Cunningham Corner, Arkansas

Transcription

The interview was transcribed by Connie Follis. QUESTION: Today is Tuesday, March , 2006. We are in West Hartford, Connecticut, at the Cunningham's home. Grandma, will you please state your name and your former occupation? ANSWER: My real name is Mary Marie Cunningham, but everybody calls me Polly. And I'm a retired Home Ec teacher. Q And, Grandpa, will you please state your name and former occupation? A I'm Francis Cunningham. My former occupation was insurance salesman for a good many years. And I took a -- went to work for the State of Connecticut auditing medical claims. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: They call him "Ham." Q Ham. Polly and Ham. Grandpa, can you please tell us a little bit about the branch of the military you served in, and what was your rank and where did you serve? A I served in the -- I was in the U.S. Marine Corps. I ended -- I retired as a -- through an active duty after World War II as a major. I went into the Marine Corps. I served in the South Pacific, namely, the Solomon Islands area, earlier in the war. And then I came back to the states to join the training command in San Diego. And after being back for about a year I Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 was reassigned to the South Pacific. At that time -- this was late in the war, and I was flown to Okinawa to join the 3rd -- the 3rd Marine Amphibious Corps Headquarters. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: You forgot to mention that you were in the Raiders for part of the time, earlier in the war. A I said in the South Pacific in the Solomon Islands. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: All right. Q And that meant you were in the Raiders, the Marine Raiders? A No, joined the -- I joined the Marine Raiders in American Samoa. Q Oh, okay. A And then we -- we moved further west. We went to New Hebrides Islands for a base. And we -- then trained, going and make the landing in Bougainville of the Solomon Islands. This was November 1st, 194 -- MRS. CUNNINGHAM: . Q . Okay. And under what circumstances did you join the Marines and enter the war? Were you drafted or did you join voluntarily? A No. When I was a senior at the University of Connecticut, the Marine Corps was enlarging so fast Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 that they needed a lot of officers. So they had an officer candidates' program. And they went to the -- called the various senior classes throughout the country to recruit candidates for a commission in the Marine Corps. I could join this and joined in 1941. I was assigned through active duty into the candidates' class. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Tell a funny story about your mother and the Navy. It's part of the sidelights of all this. A My wife wants me to tell you a little humorous story about when I signed up to go to -- the enter the candidates' class. After I got through signing up, the recruiting officer said, "Tell me why did you join the Marine Corps?" I says, "Well, to be truthful with you, I wanted to be a Navy pilot," I said. But my parents were getting old, were old. And I didn't want them worrying about me." So he says, "Oh." And he says "Did they object to you joining the Marine Corps?" I says, "No." And he laughed. And I found out later what he was laughing about. Q So that's why you chose the Marines? That's why you chose the Marines? A Well, I knew I'd probably be drafted and go into the Army -- Q Either way. Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 A -- and I had a couple of friends in the Marine Corps already, and so that's why I chose the Marines. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: This was before the war started. This was -- A Spring of '41. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Spring of 41. But the draft had already started. So if you wanted to pick your branch of -- you wanted to be, most young men who were signing up were trying to pick their place rather than just be drafted into the Army. Q Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. And where were you living at the time, at UCON? A I signed up out at UCON, yes. There was about -- it was quite a few that joined the Marine Corps, not to enter the candidates' class from UCON. But I think I was the only one from our class at UCON in the first group that entered the candidates' class. Q And where and how did the two of you meet? MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Just kind of being in the same group. I'd be invited to different parties at the fraternity house. And we always laughed at that because they were a bunch of athletes. And they decided to give a tea on a Sunday afternoon. And they needed some little advice on how you gave a tea. So they invited different sorority girls up, and I was one of them. Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 And we always laughed about we asked one fellow would he have tea or lemon, and he said he would have both. And so then we used to see each other at church. And then there was a place where we would go after mass to have breakfast, because the dining hall was closed by that time. And standing in line for a breakfast he asked me to go to a Greek letter dance. And our first date was ice skating on Mirror Lake at UCON. Q And what year was that? A 1940. Q 1940. Okay. So you two started dating at that point? A Yeah, we dated a lot. Went to dances. But we were going out with other people and then we never dated again till after the -- well, he was overseas and he started writing. Q Oh, okay. So when he went to the war, you guys started writing to each other? A Sometime after that, a couple of years after that. Q Okay. Grandpa, how did you feel when you first had to leave for the war? A What was that again? Q How did you feel when you first had to leave for the war? Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 A Well, I was -- I wasn't anxious to go but I knew it was something we had to do. Because it was just -- just hoped for the best. That was all. Q And did you have -- you had to go to training before you started actual combat? A Oh, yes. We had -- well, I had about nine months of training at Quantico, Virginia, after I got out of -- got out of UCON. I graduated June 8th and so I was in the Marine Corps June 21st. Q Not much time in between. A What else was it that you... Q I had just asked what, you know -- what was going on between the time that you first started and when you first went into combat. A When I went to all these schools at Quantico for nine months -- and, well, it was the time in the spring of '41 -- no, the spring of '42. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: After the war started. A Then the spring of '42, I was in the field artillery school. And they cut the class short and shipped about of us out to the South Pacific to join the Marine various units. And I went to American Samoa, where I stayed for about nine months and then joined what was known as the 4th Raider Battalion. And we later went into the Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 Q Is that where you were first involved in combat? A Yes. Q Okay. What is the most disturbing thing you remember from any of the battles? A What was that? Q The most disturbing thing that you remember or things? I'm sure there were more than one. A One, the first night in combat, we -- my company was assigned to go -- to set up a roadblock on what was known as the Beaver Trail in Bougainville. And we had -- there was fighting but I wasn't involved in the original landing. And because my mission was to go up and immediately go up the Beaver Trail to set up a roadblock to stop any Japs from coming down. And so there wasn't any action really from my company that -- until late in the afternoon. And as it was getting dark, one of our men -- I had people out in front of the mines to warn us of any Japs approaching. And when it got dark, I was drawing them back and one of the fellow men forgot his rifle. And without saying anything, he went back to get it and he didn't come back. By then it was dark and nothing -- we couldn't go look for him then in the dark. Particularly we didn't know. I think he must have been grabbed immediately because he was alone. Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 And I didn't know he was doing this until it was too late. Q Because he didn't tell you? Because he didn't tell anyone? A Yes. He told some of the -- his other Marines that were with him. But why he went out there alone, I don't know. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: There's also something funny. Tell her the funny story about the pack while -- A No, no. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Go on. They like funny things like that. Go ahead. A My wife wants me to tell you a story about how I killed a Jap. The Japs -- some of them would roll around, try to break in. And we operated under the situation, premise that anybody moving without acknowledging their presence was a Jap. So we were there, and I knew there -- we knew there were Japs around, but none of us had come in contact with them. And suddenly I had my pack. I laid it on the ground beside the foxhole. And that felt -- it was kicked into the line of the foxhole. And I thought it was a Jap that got lost, and I stabbed the hell out of it. And it turned out it was my pack. And what a relief that was because then I thought that I had did it to one of the Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 Marines, because I found a weapon -- Q Oh. A -- that was mine. But I didn't realize it. And then when I realized that, there was -- I had a small pistol and a rifle. And when I felt around in and what I thought was a body, I found my gun, my pistol and rifle. And I knew I was the only one in the company that had a pistol and a rifle. Q Did you ruin any other things in your bag? A And I realized then it was my pack that I mutilated. Q And did you rip everything up? Did you rip everything in the bag up? A Did I what? Q Did you rip it all up? Was anything ruined? A Oh, no. I put a -- I stabbed it. And then I had holes in it, in the pack after. Q Okay. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: You didn't get a medal for that. Q How did you stay in touch with your family and Grandma? A Oh, mail. They had -- what they had v-mail. You could write a letter and it would be copied and mailed electronically or somehow to -- and then -- Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 MRS. CUNNINGHAM: It was like reduced in size, about the size of a notepad. A And then later on the mail became -- it got better. But when our daughter Darcey was born, I wasn't -- MRS. CUNNINGHAM: That's when you went back again the second time. A Oh, yeah, the second time. This is a little early. Q So in the beginning how often did you receive and send letters back and forth? Were you able to? A Oh, yeah. We had time to -- we weren't in combat. We were just in training and we had free time to write letters. So I wrote, wrote to my family and a few friends back home and to Polly. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: And his football coach. Tell them about Christie writing and telling every -- his newsletter. A Yes. Coach Christian on the -- football coach of UCON was a former Marine, too, in World War I. But he was -- he kept in touch with everybody that played football and had a newsletter that went out periodically. So we looked forward to that because then we would know where certain people were, and because of that letter I was able to look up a couple of people Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 that I wouldn't have known where they were otherwise. Q And were a lot of those boys in the war that they were keeping up on? A Yes. This was -- he was doing this for all the -- newsletters on the people who were in the service. Q Oh, okay. That's interesting. Kind of cool. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: And you could see it was very very different. There were very few civilian, male, young male civilians around. There were million people in the service. Imagine that. So... Q You guys must have been lonely back home. No, no. A funny story about a neighbor of mine who went into the Marine Corps before I did. In fact, he was hoping to be -- he wanted to become a Marine pilot, and -- but he was getting ready to, almost ready to be sent to flight school when he was sent overseas. And when I went out, it was -- went out of the Pacific, went to -- I went to American Samoa. And I saw the Brig Headquarters. So I went in to ask them if they had a Sergeant Hart (ph). And they says "Yes, but he's not here. He's out at the -- out in the field where they had the planes." He was a mechanic on the plane. And they would be protected on all sides except for the entrance to this high mound. And he was working Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 on a -- when they found out that I was a friend of his, they said, "Well, we'll drive you out there. You would get lost." So they drove me out to this, where he was. And as he was working on the plane I saw him. They said, "There he is." I went out there and walked over and I says, "All right, Bovall (ph), let's get this fixed." Well, he probably jumped out of his shoes because the only one that had ever called him "Bovall" (ph) was his brother and myself. So because I was -- this was in American Samoa. And I was sent to British Samoa. But he used to be able to -- I had -- defending an area of the airfield on the beach. And he could fly over occasionally from American Samoa to British Samoa. And then we would get together. And then when I left, of course, I didn't see him until after the war. Q He made it out, too? A Oh, yes. Q That's good. Okay. Another question I had was how were you connected to the six men who raised the flag in Iwo Jima? A Well, back in 1944, I came back to the states and a lot of us came back. And one of them was Michael Strank who was one of my sergeants. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: He was one of your sergeants in Bougainville, you mean? Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 A Yes. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Right. A The rest of the outfit was assigned to different outfits. Most of them were assigned to the 5th Division that went into Iwo Jima. And this Michael Strank was one of them. And he was one of the men that put the flag up on Iwo Jima. And he was killed a couple of days later. Q So did you know him personally? A Oh, yeah. He was one of my sergeants at Bougainville. I knew him well. Q Do you know how many battles you fought in, you were involved in combat? A Not too many. I spent a lot of time overseas before we did anything. And then when I came back to the states, I was stationed in San Diego in the training command for most of the year. Then I went back out again. When I went back out again, I went straight to Okinawa, which was the last battle in World War II. Q And when you were in San Diego, you were training new Marines? A Training marines, yeah. We were training the new men that came in, preparing them for combat. Q So you told us your rank a little bit earlier. Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 Due to your rank that you held, what jobs in specific did you have, not only training men but when you were in combat and when you came back? A Well, in combat I was a company commander and -- about a hundred men or so also in the company or maybe more than that. Take -- being in charge of them. When I came back, went back out the second time, I went to the 3rd Corps Headquarters in the operations section. And I didn't have many men under me then, right then. This was the staff for the Corps. We had men but not -- only a few that they needed for doing the planning and so forth that we had to do. Q Grandma, what was your life like back home during the war? MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Well, I was two years behind my husband, so when the war broke out I was a junior in December of '41. Now, Ham and a lot of people in his class, even lower than that, who just quit college and joined up. Very patriotic. So you could see the difference on the campus. Right away things changed very drastically. I was looking for my ration books and found them. Hold on. Where did I put them? Q Right there. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Oh, here they are. You want me to come on over here, Darcey? Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 Q You can sit there. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Everybody -- isn't it funny. Darcey even got one. But she was born two days before the war and the war didn't end -- I mean, the rationing didn't end. So this is my daughter, who's 61 years old. So we even have one for her, and that's mine. Q And what were they for? MRS. CUNNINGHAM: They were for everything. They were meat. They were for vegetables. They were for coffee. Meat was very hard to get and particularly if you traded at a store, like a Staff and Chuck (ph). There was no Staff and Chuck (ph). But if you traded at a chain store and you really hadn't made a real personal attachment -- there was a lot of favoritism going. It wasn't black market. It was a favoritism. They would put things aside for their friends. However, if you had been on trade with a private butcher, you were luckier than that. Certain things seemed to be hard to -- sugar was very hard to get. Tea and coffee. And I remember tomatoes, canned tomatoes. That was another thing that took -- and you had so many points for several things. Some things weren't that popular, I suppose, anchovies or something like that. So probably you did not need many points. And every so often you would be issued a new book. I can't see if there's a date on this or not Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 but you would have the college -- and the college took care of your book if you were eating at the college dining room. And this was fuel ration and everything. Q Hey, we are back. We are back on. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Okay. Well, this says "fuel oil." And that would be -- I think the fuel oil for the furnace. No, for the gasoline that you ran your car on, because my parents, I don't think, had an oil burner downstairs. They had a -- still had a coal furnace then. Right now with fuel oil so high, everybody's turning down their thermostats. But it really got really weak then. A lot of people were turning it down to 60. And at the sorority house I remember we asked if they could just turn it up to 65 for at least an hour in the morning while we got dressed, because we were cold in the morning it seemed like we were cold all day. Everything was a scarcity. We didn't have a refrigerator. We had an ice box. And the ice box broke down. My mother went out to buy a refrigerator. And she had to go and get a priority downtown from one of the Government agencies, saying that she really had no way of refrigerating her food. She could get -- cars were not made. Well, that was going to the war effort. So secondhand cars were at a premium. Everyone wanted a good, secondhand car. Clothes were actually stipulated. Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 Short skirts were in style. And they were not allowed to make them any longer to save on fabric. So right after the war there was something came in called the "new look," and the skirts went down to here. It was like a statement again, now they didn't have to have short skirts anymore. I'm trying to think of things that were so good. There was a saying that everyone got used to. If you complained about anything, anything at all, the person was selling something saying "Don't you know there's a war on?" You got that retort. Or "Don't you know there's a war on?" I'm trying to think. Well, you traveled. Of course, no one was traveling by plane unless you had a priority serviceman. And so you traveled by bus or by train. It was just so crowded. I just remember going to New York and sitting on suitcases in the aisles. Just mob scenes. And, of course, even though there were an awful lot of people overseas, the big cities were filled with service people who were probably at training fields around there. Like New York would be filled with service people, and they really gave -- and everybody was very good to service people. Like in a bar, wouldn't you say that everyone wanted to buy you a drink? They were just so grateful, the people who were still at home. What else about -- I'm sure there's a lot of little... Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 Q Did you work when you got out of college? MRS. CUNNINGHAM: I was a school teacher, and right in my home town of Bridgeport. And I taught -- at nighttime I taught a Red Cross course on nutrition that was supposed to help people become qualified to go and be a volunteer in the Red Cross full time, either overseas or in this country. When he said something about his daughter, our daughter being born, even though the war was over two days later, things were still very hectic. So you got in touch both with the Red Cross, would somehow get a letter to you. It didn't work out awfully well at the time, but... A The Red Cross didn't do anything to help you unless it was an emergency. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: It wasn't very popular, because he heard about our daughter from who, Uncle Bob? Q Yes. When Darcey was born I got a letter from my brother congratulating me that -- but he didn't tell me what her name was or -- MRS. CUNNINGHAM: A boy or girl. See at that time they had no way of predicting sexes, so you never knew. A So then a week later I got a v-mail letter from Polly mentioning, giving me the details about it. Because they were -- the regular mail was held up Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 because they needed all the planes for trans -- for the -- what, operations for signing of the treaty and so forth. All that -- all the transportation and mail was only official. It wasn't any personal things for a couple of weeks. So that's why I had to wait two weeks to hear anything. Q So you didn't know when you got the letter from your brother that it was a girl? A No, I knew Darcey was well, but not... MRS. CUNNINGHAM: One of the saddest things I remember was a friend of my sister. Her husband was overseas. And she remembers this night. The way people would be notified of a death overseas or an injury was the service people from that particular ratings or the Army or the Navy would send people out personally when they couldn't -- like I said, they were way out in the country and couldn't get out there they would send a telegram. But if it was in the city, they would come personally to tell you the bad news. And, of course, it was a black-out, remember. Very severe black-out. There were no street lights at all through the war. And you had to darken your windows. Remember up at UCON and they'd have a black-out they would blow the whistles and have an air raid, a warning? And they would be up in these towers trying to see if there were any pinpoints Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 of light and go and tell those people you've got a crack in your -- and one of the things was a sanctuary light at the Catholic Church and that's not supposed to go out. But they had to go and tell the priest, "Hey, that's got to go out." But the saddest thing would be that at nighttime you'd see a car coming with a big search -- flashlight trying to find the numbers on the house. And people would know then, because they would be the only people that would be out in a black-out would be people looking to tell them the bad news. And I remember my friend's sister just -- was just in agony until they went past her house. Her husband did return safely. But just very very sad. And particularly with her. Well, just like Viet Nam and now, everything. Very young people are going, you know. Just have their whole lives ahead of them. Like our grandson went to Iraq and so we're grateful that he's back without anything happening to him. So there are probably lots of other things. It was just so part of our lives. It was just absolutely part of our everyday life. Oh, stockings. You could not get nylon stockings and that's when leg makeup came in. And once the winter was over, you wore leg makeup. And I think they sell it now. It's like a bronze. It is called something else. And to show you how prices change, you would get a little Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 bottle like this for ten cents, and that would do you for a couple of weeks. Q What was the black-out for? To save energy or just so it was dark all over? A No, no. Just in case any planes came through, you know. They never did. But they never knew whether they would or not. Because, of course, London was like that, blacked out. But, of course, they bombed them all the time anyway, because they had maps and they kind of just -- just took a chance where they were throwing their bombs. Q Okay. Going back a little bit. When did you two decide to get married? Did you -- had you come home for a little while? A Well, yes. I was stationed in San Diego. And then they sent me to an advanced officer's class at Fort Benning, Georgia, an army base. And I -- and Polly came down and visit me in Fort Benning, and we decided to get married at the end of the class. So the class ended on midnight. We were -- we had to stay on the post until midnight at Friday night. And I was to get married Monday morning. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: People got married on all kinds of different days. It wasn't always Saturday or Sunday, because just whenever somebody would get leave. Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 A So I was able to get a flight into Hartford and I got in Saturday afternoon. And my brother had -- I didn't have a ring. So my brother knew one of the jewelers in Hartford, and he kept the store open for me to get in, and I was late Saturday afternoon to pick out the ring. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: I was looking for that receipt and I know I just found it. And then when I went back the second time to get it, it slipped down. And just to show you the difference, that was the jeweler on Main Street next to the Hartford National Bank. And it was a three-quarter of a caret, and it was $264. And that included the wedding ring also. That ring, the diamond ring, got lost down in the cellar years ago. And then Sunday we had the rehearsal at night, Sunday night, remember? A Oh, yeah. I went down to Bridgeport on Saturday. Sunday -- MRS. CUNNINGHAM: No, Saturday my mother and I came up to your parents after you had gotten a ring, et cetera. And I got the ring. And we had dinner with your parents. And then mother and I went back to Bridgeport and you came down the next day, I think. A Well, I had to. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Then Sunday night we had a Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 quick rehearsal and Monday morning at o'clock. So when we bought the engagement ring, they said "try it on." I said, "No, make it the same size as the engagement ring." And it must have been a little smaller, because that morning he couldn't get it. I had to help him push it on. It's never been lost since then. Q Not once? MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Not once. Never. Q Okay. We have the picture here. Let me just focus. This is your wedding picture. A Going down the aisle. Q So we have Grandpa wearing one of your uniforms. So I'll have you look at it and tell us about it. A About the uniform? Well, that's the summer. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: The one on the right that we got married in. A That's the summer uniform. Q Okay. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: And at that time because you didn't really know when you're finally here, somebody was coming, you would put a quick notice in the paper. And it would always say invitations have not been issued, but friends of the couple are invited to attend. Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 So you really never knew at your reception how many people would show up. It was really -- it was not the planned wedding that now where there is a wedding book a year ahead of time and going on and on and on and every little detail just so. Things turned out okay. Q And I'm assuming both of you had a lot of friends that also served in the war? MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Oh, in the war, yeah, because daddy, Grandpa, didn't have any friends coming to the -- Q Wedding. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: -- the wedding, because everybody was gone. That -- A One fellow who was -- didn't pass the physical to get into the Army, so he was the only one that came. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Right. Yeah. I think that's about the only one of his friends who were there. They were all -- in fact, you asked somebody to be best man. You thought he was in Rhode Island. And he -- Toff (ph) -- he told you he was leaving? A Yeah. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Right. I had a lot of girlfriends around. There were loads of girlfriends, you know. You didn't have too many dates because there were not that many guys around to go out with. So we Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 were meeting people for dinner at night, you know, girls. We went on a one-day, one-night honeymoon in New York City. And I still have the bill for that. It was about $ for the room. But that was a lot because we used to go down there to New York for the weekend at the Biltmore Hotel. You could get a room for $. A That was you and your friends, not me. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: My friends. And you could put another cot or two cots in the room for a dollar apiece. And the Biltmore was a very nice hotel, right next to Grand Central. And there were a lot of people stationed around New York. So you'd have a lot of dates. We had what they call the Prairie Stake (ph) where they trained what we called 90-day wonders, Navy officers. A We got married on a Monday, and Tuesday morning I caught a plane to go report in to San Diego. Q You had to go back that quickly? A Yeah. Q Wow. A While I was going I didn't have leave. I was doing it on travel time. We had four days of travel plus -- all it amounted to about six days that you could get. So... MRS. CUNNINGHAM: So we had Saturday, Sunday, Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 Monday, and he left on Tuesday. So you were there maybe a day ahead of time. Tell them this important work you had to go back for then, when you got back there. A Oh, that's right. When I reported in to -- I called -- I did have some leave time available. But that's right. I overlooked that. But I couldn't get it because they wanted me to report in immediately when -- after the end of this class I was in. So all I had was travel time to get to San Diego -- to report back in San Diego. And when I got to San Diego, the night I got in, I called to see if I could get leave. And the general... MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Well, by that time it was Camp Pendleton, wasn't it? A Yeah. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Yeah, because Camp Pendleton had not been built when he first went overseas. A That doesn't make much difference on this anyway. But the general -- I called him. He said "No way." He wants you to get back here. So I got back and what did I do? I reported in and they -- the general apologized. He says, "I'm sorry we couldn't get you -- give you that time." And he was -- this was a general that I served under in Bougainville operation in the Pacific. And so back in my room Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 late one afternoon, and he says, "You're going to take a hundred men out to a forest fire up in the mountains in east -- inland. So I went out there. Spent -- we probably spent about a week or so. I had a hundred men. And I didn't do anything. I just turned them over to the forest rangers. And they -- they assigned what the -- areas that they were supposed to fight in and so forth. So, and in the meantime I was expecting Polly back. I didn't know when I was going to get back to meet her. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: I was coming out later. Q Did they have to put out a forest fire? MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Yes. And you know where it was? Mount Palomar, the observatory at Mount Palomar. I didn't go out for a week, three weeks later. I got there -- actually, the day I was leaving it was the day school was starting and though I had left the year before when I taught school. On the other hand, I was -- I really was so happy to be leaving. My mother went down with me to New York City and I got on a train. Really is a wonderful experience, because probably I never would have done it again. Got on a train and went to Washington. And then we left. Stayed on that train. And then we left Washington and went all the way to St. Louis, Missouri, and got off Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 that train sometime the next afternoon about :30, o'clock. And I wasn't going to leave again that night until :30. And I decided I'd go out and see the City of St. Louis. And I got to the corner where I was going to cross the street. I don't really know what I was going to do, just go walk around. And what do you know. I bumped into a girl from Bridgeport who had gotten married. Her husband was in the Army. They didn't have much money. So all she had was a single room, like a rooming house. And she was out with this friend of hers, another Army wife, just doing something. And they were going to lunch, a late lunch. Come along with them. So I went along with them, and we had lunch. And she had been away from Bridgeport for about a year or so. And she just was interested in everybody. And we just sat there talking and talking and talking. All of a sudden it was like :30 in the afternoon, and by that time I was afraid to -- I mean, I didn't want to be trapped down in St. Louis in the dark and finding my way back to the railroad station. So I guess I said good-bye and I came back. I don't know if the train was ready yet that I was going -- it was a different train. I got on the train and then we started and went across. And I remember it taking almost a whole day going across 29 Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 Kansas and it was just like fields of wheat, every side. And then southwest down into -- how do the states go? I know we clipped a little bit of Texas and then through the southwestern states, southeast. Yeah, southwest. A Arizona. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Arizona. Q New Mexico, Utah? MRS. CUNNINGHAM: We didn't go as far as New Mexico, Arizona. Then we came up, kind of up. We weren't up to stop at L.A. Kind of more southern. Then came up and came up to L.A. And that was a Sunday and that took from Wednesday until Sunday. So to have a trip across the United States on a train like that was -- well, you've had a trip across the United States. And because when we came -- oh, that's another story. But anyway, he met me and we had lunch. And we started home back on the train. And the Pages (ph) met us in Oceanside. And then we drove back to where he had gotten a small apartment from a friend of his down about 30 miles north of San Diego, a place called Rancho Santa Fe. And we were there for five months. But the funny thing about that, L.A., and I never was in L.A. again except to go back and forth. And I never had a visit there to go to the movie studios or any of those places 30 Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 again. We never -- we were going to the football game. We never did that. I don't know. We just never got back there to spend any time there. A No. Didn't have much time. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: No, I was only there for September, October, November, December, January. We left to came back in the mid -- in fact, we were driving across the country when Iwo Jima was -- had started, the battle for Iwo Jima, listening on the radio. Q So you were driving home and then you were in, back in Connecticut when you were sent... A Yes, I was bringing mother home, because I knew I'd be going back out. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: And I was expecting Darcey by that time. A So I didn't want to have her caught up in these conditions. I got -- so I was able to get leave to drive her home and get a flight back to San Diego. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: But it was winter time, and we couldn't go the route we really would loved to have gone, farther up through Colorado, the prettier states. We had to take basically the same route, even more southern than I had had on the train. We came out the back of San Diego and the mountains down to Yuma, Arizona, up to Las Cruces, New Mexico. 31 Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 A Texas. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Texas. Arkansas. Yeah, went through Texas. A Tennessee. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: It was raining. It was not good. By the time we got up to Philadelphia it was snowing. And then we came back here. My brother was getting married. He'd been overseas a couple of years before that as a Bombardier. And he had come back and he was in Texas. And so we came back and he got married. Ham was his best man. They went back to Texas and waited there until the war was over. About that Iwo Jima -- these are two articles that were in the paper. This is Grandpa's best friend. A Whose friend? MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Charlie Horvath. A I thought you said Jennifer. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Your. I said Ham's best friend. You can talk a little about Charlie. Q He was from Newington? A Yes. Q And he fought on Iwo Jima? A He was in Iwo Jima. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Tell them about how you were friends and how you ended up in UCON. 32 Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 A Well, he lived in Newington on the south side of the line, and I lived in West Hartford on the north side of the line. But we were -- he -- we went to different schools. But we did go out to UCON together. And he joined the Marine Corps after I did, and he went to -- became a paratrooper. But he went -- the Marines just abandoned the paratroopers. They didn't see any more use for them. But he went into Iwo Jima when I was -- we were traveling across country. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: And he got the Silver Star at Iwo Jima. And this other one was in the class at UCON. Between him and I, his name was John Wensler (ph). They called him Wensler (ph). He was co-captain of the basketball team out there. He was killed at Iwo Jima. And another one of my classmates, Roger Olmstead (ph), was killed at Iwo Jima. And both their names are on the memorial out here just behind Central. It's strange as I go through the yearbooks that we have over there, I would write, you know, "killed in action, killed in -- an awful lot of names in those books there. Just very very sad to hear about that. Q Did you guys hear about Iwo Jima before you got home? MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Yes. It was on the radio as we were coming across the country. And I remember Ham 33 Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 saying "Charlie," his friend Charlie, "Charlie's probably there," because that's all -- after I got to California a lot of those men were still there. And when did they leave, Bob, a month later after -- when did they leave, about October or so? A Yeah. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Go ahead. And, in fact, one of the -- what was his name? Kind of crazy guy. Anyway, he was killed there. A Oval (ph) -- MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Mears (ph). A Mears (ph). MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Mears (ph). Yeah, he was killed. I just remember him one night we were out and he was acting up and very funny. An awful lot. That was really a very bad campaign. And over there on the wall is one of the Iwo Jima Society from New Britain sent that, the donors. We keep it up up there. Q So you guys came back to Connecticut and Grandpa was sent back. Were you nervous when he was being sent to Okinawa? MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Just waiting for the letters all the time and I was expecting a baby and living with my mother and father. And I knew how worried his mother and father were all the time. 34 Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 And later on, of course, he could tell us that he wasn't in that much danger. But at the time we did not know it, particularly we would hear about Okinawa. You know, things were just, you know. And, of course, nobody knew. And it's so strange now. Everything is leaked so much now. But that you would never know anything about anything until it happened. Maybe some people knew it, but the ordinary civilian didn't know it. And until the atomic bomb was dropped, nobody knew anything about it. Q Can you tell us a little bit about your experience on Okinawa? A On Okinawa. Well, I got there. It was late, near the end of the campaign. Now, I flew in from Guam to Okinawa. And we went aboard that plane about midnight. And everybody was tired. And we were just going to -- and I wake up. And leaving the plane that morning and who had I been sitting beside all night long was Lowell Thomas, a famous war correspondent. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: He was probably the most famous war correspondent and radio personality, news personality, that anybody knew, you know. Q And he was going to, you know, just witness the battle? A Yeah. He went to the 3rd Corps, Amphibious Corps Headquarters on Okinawa. The day I got there the 35 Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 Army general in charge of the whole campaign was killed. And -- MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Who was that? A That was -- oh, boy. It'll come to me later. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: That's all right. A But his replacement was a Marine general. And that was on his staff in the 3rd Amphibious Corps, Okinawa. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Who was that? A Dear -- I almost had his name a minute ago. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Oh, was that Laura Johnson's cousin? That one? A No, no. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: I thought that was -- A No, no. This was Geiger (ph), Roy Geiger (ph). And later became Commandant of the Marine Corps. Q How long were you there until you were sent home for good? A From Okinawa. Well, the war ended. I came back to Guam. And we were getting ready to go to China, because they were afraid of the Communists taking over. And we were leaving on a Monday morning. And Sunday morning the officer that I reported to called me in and he says you have enough points to go home. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: That's how they decided who 36 Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 would go home. If you had been there longer, you got so many points. A And he said "Do you want to stay or do you want to go to China with us? And I says, "I just -- we just had our first child born. And I'm not going to make a career out of the Marine Corps." I says "I want to go get back and get started in civilian life." So in the meantime -- well, just before -- prior to my being called in there a friend of mine from -- two friends of mine from UCON came out to see me. And I said to one of them -- he was waiting assignment. And I said "You want to go to China?" "Yes," he says. "I'll go to China." I says, "Let me go and speak to the personnel officer." And I went and spoke to him. He says, "I'm sorry, Cunningham, we can't do anything. All those orders come from Pearl Harbor." So I went back and told him. And then my -- the commanding officer that I reported called me in and said that I had enough points to -- MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Be careful. That's tricky. Don't tear your clothes on it. A -- called me in and said did I like -- wanted to know if I wanted to go to China or not. And I said, "No," because I was wanting to get situated in civilian life. And the fellow that I said -- tried to fix something to go to China -- he got orders from Pearl 37 Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 Harbor to go to China. Q So he went anyway? MRS. CUNNINGHAM: That was Ray, right? A Yeah. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Yeah. We still see him. We have a big superbowl party. It used to be big. It used to be about 50 or more of us. Now, it's dwindled down. The last time there were only eight. Q Sorry about that. So you were saying? MRS. CUNNINGHAM: What I was saying? The war really defines so many things, you know. We just -- you didn't think it was going to, but it did change a lot of things. But you never realized it until about years later. Q And how did your lives change, you know, immediately after the war when Grandpa came back and you guys had a house? MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Well, the first thing was housing was so short. There had been no housing really built except emergency housing during the war. So housing was very short. It was impossible to almost to get a rent. So a good many couples went and lived with their mothers and fathers. And we lived with his mother and father for six months, at least. A I don't think so. 38 Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 MRS. CUNNINGHAM: November, December. (interruption.) MRS. CUNNINGHAM: I'm still on. Okay. So we were with his mother and father for about six months. And he had applied in West Hartford to get into -- it was a Government housing project. It had been built, the one we were in -- it had been built behind Bleacher (ph) Park. And it had been built mostly for war workers. Now, the war was over and they were letting veterans come in. In fact, I think you had to be a veteran after the war to get in. And so we got into a four-room duplex, two bedrooms, living room, dining room -- living room, kitchen and a pantry, something that a lot of places didn't have. Get the baby carriage in there. And then if you had another baby or two, you would get a bigger place. So we got another one a few years later with an extra bedroom. And then some years after that, the Government was going to sell them to people that were living, and they never did. So we decided to go ahead and we bought this. But some people bought them at quite a reduced rate. I think they're worth times. Something somebody bought for about $,000 now is worth about $175,000 now. What else? Well, it was good to get back with all your friends. There were lots of reunions all the time, getting back 39 Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 together with your friends. I remember one night we were going all the way down to Norwich Inn for a big reunion and it started snowing. And we were going to go. Of course, now that I'm older, now that I think about it, but his father was so upset because they were old. And what's going to happen if you skid on the road and we're too old to take care of that little baby upstairs. And we just wanted to go and get back to see our friends. It had been so long. I think that was in December, probably. And then the people who hadn't gotten married, because people were gone overseas -- there were loads of weddings. Loads of people got married in 1946, because everybody had come back then that year. Because I remember we got invited to so many 50th anniversaries in 1996. But we were fortunate enough that he got home in between times to be married in '44, but -- Q And so do you still keep in contact with some of the Marines today? A Well, we used to have our -- one class would have a reunion every year. That was the original candidates who became officers. And we had -- well, there's about 400 of us. Now, it's dwindled down. Just not enough to have our reunion anymore. And most of them are not able to travel much anyway. 40 Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 MRS. CUNNINGHAM: And a good many of them are dead. That's life. Q I just want to thank you guys for doing this. Anything else? Any more comments you guys want to make? MRS. CUNNINGHAM: About the Marine reunions, we did have a wonderful time with them. We went all over the United States and once to Hawaii and that was fun. But the last one was in Dallas. And they made the sad decision that it was just too hard to arrange for the hotels and the tours. And there were fewer and fewer people every year. It was too bad because we knew some of them we were not ever going to see again. Q What year was that? MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Two years ago, Ham? Two years ago. And that happens. That's life. As I say, this college group we get together used to be so big and now this last time it was just so few. And the fellow who mostly hosted it, he was an ex-Marine just like Ham. And he said we'll still get together and have dinners something. But he's not going to have this. I was going to show you these things over there, Darcey. Q Let me just -- MRS. CUNNINGHAM: He was an ex-Marine. He got that for us down at the PX down in New London. That was out in front of the post office. I don't know if they. 41 Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 have these metal posters anymore. The post office in Avon -- and our friend who lived across from the post office -- they were getting rid of it and getting something else and asked if we wanted it. And this is the one that I said, the Iwo Jima. And Brian had this made up especially for his father especially. That's "Semper Fi," which means Semper Fidelis, which is the motto of the Marine Corps, "Always faithful." Q This is the Marine bear. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: How many times did you wear them? A Not very many times. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: How much did it cost? Well, of course, it still wouldn't have been much compared to prices nowadays. A Oh, I don't know. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: What happened in New York? A Well, I was wearing that and the waiter was wearing the same kind of pants. Q These are the Marine blues? MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Called dress blues. Q Dress blues. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: All his medals and ribbons are away someplace. These are the only ones. Q What medal is this, Grandpa? 42 Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 A That was just campaigns. Certain operations, they have a special ribbon. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: The rest of them are someplace. We don't know where. And that was his summer uniform that he got just to get married in. Q What medals did you win, or did you get? A I didn't win any particular medals. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Marines didn't get many medals unless they were really outstanding, like the Silver Star, right? And Marines didn't get the Bronze Star. I never heard of the Marines getting the Bronze Star. A No. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: No, they didn't seem to get them. I guess they just took it for granted that you were supposed to do your job. Q Well, the Marines altogether were the best, so... MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Right. Of course. Q So they would have to give them to everyone. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Of course. Right. Q Okay. Well, thank you very much. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: You're very welcome. I hope the project is a success. Q Is there anything else you guys would like to 43 Francis O. Cunningham March , 2006 comment on? MRS. CUNNINGHAM: You want to say anything more? You got your chance before the camera. A No, I can't think of much else to say right now. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: What, veterans are dying now at what, hundred a day? Q Wow. Well, people will be able to look back on this one. When was this from, this newspaper article? A This is from the Bridgeport Sunday Herald and this PM Daily. I think that was a New York paper. I don't think they have it now anymore. I don't know. The Japs are lying. This is end stalling. What's the date? August 14th. It was all over. Q Right. August 6th and August 9th. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Right. That's the day that it happened, the 14th. So maybe, of course, they didn't sign the actual treaty till the next month, I think, wasn't it? A Yeah. MRS. CUNNINGHAM: Yeah. CONCLUSION OF INTERVIEW