At the Sandy Hill Iron and Brass Works, machinists began making base plates for machine guns, then turned out heavy winches for landing ships. The firm proudly floated a Navy ‘E’ for Excellence pennant from its flagpole. Married and too old to be drafted, my brother Bill left the paper mill to spray paint the heavy tanks coming off a new assembly line at the American Locomotive Works in Schenectady.
Meat, coffee, butter, cheese, sugar, flour and other foods became scarce. Our parents took their ration books of stamps to the stores, ‘spending’ points for a pound of butter or a slice of ham. Gas was rationed, as well. An ‘A’ card allowed the owner three gallons a week. A ‘B’ card enabled a driver to obtain a few more gallons if truly needed. The ‘X’ card was granted those in essential enterprises; Bill obtained one for his daily trips with other workers to the tank factory. At night, Chuck Eagle would take his father's car out to drain any remaining drops from gas pump hoses at closed stations. Hudson Falls High School canceled all track meets to conserve gas, but the baseball season went on.
A collection center for items vital to the war effort was set up near the fire station. Villagers brought in scrap metal, vegetable fats, empty toothpaste tubes, rubber tires, metal foil, silk stockings, flattened tin cans and waste paper. ‘Lucky Strike Green Has Gone to War!’, a cigarette company proudly proclaimed. I assumed that it was doing its part by abandoning the use of scarce tinfoil in its packages. Victory gardens sprouted; war bond drives were mounted; women wrapped bandages; older men volunteered to be air raid wardens. Wearing armbands and helmets and holding a page of silhouettes of German bombers, the wardens stood ready in case the Luftwaffe targeted Hudson Falls.
*
The saddest hours of the war occurred during the spring of 1942. The Axis powers—Germany, Italy and Japan—were invincible. Their armies were spread across Europe, were approaching Egypt and Moscow, and ranged in the Pacific from Burma south to New Guinea, east to the Gilbert Islands, and north to the Aleutians. Axis navies were in command of the high seas. German submarines torpedoed American tankers within sight of the East Coast and America's old P-40 and P-39 fighter planes fell quickly before Japan's excellent new Zero—so much for the belief that the Japanese could only copy designs developed by others. Nevertheless, it was inconceivable to me that ‘our side’ could lose. I was certain that someday, somehow, the Axis armies and navies would be halted and thrown back.
The tide slowly began to turn soon afterward. Japan's mighty fleet of aircraft carriers—the same ships that had launched the planes to attack Pearl Harbor the previous December—was defeated in June at the Battle of Midway. British troops routed Rommel’s Afrika Korps in the Libyan Desert and sent it reeling back toward Tunisia. The Soviets halted the Germans at Stalingrad after a ferocious struggle. American troops landed in Algeria. The long, hard, costly march to Berlin, Rome and Tokyo had begun. We traced the movement of the allied forces on newspaper maps, unaware that the salients and advancing lines on those pieces of paper were made at a cost of thousands of dead or wounded young men. Once again, Chuck and I thought the war might be over by the time we reached our eighteenth birthdays on October 12, 1943. It wasn't.
When that date arrived, the New York Times reported that the American Fifth Army, after making its way across North Africa, through Sicily and into Italy, was inching toward Rome against fierce German resistance, hampered by rain, mud and flood waters. Our Eighth Air Force in England was flying raids deep into Germany that were so costly in men and machines they had to be suspended, although that was not announced at the time. One mission, mounted against the ball bearing factory at Schweinfurt, Germany two days after my birthday, resulted in a loss of 60 aircraft out of the 291 that participated.
I registered for the draft after my birthday, ready to enter the service when I completed high school in January. There was no way of knowing at the time, but that delay of three months—from my birthday to my January graduation—later was to play quite an important part in my life.
The three months passed swiftly. I had been taking commercial courses in high school rather than college entrance subjects because I had no hope of attending a university. In the fall of 1943, I enrolled in classes in math and physics in the hope they would better prepare me for one of the armed forces. On weekend evenings, Eleanor Baker taught me dance steps at parties in homes with the rugs rolled up. I clumsily fox trotted to ‘People Will Say We're in Love’ and haltingly jitterbugged to Glenn Miller's ‘String of Pearls’ and Tommy Dorsey's ‘Boogie Woogie’. By November, we had agreed to go steady.
Andy Doty, first row, right, and the crew of the “City of College Park”, 1944. Source: Andy Doty.
chapter Four
The Tail Gunner
(Notes to the heavy bomber pilots and commanders)
Duties of the Gunners
All gunners should be familiar with the coverage area of all gun positions, and be prepared to bring the proper gun to bear as the conditions may warrant.
They should be experts in aircraft identification. Where the Sperry turret is used, failure to set the target dimension dial properly on the K-type sight will result in miscalculation of range.
They must be thoroughly familiar with the Browning aircraft machine gun. They should know how to maintain the guns, how to clear jams and stoppages, and how to harmonize the sights with the guns. While participating in training flights, the gunners should be operating their turrets constantly, tracking with the flexible guns even when actual firing is not practical. Other airplanes flying in the vicinity offer excellent tracking targets, as do automobiles, houses, and other ground objects during low altitude flights.
The importance of teamwork cannot be overemphasized. One poorly trained gunner, or one man not on the alert, can be the weak link as a result of which the entire crew may be lost.—Duties and Responsibilities of the Airplane Commander and Crewmen, 1943[11]
***
Around the holiday time in 1943, some friends and I were in Glens Falls when the bus from Albany arrived. Two young men in leather Army Air Force jackets got out, picked up their green B-4 bags, and stood waiting for the trip to Hudson Falls. We knew them; they had graduated from high school the previous June, and were home on leave after finishing gunnery school training. They were dashing in uniforms bearing colorful shoulder patches, silver gunner's wings, and fresh corporal's stripes.
The dramatic return of those men, as well as my early interest in airplanes, made me quite receptive when ‘Muff’ Nassivera, our football quarterback, suggested that we enlist in the Air Force rather than wait to be drafted into the Army. We would become pilots, of course; every boy worth his salt wanted to be one. I quickly agreed. The infantry held little appeal.
I told my father that I intended to join the Air Force. ‘Do what you think best,’ he said. There were few other choices. I don't remember telling Chuck my plans. I assumed that he would go into the Army.
Booklets that contained tips on ways to pass military tests were available in the 1940s. I bought one and studied it carefully. There were drawings of blocks stacked in uneven rows in a corner, and of interlocking gears. One had to calculate how many blocks were in the pile and the direction in which the last gear would be turned. It was rather basic stuff, but I did not want to take a chance at being rejected.
I rode the bus to Albany for the first time. The Air Force recruiting station was located in a downtown office building. After taking the written exam, I was interviewed by a young lieutenant.
‘What's the equation for the area of a circle?’ he asked.
‘Pi R squared.’
‘Have you ever driven a motorcycle?’
I knew what he was looking for an adventurous future fighter pilot. ‘No, but I loved open field running in football.’ That should impress him, I thought.
‘What's an isosceles triangle?’ I was stumped. I knew it well, but for some reason it just wouldn't come. He nodded and said nothing. On the bus on the way home, I remembered that i
t was a triangle with two equal sides of course. I went home feeling disappointed.
It made little difference. I was accepted, and told to wait for further orders after my physical examination and high school graduation. The examination took place in the National Guard Armory in Albany, a grim, old stone fortress of a building. Several of us boarded a bus to go down for the tests. The group included a man who was both our high school track coach and commercial studies teacher. He was married and nearly beyond draft age. We entered the armory, stripped down to our undershorts, and spent the day being probed, weighed and measured.
At the end of the day I walked down a long stairway. A Marine officer was at the bottom, looking over the men as they descended. He caught my eye.
‘Are you sure you don't want to be a Marine?
‘I'm sure,’ I answered. I was patriotic, but not to that degree. I have since wondered what would have happened had I accepted that invitation, for the bloody amphibious landings at Saipan, Iwo Jima and Okinawa still lay ahead.
When we gathered for the trip home, the teacher was beaming.
‘How did it go, coach?’
‘I didn't pass,’ he said. ‘Flat feet.’ Despite the ignominy of 4 F status, he was happy to have it.
Basketball season followed, as did long walks with ‘Bake’ (for Baker) on crystal clear winter nights. We held mittened hands and I stole frosty kisses as we crunched over the snow. A week after my high school graduation my first draft notice arrived. It was a mimeographed form letter from a major in the headquarters of the Second Service Command on Governor's Island, with only my name and date filled in. It sent a chill through me.
‘Private Andrew M. Doty
1. This is to advise you that you are being called upon to active e duty on or about 31 January 1944.
2. Orders will be sent to you within the next few days.’
Soon after that, my induction notice arrived. ‘Greetings,’ it began. ‘You have been chosen by a board made up of your friends and neighbors to serve in the armed forces of the United States of America for the duration of the war. You will report to the Induction Center at Ft. Dix, NJ. on January 31, 1944.’ It was signed by the elderly chairman of our local draft board in behalf of his elderly fellow board members.
Bake and I walked to her father's drug store that night and took our places in a rear booth. I showed her the two letters.
‘They don't waste any words, do they?’ she said.
‘Not at all. They didn't even say 'please' report.’
‘I'm glad that you have a few weeks left.’
Other than that, she said little. We were still in the formal stage of our relationship, and had not spoken of love. We did not ever admit how greatly we would miss each other. My time simply had come.
‘I have a feeling this will take about two years,’ I said as we walked slowly back down Mechanic Street.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘That long?’
The Waite Hose Company fire hall on Main Street was the scene of frequent farewell parties in those times. One was held for Chuck and me the week before we were to enter the military. We received some gifts and said goodbye to our friends. Chuck left the week before I did, bound for Camp Upton on Long Island. As his train pulled out of the D & H station he pretended to wipe tears from his eye, hiding his sorrow with humor.
The night before I was to leave I visited Bake at her house. We had known each other only a short time, but I cared for her and was sorry to say goodbye.
My mother and father watched silently as I packed my new toilet kit and stationery into a bag, along with a small Bible that my sister Ruth had sent me. What were my parents thinking? How it must have torn them to see their twin sons leave within a week of each other, but they did not say a word. It was our turn, and there could be no complaint. Thirty years later I fought off tears as my oldest daughter left home safely to attend college only one state away. How did our parents keep from breaking down as Chuck and I went off to war? Perhaps they did after we were gone.
The last day of January was bitterly cold. Mom, Dad and I silently ate breakfast before Ken Howe arrived in the early morning darkness to drive me to Glens Falls to catch the bus to Albany. I said good bye to them as quickly as I could. As Ken and I sat in his car waiting for the bus, a boy rode up on his bicycle. He was Gerry Ellsworth, a classmate who lived two miles outside of the city. He had ridden in to see me off, despite the frigid weather. I was touched by his thoughtfulness.
The New York Central railroad station in Albany was an exciting place in those days. It had marble floors, hardwood benches, and towering ceilings. There was a USO area on a balcony where uniformed women volunteers passed out coffee to the servicemen. The station teemed with soldiers, sailors and marines and echoed with their clamor and train announcements. It was the first time I had been there. I felt that I was entering the serious world of adults.
Alone on the train to New York, I saw my reflection in the window and wondered what would become of that young man. I wore the gray and white Hart, Schaefner, and Marx herringbone suit I had proudly bought with my summer earnings, a tan shirt, and a wine tie. I was sad and apprehensive and excited. How long would I be gone? What lay ahead?
‘Take Care of Yourself’
What lay ahead, indeed? Sixteen million men donned uniforms in World War II, the experience of leaving home for the first time was exhilarating and terrifying all at once, especially knowing the possibility of being in harm’s way was very real. Adulthood was coming on, like a quickening freight train careening towards the unknown.
The train sped down the banks of the Hudson River, past the old Dutch towns and cities, and into New York. We dove underground with a roar and emerged in cavernous Grand Central Station. The huge, vaulted area was crowded with hundreds of servicemen and women of all kinds and ranks. The Albany station that had impressed me so much would be swallowed up in this one. At Ft. Dix, the huge, multi floor concrete barracks contained several loud, vulgar men, seemingly all from Brooklyn or New Jersey. I consoled myself with the fact that they were Army recruits, not Army Air Force. Then I remembered that my brother Chuck had gone into the infantry.
After arriving at Ft. Dix I took off my new suit, packed it in a box, and mailed it home. I traded it for more clothing than I had owned in my entire lifetime—duffel bags filled with khaki shirts, trousers, socks, and underwear; a heavy overcoat, gloves, a knit cap, and GI shoes. We shuffled past warehouse bins filled with metal mess kits, ponchos, and light helmet liners, tossing the items into our bags as we moved along. I also gained a new identity serial number 42120238, embossed on metal ‘dog tags’ to hang around my neck.
A piercing bugle call on the barracks PA system shocked us awake early every morning that week. Knit caps pulled down over our ears, overcoats hanging to our ankles, we stumbled onto the dark, frigid company street. We fell into formation, slapping our arms, stamping our feet, our breath billowing out in front of us. Then came the first of many manglings of a name that goes far back into English history. But the hard bitten master sergeant was not aware of that. ‘Dotty?’ the sergeant called ‘Duty?’ ‘Here!’ I answered, before any more damage could be done. It was hard to understand how he—and his successors at later roll calls—could butcher a name so badly.
The indignities of military life have been well chronicled—hair shorn almost to the scalp, long rows of toilets with no partitions between them, ‘short arm’ inspections by doctors at our bunks at unannounced times, and demands of unquestioning obedience. Our individual identities were being stripped away. We received a battery of immunization shots, learned to count off and march in formation, and attended an irrelevant lecture on the dangers of venereal disease.
Our orientation completed, we boarded a troop train bound for basic training at Greensboro, North Carolina. As the miles clicked beneath the car, I speculated on how long it would be before the distance was retraced. We disembarked at the camp. Spread out on the red, sloping hills were row upon row o
f low lying barracks. Squads of men marched along the streets, counting off cadence and chanting songs. As we formed up and moved off, the others shouted; You'll be so o o o r r y!’ and ‘Here come more gunners.’ The latter was a shock; we thought we were destined for preflight training. The shouts were another touch of reality. Later on, we took pleasure in repeating them to the new batches of recruits we saw arriving.
The smell of burning soft coal will remind me forever of our six weeks at Greensboro. It came from the two iron stoves in each building, and clung in the wet air as we marched from class to class in our ponchos and helmet liners. We would sit on the hard floor of an empty barracks to hear lessons about poison gases, camouflage techniques, and carbine nomenclature. Our drill sergeant was a ruddy-faced southerner who wore sharply creased trousers and shirts, and highly polished shoes. His cap was set at a precise military angle, and he insisted that ours be positioned exactly the same way. He stood straight and tall. He briskly herded us about, shouting commands and calling out the cadence:
‘Hup, two, three, four
Hup, two, three, four
Hup, two, three, four.
You had a good job and you left;
You had a good job and you left;
Your left, your left, you had a good job and you left.
You had a good job and you left—your right,
You had a good job and you left—your right.
You had a good job and you left.’
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