Regular soldier in many cases looked very much like the one im wearing. The difference being, they would have the raised collar and they would have epaulets. Trotsky took the red army and said, i want to make it a working mans army. When you go to work, you dont wear a suit that has a raised collar and epaulets. You have a suit that has a laydown collar. As we saw on the front of that book, that was the early war uniform. It was a simple smock. The Rank Insignia were on the collar. As the war progressed, there was more and more reference to the past, to the heroics of the military achievement under the czars. So, a lot of the changes were made to kind of encourage that, to reinforce that. So, later on during the war, the uniform was now changed back to, in a sense, the czaristtype looking uniform. Again, the medals came back. Medals were prolific. The guard medals, the idea that there were famous czarist units. Now we were going to have elite Red Army Units to raise morale and encourage the men to fight. So, i guess i would like people to take away from this ill say, for example, that cspan is a source of much of the information that we use in our hobby. And ive heard numerous occasions, on various historical presentations made on cspan the professional historian. We downplay or we dont say enough about the soviet contribution to winning world war ii. And the story of the soviets in world war ii. And with that, i guess i would like people to take away that story and understand that it was a significant contribution, both in terms of its strategic impact on winning the war, as well as the toll and great sacrifice that the soviets incurred in winning that war. The war in russia enters its third year with soviet armies pounding the nazis from the black sea to the baltic. [bombing] retaking town after town, soviet forces find the ravaged country left by the nazis. But hitler paid a price for this wanton destruction, that price was more than 5,000,000 nazi soldiers. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] products are now available at the new cspan online store. Org. O cspanstore. Check out all of the cspan products. There has been discussion about an appearance before congress. Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. It contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made. We chose those words carefully, and the work speaks for itself. And the report is my testimony. I would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before congress. Former special Counsel Robert Mueller is set to appear before two committees of congress on wednesday, july 17, at 9 00 a. M. Eastern. He gives testimony to the house judiciary committee, then he will take questions from the house intelligence committee, both open sessions. Mr. Muellers report into russian interference in the 2016 election will air live on cspan3, online at cspan. Org, or listen with the free cspan radio app. You are watching American History tv, 48 hours of programming on American History every weekend on cspan3. Follow us on twitter, c spanhistory, for information on our schedule. June 6 was the 75th anniversary of the allied dday invasion of nazi occupied normandy, france. World war ii veteran George Morgan was with the u. S. Naval combat demolition unit, considered the forerunner of the navy seals. Mr. Morgan talks about his training in explosives, arriving on omaha beach on dday, and his units inability to carry out its assignment. The National WorldWar Ii Museum in new orleans recorded the interview. So, well start with your full name. George George Edward morgan. When were you born . George 1967. 6 29 27. Where . George lyndhurst, new jersey. I had gone over and enlisted in the navy. I had to go over to Church Street in new york. And so, they said it would be a couple months before they call me. So, thats the reason why i did this baseball thing. I figured, well, you know, maybe i will flunk the physical or something. But, anyway. So, it wasnt two days after that i got the letter from the dodgers about going to almira. I got the letter from the navy to report to Church Street, to report to go to boot camp. So, i never got to play ball. I went over to Church Street to get sworn in. They gave us a perfunctory physical there. It was probably a couple hundred of us. They took us over they walked us over to penn station. We got on the train. It took us up to sampson, new york. This was a new boot camp. It was i dont know how long it had been open, but not very long, because we spent a lot of time while we were there helping build barracks for the guys that were coming after us. I remember i went into when we got off the train, they took us into give us the haircut and to examine us. And the dentist looked at my mouth, and i was in that chair for over two hours. 26 fillings, they put into my mouth. We couldnt afford to go to a dentist. That was the last thing we could spend money on. 26 fillings. Boot camp lasted about four weeks. Got to come home for five days. I think. Back to the boot camp. Two days later, they put us on a train to go to the amphib school in fort pierce, florida. When we were on that train going to florida, every time we went through a city, the sps came through and made sure all the window shades were down on the windows, because they didnt want people to know if there was any spies or whatever what kind of troops were moving where. Of course, we had uniforms on, so it was easy to see this was the navy sending people someplace. Every time we went through a city, we had to pull the shades down. It took us a couple days to get down there. We got off the train. Went to a reception area. Thats where i made the biggest mistake of my life. I sat down in front of this interviewer. He started asking me questions. And he said, can you swim . I said, yes, i used to be a lifeguard. I forgot to tell you that. I used to be a lifeguard at home. I worked 80 hours a week and got 20. That was a lot of money, even though it was 80 hours a week. Yeah, i used to be a lifeguard. He says, oh, go stand over there. So, i went over and stood over there, three or four other fellas standing there. Finally, they finished interviewing everybody. They loaded half a dozen of us altogether on a truck. And they took us to a fenced area on the outskirts of the base. We went through a wire fence, but they opened it just for the truck. As soon as we got in, they closed the fence gate. I thought, what the heck is going on here. I had absolutely no idea. Well, another reception area and we found out we had just volunteered for underwater demolition. I had no idea what that was. I didnt know that i had volunteered. I wasnt arguing. You know. This was the navy. So. So, here we were. In this area. They dropped us off at an area where they had these sixman and eightman tents. This is florida. Sixman and eightman tents. They counted us off to each tent. We had our sea bag and our hammock that was issued to us when we joined. And i went in and a bunch of bunks, canvas bunks. Not anything but that. Just foldup bunks on the tent floor. I picked out one, threw my stuff on it, sat down, and waited for someone to tell me what to do. Eventually, some other fellas came in, threw their gear on bunks. None of us knew each other. Finally, a petty officer came in and said, ok, you fellas, line up outside. They marched us to the chow hall, fed us, marched us back to where we were. And then it started. And we found out that we were what outfit we had been assigned to, underwater demolition, udts, as the other people in the navy used to call us, undesirable tourists. So, they explained to us that what we were going to do is learn how to blow up obstacles that the enemy was putting on the beaches, to prevent the invasion of the various islands in the pacific and, of course, over in europe. And so, then we we started learning how to handle explosives. We used tetrytol. It was about 1. 5 times more powerful than dynamite. 20poundn 20poind sacks. I forget how many tubes of tetrytol were in each sack. Whatever made it come out to 20 pounds. The sack had a long strap on it, which was adjustable. There was a fuse that came out of it. They took us out let me think. Where did we go . I guess they took us out to one of the beaches, where they had constructed some tetrahedrons, which was an obstacle, a block of concrete with ive got some pictures over here i can show you. They put them on the beaches for the tanks. George thats right. They showed us that this was the type of obstacle that we would likely run into, how to put the charge on it, how to hook it up that went around the obstacles. While we were doing it, somebody was coming by. We were doing it in the water. They would make sure we would tie it in right. In the meantime, before that, they had issued us swim fins and a face mask. The swim fins didnt fit. You had to cut the top part to fit the arch of your foot. Otherwise, it was very uncomfortable. The facemask, none of them fit, because you had to cut those so they would fit the contour of your face. This first couple of days, we didnt know that. We were having trouble with the fins and the facemask. It was a mess. They were making us swim, oh, i guess it was probably a little over a half mile, which wasnt much. Because during hell week, which came later, you know, every day, we swam four miles in through the surf and out through the surf twice. We ran, god, i dont know how many miles. We crawled on the beach. We were learning how to to detect mines that were buried in the sand. And how we did that was by feeling our way across the beach, soaking wet. We were on the sand, our bodies covered with sand. It was very uncomfortable. And feeling for these mines as we crawled across the beach. If you trip one, it was just a firecracker that would go off and blow up in your face. You would get covered with sand. That was how you learned how to feel for mines. But this was during hell week. I think probably during that week, we never got back to where we slept. We never had a meal. We lived on k rations and c rations. I think in that week if we got maybe five hours of sleep, it was probably a lot. And to be honest with you, i dont remember if we did sleep, where it was that we slept. Because if we werent running, swimming, we were going through the swamps outside of fort pierce. That was brutal. We did that for a week. And then the last day, last day, they told us, they said, fellas, this is your last day, but weve got a special treat for you. Oh, shoot. They took us we walked through the swamps. They took us to the open field. When we got to this field, theres a bunch of foxholes already dug. And they said, all right, pick out a foxhole and get yourself in it. Fine. So, i took one over here, got myself in it. And then they said, over a loudspeaker, that what they had done, they had planted explosive charges all around and in this field and they were going to set them off. And what this was supposed to do is to acclimate us to what it would be like if youre under fire. Well, the first ones they set off, to me, they sounded like they were outside the perimeter of the field. I said, well, this isnt too bad. Then they started getting a little closer. They started having them go off in the field, near the foxholes. One of them went off probably three or four feet from my foxhole. And a rock came and hit me in the side of the head. God, i thought i had lost my eye. I said, medic, medic, medic. So they stopped firing. They come in. Blood was pouring out of here. It must have been a mess. So, they took me out of the foxhole and took me over to an aid station. The corpsman took one look at me, my god, hes lost his eye. That made me feel even better. But it wasnt. It was just a bad mess. So, they cleaned me up. I dont think they shot off anymore explosives. I think we all got on the trucks and went back to civilization. But that was hell week. And it was i dont know. Some fellas dropped out. I know that, cause i never saw them again after we got finished. Some were asked to leave, for whatever reason. I dont know that either. So and they still have hell week today for the navy seals, not exactly what we did. cause ive been to that navy seal base over there in coronado. They do things quite a bit different now. Im sure glad i dont have to do what they did, because i dont think i couldve done it. And anyway what were the big differences between today and back then, the first things you noticed . George first of all, the fellas were in a heck of a lot better shape than we ever were. I mean, these fellas, when theyre not doing their training, they are doing exercises on the weights and i mean, those guys are theyre built like rocks. We were just a bunch of kids off the street. I never lifted a weight in my life. It just wasnt it. But these guys are in so much better physical shape than we ever could have been. And theyre trying to do better. They keep at it. I got talking to one guy over there who was a corpsman, team six. And i was asking him about because i saw him in the gym. I just, by chance, walked into the gym, and these fellas were working out. And my nephew was with me, who is a retired Lieutenant Commander in the navy. And so, we were standing there in the gym, watching these fellas work out. And this guy came over and he said, can i help you with anything . And he saw my i have a hat that says world war ii vet Navy Frog Man. He said, were you a Navy Frog Man . I said, yeah. He said, come on over here. He toured me the whole place. Showed me the warehouse where they keep all their gear, all that stuff. But, anyway, and i said, is this what you fellas have to do every day . He said, no, this is all voluntary. These guys working out in the gym, they were voluntarily doing that, along with what they had to do regularly to keep in shape. I just couldnt believe it. But anyway, it was interesting. So, we we stayed there in fort pierce, probably a month, month and a half. And then they picked probably two dozen of us. Why, i have no idea. And they said, were going to take you over to normandy. And so, we got our gear and we they took us out to the airport. We got on a plane. And we flew from fort pierce, i think to someplace in virginia, where we refueled, and then we flew from there to someplace up in maine, where we refueled. Bangor, maine . George i dont know. Someplace up there. I know it was pretty cold. And then we flew from there to newfoundland and refueled. And the next stop was someplace in scotland. Where we refueled. And then they flew us down to southern england. And thats where the trip ended. When the normandy invasion went off, the fellas that in those days, over there it was ncdu, naval combat demolition units. They were fiveman teams with an officer, usually an ensign, in charge of that fiveman team. These fiveman teams were to take care of the obstacles that were on the beach. What happened at omaha was that, because of the water coming across the channel, when they got to normandy, it was so bad, it was so rough, they lost all practically all their explosives. They had nothing to work with. Plus the fact that the one big mistake that they made as far as the invasion was concerned was that these ncdus should have gone in before the invasion, rather than with the invasion. Because a lot of the gis were hiding behind the stuff that we were supposed to blow up. Even if we had our explosives, we couldnt blow it up because these guys were hiding there. They didnt want to go any further because of what was happening. So, at omaha beach, the channel i dont want to use the word channel. The opening that the mechanized units needed to get through the beach and to get up in behind the line, we couldnt get those obstacles out of the way. So, thats what screwed up omaha beach real bad, because the mechanized stuff couldnt get through, because the obstacles hadnt been blown up. So, that was that was a real snafu. And there probably were others, too. But that was that. Which unit did you land with . The second rangers . George no. No. No, the i saw the rangers go up the cliff. I could see them trying to get up there. I was watching it. I said, my god, im glad im not trying to do that. I didnt know whether i was going to see the sunset that day. I was so scared. I pissed my pants. And i was what in the world am i doing here . I just it was awful. The noise. The noise was terrible. I equate it to a thunderstorm and a crack of lightning, the crack is right above your house. The crack and then the thunder, and thats what its like continuously, hour after hour after hour. You just cant get away from it. Its just terrible, awful. Its not good. No. Bad. So, but, anyway. Did you go in with the 29th . George i dont know. I have no idea. The only the two things i remember very clearly, one is i think it was a canadian. Im not sure. But i think it was a canadian uniform. He had a hole blown through him. You could have put a bowling ball through it. Theres another fella i saw his arm get shot off. Evidently, he didnt realize what had happened. Because when his arm was shut shot off, his rifle was laying there. And he saw his rifle there, and he tried to pick it up with his right arm, but he didnt have a right arm. It was terrible. Terrible. But, anyway. How old were you when you joined the navy . George 17. Did your parents have to sign a waiver . George yes. Why the navy . Why not army . George because my father told me what the army was like through the world war i, and i didnt want any part of that. I figured if i went in the navy, id get three meals a day. [laughter] every person in the navy tells me im guaranteed a place to sleep and a place to eat. The army is like, i dont know where im going to be tomorrow. George thats exactly what i thought. My father said, why the navy . I dont want to go through what you went through. I mean, after all, you know, food and sleep are important. Thats the reason. Never dreaming that id wind up doing what i was doing. But, anyway. So, omaha beach was your only assignment. Your assignment wasnt to go further in george no, then they took us off. We came back to fort pierce. And thats when commander kauffman, draper l. Kauffman he was in charge of all underwater demolition. And he i dont know how all of this came about. But thats when we started forming into 80man teams, or 88 men and 12 or 13 officers. So, we started doing the team concept. What we were learning how to do and were training to do because we were getting ready to do the islands in the pacific. I think the first one that udts did was saipan, but im not sure. I wasnt there. So, what we started doing in fort pierce was that one platoon would be assigned to an lcvp, Landing Craft vehicle personnel. That was our boat. The boat had a crew of three, a coxswain, a guy who took care of the motor, and the communications fella, who handled the radio. And then it would be our platoon, which would be about 20 fellas. The way we were taught that we were going to take care of to do in thead pacific was that they would lash a rubber eightman rubber boat to the port side of the ofp, because the coxswain the lcvp, his position was aft on the port side, where he would control the speed and the direction of the boat. He could look down and see the rubber boat tied to the side. Then he had a line, probably 1. 5 inch line, attached to a cleat on the port side of the lcvp. And that line was just long enough. And at the end, we had an eye at the end of the rope and put tape on it so that we wouldnt cut our hands. We put tape on it so that this eye could be handed to a swimmer in the water, as the lcvp was going by with the rubber boat on the port side, thered be a man in the rubber boat. He would take that eye and hand it to the swimmer. The swimmer would grab that, he would swing it around to the back of the rubber boat, and he would clip his fins, and pulled himself up into that rubber boat. And the fellow that was in the rubber boat would take the line and give it to the next swimmer that he would come to. Thats how we picked up, so that we didnt have to stop the boat to pick somebody up, because if you stop the boat, youre vulnerable to getting hit. And we didnt want to lose the boat and all those men at one time. We went off to swim the way. We would go over to the side and into the rubber boat, and we would roll into the water. And we did that every 25 yards. And we always swam in pairs, so there would be two of us that would go over this at the same time. Swim in and itld would never break and it was pointing at the sea. We took that light. We swam over there, put that up. We lost one or two fellows doing that, i think. But we got it in a good spot, and everybody was happy. And the beach that we worked, it was to my left. That was overlooking the whole island. It was over on my left. I never did see them raise the flag because we were long gone before that happened. But i remember seeing that mountain sitting up there. I was trying to think. Some of the other problems that we had at iwo maybe itll come to me. Iwo, that lava sand was a different type of grit. This one was so loose, that it was hard for troops to kind of get up on there. There was miles of it. George the beach was all lava sand. I think they were concerned about whether the sand would support tanks and machinery. I think ive read someplace that they had already tested that out on the island of hawaii in the Hawaiian Islands because they had beaches there that were all lava sand. I think they tested that out there and they knew, i guess, that the lava sand would take certain kinds of mechanized equipment. So they had that all figured out. But we had to bring back samples of that stand. We each carried a little bag with us. And when we got up on the beach, we filled the bag with sand, tied it on to our waist and brought it out. We didnt know how to do that. We had no equipment to do anything. You brought sand back from the beach . George yeah, a little sack so that they could analyze it. It seemed like it was Something Else that we did there. I dont know. Maybe itll come to me. From what i know, i know that a lot of them went up there. When the tide would come in because when you come in if you came in at low tide, you would have 500 feet before the first embankment. Youre justden, now dropping equipment on top of this. You had to do recon of the area. You look at other plans planes, all the obstacles, blow that up. You were the eyes and years. Years ears. You had to tell them where all the gun placements were. George our responsibility was the dune lines, where the sand dunes and vegan station vegetation started. Thats where our responsibility ended, supposedly. The invasion people wanted to know what was behind that, so we would always have to go a little bit further to see if we could see anything. And, you know, if they camouflaged something and we dont see it, we dont see it. Half mile off the shore and you half mile off the shore and you swam with your team. It was only you and your team. In essence, you are the invading force in their mind but you cant be seen. George see, we didnt have any breathing apparatus at all. We just held our breath. We didnt have any tanks. That stuff wasnt known than known then. At one point, i could hold my breath for about three minutes. Yeah, three minutes. At one time, i went down just to see how far i could go down. I went down 77 feet with just a facemask on, no breathing equipment at all. When i came up, my ears were bleeding and my nose was bleeding. It was a stupid thing to do, but i did it. Youre young and foolish and your immortal. You didnt bring any weapons with you . George no. There was, at one time, they had the idea that we would carry a. 45 with us. For what reason, i dont know, but we never did. You could put a. 45 in saltwater for a while. George we didnt carry a knife. We carried our coil for measuring out the distance. Some of the fellas wore life belts. I never did. There was a kind that if you got hurt, you could break the co2 tube and it would inflate, but i never wore one. Just had a facemask and fins, and that was it. In fact, this article that i have over there is from the saturday evening post, in october of 1945, and the title of the article is they hit the beach in swim trunks. It was the first time they acknowledged underwater demolition teams. Your uniform was swim trunks, masks. George that was it. And we carried the explosives on our back. We carried 60 pounds on our back when we were going to start blowing. Thats how we got the stuff. So you landed on normandy with the invasion. George ok. I was going to get you this article. I forgot about this cord. [indiscernible] george my mother cut this out. This was taken in florida. This fellow here, by the name of harper, heres the title of the article. Heres a date. And then that one is another picture here someplace. Oh, here it is. Ok. This is all my platoon. This is andy. Pruitt. This is me back here. Hear. S will will here. Grady, ill tell you a story about him. This is commander kaufman. Remember, i told you about going in and out of the water in the boats. See, this is all we had. This is it. Ill tell you a story about kaufman. Im sort of digressing here. No, i love hearing about it. Thats why im asking all these questions. George he was an annapolis graduate. And his father, who was an admiral in the navy, he was a superintendent at one time at the Naval Academy. Kaufman, after the war, also became a superintendent at the Naval Academy, only time in history where a father and son, both were superintendents of a military academy. And when the war was over, when we came back from japan, and apd 101, commander kaufman was coming back with us. For what reason, i dont know. We left first so we got back first. We pulled in and on the way back, as we were crossing the pacific, he put the word out, anybody interested in going to annapolis, come up and see me. You know, and i thought about that. I said well, maybe ill go see him. Well, three other fellows and myself, as it turned out, had the same idea. So i went up to see him, and he sat and talked to me for a couple hours, wanting to know what i did in the boy scouts, how far i advanced, you know, and what i did for a living before i came in. All kinds of stuff. And he did the same with the other fellows. So finally, he called us up to his cabin, individually, and he said, i want to give you an appointment to go to annapolis. And he said its been a while since youve been in school, so when we get back to the states, im going to give you a 60 day leave to go home. While youre home, i want you to go back to your local high school, sit in on some math classes, that sort of thing. Just to refresh your memory on some of these subjects. Because we havent touched on anything like that in a couple of years. He said and then when you get back to california, youre going to get orders to go to the Naval Academy prep school in virginia. From there, you will go to school and people prep for the Entrance Exam to get into annapolis. So, we came home i got to tell you this one. The war was just over. Were in coronado. We come into coronado and were one of the first ships back. A sign says welcome home. All that kind of stuff. We pulled up to the pier, and on the pier is a black navy band. Just a small one. And theyre playing what i guess was the hit song at that time in the states. It was called caledonia. I dont know if youve heard of it or not, but anyway. It was one of those jive songs. We had never heard it for. Heard it before. So anyway, we got in there probably around 2 00 in the afternoon. Now, this apd that we traveled on, the normal complement on that ship is about 200 men. Then they put us on, which was another hundred. Now its handling 200 men. 200as designed to handle for sleeping arrangements. So it was pretty, pretty tight. We slept. They erected a steel room on the after deck of the ship, where they put us. And we had five high bunks. And part of the food we needed to supply these guys is in cans above the bunks. They didnt have Storage Space to handle this many people. And after were out at sea for a couple days, no more fresh milk , no more fresh vegetables, no more fresh wheat. Everything was canned, dehydrated, or powdered. Thats the way it was and thats what you lived on all the time. Except when you pulled up next to a supply ship and they replenished supplies. Then you would have some fresh milk, but maybe not a lot. It was tough. So anyway, we pulled into the pier about 2 00 or 3 00 in the afternoon. And this base is just getting started. Its designed specifically for udts. The only one they had was in maui. So kaufman got a hold of the mess hall and asked, do you want to open up for us when we got in there . So, we got off the ship, they got us to the mess hall. I was in heaven to see all this good food. So were going into the chow line. And he wanted the server to put more food on his tray. Hes telling him put more food. And the server just stands there. He reaches across the chow line and grabs the server by the shirt front. He says take your hands off him. He cant understand a word that youre saying. They were all german pows serving food. That was part of their jobs was to serve the food in the kitchens. That sunday afternoon, the pows had off. Thats the first time i ever saw soccer played. I was watching those german pows play soccer out there in the football field. I couldnt understand why they didnt catch the ball in their hands. I knew nothing about soccer. Nobody did because we had never seen it. Anyway, we had a weekend pass, so we decided to go up to l. A. And we had heard about the canteen, so we got up to l. A. I guess we took a trolley car. We took it out and the place was jammed. No liquor, no alcohol. It was soda, snacks. They had a band. You could dance. They had comedians. There were comedians at a floor show. Not a floor show, but entertainment. On one side of the room, they had this long bar. And at the end of the bar, Joan Crawford was signing autographs. On the other side of the room, setting up on a platform was sitting up on a platform was bette davis. She was doing the same thing. On the stage at that point was alan alda. Er. Ert aldas fath who was on m. A. S. H. , it was his father performing. Ill never forget the one joke that he told. Place is crowded. Its walltowall gis. He said, youll never guess who walked into the back door. He paused for a minute. He said, sorry. Anyway, Joan Crawford had to be my moms favorite actress. So, i was maybe three or four fellows away from being in front of her to have her sign, so i could send it to my mother. I said boy, she must have a sore hand after doing this all day or all night. She looked up at me and said, who said that . She said, did you say that, sailor . I says yeah. She said i want you to know that i enjoy doing this. This is my pleasure to do this. Finally, its my turn. Im standing in front of her. She says, whats your mothers name . I said grace. She wrote your son and what your name . I told her. She said your son edward is standing in front of me and he looks fine. Best wishes, Joan Crawford. So, a few minutes later, couple buddies and myself, beaver we were standing not too far out on the floor, and this fellow comes up and taps us on the shoulder. He said, would you fellows like to go out to a movie stars home and have dinner with a movie star . We said, what are you talking about . Who are you talking about . He said i cant tell you, but if you would like to do that, ill drive you out. There was four of us. We figured, what the heck . We got in the car and we drove out to this very nice neighborhood in hollywood, pulled up in front of this ranch house. And he says just walk up and ring the bell. So, we walk up to the front door and we rang the bell. And who answered the door but jean tierney . She was a famous actress and she was married to her husband, oleg cassini, who was a designer of womens fashions. She invited us in and we sat there for several hours and had a lovely dinner, talked it was a wonderful evening. Fellow drove us back to hollywood and we spent the night at the ymca. [laughter] so, anyway. Then we had an officer in our outfit by the name of don armisen, and he was from minnesota. And he went to the university of minnesota. And he was telling us that he used to sing with the west brown orchestra. He was in a group and they sang with wes brown. Well, he was a famous bandleader in those days. You still hear some of his music today. So anyway, just so happened that the westbound orchestra is playing at the palladium in hollywood, which is this huge, huge dance hall. Thousands of people there, dancing. And wes brown orchestra is out is the music that theyre dancing to. He said lets go. He and three of us went up to the palladium, and in the orchestra took their break, he said, lets see if we can get backstage. Sure enough, we get to backstage and were standing back there, wes brown is talking to some people, turns around, looked at me and said comes running over to him. We stood there talking with wes brown. And right about that time was doris day, just a teenager she had that hit song, sentimental journey. That was quite a song. So she came walking over. At that time, it looked like she was dating the drummer. Anyway, don armisen introduced us to doris day and the fellow that she was with. We stood there talking a little bit. Then they had to go back out and play, so we went back, and that is just a couple of things that happened. Why did you want to stay in the navy . George why did i . Yeah, how long did you stay in the navy for . George im going to get to that. So, i told you that when we got back to the states, kaufman said theyd give us a 60 day leave. This is now in coronado, outside san diego. We had to catch the train back to new york city. I had to go up to l. A. , so i got up there, and santa fe was the railroad that went from l. A. To chicago. What and i think it was the super and i think it was the super chief. So, i got a ticket to get on the train. I couldnt get a seat. The only thing i could do, along with a bunch of other guys, was stand between the two cars. People were standing in the aisle, and i stood for four days and nights, getting from l. A. To chicago on the super chief. The other time we got off, where i was able to sit down was when i pulled into a station. We pull off and it was at that point, the uso was still having the coffee and donuts at the railroad stations. Wed get off and get coffee and doughnuts. Maybe Something Else. And thats what we ate between l. A. And chicago. Stood up all that time. Then when we got to chicago, i forgot the name of the station. One of them was south street station. And i forgot the name of the other station. A train from west came in from and departed. It was the station for the trains that went east departed from. So, i had to make my way to that train station and it was cold. It was october or november and i was cold. Had my sea bag, my hammock over my shoulder, and i had to walk to that other station after standing up for five days on the train. Finally, i got to that station , got a ticket to take the train to new york and i got a seat. So, i sat from chicago to new york. Well, when the family, when i left to go into the navy, a family lived in one house and when i was gone, they moved to another house. Not too far away i didnt know where exactly it was. I got into new york, Grand Central station. I started walking across and i had a white hat on, which was the uniform of the day when i left california. I had my blues on and my white hat. So, im halfway across the station and two shore patrol come up and say hey sailor, youre out of uniform. Youre supposed to have a blue hat on. I didnt have a blue hat. So they say come with us. They took me over to this small office. He was the head shore patrolman. He said to me, where you coming from . California. He said let me see your leave papers. I opened up my pea coat, took out my leave papers and i had my spaghetti bar up here. He looked at that, looked at my release papers and said, where are you headed for . I said im going home. I havent been home for a couple of years. Wheres your home . Over in jersey. He said good luck and thanks for coming home. That was that. But those shore patrol guys wanted to arrest me because i was out of uniform. I took the bus out to lyndhurst. So i got off at the top of the hill on 3rd avenue, not knowing where the house was that they moved. But i didntdress know how far down it was. I started walking, walking, walking. Finally, it was way down at the end of the street, probably better than a quarter of a mile. I walked to the front door. Sunday morning. About 9 30. I rang the bell. [sniffing] george im sorry. Its ok. [sniffing] george my father said hes here. Hes here. They were just finishing breakfast to get ready to go to church. And i said i wanted to go to church with them. You walked to church in those days because of gas rationing