Claire: This is Claire Krause of Lebanon, Connecticut, interviewing Clayton Lathrop of Lebanon at the Lebanon Historical Society Museum. We will be discussing Clayton's experiences in World War Two. With us today is his wife, Ellen Lathrop. Today is Friday, November 5th, 1999 at 3:00 PM.
Claire: Well, Clayton, could you tell us a little bit about your early life -- where you were born, when you were born, something about the home you lived in.
Clayton: I was born in Willimantic and my parents lived in Franklin at the time. I lived in Franklin until I was 6 years old then we moved to Lebanon. I went to school at the Lebanon Elementary School, which was a two room school. Downstairs they had grades one through 4 and 5 through 8 upstairs. And eventually it turned into a library when they built the new grammar school. From there I went to high school. I went to the old high school that was on the Green. Later it burned. One of my favorite things was playing baseball. I used to practice all the time even if I had to throw a ball on the roof and catch it coming back. Then I worked for the forestry department temporarily on lookout towers. A crew of us went around and refurbished all the signs with new paint, and all the windows and doors and everything - and that was an experience. Because I was the only one who volunteered to stand on a plank outside the tower with a person sitting on the plank inside. I'd paint the roof on the outside. And I look at that today [laughing] and I wonder why I'm still here. But we had a good crew. I think we had five men on the crew, a fellow by the name of Wilbur Stevens was the boss who sat on the inside part of the plank and puttied the windows while I was painting the roof on the outside. One of the other fellows who were in the crew was Jim Kahn and another one was John Carpenter, and another was Deke Manning. Needless to say we always had something interesting to do. And after that I was drafted in 1941. My number came up in the first draft.
Claire: Oh my, that was exciting.
Clayton: [laughing] Oh yeah. I had no idea what was going to happen. I got a notice to go to Colchester for a physical. Before that, when I was 18, I had a truck go over me and I fractured three vertebrae in my back. When I got over to Colchester [laughing] and I told them I had back surgery, which they wanted to know about. They said thats o.k. [laughing].
Claire: A-one [laughing]
Clayton: So I was A-one and they put us on a bus and we went to Norwich, picked up some more people and from there we went up to Camp Devons. We were up to Camp Devons for four days and we had all our shots. That was in January of '41 and it was very cold. In the mean time after you got your shots you usually had to take a hike somewhere.
Claire: That was the time between when you were drafted and the time you went to Fort Devons -- a long period in there?
Clayton: From the time I was drafted, well, I would say not over a month.
Claire: Was anyone else from Lebanon in that group with you?
Clayton: No, there was a Stanley Gladd from Colchester and another fellow from Norwich -- John Caulfield.
Claire: How did you feel about going into the service?
Claire: Did you hear a lot about the war in Europe?
Clayton: Oh yes. At that time I don't think anything bothered me. I hadn't thought about things or I would have been very worried, but I wasn't. At Devons we were there 4 days and then they put us on a train and we went all the way to New London. I couldn't figure out why we were stopping in New London. We got off the train there and they put us on a boat and we headed out into the Sound. We went to Plum Island which is where Fort Terry was located. I was there for almost a year while they were building barracks for us on Fort Michie..
Claire: You really weren't in the Navy though, you were in the Army.
Clayton: (laughing) It was the Army all right! They had old barracks from the First World War. We were put into a room upstairs that had 90 bunks in it. There were 90 of us on the top floor of the barracks altogether. It was the 242nd Coast Artillery and it was from Bridgeport and they were filling it up with draftees so it would be a whole battalion.
Claire: Is that like the coast guard or part of the army.
Clayton: It was the army -- what it was mainly for was to protect Long Island Sound.
Claire: I'm happy to hear that. I used to live in Long Island.
Clayton: [laughing] Eventually, we were put on this old World War I 16 inch disappearing carriage gun that was supposed to fire accurately at 21 miles but it would fire up to 24 miles. We didn't fire it right away, we had to take it and clean all the cosmoline out of it and everything else to get it in shape to fire. It took a good couple of months to get it in shape to fire.
Claire: How many guns were there? Just one?
Clayton: Our company was responsible for that gun but there were other guns on the island. There were a couple of 12 inch and some 6-inch barbettes, which are stationery Our disappearing carriage gun would go down into a pit. Then before we fired it we'd trip it and it would come up out of the pit and be ready to fire.
Claire: Do you think the enemy knew about these guns?
Clayton: Oh, I don't know, but we had 3 alerts where there were submarines in the area and they evidently got into the Sound somehow or other and we were up all night and had the gun ready to fire. It was loaded and all the other guns were ready to fire too. All the battalion was on alert. That was one time. Other times we got notices that there were submarines in the area but it didn't last that long.
Claire: Were they German subs?
Clayton: The one when we stayed up all night. They were pretty sure it was a German sub. The others we were not sure whether they were subs or what they were because the Major in charge never did say much.
Claire: Was this before Pearl Harbor that you were doing this or after Pearl Harbor.
Clayton: This was after Pearl Harbor that they were in the area.
Claire: Were you in the army before Pearl Harbor.
Clayton: Yes, I was in almost a year before I went in January '41. Pearl Harbor was '41.
Claire: It was '41 in December.
Clayton: December '41. In fact some of the fellahs that were drafted were getting out of the service at that time and a couple of them got their release and had their papers to go home and everything else, but they were waiting in New London for transportation home[laughing] and the military police picked them up and sent them back to the fort. They never did go home.
Claire: Could you describe Fort Michie for me a little bit.
Clayton: It was very restricted. It's very level. The island is only thirteen acres and was well fortified. There were ten temporary barracks, which housed the three companies. Most of the outfit was on Fort Terry so we were sent back and forth between Michie and Terry.
Claire: There were no residences or anything on the island?
Clayton: There were no residences at all on Fort Michie. On Fort Terry they had the officer's quarters and they had homes. There were probably six homes on Fort Terry. The US government owned them and they were the homes for the high-ranking officers.
Claire: Have you ever been back to Plum Island?
Clayton: I never went back to Plum Island. But then I went to visit Fishers Island. For a while it was Fort Wright and I've been back to Fishers. While we were there it was a quite rich person's island cause there were many beautiful homes there.
Claire: How long were you stationed on Plum Island?
Clayton: On Plum Island I would say off and on I was probably there 2 ½ years out of the 4 years. The rest of the time I was at Fort Michie.
Claire: Was it the same operation you had to do with the big gun.
Clayton: No. The big gun was on Fort Michie. It's a small island but there was a lot of firing power placed there. I would be out there, I would say, from November right through to April then they put me on detached service and I would be back to Terry playing baseball because the Captain in charge thought I was a good ball player. They wanted to do that for the troops. Give them something to cheer about [laughing].
Claire: Was it a morale builder?
Clayton: That's right it was a morale builder because I'm telling you all the servicemen would come to watch and boy did they yell and holler if you made an error. You would hear about it (laughs). It was good though, for everyone.
Claire: Once again, how many men were there at Michie? 90 or more than 90?
Clayton: On Fort Michie the most that were on there were about 600 -- 3 companies. On Fort Terry there was close to 4500.
Claire: Did your family know where you were?
Clayton: Oh yes. I used to go on weekend passes. Unless you fouled up, you wouldn't get a pass again. But if everything went good, you'd get a pass. But you didn't get any pass for the first 4 months. I got $21 a month, and you couldn't go off the island at all. You did your KP and everything else and you stayed right on the island. At the end of 4 months I was lucky enough to get the rank PFC Private First Class, and I held that for about a month and then became a corporal and I got all the way up to about $38 a month. [laughing]
Claire: What rank did you end up with?
Clayton: I ended up with a technician's rank and $125 a month. The service today pays a lot more than that.
Claire: I guess they do!
Claire: Were you an engineer? What did they call you?
Clayton: I had the rank of sergeant first class. As an artillery technician, I was in charge of maintaining the 16-inch gun.
Claire: We were talking a little bit about how you were playing baseball. Can you tell a little bit more about the game and the teams you played?
Clayton: Every Spring I would get transferred back to Fort Terry on special duty playing ball. We would play all the service teams, army, navy, air force that were around New England. Some of the time if we were near non-service teams, they might make arrangements for you to play them. In fact, Southbridge was one of the places we played four or five times a year because they had a stadium, a small stadium and they had a real good team. They were real baseball fans -- they loved it -- they loved our team. They came out with big crowds to watch us.
Claire: Who was watching? From Southbridge?
Clayton: Yes, mostly baseball fans.
Claire: Did your family ever come to watch?
Clayton: No. Then in 1942, I think it was, we won the Southern division of the New England Service Championship. We were to play the winner of the Northern division, Fort Devons, at Fenway Park. They had all big league ball players and they beat us 6 to 2 on a lucky hit. One of the pitchers for us was John Caulfield from Norwich. He was an excellent player. The only league ball player we had was a minor leaguer. His name was Tom Siok and he was a catcher. He helped all of us out a lot. He was a hitter. He was an excellent hitter. He would have made the big leagues for sure if he didn't have to be in the service for 4 or 5 years. When we finished the game at Fenway Park, the Philadelphia Athletics were playing the Red Sox. Connie Mack came into our dressing room and he congratulated us on what a good team we had and how much he enjoyed watching the game. He said he wished he could have 2 or 3 of our ball players playing on his team, because probably at that time his team lost a lot of ball players to the service, too.
Claire: We talked about basic training again.
Clayton: I left in 1944 and was transferred to Aberdeen, Maryland and went through 3 weeks of basic training again. I found out when they were practicing baseball on a Wednesday afternoon the day we finished our basic training. I went down the ball field and talked to this officer in charge and he let me go out and try out. He put me right on the team. Right on he thought that I was that good. [laughing]
Claire: Did the rest of your company go to Maryland?
Clayton: No, they didn't go to Maryland. They were transferred all over the place. There were very few that went down to Maryland because that was mostly ordinance on big guns. That's why I went down there. I did make the team and I played against (Bainbridge Naval Academy) They beat the Aberdeen team several times. The first time I played against them we lost, and the next time we won.
Claire: What position did you play?
Clayton: I played left field. Then if anybody remembers some of the big league ball players from the Bainbridge Naval Academy like Stan Spence, Thurmond Tucker, Eddie Mickas, let's see, Dick Sissler, Bill Conroy. Those fellows were all real big league ball players.
Claire: And how long did you stay in Maryland. Did you get shipped somewhere else?
Clayton: I was there for about, I don't know - maybe I was there for a year. I was supposed to be shipped overseas, but the war came to an end. Anyway, I was discharged from Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania.
Claire: Did you have more training with the guns?
Clayton: No, but I did a lot of training for personnel at Aberdeen. They had all types of new equipment coming down there. They had a lot of smaller arms, 90 millimeters, and 40 millimeters, which I was familiar with..
Claire: Can you describe the guns that you were using? Describe how you use it and was your job?
Clayton: I'll tell you about the 16-inch gun at Fort Michie. The barrel was 69 feet long and the projectile weighed 2400 pounds. The powder was 1100 pounds and what you would do is you would load it when it was in the pit and then it would be tripped and it would come out of the pit. You could traverse it 360 degrees in any direction and then when it was fired it would come back down into the pit to be loaded again. We fired 16 rounds out of it and last 4 rounds we fired, the gun barrel was coming down and it was weaving a little bit from side to side. It was not tracking right so shortly after that the gun was declared obsolete.
Claire: I see that you had pictures in a book. It was the crew of how many?
Clayton: I had four members who were with me. They were called an artillery crew and they would work with me. They all had to be rugged fellas because everything about that gun was very heavy, big strong men were needed. We fired, I think it was 1941, and there were probably oh maybe 300 dignitaries and generals who were there and officers of all kinds to watch that gun fire.
Claire: Was that one of the biggest guns we had?
Clayton: Yes, that was the biggest gun we had. When we fired, we were firing at a target being towed by a tug, and it had a 2000 yard line behind it. When we fired, they had spotters. One was on Gardeners Island, the other one was on Fishers Island. Theyd spot for the landing in the water and then they would make the corrections. The first 2 shots we don't know where they went, and the guys on the tug [laughs] they were ready to quit. [laughing]. So anyway the third shot was spotted, so they could make corrections, but it never did hit the target.
Claire: Never hit the target?
Clayton: No it never did hit the target but it came close. But, the kind of war they were having, they would have to do something better than that.
Claire: Do you think the gun is still on the island?
Clayton: It was up until about 10 years ago, and then they cut it up for scrap.
Claire: If there were 3 submarines, did you fire the gun at that time?
Clayton: No. We had it loaded and ready to fire.
Claire: Did they give some reason why they're not going to attack on this kind of a site?
Clayton: No, I don't know much about these things. All I knew was that there was a sub in Long Island Sound. It put us on alert all night long and it was always ready to fire.
Claire: How long did you stay in the service -- till the end of the war?
Clayton: I was in the service probably, let's see, when the Japanese surrendered 1945. I was in the service for 6 months after that. In fact, I was a month short for being in there for 5 years.
Claire: You were, what 25, 26 years old?
Clayton: When I got out, I was 25.
Claire: Anything else you want to share about World War II? I'm not asking questions that you don't want to tell us about.
Clayton: I can't think of anything right now.
Claire: Now you said you came home frequently?
Clayton: Yes, when I was on the island down there in Long Island Sound I came home on the average of every other week.
Claire: What were your friends doing in the war here in Lebanon?
Clayton: I didn't see too much of them. I guess most of them worked in Pratt & Whitney and places like that. In fact, I remember the only one I did see was Adolph Schweitzer. I'd see Adolph once in a while. But other than that, I don't remember seeing anybody. I never saw anybody, not once, from school.
Claire: Did you see any friends in the service?
Clayton: I stayed friendly with John Caulfield. We were friends in the service and afterwards. I'm still in touch with Stanley Ladd who lives in Florida. He still comes up to see us every year.
Claire: Did you have any reunions?
Clayton: We had one reunion.. John and his wife and Ellen and I went down to Bridgeport. This is where the 242nd home base was.
Claire: I see you had an enlisted man's pass. Did you always have to carry it with you when you were on leave?
Clayton: You had to carry that all the time. You couldn't leave it anywhere. If you didn't have it with you, the MPs would pick you right up. You used to have to put in for one of these 3 or 4 days ahead of time to get a pass. This one was made up for Thursday 11/18/43, 17:00 hours and you had to be back at 14:15 Friday 11/19. Just time enough for you to go home and come back again [laughing] in a hurry.
Claire: What did you look forward to when you were coming home?
Clayton: Usually I had a 3-day pass. I looked forward to borrowing my father's car, going out to the movies, or something like that.
Claire: When you got back to civilian life, how did you feel about the World War II period experience? Did you go back to the same job?
Clayton: No, I didn't. I went to raising pheasants and working for Brand Rex nights. I raised these pheasants for about 3 years, I think, and ended up being in debt so bad that I was either going to go bankrupt or I had to make arrangements to pay off everybody that I owed. It took me about 10 years to do that. The reason I got into debt so much was because the pheasants got a disease (encephalitis). The same thing as -- it's like cannibalism. They pick the feathers out of one another and they would get the blood and transfer it from one bird to the other. Started out with 2500 birds and I ended up with 1500. They had to be quarantined and by that time they were full-grown. I had to feed them an extra 30 or 40 days before I could sell them.
Claire: That was quite a change for you then?
Clayton: Oh yes.
Claire: From catching balls to raising birds.
Clayton: From there I started working full time for Lydall & Folds in Manchester, CT. Then I found out Brand Rex was starting to pay quite a bit more money so I went back to Brand Rex and I stayed with them for 35 years.
Claire: Did you see any war films that were showing when you came home. I can remember seeing a lot of war films in the 40s. How did they interpret the war?
Clayton: I think I stayed away from them. I don't think I bothered to watch them. When I was in the service, they showed clips of the fighting -- different things they showed were some mistakes made and how to try to correct it. That's about all I remember.
Claire: I don't remember seeing much about what was really going on in the war myself. That's why I thought maybe the servicemen saw it. I didn't realize it was that big a war until it was over. Do you think this generation today understands World War II?
Clayton: I doubt it. From what I understand, they wouldn't know the first thing about it. I don't know what they teach in school about it.
Claire: In 100 years from now, what will people think about it?
Clayton: I think the longer it goes, they'll start looking at it. But no, I don't think any of the kids today have any idea what it was like.
Claire: What effect do you think the service had on you as a person? Do you think it made you more patriotic? You were just 21.
Clayton: I knew that I was patriotic before I went into the service. I was a young crazy kid doing things that were fun, especially raising Cain. I think, any kid should go into the service after high school for one year. It would help to make a man out of him. I felt like I got some real good experience.
Claire: I'll give you something to think about. How would you like to be remembered?
Clayton: I never thought about that.
Claire: That's a Barbara Walters question.
Clayton: I never thought about that. [pause]. I'd like to be remembered as an honest person and somebody that enjoyed life. I can't think of anything else.
Claire: Did you ever add to this -- did you ever really pursue playing ball after the service?
Clayton: I played for the Ridges in Willimantic -- two or three years after the service.
Claire: Did Lebanon do anything for the service people at the end of the war -- have any celebration or recognition?
Clayton: I can't remember anything. All I remember is Vin Kelly started the Legion in town.
Claire: We talked about what Lebanon did during and after the war. I understand there's a memorial.
Clayton: Yes
Claire: Is your name on it?
Clayton: Yes. I haven't looked at it lately. A group of legionnaires bought what was called the "old greasy spoon" restaurant, and thats where the Legion Hall is today. We bought it for I think $1500. A few years after that we started working to put up a new building. There was Tommy Ward, Ed Bigenski, Fred Buckley, Joe Kurcinik, Albert Bartizek, and several others who worked on it quite a bit. In fact, 10 to 12 fellahs did all the work putting it up. Now we got a real nice building. So far it's been a good thing for Lebanon.
Claire: Do you still have meetings?
Clayton: Yes, we have meetings.
Claire: Is there anything else you'd like to see done for the veterans?
Clayton: I don't think so, except more government help should be given to those veterans who need it
(At this point the tape recorder shut off, and we stopped recording.)