Name: Harold E. Tately
Phone: 508 430 2674
Address: 12 Jasper Moore Trail
E. Harwich, MA 02645
email: htately@attbi.com
As I recall we were a 20 man team, consisting of teletype operators and cryptographic technicians, assigned to the Oise Base Message Center. In the code room (with the peep hole in the door) we operated the SIGABA crypt machine, and then later a newer version called the SIGCUM was added to our crypt room.
From time to time 5 man teams joined us for awhile but then they would go out to various assignments where needed. Their crypt. men had hand-operated, mechanical M-209 crypt. machines (about the size of a telephone answering machine of today) as they had to operate where there was no power.
A number of the cryptographic technicians were transferred into Company A shortly before we embarked for Europe. These men had been in the Minnesota National Guard and were called up and sent to Alaska a year or more before. They were reassigned, coming back to the west coast, across the country to Sea Girt, NJ and into our outfit and headed for Europe, all within 30 days. They added valuable experience to our outfit.
When the war in Europe ended, they were separated from us prior to our being sent to the Arles staging area because they had lots of points enabling them to return to the states as soon as transportation became available. As fate would have it we got home first and were discharged before they had even left Europe with the war ending as it did..
Officers: 2nd Lt. Wilfred D. Sampson 2nd Lt. Hussey Cryptographers: T/4 Truman Malchow, Minneapolis, MN *T/5 Charles Rebstock, Mankato MN (now 4813 Canyonbend Circle, Austin, TX 78735) T/5 Alfred Salisbury, Mankato, MN T/5 Robert M. Rehor, Leominster, MA (Killed in Korea) Received a commission as 2nd Lt. For a Labor Battalion in France after the German surrender, stayed in the Reserve becoming one of the first called back as a Lt. in the infantry and was one of the early casualties. T/5 Marbert Tunstall, MN (and his brother whose name escapes me.) T/4 Merle Urey, Grove City, PA *T/4 Harold E. Tately, 12 Jasper Moore Trail, E. Harwich, MA 02645 ph. 508 430-2674 Message Center: *T/5 Chester Lansing, 1042 Tomahawk Trail, Scotia, NY 12302 ph. 518-399-3110 T/5 Fred S. Austin, Jr. T/5 John Buckley T/4 Richard J. Buckley T/5 Harold Molyneaux, Fall River, MA T/5 Phillip Morganstein T/4 Edgar Mundy, West Roxbury, MA T/4 George Caffery, Mattapan, MA T/5 Harry B. Scott, Newton MA T/5 Abbott Widdecomb, Washington, DC Others in Co. A I knew but not on our team in the Oise Base Section: On a Five Man Team: S/Sgt. .Arthur Colgate, Milton, MA *T/4 Henry S. Stowers, 196 Columbia St., Weymouth, MA 02190 ph.781 335-7647 T/4 Raymond J. Ryan, Altoona, PA (deceased) T/5 John Kelly, West Roxbury, MA T/5 Joseph Foy T/4 Tom Connors, Randolph, MA S/Sgt. Laurence Coen, Waltham, MA T/5 Albert Crossen, Roslindale, MA T/4 Jack Davis, MS T/5 Clayton Farnsworth T/5 John Ferentine T/5 Charles P. Myers T/5 Stanley J. Wesolowski T/5 Alfred Reardon
I remember boarding the ship at Southampton and being mostly on deck for the trip over. As usual there were those GI’s that always had a game of poker going in the back corners of the deck. I recall going over the side and down the net into the landing craft for the trip to shore. It seems to me it was getting dark and as we went across the beach we kind of groped our way up an embankment alongside an abandoned German gun emplacement. You just followed the guy in front of you until you got to the spot where you were told to settle in. I don't recall whether we just laid out on the ground or whether we put up the shelter halves. I do remember in the middle of the night we were shaken up by an antiaircraft gun going off right next to us that we didn't know was there. We thought we were under attack. There was the story that one Lt. leaped into what he thought was a foxhole but instead was a latrine but I am not sure if that was ever confirmed or the Lt. identified.
I was part of a message center team that first went to the apple orchard and then went by truck to LeMans. On the way we went by St. Lo and passed a field that was full of neatly lined up bodies covered with sheets. There was definitely the strong smell of the dead bodies. In Le Mans we were billeted in an old fort-like building with a large drill field. Not sure how long we were there but we next went to Paris, arriving at night, and as we went through the city we could hear the sounds of gunfire which we took to be some of the FFI settling old scores with collaborators. We stayed for the night in some hotel taken over by the army, possibly the hotel Commodore as I have a picture of some standing in front of it.
From there we went to Rheims and set up the Oise Base Signal Center in a former telephone company building downtown in Rheims. As best as I can figure it was in late August or early September but I am not sure about that. We were billeted in the outer part of town in a chateau across the street from the Pomeroy Champagne Works. There were two Chateaux, the larger one had the headquarters, mess hall and officer quarters, and the smaller one was for the enlisted men. The property was all part of the Pomeroy estate and the chateaux were where they put up and entertained buyers that came for the champagne before the war. Also on the grounds was a huge concrete bunker with many rooms that had housed a communications center for the Germans. Actually there was a tunnel that went under the road and into the caves of the champagne works on the other side of the road. It was boarded up after they found some of the GI s were using it to get champagne that was being aged in the caves.
As I recall, at the time of the Battle of the Bulge some members of the team outside in the message center were shipped out to join other units as they were looking for as many troops as they could to send up to the Bulge. I do not remember who they were. We were told that cryptographers, because of their involvement with classified materials, codes, etc., were considered ineligible for being assigned to units subject to capture by the Germans.
SHAEF also came to town and set up over at the red school house on the other side of town. It was there that Ike and his staff worked out the unconditional surrender from the Germans.
As I told you in my previous email, I was on duty May 6, 1945 on the 11:00 pm to 7:00 am shift in the code room when a CONFIDENTIAL message came in from SHAEF. When I broke the message dated May 7, 0141 hours I found it was announcing the unconditional surrender of the German High Command and that all offensive operations were to cease active operations on May 9, 0001 hours, 2 days later, with no release to the press. Other than the code room GI that sent the message and others that received it, I was amongst the first to know of the war being over. *
On VE Day there was a lot of celebrating in Rheims, GI’s living it up and walking around with bottles of champagne. No wild rejoicing by the residents that I recall. Actually the people of Rheims were rather subdued through the whole time we were there. They did not have it too bad under the Germans and in the beginning did not seem to welcome us with open arms. Nothing in Rheims was destroyed by the Germans or us and we figured the local French residents with money kept the German hierarchy happy.
In May 1945 I was the lucky lottery winner of 14 days of R & R in Nice, on the Riviera. After a week or so there I was notified I had to get back to Rheims as we were going to be redeployed to the Pacific.
I too was on that train in one of the 40 & 8 cars that left Paris for the Arles staging area in the Desert of Arles on the Mediterranean. I remember at one rail yard on the trip down we were stopped in an Army supply depot and a number of the GI s jumped out and helped themselves to cases of canned fruit that they brought back to the train and shared to supplement the C rations. One guard kept running back and forth but couldn't handle so many hungry GI's.
While at the Arles staging area we were given time off during the day when truck loads were taken to what they called Cramer Beach, named after the US Army General Cramer in charge of that sector of France. The Red Cross girls were there giving out donuts from the back of their truck The big deal was their bending over from the truck with the donuts, showing off a lot of cleavage. At least that is what we all talked about.
While on a detail setting up more tents out in the desert for troops coming in I found an old rusted gun, couldn't even see into the barrel and it could have been a toy. I laid it out on my bed at inspection time and was turned in for having a firearm that I had not declared. Capt. Horn gave me one day out on the ball field picking up rocks, along with other GI’ s who were serving sentences for selling Army blankets, etc to the black market. I tried my best to explain but it was the Army way.
We were on pass into Marseilles for the evening when it was announced that we had dropped the first atom bomb on Japan. I remember everyone was cheering and excited as we reloaded into the trucks to go back to the staging area.
It is my recollection that the announcement that we were going to Boston instead of Manila was made as we were passing by the Rock of Gibraltar on the S. S. Gibbins. Being from Boston it was an even greater thrill of course, like who could ask for anything more. On the trip home we ate very well, eating fresh fruit, and had oranges in a basket where you could just help yourself. We were able to eat well because the fresher stuff was intended to be spread out over the 44 day trip to Manila. I remember the milk tasting great and it was really just powdered milk and water but mixed in a machine that was refrigerated making it seem like it just came from the dairy.
When we arrived in Boston we were greeted by the fireboat shooting up colored water. The Boston Globe newspaper singled out the Bostonians for a photo shot and I was fortunate enough to be in it. As fate would have it they left my name out of the identifying list but on the following morning my folks opened their paper and they knew it was me and I was not on my way to the Pacific as I had told them. We went to the US Army Miles Standish Camp in Taunton and the next day to Fort Devens where they issued 30 day R & R leaves, followed up later with a telegram giving us an additional 15 days. After reporting back to Fort Devens in October we went by train to Camp Crowder, MO to wait out the lowering of the point count to get discharged.
When at Camp Crowder as overseas veterans I am afraid at first we felt and acted pretty cocky compared to all of the recruits there. However, the memorable moments were when local folks came to the camp and invited us to their homes, to the opera and out to dinner in Kansas City. Wonder if they really realized how much it meant to us.
Also, on the first Saturday we were there, the Camp had a parade review with a lot of local people in the stands. We were standing around waiting our turn to march, thinking this was so much chicken sh-- and who needed it. When it came our turn to march out onto the field we were surprised to get a standing ovation as we passed the reviewing stand. That made us feel proud and we all had goose bumps down the back and we marched proudly and professionally. It was very emotional and even as I write this it all comes back to me, even the goose bumps.
I was discharged on December 8, 1945.
I enlisted in the US Army Signal Corps Reserve in January 1943, in Boston, in a program training men to become radio repairmen. T/4 Henry Stowers was in my class there, was called to active duty with me June 18, 1943, went through basic with me, was in the 3104th in Rheims and was discharged with me on December 8, 1945. We have been friends ever since and still see one another on occasion.
Have also kept in touch with Charles Rebstock, now living in Austin, TX. I asked him to send on to you his photo of Company A as I have temporarily misplaced mine, and I am pleased to see that he did..
I went to Boston University on the GI Bill graduating in 1949, and later got an MBA from Xavier University in Cincinnati, OH. I married my wife Dorsi in 1950, and have four great sons, Chuck in LA, Steve in Phoenix, Dave here on the Cape and Peter in Holden, MA. We also have only one daughter in law at this time and she is really nice, as are our three super granddaughters.
After BU I worked for RCA, and Mass. Bonding Insurance Co before going to work for the General Electric Co. in Cincinnati, OH. in 1952. Later transfers with GE brought me to Pittsfield, MA, Schenectady, NY, and Utica, NY. The majority of the time I worked in marketing and business planning, including becoming VP of Marketing for a GE spin-off venture business for 8 years. I retired from GE in 1986, and had some fun selling real estate for 8 years before moving from Schenectady, NY to Cape Cod for a real retirement. I am active in Rotary, golf, tennis, gardening, clamming, investment club, computer and just enjoying life being on Cape Cod.
Hal Tately 11/06/02