John W. Morris
So when that third-class list to corporal did not include me, and I saw the people that were on it,
I realized they were well known as athletes and other noticeable activities. So I'd say the thing
to do is to get to be known.
I guess I left West Point pretty satisfied with life-but not ready to get married, however.
Q: You mean at graduation time, and that many did?
A: Oh, yes.
Q: Even though they were going off to war?
A: Oh, yes.
Q: That was the last chance?
A:
It didn't seem to make a whole lot of difference. I guess the pluses and minuses probably
averaged out.
World War II and Early Post-War Assignments
Q .. You went into an engineer aviation battalion, is that correct?
A
Yes. I went to a battalion that was segregated. All the soldiers were black; all the officers were
white. The second battalion, we had one black officer who was the chaplain.
Q:
They were listed on your record as the 1895th and 1869th.
A: The `95th was the first one. It was a good battalion, incidentally-a high-performance
battalion-well disciplined, no major problems. Our people came out of the construction
industry, and the equipment operators were just splendid in spite of the fact that it was
which in those days was not in spite of anything. That's the way it was. I would have
put ours with any battalion, any engineering battalion, really, looking back on it. The operators
were versatile-older. I don't know how we would have done on some kind of sophisticated IQ
test or something. They were good at their business.
I come back to a little story. I left West Point, and I was sent to [Fort] Belvoir, of course.
Everybody went to Belvoir. We won the championship in softball, I remember that. The things
you remember and don't remember! Four others and I were all sent to MacDill Field, Florida, to
join the 3d Engineer Aviation Unit Training Center. Earlier, while I was at West Point, I had
dislocated my shoulder as an instructor in bayonet training. At MacDill Field I was alerted for
overseas but was told I couldn't go because of the shoulder. So I went to the hospital and had it
fixed. It cost me about a month's time.
I ended up leaving MacDill Field for Dale Mabry Field in Tallahassee where I finished out my
battalion training and then moved overseas. We took a troop train across the United States to Fort
sailed to Hawaii, and moved north up to Kahuka, Oahu. We worked on an existing
airfield and built a theater.
Unfortunately the theater burned down just as it was being completed. Since I was in charge of
the electrical work, I was sure everybody was going to blame me for it. So I went down the next
day and took a picture of the master switch box to prove it was "off."
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