Oral Historian: Andrew Collins

Interview Date: 14 June 2007

Interviewer: Steven Knepper

Attending: Andrew's wife, Etta Collins

Mr. Collins, what is your birth date?

November 6, 1922

And Mr. Collins, what branch of the service were you in?

36th Infantry Division

What was your rank?

PFC

What areas did you serve in during the War?

Well, let's see.  I was in Texas for a while, and then I took my basic training in Ft. McCullough, Alabama.  Then I served in Italy in what they called "Purple Heart Valley."  Two thousand GIs got killed in that valley, and that's the reason they called it 'Purple Heart Valley.' After I left there, I went to France and served in France until I went up to cross the Rhine River, and that's where I got wounded.

Mr. Collins, were you drafted or did you enlist?

I was drafted.

And where were you living at the time you were drafted?

About two miles down the road that way.

What were you doing at that time?

I was a trucker and I had a truck.  I was hauling staves for my uncle and my daddy.  They don't have such things today -- these staves.  They made what's called 'slack barrel staves' and made barrels out of them.  They shipped produce since as meats and chicken and all that kind of stuff in the barrels in ice and shipped it overseas for the war and the veterans.

And your father was involved with making the staves?

Yes.  My dad had a mill, and he cut some staves.  And my uncle had a mill also.  My cousin, right across the road there, had a mill later on.

So you would take the staves and deliver them. Where did you usually haul them to?

We'd haul them to Trenton, NJ, and Baltimore, MD, and Staunton, VA and Elizabethtown, NC.  I would deliver them all by truck to those areas.

What did you like and dislike about that job?

Oh, I liked the trucking end of it - very much so.  I did some trucking after I came back here after the service, but not too much.  I went into some different businesses after that trying to find out what I was suited for.  And then I don't think I was suited for anything. (Mr. Collins laughs)

Growing up before you went to war, did you go to school in Scottsville?

No, I went to Fluvanna.  I lived in Fluvanna all of my life.

When you were first drafted, were you surprised or how did you feel about that - what were your thoughts?

No, not really surprised because everybody around me was getting drafted.  And I was just waiting for my time because I knew it was coming.  I just kept on doing what I was doing until my day came up.  I can't remember - I think it was June the second …but I can't remember for sure … in 1942.

Before you were drafted, were you following news from the warfront pretty regularly?

Yeah, you're darned right!  Everybody kept the radio turned on to the news stations all the time. The war was pretty rough back in those days.

Etta Collins: "I just found something else -- you enlisted on June 2, 1944. This is his discharge.

Your enlistment was June 2nd, 1944, and the discharge was November 24th, 1945.

It wasn't long, but long enough to get me banged up.

So tell me about how you would follow the war back here before you went overseas - what was the attitude of the people living here on the home front.

Everybody was ready to go - even the older people were ready to go!  They were fired up.  There wasn't any of this stuff that is going on today.  Crazy stuff like we have now - protesting and all of that kind of junk.  You didn't see any of that stuff then.  Everyone was in favor of the war, and they were in favor of fighting to the end.  They were going to win that war!  No, there wasn't any problem of getting anybody.  Of course, I didn't volunteer - I was drafted.

Can you remember how the war changed your family's daily life? Did you keep Victory Gardens or what was rationing like?

Yeah, we had a Victory Garden.  Of course, that didn't really mean anything to us because we had a Victory Garden before.  We always had gardens.  Her mom and dad had one also.  Everybody had gardens.

Etta Collins:  We all had gardens back them to raise food.  But as far as rationing goes, the gas was rationed, the sugar was rationed…and coffee.

Did you ever have trouble getting tires for your truck?

We got a gallon and a half of gas a week to use on the truck.

Etta Collins: That didn't get you very far!

I know it!  I mean we had a lot of fun along with the hardships that we had in those days.  The only thing that worried us more back home was our loved ones that were in service.  Sometimes you wouldn't hear from them for a regular while. They wouldn't get a chance to write.  They'd be moving up and down the lines, and they wouldn't be writing as frequently.  And we didn't have any television.

Etta Collins:  We just had the radio.  I think it was just at night time then...like at 8 o'clock at night the news would come on and everybody around to listen to try to find out what was going on with the boys that had already gone ahead.

News came on at 6 and 12 - 12 o'clock in the day and 6 o'clock at night.  Gabriel Heater was the news reporter.

When you were drafted, where did you first have to report?

The morning I left home, I went to Palmyra.  And I got on the bus at Palmyra, and the bus stopped over at Dickson and picked up two or three and then to Fork Union and picked up two or three.  Then we went on to Richmond, and we were all sworn down in at Richmond.  Then we got on a train in Richmond and went to Fort Lee, Virginia, and we stayed two or three days at Fort Lee, VA.  Then we went to Anniston, Alabama, for my basic training - 17 weeks.  We had a lot of fun during our basic.  It was rough, it was hard…but I was tough in those days because I was used to working.  I wasn't like those soft boys from the city that were down there - doing all that lifting and doing pushups and all of that stuff.  I didn't pay any attention to it - I laughed at them because I could do 50 pushups like nothing.  But they couldn't, and it tickled me to see them so soft.  But they got into shape.  In 17 weeks we were ready to go, and then we came back to Little Creek down at Camp Patrick Henry.  We stayed there about two weeks and then loaded onto a ship and went to Naples, Italy.  That's where we unloaded.  I will never forget that - it was Christmas when we got over there.  They had the camp all decorated and were playing Bing Crosby, singing 'White Christmas.'  That was kind of lonely, too.  We had to walk guard every two hours and change guard.

It was a lot of fun along with the hardships.  I mean it wasn't all terrible bad - it was pretty good at times.  They provided right much entertainment for us.  I didn't get to see any of the big shows…I didn't a chance to see Bob Hope or anybody like that.  They were always in a different area than what I was in, and I didn't get to see them.  But they always had local talent ---girls were always put on shows.  It was pretty good.  We enjoyed most any kind of show in those days.

If I could go back to your boot camp for just a second, do you remember your instructors and what they were like?

Do I remember them?   Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember them.  Oh, they were just as good to you as they could be.  I never had a minute of trouble during the whole time I was in there.  I pulled a lot of KP - kitchen police.  But I didn't mind that.  We'd have to get up in the morning before 4 o'clock to go report to the kitchen.  And then you'd work in there all day until after you'd cleaned up all the pots and pans to get them clean and ready for the next day.  But no, this mess sergeant and all were just as nice as they could be.  They weren't hard on you.  I imagine they could have been, if you asked for it, but I didn't ask for it.

You said you had a pretty good time in basic training. Do you remember anything particularly humorous or funny that happened?

(Laughter…) Well, one thing that there was a guy by the name of Baker right in front of me.  And he weighed about…I guess he weighed close to 300 lbs.  Tall fellow, and he couldn't do anything.  We climbed one of those...I can't think what they called it…the course we were taking that day.  Anyway we had to climb up…all the way up.  Your feet were off the ground, your weight was off the ground, and there you would hang by your arms.  And he couldn't hang by his arms, and we'd laugh at him for that.  And I'd walk around the end of the scaffold, and I was laughing.  I said, "What's the matter, Baker, can't you make it?"  And I hadn't seen him, but the first Sergeant was standing there.  And he said, "How'd you like to go through there?"  I said, "Well, it'd be all right."  And he said, "How about giving me 25 pushups?"  So I jumped down there on the ground and gave him 25 pushups right quick.  And he said, "You did that so easy, how about giving me 25 more?"  It was all fun!  It wasn't that hard - it was humorous!

So when you first went overseas, you were in Italy, and it was around Christmas time.  Just tell me about your first days in Italy - I'm guessing it was your first time overseas.  Tell me what your thoughts were like - what did you think of all this?

Well, I didn't really have too much difference in thoughts.  Every day was something different, and we knew that when the day got started.  You got your orders in the morning as to what you would be doing that day.  We tried to carry them out and that's just about it.  It was just routine.  One thing I do remember.  We were all on bivouac early in this area … camping.  So we got word that the Germans were coming, and so we got all prepared for them.  That night along about 3 o'clock in the morning, the flares started shooting up in the air, and we opened fire.  Man, we just let them have everything we had!  And the next morning, we went down there looking, and one old cow was dead.   We killed somebody's cow that strolled in there and got shot.  Well, that was kind of humorous we thought.  We got a lot of fun out of that: didn't get the army, but we got the cow.

Did you have a specific job or assignment in your unit?

Yes, you had an assignment every day.  You were either on patrol in an area or else you were on guard.  If you had some Germans in capture that you were holding, you had to watch after them.  He would always tell you that you had 'X' number of convicts (prisoners-of-war) ….either 24 or 25 or maybe 30.  He said that if you don't have that many when we check you out tonight, you're going to have to replace them.  So he'd tell us that every time to let us know that if we let one of them get loose, we'd have to take their place.

Did you see much combat?

No, I really didn't see too much because you see I got wounded about the time things got hot.  You see, I'd just finished my basic training and then went up on the front line, and I worked at what they called a 'collecting point', where they collected the bodies.  I helped to sort the bodies and to take the belongings off the bodies…take the wallets and the letters or anything they had on them and put them in the helmet and set them aside.  That's what they collected and carried them back.  That's where they got the report of who died and who got killed and so forth …by those helmets.  We had to do that - I did that for about two-three weeks and, man, it was cold then in France.  The snow was on the ground close to two feet deep----man, it was rough!

It was just beginning to have a spring thaw when I got wounded and shipped back to the States.  But before I got shipped back to the States, I went to Wales and took some therapy there.  I was in traction.  They had a pin through my knee and a pin through my hip.  And they had this left femur pulled apart and that was healing.  I think I stayed there for six weeks, and then I was shipped back to New York on a hospital boat.  From there, they shipped me down to North Carolina and put me back in traction, and I stayed in traction for another six weeks.  Then I started walking on crutches, and I stayed there until I was discharged on December 5, 1945.  That was the end of my career.  I kind of liked it in a way, I wouldn't take a million dollars for it, but I wouldn't give ten cents for another round.

Would you mind telling me about when you got wounded?

No, I'd be glad to talk about it.  The day that I got wounded was called 'H hour'….D-Day, H hour.  They put an all-out effort to cross the Rhine River.  They put 4-5 divisions up front to cross the Rhine River, and I hadn't been out there, I don't guess, over 45 or 50 minutes before I got it.  But it came in the form of a tree burst - there was a great big old tree standing there.  I was the number one scout.  We had 22 scouts in the platoon, and I was leading the platoon up the hill, and we got pinned down by the Germans.  They use a red bullet - they shoot that thing so you can see it.  We got pinned down, and every time we tried to move, they fired on us and kept us pinned down.  And they called in the heavy artillery.  The first shell fell over in front of us.  BOOM!  And then they waited awhile…oh, approximately ten to fifteen minutes.  Then the next one they zeroed in, and it was behind us.  And we knew where the third one was going to be -- we just knew to get ready because the third one was going to be right in the middle. And it hit that tree top - it blew that old tree top all to pieces.  There were 22 of us in that platoon, and only four of us came out of it alive.  Yeah ...18 got killed.

That shows that what took place there, the Lord had a hand in it because it just got all foggy.  You couldn't hardly see your hand in front of you.  And it was as clear as this before that, but it just got foggy as it could be.  I was just laying there, and I could see my foot up on my back---I couldn't move it.  My leg was shot in two.  I just laid there…I knew I was gone.  I knew that was the end of me.  In a little while I heard this noise, and a little jeep came right up to us.  It had two medics on it with two white helmets that had a red cross painted on each helmet.  They grabbed me by the wrist like this and said, "This one goes!"  They grabbed me and put me across the hood.  There was one German on the hood, and he was moaning and complaining.  But it didn't do any good - he got it the same as we did.

This old boy told me, "Joe, you lucky boy, you're going home!"  And I said, "I don't know if I'm so lucky or not."  And he said, "Yes, you are, too.  You're all right!"  He put a tourniquet on my leg to keep me from bleeding to death.  Then he took off.  There were 3 patients on the jeep, two on the front and one behind.  And two medics.  And man, he would go down through that mush and every once in awhile, he would dodge a pothole where they were blowing up.  He carried me back to the medical station, and they worked on me there.  Then they carried me by ambulance to Paris, France, and put me on a plane in Paris.  They flew me from Paris over to Southampton, England, and that is where I took my first medical treatments.  I stayed there about 6 weeks, I guess, and after that they put a cast on me and put me on a little hospital boat.  We came back to New York, and from New York they put me on a troop train that came on down through Charlottesville to North Carolina, and that was where I was discharged.  That was the end of my career.

Were you awarded any medals or citations for your service?

Yes, I had a Purple Heart … I had a bunch of them and I gave them to my son - he wanted them.  He made a beautiful chest for them - Expert Rifleman, Good Conduct Medal, Purple Heart, Valor.  And this is the letter I got from the Virginia War Memorial that I got this morning.  I'm not a VFW commander anymore - Lewis Farrish is now. I've got to take it up to and let him see what they want.

I had a cousin by marriage - he was a lawyer and he ended up being a judge: Judge Marvin Coles of the Supreme Court.  Virginia Supreme Court, wasn't it?

Etta Collins: The district court.

Anyway, he was a judge, and he tried to get me to go down there and be interviewed in Richmond.  And I never did do it.  (Transcriber's Note: for the Library of Congress Veterans Oral History project)

I am going to ask you a couple of questions about your daily life in the service.  How did you stay in touch with your family?

By letter, we'd just write.  We didn't do that too often, did we?  How often did I write you?

Etta Collins: I didn't meet him until after he was in the service.  I was just a kid, and competing with my sister.

And took advantage of her… (laughter)

Tell me about how you two met --- that's probably a pretty good story.

How we met?  Well, I walked on down the street and she was coming the other direction.  We met at the corner at Bruce's Drugstore.

Etta Collins:  It had a soda fountain in those days in what is a real estate place now.

It would be worth a fortune today if they'd kept that place like it was.  Man, that soda fountain and everything - hmmmmmmm...

So when did you meet the first time?

Ten day furlough --- 'delay in group' was what they called it…

Etta Collins:  After they finished basic training, they let them come home for awhile before they sent them overseas.  So after he went back, we wrote all the time.  See it is so strange.  I never went to see him.  He stayed in North Carolina all that time, and his brother-in-laws and a bunch of the men went down to visit him.  It's so strange to think about it him just being in North Carolina all that time, and we never got to see him.  Now if he was in England today, we'd fly back and forth to see him or anywhere.  But back in those days, you just didn't do those things.  When he got well enough to walk on a crutch or cane that he came home on the train, and then I actually got to see him from the time he went overseas until he got back.

I got off the train in Scottsville, and Lillian got on the train.

Etta Collins:  That's my sister and our cousin that went to Richmond.  This was in front of where he was in North Carolina.  Even at this age, I'd pay no more attention to getting in the car and going to North Carolina than anything in the world.  But back in those days, you just didn't do those kind of things.

Oh, I'll bet you looked forward to those letters when they came!

Etta Collins:  Yes, he would write a nice letter.  I guess we wrote back and forth because when my sister died...our middle sister...back in 2000, she was one that he wrote to all of the time.

I don't know how I got hooked up with Leona on writing those letters.

Etta Collins: Because Lucille and Leona were good friends, and he wrote to them. And they were the two up on the corner when Arlene and I ended up with them that night.  (Laughter)  That is so funny…  What I was going to say about my sister, back then you walked to the mailbox every day.  And it wasn't just like from here to the street, it was like half a mile, I guess, that we'd walk up to the road for the mail.  Mail then didn't come down every little road like it does now.  You went up to the highway road to get your mail.  I remember when the children found Leona's diary after she died, she would say, "Went to the post office today, and I got a letter from Andrew!"  They got the biggest kick out of that.  Her grown children, when she died, saying that she got a letter that day from Andrew back in the forties.

Yes, she was a lot of company...a lot of company.

Etta Collins: Let's see, you came home in the spring, and was that the same fall when we got married?  When did you come home?

I came home December 5th, 1945. I was discharged.

Etta Collins: Well, we weren't married until October 1947.

Right, it was the next fall.

Etta Collins:  This year, if we both live until October, we'll have been married 60 years.

How in the world did I put up with you?

Etta Collins:  Well, I'm saying the same thing.  (Laughter).  I want to find that letter, and I don't know where it is.   He's got pages...14 or 15 that he wrote...after our oldest daughter interviewed him one time on a little tape.  Dad, do you still have that, or what did you do with it?  Bruce has been out of college three years now, and this was when he was in the fifth grade.

She's got it - she's not done anything with it.  Drew, my oldest grandson is working at Auburn, Alabama.

Etta Collins:  But he was at Mississippi State.

And he's in sports - he's got a real job.  He's got a good job!  And I wrote him 15 pages.  Anyway he took that, and he kind of worked it over a little bit to suit himself and turned it in as a report in 5th grade history.  Anyway he got an 'A' on it.  They told him to keep it because it would be worth something to him one day.  And so far as I know, Drew's still got it!

I've got a few more questions here about the daily life in the Army and then we'll start to wrap it up.  What was the food like?

Food? So far as I was concerned, the food was delicious.  I tell you, they went overboard to serve us a square meal... EVERY DAY...three meals a day.  I have no complaint at all of my service...of the treatment I got or anything.  And I don't have any complaint of the service I've gotten at the VA down in Richmond.  I've been going down to Richmond since 1947, and they've been taking care of my medical needs down there.  So as far as I'm concerned, they're doing an excellent job.  Some report got smart and got a hold of the VA down here in Richmond and made them spend a whole lot of money that wasn't necessary... had to paint the place all up again.  But they didn't get far in Richmond because there wasn't much to it.

Did you always have plenty of supplies?

Oh, yeah. We always had plenty.  Now as far as the equipment and so forth, I couldn't tell you because I wasn't in that end of the deal.  I don't know anything about that.  But we went on marches, and we'd ride back on the trucks when we'd get out about 25 miles.  We'd always come back on the trucks, and the equipment was always ready to go as far as I was concerned.  We never had any problems with it.  They complain today about the equipment...that we're putting our boys out there without anything to fight with and all that kind of junk. Well, I don't believe it!

Etta Collins:  It's such a different world now than what it was in those days.  They didn't leave home having had everything at their fingertips, and I think that made a difference.  You know, we all grew up poor.  You didn't know what
was out there.  Now they all expect to have the top line of everything which is fine.  They should have it.  They are just so far advanced now in what they expect or could expect than what they knew and was there for them in the olden days, I guess.

The thing that I see about the difference between the wars - you don't know who your enemy is.  That's the problem today - you're fighting a man out there who you might think is your enemy and he turns around and might be your best friend.  But then another one might turn out to be your worst enemy.  So how are you going to fight something like that?

What about your weapons - you said that you got the rifleman award. Were you pleased with your weapon?

M1…I had a M1 rifle. I had a picture of it … yeah, that's the M1.  We were just showing off a bit for that photographer.  I don't know where this picture was taken at...I don't remember.

No, I didn't bring anything home.  No I didn't believe in that too much.  A lot of the boys brought home all kinds of souvenirs, but I didn't bring anything home because they'd always say, "Now if you get caught with that going home, you know what that means."  That's what they'd tell us.  And I didn't want to get caught.  I didn't own a pistol or a gun as a souvenir.  So I didn't mess with it.

Now you talked a little bit about the USO shows before.  How else did you entertain yourselves when you had free time?

Well, during basic, we had something going just about every night on the base as far as entertainment.  We had boxing or bingo or some form of entertainment just about every night.  Whether we went and participated, it was up to us.  Some of us would rather stay in the barracks and read then to go.  So it wasn't forced on you to do either one…you could do which ever one you wanted to do.  We had a big party down at a State teachers' college and invited all the girls from the college over that night.  We had a real time over there.  Met a lot of new girls that night!

But as a rule, it wasn't bad in the service.  We had a lot of good times along with a lot of hard times.  It all balanced out pretty evenly, I guess. I don't guess it was so bad.

Do you recall anything particularly humorous or an particularly good times that you had while you were overseas?

No, we didn't have too much overseas.  We were too busy moving in the front and behind.

What did you think of the officers and your fellow soldiers?

Well, I didn't have any problems with any of them.  As far as any of them trying...a lot of people thought maybe they acted biggety...like a smart actor.  But I never found that to be the case.  I never had any problem with them...I'd always salute them when the need called for it.  I got along alright with them.

Did you make a lot of close friends?

I had a few --- not so many.  I had one old boy who came back to see me after we got out of the service.  I can't think of his name now.  And I had a book of the 36th Infantry Division, but I don't know what became of that now.

After you got your discharge in North Carolina, what did you do in the days and weeks after that?

Well, some days you'd sit on the bed and play checkers with your buddy who was in the bed next to you.  And then we'd walk on the grounds after we got so we could maneuver a little bit around on crutches.  We'd walk on the grounds and sit down - it was in the summertime and early spring.  Of course, all of the food that came out of the mess hall, we ate.  I don't recall very many boxes being shipped to us.  Back in those days, they didn't believe --- they'd write you a letter, but I don't recall any boxes being sent to us.  Like homemade candy and stuff like that.

What did you do for a career after the war?

Career?  Well, I was more or less a salesman of one type or another.  Either I sold automobiles, farm equipment, insurance, or...that's about it.  The worst experience that I ever had was that I messed with a service station in Scottsville and got flooded out 5 times in 20 years.  No insurance - couldn't get insurance.  And that fixed us...it almost bankrupt us.  It didn't, but it almost did.  But that was a poor experience.  I reckon that one of the best experiences that I had was working with the Farm Bureau as an insurance salesman.  I used to win - it wasn't nothing for me to win a trip.  Etta and I would go down to North Carolina for a week.  I'd play golf and play around down there and man --- have all kinds of fun.  Then I just decided to go into the car business in Scottsville, and at that time the town would get washed out every year or two.

Etta Collins:  Those hundred year floods we had them three in a row.  1969, 1970, and 1972.

But I worked for John Deer farm equipment as a salesman and sold farm equipment and feed, seed, and fertilizer for a long time.  Then I sold Fords for eight years for Gordon Dorrier...new cars.  Then the last twenty years, I was in business for myself.  I sold used cars and ran service stations.  That was the worst thing I ever got involved in.  That finished me up.

You said you were a commander in the VFW here for awhile.

Were you pretty active with it?

Yeah...yeah. I don't think I missed a meeting.  I talked a fine young man into taking it…a fine young man: David Wallace.  He was the commander.  He just got back from Iraq not too long ago.  He just got back when we lost our son, didn't he?  He came down to see us.  But now for some reason, David hasn't been to a VFW meeting in, I guess, a year.

Did you attend any reunions for your unit?

No, because they always had them in places so far off.  I could have gone, I guess.  They had them in Texas most of the time --- the 36th Infantry Division was the Texas National Guard.  They always had the meetings somewhere in Texas, and I never did attend.

How did your service and experiences in the war affect your life afterwards?

Well, I really think it improved my life a whole lot.

Etta Collins:  Except health wise.  You've never been able to walk well.

No, because they put the bone back out of alignment or so the doctor told me.  They put it back out of alignment, and we should have rebroken the bone and reset it and put it back straight.  But it wasn't my fault that it didn't do that, and it's made it mighty painful for me, if that was the cause of it.  And that's what Major Johnson told me, and he was the doctor who worked on me.

Is there anything you'd like to add to the interview before we end...anything else you remember that we haven't talked about?

No, I believe that's about it.

Well, since I have you both here, I'd like to ask you a couple of questions, Mrs. Collins, and then a couple that both of you can answer.  Did you grow up in Scottsville?

Etta Collins: Yes, within a ten mile radius.

What was your family doing at the time of the war - what did your dad do for a living?

Etta Collins:  My daddy worked there in timber, and my father was in WWII, too.  So he was gone.  He stayed longer than my husband.  Of course, we were all in school.  It was just like I was telling someone the other day: we were poor, but we didn't know we were poor because no one around had anymore than we did.

What do you remember about growing up during the war - what sticks out?

Etta Collins:  I remember whenever we went into Charlottesville, which wasn't that often, but nearly every time we did there would be a train around that would have the boys coming down the street.

I'll ask you one more question, Mr. Collins.  How do you think Scottsville changed from before the war until you got back.  Did the war change Scottsville in many ways?

Not really.  I don't think so.  It was the same little old town that we left - quiet and sleepy.  I don't think it really changed that much.  We loved it, and it was home sweet home to us and will always be.