Oral History Interview with Preston McNeill

“START OF TAPE 1” Shurtz: This is June 12th, at about…11:00 o’clock, I am in Hickman interviewing Preston McNeil about his experiences in World War II, this is Clinton Shurtz. Preston, thanks for…talking to me.

McNeil: My hearing aid batteries are gone [Chuckling].

Shurtz: Oh, okay. Well tell me your story.

McNeil: All right. I started off at the University of Kentucky. I was in ROTC for two years, and…then I didn’t have any, enough money to go all through, so I went two years then I quit, came back to Hickman and went to work for my father. That was in…1941, I quit. And on 1:00December the 7th, 1941, it was Pearl Harbor Day, I’ll get dates wrong…I was shooting quail in the upper bottom and we went back to the house, and I had a battery radio there and we heard President Roosevelt say there’ll being a, “an infamous day of the wor…has happened, the Japanese have blown up Pearl Harbor.” So that declared the war and, and, you know, his announcement. He announced it right at the time that it, it finished, I guess. Anyway though, I came back and I decided that well if we’re going to war I’ll have to go in the army. It never downed on me to do anything else, 2:00so I fiddled around a little bit, and then I went to Memphis to sign up, I was going to decide well I don’t like walking in the mud so I’ll go to the navy and ride around on a ship. Well, the navy wouldn’t take me because I wore glasses… Shurtz: Oh!

McNeil: …at that time, you, you, the glasses are foreboden. So then I said I’ll sign up for the army. Well the army didn’t have no place to put all these people, they hadn’t built the camps. So, they assigned me as a reserve bef…so they didn’t have to…put me in the real army, and sent me to a electronics…course they had going to, to give them something to d…to make them for the army, electronic people. And I went through that 3:00in the army, and then we grad—in December—that was the 1st of April we started out—December they closed it down, they had to (calk?) the things built to take them, and they put us through…a fort up in Columbus, Ohio, I can’t remember the name of it now, and that’s where we were indoctrinated. Well, they didn’t have no f…barracks for all these soldiers at that time either. So they kept a, a hold of us, so they held us there for three weeks and then I went to Camp Crowder, and…well while I was in…Fort Bragg, I think we went from the reserve into the regular army. I think that…well it was like in the reser…in the army the whole time, 4:00but we was s…—oh, I guess that was, yeah, when we went it—we didn’t get into the regular army until they got us into a barracks. So they kept us in reserve until we—then they made us regular army, and that was in…whatever the date was we got there. We went through basic training, three months, then they didn’t have no where to put us, and I’m talking about at that point in time in the army, they could draft more people than they could handle… Shurtz: Oh!

McNeil: …and so there was a little ( ) kept, I kept encountering holding periods. So they decided to send us to…me, to college. They had a whole bunch they sent to college. Well they sent me to mid…the University of 5:00Wyoming. That was one of the best eating places, they had some cooks there that turned out stuff better than your mother would make [Chuckles – Shurtz], [Laughing] and the girls were nice too. And, anyway, that ( ), all the good stuff they don’t last. And so anyway then, we fiddled around, and I wound up back at Camp Crowder, and they found that, that had been building barracks like crazy, and so they formed this signal training. So they put me through the whole works again, as, as the head deal, and…some way or another…I, I had like a…a magic things happening to me all the time. Every time I went in somewhere they made me 6:00the commander or something, you know, and so then they p…after going through basic training, regular basic training, then they decided to send me to New York City, which they did, put it, us on a train, a load of soldiers, and I was a private, put me in charge of the train [Laughing]. Well, I had I, I, I was…a corporal at that time. And we get to…New Jersey, and it, we got off the train, there is nobody to meet us or nothing. There was a ferry boat there, so I said, “hey, we’ll get on this ferry boat,” and the ferryboat took the whole company of people over to New York City. And…then we get there and I’d heard of New York City, but I couldn’t give you a d…I’d heard of Time Square, 7:00you know, from the…New Year’s eve celebration and on television. And—one minute, television wasn’t around then. I’d heard of it anyway [Chuckling], anyway though, I called them together a c…the…it was down to about fifteen people, they had, was with me. I said, “you bastards, you get there where you can, I have no idea where Broadway is, or that Broadway,” we had orders for that Broadway Central Hotel, and so half of the company were New Yorkers. Those son-of-the-bitches wouldn’t open their mouth to help me get that group up there. So they…the New Yorkers went down in the subway and put their nickel in and knew which subway to take, they went there on the subway. And I told the other guys, I said, “you’re dismissed.” I says, “I’m not responsible for you.” 8:00I says, “here I am and nobody is to meet us or anything, the army should have had a lieutenant meet us, is what it should have done.” But anyway, we all wound up there [Chuckling]. I was still in charge [Chuckles – Shurtz] of the damn outfit and anyway I, I read my directions and I talked to a lieutenant that was in charge of the hot…it was a army ho…the army took the hotel over, and…anyway he told me where the railroad station is and helped me get the…tickets for everybody to re…if they co…just automatic pass. And so the way we did it, is the railroad then knew who we were and we didn’t have any problem running back and forth. Hell it was a forty-minute dri…ride getting out there. I went to an outfit called ‘Press Wireless,’ and it says ‘high powered tech…transmitter 9:00work,” I mean ‘high power’ like 100 kilowatt, one big tube this big around. And we studied that, went through it and there were, I wa…I was the leader of the non-commissioned o…of, the office, non-commissioned officers. There was a bunch of lieu…second lieutenants there and we, they, they was going to this press wireless school and anyway though, shorten the story up, we graduated and I went back to Camp Crowder and the first thing we know…they’d made arrangements for us and we come back to New York, and then go to Boston to get on board a ship, troop transport. 10:00But the troop transport ship was a converted—no the, the transport ship going over was a regular transport ship, but coming back it was a cargo ship converted. Anyway, off we go, land in Liverpool, and sat there until it gets dark, you can’t travel on the train in the daytime in a war, and we go to London, and we take over a barracks there from the Coal Stream Guard, the British, and this is Eisenhow…it was, it was now totally organized as Eisenhower’s Communication outfit-like. I wonder whether it was a company or…it was a little bit above a company we had. Actually, we had a battalion 11:00and…anyway Eisenhower had his headquarters there in London, and here come the damn bombing with the, the Germans got wise and he had liked to get rid of a few—they’d like to get rid of a few Americans there too. So they had intelligence good, the, the Germans did, in London! The Limeys never could figure out where it was coming from, but it was somebody squealing. And…so they bombed our…barracks [Chuckling] the, the Germans did, did come over and one of the bombs came through the mess hall roof and hit into a big pot of the army chocolate pudding.

Shurtz: Whoa!

McNeil: And it’s the best insulation there that they, that they can land in, it didn’t go off [Laughter – Shurtz and McNeil]. So, so…lo and behold, that was the second night that happened, 12:00we were there. So…Lieutenant ( ) grabbed that up as a souvenir and you know they run out, not head out of the, out of the camp—they sent him back to Repo Depot there in Lon…in London, England, because that’s crazy. You can’t pick up a live c…live…thing like that, and that was, that was the l…the bomb story. Next one was that London was full of girls, oh, it was a soldier’s delight [Laughter – McNeil and Shurtz] at, I had a bunch of pictures of me and a—we were right close to a park called Hyde Park, it, they supposed to be in history and all that, but I don’t, I didn’t pay no attention of what the deal was, but anyway…the Germans then…they kept on their bombing. 13:00Oh and about…two or three weeks later, here comes some bombs—oh no! That was the…what do they call those damn air…borne bomb, bomb, is it like a air torpedo? They cl…there is a name for them.

Shurtz: I don’t know.

McNeil: You’ll have to help me because I’m eighty-seven [Chuckles – Shurtz and McNeil]. What it is, it’s, it’s, it’s a…rocket, it’s like a rocket that will go…sixty miles.

Shurtz: Okay.

McNeil: It’s, it’s a, and it got pins on it, and they were shot from Belgium over into London. They blew all London up with them, because London had…a real, the British had a real good anti-aircraft…stations around and in London, and so…they couldn’t get a plane in anymore, and so they 14:00sent these…flying bombs in. I wished I, I, I wa’n’t 87, I could tell you the names of those, but [Chuckling] anyway, it went across our outfit, came down, they weren’t real accurate, they just fired them and they went where they would go, and it went across our compound and blew up the orderly room, and you’d be surprised at the mentality of soldiers in a war. I didn’t like the first sergeant, you know?

Shurtz: Mm-mm.

McNeil: And…he never did anything to me, I just didn’t like him. So I hollered, “I hope it got the first sergeant! I hope it got the first sergeant!” But it didn’t [Laughing], it went across the street and blew up the British…hospital, where they had…people that had…war damage. 15:00Anyway, we left there and went out to Hampstead, because the bombs got too much for Eisenhower, and that then comes D-Day, and…I was in a jeep going to a…depot to get some supplies. We was, were operating…Eisenhower’s communication. It was my job to control the…the, all the transmitters and rep…and do any repair work on receivers. We had…oh about fifteen…stations we were in, in contact with, Eisenhower was in contact with all of his armies. Then he went down to…certain people, like where they were, and they had, it 16:00was set up with communications, and he was doing that to, to establish that…thing, to make the invasion go off good. So we were busy with the…transmitters, r…right up to the last and…then—I was going to tell you about D-Day. Our company wasn’t told a thing about D-Day, they shouldn’t have been. We had nothing to do with the troops transporting and invading. ( ) Eisenhower did, but none of the people under him did, and that’s the way it was worked. And so…I was in that jeep and I see this m…hot damn hundred after hundreds of planes going over, I said, “By Joe, something is going on!” And [Chuckling] I went back and I asked the company commander. He said, “well I’ll find out.” So he called somebody “well, we just made the invasion.” See, they wouldn’t 17:00let it, let that out to anybody including the soldiers themselves.

Shurtz: Hum!

McNeil: And, anyway though, I don’t know, about three weeks later, they’d ma…they’d made the beach invasion, and they were sort of stuck in Normandy. So…you know how Normandy is, it’s like Florida, kind of… Shurtz: Okay.

McNeil: …It’s a peninsula sitting out there, and…we had a, a set up, we were not handling Eisenhower’s headquarters, when we landed. We were the communication set for it, but then you see, he was controlling from just field radio at the start, and so…here we was right at Saint Lô, 18:00and the Germans wouldn’t give up Saint Lô. Are you familiar with the, with the…map of…France?

Shurtz: No.

McNeil: Well, I’m not either [Laughter – McNeil and Shurtz], but I was there two or three years. Anyway, it’s a peninsula, and…then when you, you get to where it joins the mainland, was where Saint Lô starts out of it, and…so we went across and I worked three days in a g…girl schoolhouse that the Germans had used as a hospital. And so…I set the transmitters up, oh I, I wished I had pho…I’ve got photographs somewhere, I don’t know where they went to though. Well the transmitters would fill up a…a building, they were up, the transmitters were about the size, 19:00see that…shelf thing behind you?

Shurtz: Mm-mm.

McNeil: …the narrow one? That’s exactly the size, except it was about…a full three feet deep.

Shurtz: Hum!

McNeil: And then we had the field sets that was in the…all those huts they put on the back of the two-and-a-halves? You’ve seen pictures of them, I know, hadn’t you?

Shurtz: Probably, yeah.

McNeil: And that was what they c…the invasion troops…commanders all were working from. There is a BC-610, I believe, it’s three-hundred watt thing made by Hallicrafters, and anyway, we had them in the company, but also had on a truck the big transmitters, they would, they were moved by ship into England. Those big transmitters, like I was telling you, 20:00and all they’d weigh oh a good four hundred pounds each. You had to use a pulley to pull them up and load them on off the two-and-a-halves, you couldn’t pick them up. Oh, I had German POWs when we got to Germany though doing it [Laughing], and I had them picking them up. Ha, but anyway though let’s see where am I? Oh, we didn’t get to Versailles yet. I wanted to tell you about that. I get all this equipment wired in, not completed, just like the power units tied in, I didn’t have all the antennas stuff up yet, and it was my job to get that done. I had…two squads working for me, oh, about fifteen, about twenty men. So we were, we were getting pretty good, but all the wiring I did myself personally because you can’t allow two people. 21:00They don’t communicate a hundred percent, maybe ninety-nine, that don’t work, you’ve got to be a hundred percent at each end, so I’d work one end then I’d go up and work the other to get from the sending section part into the transmitter part, and…I had it about half completed, I had all the wiring out, and oh around five thirty in the night, I get a call on the phone from the company commander and he says, “McNeil, get your tools together, we’re going to Paris.” I says, “Commander,” I says…”I just put…four-hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment in here and it’s all wired up.” I says, “I can’t go off and leave that, you know, I, I should dis, dis-wire it and put it on a truck and take it to Paris 22:00or whatever, and that’d take a week.” So, that’s what the commander knew and I didn’t recognize that they were going, they were going now! And so [Chuckling] what happened, I argued with him about three—he told me twice, or three times to get my tool kit together that we were going to Paris. And so [Chuckling] what ha…see the Germans, they didn’t know we were coming. Anyway…the company commander did though, and so about four o’clock that next morning, I, I got up and got my toolbox together and we left, it was still dark, and we caught on the tail end of one of Patton’s units going up there and we left about let’s say at five o’clock, we got there at nine that night, 23:00you know, those two-and-a-halves didn’t, wasn’t no speedy Gonzales, and there is no roads much, and Americans done blown them all up. And so we wound up going into Versailles, Paris…France. That’s the, where all of the rulers of France have…yeah those, Marie-Antoinette and all… Shurtz: Yes.

McNeil: …that stuff…had existed, the power, the tec…Mirrors Hall was all there in Versailles. So we went to Versailles, and then I…somebody selected the sight for that thing, it wasn’t me, it was a surveyor, and a c…—see, Eisenhower had attached to his headquarters every function he might need, surveyors…well, the whole works. I can’t name them all…personnel section 24:00was there, it was the head of the personnel section, it was (each?) army. They didn’t have their own personnel section, or they could have had it, but it didn’t…they had to get them from somewhere. So they—Eisenhower controlled the flow of the…recruits coming in and going out. Anyway we stayed there, I put up a signal center and then I wound up, they made the…finally broke over the Rhine. When they broke over the Rhine, Eisenhower wanted to be the first wherever he was going. So he, we loaded up and went over the Rhine and wound up in, in…my memory is catching me…Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany, and then 25:00I set up the signal center again. See, the war hadn’t come to an end, they were still fighting, fighting in Berlin, my God for s…that must have been six months from when we got into Frankfurt, and Frankfurt was kind of a sight to see. What it was, was a pile of brick. The air force had just…leveled all the buildings, then they went in and busted all the bricks, and there was that much bombs went in there. In other word they took out the roads too. So…the I, when we took it, then they got a bulldozer to come in and make roads up through Frankfurt. And there was one building that wasn’t bombed. And guess what? It was left purposely so it’d have a place to put their headquarters, the American army that has [Laughing] 26:00and so, we went out of town where there wa’n’t no bombing and…there was an ar…a German army post out there about, oh, fifteen miles out of Frankfurt, which wa’n’t far, it was Harheim was the name of it, and put up a SHAEF headquarters signal center, and then run keying lines into that building where Eise…--now where Eisenhower personally stay, I did know, but I don’t remember, but anyway we stayed there for well over a year, and it took about six months to bring up the…well it come to the battle of the…of the… Shurtz: ( ).

McNeil: …where that town was. Well it was the last battle in World War II…it was a town where the Germans made one last effort, 27:00and they gathered together every bit over there, there were reserves and everything else, and consolidated it into a group, and they made a plunge then, they was going to go to Belgium from Germany, and they got all the way through…Germany and we hadn’t hit Germany yet, you know, this is before we got in there while we were still in…in Frankfurt—not in Frankfurt, in Versailles. There is a difference [Chuckling] a different country. But, anyway, I was going to tell you about that…Patton was called in, the Germans went around this big city there. It’s a shame I can’t remember the number—I mean the name of it. And it was about halfway from Germany to the coast, and they were aimed for the coast. 28:00Well the city didn’t fall, so Eisenhower decided it wasn’t going to fall, so he told the…the group that was in there to stay put, and then he gathered up all of the stuff, now…this is in France, he got it up everybody that was in France that could fight and put them in that group to, to knock those Germans out and…they succeeded. They, they got it, so they didn’t make, the Germans didn’t make a good deal out of their last attack, and…it’s a shame I don’t remember everything but I don’t [Chuckling] I d…then came the, when we went into Germany, and…that, that was, the, the German 29:00women were all nice, we, I didn’t have, I never met a bad one. They were willing and able [Laughing]…and what. Oh, let me tell you about that, it was in Germany, okay? And the Americans really took over. They had troops everywhere and it, then it must have been a year later, I stayed in Frankfurt about a year I guess, at least, and…then came the…war in Asia…the…what was…was it Vietnam, is that, is that right?

Shurtz: The Korean War?

McNeil: Huh?

Shurtz: The Korean?

McNeil: Well there was a war, that’s first after that…Germany, in other words, all of the troops that hadn’t fought 30:00got shipped over there and the Japanese then surrendered before they were able to do anything. It was—I don’t know what it was called. In other words it was the Asian conflict.

Shurtz: Oh okay.

McNeil: All right?

Shurtz: That’s it.

McNeil: I wasn’t there. And…so anybody in Germany that hadn’t been into combat got put on a troop ship and headed for Asia. Now, depending on your…length of service and all, and what you had done, you didn’t have to go there and the commander called me in and he…they took some of our people that were recent I…recently in, they took them out to…to ship them over, back into…Asia. The commander called—major 31:00called me in, said, “McNeil?” He says…”you’ve got the most…rates,” or whatever they called it, “for discharge in the company.” I said, “well that’s all right, I, here let me, let’s talk about it” [Chuckling]. And he said, “well, you can get out,” he says, “but if you go, if you sign up for six more months here, I’ll give you another stripe.” I says, “major, no, no thank you. I think I’ll take the ‘out’ deal.” And he said, “now look,” he says, “I’m offering you another stripe and…” he kind of insinuated they’d do some stu…other stuff for me, and I said, “now major, I thank you very much, but if it’s all the same to me, I’ll get out.” 32:00So he says, “okay!” So he signed my discharge paper, and…I left in about three days when things…got on a train from Frankfurt to get to Belgium to get a ship to come home. Do you know it took three weeks to get that train into Belgium?

Shurtz: Whoa!

McNeil: Three weeks I was on that frigging train, it’s unbelievable! We’d go three miles a day, I could have walked there, but you know, it’s ridiculous, and we get there, let me tell you the rest of it. We finally get there, and the whole camp is manned by about seven-foot tall German POWs. In other words, they army took all of the big ugly-looking Germans and put them to shining the soldiers, the American soldiers shoes [Chuckles – Shurtz]. And I thought 33:00that—that made an impression on me [Laughter – Shurtz], you know, I think it was fine, I got my shoes shined two or three times, and we finally got a boat, and come to find out it was a…one of these…you know, Kaiser built a lot of flimsy crafts for the war, you know, quick, you know, they needed ships, so he built them, and it was a…he built it as a cargo ship. They had somebody put in twelve bunks in the hole high and I don’t know how wide it was, it held a company, and…that’s where we were so and then we, we sat there on board that thing for about three days, then they got the authority to move. We pulled out of that port 34:00there in Belgium and started to New York. They got out about oh…a…thirty or forty kilometers, and here come a storm, blew us all the way back to the coast and that ( ) kept up for three days, so we sat there, it was three days in the storm, but now then we were starting and it, it, it was about three days in the port moving, three days out, we were blown back, and we’re just starting over again, and I got my picture somewhere I could show you, I don’t know, Anna has thrown them away, I guess. I grew a beard about twice as big as yours [Laughter – Shurtz], and three times as ugly [Laughter – Shurtz and McNeil]. I have a picture of me drinking, it was a p…see I had oh four or five pints I took with me, in, in 35:00standard practice. And so I had my picture taking a drink on that, aboard that ship. We finally hit New York, and I got my discharge and got out of the army.

Shurtz: And what did you do after that?

McNeil: Oh! I got married, right away, had a real story. Somebody shipped in our outfit replacement to, you know, for the people that happened, things happened to them, and…Hickman has a pecan house called, and they issue about a…ten by ten box and about four inches high of shelled pecans. And I, I think they just went out of business here lately. They, they stayed in business a long time. And anyway, my mother shipped me a, it says, Kentucky Colonel, on a, you know, 36:00a little pecan as a colonel and that’s all it says all the way around. Well, my parents shipped me this box of Kentucky Colonels, pecans, and so I did what was normal, I went all through the barracks and gave everybody in my company a, a grab of pecans, it was standard practice, you, you know, you, they are your buddies and… Shurtz: Mm-mm.

McNeil: …and…that’s what I did and I come to this joker that was shipped in as a replacement. You know, you have things happening to people all the time, and…he was shipped in as a replacement. So he looked at this box of pecans and he says…you know, that’s funny, that’s, you’re fr…that, that says Kentucky, I dated a girl that said she was going to marry 37:00a fellow from Kentucky, and I said, “you did!” I said, “when was that?” And he told me the date he was in New York, and it was the same day that I went back and looked at my w…wife-to-be’s letters and she was staying home nights and all that you know, wished I’d come home early, and [Laughing] anyway she was running around with this joker come in [Laugher – McNeil and Shurtz] and anyb…anyway, I thought that was a little bit of a war stor…that was typical, that was typical. Got any questions?

Shurtz: Well…you know, something I’ve been asking several veterans the past couple days is w…maybe to get your wisdom. What do you think about our current situation?

McNeil: Oh, all right.

Shurtz: Whether they are ( ) and just current, you know.

McNeil: I’m all for the military. I stayed military, and…the…I 38:00stopped going to the American Legion because they looked down on anybody from World War I, they were too old to know what they were doing, and…I got provoked at it and I just quit going, and I had a call from them this morning, I didn’t take the call. They…people…when they…they get old, other people seem to think that because they’re seventy-eight, or eighty-eight, or whatever appear they are, I happen to be eighty-seven, and…that they think they…they are to be pitied because they, their mind is gone. That’s wh…that’s the attitude.

Shurtz: Oh ( ).

McNeil: All old people don’t know what they’re doing, but some people have. Well the army has it to some degree, they discharged you if you’re a certain age, you know, or s…government 39:00does. Oh, coming out of that…thing, I might tell you…I went to school on the GI bill, electrical engineering, I made, not straight As but damn near straight As, and, I got some of my stuff up there, and…because see, that was my field, see? I had a radio repair shop when I was in the eighth grade and that gave me electronics background, and that, you know, all that electronic work doing in the army, I didn’t even really go to school on it, let me tell you why. The instructors wouldn’t let me in the class because I knew more electronics than they did. Now you can believe that or not, but it’s the damn truth. 40:00So, you know what, what training I got in the army?

Shurtz: What’s that?

McNeil: Pole line, climbing them poles… Shurtz: Oh!

McNeil: …to telephone wires.

Shurtz: That was your career throughout…electrical engineering? Is that what you’re telling me?

McNeil: Yeah, yeah. My career in the army was electrical engineer. After the army, it was electrical engineering.

Shurtz: Where did you go to s…college at?

McNeil: Huh?

Shurtz: Where did you go to college?

McNeil: Huh, I went to the University of Kentucky, and then I went to a outfit called RCA Institutes.

Shurtz: Okay.

McNeil: And at RCA, I really learned a lot. In Kentucky, I learned calculus and things like that, and…I, I wasn’t particular enthused about calculus, I don’t know that anybody ever was [Chuckling]. Where did you go to school?

Shurtz: I, I’m in school right now.

McNeil: Huh?

Shurtz: I am a graduate student.

McNeil: Oh, what, what 41:00your degree in?

Shurtz: Folk studies.

McNeil: Huh?

Shurtz: Folk studies.

McNeil: I don’t even know what that is.

Shurtz: Well I go out and do stuff like this [Laughter – Shurtz and McNeil] McNeil: Well…I went to UK and I was in electrical engineering and then I didn’t graduate because here come the war, and then after the war, I took the GI Bill, I went back for two more—two-and-a-half more—years at RCA where…they really went into the deep theories of electronics, and…the, none of the colleges did it to that degree that they did, and that’s where I went and that’s where I graduated from. But then…I needed a job when I, I got out of school, you got to live. And so what I did 42:00after I was married, my wife had a job. She worked while I went to school, so she kept her job, and I looked for a job, and I got a job repairing television sets, and…I was real good at that. But then the pay wa’n’t nothing, and so I was looking for money. You know, I’m normal, I like money too [Laughing], and so…I fi…I, I got other jobs, and then I finally…what I did is I took a job at Sylvania working for the navy. I was in charge of their (Clears throat) tube plant in Huntington, West Virginia, where they make these proximity, you know what a proximity…fuse is?

Shurtz: No.

McNeil: You don’t know?

Shurtz: Mm-mm.

McNeil: What do you think sh…explodes 43:00artillery shells?

Shurtz: Oh okay, is that what?

McNeil: What? All right. It’s a shel…it’s an electronic circuit.

Shurtz: Okay.

McNeil: And in particular an an…an anti aircraft that that’s, that’s really where there is a lot of…shells spent, you know, blown up. And Sylvania was in charge of the…actually what it is, it’s a little radar type of a, a circuitry, and it shoots at the nose of the projectile, and when it gets within so many feet of the projectile, it explodes. In other words, let’s say a big percent of the shells never hit an aircraft, you know, if you’re looking for a direct hit, that’s what it was at the start of World War II. You had to hit it 44:00for it to go off, and you know, it was a mechanical thing.

Shurtz: Okay.

McNeil: And…they, they learned during the war, they, they started some production during the war, and…it didn’t work good because it didn’t have the electron tubes small enough… Shurtz: Oh.

McNeil: …and…anyway that, that was a, that was a pretty good deal, because it did something. You know, I’m talking about me, and I was usually in charge of the, the government’s purchase of those items. I was in two different plants on that, I was with Western Electric, where I was in charge of the radar sets that go in the airplane, you know what a radar set is… Shurtz: Sure.

McNeil: …it gives you the picture of what’s around you. And then at Sylvania, it was the proximity fuse, 45:00and…so that was two different companies, two different type of product, but I covered both of them, and the Western Electric thing was a very good job too, that I had. I, I was lucky and I had good jobs. I had one bad job.

Shurtz: What was that?

McNeil: Huh…I, I got tired at, at Western Electric. What happened, the…some of the…bosses that worked for Western, they were…screwing around and I don’t know what all. Anyway the job deteriorated. Well for one thing we pretty well, we cut it down too because you fill the warehouse up, you don’t need no more equipment, and so I quit, and…Western Electric wanted me to go to the DEW line up there and put up the radar 46:00sets for the Russian, protection against Russia, and I didn’t see myself setting up there on the north pole, so I wouldn’t take the damn job. So I quit and came to Hickman and sat on my fanny for a while, maybe two weeks….

Shurtz: And you were born in Hickman, right?

McNeil: Yeah, I was… Shurtz: Yeah.

McNeil: …born and raised.

Shurtz: Okay.

McNeil: I went to school there, went to school to UK a little bit, and…anyway I am back in Hickman and then…a friend of mine said, “Hey McNeil says “go up there is a place called…Carborundum that’s running in a…electronic plant up there,” and…I said, “well, let’s go see what they are doing.” And it wasn’t really electronic plant, 47:00what they were doing that was making…oh…they didn’t make tubes or something like that, it was a process that they used to…it was part of the atomic energy set up with it, part of the atomic…material?

Shurtz: Mm-mm.

McNeil: They were processing that, and anyway, up I go, they hire me r…immediately. So I start to work, and I worked there about three months and I wasn’t doing nothing, I was in cold storage that hired us. I guess the government was paying everything, and so…anyway, then one of the boys up and quit, and he was fr…had been in the air force and he, 48:00he got discharged and took that job, and then they wouldn’t let him quit right away. They made him take a mop and mop floors; they were discriminating against him because he was going to quit.

Shurtz: Hum.

McNeil: And, so I decided that I was going to quit too because I didn’t…we was more or less in cold storage. Do you know what a…electronic thing is that picks up the, the parts of a, of a, a ne…a…I’m trying to think. You had chemistry?

Shurtz: Not, not for a long time.

McNeil: Oh hell, what the hell did you study in school? [Laughter – Shurtz]. Huh? It’s chemistry, and then it, and what it is you, you have an electronic device that goes down and picks up a particle in, in, in the, in a chemistry material.

Shurtz: Okay.

McNeil: And…I 49:00forgot now the details of it. Hell I haven’t thought of it in thirty years, but anyway…that was what they were making there. So they needed people in electronics to handle the testing machinery. This boy quit, and he wanted to quit in five days, so he had a, he had re-enlisted in the air force, and that’s when he was supposed to report to it, so he wanted to keep his salary going. They fired him right then and there that minute. So I said, well damn if that’s going to happen to me when I get ready to leave, I’ll go tell them I’m leaving. So…it’s up here at Paducah, you know how…where are you from?

Shurtz: I am from southern Illinois, so I actually… McNeil: Well, you know where Paducah… Shurtz: Yeah.

McNeil: …is.

Shurtz: Yeah.

McNeil: You know the atomic plant there?

Shurtz: Mm-mm.

McNeil: All right, that’s where it was.

Shurtz: Okay.

McNeil: And…anyway though, I’d go up and say “I quit, I 50:00resign,” and they says, “okay.” So they took away a, our, our work area was at one spot and about three or four miles away was where the administration was, you know, they put the thing way up on the side, I don’t know why. But anyway, I drive up there in my car, that parking lot is about a quarter of a mile from the building, and…lo and behold…at the parking lot they had a bus that runs from that half a mile or whatever it was, to the administration building back and forth, you know, because there is a distance to walk. There wasn’t no good road or nothing. So I go in and say I quit and they my badge and everything. I go out, I can’t get on the bus 51:00to go back to get my car. I have to walk at half a mile or better back there through the hot summer sun [Laughing] dust n…I say, well them bastards got me after all [Laughter – Shurtz and McNeil]. Hey (laudy?). Well I’m telling tales I shouldn’t be doing that.

Shurtz: No that’s great.

McNeil: You got work to do and I got work to do.

Shurtz: Oh okay. ( ).

McNeil: Tell me about yourself and what in the hell are you doing?

Shurtz: [Chuckles – Shurtz] okay.

McNeil: (Clears throat). I had to start out see where my father was born, then I went to see where his father was born, and you know, work them back. And so I got started working just my father, where he, I knew where he was born, and…in fact, the…the spot, I own adjacent spot to it, a little farmland…back over in the hills there, 52:00and so he was born, he wasn’t born in a house, they didn’t have no money for a house, it was a lean to type of thing that they closed in, in the winter time, and there were three brothers and two sisters and what their, their problem was their father, when, right after the last child was born, came to Hickman—oh, his profession was trading, trading horses. I’m—you ever hear of that profession?

Shurtz: Yes.

McNeil: Well it’s nothing, really, it’s really nothing. I don’t know how they ge…they got any money for food [Chuckles – Shurtz]. But it, that was his official profession was trading horses, which 53:00he did do, he did trade horses, and he always got boot with it, that’s, that was the only money they had, which is…sort of a ridiculous way to live, but they lived that way, and so…I, it was in the winter time, my father’s father came to Hickman, which is about…three-and-a-half, four miles from where their lean to was, it was a dirt road, it’s still there, but it’s paved now, and went into the bar and got drunk. Well, riding home him being drunk, he fell off the horse and he fell in, they c…it was a snow blizzard coming, a blizzard started up buried him in the snow, so there he died! So the next morning they found him, found him dead. 54:00Well, his mother had the oldest kid was ten, the youngest one was about six months, or nine months or some figure, and no relatives close, no nothing. So those—it was kind of a unique deal, those kids got jobs to get food to eat, and the owner of the land helped them. His name was King, K-i-n-g, was the owner’s name, the oldest boy then married one of King’s daughters, you know, at this, way all this stuff, you know, comes up with the actual bearing too, and then everybody worked. My father, when he was about…eight years old, one minute, no 55:00I—one was eight, and the other was nine-and-a-half, the two of them teamed up to…form a team to drive a team of mules and the, the…wholesale house for food, it co…bring it in on a river boat, it come to the bank and it discharged barrels of flour and meal, and things, and then canned goods. This was in…1900, around 1900. And so they would get this wagon and drive it down to Samburg, it’s down by Reelfoot Lake and deliver this thing, the two of them, it took two of them to drive that team, and anyway they got a dollar for that. 56:00Oh that was big money, that was big money, for that day’s work, they’d get fifty cents a piece, and that’s the way they lived, That’s what I’m saying, they worked, and…oh, let me show you. (Commotion) Come here and I’ll, let me show you something. That’s my father.

Shurtz: Oh.

McNeil: He went to school. All of his other brothers and sisters never went to school. They didn’t go to grade I, they didn’t go, but he insisted he’d go to school. So he went to school, and he graduated in the eighth grade in this house and went from there to the University of Kentucky, he got his law degree in four years. 57:00And I think that’s the, that’s the story. He was screwing his, his teacher [Laughter – McNeil and Shurtz]. Oh Lord! Anyway though, let’s see does that wind my story—oh, yeah, well he, right now, what I am doing, I went back to the family history. I got interested in just what I told you that see what everybody did, and…and daddy had a uncle that went back to Scotland, so I wanted to see who went where and when they started from, and so I was fairly successful, I don’t have it all together yet though, but I’m just about to get it, and it looks like I’m going to come up with everybody filled in.

Shurtz: Hum!

McNeil: And the…there is a whole bunch of them, went 58:00from…Knoxville, Tennessee—they went from Winston Salem, first they went on to the east coast, not, not the mountains, and…they c…the mountains all become Baptist, a hundred percent. What it was, they were…the McNeils had landed from Scotland, there was McNeils in Scotland, and there was McNeils in Ireland, and they separated, they didn’t know each other, they just had the same name, and anyway though… Third Party: Excuse me one minute, do you want some ice cream? I don’t have anything… McNeil: Huh?

Third Party: …in the house, I have to go grocery shopping. Do you want some ice cream?

Shurtz: Oh no, I’m fine.

McNeil: Anna… Third Party: A little bit?

McNeil: …we’ll be through in a minute. Give him something to drink. Do you drink a beer?

Shurtz: Yeah!

McNeil: All right, that’s good for him. You can get us a beer Anna [Laughter – Shurtz]. Let’s see, 59:00where I was, what—anyway though… Third Party: I want to ask you ( )...

McNeil: …what I, the only point I wanted to make was that I am fairly successful, and I am right now working on getting the…markers and all straightened out, so we know who is who’s father, and who was the son and things like that, and it’s kind of interesting…to do that. That’s my current project, and it, it’s about capable for a guy that’s eighty-seven. I couldn’t, couldn’t solve a, a big… Shurtz: Thank you.

Third Party: Mm-mm.

McNeil: …calculus problem now to save my life [Laughing]. But being you mentioned you were looking at things like that, that’s why… Shurtz: Sure.

McNeil: …I bothered to tell you that. It, it was kind of interesting to see how they made out and how they did this, and why, and why I think is important too, 60:00and…one of daddy’s either uncle or grandfather, or…it was a uncle or grandfather, I don’t know which yet, that’s hadn’t been solved, I was going to try to solve it…tonight, and…find out which one it is, see I got, I got three markers and my daddy that’s four. So some of them is father and son, I believe but I don’t know which is which yet. So that’s what my little project of current thing. That’s the way I keep bus…now what I keep busy is staying alive. That’s ( ) my beer. There was a town called Saint Lô, there is another town then, up toward the, where 61:00the main part is, not on the peninsula, I forget that name, oh, Saint Lô was that picked the town got, was back, that was the one I was next to, that was by the Germans, Saint Lô was. But I got in a, on a jeep, see I was my own boss in the army. Do you believe that?

Shurtz: Sure!

McNeil: I, I had a major as my actual boss and he told me two or three times pre…”McNeil, you can do what you want to, since you’re going anyway!” [Laughing]. So, I didn’t say bullshit, and b…( ) to anything that I did or where I went. So we hit that in, in Normandy, and…oh the shelling was bad, you know, that, where we were. 62:00So, we all dig in deep…about four-foot slit trenches, and…most of the shelling was caused by the British. I told you that.

Shurtz: Mm-mm.

McNeil: But I don’t think a sing…a single German shell hit our…area, but the shrapnel from them British…anti-aircraft we was afraid it was going to kill everybody. It come down, it cut a branch off a limb that big, and that, if that’d hit you, you’re dead! You know the, the bombs fragments that come? And…they, they, they were pretty close to us, the British were, and I felt like going over there and seeing what I could kick. You know I didn’t mind a, a fight, and, but [Chuckling] anyway, I didn’t do it. So…but, 63:00I got in a jeep one day, and…I was driving around, I drove down towards Saint Lô, and here come an American soldier walking toward me with a rifle, so I stopped him, and I said, “hey soldier,” I says, “how far to the Germans?” “Right around the corner,” he said [Laughing]. I was right up at the line, right there. So, I turned around and left, but anyway, I went back and I didn’t go right back to the company. I said, well I’ll go see what I can find down this other road, and…I went down the road a piece and I…there were some dead Germans there, dead Germans. And there were whole stacks of them. So I looked at it a little more, and there are the German soldiers, 64:00and then in the front was the American soldiers. So I got in the jeep and went by and, passed this for a quarter of a mile long deads.

Shurtz: Whoa!

McNeil: Stopped, those, the Americans were stacked about eight high, and the Germans were eight high but there were only about a fourth. There was about a quarter as many Germans—see the Germans picked their own up, I guess, because…I don’t think…we, well, right at the start, we took all the casualties, the Germans had practically none other than from the bombing. Air force were trying to do their best, but it, it didn’t, it wasn’t too successful, and Saint Lô was a good example of that. You look at it, you don’t see nothing but a pile of brick. If you look a little closer, and you see that the pile is deep down and there is a hole there. What it is, it’s a, it’s a cellar, 65:00and the cellars were immense, and that’s where all the Germans had gone to so they didn’t get, didn’t get killed. None of them got killed really in that, oh, none is not right, but only a small part would get killed in all that bombing, and…but…so I saw a few casualties. Well, anyway, up at Saint Lô there, that was all Americans we’d done taken all of that, so I didn’t see no more Germans. But then off, more west of there, I took a walk one day, and I went about two miles, I run into a French farm that hadn’t been touched, there wasn’t a bomb fell anywhere within a, a mile of that, and…the…French girl was out there with some cows, there wasn’t no…fenced 66:00pasture, they were just loose. Cows all had a bell on them, and so…whoa a girl! I’ll talk to her, you know. So [Chuckling], so I went up and started, “bonjour mam’selle,” that was all the French I knew [Laughter – Shurtz and McNeil], and…anyway, she took me up…I thought it was going to be a short distance, and, you know how a young fellow is, he is…he wants to show off a little bit. So there she had a five-gallon can of milk on this side—I thought it was five gallons—and a five-gallon on this side and an…that wooden thing that goes across the shoulders?

Shurtz: Mm-mm.

McNeil: You’ve, know what I… Shurtz: Yes.

McNeil: …I don’t know the name of them.

Shurtz: Yeah.

McNeil: Anyway, I, I, I said, “I’ll carry it for you.” I spoke English to her ‘cause I didn’t know a frigging French, and she understood what I was tal…she didn’t know English, 67:00but she knew what I was talking about. I picked that damn thing up and I was like this, I could hardly carry it. Those son of bitches must have been at least fifty pounds a piece, that was a hundred pounds I was carrying. Well, I had my rifle too and…anyway, I said, “well,” I slowed up because she saw I was a little bit slower, so she didn’t force it at all, she walked behind me. Anyway, we get up there and…her older sister come got the milk, and…I struck up a conversa…oh! they had about another, about a eight year old, or ten-year old boy, as a brother. He was small for his age, he spoke English, he learned English in school, the only one in the whole family, and so I told the kid, I said, 68:00“I’d like some wine, if you had it.” And…he says, “okay.” So he told the father that, the father then told another son to go down, and got me a bottle of…a white looking grape vine wine. I don’t know how it could turn out like that, but it, it was what it was. So I took a big drink and took it back to the barrack—to the camp with us [Chuckling]. I was out another day with a, and I come into the, the camp and a lieutenant come up to me, “Sergeant McNeil?” “Yeah.” He says, “major wants to know can he have a drink out of your canteen?” I says, “why sure.” All I had was wine in them, and [Chuckles – McNeil and Shurtz] you know, I had two canteen; everybody had two canteens, and I said, “okay.” I gave him one and he went and took it, 69:00and in about five minutes here he comes back says, “major says thank you” [Laughter – Shurtz and McNeil], never said a word. (Lord it be!?). Well I, I don’t want to tell any more stories [Laughter – Shurtz] that… “END OF INTERVIEW”