Honoring our war veterans

As a boy growing up in the Bronx during the 1930s, the annual Armistice Day parade on the Grand Concourse, the borough's broad, tree-lined boulevard, was for me one of the most exciting events of the year.

Armistice Day celebrated the ending of World War I. The holiday was officially renamed Veterans Day in 1954 to also honor those of us who served in World War II or the Korean War.

I will always remember the legions of aged World War I veterans, grouped by American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars posts, marching down the Concourse with flags and military banners flapping in the wind. Army bands and formations of soldiers and sailors on active duty in the armed forces marched briskly with them. The colorful patriotic scene was a welcome break to the dismal atmosphere of the Depression.

A special place of honor was reserved in the parade for a handful of survivors of the Spanish-American War and Civil War, most of them walking with canes or being pushed in wheel chairs.

I assume that the Veterans Day parades are still conducted each year on the Concourse, now dominated by Vietnam veterans. But I envision geriatric World War II veterans like myself--all now in our 80s and 90s--replacing those Civil War and Spanish-American War veterans in that special place of honor for heroic relics of past wars.

Adventures in blogging

I was saddened and astonished to receive an e-mail message earlier this week from a man in Miami Beach, Fla., identifying himself as the grandson of Owen Crenshaw.

In December 2006, I published a story in this blog entitled "Tales of the 903rd Signal Co." (That was the Army outfit in which I served in India during World War II.) The posting contained a photo of six soldiers, one of whom was Owen Crenshaw. I am standing next to him in the picture.

"My grandfather passed away two days ago at age 92 in a San Antonio, Texas hospital," the grandson wrote. "Until he suffered a severe stroke three weeks ago, he continued to live 100% independently, including driving himself to breakfast every morning from the house he built for his retirement in 1975."

Out of curiosity, I assume, the grandson Googled his grandfather's name and came up with a reference to my blog piece about the 903rd Signal Co. Unfortunately, when he downloaded the story, all he came up with were the first several paragraphs in which his grandfather's name is mentioned. The group photo also failed to appear. The blog archives had evidently deleted or damaged the material.

The grandson asked whether I could send him a copy of the picture and the full text of the blog piece. "I would love to know if there is anything you remember about [my grandfather]," he added.

I am not very skilled in blogging technology, but after considerable effort, I was able to extract both the full text of the nearly two-year old blog piece and the photo from the bowels of my computer. I successfully e-mailed them to the grandson. He was delighted to receive them. He told me that the photo would be displayed at an upcoming memorial to his grandfather.

I am now in my Florida winter home, not far from the grandson's residence. We are planning to meet so that I can tell him everything that I can recall about Owen Crenshaw. I had not seen or spoken to Owen in 63 years. But I remember him well because of the intimate bond we had formed during our two years of World War II Army service together in India. He eventually became the outfit's first sergeant. I was the company clerk, so we had an especially close working relationship.

The grandson e-mailed a photo to me of his grandfather which was taken shortly before his death. I could not recognize him.

MEMOIR: Memories of the Great Depression

The current financial crisis, generating fears that the U.S. faces a serious depression, has triggered my memories of the Great Depression of the 1930s.

My earliest memory was seeing my young, unmarried aunt, who lived with my parents, coming home from work one evening sobbing hysterically. I can still recall that she carried a newspaper emblazoned with a huge headline printed in red, reading: "Stock market crashes!"

The paper was undoubtedly the now-defunct New York Journal-American, a Hearst newspaper that routinely published red-ink headlines in large type to stir up reader excitement.

But this was no routine story. It was 1929, and the Great Depression had begun. I was five years old, and I still vividly remember my aunt's behavior that night. She had invested her meager savings, earned as a secretary, in the stock market. Now the savings had been wiped out.

She and other relatives, all people of modest means, had been encouraged by a stock broker/cousin to buy stock. That I can still recall the incident about my aunt and the newspaper headline so many years later demonstrates how traumatic the experience was, even for a young, impressionable boy.

I have other painful recollections of that era. In the early 1930s, my father's business collapsed. My father, who had not invested in the stock market, had operated a small shop in New York, manufacturing men's clothing in partnership with an uncle and brother-in-law.

Over the next decade, he was often unemployed, frequently holding down only temporary jobs as a salesman, usually in the men's apparel or food industries.

I always wondered how we were able to maintain our two-bedroom apartment during those years. We lived very frugally, but I do not recall that we suffered the severe economic indignities that afflicted so many others during the Great Depression.

But I do remember depending on hand-me-down baseball gloves, sleds, bicycles, and roller skates from a more affluent cousin whose father's business survived the nation's economic meltdown.

Only in recent years have I figured out how my parents were probably able to maintain our home during the Great Depression. I have a cousin who has an inordinate interest in genealogy.In his research, he discovered that the New York Times published probate notices at one time in its classified advertising columns. He found one notice revealing that my maternal grandmother (his great-grandmother) had inherited $5,000 from a wealthy older brother.

My grandmother had lived with my parents since their marriage. The inheritance, which she received about two years before I was born, was an enormous sum of money in that era. I can only assume that the funds wholly or partially produced the rent for our apartment when my father was unemployed. By then, my aunt had married and moved out.

When I was a teenager, I played a vital role in my father's search for regular employment. He was brought to this country from Poland at the age of nine, but never had a secular American education. Until he was 18, he attended a religious Jewish seminary where such subjects as English grammar did not figure prominently in the curriculum.

So he turned to me to help write letters applying for work. I remember spending Sunday afternoons with him examining the "want ads" in the New York Times. When he found what seemed to be a suitable job opening, I would compose and type letters for him on my second-hand typewriter, spelling out his qualifications.

My letters produced several salesman's jobs. Among his employers that I can recall were Beech-Nut and Colgate-Palmolive. In each case, however, the jobs proved to be temporary, for he was laid off in the personnel cutbacks that were so commonplace during the Great Depression.

The Great Depression ended only when World War II broke out. The U.S. quickly began to expand its armed forces, defense spending soared, and my father was hired by the War Dept. as an inspector in factories manufacturing military uniforms. That was his first solid job since his own business had collapsed.

My father was always struck by the irony that it took a war to get him on his feet economically. Whatever satisfaction he derived from finally having a good job, however, was offset by his sorrow in seeing his only child going off to war as a soldier.

MEMOIR: Coming home from the war

Ken Burns' brilliant PBS film series about World War II brought back memories of my return home after more than two years Army service in India. I still remember the exact date I landed in the U.S., Feb. 11, 1946. I arrived in San Francisco after a month-long voyage from Calcutta aboard a Navy troop ship, the General Ballou--or "the ba-ba-lu," as we fondly called it.

Most of the men in my outfit, the 903rd Signal Co., and I had waited five months after the Japanese surrender in August 1945 for a ship to take us home. As the frustration grew over the delay, the "political activists" in my outfit began to bombard members of Congress with letters urging them to do something about the shortage of ships.

They also enlisted Drew Pearson, the influential syndicated newspaper columnist, to take up our cause. He wrote a series of columns demanding that ships be sent to bring "the men in the forgotten theater of war [China-Burma-India]" home.

Some men on our base finally began to shipped back to the States after a priority system was set up based on total time served in the Army and the amount of time overseas. Additional credit was given for combat experience. None of the men in my outfit earned priority for the return home because we had not seen combat.

For about three months, we were kept occupied closing our facilities and destroying equipment that was no longer needed. I will never forget the sight of bulldozers driving over countless millions of dollars worth of radar apparatus, radio gear, and other once vital equipment, lined up on an air strip, converting them into scrap.

Before the war, our base had been the giant Kharda Mills, which produced jute. The U.S. Army acquired the property and converted it into the CBI's main air depot. Now we were getting the facility ready to resume its original, pre-war business.

Even though the war was over, hundreds of men were assigned to guard duty to protect our base. Indian independence was to be declared in the next year or two. But bloody communal riots were already breaking out between Bengali Hindus and Bengali Muslims in the villages surrounding the base, as the two communities maneuvered to claim territory. There was concern that the violence would spill over into our base. And occasionally it did.

The first step in our prolonged return to the States finally came in December 1945, when we were shipped to a staging area named Kanchrapara, located in the jungles of eastern Bengal. For me, it was sort of a homecoming. I had spent a month there soon after my arrival in India, waiting to be assigned to an operational unit.

In my first stay at Kanchrapara, I had been assigned to guard duty almost every day. After conquering Burma, the Japanese army was invading eastern India. It had already occupied part of the state of Manipur. And there I was, armed with a Thompson sub-machine gun, standing in its way. The Japanese failed to get any closer, but I do not take any credit for that.

But this time my stay at Kancharapra was a far more joyous one. Shortly after New Year's Day 1946, we were piled into trucks and driven to the port of Calcutta to board the General Ballou for the voyage home. During the two-hour drive, we were attacked by a shower of rocks thrown at us by Indian militants who mistook us to be British troops. At least a half dozen men were injured and required medical attention as soon as we boarded the troop ship.

After about a week at sea, the ship arrived in Singapore. The harbor was littered with wrecked Japanese vessels. (Singapore had been a major target of U.S. bombers based in India.) I don't recall that anyone on the ship was allowed to go ashore, but a fleet of small boats sailed out to us with supplies. From what we could see from a distance, the city of Singapore looked like Hiroshima.

Departing from Singapore, we sailed into the South China Sea, where we were immediately hit by a typhoon. The storm was so furious that our ship seemed to turn over on its port side. For those of us courageous enough to be on deck, the sea was no longer on the same level as our vessel. It was as if we were on a skyscraper peering down on the stormy water below.

Virtually everyone aboard the ship became sea sick. I had the misfortune of being in the vessel's compartment that had been arbitrarily assigned to KP duty. It was a repeat of the misfortune I had suffered two years earlier on the voyage to India, when I was in the ship's compartment that had been arbitrarily assigned to serve as the vessel's MPs. In each case, I had to enviously watch the other troops enjoying the luxury of endless leisure time at sea while I was on duty.

The KP duty in the South China sea was a special ordeal, as we had to contend with the hordes of seasick soldiers vomiting in the mess hall. And now, unlike our stay in India, we did not have native coolies to clean up. My compartment mates on KP--most of us staff sergeants or above--were humbled. We had expected to be immune to such unpleasant duty because of our exalted rank.

As the typhoon subsided we entered the port of Manila in the Philippines. We anchored close to the island of Corregidor, the site of the U.S. surrender to the Japanese shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack. Like the Singapore harbor, the Manila harbor was littered with the wrecks of Japanese ships, and the city was similarly devastated.

The closest that I have ever seen to what might be considered an Army mutiny broke out when dozens of officers boarded launches taking them ashore, while enlisted men were not allowed to leave the ship. Angrily watching from the ship's railings above, dozens of enlisted men began throwing fruit crates and other trash at the officers. I do not recall any disciplinary action taken against them.

Our stay in Manila was a brief one. Sailing eastward across the Pacific, our ship passed close enough to the Hawaiian Islands so that we could see land. Now that the ocean waters had calmed, I felt comfortable in my off-duty hours reading on my hammock. I recall that I was able to finish Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge.

At last we reached San Francisco Bay, passing beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. The same guys who had thrown refuse at the officers in Manila were now lined up on the same ship's railings, weeping that we were finally back home in the States. I have never seen so many grown men crying, and I will never forget the highly emotional scene.

As we debarked from the ship, loaded down with heavy duffle bags over our shoulders, we were surrounded by huge, cheering crowds on the docks. Some people were evidently relatives of the troops and had been alerted to our arrival. As we stood on the docks relaxing, a team of American Red Cross women arrived with coffee and doughnuts. I was annoyed that we had to pay for these modest offerings.

We were quickly loaded on to a ferry boat which took us up the San Francisco Bay to Camp Stoneham in Pittsburgh, Calif., which had been a major military port of embarkation during the war. Now it was functioning in the happier role as a port of debarkation for troops about to be discharged from military service.

As we marched into Camp Stoneham, we were not exactly healthy-looking specimen. Most of us had suffered malaria, dengue fever, dysentery and other tropical diseases. Many were emaciated because of their illnesses. When we entered the camp's mess hall to eat, we were infuriated to see robust, healthy-looking German prisoners-of-war who were KPs serving the food. They had survived the war in far better shape than we had.

A few days later we boarded troop trains arranged to go to discharge centers closest to our homes. My train was headed for Ft. Dix, N.J. I finally had a chance there to phone my family in the Bronx. I had expected to be discharged and on my way to them in a day or two. Part of the discharge process involved a lengthy physical examination. After the exam, I saw that most of my buddies had been given their discharge papers and were packing up to leave.

As the others left, I was told to remain in my barracks. My chest x-rays showed a suspicious spot on my lungs. I was told that I would have to remain in the camp until a lung specialist would arrive to examine me. When he finally arrived a few days later and examined the x-rays, he quickly decided that the x-ray technician had accidentally scratched the film. On March 16, 1946, I was given my honorable discharge papers and allowed to go home as a civilian. I was only 21 years old. I felt at least 10 years older.

A train took me to Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan, and the subway delivered me to the 167th Street station on the Independent line. Despite the weight of the duffle bag over my shoulder, I jogged the two blocks from the subway station to my parents' apartment house.

I rang the downstairs bell to announce my arrival, and began running up the three steep flights of stairs to their apartment. At the same time, my father came rushing down to meet me. In his excitement, he almost knocked me down a flight of stairs. He embraced and kissed me, crying as a he pulled me up the stairs where my mother and grandmother waited eagerly at our door. Their only son had finally come home from the war.

MEMOIR: How my parents learned where the Army sent me

There is a tendency for the Bush Administration to over-react to what are conceived to be national security threats. Perhaps the reason is to compensate for the blunders committed before 9/11--the failure to acknowledge warnings of imminent terrorist actions, the failure of the CIA and FBI to coordinate intelligence data, and the failure to recognize the presence of Al-Qaeda agents in this country.

There is no question that the current threat of extremist Islamic terrorism is genuine. But some of the government responses since the 9/11 attack have been ineffectual, if not irrational.

For example, Washington's color-code hysterics that warned about imminent acts of terrorism were false and confusing. The official warnings provided no guidance on what individual citizens were supposed to do, and they wasted the resources of local authorities struggling to respond to the erroneous warnings about the threat.

Another example of the absurd anti-terrorist policies is the system of airport security checks on passengers. To assure political correctness, the checkers avoid passenger profiling, which would be a logical security tool.

After all, we do know what the 9/11 terrorists looked like, and we have good ideas about the appearance and behavior of those who are still serious terrorist threats. This knowledge, however, does not necessarily conflict with intelligence findings that Al-Qaeda has instructed members of its sleeper cells here to assume mainstream American identities and lifestyles as much as possible.

Instead of focusing on truly suspicious airport passengers, the inspectors also routinely check out WASP-looking old women, physically-disabled persons in wheelchairs and other obvious innocents, ordering them to take off their shoes to examine whether explosives are concealed in them.

These nonsensical post-9/11 security tactics remind me of some equally irrational World War II security policies. I remember being on a troop train in late December 1944, traveling from St. Louis, Mo., where I had received infantry training at Jefferson Barracks, to Camp Patrick Henry, Va., a staging area for the Hampton Roads port of embarkation.

Our destination was kept secret from the troops aboard the train. Only when we arrived at the camp were we told that we were in Virginia. But we were not allowed to inform our families. When I phoned my mother in New York, she naturally asked where I was. As I was about to answer her question, some one monitoring outgoing phone conversations cut me off before I could respond. I have always wondered what military benefit our German and Japanese enemies could have gained by knowing I was in Virginia.

After several days, we finally shipped out aboard a British luxury liner, the HMS Empress of Scotland, that had been converted into a troop ship. I estimate that about 5,000 troops were crammed into the vessel. As the ship moved out to sea, all the troops were ordered below decks so that we could not look at the port's "strategic facilities."

I assume that the reference was to such sites as anti-aircraft installations, oil depots, and cargo-handling facilities. If there were any spies among the U.S. troops aboard the ship, I question how they could have possibly communicated what they saw to the enemy, assuming that they knew how to identify facilities that were truly strategically important.

After a month at sea, interrupted by a brief stay in Capetown, South Africa, our ship landed in Bombay, India. As I recall, it was at least a year before we were officially allowed to write home that we were in India. Our outgoing mail was heavily censored by our outfit's own officers. I used to wonder who censored their mail and whether they could tell their families where they were.

Was it really that significant to the Japanese to know that soldiers like me were now in India? I had been trained in the Signal Corps as a Teletype operator and cryptographer. (The Jefferson Barracks infantry training was to supplement these occupational skills.) I cannot imagine that this knowledge would have affected Japan's strategy to invade eastern India or its efforts to block the shipment of U.S. military supplies to China.

By a strange happening, I wandered into a Bombay synagogue while on a day's leave to visit the city. The result was that I was soon able to avoid the restriction and to let my parents know where I was.

A section of the synagogue, which had been founded by Iraqi Jews, was devoted to a community center. Several ping-pong tables were set up in it. When he saw me come into the room, a man named Harry Zussman challenged me to a game.

I don't remember who won the game, but Harry and I quickly became friends. I was stationed for about a month at a U.S. Army replacement center located at an RAF base outside Bombay. While awaiting assignment to an operational outfit, I was frequently allowed to visit the city, where I arranged to meet Harry and spend time with him.

He was a British Army sergeant who had been seriously wounded during the British retreat from Burma. After recovering from his wounds, he was assigned to be a drill instructor in the British-officered Indian Army, also based outside Bombay. The assignment was apparently a sinecure that allowed him lots of free time to come into the city.

When I told him that I was frustrated by my inability to let my family know that I was in India, he said that his outgoing mail was not censored. Harry, who was a native of London who spoke with an engaging cockney accent, volunteered to write to my parents in New York, informing them that he had met me in Bombay.

My mother responded to his letter and shipped him a fruit cake and a kosher salami to show her appreciation. They soon became wartime pen pals, particularly after discovering that their respective parents had originated in the same Czarist Russian province.

Many years later, my wife and I visited London while on a European tour. The first thing I did in London was to check the local telephone book, seeking Harry's name and number. I was disappointed that I did not find him listed. I wanted to thank him for for enabling my parents to know that I was serving in India. It was information that was far more important to them than it could have possibly been to the Japanese.