnel back on December 7th.
Jack: 34:00 That's right. We just started sending telegrams and telephone calls. Some of them were actually on trains. When they got to their destination they were given a telegram, get to a phone, sergeant so and so I'm on my way back. They just came dribbling in. A lot of them, I think a few of them just came back without any orders at all.
Brian: 34:23 I see. But there was a public, a message that was released to newspaper and radio that you had come up with.
Jack: 34:32 That's right.
Brian: 34:33 Yes. Somebody told me that he just came down from the Washington Monument back in Washington DC and he heard this thing asking for HDSF personnel. He thought oh that's strange, all the way across the other part of the country, this one message comes out. Did you help draft the-
Jack: 34:55 Yeah me and Colonel and another officer, there were about five of us. We decided, well the general decided of course and made the recommendation.
Brian: 35:15 Did the harbor defenses have any public relations office that would deal with any reporters or newspapers?
Jack: 35:22 Oh they may have later on but not at that stage.
Brian: 35:22 I see.
Jack: 35:33 The antiaircraft command headquarters, under another general, very good friend of General Stockton's. Anyway, they were stationed in Richmond, Virginia, all the antiaircraft training center. Actually, we went overboard on training too many aircraft [crosstalk 00:36:01] our Air Force is entirely different. The planes are so damn fast that antiaircraft was like trying to shoot a BB gun. They got much more sophisticated type weapons, guided missiles. But that's what the antiaircraft command evolved into, the guided missile. But that technology is far removed.
Brian: 35:33 Yeah.
Jack: 36:37 My biggest job was planning the invasion of Japan which, thank god, didn't happen.
Brian: 36:41 Yes I know.
Jack: 36:43 That would have been the worst. We studied weather conditions as far back as weather had been recorded. Then we added another several months on to that. Right where the biggest concentration of invading troops had been assembled to go ashore had the worst hurricane they've had in history.
Brian: 36:43 That year?
Jack: 36:43 That day.
Brian: 36:43 Oh that day? Okay.
Jack: 37:00 They were involved in it. As a matter of fact, some of them were beginning to come in the biggest problem is that it stopped the flow that's why I stayed in. I couldn't come home, you know with that points system. I did it from home before Pearl Harbor had happened actually. I mean, not Pearl Harbor, before the invasion. But I stayed out there in December, after the war was over because I was so damn busy trying to stop the flow of supplies and personnel and everything else. It was all in motion.
Brian: 37:00 Yes.
Jack: 37:00 We lost two cruisers and three destroyers, never even had time to get off an SOS. They just apparently capsized and sank.
Brian: 37:00 Oh, during the storm?
Jack: 37:00 Yeah. You can imagine with all those troops and [MSTs 00:37:00] and all the small landing craft.
Brian: 37:00 Yeah. So when you came back after World War II did you stay in the Army long after that?
Jack: 37:00 Well I kept my reserve commission active. I had 30 years of service in 1961.
Brian: 37:00 Oh okay.
Jack: 38:20 In 1961 I was 51 years old. I had reached the age bracket. Do you want to order some dessert?
Brian: 37:00 Oh okay, I'll have some.
Speaker 3: 37:00 I brought your dessert already. I thought you ordered-
Brian: 36:59 Oh yes, I had the fruit cup. That's fine.
Speaker 3: 36:59 But if you'd like something else-
Brian: 36:59 Oh no, this is fine.
Jack: 37:00 Do you have any utensils left to eat that thing?
Brian: 37:17 I've got one.
Jack: 37:17 Yeah I was assigned to the Sixth Army under reserve status. Then I got called back to duty. Then I went to the every two week meeting, kept my [inaudible 00:39:18].
Brian: 37:41 Yes. You never ran across a Captain Calvin Chin through that time did you? He was Sixth Army and reserve status around the Bay Area, my father, during the 50s.
Jack: 39:29 You never know.
When General Lamb became chief of staff, my wife and I, we spent a couple of weeks with him and his wife. I wouldn't have that job with all the money. The [inaudible 00:39:59] you can multiply it by about a thousand. At 7:15 the General will be at so and so. At 7:28 he'll be at so and so. At 8:10 he'll be at so and so.
Brian: 39:29 Yeah.
Jack: 40:10 And that was his schedule 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you stop and think about the poor president has to do it all ... You're a constituent, he has to take five minutes to shake hands.
Brian: 40:29 I know. [crosstalk 00:40:29]
I guess that's why they have people telling them what they have to do at that moment.
Jack: 40:36 That's right.
Brian: 40:40 They probably don't know what's about to happen next. Somebody has to be taking care of us.
Jack: 40:45 A funny side light, we were playing golf one day, General Lamb as Chief of Staff, the acting General, a Commandant of the Marine Corps and myself. So I'm driving one of the golf carts and Fred was ahead of me driving the other. The three par hole, we hit our shots and then you went down a ravine, up a hill to get up to the green. So as I said it's the general, me and the commandant in the Marine Corps. I'm driving and everybody is looking over at the green as we're approaching our balls. Fred stopped and I crashed into him. I almost removed two thirds of the armed forces right there. We all laughed about it.
Brian: 41:35 Yes. I mean there was nobody, some aide following them with a little black case with whatever codes that are inside the-
Jack: 41:51 No.
Brian: 41:51 Okay.
Jack: 42:02 [crosstalk 00:42:02] General Stockton was a senior brigadier general. So he was always [inaudible 00:42:06]. We had to make an inspection down south. We stopped, we had 155 GPS just one run at Carpenteria or something like that. So we stopped one morning and inspected it. General Stockton said there would be a better place for it somewhere else so they ordered it moved. That same afternoon, after it was moved, the Japanese lobbed one shell in there just to let us know that they knew it had been moved. This is also before it [crosstalk 00:42:42] my wife and I.
Brian: 42:02 I see.
Description
Interview with Jack R. Lehmkhul, who was a Colonel in the army in the 1930's and 40's. The discussion covers time in CCC camps and interaction between military and civilian life in and around the Golden Gate. Interview takes place in a restaurant.
Copyright and Usage Info