We were in the staging area in Arles, France, outside Marseille, JULY '45 scheduled to go to the Pacific Theater when they dropped they dropped "Little Boy" on Hiroshima and "Fat Man" on Nagasaki and we were then taken off the shipment list and returned to Germany for occupation duty.
More than a few months later(about 8), I was no longer classified as "essential" so I was transferred to a Medium Automotive Maintenance Co. as their 1st. Sgt. Talk about a fish out of water. They wanted for some reason (who knows - typical Army rationale) to send this unit complete and they needed a 1st Sgt and I was eligible to go home.
Co. CO was a good guy so he said "I'll tell you what we need and all you have to do is do it". Paper work like morning reports,sick call etc. I knew the routine.
After we were processed in the Arles Staging area,yup (again typical Army they sent me back there!). We were loaded onto a Liberty Ship that was a class A rust bucket which since I am very familiar with ships (lived in a Port City) I was not a happy camper. If I had my choice, I wouldn't have even taken a harbor cruise on this ship!!! I knew some of the Liberty ships were made in on e week as they were almost prefabricated - parts were just welded together.
The Troop Commander was a newbie so he grabbed me me and told me I was going, along with 2 other Tops to be his staff. He had all the troops loaded and that went well until we 3 Tops asked where are we going to be quartered. When he said "I never thought of that" I knew we were in trouble. Luckily he solved the problem by having the Ship's Captain agree to let us use their Sick Bay. Compared to what the other GIs had this was pure luxury and we got to eat with the crew who took good care of us.
Above is the type ship we were on for ELEVEN (11) Days and believe me there were a lot of seasick GIs. We(the 3 Tops) had a daily inspection with the Troop Commander and the guys in the bow of the ship were threatened they would be sealed off if they didn't clean up their area. Nine out of ten of them were up-chucking etc. and not getting to the latrines so it smelled to high heaven and desperately needed a GI cleaning which we had to oversee. Glad I was brought up around boats etc. as the shake rattle and roll of the ship didn't phase me(see example above).
What really ticked me off was that upon arrival at the port of New York we had to wait while they unloaded the ship before they let us debark. Even the garbage beat us off the ship. Once off, we were sent to Fort Dix New Jersey for out-processing and believe me that was another complete fiasco.
SgtLeo
