Chapter 3
Tours
An army without its baggage train is lost;
without provisions it is lost;
without bases of supply it is lost.
- Sun Tzu
The encampment at Tours was an odd assortment of tents and commandeered buildings that housed the headquarters unit of the 447th Depot Detachment Engineers. Its primary mission was twofold - to support the forestry division that logged French forests for the lumber required to maintain the war effort, and to provide the Second Aviation Instruction Center located at the nearby airport with supplies, logistics, and maps.
Andy Anderson was bivouacked in an old stable along with about a dozen other enlisted men. In early spring it was cold and damp, but some of the more creative soldiers rigged scrap lumber and old tarps to provide extra shelter from the incessant rainfall. Compared to life in the trenches, this was paradise.
Andy bunked next to Roy Freeland, born in Albany, Oregon but lately from Minneapolis, who worked in supply - a useful friend to have when it came time to scrounge up some meager creature comforts. Private Freeland was an anomaly of sorts. At age 40 he was more the age of his contemporaries’ fathers. They used this to their collective advantage, for he was accustomed to a few more creature comforts than the “young-uns” as he would call them, and was not above creatively procuring certain additional comforts for the barracks.
A hastily constructed wooden shed served as the enlisted men’s mess. At promptly 06:00 hours a line of soldiers would file in through the opened door for morning mess - usually oatmeal and bread, local cheese, and coffee. During that cold spring the kitchen fires warmed the room, and helped drive away the aches and pains of the lumpy straw mattresses masquerading as beds.
The soldiers would shuffle along the serving line as the slop was doled out by dour looking privates, and occasionally a nondescript soldier with PRISONER stenciled on his rough tunic serving time for some sort of disorderly conduct, usually drinking and fighting. A devout Baptist, Andy was unaccustomed the to rough demeanor of many of the young recruits and conscripts, and he stuck close to his older friend Roy.
The men regularly stretched their morning meal out as long as they could, preferring to stay in the warm mess hall instead of heading off to their various assignments. It was here, in the mess, where Andy saw his first German.
R
Present Day
The rest of my mother’s genealogy binders offered no additional answers. I returned to the attic and began pulling out more boxes, working my way toward the back - back in time, back to my mother’s stored personal things. I found several boxes marked with the label, “Working Files” and hauled them down to my study. Inside were more binders marked “Hewitt, Martin, Greene, Meade Work Book,”
“Bond, Dickason Workbook,” and what I was looking for, “Anderson Work Book.”
The box had been unopened for about fifteen years. Inside were copies of several documents I had already seen - family trees written in long hand, a photocopy of the Lars Anders family bible where my mother began her genealogy research, and photocopies of various family pictures.
Lars Anders’ transcribed memories were here, typed on thin onion skin paper by one of my mother’s cousins some time back, as well as early memoirs from Grandpa Andy and some unknown relatives.
There were two faded yellow pages that had been removed from a standard contact notebook, tabbed “A.” The writing was in Andy’s script, and entitled:
Schools Attended from Sept 15, 1915 to ...
and here the headline stopped. Below this in a broad ornate script was written:
H.W. Anderson
Missionary Institute
Nyack, N.Y.
Sept. 15, 1915 to May 15, 1916.
This was the first time I had ever seen any reference to Grandpa Andy and early training for the clergy. It was not mentioned in any memoirs or histories anywhere in the family material. Two of his brothers had been engineers, David and Lawrence. David had passed away in 1969, but a newspaper clipping reported that in 1982 he had been nominated for the Automotive Hall of Fame for his early work on internal combustion engines. In his diary Andy wrote he had applied for engineering school in the army. However, here was the first instance of his interest in the clergy, which became his lifelong mission. Below this was a chronology of places where he studied including the first listing after his return from war:
Berkeley Baptist Divinity School
Berkeley, Calif
Aug 15, 1919 to May 1, 1920
From 1922 through 1926 he listed nine different student pastorates in California, Oregon, then Missouri, where my mother was born in 1925. They were followed by a listing in Ohio before returning to California in 1931. Andy was an associate pastor at Bethany Baptist Church in Los Angeles in 1934 and 1935.
I remember Grandpa Andy talking fondly of the days during the Great Depression when he worked with the “CCC boys” as he called them. Here is where he became a full-fledged chaplain for the first time in the Civilian Conservation Corps in the Medford District (Oregon), making his home in Roseburg. When the Second World War broke out, he was activated from reserve duty in 1941, serving in New Guinea, Manila, and “P I,” presumably the Pacific Islands.
After the war he continued as a chaplain with the Veterans Administration, and in 1955 took a post in Vancouver. This marked my first recollections of Grandpa Andy.
No one knew that he had wanted to study engineering.
R
P64335
It was stenciled across the back of his tunic in faded black letters. He unobtrusively shuffled through the mess, cleaning up after the American soldiers who liked to deliberately sabotage their eating area just to watch him clean after them. Occasionally one would offer a jeering comment or two, but nothing compared to the outright hostility reaped on P64335 by the occasional French soldier.
Although a soldier in the German army, P64335 spoke perfect French and a clumsy, rough form of English he was slowly learning from the Americans. He understood more of the English than he let on. When he wanted to avoid the abuse aimed at his direction he pretended not to understand, and he could turn away generally taking the insults in stride.
“Hey, Hymie, get over here and take care of that mess.” A soldier with corporal stripes and a scar on his cheek sneered at the POW who was assigned to mess duty. Andy chafed at the slur, meant both as a slam against the enemy and Jews at the same time. P64335 simply ignored the insulting slang and set about cleaning the tables.
“Dirty Hun bastard,” he sneered. “They should shoot all of them.”
P64335 did not seem much like the image Andy had built in his mind of the German soldier. After the bombardments in Paris, and hearing about the atrocities committed throughout the Belgian countryside as the German army took what they needed to survive from the land, he too had imagined the Germans to be heartless brutes. This quiet, unassuming prisoner, near his own age, certainly did not fit the popular mold the soldiers created of their enemy.
Andy kept his distance, however. There were clear orders that prevented any of the German prisoners from interacting with the enlisted men. Officers generally refused to lower themselves to even address one of the POWS, unless it was to shout an order for this or that. They were treated as barely human, more like slaves. Under the Geneva Convention prisoners could be required to work while in captivity but they could not be used in areas to directly promote the war effort, such as munitions factories. Officers were exempt. Companies of POWs routinely worked in the lumber camps, the coalfields, and in construction throughout the countryside. In an increasingly crowded prisoner of war system, it was common for a large contingent of prisoners to build their own internment camp.
Most of the prisoners taken by American troops were transported back to the states to select POW camps. Many more, those taken by the British, were interred in Britain where they were generally well treated, while still doing routine work patrols. In France, those who seemed relatively harmless could be posted to various headquarter companies. Hospitals often used POWs as “body snatchers,” slang for stretcher-bearers.
Andy’s life in France was mostly mundane. He filled his time with walks, lectures, and sightseeing. He later recalled writing to his brother, Lawrence:
My biggest enemy is boredom. We hear reports from the front, such as they are, and see trainloads of troops and supplies passing through, and troops returning from the front. No one talks of it. It is like the war does not really exist, and we are playing at children’s games.
There are no bombardments here. I have learned when I am busiest, especially making maps, we can expect some major action. When the action begins, I have nothing to do but take walks and visit with my friends here. I have applied for advanced training at Engineer school.
The letter was censored and never delivered.
R
Andy was a regular at camp church services. The pastor often spoke about the lack of morality that afflicts soldiers. Those who at home would display the finest manners and considerations would, far from home, defile the local women and sink under the repressive weight of alcohol, he would scold his congregation. Andy saw such behavior all around him, but was determined to insulate himself from foul talk and actions as best he could. He chose friends selectively.
“I bought a map,” he explained, “and it has all the monuments of Tours.” He spread the map distributed by the YMCA out across the mess table for his friends, George Asprooth and Roy Freeland. Major attractions were drawn in relief style to encourage soldiers to visit.
“We are here, just up the river from the city. We can easily walk to here, and here, and even this far.” As he spoke, he drew small circles with his finger around the drawing of a cathedral, a museum, and one of the chateaus not commandeered by army operations.
“What’s this?” Roy asked. The men began to cross-reference the location in the map legend.
“La CathŽdrale Saint-Gatien,” came a response from the next table.
They looked over at P64335 cleaning the table, such a common sight they would scarcely have taken notice. None was accustomed to being addressed.
“What did you say, Fritz?” Roy spat out.
“It is a cathedral, a very good one,” P64335 replied in halting English. He turned his back and moved away from the three, expecting more cursing. He was used to such behavior, and gave it no mind but to stay clear. P64335 was surprised himself he even responded. He moved quickly out of conversation range.
“Now how would he know?” Roy wondered aloud. “I didn’t think they let the Fritzies out.”
“Watch yourself, Roy,” George warned him teasingly, “them Fritzies’ll draw you in and try to sell you somethin’ they stole. Get yerself in some heap o’ trouble.”
Fraternization was strictly forbidden. German spies were active in and around headquarter units. An analysis of routine traffic could uncover useful intelligence. No piece of information was too small, too insignificant, to be of value.
Andy watched P64335 shuffle off toward the kitchen. He had never met a German before, at least not one of the enemy. During the recent bombardments in Paris he developed an image of the hideous Hun, mustache and spiked helmet, laying waste to the Low Countries, raping the women, killing little children. The propaganda machines of the Entente powers played on those excesses of war that did occur in creating an image of the vicious Boche. Reports from the recently repatriated areas of Belgium and northern France simply reinforced these stereotypes.
P64335 did not fit the stereotype. He was small of stature, and Andy would describe him as skinny, likely from years of poor diet at the front. He was clean-shaven, albeit somewhat disheveled. His POW uniform was nondescript, his demeanor subservient and subdued. He walked with a shuffle so as not to draw attention to himself. He did not seem like the evil spawn of Satan as he had been so carefully portrayed. He never made eye contact. As a mess worker, Andy saw him most every day, but until now had paid little heed.
The Americans made plans to meet up with a couple of young ladies from the nearby village and visit the Benedictine Abbey L’Eglise Saint-Julien on the banks of the River Loire that formed the city limits. Andy, however, suggested La CathŽdrale Saint-Gatien further towards the city center.
“What? And walk into some kind of Boche trap? Why do you suppose that Fritzie mentioned it? Come on, Andy. Don’t fall for that,” George reprimanded him. The matter was closed. The boys finished mess and headed outside.
“I’ll get hold o’ the girls, and we’ll meet up in front of the Escadrille,” George offered with a grin. “It’s what I do best!,” and he strode off with what Andy could describe only as a swagger. The two remaining friends ambled back toward their barracks.
Tours buzzed with activity on this Saturday afternoon. It was a rare weekend day without a work duty and the young soldiers were eager to get out of the depot and into town. Most of the young soldiers went south and east towards the seedier parts of town with the clubs and bawdy restaurants. This was a dangerous place, patrolled by French police looking to enforce army camp justice on the young recruits. Fights were common, as were invitations for a night of pleasure, and possibly a crack across the skull and a stolen wallet for the trouble.
For many of these soldiers this was the first time away from small town America, from the moderating influence of family, community, and church. The average AEF doughboy was illiterate, from family farms, naive, and restless for action. Most of the American infantry soldiers passing through had not yet been to the front, and were boasting of the action to come. For the “Tommies” that filled the bars that afternoon, veterans of the mud and blood of the trenches, there was little patience for these arrogant “Yanks” and their untried boasts.
Andy and Roy had made a pass through the red sector as their commander called it shortly after they arrived in Tours weeks ago - Roy “riding shotgun” as he put it for the naive Swede from Rockford, keeping him out of trouble.
“This is a place of sin,” Andy warned him, hesitantly. He knew he was over his head and leaned on Roy as a protector. Something about the vileness of the drunkenness and debauchery attracted him, like the proverbial moth to a flame, but not for the same reasons it attracted the rowdy soldiers. He could feel something pulling at him, drawing him forward when his instincts told him to flee.
“They’se a dangerous lot when drunk, that’s to be sure,” Roy simply answered. “But who can blame ‘em, from where they’ve been.”
“You don’t plan to join them, do you?” he cautiously asked.
Roy just let out a deep, bawdy laugh.
“Not me, Andy. No, sir. I’ve had my fill o’ that kinda life. The missus now, she’d have my hide tanned and stretched if she even heard I was on this here street, let me tell ya,” he laughed.
This was Freeland’s second stint in the army. As a young lad he enlisted to fight the Spanish and served in a rifle company in Cuba. He had been surrounded by heavy fighting, but he had to admit to Andy, “Never got no chance to even fire a shot. Don’t tell no one.” He was hoping to see some action in this war, and earn a promotion, and better pay.
Roy Freeland had two children, a girl of ten and a boy, fourteen. When his son was afflicted with polio Roy gave up drinking, concentrating on providing for his family. With work scarce, and doctors calling for more treatments, he rejoined the army. Being so far away was Hell for him, but he was at least able to send some money to his family back home.
They passed the camp chaplain, talking to a small group of young soldiers loitering in front of one of the noisy bars that looked too young to be even out of knickerbockers let alone in uniform. Andy watched as the chaplain led them off in the other direction, gently reprimanding them, but insisting nonetheless. He slowly began to understand what he was feeling, standing in the muddy street of this den of sin.
On this fine Saturday, however, they headed south and west, along the riverfront, toward the city center - the “civilized” part of Tours, with its giant cathedral, hotels, and beautiful medieval architecture. Andy stopped and bought post cards with scenes from the town lithographed in brilliant colors to send home to his sister, Ruby.
Massive bridges spanned the Loire, stretching across islands in the river channel. Barge traffic moved slowly down river as they walked along the quay, stopping to look at the odd assortment of vessels tied alongside. At the Rue Jules Simon they turned away from the river, meandering along the broad avenue, until they finally came across George, a sour look on his face.
“No luck today, boys. Sorry,” he gave them the bad news. “Les mademoiselles n’est pas ici.”
Just as well. Money was short, payday a week away yet, and the boys always spent just a little too much when accompanied by the mademoiselles they had met at the church. They took in the museum, although Andy managed to steer the trio back to camp the long way, passing the giant cathedral the POW had mentioned, just to prove a point.
It rained hard that night. Just as well, for he was sequestered at his duty station all the next day, despite it being Sunday. Andy would write in his journal simply,
Apr 23, Tue
Worked on Maps.
R