WWII Veteran Transcript

Subject: Donald Dugan

Interviewer: Bobby Alan Wintermute

Tape Number: 02 of 03

Interview Date:

Transcriber:


Transcription Date:



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Interviewer: September 26th, Interview Donald Dugan, part 2, Bob Wintermute as 
Interviewer.  How are we doing today Don?

Dugan: Fine.  Thank you.

Interviewer: Good, good. Glad to be back, thank you for bringing me back.

Dugan: Thank you.

Interviewer: We were last talking about your military experience, before you 
arrived in Europe. And your brief service in England and in France in the zone of 
the interior, I want us to turn our attention now towards your combat related 
experience.

Dugan: Okay.

Interviewer: This is again, if you can confirm for me you were in the first 

Dugan: Correct.

Interviewer: When did you arrive you and your unit, arrive on the line?

Dugan: Oh Jesus…uh, that’s a good question.  The Germans attacked in…December I 
believe, December 16th I don’t know if I recall correct and we were in France and 
it took about…well, as soon as they got word that they wanted the division I was 
with, the 75th infantry division, to go up into Holland, and that area, it 
took…couple of weeks, it took a while.

Interviewer: So it’s December, January-

Dugan: Yeah, right.

Interviewer: December forty-four, January Forty-Five.

Dugan: Trying remember if you got it wrong.

Interviewer: Well lets, lets follow the questionnaire, more closely.  Did you 
take part in any combat action?

Dugan: Part in combat?  Oh yeah, sure, did I show you the medal I got?

Interviewer: Yes you did.

Dugan: I had a citation I have it someplace.

Interviewer: So from forty-five, January forty-five, till the end of the war?  
In Europe?

Dugan: My?

Interviewer: From January Nineteen Forty-Five-

Dugan: That was late?

Interviewer: When did you first enter action?

Dugan: Well, I guess it was…see, sequence of event, I had come back, I had, I was, 
I was located in, at Mitchell Field, Long Island, in the Air Force, I was in the 
medics in the Air Force at that point, there was Air Force and U.S. Army. 

Interviewer: Right.

Dugan: And then, I signed up for the ASTP, I took the test, and was granted test, 
test.  I went to City College, to be organized, and then they, of all places, I 
was looking forward to to going west or someplace, some different university, 
they sent me to Brooklyn College.

Interviewer: It’s a different Universe.

Dugan: [Laughs] I used to come home on weekends it was so close. And that, 
then...after the Battle of the Bulge they didn’t need any of that stuff anymore, 
they broke down the ASTP and a lot of other kind of units. Even the Air Force 
cadets, cadets were coming in in their nice uniforms and just like the regular 
G.I.s like myself and…and then we in the infantry and then we were assigned I was 
just, I guess, at what point I was in the 75th Infantry division, I think it was 
earlier then that, but we were on like, maneuvers down in Louisiana.

Interviewer: Right.

Dugan: And that area. And then from Louisiana we came up into Evansville, 
Indiana, that area.

Interviewer: Right.

Dugan: And we were there for good two months, about six months or so I guess.  I 
wasn’t keeping track but, and then it was, you know maybe it was at that point I 
went into ASTP.

Interviewer: No I think, I think you shortly thereafter, you were, from our 
interview last, you went to from there to disembarkation with your division, to 
England.

Dugan: England right. Wales.

Interviewer: Right.

Dugan: Swanzee.

Interviewer: Swanzee.

Dugan: Swanzee, Wales.

Interviewer: And then from Wales you were in England and from there into France.

Dugan: Right.

Interviewer: But the next part of this then is when did you actually begin you 
combat service.

Dugan: Alright…I may have been in an area to be in combat service but nothing was 
happening until the Germans attacked in December.

Interviewer: So December, 1944.

Dugan: Yes, that’s when everything got anxious and, started moving troops around 
and combining the organization and the armies then were forming and the 75th was 
part of another group and, you know, it just kept growing.

Interviewer: If I recall correctly they were creating a new army.

Dugan: Yes.

Interviewer: The Ninth Army.

Dugan: Ninth Army, right, the Ninth Army.

Interviewer: It was the first, First, Fifth, Ninth, maybe, oh and the Third, but 
the Third was Patton’s army-

Dugan: Right, that was Tanks.

Interviewer: What town were you in, where were you located when you first learned 
about the German Offensive.

Dugan: You don’t have a map or anything do you?

Interviewer: Not off-hand, but do you recall the what was it in Holland or in 
France?

DON DUGAN: Yes in that area, probably was in France, because I remember they, 
getting all the troops and we went up into Holland, in that area.  The English 
were up there, that was my first exposure to the English.

Interviewer: English soldiers?

Dugan: English Soldiers yes, they…and we were very much intermixed at that point.

Interviewer: What were your thoughts about the prospect of combat.  What were you 
thinking, about the prospect of actually being in a shooting.

Dugan: I hate that I thought it was a non-event, but we didn’t think about it all.

Interviewer: Didn’t worry about it?

Dugan: No.

Interviewer: You weren’t worried about-

Dugan: Worried about it?

Interviewer: -fatality or mortality?

Dugan: No, not until it happened, and then we were worried about it.

Interviewer: Right.

Dugan: Because it became real. And especially as a litter-bearer, just going out 
and picking up the guys, and in, from wherever they were shot down, so, they 
weren’t mostly shot down they were shrapnel, always most of them, but uh…

Interviewer: What was your first experience in combat?

Dugan: In combat?

Interviewer: Your baptism of fire. Can you describe that?

Dugan: Well, I don’t think I was frightened at the beginning, I wasn’t. It wasn’t 
after, it wasn’t until you began to see it.  What will happen [?]…I don’t have, 
keep asking me questions.

Interviewer: Okay, well when you first saw action, what was your feeling, when 
you saw it, what was, you were a litter-bearer.

Dugan: Yeah.

Interviewer: Were you called up to bring wounded soldiers back?

Dugan: Oh yes, right in, right to where they were knocked down.

Interviewer: What was that first time like?

Dugan: It was nerve-wracking because the shells were still falling I mean they 
didn’t stop the war to let us run up and get the wounded.

Interviewer: So it was an artillery barrage?

Dugan: So it was all the way, you know was all, a lot of combat and that, I 
don’t know, overdo it but it was a lot.

Interviewer: And as you said, you didn’t think about it until afterwards. 

Dugan: No, No we didn’t concern ourselves too much with it, we had very good 
leaders and the enlisted men and the officers, were very good, and I was in the 
Medics so, it was a little separate, we  didn’t carry a weapons, I didn’t have 
a weapon, or used.

Interviewer: What was the, the typical day like after you were deployed to the 
front lines.

Dugan: Well it was mostly a collapsing thing, just to collapse it. That’s all they 
were, it was pretty nerve wracking, but there’s nothing to do, we weren’t called 
upon to do anything, excuse me, we just, just relaxed, we were in some sort of a 
town or, most of them we just took over a house and whether the people were, some 
people were still there or not, didn’t make any difference, we didn’t, we were 
very orderly and and nobody, no kind of disrupture or civil disobedience of 
anything like that, everybody was very good.

Interviewer: Okay.

Dugan: It’s my opinion, maybe all the people I were with were exceptions, but I 
don’t think so.

Interviewer: How often would you be called out to, rescue-

Dugan: Oh that was constant. I mean that was every time, once, once you went in, 
once the group you were with, wasn’t a company but it could have been, it’s a 
large group, but it was, it was just constant, they just kept pushing, and 
pushing and pushing. 

Interviewer: How did you feel about that?

Dugan: Well I, at times I was pretty nervous. As everybody was. Cause those 
shells falling, right at your feet almost, and they had, they had about, that, 
with those mortars coming in, they had such force, I mean you didn’t even hear 
anything PEW!  BOOM!  Boy oh boy, you could just almost feel the ground shaking.  
It wasn’t, but it felt that way.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: It was a terrible impact, all the time.
 
Interviewer: Yeah.  What about the response of American units to that fire.  Did 
you see that?  How American units would respond with their own fire support?

Dugan: Respond to what?

Interviewer: Say your unit was being shelled.  Or being attacked by-

Dugan: Okay.

Interviewer: A German unit. 

Dugan: Yeah.

Interviewer: What was, what were your thoughts on the America response to that?

Dugan: I never thought of it. It just a natural thing, we’re fighting them and 
they’re fighting us and we’re gonna beat them and we did.

Interviewer: Were you ever directly under German fire?

Dugan: Oh sure. Constantly.

Interviewer: Personally?

Dugan: Personally. Certainly.  Trying to dig a hole underneath you sure.  Cause 
that, not too many men in the infantry at the front line avoided that.

Interviewer: What about enemy air attacks?

Dugan: Never. Well, I shouldn’t say never. But it was so remote.

Interviewer: Describe an instance.

Dugan: Only, It was only on occasions like on the Rhine River or something.  The 
German didn’t attack units on the ground, or not my unit anyway.

Interviewer: Can you describe like you said, rarely it happened, can you describe 
one of those instances?

Dugan: Well in general terms it was, I can remember on the Rhine River area 
crossing there that we were attacked, or strifed, strafed not strifed.  Strafed.  
But it wasn’t nervewrecking but it passed quickly, I mean, some reason, overwhelm 
us, it didn’t overwhelm me.

Interviewer: What about the other men around you?

Dugan: I didn’t they were, the American soldiers at that time were, sort of, I 
don’t want to say carefree, but they weren’t scared to death all the time, and-

Interviewer: Or they wouldn’t show it.

Dugan: Not in my opinion in any case.  Oh sure the shelling was you know, you 
had to take cover and be careful, but you couldn’t avoid it. That’s the way it 
was.

Interviewer: Sounds like your leadership and discipline was very good under fire.

Dugan: It was.  It was, in the Medics, I mean that’s I can still remember they 
were very good, but the soldiers were very good, I mean, it wasn’t that…there 
was no nonsense.

Interviewer: Do you remember any individual examples of like, very strong 
leadership under fire? Or any examples of extreme bravery under fire?

Dugan: Nothing occurs to me right off.  But I’m [?].  They were good but-

Interviewer: I mean even by other Medics and litter bearers, you know?  Cause it’s 
often said that the hospital corpsman or the medical corpsman has to exhibit a 
different type of bravery-

Dugan: Yeah they were right in the middle of it.

Interviewer: -then a combat soldier.

Dugan: Right. And you had to expose yourself to go out and get the wounded. 

Interviewer: Nothing that comes to mind?

Dugan: Nothing. It’s just the general situation.

Interviewer: You were never wounded?

Dugan: No, I was never wounded.  And I had a brother who was also in the infantry 
and a platoon leader, never wounded either. James and I were both-

Interviewer: Very Lucky.

Dugan: Both were awarded medals and…

Interviewer: Did you personally know of others close to you, who were killed or 
wounded? 

Dugan: I can’t remember them now. No I can’t. Wounded was one thing, killed was 
something else.

Interviewer: What’s the, what do you mean?

Dugan: Well it was just, if you were wounded, no matter what it was, you, you 
were no longer in the scene, you were taken to a field hospital someplace.  And 
our job was to get somebody, the wounded, back to an aid station, that was the 
first point of contact, an aid station, and whatever it was…

Interviewer: Can you describe what would happened at the Aid Station?

Dugan: We had a it was always a doctor there, the command was a medical person who 
was in command, he was the captain or the colonel, captain, not colonel, colonel 
would be at the regiment, and uh…doing there job.  No nonsense.  Very friendly and, 
you know, no nonsense and no bad acting or anything, no rebellion or anything.

Interviewer: Say you brought wounded soldiers back to the aid, how were they 
processed?  How were they treated?

Dugan: Well the, litter bearers like myself or aid men would just drop them off, 
they had nothing to do with medical treatment.  The Surgeons, or the 
surgical…whatever their title was I can’t…surgical helpers, not helpers but 
surgical aides of some sort.  They took care of the medical aspects of it.

Interviewer: What about when you picked soldiers up from the hospital corpsman on 
the scene, like the platoon medic.  What was that exchange like, did they tell you 
anything special?

Dugan: They weren’t too many of those, they weren’t-

Interviewer: I mean like were you ever given special instructions about different 
type of wounds or?

Dugan: No nothing.  Nothing at all.

Interviewer: Okay.

Dugan: Basically, no, no prior training.

Interviewer: Just get ‘em and go. Okay.

Dugan: The job didn’t require it, the job required getting the wounded the 
point of being wound to a place where they could get some aid, and the aid and the 
aid would be by medical people not the [?]

Interviewer: Did you ever see or know of people, who were the victims of friendly 
fire?

Dugan: Friendly fire? 

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: No.

Interviewer: No?

Dugan: I mean where our own people would shoot them-

Interviewer: By accident.

Dugan: No.  I’m sure it happened by accident, but uh…no I didn’t.

Interviewer: Okay, even artillery barrage, or aircraft?

Dugan: What?

Interviewer: Even by artillery barrage or aircraft?

Dugan: No. Very little aircraft, plenty of artillery fire but, no I didn’t, I 
don’t recall it.

Interviewer: What about psychiatric cases. The idea of shell shock, or combat 
fatigue, did you ever see people-

Dugan: No

Interviewer: -Afflicted with that?

Dugan: No.

Interviewer: No?

Dugan: Not saying it didn’t exist, but it didn’t exist where I was.

Interviewer: Okay, not even amongst other litter bearers or?
 
Dugan: No. 

Interviewer: Okay.

Dugan: Maybe it took a lot more doing or being there but-

Interviewer: Not from what you saw?  Okay.  You say of course you’re with the 75th 
division, which allied command was it attached to, you said 9th army?

Dugan: Yes.  Well at different times it was different armies.  It was the 5th and 
the 9th and it, I guess it was always, well, I don’t know, what required, whether 
it was the area in which we were in, because we moved round, all the way from 
Holland down to France.  I guess it depends on command you were, the division was 
under.  But it didn’t matter to us, it was  just…

Interviewer: Was there any special procedures for operating or working with allied 
troops, you mentioned the British, I think possibly also Canadians or?

Dugan: Well if it did exist it didn’t exist at the private, at the level that I was, 
just an ordinary private soldier.

Interviewer: Right.  You mentioned that you had, experienced, you met British 
Soldiers, what was your opinion of the British?

Dugan: Oh, I thought they were terrific.

Interviewer: Yeah?

Dugan: Yeah.  Oh yeah, they were very good.  Very friendly and very knowledgeable 
you know, very good.  I, we met them several times and areas in, along the Rhine 
and up in Holland Area, especially in the Holland Area, the just the, it wasn’t 
Holland just alone, that whole…if I had a map I’d…

Interviewer: That area from Aarnhem down to Einhoven? Yeah.

Dugan: North of that too.

Interviewer: Right.  Right.  Was there any specific experience that stands out in 
your mind of, involving the British soldiers, that you’d like to share?

Dugan: No. 

Interviewer: No?

Dugan: No, we didn’t see that much of the British soldiers, no, not in combat.

Interviewer: What about even just observing them or meeting them?

Dugan: Right.

Interviewer: Any special encounter that stands out? 

Dugan: Nothing that stands out in my mind no.

Interviewer: Did you have any thoughts about how they were equipped, what was 
different with them as compared to Americans, with their equipment that stood out.

Dugan: Well I think we’ve always felt we were superior and had the better 
equipment, then anybody else [laughter].  And we did, there was no question about 
that, the British couldn’t match us.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: It was relative, all relative compared to the Americans.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: But they were very good and no quarrel, no problem.

Interviewer: We hear stories about the British being jealous of the Americans 
because of the pay, Americans were paid so much more.

Dugan: Well that, that was scuttlebug from the backside.  That wasn’t that wasn’t 
among combat soldiers.  [?] Who could care in combat whether somebody got paid 
for more then you.

Interviewer: Yeah but when you’re on, when your in liberty, and you’re trying to 
meet the girls, I heard that was an issue.

Dugan: Yeah.  But you must remember, you’ve asked that earlier, there was no 
fraternization and that was very strictly enforced, they wouldn’t dare speak to 
somebody.  And you could meet the girls at the USOs when you were there, but it 
was strictly that, limited social engagement.

Interviewer: Did you meet any other Allied soldiers?  I’m thinking Dutch, Polish, 
French?

Dugan: Not in the sense of meeting them and relating to them no.

Interviewer: Okay.

Dugan: They were in the area but they were, not only language is a problem but 
the commands were a problem.

Interviewer: Canadians?  Any Canadians?

Dugan: No.  Nothing.

Interviewer: No?

Dugan: Not to my knowledge, as I recall.

Interviewer: Did you remember from when you were talking with British soldiers 
what they thought of Americans?

Dugan: No.  That didn’t-

Interviewer: Didn’t really come up.  You know, whether they thought they were good 
soldiers, or?

Dugan: No. I’m sure among themselves they used say, probably, G.I.’s don’t know…[?] 
but, no there was nothing about that.

Interviewer: You mentioned you were in Holland. Did you encounter of the Hollish, 
or the Dutch resistance?

Dugan: Oh no, no, none at all.  There was no resistance in that, that we would be 
obvious or observable, and didn’t exist.

Interviewer: Okay. What was the, your attitude of the Dutch civilians you met?

Dugan: Well I thought they were very good, all the allies were very good , they 
were very serious and-

Interviewer: But even the people though, just the average people?

Dugan: Yeah, for trying to help.  Everybody was always trying to help.  I…very good, 
I had no problem with the people, people were-

Interviewer: What was your thoughts on how the Dutch felt about Americans?

Dugan: The subject didn’t come up they were too profound for guys in the line.

Interviewer: But they weren’t happy to see you?  They didn’t welcome Americans and 
such?

Dugan: Well I’m sure they were happy to see us because it took the burden off them 
for a while but, no there was…there was very little intercourse in that sense.  
Because the army didn’t want it that way, they wanted the soldiers, U.S. Soldiers 
to be kept by themselves, and do their own thing  and no fraternization, that was 
very strictly enforced.

Interviewer: Lets talk about the Germans.

Dugan: The Germans?

Interviewer: What was thought about the Germans?

Dugan: Well I had no problem because they were always, I didn’t see any of the 
terrible things that they obviously did do.  Even in the Ruhr, people that were 
behind the fences, you know they starving them and oh god they piece of bread, 
could go crazy.

Interviewer: What was your opinion of the German Armed Forces? 

Dugan: Well I thought they were very good, they were good, there’s no question 
about that, even, you know they always, thought of the German soldiers as being 
the best soldiers in the world, they probably were.  That was their mentality too, 
they were to obey orders, and all that business, don’t get me any smoke, they just, 
would do you what they were told to do.  Not that the American soldiers were 
difficult, they didn’t have quarrels.

Interviewer: Were you involved in prisoners at any time?

Dugan: No.  I saw plenty of the prisoners but not, we didn’t.

Interviewer: What did you think of them, when you saw them?  What they look like?

Dugan: Very docile but very well organized, and they weren’t poor souls by any 
means.

Interviewer: They were all-

Dugan: They were always like this when I saw because they were-

Interviewer: Note that he’s indicating hands behind their head.

Dugan: Yeah.

Interviewer: What was the age of the Germans you saw?

Dugan: I thought they were relatively young, I would say nothing over fortyish.

Interviewer: How young though? I mean like-

Dugan: Well they weren’t, they weren’t children either.  No, they were good troops.  
Whether they were, had been saved or whatever but they were strong, good men.  You 
just see that they were.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: The way that they were organized.

Interviewer: We hear accounts as a historian, we hear accounts, as the war goes on 
the Germans had to younger, younger men and boys to fill the ranks, and their 
equipment became, or their uniforms became less, well made, and cheaper.  Did you 
experience that or?

Dugan: It may have existed, but I didn’t experience it, I didn’t experience it 
simply because we were kept so separate.

Interviewer: Right.

Dugan: You didn’t, you saw some of the combat zones but nothing…

Interviewer: Did you ever encounter any of the elite troops, German Elite Troops, 
Waffen-SS or?

Dugan: No.

Interviewer: What was your opinion of the SS?

Dugan: Oh, I always thought they were super soldiers, always, god forbid if we face 
them, but never happened.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: But we had such firepower, god I don’t know, they must have been scared to 
death.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: God, mortars and shells and 155s, Oh boy, oh boy.  You couldn’t believe it, 
anybody could survive after that, just in a regular bombardment.  They didn’t…

Interviewer: Was that the typical way you saw the 75th division attack, was to use 
a lot of bombardment first?

Dugan: Oh yeah, oh yes. Very much so.

Interviewer: Bullets before men?

Dugan: Yes. Very much so.

Interviewer: Was that effective?

Dugan: I guess it was, mortars, the Germans were good with mortars, no question about 
that, but we were pretty good too, our soldiers were very good mortar people.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: Drop it right on your foot, [?]

Interviewer: Wow.

Dugan: Yeah.

Interviewer: Wow.

Dugan: It’s where all our casualties came from, mortar fire.

Interviewer: What about other weapons, I mean you hear about the German 88?

Dugan: Oh the 88? Well that was no question, just hear about, you could experience 
it.

Interviewer: What was that like?

Dugan: It hit the ground before you even knew it was coming.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: Oh yeah.  They were, they were, they were scary.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: Yes the were, really.  Course they, you could just like that, you couldn’t 
even hear them, before you knew it it was exploding.

Interviewer: Wow.

Dugan: And they exploded.  They did.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: And they had a lot of them, too. They weren’t some scarce thing that once in 
a while would happen you’d say ‘oh there’s an 88’ no they were there all the time.  
In my experience, and mortars too, just very good at that stuff.

Interviewer: Yeah, Germans are known for other weapons as well, like their armored 
weapons, their tanks.  What was the feeling amongst you and yours about prospect of 
facing German Armor?

Dugan: Well, I personally didn’t experience that.

Interviewer: What was the scuttlebutt about it?

Dugan: We the ground troops had some tanks, but the division had a tank corps of 
sorts, but it wasn’t, wasn’t like a support group, it was just there, wasn’t 
something to be concerned with, but it’s my experience cause-

Interviewer: I hear stories about like the German Tigers and the Panther Tanks.

Dugan: Saw them occasionally, but never experience them no.  They were too remote, 
I guess it was the difference between ground troops fighting and then artillery 
and tanks and things, you needed a lot of space for artillery and tanks where as 
the…our group just went up bit by bit, their objective was to capture a little town 
or something like that, a house…

Interviewer: What about the German infantry weapons?  The quality of those compared 
to American weapons?

Dugan: Well, hard for me to say because

Interviewer: Well you would hear them.

Dugan: Never got close to them to see it, but they were, we always understood they 
were super.  They were very good. And the Germans were good at using them.

Interviewer: Yeah. How well trained do you think they were?

Dugan: Superbly. 

Interviewer: Yeah? 

Dugan: Yeah, they were very well trained. No question about that.

Interviewer: But you didn’t have any ill-feelings towards them as a people or?

Dugan: Pardon?

Interviewer: You had ill-feelings toward them as a people?

Dugan: No.

Interviewer: No?

Dugan: No, not…no didn’t exist.

Interviewer: Even after learning about there the prison camps and concentration 
camps?

Dugan: Maybe it was, for some reason it was too remote.  It wasn’t something we 
concerned ourselves with, oh it was brought to our attention, but we were asked to 
think about it.  It was just, something that happened in the war.

Interviewer: Did you ever carry enemy wounded?

Dugan: Carry the wounded?

Interviewer: Yeah, their wounded.

Dugan: Their wounded?  Yeah we would that, on occasion.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: Yeah, we were always able to give them some help, a hand or a bandage or 
whatever.

Interviewer: How did they respond to that?

Dugan: They, very gracious, very pleased and, you know, just thank you, couldn’t 
speak American, English, but you they were-

Interviewer: None of them spoke English?

Dugan: No, none of this enemy stuff, I never experience enemies.

Interviewer: Yeah. None of them spoke English?

Dugan: Very little, very few.  It wasn’t until end of the fighting that the 
Germans who spoke English seemed to come out and you could talk to them.  And 
prior to that…maybe they were under the same restrictions we were, no 
fraternization.

Interviewer: Did you ever encounter German Officers?

Dugan: No.

Interviewer: No? It was always the enlisted men?

Dugan: Sometimes in, very occasionally, but on occasion you’d, since we were 
always going into the factories and especially being medics, you know, we wouldn’t 
count to them, but they were very, almost non-existent.  They weren’t trying to 
start anything or confront us, or battle us or fight us or, we weren’t the enemy 
we were just somebody else who was there.  Maybe I have such a distorted view of 
this but…

Interviewer: Well this was after the fighting had passed by obviously-

Dugan: But, not like a whole battle or a campaign had passed by it was just…

Interviewer: What about political Germans?  Members of the Nazi Party did you 
encounter any of that?

Dugan: No.

Interviewer: Even in the Ruhr.

Dugan: No, very little of that.

Interviewer: Lets talk about the Ruhr.  Lets talk about your, your taking part in 
the reduction of the Ruhr pocket.  The fighting of all that is in Germany of course.

Dugan: Yeah.

Interviewer: What was the river crossing like? Crossing the Rhine?

Dugan: Well when I crossed the Rhine it was no problem because we just, the last 
troops over we just followed right across with them…It was always safe at that 
point, because the bombardment was…

Interviewer: Where did you cross that, do you remember?

Dugan: Yes. Up the town called Wessel. I think

Interviewer: Wessel. 

Dugan: Wessel, or something, on the northern, northern Rhine, northern part.  And 
it was very calm, you know, it wasn’t a big battle scene there, because they had 
been beaten they were wiped out and I guess.

Interviewer: How far would your division travel in a day, in closing the Ruhr?

Dugan: Well it would vary naturally because…I would say on average, in a, in a 
combat situation, not very little, very little travelling, no more then you could 
walk, but whether, whether it was to another area then, everybody had to jump on a 
train, or a truck, or a Jeep or something and be transported.  Two and a half ton 
trucks were the thing that we all got on to.  Except for the [?] or the command 
troops, the jeeps and [?] put it on the back all of the place.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: Anything to get a ride.

Interviewer: You’re driving on some pretty big highways at that point.

Dugan: Oh yes, oh yeah.

Interviewer: The Autobahn?

Dugan: Super. Oh yes, we were, that area in Aust, in that, well almost the German 
Ruhr kind of a thing very industrialized.  Very, you know, almost like the States.  
No difference from the States, as the roads are like.

Interviewer: Did a lot of people think that, that the Germans were like us in some 
way?

Dugan: I think so.  Cause there were no obvious differences, how could you not 
think that?

Interviewer: But the swastika banners, the Nazis-

Dugan: Oh well…well even so.  Maybe they were weakened by that time or they, 
disappeared, I didn’t, there wasn’t a lot of it, well we were the front line 
troops so there couldn’t have been a lot of…surrendering but…

Interviewer: Did the civilians resent you, do you think?

Dugan: Not that the civilians kept out of it. You never saw them.

Interviewer: Never saw them?

Dugan: Well on two basis.  One we weren’t permitted to talk to them, or make any 
association with them, no fraternization, nothing.  And on the second hand they 
didn’t want any part of us, [?] or we would, what would we do, if we draw fire.

Interviewer: What about the kids?

Dugan: Kids? Never saw kids.

Interviewer: That’s like the legend of American soldiers, always with the candy 
bar and the children.

Dugan: Oh yeah, well, that was not in the combat situation. So-

Interviewer: Didn’t see that?

Dugan: No, no, that was on traveling to another front or something.

Interviewer: Or after the fighting was done?

Dugan: And the convoys used to go along, and they wouldn’t speed, you know, they’d 
just go slowly and, almost talk to the people as the went, give them, they were 
always looking for something to eat, or some, some handout of sorts.

Interviewer: What did the towns look like when you went through them?

Dugan: Pretty good.  I mean, not, not disheveled, beaten down people.  That was my 
impression, they looked pretty like they looked like Americans almost.

Interviewer: Did you see any of the big cities or the factory cities with the Ruhr?

Dugan: Oh sure.  The factory, we fought through the factory cities.

Interviewer: What shaped were those in?

Dugan: They were still running.  You’d put your hand on a line and be run over or 
something.

Interviewer: Really?

Dugan: Yes.  Oh sure.  When the troops pulled in, this thing was clanging away at 
a mile a minute.  It didn’t stop.  And we just, the war passed them, factories by, 
they kept running.

Interviewer: You hear stories about how the 8th Air Force had bombed so much of 
the Ruhr Valley during the war, and they were supposed to be targeting the 
factories but you’re telling me that the factories were still working.

Dugan: Well they did bomb them, did target them, but they were still working, I’m 
not saying everything was up to date but there was plenty of things running.

Interviewer: What were they making in the factories you’d go through?

Dugan: We never knew that.

Interviewer: They weren’t obviously making guns, or ammunition.

Dugan: Well, no it wasn’t obvious. I’m sure if you could, get into it you could 
find out, but it wasn’t obvious.

Interviewer: Yeah, did you see any of the bombed out cities in the Ruhr?

Dugan: Oh bombed out cities?  Of course, plenty of them all over the place, that’s 
the way it was.

Interviewer: What did you think of that?

Dugan: Well, I had various thoughts, sometimes I thought of how fortunately they 
were that it wasn’t bombed out worse then it was, and others was some terrible 
conditions.  I don’t know.  All in all it wasn’t that bad.  That would be my 
general statement.  Even so the people suffered terribly.

Interviewer: Did you think they deserved it?

Dugan: Did they, pardon?

Interviewer: Did you think they deserved it?

Dugan: I never thought of them as deserving it.  But they obviously did deserve it 
for one thing, horrors that they perpetrated sure.  But I never, never  thought of 
them in that sense, ‘Oh there’s a German soldier I’ll stick a knife in him, or 
something’ no, none of that.

Interviewer: Do you know anybody who did feel that way?

Dugan: No.

Interviewer: No?

Dugan: No.  I didn’t, that wasn’t, it didn’t, it wasn’t quite a conversational 
thing.  I don’t know whether we were beyond it or whether, too involved in saving 
our own.

Interviewer: No, but you could also see it in how other people would act, whether 
they were particularly mean or nasty or?

Dugan: I didn’t see that at all.

Interviewer: No?

Dugan: The other people weren’t mean.  Maybe they were but I didn’t see it.

Interviewer: Another feature of the war in Ruhr that’s talk about is, American and 
British soldiers both, coming across small towns, with the diehard Nazis who 
wouldn’t give up, or the one kid with a panzerfaust who would fire at a truck or a 
tank as it went through town. Did you see any of that?

Dugan: No.  I didn’t see it, I don’t think it existed too much.  I think that kind 
of a thing was not for guys right under fire, that was for something to discuss and 
think about later, didn’t think about at that, save your own bottom.

Interviewer: Did you share any food or rations with civilians?

Dugan: I didn’t personally. You know, you weren’t, no fraternization, that was very 
strictly enforced.  And besides which they disappeared, we didn’t know where they, 
they were mostly in the cellars and basements and things, you could see them when 
something let up, they’d come out, but they were completely sheltered and would run 
away from the war, we were in.

Interviewer: Would you come across towns where they obviously were trying surrender 
and say ‘we’re done?’

Dugan: No, no.  It was too complete and too quick I guess.  Overwhelm them before 
they knew what happened they were so surrendered and captured.  I didn’t see any 
horror scenes at all.

Interviewer: When the Ruhr pocket collapses, and the Germans in the Ruhr surrender, 
what happened next, for you, where did you go next?  Did you go across Germany, 
towards the Russians, did you go south?

Dugan: Oh no, pretty much stayed where we were.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: You know, it was a nonevent almost.  Just, just knocked around.  There was so 
many of us.

Interviewer: Well I’m talking about before the war was over, you still had a good 
month to go.

Dugan: Well you couldn’t you couldn’t move.  I mean, you were prohibited from that, 
and you had no access, no way of doing it.  I mean, you, if you were, if, a company, 
or a regiment or whatever you were with was moving you’d move with it.

Interviewer: So your division stayed in the Ruhr?

Dugan: Right. Right.

Interviewer: Okay, so it cleaned out the Ruhr, it didn’t take part in the pursuit?

Dugan: Right, right for a long time after that.

Interviewer: Right, did you encounter and prisoners of wars.

Dugan: Not in, depends on what you mean.

Interviewer: American or French-

Dugan: Oh, no not ours.

Interviewer: No?

Dugan: Very seldom.

Interviewer: Who was working in the factories that you liberated?

Dugan: The…captured people working in the factories.

Interviewer: Like whom?

Dugan: I don’t know. Eastern People.

Interviewer: Poles?

Dugan: Poles and whatever.  Because they were always hungry, always begging for 
food.

Interviewer: How did the Germans treat them, do you think?

Dugan: I think they ignored them always probably felt superior to them.

Interviewer: Was it slave labor you think or?

Dugan: Well I don’t think slave labor, that would be the right word.  Cause they 
weren’t, they weren’t dominated, persecuted in that sense, to my knowledge. 

Interviewer: Were they paid?...Were they paid?

Dugan: Oh no, no. Paid?

Interviewer: Yeah.  They were put to work.

Dugan: Not to my knowledge. Who would pay them?

Interviewer: Exactly.

Dugan: Where would you get the money to pay them?

Interviewer: So in a sense it was slave labor, then.

Dugan: Well I mean, maybe there were plenty of occasions that happened but, 
not, not among the…

Interviewer: What was the attitude of American soldiers towards the displaced 
persons?

Dugan: Towards Displaced Persons?...Keep them away from me.  Don’t bother them with 
me, don’t bother me with them, just not terribly concerned, just didn’t want to be 
involved, and just walked away.

Interviewer: How did you feel about that. 

Dugan: It was the way it was.  You didn’t, first of all, you weren’t supposed to.  
They didn’t want any fraternization or I told you, not just fraternization, you 
couldn’t talk to them so it was very much a distinct policy of the U.S. Forces to 
keep the troops from speaking to enemy or to the allied soldiers, it didn’t happen.  
And it didn’t happen for two reasons, one they were always separated, the units 
were separated, and secondly they, they didn’t want it to happen.  So they 
prevented it.  I didn’t know any other soldiers.

Interviewer: Were you involved or did you have occasion to see, any liberated 
prison camps or concentration camps?

Dugan: No.

Interviewer: No?

Dugan: The division I was with didn’t.  The division my brother was with, saw plenty 
of it.

Interviewer: Right.

Dugan: But he was always talking about the poor people and liberated and we always, 
they always there, because they were always starving, and anything to get something 
to eat but, no we didn’t, I didn’t, I wasn’t faced much with that.  Not that, it 
wasn’t I think, it just happened that my group fighting more then they did-

Interviewer: You were just in a different area.

Dugan: The enemy, the other people stayed away, they didn’t want to get shot and 
wounded.

Interviewer: Are there any units or divisions that you served with, in addition to 
the 75th, that stand out?

Dugan: Say that again.

Interviewer: Are there any other units or division besides the 75th that stand out 
in your mind, that you were with?

Dugan: Oh yeah, some of the other divisions, they stood out, but I didn’t know 
particulars, because it was just that, they were always on the attack.

Interviewer: What was your-

Dugan: They fought more then we did in this sense.

Interviewer: Like who?

Dugan: 3rd. Or Patton, Patton was famous so, couldn’t keep him still.

Interviewer: What was your opinion of Patton?

Dugan: My opinion of him?  Thank god I’m not in his divisions.  You know, because 
they were really fearless, he was I guess, but not the soldiers, because they were 
the ones who had to go fighting, but they were pretty ruthless. Not ruthless mean, 
just, nothing would stop them.

Interviewer: What about the airborne divisions?

Dugan: The airborne divisions?

Interviewer: What did you think of those guys?

Dugan: didn’t see much of them. No.

Interviewer: What was there reputation?

Dugan: I guess, I don’t know, I really don’t, I don’t know of any airborne.  You 
mean like the 82nd and 101st?  We relieved the 101st in, I don’t know where it 
was, probably in the Ruhr someplace.  You know, they were just, same as us.  They 
were just, they didn’t stand out, they-

[END OF SIDE A]

[BEGINNING OF SIDE B]

Interviewer: What about individual leaders, if I were to give you some names 
would you tell me what you thought about them at the time?

Dugan: Not in among the soldiers I was with, they were, they weren’t leaders in 
the sense that the, company commander was the leader.

Interviewer: Well I’m thinking about people like General Bradley-

Dugan: Oh, oh, oh.

Interviewer: Think of someone like Bradley-

Dugan: Yeah, well we, you know, General Patton, Patton was a fighting, you were 
with Patton you knew damn well you were going to be-

Interviewer: In trouble.

Dugan: -in the midst of it.

Interviewer: What about Bradley?

Dugan: Bradley?  Neutral sort of.  And Hodges, Neutral.

Interviewer: Samson?

Dugan: Who?

Interviewer: Samson?

Dugan: Simpson.

Interviewer: Simpson rather.

Dugan: We wouldn’t, he was, he was in the first of ninth army, divisions, Army-

Interviewer: Army.

Dugan: -Army not Divisions.

Interviewer: What was his reputation?

Dugan: Yeah, Simpson, he had a good reputation.  Sort of an ugly duck.

Interviewer:  [laughs] I’ve seen pictures of him, yeah.

Dugan: But he was there all the time, he was a leader I thought he was one of the, 
big leaders you know?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: But we never saw him personally.

Interviewer: But you, you had your own beliefs on him.

Dugan: Oh yeah, sure because, we would get Yank and that newspaper, something to 
read, and, we’d just devour them, just to get some information, but uh…

Interviewer: What about Eisenhower? What did you all think of Eisenhower?

Dugan: Everybody thought Eisenhower was great, I think, I certainly thought he 
was great.

Interviewer: What about Montgomery?

Dugan: Same thing except English, you know the usual, nonsense of Americans, 
English.

Interviewer: What about De Gaulle?

Dugan: Well the same thing although the French were had that reputation of being 
obstructionist or personally, you know, different, temperamental.

Interviewer: What about FDR?

Dugan: FDR?  Everybody loved FDR.

Interviewer: Where, when did you learn about FDR’s death? Can you describe the 
moment of learning about FDR’s death.

Dugan: Well…no I can’t remember, it was in April wasn’t it.

Interviewer: April 20th.

Dugan: I don’t remember.  I thought it was great loss, and if it had happened, many 
months earlier we would have been scared to death, but by that time, we had, we 
were on the offense, we, nothing could stop the America, so we didn’t need him in 
a sense.

Interviewer: Yeah, what about Stalin?

Dugan: He was a great soldier though, but they had plenty of great soldiers.

Interviewer: What about Stalin?

Dugan: Stalin?  He was almost a fictional character, you know, you couldn’t, 
couldn’t get a grip on him, he was not something that we, he wasn’t real, you know.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan:  Stories about Stalin but…

Interviewer: Did you, you never met any Russians did you ever any, what was your 
opinion of the Russians?

Dugan: I thought they were great…bore the brunt of the all the fighting.  I used 
to think ‘thank god I’m not in their outfit.’  Boy!  Because it was just incredible, 
but I wasn’t thank goodness.

Interviewer: Where were you, when you learned about V-E Day?

Dugan: About V-E Day?

Interviewer: Yeah, where were you on V-E day?

Dugan: I don’t even remember.

Interviewer: Somewhere in Germany, right?

Dugan:  Oh yeah, sure.

Interviewer: What was it like? Can you describe the day?

Dugan:  It was just a day like all the, wasn’t a lot of celebration or anything, 
it was just, I guess it took so long coming, that alright, lets here, we won the 
war and that’s the end of it.  Yeah, it was no celebration or anything and no 
shooting guns off or anything like that.  I don’t think.  And whisky was so hard 
to come by that you couldn’t say ‘let’s have a drink’ or something like that.  No 
it was just, I don’t want to say it was a non-event but it wasn’t, it wasn’t 
tumultuous kind of a thing, we just won the war or something like that.  Just 
happened.

Interviewer: Well there was still the war going on-

Dugan: Oh sure there was plenty, sure there was a war going on but for some reason, 
I don’t look like I’m too strained there do I?

Interviewer: No. Well what was your, your thoughts about going to Japan?

Dugan: Oh that didn’t exist, we knew the war wouldn’t last for Japan.

Interviewer: You knew that it would be done before you got there or were you 
hoping?

Dugan: Oh yeah, this was the end of it, this was right in, closing down right 
there.  And that was just in Holland.

Interviewer: So you expected the war to be over before you got there.

Dugan: Oh sure, absolutely.

Interviewer: What were your thoughts when you heard about the Atomic Bomb?

Dugan: On the Atomic Bomb?  Just marveled at it, but it wasn’t, in the sense it 
wasn’t real we didn’t expect an Atomic Bomb to be dropped anywhere or something.  
But I thought that ended it.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: I think I was in England someplace when that happened.

Interviewer: So you were on your way home already, or were you over in England?

Dugan: No, no, I wasn’t on the way home, no, not at all. I didn’t, re-enlist in 
the army, the war ended in what in?

Interviewer: May forty-five.

Dugan: May forty-five for us.  Nobody was discharge until close to forty-six or.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: Cause they, they had the point system, you know, that was really, they lived 
by that-

Interviewer: How’d that work for you?

Dugan: Well it worked, first of all it was how many months you were, in the service, 
how many overseas, how many campaigns you were in, how many campaign tours, battle 
stars and things like that.  All I got five points-

Interviewer: How many points did you have?

Dugan: About eighty or something like that.

Interviewer: You needed what a hundred?

Dugan: Oh no, it wasn’t a question of minimum, it was just…

Interviewer: But you had Eighty.

Dugan: Right.

Interviewer: Right, I was going to say you needed for early discharge you needed 
how many?

Dugan: I wasn’t early discharged, I didn’t get out until, end of forty-five.

Interviewer: But to be early discharged, you needed over a hundred.

Dugan: Oh yes, yes.

Interviewer: Did you know anyone who had more than, who had the hundred?

Dugan: …If I did, nobody talked about it or anything.  Again it was a non-event 
because you couldn’t control it, it didn’t mean anything.  Somebody else was 
counting and if you had some he told you and if you didn’t have them he told you 
also, but you had no control or nothing to say about it?

Interviewer: What did your family think of home about the idea that the war was 
over and you and your brother had survived it?

Dugan: Well they, very happy I’m sure.

Interviewer: They didn’t, they didn’t write you or send letters or?

Dugan: No, just relief I guess.  Plus my brother and I used to write every day if 
we could, very good, children.

Interviewer: The wars over, there’s now the next stage, which is the, 
administration of the occupation.  Were you involved at all in any of the civil 
affairs work?

Dugan: Oh no, not civil affairs, no.

Interviewer: No?

Dugan: No. Not at my level, they didn’t want me, privates, PFCs doing that.

Interviewer: Not even guard duty or assisting of hospitals.

Dugan: Again Medics I was in, we didn’t do that, since we weren’t, had no arms, 
never.

Interviewer: You were-

Dugan: One day we went to the firing range, I think they did that just so you knew, 
they knew, there was such a thing as a gun.  But uh, I had no, no, and they didn’t 
bother us with it or anything. It just didn’t exist. 

Interviewer: You weren’t expected to help with hospitals or care-

Dugan: Oh no, no, no.

Interviewer: -for the sick?

Dugan: No.

Interviewer: Distribution of Food?

Dugan: They had plenty of troops for that, I’m sure, maybe they, maybe guys who 
were close with, but not, not men in, in division, not medics in divisions no.

Interviewer: So you just basically spent the whole time in camp?

Dugan: I’m sorry?

Interviewer: You spent the whole time in camp after the war?

Dugan: Just knocking around.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: You know, it’s not much to do.

Interviewer: What did you think of the efforts to clean up the German government, 
after the war.

Dugan: Well I hate to say it but it was above me and I didn’t, I didn’t involve, 
I couldn’t involve myself with it and know anything about it or anything.

Interviewer: But you were there, I mean you saw it happen.

Dugan: Yes.

Interviewer: Did you think it was necessary?

Dugan: I guess.

Interviewer: Were you there-

Dugan: It was so, it was so civil compared to, you know the idea that it was a, an 
enemy at war in a world war, but it was so civil, civilized there was no, didn’t, 
you know you didn’t look at on the German as, looking down on them or hating them, 
or seeing German soldiers, just, just natural, I don’t know, maybe it was unique 
for us but-

Interviewer: Did you hear any accounts of civilians being mistreated?

Dugan: No.  No.

Interviewer: By allied soldiers? No?

Dugan: Never.  I’m, I don’t think there was much of it, if it existed.  
I’m sure, everything exists but we didn’t have that much.

Interviewer: I understand that your saying you were discouraged from fraternizing 
but there was a lot of fraternization when the war ended.

Dugan: When the war ended?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: That’s, male-female-

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: -Right. But not, not much in, like in organizations or anything.

Interviewer: Right.

Dugan: I don’t know why but I don’t think I was certainly with a lot of educated, 
intelligent people, cause they were all out of ASTP and-

Interviewer: Right.

Dugan: -you know, and out of colleges you could hardly meet anybody who hadn’t 
been a college graduate, a college student so uh…

Interviewer: So you were good, you would say.

Dugan: Well it was more, it was more then just basic education cause, that existed 
too and you could tell, they guys that had rural education.  But most of us were 
college people. 

Interviewer: So no-
	
Dugan: Not that, not that people looked up on it as something especiall or something 
it just, that’s the way it was.

Interviewer: Did you know of anybody, who took a war bride? A war bride?

Dugan: Took a war-bot?

Interviewer: Bride?

Dugan: No, no. I don’t how you could do that.

Interviewer: No?

Dugan: You couldn’t, bride?

Interviewer: Well when the war’s over.  Meeting in somebody in England or France.

Dugan: That happened, much later, not after the war, was the troops were still 
there.
 
Interviewer: Right.

Dugan: The troops were, I’m talking about when the troops were still under their 
own command.

Interviewer: Right.

Dugan: But…I guess after a while, things got loose I guess.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Dugan: And I thought, by the time I was gone.

Interviewer: What was the morale of the unit after the war ended.

Dugan: Very good. I didn’t, I never saw poor morale.

Interviewer: No drunkenness, no misbehavior?

Dugan: No, no, no, nonsense.

Interviewer: It happened-

Dugan: I’m sure it happened, cause so maybe G.I.s were so…what’s the word?  
Obstreperous I guess.  They were always looking for a fight or something, argue.

Interviewer: Did you ever see problems related to soldiers who just wanted to go home?

Dugan: No.

Interviewer: No, no demonstrations or?

Dugan: No no I didn’t, didn’t happen either.  Maybe, maybe those kind of situations 
were much later, I’m sure, for the period I’m talking about, it was still too close 
to the war, the situation was obvious there, it, troops were, combat troops were 
still there so.

Interviewer: What was, what did you think the world would be like after the war? 

Dugan: What it would be like after?

Interviewer: What was you expectations, if you remember them?

Dugan: All I wanted to do was get home..

Interviewer: Yeah, you didn’t expect the Russians would be a problem or, any-

Dugan: No, there was plenty of that but I don’t, I don’t they, we thought about it.  
Maybe it was because we were so separated for so long, there was never any close 
relations between American troops and other national troops, we didn’t know them at 
all.

Interviewer: Okay.

Dugan: They hardly knew what the theatre what their routines were.

Interviewer: Okay.

Dugan: And I guess rightfully so you couldn’t have.

Interviewer: Tell me about your trip home.  Tell me about when you went home.

Dugan: I’m so sorry-

Interviewer: When you went home.  Tell me about when you went home?

Dugan: [?]…I don’t know whether I’m, I’m not a callous person but it just didn’t, 
it was a non-event, I expected to come home, and I came home, and my, I don’t think 
I was home a week my mother said to my brother and I time ‘to go back to the school’ 
so we went right back to school.  We didn’t, we were both students at Queens College 
at the time, and so we just go right back to school as soon as the term end, started, 
which happened to be at the end of the year, started again in January, I never missed 
any time.

Interviewer: Well before we get to that, let me ask you, did you leave from Britain?  
Or did you leave from France to get home?

Dugan: We left from Holland, Antwerp.

Interviewer: From Antwerp?  Ocean Liner?

Dugan: Liberty Ship kind of thing.

Interviewer: Liberty Ship, how long was the trip back?

Dugan: ‘Bout a week.

Interviewer: Do you remember the ship, the name of the ship?

Dugan: Independence.

Interviewer: Okay.

Dugan: I had that written down someplace.  Independence.

Interviewer: How many-

Dugan: It was a Liberty Ship, plenty of, it was comfortable.

Interviewer: How many guys were on the ship with you?

Dugan: Oh, several hundred, I, Liberty Ship was a pretty big sized ship.

Interviewer: Yeah?

Dugan: And especially when it’s carrying troops.  Troops were like that you know, 
[?] I had a couple of close buddies who happened to be in regiment headquarters, 
and they always had cabins or rooms, and I would stay with them.  Course you could 
disappear, I disappear, wasn’t any question of disappearing, just would, left and 
your on your own and I don’t know if they, whoever was the, in charge of the group 
I was with, that didn’t seem even the, one end of the weeks until the other end.  
It was very loose.  I wouldn’t loose that’s a bad term, in the military, but I mean 
it wasn’t strict or anything.

Interviewer: Where did you come into port at?

Dugan: …What’s in Virginia what is it?

Interviewer: Hampton Roads, Norfolk?

Dugan: Yeah, Newport News, it was Newport News.

Interviewer: Yeah, that’s in Virginia. It’s outside of Virginia Beach.

Dugan: Yeah, and stayed there. And no, no duty or anything, just…

Interviewer: When they-

Dugan: -fooled around and-

Interviewer: When they finally Demoed you? When were you Demobbed, or Demobilized?

Dugan: …I guess it was…I don’t quite remember but, It can’t have been more then, 
two months or any, I don’t think, it wasn’t a long, and still it wasn’t like next 
week or anything, either. But it was tolerable so we all knew it was coming, we 
just had to wait our turn.

Interviewer: Hurry up and wait one last time.

Dugan: Hurry up and wait.

Interviewer: So you got back home and mom was waiting for you and said ‘Go back to 
school.’

Dugan: My mother and father were still alive. James and I had not been wounded or 
anything, injured.

Interviewer: Was there anybody in your immediate circle who didn’t come back?

Dugan: No.  James was with the 30th division.  Which was a very, really, good.

Interviewer: Well-known division, yeah.

Dugan: And, as a platoon leader, you know he progressed, he became executive 
officer that second in command, if he had stayed longer he would have been a 
company commander but thank god that averred.  I, I got to be a private first 
class.  Six months in Europe and you had to be Private First Class.

Interviewer: Well you weren’t interested in re-enlisting or anything?

Dugan: I wasn’t interested in rank, never was.

Interviewer: Yeah.  So when you got back to Queens did you, run into anybody who 
did not go into service.

Dugan: No.

Interviewer: The 4Fs or?

Dugan: I can’t remember anybody.

Interviewer: Yeah.  What was the reception back at like Queens College when you 
arrived?

Dugan: Nothing out of the ordinary just started again, just like, summer vacation 
was over, you started again in September, it was the same thing.

Interviewer: ‘Kay. 

Dugan: Or the, my age group or something, it was just very calm and collected or 
whatever, but there was no, nothing to be talked about or anything.

Interviewer: Any of the faculty remember you?

Dugan: Pardon?

Interviewer: Did any of the faculty remember you?

Dugan: I think of Ms. Boudro in the French department remembered me.

Interviewer: Otherwise no.

Dugan: Did anyone that you know from your first year at Queens not come home?

Interviewer: Anyone from your first year at Queens. Did you know anyone that did not 
come home?

Dugan: …I can’t think of anybody off hand. Very few casualties. I’m sure there 
were but I can’t remember.  None of my close friends were wounded or killed.  
Pete McGurr was killed.  He, but he, flew one of those night fighters, so what 
else did you expect?  Yeah he was killed.

Interviewer: Who was this again?

Dugan: Pete McGurr.

Interviewer: McGurr.

Dugan: And he had a brother, not a brother, Kay McGurr, younger sister, she 
married a fraternity brother of mine, I still see her on occasion.

Interviewer: He, you said he was flying night fighters, in the Pacific?

Dugan: Pardon?

Interviewer: He was flying night fighters, you said, McGurr?

Dugan: Oh, I, no not in the Pacific, I don’t know where it was.

Interviewer: Yeah, it’s a hazardous job to say the least.

Dugan: Oh yes, hazardous job.  They all were hazardous jobs, but I don’t remember.

Interviewer: What was the, the, to close out today’s interview, looking over the 
war experience, how would you summarize it?

Dugan: Not too bad.  You know…there were moments in combat when you were pretty 
scared, and that lasted quite a while too, it was always up in Northern France 
and Holland and...what’s the other country in the middle?

Interviewer: Belgium.

Dugan: Pardon?

Interviewer: Belgium.

Dugan: Belgium yes.  That, how can I forget that?  The Bulge was in Belgium.

Interviewer: Right.

Dugan: Luxembourg.  Well…command was always good, I had no problems.  Again maybe 
it was partly because we were medics rather then, I doubt it though, we were just 
ordinary troops.

Interviewer: Okay.

Dugan: Still all told, it wasn’t to bad of a situation, and my brother who’s with 
our fighting outfight, same thing, we survived and that was it.  No wounded. 

Interviewer: Pretty significant experience, Second World War.  For Americans, the 
Second World War is a significant experience.

Dugan: Oh yeah, sure.

Interviewer: Did it teach you anything about your identity or yourself? That maybe 
you took for granted?

Dugan: No, only that I’m not that kind of a guy that gets terribly concerned about 
things like that.  I expected that there was a war, I was in combat, I was with an 
infantry division, and so what?  And so a little time goes by and if your not killed, 
you were, you lasted out.  So it wasn’t all that bad. And, that has to be a very strange…

Interviewer: No.

Dugan: Accountability.

Interviewer: -No, it’s-

Dugan: I didn’t, it wasn’t, you know there’s, always, no creature comforts, 
discomfort everything was there that we needed, command was good, nobody harassing 
us or giving us a hard time, you know?

Interviewer: What did you or what do you think about how the war’s been remembered?  
About how the war has been portrayed?

Dugan: I think it’s glamorized.  I think people glamorize what the situation was.  
It’s easy to do that when you’ve been in combat but…combat is a strange kind of 
experience, because you can’t, you can’t control anything, you’re always on edge, 
what’s going to happen.  But, always proud that it happened when you survived.  
You know.

Interviewer: Well I think that’s where we’re going to run up against it today and 
our last interview I’d like to interview both you and your wife-

Dugan: I’ll-

Interviewer: -About Queens College.

Dugan: Oh okay.

Interviewer: During your time there.

Dugan: I started again, I started in nineteen forty-two, on my, just telling you.

Interviewer: Right.

Dugan: Started I think in nineteen forty-four.  And I didn’t know her until I met 
her on the campus, when I came back…James had been, what do you call it?  Junior 
when he was drafted, and…then he had an opportunity to go to OCS and went.  And 
then really got into a division that was saw a lot of combat, but you know, he 
survived, no injuries.

Interviewer: Okay. Good okay. Lets close here.

Dugan: Thank you for your-

[END OF RECORDING]



End of Tape 02 of 03

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