Oral History Interview with Carol Coulson & Christopher Coulson

Shurtz: This is Clinton Shurtz, it is June 12th, 2008. I am talking to Christopher and Carol Coulson about their father and grandfather who served in World War II, in…Hickman, and…Carol, Christopher, tell me the story. First tell me, tell me his name again.

Carol Coulson: My Daddy is Larry (Carpoul?) and he signed up the day he turned eighteen, he couldn’t wait to go to World War II, he had, he even had a friend who was old, quite a bit older than him that had already, was teaching him how to fly. He very much wanted to be a pilot in World War II. But…he wasn’t, he didn’t, he wasn’t a pilot, but he w…he was in the European theater and he was shot down on the first bombing mission. The pilot was just Mister Applebee from Nashville. I guess I should go back just a little bit. Daddy was the turret gunner in the bottom of a B-24, because he was a really little guy. 1:00He fit in there really well, so he was in the, the turret of the B-24, it was a B-24 Liberator, and…he was…they were fr…flying altitude, do you remember? Twenty-eight hundred feet I…does that sound right—altitude anyway it was so high in the air that, it was so cold up there that the guns froze up, or his gun froze up, so he, they had throat mikes on, and…so he…told Mr. Applebee and he say, “well just come on up, because the…turret gun is…creating flak anyway, so pull it up and come on up.” When Daddy started up into the plane, he looked out the window as he was crawling up in there and looked out and he saw that the number two engine was on fire. So, Mr. Applebee said, “that’s fine,” he said, “we’ll put it into…” and they had, they, there were lots of German planes around, he said, “we’ll just put into a nose dive and that will…put out the fire, no problem.” So they put a nose dive 2:00but that didn’t work, so…he lev…held it level and he said…Daddy, Daddy said, “with that much gasoline on here,” and it was a full-bomb load on there, he wouldn’t take that long for the plane to blow up, and they all knew that so, Mr. Applebee held the plane level and so the other nine all bailed out. The wing caved in on the co-pilot, Mr. Wayne Sullivan, and…broke his arm as he was coming down…in his parachute. But the other nine made it, and Mr. Applebee gave his life for, for my Daddy and for that crew, and he blew up with the plane. They did not know what country they were in, they were…Daddy landed in what is, was Czechoslovakia at that time, it’s not even Czechoslovakia any more, it’s the Czechoslovak Republics now, but he landed there. He…the partisans, which were Slovakian people that were aiding American airmen at that time, the partisans 3:00came and got Daddy, when he hit the grou…he, he did a delayed jump, because he was afraid that his chute would get caught in the debris when the plane broke up, and he turned in his…after he…he had already pulled the ripcord by that time, as he turned to look he saw the plane blow up and he saw it falling into three pieces and then he hit the ground and he said immediately, he grabbed his chute and tried to hide, and I know on the video you can’t see it, but this is the suit that Daddy had on at that time, and there is a lot of weight there, but he, he always laughed and said he ran like…oh, the famous runner at that time, he, he ran so fast because of he just knew that somebody was going to get him. But the partisans found him. He was in the (Malley?) Carpathian Mountains, which are the little, they call them the little mountains there. When he bailed out, it turns out he was in, it was the coldest winter in fifty-five years in Europe that year, so…lots and lots of snow 4:00and…they hid him out the first night by an old barn and there was a, they had a hole dug out in the ground beside the barn, and it was in the shape of a coke bottle, and they put him down inside there and then they pulled an old…farming piece of equipment over it and the Germans actually came and set there on that that night on, there was a wood pile right there, and they sat on the wood pile. He was terrified that he would go to sleep and start snoring and then they—all they had to have done was shot down in the hole and that would have been it, but he didn’t go to sleep, he took the, the tablets that they ha…they had in his…pack that he had… Christopher Coulson: Didn’t he break his nose whenever he opened his chute?

Carol Coulson: He did, the chute broke his nose and he had trouble with that the rest of his life, as far…he had breathing problems and being on the farm and everything and he d…he always had trouble with that, and I always said it didn’t matter, my Daddy could be in a room with a thousand people and I always knew where he was, he would cough and I’d hear that cough 5:00and if I was on stage or something, I always knew where my Daddy was [Chuckling]. But…let’s see, that night he—they took care of him that night and then they hid him up in the mountains and he had a dog named (Boondosh?) which means ‘ball of fur’ in Slovak, and he slept up in the mountains with, with the dog, and they would ski up and bring him food, and they would…they, they were really good to him and I personally think that that’s how God took care of him he landed in this nest of partisans were all aiding American airmen and there were Germans everywhere, so God was taking care of him in that, and that’s what I think happened there. But…somewhere and I can’t remember my time frame, I don’t, I can’t remember the time frame…but at some point in the six months—he 6:00hid out for six months until the war was over with—Daddy was an evader POW, which means he was never captured, he hid from the enemy the whole time he was behind enemy lines. But, at some point, one of the women there who was helping to take care of him, she was in her thirties, I think, on a ( ) she…found out he was infected with ticks and lice and everything and he said she took him in—I think he’d been down about four months when that happened—and she said, “I don’t care if they shoot me, I’m going to take care of my (Lory?)” they rolled their Rs and so he would say my (Lory?), and she put him in a hollowed-out log…that was made into a bathtub and she scrubbed him with lye soap and it was the only bath he had that six months period, was this one, and…she cleaned him up, and then they hid him out…closer to them after that. The clothing on the wall over there, the blue shirt and white shirt was the clothes that he wore. 7:00They made him clothes and he wore that most of the time he was down at, that or his uniform, whichever it was. That is his original uniform hanging there as well. But now when he was behind enemy lines he was in a jacket like that, because we gave it the Christmas before he passed away, we got him an identical jacket to that, just like he was wearing at that time. The…I thought of two or three things just then. The, oh Christopher, I just went blank on what I was going to tell about…I had like two or three stories about when he was behind. He did write grandmother a letter, he didn’t think he would make it, and he put in a Coke—in a…mayonnaise jar, I think that’s…in a mayonnaise jar, and hid it, and they found the letter after the war and they mailed it to grandmother. My grandmother never believed that he was dead. She just, she totally refused, which most mothers did, 8:00and I know Daddy went to visit about a year after the war, he went to visit Mr. Applebee’s mother to tell her what happened, and she still wouldn’t believe, even though Daddy told her when it happened, she just didn’t want to believe it. But…grandmother never gave up that Daddy would come home. One of the n…one neat story that I’ve always felt was neat listening to him tell is, when you’re behind enemy lines like that, and you, you don’t know that if you’re going to live to the next day, you’re so homesick, you’re so terribly, terribly homesick, and…Daddy, he always said he used all his boy scout skills, and he did. He must have paid attention in boy scouts because all those skills that he used, but he was some more, I can’t remember, Russians, I believe.

Christopher Coulson: He and the Russians?

Cook: I believe it was he and the Russians built the radio? 9:00But he, Daddy was really sharp and he could figure things out, he woul…he came back later and was an engineering professor for…thirty-five-and-a-half years. So he figured out how to—they figured out how to build a radio, and so he built this radio and this always amazed me, this in ’45, or winter, I guess between ’44 and ’45 and here he is hiding out, but they made…they figured out, they built a still that’s what they did, and they made what you called (slivovitch?) which is like really strong, strong [Chuckling] liquor to say the least, and they sold it on the black market to the Germans and they got money, and from—with that money he got parts and he built his own radio, and one night, he said he was so homesick, and he—and that to me is just amazing—he got the radio and it bounced off of BBC London, bounced to New York City and he got a basketball game 10:00in Madison Square Garden, and Doctor (Lawrence?) Jones who was co-captain on the basketball team with my Daddy in Hickman now mis…Doctor Jones was…Daddy was like five-seven and Mr. Jones was like almost six-seven, and but they were co-captain from the basketball team in, in school, and he heard the game, actually heard it, when he was hiding out, where Doctor Jones is playing basketball in Madison Square Garden.

Shurtz: Hum.

Carol Coulson: And to me that was just so amazing that, that he could do that. There is another one. The end of the war, and I’m sure Christopher can fill in some things in between but, oh, this is another thing that I always thought was really interesting. When the war was over with, they had declared Daddy legally dead, so he ended up hitchhiking twenty-eight hundred miles to Odessa, Russia to get to a, a…the place where they 11:00said he was alive, and I’m not sure how that all worked with the army and everything though, he had to hitchhike. He and Mister…oh, Christopher, help me, oh, from Waukesha, Wisconsin—I’ll think of his name in just a minute…but this man was a really big man, big football player…real broad chest, and really, really strong man…Mister (Tripps?)—and he’s been to our home more than once…since the war, but, Mister (Tripps?) and Daddy actually stole a steam engine at one time. They were, they were…hitchhiking and Mister (Tripps?) says, “Larry, I think we can, I think we can steal that,” and Daddy said, “do you know how to drive?” He says, “I’ve driven something kind of like it,” he says, “I think I can drive that.” So they stole a steam engine a, a train, and they drove it until it ran out of water so that was part of all that three hundred miles that they were going. But Daddy was somewhere in Europe, 12:00in the middle of Europe, and he was sitting—he sat down on this bench, and this man looked at him and this man said, “hey Yank! Where are you from?” And he said, “well, I’m from the United States,” and he said, “Where in the United States?” He said, “from Kentucky.” And the man said, “where in Kentucky you’re from?” He said, “well I’m from western Kentucky.” And most people—our joke around here is people don’t know that we’re even in part of western Kentucky [Chuckling]. I have, but anyway, he says “western” and he says, “but where in western Kentucky?” He say, “well near Paducah.” He said, “well, where near Paducah?” He said “well it’s a little town that you wouldn’t know,” he said, “called Hickman.” And the man looked at him and just laughed, he said, “I’ve raised horses in Colonel Tyler’s Place which is…an old…landmark here that everybody knows and Colonel Tyler was a very famous man, he says, “I’ve raised horses at his farm,” and he said, “I know exactly where you’re from.” So Daddy met—he said that was neat to meet somebody when he had been gone for so long, that even knew where Hickman was 13:00(Sighs). Precious, what do you thinking? What are some stories you’re thinking of that… Christopher Coulson: I was just reading through this to see. I was just….

Carol Coulson: The letter, have you come across the letter? Because he was in, it was neat. The people over there were so good to Daddy…there was just some really nice (Clears throat), really nice people, and we have kept up with them. I don’t remember getting letters a lot, but Daddy kept up with them through the years, so…(Clears throat). It was fifty years after the war when he went. But he went one another time and I can’t tell you on the, the time frames for the two times, but he got to go back twice. The first time…he said that the barn was still there, the coke bottle hole was still there, it was like time had stool still, and the people he saw, Miss Anna and he saw…(Detka?) who was another—she 14:00was about his age and she had helped, she was a partisan too and she helped hide him out. And (Detka?)…daughter, who was—I don’t know if she was around my age, I, I can’t tell you for sure, I can’t remember that, but…he was invited in their home, and he stayed with them, and while he was in their home, the oldest daughter looked and she said, “look at my ring, do you remember my ring?” It was Daddy’s ring that she had on, and she said, “do you know how I got it?” and he said “no,” and she said, “well, m…mother always wore it, and so when I had the first grandchild, I’m the one that got the ring, and that’s how mother decided who would get the ring.” But she had on Daddy’s ring that he had worn during the war. They were just so, so nice to him. They didn’t have a lot of money, they still, you know, they’re definitely middle class, but they were really good to him. The second time he went back, he was literally treated like royalty. 15:00The…press came down and…he was on the front page of the…magazine, there is a magazine cover, those two on the wall, three on the wall there of him when he went back to Czechoslovakia, but they brought a crew down and they filmed him and talked to him and everything and they were just really good to him. He also met a man…one of the partisan leaders that had the…bullet still in his head from a German gun. He met him at, at that time, and I should be able to tell you more and I can’t remember everything about the man but it was really neat. Mister Rudy (Denski?) was one, was with Daddy at some point, and Mister Rudy has been here too. He’s done really, really well and…he lives in Vancouver, Canada and…owns his own company and done really well over the years, but Mister Rudy was…in the kitchen 16:00when he saw—it wasn’t, he didn’t see…Hitler, but he saw the number-one man under Hitler walk through the kitchen when he was working in there that day, and he s…he, when he would tell you that story, the look in his eye, how…it’s still, you can tell that upset him and I saw him almost fifty years later when he j…was telling me the story, but, it was very traumatic and very upsetting for him. Mister…oh golly, his picture is right here with five men, I can’t…oh…he lives out in Arkansas.

Christopher Coulson: (Chakarta?) Carol Coulson: No, (Charkata?)—we have had a, a…we had a reunion of all the bomber crews here at our home and it was really neat watching Daddy and them all sit down and talk and hear their stories and tell everything. It was very, very moving, to sit there and listen to them. 17:00No, the other one that was with them from Czechoslovakia, (Detka?)’s brother, Stephan, Stephan (Bahar?)…was here, and Stephan…was one of the main partisans that helped Daddy out, and a wonderful man. I, I think the world of him, but he, or the last time I saw him, which has been maybe six years now, or more, he is actually scared to go back to Czechoslovakia, he is scared to go back to Europe and I just think that is so strange, he still is afraid to go back, but all of his family is over there, so he’s never seen them in all these years. But he, his mother, and his Daddy were all in a concentration camp. His mother was…concert pianist, and I’m sure just a beautiful lady and a, you know, very educated lady, and was put in that concentration camp and treated horribly, the stories are just horrible 18:00on what they did, how they treated them, even…just…you know, they, they would strip them of their clothes, they just took all of their—you know, there was no bathroom, that type of thing, it was just so, it was so terrible. And she just couldn’t handle it, and she died in the concentration camp. Stephan and his Daddy both survived the concentration camps, and…Stephan has so many, you know, horrible memories, yet he came to the United States, he’s a paint—he was a painter here…he lives in…Arkansas now, and…his wife and his daughter and it’s just…he still had op…he went to Chicago first, he didn’t, he is in Arkansas now, but he came to Chicago right after the war, and…you can just see the scars of World War II, you know, when you talk to him, and he’s had, things have been hard, family things and everything through the years, so, and plus never seeing his family again, 19:00so all of that is hard and there’s so many stories like that that you talk to people and find out. Daddy was the lucky one, Daddy…and I think my generation was very lucky. I’m the younger ones of that generation so I don’t know if they consider me part of the, of that generation, but Daddy and mother, mother was in college…at Georgetown for a year and then came back to Murray and she met Daddy at Mu…even though they were from the same county, they didn’t know each other until college, and…because of the GI Bill for the lucky ones like Daddy, who came back after World War II, the loans, the GI Bill, all of that, you know, paying for his college…he got a really good education, that he might not have had, I don’t know, grandmother wanted him to have it so bad, he probably would have had it either way. But…he, he used everything 20:00to his advantage and you know, he taught thirty-f…engineering at the University of Tennessee for thirty-five-and-a-half years, so when you think about how he was trying as an educator, because I’m a teacher, I think about, you know, he was trying, by the time he retired in the field of engineering, everything had changed, practically. So he—Daddy was a, a person who always wanted to learn, and I obvious—it was obvious at a very young age he did, or he couldn’t have built the radios and done, used, used all of his smarts and everything, he also, on the letter that we have, that he wrote, we have, he would write notes to himself, he tried to keep his mind sharp when he was by himself, he wanted to make sure he stayed sharp and he wrote notes and would try to remember songs, he said he would just remember the words of songs, he wanted to make sure that he didn’t…I don’t know, slip off, I guess is what you would say, but he never did, he, he never even came close to that, but he tried 21:00so hard. And then, through the years, when we were growing up and everything, he never went to bed without reading the newspaper, always, and he felt very strongly about keeping up all current events. We always got Life and Look Magazine; we have most of them here in the house now. But…he always read Life and Look, he always read the Reader’s Digest at his, in his…right next to his office there were like t…four offices or five, I can’t, I think five, in that pod of offices where he was, though between his office and the main beside him, there is just a, a small opening there. There was one of those huge dictionaries that sits up on a big stand a great, one of those great big dictionaries, and Daddy would try to learn a new word every day, he, that was just a game that c…kind of played with himself to learn a new word, and he liked using the correct vocabulary and, and working on all that. But I do think, because of the…for 22:00the lucky ones that came home, the United States was very good to them, and…which they deserved everything they got, I don’t mean that, by any means, but it was just the…our economy was bad, it was just a, it was a good time and, and I’ve benefited from that. My brother didn’t have to…go to war, which we were very thankful for, and then Christopher, much to his mother’s…what w…how would you say that, I was very upset to say the least, but he decided that he should go to the National Guard, so he signed up for six years, and I will never forget the day…which in retrospect it was a blessing to our family, but that day when…instead of him being told that he was going to be…called up, it came over the television here, and 23:00Daddy and I were standing in Daddy’s kitchen when they said that Christopher was going to be activated and going to go overseas, and all I heard on the TV was Germany in six months, and I fell to Daddy’s arms crying, because that to me was all the things I had grown up with, was Germany in six months and just, I really had a hard time with that. But I am very proud of Christopher, and he went, and…it turned out to be a good experience for him and because he went to Germany, he ended up not going to Iraq, so that was a blessing in disguise too. But that was a really hard time, because we thought (Barry?) had made it through and then here my son was going to have to go. But it was, he, he, it was a good experience, he enjoyed that. What (Sighs) do you want to tell? There’s Daddy, if my Daddy were here, oh goodness, he could talk, and talk, and talk about it, and his stories never changed, he never embellished 24:00them…Daddy’s been go…Daddy, which I do need to say that, was in really good health—we thought. He got to go to Washington, D. C. with three of his high school friends, to the memorial, they had the Kentucky’s…there was a bus from…Paducah, and so many of the men got to go and he loved that, he had the best time, and when Channel 6 interviewed him, when he came home, the—they interviewed him on television and they, and they did a special about their trip, and Daddy is on there saying he’d survived, he was a six year survivor of cancer and was doing great, and you know, how everything was, but that was only about a month…let’s see, maybe six weeks before he passed away. The day Daddy passed away, he felt great…Christopher’s little girl walked for the first time for him that night, and…I 25:00saw Daddy five times that day, because I came in and out several times that day, mother was not feeling well and, and Daddy was taking care of her by this time, and so every time he came, it, when you left Daddy’s house he kissed you and told you he loved you, so he told me five times that day how much he loved me, and he did with the kids, Christopher, it didn’t matter how old they were or anything, he always, and that’s another thing that I think…the war, he appreciated his family so much and he spoiled us terribly with love…he really spoiled us, but I do not—I was in college before I realized—we were sitting on the bed, in the dorm room, a girl looked at me and said, “my Daddy has never told me he loved me,” and I was in shock, because not a day gone by in my life my Daddy hadn’t told me he loved me. So I think that too was he had learned to appreciate life through experiences that he had been through. 26:00But anyway, Daddy went to bed that night and just never woke up the next morning. He died in his sleep, and he died on the 4th of July, which was…it was hard on all of us but it was definitely appropriate for him. He was such a good mentor to Chris and Jared and Ashley and, and Michelle and Brandon and Kendall, he was just so good, he had six grandchildren, he was such a good mentor to all of them and, and spoiled them like he spoiled (Beverly?) and Barry and I. I didn’t say I have a twin sister and brother who are younger than…a little bit younger than me, and…Daddy came home and…we lived on a farm, we didn’t live at the university. We’ve always lived on the farm here and he drove forty-five minutes every day to Martin, to the university, and so this was our home and so we grew up, we were very blessed with them. A good school, only one classroom for each grade, 27:00and Daddy was PTO president at one time, and…he just stayed very active in the community. About, I, probably six years ago, it may just be five years ago, it wasn’t a long time before Daddy died, it may have been, I keep thinking it was the year before he passed away, but he came to my school, he came to the high school to talk to the kids, and I’m a first grade teacher, but they let me go over and listen to the talk that day, and I was very nervous about the talk, because you never know how juniors and seniors in high school are going to react to a speaker, and I was very nervous. I was afraid they wouldn’t show him the respect that I was hoping they would show him. And that was my mistake, because you could have almost heard a pin drop in the gym, and those kids listened to him, he talked for thirty minutes non stop, no notes whatsoever, just 28:00kept talking and talking, and they were just amazed and they all listened to everything he said and I watched, I don’t know how many of them got up to him after the program and tell him how much they enjoyed and what they, how they appreciated it and everything, so I underestimated the kids and I, I’m glad I underestimated them, they were really neat. But I was so proud of him. I loved to hear him talk about the war. He is unusual in that, most of the veterans that you interview don’t talk about it, they don’t talk about the war. Daddy always did. He didn’t talk about the bad parts of it, but he talked about the friendships, (the bad?) thing…and it gave us a, a wonderful heritage, a really wonderful heritage. Do you have any questions you want to ask me?

Shurtz: I guess it’s about…you mentioned, you had a farm here. Did he also farm on the side of, and how did that work?

Carol Coulson: He had cattle, 29:00he had a hundred head of cattle and he took care of the cattle, but it wasn’t…part of the time, my uncle farmed it, and then a lot of the time, it wasn’t farmed, but then my brother very much—my brother is a wonderful carpenter, he is a meticulous carpenter. He didn’t want to go to college, he wanted to…be a carpenter, and so he was a, he was awesome at it, and then he decided he wanted to farm. Well, my uncle who lives in a farm across from us…my mother’s oldest brother…was a farmer. And so he was Berry’s mentor in farming and Berry learned so much from my Uncle Charles, and so now Berry farms all of our farm plus several more farms around here, he is farming a thousand acres by himself, plus he still does, not too much carpentry on the side, right now he doesn’t have time with that much acreage, but up until he built up that’s how he got his equipment and everything. He would, he would build on the side and do that. 30:00He built his own home, which my Daddy was very proud of, very, and him building his house and…the details that he did in all the solid wood and all that. Daddy, I’ve left out, was an architect on the side all these years, and he drew a hundred and fifty houses and buildings in his lifetime, but homes, and I meant to show you in the hallway we have a, all the drawings are there and he was left handed, and at that time you didn’t have all of the…the CAD cams and all the stuff that they have today. So, it was neat, I sat on the stool and watched him draw many a house than he would hold that hand up over that drawing paper, yet never smudged it and that always amazed him because his set of plans has what, fifteen, eighteen, twenty pages to a set of plans, and he would sit here and draw them all here in this room, most of them, or he had a drawing board set up in his office that he would draw on too. But, that was neat, and that was a fun thing too, watching him…watch 31:00that, have those ideas and then watch that idea being built, and that was really neat, and I loved to do, I wanted to go with him to the houses and see the, I still to this day love to go see the progress of when you pour the concrete, and then when you get the foundation, and then when you get the walls up and the whole process of that, and my middle son, Jared is, that’s what he enjoys and that’s what he is doing now, watching all that, in the same way, Daddy would be so proud of both of them, and of Ashley too, because Ashley is a teacher like he was, so they are each are following, Christopher has the drawing and, and Christopher, Daddy did the mechanical drawing, and then Christopher is our artist and can draw anything, so he got that, I guess, from granddaddy. So… Shurtz: Once again, how long has it been since he passed away?

Carol Coulson: It would be four years… Christopher Coulson: Four years, yeah.

Carol Coulson: …this 4th of July, It’ll be four years. He was seventy-eight when he passed away. I’m sure there’s more things. 32:00Shurtz: Well, I’ve asked a lot of veterans this and I guess…perhaps maybe he, he told you something in this line, but I’ve been asking what, what their outlook on the world. So what was his outlook on the future of, of the world? Was it, was it optimistic? Was it, did he see problems, or, did he ever talk about that?

Carol Coulson: He was very optimistic, don’t you think?

Christopher Coulson: Yeah ( ).

Carol Coulson: He was very optimistic. He knew world…current events, he was very up on that and he kept up on everything. He was very well read man, he, you know, he was always reading and learning…didn’t get real active in politics at the local level, that wasn’t it, but he really knew, he loved to talk to people who, who traveled, he enjoyed that, and he kept up of, you know, like I said, Mister Rudy with so many people and he kept up with those…with his students, he was very proud of his students. One of his s…students…probably one of the top of his students…is the head 33:00of NASA, and he was always proud of that fact that…that he, that he had taught him. But yes, he was very optimistic. He taught us to be, you know, we could do anything we wanted to do, we just needed to work at it and work hard and…and instilled in me that I was a lot smarter than I really was [Laughing], but he did a really good job of convincing me I was, and I know now I wasn’t but he was good at that, but with the children, with Christopher, he is his oldest grandson and just so proud of him, and tried to—Daddy took us places. He tried real hard to educate us. We traveled, not all of the United States, but a lot of the United States, and…we went, you know, we went on vacations, we visited a lot of his—we went to Chicago and visited the people there, we visited a lot of the people from the war, his army buddies and…the…oh, just 34:00several times I can remember us going different…(Valasta Shinnek?) which is another one that hid him out, lived in Chicago and we went, visited with her, she came here and visited us. Her husband is doing really well, or, he’s passed away now but…really well in the business world in Chicago but she was from Slovakia where Daddy was, Bratislava is where, where he was, close to, or landed close to Bratislava. But, yeah, I’d say very, very optimistic, he taught that to his students…he taught that to us, but Christopher, he loved taking him…and Christopher got to go to…they had a reunion that I didn’t get to go to and Chris got to go to it, and went to Disney World with all of the road, one of the…was it Mister…(Wayne Sullivan?) the co-pilot, wasn’t it, that you rode the rides with in Disney World, Mister ( ) was still not scared of anything, just like he was, I can’t imagine at eighteen and nineteen and twenty, 35:00because he still wasn’t, he just, he had this twinkle in his eye like bring it on, I can take anything, and I think they all had that, now one of the man on the plane…was shot. He was…let’s see, he was…captured and then they broke in and got him out, and they took him up in the mountains, and then a lady told on him and told where he was, and the Gestapo came in and got him and the two schoolteachers in their twenties, they got them too, and took them…and they obviously treated them awful, they tortured them for a long time and then they cut their tongues out, and then they shot them, and then the lady who did that to them…who turned them in, Daddy said it was such a cold winter that…the Gestapo was very good at hiding their, 36:00as he called their dirty deeds, but it was so cold that they were in a real shallow grave in on a, on a sheet of ice…buried on a sheet of ice and so when the war was over with they came—or not during the war, it wasn’t when the war was over with, just when the…was it the Germans? No, who came through? The front, the russ…Russian… Christopher Coulson: The Russian.

Carol Coulson: …front came through, when the Russian front came through, they…came…they went and dug up the graves and they—Daddy said, when they saw how bad he was tortured and that the other two men were tortured, that they shot her on the sight and killed her, the girl who had told, told on them. There’s so many stories, I wish I c…I can’t, I’m not putting a dent on what my Daddy could have told you. Is there anything you want to tell? Any story that I’ve said something made you think of something? What 37:00do you want to tell him about your granddaddy?

Christopher Coulson: You did pretty good.

Shurtz: Well I think that that’s good with ( ).

Carol Coulson: I am very proud of him, very, very proud of my Daddy, very proud. He’s here.

Christopher Coulson: ( ) Carol Coulson: Oh, okay, let me come with… “END OF INTERVIEW”