The Cement Plant
Thomaston, Maine is rich in maritime history, being the home port for many ship captains and the launching place for many wooden sailing vessels of the 19th century. It was also the retirement home of Major General Henry Knox, Secretary of War under George Washington, and a land baron after the Revolution.
10 High Street
To this day, stately federalist architecture from as far back as the 1700’s lines Main Street and the Mall. In particular, many homes had the fan window over the main door with two narrow sidelights, on the long side of a rectangular two story building with a hip roof. Add to that two windows on either side of the front door and five windows on the front side of the second floor, each framed with black or green shutters contrasting to the white clapboard siding and you have the typical ship captains home in Thomaston. When Al and Sybel Mills first bought one of these federalist homes at 10 High St. in Thomaston, the town’s main thoroughfare was lined with stately elms, great tall trees that arched all the way across the street, creating a cathedral of green. In the 1970’s those elms succumbed to Dutch elm disease and fell or were cut down and replaced with shorter maples.
The house at 10 High St. had a wing off the north side that was large enough to be a second home, so Al and his brother Doug collaborated on the purchase of the house. But they soon discovered that perhaps living and raising babies in the same house was a little too close for family comfort, so Al bought out Doug’s share and Doug bought a house a quarter mile away, a small cape near the beginning of Old County Road where he and his wife Margie raised Peggy and Dougy. 10 High Street was two doors down from Montpelier, the replica of the Knox Mansion, and had deeds that dated back to a grant from King George of England. During renovations in the 1950’s we dug into the walls and found pennies and other memorabilia such as newspaper that dated from the time of the American Revolution Dad saved those pennies for years, but, as with many things, they got lost somewhere along the way.
10 High Street was on the brink of a small valley that dropped down to the Mill River, or as it was called by locals, “the Crick.” From the crick, main street went up the steep Crick Hill toward town. 10 High Street looked across The Crick toward other similar federalist style homes on the other side, as well as other more recent construction interspersed.
If you travel eastward from the center of town, down Main Street toward the crick, at the top of Crick Hill you see Montpelier straight ahead. To the left is a giant cape that was owned by Mrs. Moody, and to the left, somewhat down the hill, was 10 High Street.
The Cement Plant
But Montpelier and the grandeur of High Street is no longer framed by trees and sky. Instead, considerably less picturesque, and dominating the skyline with smoke stacks and storage elevators is the Dragon Cement Plant, Thomaston’s gray behemouth and testimony to the unbridled development of the industrial age. With the decline of wooden boat construction as a source of employment, the cement plant became the prime employer of the working men in Thomaston. The plant was built over great limestone ledges, as deep as one could imagine, ledges into which they built quarries to mine the stone and haul it uphill into the cement plant where it was ground up, cooked, and ground up again into the fine powder known as Portland cement, the same cement that formed the foundations of homes and buildings, and the surface of new roadways.
Chemistry Assistant
Thomaston became an industrial town in the 20th century, dusty, smoky, clanky, and ugly. The cement plant was a new source of work for a town after the war, and Al found work there. At first he worked in the chemistry lab. He collected samples of the product, mixed them, formed them into hardened cement patties, and generally prepared them for the chemists. Those patties and the cement dust that they were made of would then be subjected to chemical analysis, to engineering stress tests, and the results recorded and used for furthering the research and development and quality assurance of the product.
Repair Crew
After a few years Al found his work uninspiring. Combine that with the lure of higher wages and he was prompted to bid on a job in the repair crew. When he was selected, he found a niche that satisfied him and challenged him for many years. The repair crew was not your typical grease monkey in a garage, fixing mufflers and brakes. The repair crew bore the responsibility of getting broken industrial machinery fixed or replaced as quickly as possible in order to keep production flowing: machines like powerful electric motors, draglines, the crushers, the mills, the giant rolling kilns, blowers, and dust collectors. The cement plant mined huge boulders of rock, lifted them out of the quarry and dumped them into a series of crushers and hammers that reduced them into grains that could be flushed as slurry through pipes and into the kilns for cooking. After that the clinker was cooled and dragged to storage elevators and then ground by huge rolling mills into progressively finer and finer powder. Then the powder was shipped by truck or rail for bulk construction, or bagged for retail sale. Anywhere along that system there was potential for failure, jammed crushers, broken draglines, burnt out motors, pumps that wear out, chains that break, gears that snap their teeth or bearings that overheat and freeze up. Machines were sometimes caked in cement dust, or severely rusted into place. Sometimes they were in tight quarters, or way up in a tower, or inside the drum of a mill, or inside the smoke stack, or inside the kiln where the temperature was blazing hot, outside when the temperature was below zero, or in the snow or rain, or in the summer sun over 90 degrees. These were the challenges for Al Mills and the repair crew: fix those broken machines, where ever they were, whenever they broke.
Overtime
For Al, jammed fingers, conks on the head, strained muscles, and smashed toes were a painful but all too common expectation. But Al would never let an injury put him off the job, because he was committed to getting the job done right, and as soon as possible. Some of those jobs were massive undertakings. Al might start a job in the morning, work all day, all evening through the second shift, all night through the third shift, and partway through the next day, just to finish a job. Though that was not common, it happened enough times in his 30 years on the job that there were lots of stories to tell. Sometimes he would come home to sleep a shift, and go right back to the same job, almost as if he had never left it. Of course, from an income perspective, that meant he was earning over time: time-and-a-half, double-time, double-time-and-a-half, and sometimes, if the job was on a holiday, triple-time.
Our Cars
All that overtime meant that Al could provide for his family, and they lived like a good working class family in the 1950’s. There was a new washing machine, paid for on time during weekly trips to Sears and Roebuck. There were used cars (one at a time) such as a 1947 Plymouth, a 1952 Buick with a Straight 8 engine that purred so quietly you might forget it was even running, a 1957 Chevy Bel Air that today would be worth a mint, a 1960 Ford Station Wagon that carried the whole family to Arkansas and back, a tiny compact foreign car called a Simca (in which Danny learned to drive and took his drivers test at age 15), a Dodge Charger, and then another Dodge Charger, and then another Dodge Charger. Dad was loyal to his car dealer.
Our First TV
There was a new television in the early 1950’s, a big black-and-white floor model with an antenna on the roof that had a rotor, a motor that turned the antenna to get the best reception. The antenna was top line, anodized aluminum, and looked like a couple of bowties. We got three channels, Channel 2, Channel 5, and Channel 8, which were (and still are) NBC, CBS, and ABC. There was no such thing as color TV, but this big floor model was about as big a TV as they made. We saw some in the sales shop that had huge wooden cabinets with a little 12” round screen in one corner. That was not the one Dad wanted. We got the top line set.
The first thing I remember seeing on television was the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, which was June 2, 1953. I would have been 4 years old. There was no such thing as satellite communications in those days, so any film needed to be shipped to America for viewing. The coronation of Elizabeth was such a huge international sensation that it was credited with kicking television into a world wide phenomenon. More television sets were sold in England in the two months prior to the coronation than ever before or probably since. CBS was able to broadcast the coronation on the same day, by developing and editing the film on the plane back to America, and rivals NBC and ABC claim to have beat CBS to the punch by a few minutes by grabbing a version from the BBC which had been flown to Canada on a Royal Air Force jet.
Favorite TV in the 50’s
Other things we watched in those early years were Saturday morning cartoons, including “Loonie Tunes” which were animated characters set to classical music. I remember seeing dolphins diving then jumping up out of the water to sing a few bars of some opera, then diving back down for the orchestral interlude. We also watched the Mickey Mouse Club each afternoon. My favorite part was the cartoon, but they also had kids singing and dancing, and we learned to love characters like Annette, Darlene, and Bobby. Annette later grew up to be Annette Funnicello, a teen idol movie star, and Bobby as an adult danced for years on the Lawrence Welk Show. We also enjoyed the adventures of Rin Tin Tin, a story about a boy who grew up on an Army post in the Western Frontier, fighting Indians. His trusty dog RinTtin Tin, or Rinty, would save people from terrible escapades by running home to Rusty, who would also go to help, who would then get in a worse scrape, until the Cavalry would come riding to the rescue with the bugle blowing “Charge!” To this day, at baseball and basketball games, they still play that same bugle call. Mom made me a “Rusty” uniform, and I wore it to school proudly. We watched The Little Rascals, with Spanky, and Alfalfa, who were kids about our age (albeit from the 30’s) getting into scrapes. We loved the Three Stooges, although I thought all their hitting was too violent to be funny. And the funniest of all was Laurel and Hardy. We watched Sky King, a law officer who flew an airplane. We watched Superman --“Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, ‘Look, up in the air, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, no, it’s superman! Yes Superman, a strange visitor from another planet with powers far beyond those of mortal me,. And who, disguised as Clark Kent, fights a never ending battle for truth, justice, and the American Way,” they would say as he stood, fake muscles bulging slightly under his blue tight suit, arms on hips in front of a waving American flag. Steve Reeves would save someone, then jump out a window. The next shot would be of him flying through the clouds, his cape flapping behind. We watched “The Lone Ranger” a Texas Ranger Law man who hid behind a black mask, used silver bullets, and rode a silver horse. His partner, Tonto, an Indian, spoke broken English, as though he had learned English as a second language, and a third partner, Pat Butrum, rode around the wild west in an army jeep. Gosh that was anachronistic. Everyone else was on a horse, except Pat. They always met beside this same, huge boulder, where the ground was absolutely perfectly flat, and where there was an echo, like it was being filmed on a sound stage instead of in the wild west. We watched Roy Rogers, who wore a white hat and fought bad guys who wore black hats. There was often a fist fight scene in a saloon where someone got thrown out through the double swinging half-louvered doors, someone had a chair broken over his head, and someone broke through a railing on the second floor. Roy rogers and his wife Dale Evans were the only married people I ever knew as a child who had different last names. My mother said that is common in Hollywood where stars have an identity with their name that they hand onto. Anyway, they were a singing couple, and they always ended by singing “Happy trails to you, until we meet again.” And we watched Fess Parker as Davey Crocket, King of the Wild Frontier, and every kid could sing his theme song about killing a bar when he was only three. I especially remember the episode, or was it a movie later on, when Davey led the last stand against Santa Anna at the Alamo. David Bowie, designer of the Bowie Knife, which was every kid’s favorite shape for a hunting knife, was sick and dying, but when Davey Crocket asked men to cross the line in the sand if they wanted to stand and fight to the death, everyone, including David Bowie crossed that line. They all died in the battle.
Making Hay
Anyway, the cement plant funded a decent lifestyle for our family, mostly due to the overtime and to the rise of the union, the AFL-CIO, which pushed for higher wages, job security, and the benefits of seniority for men who had worked there the longest. It took a few strikes and threats of strikes to gain those benefits, and those strike times were hard times, but ultimately they reaped benefits for the families of the workers. During one strike, I remember that Dad worked for our neighbors, the Wallaces, on their farm in Warren, on the haying crew. Because they were our friends, we kids would play at the Wallace farm while dad worked the field. I remember him coming into the farmhouse for a drink and for lunch all sweaty and hot, his overalls and hair caught up with strands of hay. It was hard work, slinging a pitchfork and heaving hay bales into the truck in the summer heat.
School Field Trip to the Cement Plant.
As a kid, we sometimes would take a school field trip to the cement plant, and stand behind iron rails looking down into the giant bell crusher. It was a solid steel bell shaped bulb several feet in diameter that swung around inside a steel bin. Huge boulders, as big as half a cow would drag up from the quarry on a conveyor belt, and tumble into the crusher. The subtle but powerful movement of the crusher would crack those boulders until the were small enough to slip down through to the next set of hammer crushers below. It was always fun to see my dad there. He must have made it a plan to see that group of school kids and just happen to be walking by. I’d wave, and tell the other kids, “That’s my Dad.”
Blowing Off
We would often drive in the car to the plant to pick up Dad after work. I knew the way down the concrete road, through the rows of pine trees, to the building where Dad would assemble to punch out. Usually he would stop before coming over to “blow off” which meant he grabbed a high pressure air hose and turned the pressure onto himself, blowing dust off his clothing. Guys would line up before the 3:30 whistle to blow off. Then the big steam whistle would blow, and man appeared from everywhere, walking across the dusty streets to the locker room to punch out. To me, all the men in their dusty blue pants and green helmets looked like Dad, but Mom could tell Dad from the others at quite a distance, just by the way he walked. He would come to the car, kiss Mom, and sling his lunchbox into the car, and get in, smelling like cement dust, but always glad to see us. He never wasted any time before getting right to the story about what he had been repairing today, and it usually included some bragging about how he was the only one who really knew how to do it right. To listen to Dad tell it, the cement plant could not possible function without him.
Characters
There were other characters at the plant. Smitty was the lead man of the repair crew, and he assigned jobs to men each morning, and Dad felt Smitty did a good job of doling out the work in a fair way. Of course, it helped that Smitty gave Dad the jobs that might require overtime, as he knew that Dad would stay and work until the job was done. After all, overtime was voluntary, and some guys didn‘t work past the 3:30 whistle if they could help it.
Grossy and the Welded Door
Then there was Grossy. Grossy worked his life at the plant, and with seniority he was well protected by the union. But he was odd, and Dad often came home with stories about Grossy. By today’s jargon, Grossy had an obsessive-compulsive disorder, OCD. But in the work-a-day world of the 1950’s there was no excuse-making for people who behaved oddly. Grossy had habits that he would not break. One habit was that he always walked into the mill through the steel door. It didn’t matter if the giant overhead door was wide open right beside the steel door, making it appear as though the entire wall had been lifted away. Grossy still went to the steel door, turned the knob, and went through. One day some guys played a prank on Grossy. They rolled open the overhead door, exposing the entire interior of the mill room. But they then welded Grossy’s steel door closed. Then they stood back to laugh as Grossy tried to go through the door. He absolutely refused to walk around it and go through the open wall a few feet away. Grossy struggled with the door, banged and kicked, and swore. Guys invited him to walk around. He refused. I don’t remember how it finally turned out, nor do I know if Dad even knew, because he would not be the kind to sit around and laugh at another man’s misfortune, nor would he be the kind to be pulling a prank rather than working as assigned. Nevertheless, he got a kick out of retelling the story about Grossy and the welded door.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Al's Paper Route and the Headlines
Al Mills delivered the daily newspaper, the Portland Press Herald, when he was probably 11-13 years of age in 1932-34 and living at the North End of Rockland His route began at Chisolm’s Store near the center of Main Street, and wandered up to Lawn Avenue and back down to end at Maverick Square. Every morning, rain or shine, snow or ice, heat or cold, he would tumble out of bed earlier than the other kids his age, dress for the weather, and set out to hike the mile or so to Chisolm’s. If the weather was good the truck had dropped a bundle of newspapers on the sidewalk, wrapped in old papers, and bound with twine. If the weather was bad, the papers were stacked under an awning or in a doorway. Al would pull out his jackknife and split the twine and lift the entire bundle into his muslin shoulder bag. In those days paper delivery was door to door, literally. Unlike today where a person in a car drives by your house and tosses a plastic wrapped newspaper onto your driveway, this was door-to-door service. Al would walk up the wooden sidewalk, place the paper in the unlocked gap between the storm door and the front door, or drop the paper into the unlocked mudroom or shed. Then turn and head for the next house, which could be a block or more away. The paperboy worked on commission, a penny or less for each paper delivered. Each Saturday he would collect for the week, and the best customers were the ones who put their money out so you didn’t have to knock, wait, and make change. The best customers were the ones who left tips, or cookies.
This was during the Great Depression, when work was hard to find. A paper boy delivery job was a good job. The papers were probably 2 to 5 cents each and the paperboy got a small cut of the profits, whittled out of his Saturday collections. Good jobs were hard to find, and the annual salary of any job you could find was likely to be low. For example, in 1932 the average school teacher earned about $1200 a year, a secretary earned about $1,000, and a hired farm hand about $215 per year (which would likely include a bed in the bunkhouse and some meals.) In contrast, a U.S. Congressman earned $8663, just a little bit more than an airline pilot. A newspaper was a nickel, a pulp novel was a dime, gasoline was 10 cents a gallon, and you could buy a set of four tires for $6.35. And, if you dared, you could take a round trip across the Atlantic on the Hindenburg for $720. Potatoes were a penny a pound and eggs were 29 cents a dozen.
Al probably read the headline when the Waldo-Hancock Bridge was dedicated in 1932, and when it was awarded the First Prize as the Most Beautiful Bridge in the United States for 1931 by the American Institute of Steel Construction. That Bridge spanned the Penobscot River near Fort Knox in Prospect, right near where Al’s uncle operated a store that served people who took the cable ferry across the Penobscot. Traffic patterns changed when the bridge was completed, and the ferry ceased to operate, and the store suffered too. Al would cross the Penobscot, by ferry, and later by bridge, as his father was originally from Down East, from Mills Point in Brooksville, where his sisters Mary Mills and Ada Tapley still lived in the family farm. In later years I remember Grampy (Albert, Sr.) driving us all down to Brooksville in his 1946 automobile, shifting gears on hills, and shining his spotlight into the meadows after dark to spot deer. His car came equipped with a built-in spotlight that stuck out from just above the drivers side passenger window. A handle inside the car connected to the spotlight so he could direct it just about anywhere. His car also had a visor over the front windshield, like a visor on a baseball cap, shielding the driver from the glare of the sun. I also remember Mary Mills, with her stately grace and bright white hair visiting Grampy in Rockland when he lived with Chloe at the Elms Front Rooms-to-Let on Camden Street, right where the parking lot for McDonald's stands today. Furthermore, there were many trips as kids to the cavernous Fort Knox, where we would climb on the giant cannons, call out through the echoing chambers underground, and crawl through spaces no adult could fit in. So, for years, that suspension bridge across the Penobscot was part of the travel adventures of the mills family.
As a kid, Al probably didn’t pay too much attention to the headlines about the Nazi rise to power in Germany in 1933; those hidden headlines would come back to haunt Americans who had grown up during the depression. Perhaps he was fascinated by the exploits of the infamous outlaws Bonnie and Clyde who were killed in a police ambush in Louisiana in 1934. He was probably more interested in Babe Ruth hitting his 700th career homer in July of 1934, a record that was deemed impossible to break. We’re not sure if Al was still delivering papers when the biggest story broke, but, every kid knew the story in 1937 when the Brady Gang shootout took place in Bangor, Maine. The Brady Gang was the most notorious of the gangsters of Prohibition. Al Brady was Public Enemy Number One on the FBI’s list of the Ten Most Wanted, with 200 robberies, four murders, and numerous assaults linked to his name. But a gun deal in Bangor, Maine led to an FBI crackdown, and a bloody shootout that riddled Brady’s gang with 60 bullets in a four minute Tommy gun battle with police on Central Street. Now that was a story every kid would read, talk about at school, and replay over and over as they played cops and robbers with toy guns made out of sticks.
Being a paper boy gives you a light on the world that other kids don’t have. Not to mention a good work ethic and a deep appreciation for how cold it can get at 4 a.m. in winter in Maine.
This was during the Great Depression, when work was hard to find. A paper boy delivery job was a good job. The papers were probably 2 to 5 cents each and the paperboy got a small cut of the profits, whittled out of his Saturday collections. Good jobs were hard to find, and the annual salary of any job you could find was likely to be low. For example, in 1932 the average school teacher earned about $1200 a year, a secretary earned about $1,000, and a hired farm hand about $215 per year (which would likely include a bed in the bunkhouse and some meals.) In contrast, a U.S. Congressman earned $8663, just a little bit more than an airline pilot. A newspaper was a nickel, a pulp novel was a dime, gasoline was 10 cents a gallon, and you could buy a set of four tires for $6.35. And, if you dared, you could take a round trip across the Atlantic on the Hindenburg for $720. Potatoes were a penny a pound and eggs were 29 cents a dozen.
Al probably read the headline when the Waldo-Hancock Bridge was dedicated in 1932, and when it was awarded the First Prize as the Most Beautiful Bridge in the United States for 1931 by the American Institute of Steel Construction. That Bridge spanned the Penobscot River near Fort Knox in Prospect, right near where Al’s uncle operated a store that served people who took the cable ferry across the Penobscot. Traffic patterns changed when the bridge was completed, and the ferry ceased to operate, and the store suffered too. Al would cross the Penobscot, by ferry, and later by bridge, as his father was originally from Down East, from Mills Point in Brooksville, where his sisters Mary Mills and Ada Tapley still lived in the family farm. In later years I remember Grampy (Albert, Sr.) driving us all down to Brooksville in his 1946 automobile, shifting gears on hills, and shining his spotlight into the meadows after dark to spot deer. His car came equipped with a built-in spotlight that stuck out from just above the drivers side passenger window. A handle inside the car connected to the spotlight so he could direct it just about anywhere. His car also had a visor over the front windshield, like a visor on a baseball cap, shielding the driver from the glare of the sun. I also remember Mary Mills, with her stately grace and bright white hair visiting Grampy in Rockland when he lived with Chloe at the Elms Front Rooms-to-Let on Camden Street, right where the parking lot for McDonald's stands today. Furthermore, there were many trips as kids to the cavernous Fort Knox, where we would climb on the giant cannons, call out through the echoing chambers underground, and crawl through spaces no adult could fit in. So, for years, that suspension bridge across the Penobscot was part of the travel adventures of the mills family.
As a kid, Al probably didn’t pay too much attention to the headlines about the Nazi rise to power in Germany in 1933; those hidden headlines would come back to haunt Americans who had grown up during the depression. Perhaps he was fascinated by the exploits of the infamous outlaws Bonnie and Clyde who were killed in a police ambush in Louisiana in 1934. He was probably more interested in Babe Ruth hitting his 700th career homer in July of 1934, a record that was deemed impossible to break. We’re not sure if Al was still delivering papers when the biggest story broke, but, every kid knew the story in 1937 when the Brady Gang shootout took place in Bangor, Maine. The Brady Gang was the most notorious of the gangsters of Prohibition. Al Brady was Public Enemy Number One on the FBI’s list of the Ten Most Wanted, with 200 robberies, four murders, and numerous assaults linked to his name. But a gun deal in Bangor, Maine led to an FBI crackdown, and a bloody shootout that riddled Brady’s gang with 60 bullets in a four minute Tommy gun battle with police on Central Street. Now that was a story every kid would read, talk about at school, and replay over and over as they played cops and robbers with toy guns made out of sticks.
Being a paper boy gives you a light on the world that other kids don’t have. Not to mention a good work ethic and a deep appreciation for how cold it can get at 4 a.m. in winter in Maine.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Boy Scouts, Troop 204, Rockland, Maine
Albert D. Mills, Sr. founded the first Boy Scout troop in Rockland, Troop 204, at the First Baptist Church and was the scoutmaster or scout committee member with that organization for his entire adult life, spanning more than 50 years.
After world War II, his son, Albert D. Mills, Jr. moved to Rockland with his wife, Sybel, and began to raise a family. In about 1948 or 49, young father Al, Jr. began to assist his dad with the troop, as Assistant Scoutmaster. Together they led boys on hiking expeditions, camping trips, and various outdoor adventures. With the aid of the Boy Scout Manual they taught boys to build campfires with primitive tools, harvest food from the natural environment, pitch pup tents, gather firewood, handle an axe and a knife, tie knots, practice first aid, and challenge themselves with various physical exercises of strength and speed. Jumping contests, races, fire building races, and organized games like capture the flag were a staple of the boy scout experience. Boys from age 11 to 18 earned recognition ranging from “tenderfoot” to Eagle Scout.
After world War II, his son, Albert D. Mills, Jr. moved to Rockland with his wife, Sybel, and began to raise a family. In about 1948 or 49, young father Al, Jr. began to assist his dad with the troop, as Assistant Scoutmaster. Together they led boys on hiking expeditions, camping trips, and various outdoor adventures. With the aid of the Boy Scout Manual they taught boys to build campfires with primitive tools, harvest food from the natural environment, pitch pup tents, gather firewood, handle an axe and a knife, tie knots, practice first aid, and challenge themselves with various physical exercises of strength and speed. Jumping contests, races, fire building races, and organized games like capture the flag were a staple of the boy scout experience. Boys from age 11 to 18 earned recognition ranging from “tenderfoot” to Eagle Scout.
Al as a Leader of Boys
Christian Service Brigade
When his own sons were of Boy Scout age, probably about 1959, Al started the Rockland branch of Christian Service Brigade, a Boy Scout look-a-like with a Christian theme. Captain Al Mills, and his friend and co-leader, Lieutenant Lloyd Argyle were the leaders of this club for many years in the 1960’s, meeting in the basement of the First Baptist Church on Main Street every Monday evening. The boys were organized by squads, with a squad leader, and with the entire troop knows as the battalion. A typical meeting would consist of boys running around wildly, playing made up games with whatever they had available until the official opening of the meeting at 7 p.m. Then the meeting would be called to order, and the squads would fall into attention in orderly lines, with the squad leader in front. The captain would ask for a roll call, and the squad leader would march forward one step, call out, “All present or accounted for, sir”, salute, and march back into line. When each of the four squads had reported in, the Captain called, “At ease,” and the boys would put their legs apart, with arms behind them, still in line. There would be an opening prayer, usually by Al or Lloyd. Then Al or Lloyd would spell out the evening’s activities, which might include a movie of the World Series, a guest appearance by the pastor playing the piano, a tug of war, a training session on how to apply a tourniquet and to splint a broken leg, a training session on knots, or an awards ceremony for achievement. There might also be some challenge that the squads would compete, maybe a long jump contest, or a poster contest, or making inspirational signs, or practicing passing the baton for a relay race. Then the battalion would break into squad meetings, led by the squad leader, in different parts of the basement. Sometimes the squad meetings included devotions, times for boys to testify, or read parts of the bible together, or have a round of prayer. But usually the squad meetings were to work on a project, such as a “float” for a children’s parade, or to plan a snow sculpture, or to plan some games. Then the squads would reconvene, report out to the Captain, and then there would be the big group activity such as described above, and might include a contest to find a verse in the Bible. The highlight of the evening, though, was game time. Dodge-ball, steal-the-bacon, streets-and-alleys, kick-the-can, and many more. Every week Captain Mills would introduce a new game, and then let the boys decide which of their favorite games to play. Always a new game, always some old favorites. His last game was always a quiet game, where people would sit on the floor in a circle and do something rhythmic, or repetitive, or meditative. This helped to calm the boys and get them ready for “campfire.” At campfire, an electric log “fire” that Al had built was brought to the center of the room, and all the other lights were turned out. This was a time for singing campfire songs, such as “John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmidt” and “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” and “There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight,” and the seemingly endless tune, “There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea.” The last few songs would be gospel songs, quiet contemplative songs. Then Al would step forward and tell a short inspirational story, lead the boys in prayer, and end with asking a squad leader to stand and announce: “Batallion, dissssss-MISSED!”
Al wanted the boys to have a healthy, Christian alternative to the pressures of being a wild teenager. So the basement of the annex at First Baptist became home to some other activities aimed at keeping boys involved. There was the BB gun firing range. There was the leather and wood workshop where boys cut scrap leather into patterns and sewed them together with gimp, and made things like moccasins, money pouches, wallets, and knife sheaths. Al bought one of the first Polaroid Land Cameras, the kind that made an instant print, and brought it to the boys so they could take pictures and enter them in contests. He taught them rudimentary photography. David got deeply into photography, buying equipment and chemicals to do his own developing and enlarging. Al taught boys to work with tools, to make projects with wood, cutting wood by hand with coping saws, and making projects to give as gifts to their mothers and grandmothers.
Brigade, as it was called, was associated with other Brigades from other churches around the state, and with Camp Puk-Wudgies on Bunganut pond in Alfred, Maine. This same camp was knows as Camp Cherith (pronounced KAIR-ith) when the girls of “Pioneer Girls” took over for other weeks of the summer. Occasionally there were meetings with these other boys organizations. One was at a camp on the ocean at Sandy Point near Searsport, a camp donated (with restrictions) to Christian Service Brigade. Another time there was a combined track meet at some outdoor race track facility in Old Town. But the big even of the season was Camp Puk-Wudgies, a camp which drew from all over New England, with boys living in about 15 or 20 cabins which were named as letters from the alphabet, strung out in a line just above the waterfront and sweeping hp the hill toward the office cabin. The cabins had little or no electricity, and bunk beds for a dozen boys each, and a bathroom. Up on the hill was the dining hall, and beside it was a parade ground where the squads would assemble each morning for the raising of the flag. Through the woods, through a pine grove, and down at the water’s edge was the campfire. Each evening, flashlight in hand, before sunset, the boys would go down the path and sit on logs around the campfire, a giant bonfire that roared as the boys gathered, sending sparks into the boughs above, settled into a steady burn during the singing of the funny songs, snapped and crackled during the singing of the soft gospel songs, and then glowed as embers during the devotions and the final prayer. After campfire, it was pitch dark, and the boys would pull out their flashlights, if they had any batteries left, and slip back up the trail and into their cabins, for last devotions, bathroom, the playing of Taps, and sleep. Well, we were supposed to be quiet, but a lot of whispering went on after Taps. There was a camp counselor in each cabin, an adult presence to enforce the law.
Camp Puk-wudgies was the source for new campfire songs for the weekly Battalion meetings. It was the affirmation that squads and formations and salutes were cool. It was a place to get your first swimming lessons, and where boys like the Mills boys learned to hold their breath under water, to dive rather than jump, to do the back stroke, the side stroke, the crawl stroke, the dead man’s float, and how to fake holding your eyes open under water. There were water races. There were canoes to paddle. There were times to practice swamping your canoe and then righting it. David got good at that, but Danny never learned to swim well enough to use the canoes. He watched the other guys having a great time, and longed for a chance he never got.
At Camp Pukwudgies there was a craft cabin, for learning to weave gimp into lanyards. You could learn to weave the diamond pattern, the square pattern, and more. Everyone who was anyone wanted to have a gimp lanyard with a whistle on the hooked end. What is gimp? A colored plastic strip, about 1/8 inch wide, thin like fettucine, and as long as you wanted, as it came wrapped on a roll. You got to pick your colors, pick your lanyard shape, and start weaving.
There was also a store cabin. Every day, after lunch, the store would open for an hour, and there would be lines of boys at the window wanting to buy candy and soda, or, as the Massachusetts kids called it, pop, or as the Connecticut kids called it, tonic. I once met a kid there who claimed he was from the Hershey family. He had bags and bags of candy, all you could eat, and plenty to share. He had an unlimited supply. He bought a few friends with that gimmick, for sure.
The Rockland group of Battalion had contests each year to win a free week at camp, and Captain Al Mills found donors for those free weeks. Of course we also raised money to pay for a week at camp. One year I won a free week, and bought myself a week. I went a week before all my friends came, and by the time they were due to arrive, I was so homesick, I went home, and skipped my second week at camp, the week I probably would have had the most fun.
Dad offered to be a camp counselor, taking his week of summer vacation from the cement plant to volunteer as a counselor. Mom, loyal and inventive and wanting to follow her family to camp volunteered to work as a cook in the dining hall. So that was a great year for the Mills family, all of us were at camp for the same week.
At camp we had track meets and softball games. We learned to do the running broad jump, the standing broad jump, the high jump, sprints, and long road races, not to mention unconventional races like the three-legged race, the sac race, and the wheelbarrow race. We saw our Dad hit long, long, long outs with the softball. He always hit an “almost” homerun, but someone always seemed to catch it. I thought there ought to be some reward for hitting the ball so far and high. We played capture the flag over great wide areas, the entire camp complex was the battleground for capture the flag. David would always tell about how far he had traveled through the woods to circle around to gain an advantage.
Bugle calls were the signal for assembly. So all of us who could toot a trumpet wanted to be the bugler for the week. “Reveille” to wake up, “Mess Call” at chow time, “To the Colors” to raise the flag, “Assembly” to call the boys to squad formation, “Tattoo” to lower the flag, and “Taps” at lights out. The calls took on great meaning, and to this day the sounding of Tatoo or Taps is sentimental, the sounding of the mess call is exciting. There was always someone better at trumpet than a Mills boy, but more than once I got to substitute for the regular bugler. I knew all the bugle calls, and several more that I had learned from books. David had a real bugle, and used it as the chief crossing guard in 6th grade to assemble his squad. Dan got to play Taps at Memorial Day with the high school band.
Al Mills always felt that his mission was to help the boys who were less fortunate. He took special interest in boys who grew up in families without a father in the house. He took special interest in boys who grew up in large families, the kid who got lost in the shuffle. He wanted to help the kid who was too poor to afford summer camp, or whose father worked shift work and was never home during the evening. He always sought out the kid who was disadvantaged somehow, and pulled him into the club. He made sure that kid got into the publicity photo from the newspaper. He made sure that kid got recognition in front of the entire squad. He gave him leadership opportunities. He rounded up assistance from church members to get the kid boots, or a jacket, or a Bible. He made sure the kid came along on camping trips, and had a tent to stay in. He didn’t have to say anything, he just lived his belief that every kid was important, especially the ones that needed a boost.
When his own sons were of Boy Scout age, probably about 1959, Al started the Rockland branch of Christian Service Brigade, a Boy Scout look-a-like with a Christian theme. Captain Al Mills, and his friend and co-leader, Lieutenant Lloyd Argyle were the leaders of this club for many years in the 1960’s, meeting in the basement of the First Baptist Church on Main Street every Monday evening. The boys were organized by squads, with a squad leader, and with the entire troop knows as the battalion. A typical meeting would consist of boys running around wildly, playing made up games with whatever they had available until the official opening of the meeting at 7 p.m. Then the meeting would be called to order, and the squads would fall into attention in orderly lines, with the squad leader in front. The captain would ask for a roll call, and the squad leader would march forward one step, call out, “All present or accounted for, sir”, salute, and march back into line. When each of the four squads had reported in, the Captain called, “At ease,” and the boys would put their legs apart, with arms behind them, still in line. There would be an opening prayer, usually by Al or Lloyd. Then Al or Lloyd would spell out the evening’s activities, which might include a movie of the World Series, a guest appearance by the pastor playing the piano, a tug of war, a training session on how to apply a tourniquet and to splint a broken leg, a training session on knots, or an awards ceremony for achievement. There might also be some challenge that the squads would compete, maybe a long jump contest, or a poster contest, or making inspirational signs, or practicing passing the baton for a relay race. Then the battalion would break into squad meetings, led by the squad leader, in different parts of the basement. Sometimes the squad meetings included devotions, times for boys to testify, or read parts of the bible together, or have a round of prayer. But usually the squad meetings were to work on a project, such as a “float” for a children’s parade, or to plan a snow sculpture, or to plan some games. Then the squads would reconvene, report out to the Captain, and then there would be the big group activity such as described above, and might include a contest to find a verse in the Bible. The highlight of the evening, though, was game time. Dodge-ball, steal-the-bacon, streets-and-alleys, kick-the-can, and many more. Every week Captain Mills would introduce a new game, and then let the boys decide which of their favorite games to play. Always a new game, always some old favorites. His last game was always a quiet game, where people would sit on the floor in a circle and do something rhythmic, or repetitive, or meditative. This helped to calm the boys and get them ready for “campfire.” At campfire, an electric log “fire” that Al had built was brought to the center of the room, and all the other lights were turned out. This was a time for singing campfire songs, such as “John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmidt” and “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” and “There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight,” and the seemingly endless tune, “There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea.” The last few songs would be gospel songs, quiet contemplative songs. Then Al would step forward and tell a short inspirational story, lead the boys in prayer, and end with asking a squad leader to stand and announce: “Batallion, dissssss-MISSED!”
Al wanted the boys to have a healthy, Christian alternative to the pressures of being a wild teenager. So the basement of the annex at First Baptist became home to some other activities aimed at keeping boys involved. There was the BB gun firing range. There was the leather and wood workshop where boys cut scrap leather into patterns and sewed them together with gimp, and made things like moccasins, money pouches, wallets, and knife sheaths. Al bought one of the first Polaroid Land Cameras, the kind that made an instant print, and brought it to the boys so they could take pictures and enter them in contests. He taught them rudimentary photography. David got deeply into photography, buying equipment and chemicals to do his own developing and enlarging. Al taught boys to work with tools, to make projects with wood, cutting wood by hand with coping saws, and making projects to give as gifts to their mothers and grandmothers.
Brigade, as it was called, was associated with other Brigades from other churches around the state, and with Camp Puk-Wudgies on Bunganut pond in Alfred, Maine. This same camp was knows as Camp Cherith (pronounced KAIR-ith) when the girls of “Pioneer Girls” took over for other weeks of the summer. Occasionally there were meetings with these other boys organizations. One was at a camp on the ocean at Sandy Point near Searsport, a camp donated (with restrictions) to Christian Service Brigade. Another time there was a combined track meet at some outdoor race track facility in Old Town. But the big even of the season was Camp Puk-Wudgies, a camp which drew from all over New England, with boys living in about 15 or 20 cabins which were named as letters from the alphabet, strung out in a line just above the waterfront and sweeping hp the hill toward the office cabin. The cabins had little or no electricity, and bunk beds for a dozen boys each, and a bathroom. Up on the hill was the dining hall, and beside it was a parade ground where the squads would assemble each morning for the raising of the flag. Through the woods, through a pine grove, and down at the water’s edge was the campfire. Each evening, flashlight in hand, before sunset, the boys would go down the path and sit on logs around the campfire, a giant bonfire that roared as the boys gathered, sending sparks into the boughs above, settled into a steady burn during the singing of the funny songs, snapped and crackled during the singing of the soft gospel songs, and then glowed as embers during the devotions and the final prayer. After campfire, it was pitch dark, and the boys would pull out their flashlights, if they had any batteries left, and slip back up the trail and into their cabins, for last devotions, bathroom, the playing of Taps, and sleep. Well, we were supposed to be quiet, but a lot of whispering went on after Taps. There was a camp counselor in each cabin, an adult presence to enforce the law.
Camp Puk-wudgies was the source for new campfire songs for the weekly Battalion meetings. It was the affirmation that squads and formations and salutes were cool. It was a place to get your first swimming lessons, and where boys like the Mills boys learned to hold their breath under water, to dive rather than jump, to do the back stroke, the side stroke, the crawl stroke, the dead man’s float, and how to fake holding your eyes open under water. There were water races. There were canoes to paddle. There were times to practice swamping your canoe and then righting it. David got good at that, but Danny never learned to swim well enough to use the canoes. He watched the other guys having a great time, and longed for a chance he never got.
At Camp Pukwudgies there was a craft cabin, for learning to weave gimp into lanyards. You could learn to weave the diamond pattern, the square pattern, and more. Everyone who was anyone wanted to have a gimp lanyard with a whistle on the hooked end. What is gimp? A colored plastic strip, about 1/8 inch wide, thin like fettucine, and as long as you wanted, as it came wrapped on a roll. You got to pick your colors, pick your lanyard shape, and start weaving.
There was also a store cabin. Every day, after lunch, the store would open for an hour, and there would be lines of boys at the window wanting to buy candy and soda, or, as the Massachusetts kids called it, pop, or as the Connecticut kids called it, tonic. I once met a kid there who claimed he was from the Hershey family. He had bags and bags of candy, all you could eat, and plenty to share. He had an unlimited supply. He bought a few friends with that gimmick, for sure.
The Rockland group of Battalion had contests each year to win a free week at camp, and Captain Al Mills found donors for those free weeks. Of course we also raised money to pay for a week at camp. One year I won a free week, and bought myself a week. I went a week before all my friends came, and by the time they were due to arrive, I was so homesick, I went home, and skipped my second week at camp, the week I probably would have had the most fun.
Dad offered to be a camp counselor, taking his week of summer vacation from the cement plant to volunteer as a counselor. Mom, loyal and inventive and wanting to follow her family to camp volunteered to work as a cook in the dining hall. So that was a great year for the Mills family, all of us were at camp for the same week.
At camp we had track meets and softball games. We learned to do the running broad jump, the standing broad jump, the high jump, sprints, and long road races, not to mention unconventional races like the three-legged race, the sac race, and the wheelbarrow race. We saw our Dad hit long, long, long outs with the softball. He always hit an “almost” homerun, but someone always seemed to catch it. I thought there ought to be some reward for hitting the ball so far and high. We played capture the flag over great wide areas, the entire camp complex was the battleground for capture the flag. David would always tell about how far he had traveled through the woods to circle around to gain an advantage.
Bugle calls were the signal for assembly. So all of us who could toot a trumpet wanted to be the bugler for the week. “Reveille” to wake up, “Mess Call” at chow time, “To the Colors” to raise the flag, “Assembly” to call the boys to squad formation, “Tattoo” to lower the flag, and “Taps” at lights out. The calls took on great meaning, and to this day the sounding of Tatoo or Taps is sentimental, the sounding of the mess call is exciting. There was always someone better at trumpet than a Mills boy, but more than once I got to substitute for the regular bugler. I knew all the bugle calls, and several more that I had learned from books. David had a real bugle, and used it as the chief crossing guard in 6th grade to assemble his squad. Dan got to play Taps at Memorial Day with the high school band.
Al Mills always felt that his mission was to help the boys who were less fortunate. He took special interest in boys who grew up in families without a father in the house. He took special interest in boys who grew up in large families, the kid who got lost in the shuffle. He wanted to help the kid who was too poor to afford summer camp, or whose father worked shift work and was never home during the evening. He always sought out the kid who was disadvantaged somehow, and pulled him into the club. He made sure that kid got into the publicity photo from the newspaper. He made sure that kid got recognition in front of the entire squad. He gave him leadership opportunities. He rounded up assistance from church members to get the kid boots, or a jacket, or a Bible. He made sure the kid came along on camping trips, and had a tent to stay in. He didn’t have to say anything, he just lived his belief that every kid was important, especially the ones that needed a boost.
Sledding on Warren Street
On Warren Street in the north end of Rockland there was a steep hill, and when snow storms clogged the streets, city plows could only handle the main thoroughfares. So, in the 1930’s, rather than fighting the snow, they closed it off. Warren Street in Rockland was one of those streets where its long hill made for great sledding and difficult plowing, so the town closed the street to traffic and let the kids have a place to slide. School would be canceled, and out onto the street would flood the kids with sleds. The Mills boys, along with all their neighborhood friends would slide down the street in whatever contraption that would slide. Wooden sleds with metal runners, sheets of scrap metal, toboggans, contraptions made from old horse drawn sleighs; you name it, some kid had adapted it for sledding. There was no such thing as plastic, so there were no cheap plastic sleds from Walmart. There was, however, the ubiquitous Flexible Flyer sled, whose models date from 1889 into the 21st century. Al and his friends would have ridden on a Flexible Flyer with wooden slats, an all steel front end, straight runners, as contrasted to the modern runners that curl up in the rear to join the frame. (The modern frame is considerably more safe for the kid in the sled behind, who might find himself impaled on the runner of his brother‘s Flexible Flyer), and a logo of an American Eagle carrying a sled. Bundled in woolens, with rubber packs on their feet covering several layers of Daddy’s woolen socks, and covered with beads of melted and refrozen snow, these kids would scream in joy, create games, and races, and tricks, and jumps. There was one old geezer, a grouch, as Al always referred to him, who didn’t like all the kids playing on Warren Street, so he took it upon himself to put an end to the shenanigans. He collected the ashes from his coal stove and scattered them onto the street in front of his house. Kids are undaunted by simple obstacles like that, and it wasn’t long before Al and his buddies had cleared spots and tossed snow onto the clinker until sledding was fast and furious again.
Civil War Veterans Came to School
Civil War Veterans Came to School
Dad and I were reminiscing one afternoon when he was 87, and recovering from a bout of illness at the Togus Veterans Hospital near Augusta, Maine. He was treasuring the times when he was able to hold his infant great-grand children. This particular day it was Patrick and Stephanie’s Henry David, who was 6 months old, but he felt the same joy with every grandchild and great-grandchild. He told me they had taken pictures, and I told him that someday that child would be a grown man who could say, I once sat in the lap of a World War II soldier, and think about that, as by then World War II could be a hundred years in the past. Al reminisced, “When I was in the 5th grade at Tyler Street School (1936) they brought in these men who had served in the Civil War. I don’t remember if they brought anything with them to show, like guns or uniforms, and I don’t remember what stories they told, but I know our teachers made a big deal of telling us that they had served in the Civil War. I never forgot that. The Civil War.”
The Civil War raged from 1861 to 1865, and soldiers who were 20 years of age at the end of the war would have been about 90 years old in 1936.
Dad and I were reminiscing one afternoon when he was 87, and recovering from a bout of illness at the Togus Veterans Hospital near Augusta, Maine. He was treasuring the times when he was able to hold his infant great-grand children. This particular day it was Patrick and Stephanie’s Henry David, who was 6 months old, but he felt the same joy with every grandchild and great-grandchild. He told me they had taken pictures, and I told him that someday that child would be a grown man who could say, I once sat in the lap of a World War II soldier, and think about that, as by then World War II could be a hundred years in the past. Al reminisced, “When I was in the 5th grade at Tyler Street School (1936) they brought in these men who had served in the Civil War. I don’t remember if they brought anything with them to show, like guns or uniforms, and I don’t remember what stories they told, but I know our teachers made a big deal of telling us that they had served in the Civil War. I never forgot that. The Civil War.”
The Civil War raged from 1861 to 1865, and soldiers who were 20 years of age at the end of the war would have been about 90 years old in 1936.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Al Mills in World War II
Like many veterans of World War II, Al Mills didn't talk much about the war when he was home. He kept his green wool uniform, his rifle, his bayonet, his steel army helmet, his service medals, his arm patch of the 16th Armored Division, a German Luger pistol he had "confiscated" and several metal ammunition boxes which his kids used for storing toy soldiers. At home after the war he lived with traumatic nightmares, he started at loud sounds, he fell to the ground in defensive positions when he was startled, and more than once he almost hurt someone, including Sybel, when he was startled from behind and made a defensive hand-to-hand combat maneuver. A few stories did get passed down over time, and the history of the 16th Armored Division is well documented by historians.
Al said goodbye to Sybel in an emotional farewell, amid promises to return, prayers for safe keeping, and best wishes from the Butler family and Pop Gant when the 16th Armored Division got their staging orders in January of 1945. Al wrote to his Dad telling him of the plans, and acknowledging that letters home would take longer once they got overseas. Thousands of men said goodbye to their girlfriends, wives, and wrote letters home before they boarded the trains for Camp Shanks at Orangeburg, New York on January 28, 1945. There they waited a few days until they got their port call and sailed from the New York Port of Embarkation on February 5, 1945.
The Division loaded onto troop ships for the Atlantic crossing in a heavily guarded convoy. German submarines, known as u-boats, patrolled the Atlantic shipping lanes, sinking supply ships left and right. These supply ships, known as Liberty Ships, were being sunk at such an alarming rate that the only way to keep ahead of the destruction was to launch more Liberty Ships than could be sunk. In all 2,751 Liberty ships were built to the same design, using mass production, assembly lines, with welds instead of rivets, and assembled mostly by women, since the men were in the military, and at the peak of production in 1943 three Liberty Ships per day were being launched.
German submarines would have loved to sink a troop ship, destroying an entire division with one torpedo. Al and his fellow soldiers worried, night after night in the sail across the Atlantic that they might die without so much as getting to the deck above, by explosion, flooding, drowning, and being trapped deep below the waterline. But the U.S. Navy was too wily and deeply committed to preserving the lives of our soldiers, surrounding the troop ships with destroyers and sub hunters, and by maintaining radio silence and random routes across the Atlantic. As a result, no troop ships were sunk on the voyage to Europe. Al Mills bunked in the depths of his troop ship in quarters so tight that it was nearly impossible to roll over in bed because the bunk above was so close. Al was seasick most of the voyage, as were many of the men, and whenever possible, he spent time on deck, looking out at the vast expanse of boiling waves and convoy ships. The actual troop ship's name is unknown at this time. In 1951 the U. S. Army destroyed all records of troop ships and their passenger lists, for unknown reasons. Records have been reconstructed by soldiers, but are incomplete.
They arrived in France in mid February where they awaited orders to join the fighting. In his later years Al remembered that he did not like the French people he met. His concept of morality was at odds with what he saw in the women and men of France. Al was quick to form opinions about morality, so it may have been just one or two women, or just a few brazen men, but it was enough to make him form a distaste for their looser moral standards. He also did not feel they were appropriately appreciative of the role America was playing in their liberation, the sacrifice American's were making for their liberty. In contrast, Al thought the Czechoslovakians were a wonderful people. He understood that the Czechs had been oppressed by Germany for six years. Their churches had been closed, and their Jewish neighbors had been deported and slaughtered, and they had been forced to build weapons and munitions for the German war machine. The Czechs and Slovaks had a much deeper appreciation for the American Army of liberation.
Always the adventuresome one, Al tells the story that he and a fellow soldier wanted to visit the front, the line of battle, somewhere in France, so they set out at night in his jeep, tearing along country roads with the headlights turned off. You had to drive with the headlights off or you were a target for snipers and aircraft. Periodically they would flash their headlights on to view and memorize the road ahead, then continue along in the dark. At one point they flashed their headlights on, and just in time to see that the bridge ahead had been blown away, and they came dangerously close to driving headlong off a cliff into the river. They skidded to a stop, thrust the Jeep into reverse, and backed to safety. Then they sat, calming the adrenaline rush, and whispering about how close they had come to death in the dark. They turned around, and decided they had come close enough to the front for now, and headed back to their barracks, subdued by the experience, and a bit more mature than the boyish joyriders they had been when they set out earlier that night.
The 16th Armored Division was assigned to General Patton's 3rd Army, and on April 19, 1945 they entered Germany and relieved the 71st Division at Nurnburg. While some squadrons of the 16th Armored saw battle, taking over small villages in a series of marches through Germany, the major activity was a security and training mission at Nurnburg until May 5th when they began an attack along the Bor - Pilsen road, and launched an attack on Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, designed to capture the Skoda Munitions Plant. During that attack Al was part of a contingent of soldiers who were assigned the responsibility of securing a bridge into Pilsen. He and his buddies commandeered a building overlooking the bridge and set up operations there, a position he would maintain for several weeks, through the end of the war, and beyond.
Pilsen was the site of armament factories, including the construction of German tanks. It was also a famous beer brewing city, from which Pilsner beer takes its name. The conquest of Pilsen was one of the last major triumphs of the war in Europe, and 3 days later, on May 8th the Allies accepted the unconditional surrender of the German forces. Adolph Hitler had committed suicide at the Battle of Berlin on April 30th, and the surrender was authorized by the President of Germany. V-E day (Victory in Europe) was declared and celebrations erupted across the world, including all over America. Sybel was elated. Fort Smith Arkansas was jubilant, and cities across America were filled with joyous people spilling into the streets in celebration.
The victory in Europe was a time of celebration. When I asked Al what he did when the victory was declared, he said, "We kissed the girls! What else would you do when a war is over! We kissed the girls!" Then, he added, a bit more pensively, "Actually, they kissed us. After all they had been through, for years, it was such a relief to them." Then, he quietly paused, and you could see that he was a man of compassion, a man who was both proud of the efforts of American, and sad for the unspoken oppression these people had suffered at the hands of the Nazi Party. Victory is personal. It is a moment in time, celebrated with the people who surround you. It carries a different meaning for each celebrant. Some soldiers knew that the war in Japan still carried on, and they might well be shipped to another front. Some soldiers, including Al Mills, hoped that victory would mean a speedy return to the loved ones at home, loved ones like Sybel Butler, like his father, Albert Mills, Sr., and like his brothers, Joe and Doug, who were somewhere in Europe at this very moment, celebrating in their own way, with the people surrounding them. For all these young men, away from home, in a land of different languages and different cultures, VE day was a cause for exhilaration contrasted with a surge of nostalgia, and homesickness. Victory meant that going home was not too far away. Al wrote letters to his Dad and to Sybel that he was thrilled with the announcement that hostilities were ended, and he looked forward to being home in America, with the people he loved, as soon as possible. The 16th Armored Division was still in Czechoslovakia when Victory in Japan (V-J) was declared on August 15, 1945.
Al arrived back in New York on October 13th and almost immediately he was on a train to Fort Smith to reunite with Sybel.
Al said goodbye to Sybel in an emotional farewell, amid promises to return, prayers for safe keeping, and best wishes from the Butler family and Pop Gant when the 16th Armored Division got their staging orders in January of 1945. Al wrote to his Dad telling him of the plans, and acknowledging that letters home would take longer once they got overseas. Thousands of men said goodbye to their girlfriends, wives, and wrote letters home before they boarded the trains for Camp Shanks at Orangeburg, New York on January 28, 1945. There they waited a few days until they got their port call and sailed from the New York Port of Embarkation on February 5, 1945.
The Division loaded onto troop ships for the Atlantic crossing in a heavily guarded convoy. German submarines, known as u-boats, patrolled the Atlantic shipping lanes, sinking supply ships left and right. These supply ships, known as Liberty Ships, were being sunk at such an alarming rate that the only way to keep ahead of the destruction was to launch more Liberty Ships than could be sunk. In all 2,751 Liberty ships were built to the same design, using mass production, assembly lines, with welds instead of rivets, and assembled mostly by women, since the men were in the military, and at the peak of production in 1943 three Liberty Ships per day were being launched.
German submarines would have loved to sink a troop ship, destroying an entire division with one torpedo. Al and his fellow soldiers worried, night after night in the sail across the Atlantic that they might die without so much as getting to the deck above, by explosion, flooding, drowning, and being trapped deep below the waterline. But the U.S. Navy was too wily and deeply committed to preserving the lives of our soldiers, surrounding the troop ships with destroyers and sub hunters, and by maintaining radio silence and random routes across the Atlantic. As a result, no troop ships were sunk on the voyage to Europe. Al Mills bunked in the depths of his troop ship in quarters so tight that it was nearly impossible to roll over in bed because the bunk above was so close. Al was seasick most of the voyage, as were many of the men, and whenever possible, he spent time on deck, looking out at the vast expanse of boiling waves and convoy ships. The actual troop ship's name is unknown at this time. In 1951 the U. S. Army destroyed all records of troop ships and their passenger lists, for unknown reasons. Records have been reconstructed by soldiers, but are incomplete.
They arrived in France in mid February where they awaited orders to join the fighting. In his later years Al remembered that he did not like the French people he met. His concept of morality was at odds with what he saw in the women and men of France. Al was quick to form opinions about morality, so it may have been just one or two women, or just a few brazen men, but it was enough to make him form a distaste for their looser moral standards. He also did not feel they were appropriately appreciative of the role America was playing in their liberation, the sacrifice American's were making for their liberty. In contrast, Al thought the Czechoslovakians were a wonderful people. He understood that the Czechs had been oppressed by Germany for six years. Their churches had been closed, and their Jewish neighbors had been deported and slaughtered, and they had been forced to build weapons and munitions for the German war machine. The Czechs and Slovaks had a much deeper appreciation for the American Army of liberation.
Always the adventuresome one, Al tells the story that he and a fellow soldier wanted to visit the front, the line of battle, somewhere in France, so they set out at night in his jeep, tearing along country roads with the headlights turned off. You had to drive with the headlights off or you were a target for snipers and aircraft. Periodically they would flash their headlights on to view and memorize the road ahead, then continue along in the dark. At one point they flashed their headlights on, and just in time to see that the bridge ahead had been blown away, and they came dangerously close to driving headlong off a cliff into the river. They skidded to a stop, thrust the Jeep into reverse, and backed to safety. Then they sat, calming the adrenaline rush, and whispering about how close they had come to death in the dark. They turned around, and decided they had come close enough to the front for now, and headed back to their barracks, subdued by the experience, and a bit more mature than the boyish joyriders they had been when they set out earlier that night.
The 16th Armored Division was assigned to General Patton's 3rd Army, and on April 19, 1945 they entered Germany and relieved the 71st Division at Nurnburg. While some squadrons of the 16th Armored saw battle, taking over small villages in a series of marches through Germany, the major activity was a security and training mission at Nurnburg until May 5th when they began an attack along the Bor - Pilsen road, and launched an attack on Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, designed to capture the Skoda Munitions Plant. During that attack Al was part of a contingent of soldiers who were assigned the responsibility of securing a bridge into Pilsen. He and his buddies commandeered a building overlooking the bridge and set up operations there, a position he would maintain for several weeks, through the end of the war, and beyond.
Pilsen was the site of armament factories, including the construction of German tanks. It was also a famous beer brewing city, from which Pilsner beer takes its name. The conquest of Pilsen was one of the last major triumphs of the war in Europe, and 3 days later, on May 8th the Allies accepted the unconditional surrender of the German forces. Adolph Hitler had committed suicide at the Battle of Berlin on April 30th, and the surrender was authorized by the President of Germany. V-E day (Victory in Europe) was declared and celebrations erupted across the world, including all over America. Sybel was elated. Fort Smith Arkansas was jubilant, and cities across America were filled with joyous people spilling into the streets in celebration.
The victory in Europe was a time of celebration. When I asked Al what he did when the victory was declared, he said, "We kissed the girls! What else would you do when a war is over! We kissed the girls!" Then, he added, a bit more pensively, "Actually, they kissed us. After all they had been through, for years, it was such a relief to them." Then, he quietly paused, and you could see that he was a man of compassion, a man who was both proud of the efforts of American, and sad for the unspoken oppression these people had suffered at the hands of the Nazi Party. Victory is personal. It is a moment in time, celebrated with the people who surround you. It carries a different meaning for each celebrant. Some soldiers knew that the war in Japan still carried on, and they might well be shipped to another front. Some soldiers, including Al Mills, hoped that victory would mean a speedy return to the loved ones at home, loved ones like Sybel Butler, like his father, Albert Mills, Sr., and like his brothers, Joe and Doug, who were somewhere in Europe at this very moment, celebrating in their own way, with the people surrounding them. For all these young men, away from home, in a land of different languages and different cultures, VE day was a cause for exhilaration contrasted with a surge of nostalgia, and homesickness. Victory meant that going home was not too far away. Al wrote letters to his Dad and to Sybel that he was thrilled with the announcement that hostilities were ended, and he looked forward to being home in America, with the people he loved, as soon as possible. The 16th Armored Division was still in Czechoslovakia when Victory in Japan (V-J) was declared on August 15, 1945.
Al arrived back in New York on October 13th and almost immediately he was on a train to Fort Smith to reunite with Sybel.
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