Letters: Catching a train home for Christmas
By Special to the Times
Published August 28, 2005
I was a rifleman in the 89th Infantry Division stationed at Camp Butner, N.C. It was common knowledge that the division would be leaving for overseas duty right after Christmas, so two or three days before the company commander gave 48-hour passes to all who wanted them. I got my pass and, along with another fellow who was going to New York, took the bus to the train station in Durham, N.C. Every train going north was so packed with passengers that we could not get aboard one. With gas rationing in effect at that time, the only means of travel was by bus or train and they almost always were filled to capacity.
We were standing on the station platform watching a train slowly leaving when someone in the "colored" section of the train (they were segregated in those days) threw open a window and motioned to us to climb in. Without any hesitation, both of us went in through the open window to get on that train. Needless to say, when the white conductor came through this car, checking tickets, he was shocked to see us amid all the black people. But he just punched our tickets and left us alone. After changing trains in Washington, D.C., and New York, I finally got home. It was Christmas Eve 1944.
In order to catch a train for the return to camp, I had to leave the next morning, Christmas Day, about 5 o'clock, and as I walked away from my home I left a trail of footprints in the snow that had fallen during the night. From that time on, Christmas memories would include footprints in the snow and the unknown black man who had made the Christmas visit home possible.
-- Donald Chase, Framingham, Mass.
"Relocated' youth groupIn July 1943, I began two years of teaching in the War Relocation Center in Heart Mountain, Wyo. This was a camp built to house about 10,000 Japanese Americans who were evacuated from the West Coast after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Instead of trying to go to town for church, which would have been a difficult task to find transportation, I began going to the English-speaking Christian church in camp. The minister was a Presbyterian, the Rev. Donald Toriumi. He and his wife, Sophie, became very good friends of mine. Before long, I joined the choir and enjoyed that very much. The choir was made up mostly of high school students, so when they wanted to start a youth group in the church, I agreed to be the adviser. We chose the name "Chi Sigma Omicron" (Christian Student Organization) and became quite an active group, meeting every Sunday evening.
They were known as "Chi Sigs." We even began a newspaper. I helped them get it started. We all worked putting it together and then printed on the mimeograph in the church office. There were probably 25-30 youth in the Chi Sigs and they were a lot of fun to be with. We had parties often and they loved to play games of all kinds.
The camp was halfway between Powell and Cody, and we could take the bus that took the employees back to town after work, and then take the commercial bus back home late at night. We often went to the movies in Cody. One night as we were in the hotel lobby waiting for the bus, one of the Cody men was there, too. He began talking to us when he found out we worked at the camp. He was saying how awful the Japanese were and went on and on. Finally I said to him, "I would rather live next door to some of the Japanese than next door to some of the Caucasians I know." That really got to him, and he finally shut up.
Shortly before I was to leave in May of 1945, the Toriumis had a party for the Chi Sigs. As we entered, we were each given a slip of paper with three initials on it. After we played some games, it turned out that the initials indicated the job each was assigned at refreshment time, such as Department of Sanitation, etc. Mine was "D.S.C.," and I couldn't figure out what it meant. Just before refreshments, I found out. I was presented with a heart-shaped locket on a chain from the group. I was supposed to get a "Distinguished Service Cross," but the purchaser couldn't find a cross in Cody, so got the locket instead. It may have been that the cross was more expensive than they could afford. Anyway, I treasure that locket for what it represented to me.
-- Joy Wilson, Port Charlotte
A German thank-you giftAn interesting story happened during the trip I took with my dad for the 50th anniversary of D-Day. We retraced about 75 percent of my dad's routes, starting in England, crossing the English Channel, across France and eventually to Germany. The second-to-last night of our trip was in Cologne, where we met a former business colleague of mine, Manfred Zappe, from Bremen, Germany. Manfred and I helped found an international consortium of the world's largest travel management companies. One of our traditions upon meeting around the world was to exchange small gifts.
On this occasion, I brought Manfred some pins from the World Cup, where his German team was playing in Chicago. I expected Manfred to give me my gift, but he said this instead: "Ed, I did not bring you a gift. But I brought your father one (whom he had never met). The gift is actually from my mother and me."
With that, he put a small leather case on the table and said, "My mother is 93 years old and she wishes you (my dad) to have this gift. And she hopes you will accept this gift on behalf of all the American soldiers, many of whom gave up their own lives to save us from the Nazis. And so please take this gift, Mr. Peters, and from my mother and me, thank you for your bravery and your sacrifice."
Inside the beat-up leather case was an Iron Cross, given to Manfred's grandfather, Master Sergeant Wilhelm Zimmermann, by the Emperor Wilhelm at the Battle of Somme, France, in World War I.
You can imagine how emotional this was - to have the grandson of a German soldier giving away the highest award a German soldier could receive to an American veteran on the 50th anniversary of a conflict that eventually ended the war and, in Manfred's and his mother's eyes, saved them from tyranny. Manfred's father ran an automobile plant in Michigan in the 1930s and was called back to Germany, where Hitler forced him to run a tank factory. Because his family was still in Germany, his father had no choice but to return and comply.
-- Edward J. Peters, St. Petersburg