On June 13, 1941, 75 years ago today, the War Department sent a postcard to my grandmother in Rome, Ga.
The postcard notified my grandmother that my father had been accepted into the Army.
He was sent to Ft. McPherson, at least temporarily. This was the beginning of three years of training before he was sent to Europe, shortly after D-Day. I think my father was lucky; he didn’t end up in North Africa or the Pacific.
My father was drafted. He said he intended to volunteer, but the day he went to the recruitment center, there were some “rough looking characters” there, and he didn’t want to end up with them. So he waited for his draft notice.
He was 23 years old when he was drafted. He would turn 24 two months later in August. His division, the 104th Infantry Division, landed on the mainland of Europe in September, 1945. By May 8, 1945, VE Day, my father had been in the Army for nearly four years. After VE Day, he expected to be shipped back home, where he would then embark for the Pacific where he would participate in the invasion of the Japanese home islands. Fortunately, the Japanese surrendered on August 14, and signed the official surrender on September 2, exactly two years before my brother was born.
How wonderful that you have this document. I wish I had one like it for my dad. My father was drafted into the army and landed in Normandy D-Day +3. Wouldn’t it be wild if our fathers’ paths crossed in Europe somewhere? My father was a medic and was behind enemy lines in the Battle of the Bulge. I wish he were still here. As I’ve gotten older, I realize how many more questions I have for him. What a generation!
Robin — It would really have been wild if they had met each other. I also have questions for my father. I occasionally realize that there is no one alive today who can answer them.