Dr. Patsy Barber
He saw the sights of England; he saw northern France, Belgium, Germany; then returned to a grateful Minden, LA, and called their "hero." Eugene Allen is too humble to accept commendations. But he knew what life was like in the 1930s: dad had died, mother returned to family in Minden, and there was no money and few jobs. Eugene Allen's four years of championship football in Minden High School expresses itself today in a fine, strong body. Eugene put on his roller skates, tossed the dry cleaning bags over his shoulder and delivered for his grandfather's business. Employment as the deliveryman for a local grocery paid $16 a week. Graduation was in 1938, and it was now 1940. The draft began as defense plans steamrolled. Eugene volunteered one week before the promised "serve one year" anniversary was marked. (The following week was the bombing of Pearl Harbor...and America in war). Air Force by choice, Eugene was visualizing years ahead when he would need a life-providing skill. While processing at Camp Beauregard, he chose airplane mechanic for training and was sent with a group to Keesler AAB, MS. From that point, he was transferred to Colorado (near Denver, perhaps Buckley AAB). Minden never had the severe snow and ice he found there, and his uniform didn't seem designed for the low temps, either. Eugene adapted well to the training and found himself on the stately Queen Elizabeth with 20,000 troops, a goodly number of Canadians, all assigned a hammock swaying nightly with the motion of the giant vessel. He was in England by September 1942, assigned to the 9th Air Force near St. Edmonds. With thousands of American troops flooding into England, good housing had to wait on construction of little air strips. And air strips were being laid all over central and southeast England. Eugene and his 9th Air Force group-4S0th Bomb Squadron, 322nd Bomb Group Found that savvy preparations back in Florida meant that all the skills needed to keep the planes repaired and ready for flight were grouped, Le., mechanics, sheet metal, instruments, etc. They pitched their tents. And from their little base, they weren't bombed although Eugene described the German planes so low (probably avoiding the radar screen) that he could see the plane insignias and faces of the pilots Each squadron had about nine B-26 "Martin Marauder" bombers. Murmurs, "Why don't we get into action?" ceased as we sent out planes daily and lost a lot of them early on. Each bomber had 4,000# bombs; some were cluster bombs, some personnel bombs.
The English welcomed us and loved us, Eugene reminisced. The English women were working in factories and other jobs replacing men in service of their country. Girlfriends were all around and wanted to marry GIs, so we did not get serious in a relationship. We were often invited to have a meal or spend the weekend with local families. My buddy from Massachusetts went with me every time we left the base..We were stationed in the sugar beet fields, but we never worked to harvest them as many of our troops did. We signed up every week for a trip and did a lot of traveling on their good train service. Although I made several trips to London, I didn't get in on the terrific bombing. One time I was walking down the street, and someone shouted, "You'd better get cover!" Our planes bombed northern France before the Normandy invasion, and after the invasion we went over to a base in France. There were a lot of pretty French girls around, both bad and good, and they loved us. The poor French people who had been prisoners for six years were coming back into France by the thousands. We were first put in what had been an orphan's home, a good building. As we moved up toward the front, we were assigned to private homes; I lived with a Belgian family for several weeks. That is where the returning people processed. The son of the family returned while we were there; his mama had been telling us about him-what a husky boy he was. When he got back, he was just skin and bones, starved to death. We don't know how fortunate we are in America not to have been prisoners. What was our life like that fall/December 19441 I went to church every Sunday, and wish you could have seen the old church we worshipped in in England-with our Episcopalian Chaplain. We had 20 to 40 for a service. December stands out in my mind...and Bastogne. Cold! We were in a nine-man tent, out in the woods, with a little pot-bellied stove in the middle of the tent; chopped wood to burn. One morning I made a long stick to beat the ice off the ropes of our tent. Headquarters was in a big two-story building in the village with no windows. We became carpenters putting on a new roof and windows. Moving into Germany, we went into a mountain-resort village taking over two of the hotels. Every day we sent out crews to tear down German war factories. White Russians came in, too. There was no trouble from the German people. We went into some of the POW camps. And the thousands of French people lining the roads going home had everything they owned In a little handkerchief slung over their shoulders. After the peace treaty, we had nothing to do. I went to the cigarette port "Tarenton" and came back to New Jersey on a troop ship, then a troop train to Camp Shelby, MS, and a 2-1/2 ton truck back to Minden. "I wouldn't take anything for the experience, but I wouldn't do it again." As we do word processing on our computers, which we love if we can keep up with changes, we think back to just 50 years or so when we began placing electric typewriters in schools. Since I returned recently from West Texas and stop at historical signs, here is one in a sparsely populated area northwest of Austin: C. J. Phillips first settler in 1853 here at Whistleville and Bugscuffe Communities for VSPO 1878. Birthplace of James Field Smothers, 1889-1967-who invented the electric typewriter.
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