From Artillery to Air Corps: The World War II Memoir of a Green Mountain Cannoneer Turned B-24 Radioman

By Paul Van Kavelaar

A Merriam Press World War II Memoir. The experiences of a young enlisted man in the Army 1936-45. The first half of the book covers the time period from 1936 through early 1944. As he describes his training, assignments and perceptions of various incidents, the reader sees how he was integrated into the military culture. The second half details his experiences as a prisoner of war after his B-24 Liberator was shot down over Germany. He was the plane’s radio operator. He was a POW in four different camps from March 1944 through January 1945: Stalag Luft 8, Stalag Luft 4, Stalag Luft 17 and the POW camp at Moosberg. The book vividly depicts life at each of these sites and the transport from one to another. The book ends with the liberation by Patton's forces and the trip back to the United States. In addition to documents and news clippings there are some black and white pictures taken with a smuggled miniature camera of camp life and the camp's liberation. 55 photos, 5 news clippings, 3 documents.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781458353498

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From Artillery to Air Corps: The World War II Memoir of a Green Mountain Cannoneer Turned B-24 Radioman

by Paul Van Kavelaar

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Hoosick Falls, New York

2022

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eBook Edition 2022

ISBN 978-1-4583-5349-8

Copyright © 2007 by the Estate of Paul Van Kavelaar

First print edition published in 2007 by the Merriam Press

All rights reserved.

Additional material copyright of named contributors.

The views expressed are solely those of the author(s).

This work was designed, produced, and published in

the United States of America by

Merriam Press, 489 South Street, Hoosick Falls NY 12090

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Dedication

For the children of Paul F. Van Kavelaar:

Bonnie Merten

Paul F. Van Kavelaar II

May your father’s legacy live on forever.

Foreword

My father-in-law spent about four years writing this memoir. Using the hunt and peck method on a 1963 Royal manual typewriter, he slowly but faithfully churned out a few pages at a time. He had a strong desire to contribute to military history, writing from an enlisted man’s point of view. Although he did not live to see this work published, his children, Bonnie and Paul, can finally look up to heaven and say Mission accomplished, Dad.

Eileen Van Kavelaar

October 30, 2006

Out of the Depression

At Providence, Rhode Island, I boarded the 7:00 a.m. train from Cranston for downtown. Air was a frosty mist. The streets were banked with old dirty snow. People slowly emerging from their houses like wraiths, slipping silently across the street to wait for the bus. All seemed to be draped in somber hewed cloaks. The bus was cold inside; no one talked to another. The bus bumped along brushing trees and rocking dangerously side to side. I departed the bus at Dorrance Street and walked toward the Post Office building. The square was banked with snow piles marked with the yellow patches from dogs. The snow, not like one associates with the New England scene, not pure white and fluffy. Blackened by the continual oily exhaust from the many trains that pound through the center of town belching huge billows of greasy soot that settles upon the snow. There is a triple header grinding through right now, massive mogul locomotives that shake the ground like an earthquake as they pull their 11-plus cars between Boston and New York.

It’s not the old New England scene as I recall as a child living in Hartford. Those were bitter cold, too, but it seemed different then. For my family, in those days it was Depression. The difference being that we had no food then, no warm home, no close friends or relatives.

So as I walked briskly to the U.S. Army Recruiting Station in the old Post Office in Providence, I was fortunate in that I had survived those bad years. Today I was warmly dressed, had a good breakfast and left a warm home and my sister and her husband were kind to me. They had taken care of me for over a year in their home.

Today I had come to the recruiting office to receive my oath of enlistment and pick up a ticket to my next home. I had applied to the Navy office in Boston a few months earlier. They told me I was underweight and besides I was nearly twenty-five years old. They had done their best to enlist me, changed my birth certificate to read 1914 instead of the correct 1911 and hoped a week of heavy food, including a last day consumption of a dozen bananas would help me make it. But I failed and they told me that the Army would possibly take me anyway.

When I first approached the Army recruiter he had me look over a chart to see if my vision as okay. It was excellent. They had me jump up and down a dozen times on each foot to see if I was physically qualified. That proved easy. I was 136 pounds, lean and hungry and full of dreams. They looked up a few references, and that was it. I was in as far as they were concerned. And so today a young Lieutenant was on hand to formally swear me into the service of my country. It was quick. I was told to take the evening train to Fort Ethan Allen, Vermont and was also given a meal ticket.

But it was February 6, 1936 and I was actually in the Army. It was a date in my life, a turning point that affected many lives from that time on. Also, it was the first day of wages I would have earned in a long time—70 cents. From that time on, my life was not mine to regulate; the Army owned me lock, stock, and barrel. I might add for better or worse, too.

My brother-in-law, Roger, was the son of a wealthy wholesale produce man in Providence. He, however, lived a very frugal and logical life. Roger had gone to Billerica Military School in Massachusetts prior to his enrolling and eventually graduating from Massachusetts State College in Amherst where he earned a degree in economics.

While at the military school, Roger learned some drills and military maneuvers that he was more than happy to impart to me for the few hours I had before leaving for the North country. With a broom he showed me what was right shoulder arms, port arms, squads right, and also how to make up a bed, or should I say bunk. I also gleaned that the country to where I was going was in the coldest and snowiest area of Vermont. Therefore, plenty of clothing was necessary on the trip.

Why did I pick such a cold place to work? Here we have a classic example of how the Army operated so effectively those days. The recruiting sergeant, when he was processing me, inquired as to what place I would like to serve. He told me there were four posts open for recruits at which he was able to place me. They were Fort Slocum, which was on a small island near New York City; Fort Preble, Maine, in the harbor outside of Portland; Fort Devens, Massachusetts, a well-known World War I camp 40 miles west of Boston; and there was Fort Ethan Allen, just north of Burlington, Vermont. On the map, it looked to me that Ethan Allen was about centered of the four choices so that’s what I picked.

The recruiting sergeant was assigned to what was then DEML, Detached Enlisted Men’s League. He operated in a rather independent fashion, not bound up in paperwork, advertising, community relations and such. He walked around the cities in his area, talked to young men at pool halls, bars, restaurants, railroad stations, etc. The men he brought in for enlistment needed work. They were ready to work, also wanted to improve their lot in life. As a rule, they were hungry to one degree or another and had no home to call their own.

And so, after the brief ceremony I retraced my steps past the filthy snow banks, filthy railroads, and boarded the bus back to the house. My train was to leave at 4:30 am, the first leg was to be from Providence to Worcester, Massachusetts, where I was to lay over a few hours and board the Montrealer that ran from New York City to Montreal daily. Already I liked the scheme of things—the word Montrealer sounded intriguing and interesting.

At this time my mother, stepfather, and younger half-brother were living in a small but very nice little cottage on the south side of Los Angeles where my stepfather had come in 1930 during the great Depression. A friend of his, another Hollander, and his wife and family were living fairly comfortably in the city of Los Angeles and Fritz had promised that Roland (my stepfather) would get a job in the flour and grain mill where he worked. My own father, Dr. Julius Levin, a good physician and surgeon, died when I was one year old in the town of my birth, Windber, Pennsylvania. Dark days had descended upon our little group, my mother and her mother—an angel called Millie (Amelia Albin)—and my older brother Maurice and sister Adelaide.

Most of my younger years were spent in Hartford, Connecticut, where my mother had returned after the death of the Doctor. It was here in Hartford that she had met him. His relatives were well known men of medicine in the city. They had disowned Julius for his marriage to a Catholic. During the entire sojourn, hard times from border to border. They never so much as handed a dime to our desperately struggling little group. So we huddled together cold and hungry for years. We were struck with tipsier, measles, scarlet fever. At one time all three of us slept in one bed deathly ill of influenza during the epidemic that killed thousands. But we fought and we dreamed. I lived in the streets until midnight with no one to watch me. I ran in the woods from early morning to night. We, the three kids, learned to take care of ourselves. It was the hard way but it had to be.

But getting back to February 6th. That afternoon I was given a good hot meal, had some sandwiches made up, and at 3:30 p.m. said goodbye. Dressed with regular underwear, woolen underwear over that, two pairs of socks, two shirts, one over the other, a sweater over that and a heavy leather coat over all, plus heavy leather gloves, I was prepared for the worst. I also was given two dollars—just in case!

Between Providence and Worcester, I think the train stopped at every tiny station along the way, picking up passengers. It was a tired me that walked around the reeking smelly railroad station at Worcester. The place was not heated. The walls were white with frost and there were at least a hundred huddled, miserable passengers flocked as near to each other as they could get, all talking French or French Canadian. When the train did pull in, the cars were also cold and stinking, layered with filth and soot.

There were about 18 cars in the train, all old style with plush seats. The cars looked as though they had not been cleaned for a year. Layers of soot covering all exposed surfaces, the plush worn down to bare thread, stained and spotted with grease from persons’ heads and dirty shoes, plus the drippings from countless sandwiches.

A cacophony was in progress when I finally sat down next to an old woman. A huge woman, who took up three-fourths of the seat and made it plain that she didn’t relish my taking the extra fourth. The seats were pulled down from the backs so that the passengers who first came aboard could take off their shoes and stretch them over the seat in front, thereby denying two other passengers the right to a seat.

The babble of French continued as we bumped and growled our way through the night, heading north. The interior of the car was getting colder and colder. I couldn’t turn on my right because I would encroach on the old woman so I sat straight up until my back was about to break and then I leaned over on my left side until my hip was numb.

The overriding odor of feet was making the smell of the food smell worse. Everyone had broken out baskets of meats, breads, salads, and you name it. Wine was the universal drink, not to excess however—thanks for that. Then the old woman next to me got into a heated conversation with the porter about just where she would get off the train. Some said it was SAINT PIE but she let them know it was PEE.

With all the clothes I had on, I was still chilled and could not for the life of me fall asleep and it provoked me that everyone else could sleep, and snore. Some babies were whimpering. Now and then the porter would come through to announce the next stop. My thoughts were mixed—not feeling bad about leaving my folks, however, because I had been leaving home continually for the past few years, hitch hiking or riding the freights coast to coast. Night, the hidden dangers, the cold and hunger, all held absolutely no fear. It was just another adventure. Somehow I was quite ignorant of the seriousness of this step. Not knowing that the Army would pursue me everywhere if I failed to show up at the post, that they could court martial and send me to a jail for a year if they caught me.

In the back of my mind, the Army was pictured as a gray stone building where men marched about like marionettes and ate three times a day and slept on cold cots in dim barracks. That they ate beans and bread and drank only water. That was the extent of my education along these lines. If that were the case, why did I join? The fabled historic reply to this is still—It was the middle of winter and the garbage cans were all froze up.

By the time the Montrealer reached the Burlington area, the first rays of dawn were streaking across the fields. What a sight to me, snow like I never envisioned before, air just as crystal clear as a sapphire. The train bypassed the city of Burlington and pulled into Essex Junction, about ten miles north of Fort Ethan Allen.

I was sore all over and my eyes felt like balls of lead as I picked up my bag and walked out into the sunlit air and the bitter cold. It was 18 degrees below zero. Walking briskly down to the small station, I looked around and wondered what was to be done next.

A young man in a smart khaki uniform asked me if I was Paul Levin to which I replied with chattering teeth that it was me. He stated his name with a half smile and asked me to go with him. He escorted me to a small Dodge station wagon. The young man, about 20 years old, conversed nicely. I noticed he didn’t ask me any personal questions. He appeared very mature and efficient.

As we entered the old Fort I saw beautifully kept buildings, old red brick types with large white painted verandas. Smoke billowing from many chimneys, giving off a feeling of warmth. He took me to the building that was his own barracks. A sign over the entrance between crossed cannons proclaimed this as Battery A, 7th Field Artillery.

The driver escorted me into the barracks through heavy wooden doors. Immediately, the smell of fried eggs and bacon and toast and coffee greeted me. There were several soldiers bustling about; all were dressed alike. Some had their long drab overcoats on. Many didn’t wear the overcoat in the intense cold. It seems that they got used to the weather up here and also that the blouses were made of the finest hand woven wool in the world. Of course, one didn’t notice that the men all wore wool underwear. Their faces all seemed ruddy, their eyes sharp and all walked with a spirited gait. And clean—there is no way to describe the clean neat appearance of these soldiers.

We walked through the day room to the small office with the sign overhead FIRST SERGEANT. A smallish, blond, older man with brittle blue eyes offered his hand, a big tough hand, which I shook quickly. His name was Sergeant Fred Schimmel. He told me to wait outside in the day room for a few minutes. The driver departed. I took off some clothes and sank into a large leather chair. Two minutes later, a tall man in shirtsleeves appeared. He was about 40 years of age and had many stripes on his shirt. He told me to go in the mess hall and eat.

There was the clue