An Interview with William S. Gilliam. Interview conducted by G. Kurt Piehler and Robert Colandro in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on April 3, 1995. Transcript by Andrew Noyes and Gloria Hesse and Melanie Cooper and William S. Gillam and G. Kurt Piehler.

Kurt Piehler: This begins an interview with Mr. William S. Gillam on April 3, 1995 at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey with Kurt Piehler and ...

 Robert Colandro: Robert Colandro.

 Kurt Piehler: I guess I would like to begin by asking about your father who was a Quaker. Was he a practicing Quaker?

 William S. Gillam: No.

 KP: No.

 WG: His mother was Catholic, and he was brought up and went to Quaker meeting and went to Mass in the Catholic Church. ... What he was in the end, I couldn't tell you. My mother was a Presbyterian. I was brought up as a Presbyterian and still a dues paying member of the Presbyterian Church.

 KP: You said your father, growing up, attended Quaker meeting, but he did not attend Quaker meeting when you were growing up?

 WG: No.

 KP: One of the central tenets of Quakerism is non-violence and passivism. How did your father feel about war?

 WG: I don't remember anything to lead me to believe that he felt any different than the fathers of many of my friends. He never, to my recollection, expressed any more aversion to the war than others felt.

 KP: Your father did not serve in the First World War. Was he exempted from the draft?

 WG: I really don't know. ... He was born in 1886. He was more than 30. But he wasn't married until 1918, so I really don't know.

 KP: You don't know what the story was with him. Your father had a remarkably long employment record.

 WG: He started when he was fifteen years old. He lived in Mount Holly at that time and took the Pennsylvania Railroad to Camden and the ferry across to Philadelphia.

 KP: And he worked for Penn Mutual all his ...

 WG: All his life, yes. All his working life. Which was almost 50 years, but not quite.

 KP: And what types of positions did he have with the company? What did he start out at fifteen and what did he retire as?

 WG: Well, I assume when he started he was a office boy. I don't know ... what he made. And ended up, he was assistant manager of mortgage loans. So he really wasn't in the insurance business at all. He was in the real estate business. And, of course, his most important functions were during the Depression when the Penn Mutual took over ownership of a lot of properties. And they had to manage the properties. I'm talking about hotels and apartment houses and things. Not so much residences as far ... as I recall, at least that he had anything to do with.

 KP: So your father had to travel quite a bit?

 WG: He traveled quite a bit, yes.

 KP: In the Northeast or all over the country?

 WG: Well, in the Northeast, really.

 KP: You mention that your father had to travel and the real estate end became more important in the Great Depression. How did the Great Depression affect your family? Did your father stay employed throughout the Depression?

 WG: Oh yes. And he had ... to take a cut in salary, but he was still well off, considering, under the circumstances. He was able ... to put me and my two brothers and sister through college starting in 1936. And, you know, my recollection is that there were lots and lots of people that wanted work of any kind and so, if you needed something done, you could get it done cheaply and easily.
 
 

KP: Your mother went to college.

 WG: Yes. And, you know, interestingly, Swarthmore is a Quaker college. But she was Presbyterian; my grandfather was an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and I don't know how she happened to go to Swarthmore as opposed to the University of Pennsylvania.

 KP: Women did go to college in your mother's generation, but it was still not the norm when your mother went to college. Do you know why she went to college? Did she have any career aspirations?

 WG: I don't know of any. I really don't know.

 KP: How did your parents meet?

 WG: I really don't know that! I know he met her while she was still at Swarthmore and visited her out there. And then they were married shortly after she graduated.

 KP: Your father did very well in business with only some high school. Did he have any regrets that he was unable to go to college?

WG: Oh, I'm sure he did, but he never, never expressed it. He did--I guess I didn't have this in ... [the pre-interview survey]--he did take some evening courses at University of Pennsylvania. That was before he was married, and I don't know exactly how much he did. [laughter] [What] I do know is that for years after I spent a year at the University of Pennsylvania, I got nothing from them, and he continued to get material from the Pennsylvania Alumni Association.

 RC: You grew up in Merchantville. Is there any particular memories of the town that strike you?

 WG: Well, as you know, I now live in Metuchen. And one of the reasons I picked Metuchen to live in is because it's very similar to Merchantville. Metuchen is completely surrounded by Edison Township, which was mostly rural when I started living there. Merchantville was surrounded by Pennsauken and Delaware Township, which is now Cherry Hill, which was mostly rural at that time. ... So the town was small. Both towns were well built-up. Both towns have very little industrial or commercial activity at all. So they're very similar towns.

 Now, that leads us into my uncle. I don't remember what I put down there, but Lawrence Gillam was Class of '15 at Rutgers and, at the time that I chose to live in the Metuchen area, he lived in the Metuchen area. And he lived there for a long time. He was at one time, I think it was 1940, he was the President of the Rutgers Alumni Association. And the fact that he had gone to Rutgers was a very important factor in my deciding to go to Rutgers. And he was also a member of the Zeta Psi fraternity, which led me to that. Whether you want to get into fraternities, but I gather that fraternities are not in very much favor here at Rutgers today. And I don't think they have ... any real place at a University like Rutgers.

 KP: But fraternities were very important for you. I notice in your account that the fraternity tie, especially in the service, you were able to meet a lot of people that way and get support and to help others in turn.
 
 

WG: Well, even ... then in 1936 to '40, [in] the Rutgers student body, there were a large number of commuters you really didn't get to know, so that your friends in the fraternity and other fraternities were those that you knew.

KP: You mention that you grew up in a small town. What did most people do?

 WG: Most people--I don't know about most--but a lot of people commuted to Philadelphia. I mean, Merchantville is closer to the center of Philadelphia than many parts of Philadelphia itself. And the transportation ... was good. There were trains that you took from Merchantville into Camden, then you took the ferry, and then you either walked or some other means of transportation.

 KP: So most were like your father, they were professionals working, doing office work in Philadelphia.

WG: A lot, yes. I mean, there were a lot of them that worked in Camden, too. Camden at that time was the home of Campbell's Soup, the home of RCA Victor, and it was a good city.

 KP: Growing up, did you spend a lot of time in Camden and Philadelphia?

 WG: No, not really, being so close. I mean the fact that we were in another state, of course, Camden was close by but, no, I didn't spend much time there.

 KP: Growing up did you have any part-time jobs in high school?
 
 

WG: Only selling the Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal and Country Gentlemen, which were publications of the Curtis Publishing Company. That's the only part-time job.

 KP: It sounds like your parents had an expectation that you and your brothers would go to college. Was this the case?

 WG: Yes, yes. And I suppose my mother's influence was, although I'm sure my father wanted that to be the case. Now, Larry Gillam, Class of '15, was my father's younger brother, and my father helped financially put him through Rutgers.

 KP: So your father was very close to your uncle, to his younger brother, it sounds.

 WG: Well, there are two other uncles. One lived in Burlington, and one lived in Mount Holly and they were all close. And I was close to them, too.

 KP: What did your uncle do for a living?

WG: Which one?

 KP: The one that went to Rutgers. The Class of 1915.

 WG: He worked for the Metropolitan Life. ... And he was in the mortgage loan department, too. I assume that when he graduated from Rutgers, my father's influence led him to that. He had gone to Rutgers as a member of the College of Agriculture which at that time, the tuition was less than for Rutgers College or the College of Engineering. And he was interested in farm mortgages at the Metropolitan.

 KP: What do you remember about the schools in Merchantville? How good were your teachers? How well did they prepare you for Rutgers?

 WG: It seemed to me you have no basis for a comparison, really. It seemed to me it was good. I mean, there were some teachers that were not so good, and some teachers were the better, and you could distinguish between them, but as far as comparison with anyplace else, I know not.

 KP: What expectations did they have for their students in terms of how many did they expect to go on to college from your high school?

 WG: Well, I don't remember the exact numbers. I would, you know, say more than half. I mean there were three courses of study at the high school. One was college preparatory. One was general, and third was commercial. And I think about a half would have been college preparatory. And, you know, some of them were able to go to college, commuting into Philadelphia to the University of Pennsylvania or Temple, Drexel, so forth.

 RC: You went to high school from 1932 to 1936. Were you worried that when you went on to college and possibly afterwards with the Depression that you might have a tough time finding a job?

 WG: Oh, yes. ... I think, I mentioned in there that [at the] Plattsburg Barracks, there were others that talked about it, and we observed that the life of army enlisted men, at that time, it seemed like a pretty good life to us. [laughter]

 RC: Did you have any idea of what you wanted to do while you were in high school, of what you wanted to study in college? Did you know early on?

 WG: Well, if it had been up to me, I think I would have majored in mathematics. But my father said, in effect, "You get a degree in mathematics, what can you do?" What you can do is teach it. And no, I had no inclination to ... be a teacher. So I majored in business administration and took more math courses than most business ad. majors.

 KP: Had you thought of going to anywhere else besides Rutgers?

 WG: Well, yeah. Swarthmore. I'll tell you about that too. Went out to Swarthmore and talked to the dean and [he] was told that I was the President of the Student Council. And he says, "Oh, a lot of people come here President of the Student Council." Came up here and talked to Dean Metzger and he seemed impressed by the fact that I was the President of the Student Council. That had a lot to do with it.

 KP: So you did not get as much of a welcome at Swarthmore?

 WG: No.

 KP: But it sounds like your mother would have liked you to go there?

 WG: Oh, I'm sure she would of, yes.

 KP: Your mother, did she work outside of the household at all?

 WG: No.

 KP: Was she active in any organizations, volunteer organizations? The Red Cross or any church organizations?

 WG: ... Not very much. I mean, you know, I was born a year after they were married and my brothers a couple of years later and so forth. So she devoted herself to the family. With the Depression ... she always had, as long as I can remember, domestic help of one kind or another. ... But still, I mean she had her hands full.

 KP: When you say she had domestic help, would your help live in or would it just be on a daily basis?

 WG: No, just on a daily basis.

 KP: And to help out cooking or cleaning?

 WG: Yes. ... I mean really, those two things, cooking and cleaning. As long as I can remember, we had someone come in daily to do cooking, and, if they did cleaning, I really wasn't much aware of it.

 KP: Was your help black or were they white?

 WG: Mostly black. Merchantville had two black communities. Neither of them was in Merchantville. I mean, one edge of town was in Pennsauken Township and another was in Delaware Township.

 KP: But they worked in the various homes of people. So your mother was not unique in having help? Did a lot of your friends have help work in them?

 WG: No. I mean, you know, Merchantville was really a pretty affluent town. Not as affluent as Haddonfield and Moorestown, but, still, there were few poor people in Merchantville.

 KP: So it sounds like in growing up in the Depression that the Depression, you were aware of it, but it was not at your doorstep, it was a little bit distant.

 WG: That's correct.

 KP: The Depression really affected Camden and Philadelphia and other places.

 WG: ... That's correct.

 KP: Had you traveled much before coming to college or during college?

 WG: Yes, I don't know about much. Every summer for a number of years, we traveled by car--New England, New York State and Pennsylvania. Not further than that. And stayed at tourists homes. In those areas, you could stay at tourist homes for a dollar a person a night, and they were nice places.

 KP: So you have very fond memories of family vacations where you would drive in the summer.

 WG: Well, yes. [laughter] When you look back on it, at the time, we, my brothers and sister and I, ... we weren't very enthusiastic about it. [laughter] ... Spent a lot of time riding in a car.

 KP: When you came to Rutgers, what did you expect Rutgers would be like? It sounds like your uncle probably talked a good bit about it.

 WG: Well, yes and no. I mean, actually, by that time, he was living in Metuchen, and I was living in Merchantville, and I didn't see that much of him. So he really didn't try to talk me into Rutgers. Didn't even try to talk me into being a Zeta Psi. It just, the "Zetes" got my name through him. I spent my freshman year in Hegeman Hall, ... although I had visited the "Zete" house as a senior in high school, and they tried to pledge me at that time. And I decided that I wanted to see what it was like. And, well, I did.

 KP: In reading newspaper accounts, Rutgers was hit fairly hard by the Depression and you had mentioned the commuters. We have read that a lot of students had a tough time going to school and that it influenced the atmosphere of the school. Do you have any recollections of the Depression at Rutgers?

 WG: Not much more than just the very existence of it. I mean, there were a few in the Zeta Psi fraternity that were there only by virtue of waiting on tables and so forth. But, as I say, I didn't really have much contact with these commuters. Now, my cousin, Lawrence Gillam Wire, Class of 1940, his parents couldn't have put him through Rutgers except he lived in Metuchen at my Uncle Larry's house and commuted from there. So he was a commuter that I had some connection with. And he was a member of Zeta Psi and so forth. But other than that, I really, the commuters, some of them you met in classes, but that was it.
 
 

I had a letter from Bob Dixon, Reverend Bob Dixon, who was a member of the Class of '40, who went on to what we called "Holy Hill" and became a minister. And I think he lived here as an undergraduate. I'm not sure how that arrangement took place. Anyway ... he came to our fiftieth reunion in 1990, and I had a letter from him recently in which he said he decided not to come to our 55th because he found that the class was now being run by the fraternity men. And he was right, and I didn't appreciate that. I mean as far as the active group that you met ... at our meeting, and a few others that were not there, most of them, I think all, except one, were fraternity men. Now I don't recall exactly what proportion of the Class of 1940 were in fraternities. I could go through the yearbook and make a count and figure it ... [out]. But, I mean, there weren't an awful lot of students, members of my class, who lived on campus who were not members of a fraternity. There was Ford Hall, and there was Winants Hall and, as I say, Bob Dixon lived up on "Holy Hill." And I think over at the College of Agriculture there were places where some of them lived at that time. But if you exclude the commuters, I mean, it must have been 75 or 80 percent who were in fraternities.

 KP: So pledging for a fraternity was very important, it sounds like, in finding a good place to live.

 WG: It's just like, I mentioned in particular in terms of signing up for the senior R.O.T.C., it was the thing to do. And, you know, as far as I was concerned, I mean, coming to college involved belonging to a fraternity.

 RC: How did you come to join the debating society, Tau Kappa Alpha?

 WG: I took a course in public speaking, ... and Professor Reager was head of public speaking and the debating team and so forth. And I guess he talked me into it or influenced me or whatever. And the way he ran it was pretty informal. ... But the biggest part was the debating trips that you got to travel around and visit other colleges. ... The debating was pretty informal. There were no winners or losers or anything like that.

 KP: So you were not judged, you did not have judges?

 WG: You just debated, that's all. ... And you socialized with the debaters from the other colleges.

 KP: How many people would come and listen to you debate?

 WG: Very few. And those that did were other members of the debating squad or team or whatever.

 KP: Do you remember any trips in particular you took with the debating squad?

 WG: Oh yes. Arthur Talbot, who's Class of '40, who was a Zeta Psi, had a car, and I took two debating trips with him and a few others in his car. One up to New York State and one out to Michigan and Ohio and so forth. And ... one of the trips to New York State, Bob Gaynor, who was at, I guess he was at the meeting, anyway, he's on the Board of Trustees, the Rutgers '40 Board, he's a judge, he was on a debating trip with me.

 RC: Do you recall specific topics that you debated and was there anything that you particularly remember?

 WG: I'd have to think it out. One, I forget exactly what ... the terms of the debate were, but had to do with neutrality ... and the Lend-Lease and that sort of thing. And Professor Reager suggested ... that we depart from the standard position on it and take the position that America should exercise its right of freedom of the seas and so forth and so on. And we took that position ... in the debate, and the other team didn't know what to talk about, they weren't prepared. They were prepared for the standard position. I really don't-- there were other topics and I really don't remember.

 KP: From 1936 to 1940 we look back, and it's now the era of the rise of Hitler and Japan preparing for war. In fact, there's a fighting a war in China. How did you and your fraternity members and other Rutgers students view the whole coming of war? Did it seem so obvious then as we see it now?

 WG: No! We ... didn't really think about it. ... I think the Depression was much more significant and in our minds. And, you know, the possibility of getting a job. ... I was interested in the political situation ... in this country. And I was interested in math and statistics, ... and the Gallup Poll, at that time, was well known. It had predicted [the] Roosevelt-Landon [race in] '36. ... And so I went down to Princeton and got a job at the Gallup Poll when I finished Rutgers. And I worked about six months there. And then, as I said ... in my account, I wanted to try and find out where I stood as far as the army was concerned. I went into Camden where the officer [who] was in charge of me as a Reserve Officer and inquired, and, as a result, a couple of weeks later, I got orders. So then after I get out of the army, I went to the University of Pennsylvania for a year under the G.I. Bill, and also under the G.I. Bill, second semester, I was an instructor. Two classes, ... in elementary business statistics. And then I went back to work for the Gallup Poll for three years.

 KP: I want to talk a bit about the Gallup Poll, but I guess one question I had is on the R.O.T.C. The biographical account we read, it seems like you enjoyed R.O.T.C. training.

 WG: Yeah, yes. I mean, ... the class aspect of it was very simple. I mean, it didn't require a great deal of preparation and we had drill once a week ... and went up to Plattsburg for six weeks, and that was a very interesting experience. I mean, I had been to summer camp as a boy, Y.M.C.A. camps. So, in one sense, it wasn't much different than that. I guess the biggest difference was the weapons training at Plattsburg.

 KP: In your account you are looking back on your training, and you recall the attention to close-order drill and also the sort of attitude sometime expressed, "Do as I say, not as I do," particularly from the R.O.T.C. officer who gave you a long lecture about the importance of legibility of signatures, and then he signs you off a pass, and his signature is totally illegible. Looking back on your R.O.T.C. training, how effective was it when you would later have to do the real thing in wartime? What would you have changed and what did you think was very good?

 WG: The close-order drill was completely irrelevant. [laughter] I guess that ... the topics covered in the classroom were of some help. But, again, as my account, you know I ended up in the army for two and a half years doing civilian-type work behind a desk. And then, when I did get called to active duty so to speak, they sent me to the Infantry School for three months, and that was a horse of another color.

 KP: So in a sense, it was at Infantry School you really learned what you needed to learn.

 WG: Yeah, ... in one sense. I said, I mean, I was a civilian working in ... an Army uniform at Fort Benning. And then in the middle of '43, I got into the army.

 KP: When you stayed at R.O.T.C., which was very competitive, because a number of people would not get to stay in for the third and fourth year from what I have been told.

 WG: That wanted to?

 KP: That wanted to. That not everyone who applied was able to stay in.

 WG: I'm not aware of that being the case. I mean there were a number ... of "Zetes" who got in, and I don't know of anyone who wanted to that didn't get in.

 KP: How many in your fraternity did, in fact, go on to advanced R.O.T.C.? Do you remember?

 WG: The number, ... I would say about a quarter. I mean, you know, I could actually go back to the yearbook and check it out, but. ...

 RC: You were a captain in Company D in R.O.T.C. How was that selection made? Did that come from the commander of the R.O.T.C.? How did you become a captain?

 WG: ... From the professional officers on the staff. Not the student officers.

 RC: They made that decision.

 WG: And, you know, I don't know how they did it. What they took into account, I suspect a lot of it was just academic record, and my academic record was good.

 KP: In fact, it was a very good record. You were inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, which is not an easy task to do, both then and now. Living in a fraternity, I guess one question that's come out is, do you remember your initiation ceremony?

 WG: Yes.

 KP: What pranks or prank did you have to do? Was there anything memorable there?

 WG: I think by the time it got around to us, and again this is tied into the Depression, most of the so-called hazing involved work around the house. Physical work ... in fixing up, preparing, polishing the house and, you know, ... for a week. "Hell Week" they called it. We were kept up most of the night doing that kind of thing.

 KP: Another thing that Bob has actually been struck by in reading some of the back issues of the Targum was how much of an active social life there was at Rutgers at this time. For example, there were a whole series of balls, most notably the Military Ball, but there were just a range of dances.

 WG: Junior Prom, Senior Prom and, I forget, there were others, too. There were some members of the Zeta Psi fraternity that were very much involved in that kind of activity. I wasn't. I didn't attend any of those balls or hops or anything. I was a very young and innocent college student.

 KP: Did you date many women from the New Jersey College for Women?

 WG: No.

 KP: So it's really not until the wartime that you really started dating a lot.

 WG: Right. I mean, in spite of what I said about my father's economic position, I felt, again, others grew up in the Depression, too, but I felt that I should be very conservative in spending money, and I spent what money was provided me very judiciously. .... I guess I didn't mention this, the "movie labs." At that time there were five movie theaters in downtown New Brunswick and often at lunchtime somebody would suggest a certain picture down at a certain theater, and we'd take off for what we called "movie lab." [laughter] And that was really, that ... and cards were my principal entertainment ... at college. There was a bridge game going on at the Zeta Psi house starting right after lunch every day of the week, and people would move in and move out. No poker that I can recall ever being played.

 KP: So you had to wait for poker until the army.

 WG: Right.

 KP: You mentioned that Professor Houston Peterson was your favorite professor. What made him your favorite professor? What do you remember about him that sticks out?

 WG: I don't know. ... He just, he was more humorous, more erudite than any other. I had him for logic and philosophy. ... First semester logic, second semester philosophy, and I think most ... of my fellow members in Zeta Psi couldn't understand why I was taking a course in logic and philosophy. ... Did you know Houston Peterson?

 KP: No, no I didn't. You mention that you were impressed by Dean Metzger, especially when you came up here. Do you have any other recollections of Dean Metzger?

 WG: Oh, yes. Our housemother was related to him somehow. But in any case, the main thing, as far as I was concerned, is [that] at the end of ... my junior year, some members of the graduating class of Zeta Psi had a party in the Zeta Psi house with women, which was against the rules. As a result, we were placed on social probation my senior year. And we were on social probation the whole year. And I was president of the house for the whole year. And one of my duties was to report to Dean Metzger every week to tell him what was going on at the Zeta Psi house. And so, I mean, we got to be friends. As far as you can become friends with the dean of men.

 KP: Many people we have interviewed have distinct memories of chapel, both the weekly chapel, and for those who lived on campus, Sunday chapel. Do you have any recollections?

 WG: Well, I recall having to go, and I found it boring most of the time, but they had speakers, like Norman Thomas, every year, ... I think, when I was in college. And other speakers who were as interesting as he was. Not the ordinary run-of-the-mill thing that you expect from preachers.

 KP: In 1936 when you came to Rutgers, what was the feeling for Roosevelt or Alf Landon? How many students wanted Landon and how many people wanted Roosevelt? Do you have any recollection?

 WG: Well, I was absolutely amazed at how much support there was for Roosevelt on the campus. Not much in the Zeta Psi house, but other than that and in the classrooms.

 KP: In other words, people in class would bring up who they supported, and you were surprised at how many people wanted Roosevelt?

 WG: Yeah. I mean, you know, it wasn't explicitly [stated], but the whole attitude.

 KP: How did you and your father feel about Roosevelt? It sounds like you were a Landon man and then for Wilkie in 1940.

 WG: Yes. I mean, you know, I wasn't really much for Landon ... as an individual. He was the Republican candidate that's all. But when it came to Wilkie, that was another matter.

 KP: A number of people I have interviewed remember Wendell Wilkie's visit to campus was one of the highlights for a number of people. But you did write in your autobiography that you have a very distinct memory of listening to Wilkie's convention.

 WG: Yes. Well, I mean, as I say, we were at Fort Dix for two weeks and, other than the Officer's Club, there was nothing to do in the evenings, except listen to the radio. We lived in tents but you could have radios there. And that was a very vivid memory-- the Republican convention in Philadelphia. To carry that through, I'm still a Republican, but I've voted for Democrats at all levels from president down to the local level from time-to-time. My father said that one time--he's talking about presidential election--he voted for one Democrat for president, Woodrow Wilson, and he regretted it ever since.

 KP: What about your mother? Your mother was also a Republican.

 WG: Yes, but I don't think she thought very much about politics or the political situation. I guess her parents, my grandparents, I guess, were Republican, although I don't really know.

 KP: You mentioned you were interested in the Gallup Poll Organization. In fact you worked for them. What sparked your interest initially?

 WG: Well, the combination of politics and numbers. Statistics so to speak. Now, I ... took a course in elementary business statistics here at Rutgers. Again, the other members of the Zeta Psi, "What do you want to take a course like that for?"

 KP: So you had this interest in polling even before you graduated. And how did you make contact with the Gallup Poll Organization?

 WG: I just went down to Princeton. ...

 KP: You just...

 WG: Knock[ed] on the [door]. ... I don't recall. I probably wrote a letter and got invited down. I don't recall that.

 KP: But you really sought them out. You didn't respond to an ad to them.

 WG: No. I remember going down to Princeton and being interviewed down there.

 KP: And that was your first job after graduating?

 WG: Yes.

 KP: Did you consider yourself lucky to get a job, in a sense, in the area you wanted to?

 WG: Yes, yes. I think so. Actually ... I did this pretty early on ... in the spring of my senior year. I think the only, well, two other things. ... I went up to the Prudential and had an interview and looking back on it, ... I wonder what would have happened if they had given me a job that would have affected my career very much. I also took a government examination for junior statistician and did very well and I'm sure-- I do know that shortly after getting at Fort Benning, Georgia, I got a letter offering me a job at ... some camp in New Jersey that I had never heard of. And I forget exactly what it involved, but, anyway, I wrote back and said, "I'm sorry I already have a job with the government."

 --------------------END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE ONE----------------

 KP: When you started working for the Gallup Organization, polling was still, in many ways, in its infancy. And in fact there had been a major debacle in 1936 with the Literary Digest's prediction of Alf Landon triumphing over Roosevelt.

 WG: Yes. I mean, at that time, you know, the Literary Digest carried out all their interviews by telephone. So they only got people who had telephones, and, at that time, everybody didn't have [a] telephone by a large measure. And, whereas, the Gallup pollers went out and knocked on doors to get, and my first, well, during that period from July '40 till December '40, I didn't work in the office; I was an interviewer out in the streets. ... A group of us went all over New England and Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey interviewing people.

 KP: Looking back, it sounds like it must have been, it must have been fascinating to get to know people in different parts of New England and New York region.

 WG: Yes.

 KP: I mean much better than just driving through with your folks.

 WG: Oh, yes.

 KP: What did you learn doing the polling, about America and about people and about certain issues?

 WG: ... I just had more contact with people, who didn't have much, than I had ever had in my life. I mean, Merchantville, I didn't have much contact. Rutgers, I didn't have much contact. One that sticks out in my mind, interviewing a woman who had some kind of job in a factory ... and said, "If that other guy," meaning Landon, "got in, I wouldn't have a pot left to pee in."

 KP: Did you have a better sense of why Roosevelt did so well after working for the Gallup Organization?

 WG: Oh, I think so, yes. Of course, looking back on it, I reject the idea that he got us out of the Depression, except by getting us into the war. And the war got us out of the Depression.

 KP: If you had not been called up by the army, would you have stayed in the Gallup Organization? Did you see that as a promising career?

 WG: I think so. I mean, you know, after I got out, spent some time at the University of [Pennsylvania], I went back. And, I mean, I had no commitment with them at that time, I went back. I mean, I had the opportunity to stay on at the University of Pennsylvania as an instructor and, as I said in my account, I couldn't see being an instructor, knowing only what I knew from books. So I went back to Gallup ... and was given a job in the office doing statistical work.

 KP: Is there anything else you remember about your polling with Gallup in 1940, in terms of the types of questions that they were asking?

 WG: ... At that time, because we were in the election campaign, most of the questionnaires were very short and dealt principally with who they were going to vote for.

 KP: People are now deluged with pollsters and others asking them to participate in surveys. In the early 1940s did you find that people were more eager and more willing to talk with you as a pollster than they might be today?

 WG: I don't know. I mean most of them were easy ... to talk to. We had a canned spiel and one of the things, "We don't want your name, just your opinions," and that really sold most people.

 KP: Did any of your polling deal with America's foreign policy?

 WG: Yes, yes. There were generally a few questions about that.

 KP: What sense did you have about America's attitude towards going to war in 1940, especially Lend-Lease?

 WG: I guess it was sort of mixed. Although, ... I don't feel that many people felt very strongly one way or another about it.

 KP: You were in the reserves and you were going to be called up. How did you see the direction the country was going? Had you given it any thought, that soon you were going to be in it?

 WG: ... I really didn't think we were going to get in it. Why? I don't really know why; I didn't think, so. But, I mean, even when I got called up for a year's active duty, I thought I was going to get out at the end of a year. ... Now, I think we should have universal military training. I think everybody physically able to perform some kind of service ... should do it. Now, neither of my sons served. They were of ... age at the time of the Vietnamese War. The older boy had a low number or high number whichever it was, but he had really no chance of being drafted. And the other boy was in college at the time and was deferred. By the time he finished college, ... it was over.

 KP: When you said you see the need for universal military service, where did you come to this view? Was it as a result of World War II?

 WG: Yes, I think so. I mean, you obviously have read "The Good War" book by, what's his name?

 KP: Studs Terkel. I guess since you mention Terkel, what did you think of Terkel's book? It obviously was inspirational for writing your own story. Did the wars described in there match your own experiences?

 WG: Yes, except of course, I learned a lot more about the home front ... [than] I had, you know, in two-and-a-half years at Fort Benning. And I didn't know anything about what was going on in the rest of the country. I really didn't. I mean, you know, the civilian population around Fort Benning, Georgia, was not typical of the country at all.

 KP: Had you traveled at all in the South before you went to Fort Benning?

 WG: Only as far south as North Carolina. My cousin Larry Wire, his sister went to Duke, and we went down there to visit her in-- I don't know if it was '39 or '40.

 KP: And your brother and sister went to William and Mary. How did they arrive at that school?

 WG: I don't know. My brother, my younger brother, ... was the first one, and he was responsible for picking it out, and I do think my father objected. I mean, Williamsburg was too far from Merchantville. ... But then, after he had been there, why it was easy for my sister, too.

 KP: To convince your father?

 WG: Yeah. My sister met her husband at William and Mary. He was a Canadian, and he was a tennis player, and he was there on a tennis scholarship. And later, he was good enough to become a member of the Canadian Davis Cup squad. Which doesn't mean he was very good compared to U.S. Davis Cup ... members, but he was the best that Canada had to offer.

 KP: What did you think of the real army and the South? What were your initial impressions?

 WG: Well, the army, ... I expressed some of this. You know, when I arrived at Fort Benning, I ended up being assigned to the ... 24th Infantry which was a regular army organization, and I was impressed by the way it worked. But I didn't spend much time with the 24th Infantry, although, all the time I was there. I was aware of the 24th Infantry. And, of course, ... the black--colored we called them then--soldiers. And the Reception Center had staff with blacks and some whites. And I learned a lot about the situation in the South involving blacks and whites. ... But I really, was in a sense, amazed at how well they got along in this Reception Center.

 KP: Did that come as a surprise? It almost sounds like you were surprised given the segregation out there.

 WG: Yeah.

 KP: What did you think of the segregation that you saw because it was both on the base and off the base? Did you have any thoughts at the time?

 WG: Well, I certainly disapproved, but I didn't feel strongly about it. I mean, after all, in Merchantville we had segregation. And the blacks worked as domestic servants or they had menial jobs. Unless their name was Jersey Joe Walcott, whose real name was Arnold Cream, who lived in what we called Matchtown, which was Delaware Township at that time.

 KP: You mentioned that ...

 WG: ... We had one black in the Class of 1940, Ernie Baxter, who I really don't know much about him. Where he came from? And he died very early, and I don't think it had any connection with the war. So I really don't know much about that.

 KP: It sounds like you were very much impressed with the black unit you served with. One of the things you note was the spit and polish, that it really had a commanding presence at close-order drill and at official ceremonies. You also mention in your account the role of the sergeants. You singled out one sergeant-major. Any other reflections on the way the unit operated?

 WG: No, I ... can't think of anything more than what I said in my account. I mean, the Reception Center was a different matter. I mean, there we had some black sergeants, but they were subservient to white sergeants and white officers. And we had no black officers.

 KP: You were processing both white inductees ...

 WG: No.

 KP: Just black?

 WG: Just black.

 KP: Just black inductees. And what was the rejection rate? Do you remember? Or, by the time they got to you, they were already processed into the military? Or did you process people out of the military?

 WG: No, I think they all had been accepted. Now I don't remember what process they went through before they got to us. And maybe there were some that were rejected for physical reasons because ... they were given physical examinations as part of the first part of their processing.

 KP: So your processing did not include rejecting people?

 WG: Well, ... it may have, but I wasn't involved in it in any way. I'm sure it would have been for physical reasons.

 KP: What were your specific duties as part of the processing?

 WG: Well, for the first part of it, I was in the insurance section which we prevailed upon them to sign up for life insurance. I would suspect that most of them didn't have any idea what it was all about. Very few of them said no.

 KP: Well, you mention that often their sergeants made it clear that they did not really have much of a choice in the matter, even though it was optional.

 WG: And, you know, in retrospect, I think it was undoubtedly a good thing that they were prevailed upon to take life insurance. But then I got transferred to the quartermaster section where we had a building where they were processed and issued uniforms. And I was involved in contact with the post quartermaster and getting the items that were needed.

 KP: I have often heard from people who have gone through induction. One of their complaints was that they get ill-fitting uniforms, especially initially, and things don't match.

 WG: I'm sure that was the case even with these blacks. But I think they probably were better fitted and had better quality clothes than they'd ever had in their life-- most of them.

 KP: But I sort of raised that question because you're on the other side of it. You're the person trying to order this equipment, these supplies, this clothing and fit people. From your perspective, how difficult of a job was it?

 WG: Well, there were black, noncommissioned officers ... who handled it and ... they measured the inductees. ... We even had a ... group of tailors ... to make alterations to fit unusual, you know, most of the people could be fitted with the ... standard sizes, so forth.

 KP: So from your perspective, you tried fairly hard to get enough of the right sizes.

 WG: Oh, yes.

 KP: Would you ever run out of particular sizes?

 WG: I don't think so. I mean, ... we maintained quite a stock on hand. And then the post quartermaster was a half a mile away, and we had, you know, when it was busy, why we had daily truckloads of uniforms and equipment delivered. I'm sure there were cases where we ran out of sizes. But, of course, the blankets were a uniform size.

 RC: You went in, I believe it was in June of 1940 that you were commissioned as a second lieutenant in the reserve, and you went on down to Fort Benning. So you were actually in the Army just prior to Pearl Harbor and the war. You must have noticed the transition to wartime status from the time that you went previous to ...

 WG: Well, I mean the first year I was at Fort Benning, Georgia. I mean, you know, we had Wednesday afternoon off, Saturday afternoon, all day Sunday. And came Pearl Harbor and it changed. And then we were on duty 24 hours a day, seven days, nah, that's not strictly true, but basically, yes.

 KP: In fact, you portray in your account in some ways, that 1941 until Pearl Harbor was a very relaxed year.

 WG: Yes.

 KP: In part with a lot of social activities.

 WG: Right.

 KP: It sounds like you dated quite a bit in 1941. That you had a lot of time, in part to do it, and the pay was reasonably good and your expenses low.
 
 

WG: You know, looking back on it, 125 dollars a month and I thought I was rich. ... You know, you really didn't have any place to spend the money. I mean, except on the post where there were things that were very inexpensive.

 KP: It also sounds like there were not very many places to go.

 WG: You know, Columbus, Georgia and Phoenix City, Alabama were not very nice places. They catered to the enlisted personnel, really.

 KP: When you were inducting people and processing people, did you have any observation on how many black inductees knew how to read and write in 1940 and 1941? Did you have any sense? Were you surprised that large numbers of people could not read and write?

 WG: ... I can't give any kind of number. ... My recollection is that most of them could sign their name and could read basic instructions. I mean, certainly nobody read War and Peace or anything like that. Well, I say that, but I mean, there were a few of the non-coms that had attended universities in the North.

 KP: You mentioned that in your autobiographical account.

 WG: ... And I don't know just how they got picked for their duty in the Reception Center. But I think the fact that they attended college was a very significant factor.

 KP: Did you get to know any of the noncommissioned officers well? And did you ever stay in touch with any of them after the war?

 WG: No. ... And get to know them well, not really. I mean, when you're working with somebody for several years, you think you know them, but you don't really if you don't have any social contact. Now, in the Reception Center, most, I think I mentioned this, most of the officers were southern. And, you know, I learned a lot about Southerners from that. What did I learn? I couldn't tell you, but I mean.

 KP: What did you like about the South, and what did you dislike? Or what did you like about Southerners and their customs, and what did you dislike? Was there anything that sticks out? Did you enjoy the food, for example?

 WG: No. [laughter] ... Not the southern variety. Black-eyed peas, grits. But, ... I ... [wasn't] subject to very much of that. Of course, everything was fried. I guess, you know, I became aware very quickly that Southerners were different. You know, it's interesting, I think, when, oh, you don't have the maps. One of the maps that I have in here-- I've got Plains, Georgia circled. Plains is not far from Columbus. And I think I understand a little more about Jimmy Carter from having lived down there for two-and-a-half years.

 KP: Really. What do you understand better, do you think?

 WG: Well, their attitude. One of the girls that I didn't even mention in [my account], ... a civilian girl from Columbus. I got invited to have dinner with them Sunday. And I can remember, I forget who were there, father, an uncle, whatever, trying to convince them that they were more Republican than I was. Which was the truth. I mean their attitudes were more conservative than mine were. I mean this is over and above their attitudes toward Negroes. It's their economic attitude. But, nevertheless at that time, they were committed Democrats.

 KP: Which really struck you as odd, that loyalty to the Democratic Party. Even though they were politically much more conservative.

 WG: Right.

 RC: You mentioned in your account about your assignment with the troop trains. So you did quite a bit of traveling on those. Anything in particular about that?

 WG: Well, I got to see as much as you can see from a railroad train-- parts of the country that I hadn't before and haven't since, for that matter. I mean, for example, ... we went to Deming, New Mexico, which meant we went all the way across Texas. And there wasn't much to see, but I saw it. [laughter] And I got to Denver and the Rockies and Fort Francis E. Warren, Wyoming, which was out in the plains so to speak. I got to see New Orleans. Stopped over there several times.

 KP: I was quite amused when you talked in your account about being in Paris, Texas. And when the movie came out on Paris, Texas, you were quite amused, it sounds like.

 WG: Yes, I think I said in there that I had not seen the movie. But I did, later on, see it. Maybe it was on television, whatever. And I'm not sure that my conclusion is correct. Why the movie was named Paris, Texas?

 KP: In traveling to these different parts of the country, did you have a greater appreciation, in a sense, for the United States? But also for where you came from? Did any parts of the country particularly appeal to you that you saw? It sounds like some of the places you have not been since and are glad you have not been.

 WG: ... I don't think I can recall visiting any part of the country that I would have any interest in visiting again.

 KP: Looking back on it now, how ready did you think the United States was for war in 1941? What did you think at the time and looking back on it, how prepared or ill-prepared were we? Were you confident, say, in 1941 when you were in the military?

 WG: No, not in 1941. In 1943, ... my experience with the Infantry School and the Officer Candidate School and so forth, ... impressed me very much. I mean, it was assembly line education, but, I mean, as I said in there, during that period, a class of officer candidates was graduating every day. And a new class starting every day. It was tremendous.

 RC: When the war breaks out, Pearl Harbor, you mentioned in your account you were sitting in a car at a polo game listening to the radio. Did you basically know at that moment that you were going to be in for longer than you thought?

 WG: Well, you know, before that I had actually received orders extending my term for a second year. And I guess on December 7th, I realized that I was in for the duration. I really had no idea what the duration was.

 KP: You mentioned that you had gotten your orders extended for a second year. How did you feel about that? Did you think this was unfair and that you served your year and wanted to get out or had you just accepted it as is?

 WG: No, I didn't think it was unfair. I guess because it was completely expected by that time.

 KP: One of the things I have read was that there were a lot of enlisted men, especially from National Guard units, who were called up and those who had been drafted for a year in the peace- time draft, were really discontented being in the army. That they really did not see the purpose for this and wanted to get out. Did you sense any of that?

 WG: No. You know, of course, I was associated with these black inductees. I think the black noncommissioned officers in the Reception Center were probably very pleased with their existence. That may not have been the case, and maybe I think they should have, but I really sensed that they were.

 RC: In the first year or so of the war, the news obviously was not good for the United States. What was the information like that you received about the various campaigns and our losses?

 WG: Not much. I do not remember having access to a daily newspaper at that time. Maybe I could have, but I don't think I did. So I guess all the information I got was from the radio, which was something less than you can get from the radio, today in terms of world events. [laughter] Mostly what you got on radio down there ... was country music, which was my first exposure to country music.

 KP: And what did you think of it?

 WG: I didn't think much of it at the time. Now, compared to some other types of music in vogue, I prefer country music.

 KP: What kind of music did you like listening to?

 WG: Oh, the big band sound. ... I think, I don't know whether that's history or sociology or whatever, but it seems to me unusual that this music that was created in the 1940s has lasted. And in certain areas it's gaining more respect among young people, like my son, who is eclectic in his appreciation of music. I mean, he goes for rock and roll and everything, but he is very much impressed with a lot of the big band music.

 KP: It sounds like it surprises you a little.

 WG: Yeah. ... Even Frank Sinatra, of whom, I'm not particularly impressed.

 RC: You mentioned in your account about some of the dances that they had on post, in particular, one where I think it was General Patton in attendance.

 WG: Oh, yes.

 RC: And that Patton had a particular type of music he preferred. You did not have a chance to speak with him, I gather, because you did not mention it in your account.

 WG: No, I never spoke to him, but, you know, I was right there, and he was right there. And the occasion upon which he raised some objection, I was not there. And I don't know how he raised the objection. All I know that I was told, ordered, whatever, to make sure the band did not play real jazzy type music or fast music when he was there. And I went with them out to the Second Armored Division Club, and there were no problems. And I don't know that he would have raised any objection if some of the music that they played was not to his liking. I don't recall him getting up and dancing.

 KP: It sounded that the social world of the army has some certain unique qualities, one of them is assigning someone to make sure that the band plays the right music for the general. And you mention the segregation of housing, the colonel's housing. As a sort of civilian in an army uniform, what did you find particularly odd about army social life? Is there anything you liked or did not like? It sounded like you had a lot of dates, that you were able to date a lot, but it sounds also somewhat regulated and structured.

 WG: Well, that's true. Well, that ... didn't ... bother me ... at the time. You know, having just come out of four years at Rutgers, where life was regimented to a degree, compulsory chapel attendance and other things, it didn't seem that different. The only big difference, I lived in a building that was unfinished on the inside, you know. Not like a fraternity house.

 RC: Was there any rapid expansion at Fort Benning while you there, in size and construction?

 WG: Yes, although I really was not kept up to date on it. I mentioned that the Second Armored Division and the Fourth Infantry Division, I think, were like about five miles from the main post in two areas. ... So, you know, on a daily basis I wasn't aware. The other thing that was closer was the paratroops. And that was the start of the paratroops in there. Relatively small group, a couple of battalions at that time, at Benning. But, ... certainly the Infantry School was expanded. As I mentioned, this class, and we're talking about 300 in a class, maybe not that many, you know, starting everyday ... and graduating. And I mean that was just the officers' candidates. I went through the school in Officer's Basic Course which was essentially the same course as the officer candidates were given. The same instructors, everything was the same. And ... that was right on the main post. And, obviously, there was some expansion there. You know, the Reception Center originally was quartered in an old building ... and tents. And then, they built all these new buildings for the Reception Center which was barracks for these inductees and so forth. So, you know, obviously there was a lot. But, ... I think, you know, I wasn't impressed that it was so tremendous and that was partly because I wasn't very much aware of what was going on out in the boondocks, so to speak.

 KP: Were the facilities adequate? For example, did the Officer's Club become more crowded? Did the PX become more crowded? Or were the facilities able to handle this influx?

 WG: The facilities were able to handle it, yeah. That kind of facilities.

 KP: In interviewing several people who were stationed at Fort Benning, or went through Fort Benning, they had mentioned that the paratroopers were a tough lot and often got into trouble with the MPs, and there would often be fights between the paratroopers and other troops there. Were you aware of this problem at the time?

 WG: You know, we were aware ... that the training of the paratroopers was much stiffer ... than the training at the Infantry School. But I didn't have much contact with them. I mean, they had an Officer's Club and I attended it several times. But you didn't see them elsewhere on the post ... very much. I mean, they were in training and they were in training.

 RC: Did you ever consider joining the paratroopers?

 WG: No.

 RC: You mentioned in your account when you went through the Officer's Basic Training that some of the people, or you had come in contact with members of the Class of 1943 from West Point, and that they had a reaction. Could you elaborate on that a little bit?

 WG: Well, again, I mean, they were in a barracks right next to the one I that I [was] ... in. But we didn't have ... much contact with them. I mean, in the morning we got up, we went this way, they went that way. Not because they were different from us, but they were a different class. And their schedule and our schedule were different. I honestly don't remember having come in contact with any of them at the Officer's Club, although they must have been there.

 KP: Was there any tension or trouble between the black enlisted troops and the white troops?

 WG: Not that I was aware of.

 KP: Never any fights between the two or other incidents?

 WG: No, I mean, you know, as far as those at the Reception Center ... [are] concerned, they were, you know, under wraps, so to speak. They didn't have privileges to enable them to go into Columbus or Phoenix City or anything like that. And then there was the 24th Infantry which, they were regular army, and they were disciplined, I'm sure. If there were any troubles it was taken care of. But I was not aware of any.

 KP: Earlier in the interview, you almost made it sound like it was strange the way the Army kept you in this desk job for the length of time it did. Did you think that at the time?

 WG: Yeah. But I didn't make any effort to change it. ... I suspected if I had that, I could have gotten out of it.

 KP: Had you learned not to volunteer from the previous effort when you wrote to them about the reserves?

 WG: [laughter] I guess, yeah.

 KP: Because someone else I have interviewed had said he learned very quickly not to volunteer. He made a similar mistake, and I forgot the assignment. When it was determined that you would go into Officer's Candidate School for Infantry Candidate School, were you surprised it was Fort Benning, that you, in a sense, didn't have to go far?

 WG: No, no. I mean, Benning was it as far as the infantry was concerned.

 KP: You mentioned that you had really learned more in those several months than you did in all of your four years of R.O.T.C.

 WG: More about the military.

 KP: Yes, about the military, in particular being an infantryman.

WG: ... Oh, yes.

 KP: What were the most useful things they taught you about your training? My impression is that most of the candidates you went through with were just recently arrived in the military, whereas you had been in the military quite a bit.

 WG: ... I think as far as the kind of thing that went on at the Infantry School, I was no different than anybody that had just come in. I mean, I had been a civilian in uniform for two-and-a half years.

 KP: What did you learn? What skills did you learn and what were the most effective parts of your training?

 WG: I don't know.

 KP: Looking back when you were in combat, what did they teach you right and what did you think you wish you had listened to even more carefully in terms of use of weapons.

 WG: ... You know, ... all I can say is that combat was completely different ... than what I expected from the training. There were a lot of aspects of the training which had no application to what I was involved in. ... Actually, ... I think that the training at Benning was more directed towards what I was called upon to do with the 99th Division in Paris, Texas, Camp Maxey, where we were training enlisted men to be soldiers.

 KP: Less as a junior officer in an infantry company.

 WG: Well, in a combat situation where it just was completely different.

 KP: What did you expect in training that combat would be like, and what was combat actually like?

 WG: ... I expected it to be much more intense and much more, everything close together. But it wasn't. I mean, you know, there was nothing like the World War I trench warfare, I mean, although we had the hedgerows ... in Normandy which could have easily degenerated into a trench warfare kind of situation. But, I mean, partly because of that, boy, I mean, you didn't know what was going on a hundred yards away.

 KP: Had any of your instructors at Fort Benning seen combat?

 WG: I don't know. I suspect there were some, but not many. ... They knew, what they knew, from books and from similar instruction. I'm sure that many of the instructors ... became instructors after having gone through the school. And, you know, I complained, when I went to the University of Pennsylvania, about instructors who knew nothing except what they had learned from books. And I didn't want to be that kind of instructor. But I don't think there was any choice as far as the Infantry School is concerned. I mean, hopefully, they had officers with combat experience who instructed the instructors, but I don't know that to be the case.

 RC: You finished up your infantry training and then you mentioned you went to the 99th Infantry Division. You did some training in Louisiana on maneuvers. What did you think about that?

 WG: Well, ... it was rough. The physical conditions there were rougher than they were in Normandy. I mean, the lack of water, dirt. I mean, that part of Louisiana is not the nicest part of the country, I'll tell you that. I mentioned, I think, that the wild boars that were ubiquitous. But I guess most of the civilian ...

Kurt Piehler:  This continues an interview with Mr. William S. Gillam on April 24, 1995 at Rutgers University in New Brunswick with Kurt Piehler and Robert Colandro.  Before we discuss your wartime experiences, we talked briefly before the interview about your predilection to save things.  You trace this, in part, to your Quaker ancestry.  Could you recount how you saved quite a bit of your correspondence and other documents?

William Gillam:  Well, yes, I ... have saved copies of practically all my correspondence with relatives and ... friends, friends such as members of the Zeta Psi fraternity with whom I have kept in touch.  ...

KP:  However, not all your family shares this predilection.  You mentioned that your brother has joined the 20th Century and prefers the phone.

WG:  Right, my other brother, I suspect, recently, ... has saved things because he has a computer, a word processor and you automatically get to save things, but, my brother is not much for writing letters, and so, he doesn't have anything to save.  He relies more on the telephone.

KP:  Have you ever kept a diary?

WG:  No, I've never kept a diary, as such.  This whole account ... came out of my memories, supplemented by reference to documents that I had, and, as you know, after I got done [with] it all, I found some other documents that I hadn't thought about that added, actually, just factual things that really don't affect the narrative.

KP:  You mentioned that you were prompted partly by Studs Terkel’s work in thinking about your own experiences.  What did you think of his book?

WG:  Well, I enjoyed it very much.  What more can I say?

KP:  Did any of the stories in there surprise you?

WG:  I'm sure they did.  I do not remember any specific examples.  I mean, you know, as I said before, I think during the time that I was in the service, I was more or less cut off from news on the homefront and I really didn't know what was going on, on the homefront.

KP:  Were you able to save the letters that people wrote to you during the war?

WG:  Some.

KP:  Some?

WG:  Well, ... yeah, well, I think I mentioned [that] I have copies of letters my father wrote to me and to my brothers because ... his secretary typed them up and made carbon copies.  [laughter] But, my mother, for example, who actually did more writing to me and my brothers than my father did, hers were longhand letters that have disappeared.

KP:  You mentioned that part of your desire to write your story was for your grandchildren.  Have you been a little disappointed that they seem less interested in your wartime experiences or do you think they will eventually come around?

WG:  I don't know.  I mean, they've been living in Florida since they were small boys.  I only get to see them three or four times a year and ... there really hasn't been much occasion for them to raise any questions.  It's interesting, just recently, they were in New Jersey, and the older boy expressed an interest in seeing the Rutgers campus, and so, we spent a couple of hours riding around College Avenue Campus, and Busch Campus, and even Livingston, and I don't know whether that evidenced any interest ... in coming to Rutgers or not.

KP:  It may have just been curiosity.

WG:  I would sort of be surprised, mainly because my experience with people that moved to Florida is [that] they're not interested in coming back up to the snowy, cold North.  I might ... interject there, besides which, Rutgers University, as [it] is now constituted, is nothing like the Rutgers College that I went to and my son himself didn't come to Rutgers.  He went to Wesleyan, which, at the time he went to Wesleyan, it was more like Rutgers used to be.  I don't know what Wesleyan's like now.

KP:  When did you sense that Rutgers had really changed dramatically from what you knew it as?

WG:  Pretty early on, I guess, after my service in the Army and ... I started becoming involved particularly through the Class of '40, in Rutgers affairs.  ... Then, I realized how different [it was] and, you know, I've lived in Metuchen since 1949 and read the local newspaper about everything that's going on at Rutgers, things that went on at Rutgers in the 60s, which went on at a lot of other colleges and universities, too.  Now, the recent troubles at Rutgers involving minorities, that's something else.

KP:  The Class of 1940 is legendary for their involvement at Rutgers.  Why do you think the Class of '40 has stayed so close together and has been so active?  Have you ever thought about that?

WG:  Yeah, ... we incorporated in 1962, ... after our 20th anniversary in '60, and, since that time, we've had money in the bank, and I noticed, right recently, the Class of '38 asking people to send in twenty dollars, because the class funds are nil, and so, just the very fact of incorporation, which is a very simple process, ... has kept us together, and we’ve had a board of trustees made up of people who live within easy distance of New Brunswick, driving distance, and we’ve had several meetings a year, and, on the big five year reunions, we've had more meetings than that.

KP:  Whose idea was it to incorporate?

WG:  I really don't remember.  I remember a group of us sitting around a table and discussing it, but, I'm not sure who first presented the idea.

KP:  How long have you been secretary of the class?

WG:  Well, it's a long story.  ... I mean, at our 15th reunion, I was elected vice-president, and then, at our 25th reunion, I had to give that up because of pressure [from] personal affairs, and, later on, I became assistant secretary because our secretary moved to Texas, and I took over without having any title other than assistant secretary, and, ultimately, was elected secretary.  So, you know, I’ve been acting as recording secretary for ... quite a few years, and then, I’ve been the class correspondent since 1979.  ...

KP:  How many of your class do you think will come to the 55th?

WG:  We had hoped for fifty, but, it looks like it isn't going to be that many.  We haven't gotten reservations ... from anything like that.  ... I found the Class of '39 only had twenty-seven at their 55th a year ago and I thought, surely, we'd do ... better than that, but, I'm afraid that age has ... caught up with us, and, for many that would like to come, it physically becomes a problem for them.  So, at the moment, you know, I'm hoping we might get thirty.

KP:  Maybe we should go back to World War II.

WG:  Yes.

KP:  When we left off, we were talking quite a bit about Fort Benning.  I believe we left off in Texas.  Bob, would you like to begin?

Robert Colandro:  Yeah, I think we left off with your arrival in, I believe it was, Camp Maxey, in Paris, Texas.  What was the camp like?  Was it built up or had that camp basically been thrown together?

WG:  I think, basically, it had been thrown together.  I suspect it was like a lot of other camps at that time, training camps.  I mean, I had been, briefly before that, at Camp Wheeler ... in Macon, Georgia, and that was the same.  ... All of the buildings were ... new, but, ... well, they were like Camp Kilmer was twenty or thirty years ago.  ... At Camp Maxey, there just wasn't an opportunity to get into Paris, Texas, much.  I mean, you know, we were on duty twenty-four hours a day for seven days a week.  I mean, not all that time doing anything.  So, it was exceptional when you could get ... into Paris, like when my automobile block froze and I had to get it taken care of.  At Fort Benning, they could've taken care of it right on the post, but, not at Camp Maxey.

RC:  What were your main duties while you were there?

WG:  We were carrying out a training program for the men and I was in Company M, which was a heavy weapons company, which involved machine guns, ... and mortars, and things like map reading, and so forth, and ... physical training, twenty mile marches, frequently, and things at night, training exercises at night.  I remember, ... one time, two of the trucks got bogged down in a night exercise ... and it took us ‘til morning to get them out.

KP:  What were your sergeants and other non-coms like, your cadre?  How good were they and do you know anything about their backgrounds?

WG:  No.

KP:  Were they regular Army?

WG:  Oh, no, by that time, ... they were all draftees.  ...

KP:  Were there a lot of southerners?

WG:  ... I really don't know.  ... I joined the 99th Division in Camp Van Horn, Mississippi, and, ... very shortly, we were going on the Louisiana Maneuvers, and ... ended up in Maxey, and I really didn't get to know the non-commissioned officers like I had gotten to know the ones ... at the reception center in Fort Benning.

KP:  When you left the 99th Infantry Division to go to the 38th Infantry Regiment, what were your thoughts about that?  Would you have preferred to have stayed with the 99th?

WG:  No, no, ... but, then, I didn't have any idea where I was going, and I didn't know I was going to be in the Second Division until I landed in Normandy, so, ... I just had no idea, but, ... the 99th Division, in my opinion, was not anywheres near ready to operate as a unit in combat, and, obviously, the War Department agreed with that, because I, along with a lot of other officers, ... [was] taken out of the 99th and sent overseas as a replacement officer.  Now, I later learned that the 99th Division had participated ... in the Battle of the Bulge and I don't know how they got there.

KP:  When you were training people in Texas, did you have a sense that the 99th had a number of problems or that it was just simply a matter of time, that this unit would take a while to train?

WG:  ... Yes, you know, at that time, I had no idea that ... I would be singled out, along with others, and I thought, “Now, I'm with a division, and ... when the division is sufficiently trained, they will send us someplace.”

KP:  So, when you left the unit, they were still in training?

WG:  Right.  ... You know, I had no idea.  I mean, I wasn't the only one that was withdrawn.  ... The junior officers that were withdrawn, there were lots of them.  ... I gave you a copy of orders, I think, that has a lot of names on it.  So, I have no idea what happened after that to the 99th Division, how they ended up in ... France, in December, for the Battle of the Bulge.

KP:  You ended up in the replacement depot at Fort Meade in Maryland and there was quite a Rutgers contingent there.  Before we started the interview, you showed us a picture of the Rutgers contingent.

WG:  ... They're at Aberdeen.

KP:  Oh, Aberdeen, excuse me.

WG:  Which was an ordinance [proving ground], ... and they were all ROTC here at Rutgers, which was basically infantry, and ... I think most of them were engineers at Rutgers.

KP:  As a replacement officer, you had no idea where you were going.  Did you have any apprehension about that, that you were going to eventually be placed in a unit where you did not know anyone and had not trained with them?

WG:  I'm sure I did, but, ... like so many others, there was nothing you could do about it, so, you didn't really worry about it.  ... I guess the only thing I can recall is being pleased when I learned that I was going to Europe and not to the South Pacific.

KP:  So, when you were sent to Fort Meade, you still had no idea where you were going?

WG:  Right.

KP:  Also, given your training, you could have easily gone to either theater.

WG:  Right.

KP:  Why did you have apprehensions about going to the Pacific?  What did you think at the time?

WG:  Well, primarily, the climate, I think, and, as it ended up, you know, the two months that I spent in France were delightful, as far as the weather was concerned.  ... It was summer, but, not too hot and not too much rain.  ...

KP:  How much did the maneuvers in Louisiana have to do with your desire to avoid the South Pacific?

WG:  ... Well, I think it probably did, because Louisiana, it was in the summertime, and it was ... hot, and there was a short supply of water for drinking or ... bathing purposes.  I mean, actually, I didn't feel, in Normandy, ... the shortage of water.  I'm sure that there wasn't an awful lot, but, it didn't seem like a shortage.

KP:  You departed in April of 1944 for Scotland.  What do you remember about the voyage overseas?

WG:  It was ... pretty boring.  I mean, most of the time you just spent cooped up ... in a state room.

KP:  Did your ship go in a convoy or did it go over independently?

WG:  I think independently.

KP:  So, you were doing a lot of zigging to avoid U-boats.

WG:  Yeah.

KP:  Did you have any concerns about U-boats or any problems with seasickness?

WG:  Don't recall any.  ... I think I did mention [this] in my account, ... one time, I was stationed on the stern of a boat and it went up and down ... pretty much, but, other than that, I don't recall anybody else being afflicted.

KP:  What were your duties on board the boat?

WG:  Very little, I mean.

KP:  Were the soldiers on the boat mainly replacements?

WG:  Oh, I think they were all replacements.  I don't know that, but, I think so.  ... I mean, ... everybody that I came into contact with.

KP:  Did you have any responsibilities for supervising enlisted men?

WG:  Basically, no.

KP:  So, you really just spent a lot of time sitting in the ward room.  Did you play cards?  What did you do to pass the time?

WG:  [laughter] I guess there was some cards.  I don't recall participating.  Looking back on it, I don't know what the heck I did do for six or eight days, or whatever it took.

RC:  Was there a lot of talk about what might lie ahead for you and everyone else on the ship?

WG:  No, no.

RC:  Any talk of going into France or somewhere else in Europe?

WG:  No.  I recall none.  ... I think that any talking we did had more to do ... with the past.

KP:  Did you have any thoughts about the invasion of Europe or any sense of how it would go?

WG:  Well, not at that time.  I mean, after we got to ... England and got to a semi-permanent station, why, it bends my recall, [but, it] became obvious that we were going to be part ... of an invasion of the Continent, but, of course, we didn't know any more than the Germans did, where those landings were going to take place.

KP:  Had you ever been abroad before?

WG:  No.

KP:  What did you think of Scotland and England?

WG:  Well, Scotland, I mean, we were just there for a few hours to get on a train.  ...

KP:  Which went in the wrong direction.

WG:  Well, it really wasn't direction, it was just the wrong place we got off.  I mean, we didn't choose to get off there, but, so, then, we ended up ... in the area of Taunton, Crewkerne, and Cricket St. Thomas, which was a delightful area.  Again, it was April, May, pleasant weather and everything.

KP:  What did you think of the English people and how well did they treat you?

WG:  [We] didn't have much contact with the English people, I suppose.  As I indicated in my account, [I] got to go London twice.  Even there, [I had] very little contact with the English people.  I went to the Red Cross club in London and, as I said, ran into an acquaintance of mine from ... Merchantville there.

KP:  Lt. Walter White.

WG:  Right, and other American officers.

KP:  So, you never went to an English pub?

WG:  Yes, yes, we did.  I think I mentioned in there that the only thing they had ... that I would be interested in drinking was ... gin and peppermint, I don't know, some stupid things.

KP:  You mentioned that you were able to continue some training in England, in particular, you got a chance to fire the .81 mm mortars.  At this point, were you still in the replacement depot or had you joined the Second Division?

WG:  No, I was still in the replacement depot, didn't join the Second Division until after I landed ... in France, and I didn't know I was going to the Second Division until I was there.

KP:  So, in other words, you were training and working with replacements.  How were the replacements organized?  Did you supervise a particular group of men for a particular period of time or was it less organized?

WG:  I would say it was less organized.  I think, ... this is just a thought, that there were a lot more officers than men ... where I was.

KP:  So, in a sense, there were a lot of officers waiting for places to open up.

WG:  Right.

KP:  Did you ever have any sense of what the casualties might be like, especially because it seemed that they had this surplus of officers in the replacement depot?

WG:  No, I don't recall any thoughts about that or expectations.  I'll tell you, you just sort of shut your mind to everything except the immediate.  You didn't know where you were going, what you were going to do, and you didn't think about it.  ...

KP:  Where were you when the D-Day assault took place?

WG:  Yeah, I was at this Cricket St. Thomas, which was an estate where we did some training on the golf course that was there, and I recall being on that golf course when a lot planes went over, heading south, and it was obvious that something was going on.  We weren't told what was going on.  I think ... we all just understood.

KP:  That the invasion was on?

WG:  That something big was happening.

KP:  When did you get word that you would be moving out, that you had been assigned to a unit?  How many days after D-Day, since you left on the 17th of June?

WG:  Well, I don't recall, exactly.  I think it was a very few days ... after D-Day that we were told that we were moving, and ... we went from where we were to some kind of camp near Southampton, and we were told very little.

KP:  Were you ever struck by how much the military kept you in the dark or did you just accept that there was a good reason for it?

WG:  Just accepted it.

RC:  When you finally went over and landed on Omaha Beach, I think it was twelve days after the initial invasion.

WG:  Right.

RC:  What did Omaha Beach look like?

WG:  Well, it was a lot of signs of the activity that had taken place, but, actually, you know, from our perspective, we couldn't see much of it.  You’d only see the immediate area where ... we landed, and we climbed up a path, up the cliffs, and spent the night there, and, as I think I said in my narrative, it was a lot of activity in the air.  Looking back on it, [from] what I've read, I doubt that very much of it ... was enemy.

RC:  Did you see a lot of burned out vehicles or anything like that, or had it pretty much been cleaned up?

WG:  Oh, no, there was a lot.  I mean, again, ... we didn't get a tour of the beach.  We only saw a small section where ... we landed, ... and, yes, we did see evidence of what had gone on there.

KP:  Were there any bodies still on the beach?

WG:  No.

RC:  So, basically, you landed on Omaha and were shuttled inland.

WG:  Shuttled up by our own foot power.  [laughter]

RC:  Okay, you marched up or ran up.  Was there any incoming fire from artillery at that time?

WG:  No, ... not ‘til we actually got up to the Second Division, which ... took a couple of days to do that.

KP:  You marched up with the replacements?

WG:  Right.

KP:  Did you know, when you left England, that you were going to the Second Division?

WG:  No.

KP:  When did they finally let you know your fate?

WG:  ... Like a couple of days after I landed in Normandy.  I mean, the replacement group just stayed together for a day or so until we got assigned and it wasn't until then that I knew where I was going, to the Second Division.

KP:  So, initially, you stayed near the beach?

WG:  Yes.

KP:  Did you ever observe any German POWs?

WG:  Not then, but, later on, when I was with the 38th Infantry, I saw some, not a lot.  There were not many Germans taken prisoner at that time.  I mean, they were, in effect, fighting a rear guard action, and the nature of ... the terrain, which I went into in my report, the bocage, the hedgerows, you sort of kept a distance from the enemy.  They were there, but, you didn't see them and they didn't see us, really.

KP:  What did you think of the Germans as adversaries?  Did you have any opinions on the subject?

WG:  Well, I'm sure ... I did.  I don't remember anything specific.  ... Although, as I have said, all the time I was at Fort Benning, I really didn't have access to the kind of news that ... I would today, but, I was aware of what had happened ... in North Africa, ... involving the Germans there.

KP:  You finally learned that you were assigned to the Second Division.  Did any other replacement officers join you in the Second Division?

WG:  Yes, yes, there were a number, and I think the only one I can remember, ... I think his name was Jameson, who was killed a few days later, but, you know, I got assigned to Company M and I was the only one of that particular group of replacement officers.  I'm sure there were some that were assigned to other companies of the 38th Infantry, but, I had no contact with them after that.

KP:  Studies have shown that replacements often had a very short life span, that, particularly in battle, they were often very vulnerable.  Did you have any sense of how vulnerable you were as a replacement?

WG:  No, and I didn't have any feeling that I was more affected than others who had been there, some of them from before D-Day.  I mean, some of them had been with the Second Division, 38th Infantry, for a long time.

KP:  What was your initial meeting with the officers and the enlisted men in your company like?

WG:  I don't really remember.

KP:  Was it still daylight when you reported?

WG:  Oh, yes, I mean, after dark, not much went on.

KP:  Once you got to the battle line, what was your first reaction to combat and to being on the battle line.  For example, what was more frightening, small arms fire, or artillery, or the possibility of an air attack?

WG:  Well, I think ... the artillery and the possibility of an air attack, but, there wasn't much at that time, and, I mean, we were not affected by any attack by the ... [German] forces.  I mean, either we were just in place or we were moving forward.  You know, I think the units who were opposite us, as I say, were fighting a rear guard action, although, I'm sure that a lot of men in the front lines weren't aware of that.

KP:  You fought in the hedgerow country.  What struck you about fighting there?  You mentioned that it seemed like the Germans were fighting a rear guard action, but, a lot of generals at the time really hated fighting in the hedgerow country and historians have supported the fact that it was very difficult terrain to wage an offensive in.

WG:  Yeah, it was.  ... The fighting was one hedgerow at a time.  I mean, you were behind one hedgerow, and they were behind another, ... and you couldn't see them.  You couldn't see what you were shooting at.  Of course, as a platoon leader of a machine gun platoon, or a mortar platoon, I was not up there firing my own weapon, and, at first, I was with the machine guns, and the machine guns ... would fire at the next hedgerow.

KP:  So, in other words, before advancing, you would soften the hedgerow up with machine guns and mortars.

WG:  ... When we really made the push for Hill 192, there was a tremendous artillery barrage ahead of that and we had some tanks with ... the blades that could push through the hedgerows.

RC:  Yeah, I was going to ask you about that, because that pretty much was thrown together on the spot.  I believe it was a sergeant who had the idea of doing it.

WG:  I didn't know anything about that, at the time.  I mean, ... these tanks appeared with ... the blades on them.  ... I was not aware of a great number of tanks.

KP:  Living on the line, we talked earlier about Army rations and you seem to have liked them.  You thought they were fairly good.  Any other reflections on the rations, the K and the C?

WG:  I guess, and this applies ... not just to the rations, I was, all the time, very much impressed by the availability of whatever we needed, be it food or ammunition, ... and then, after I was wounded, what was available to take care of me, getting back to ... somewheres near the beachhead, and then, being flown to England and ending up in this hospital in Hereford.  I mean, I was just amazed, and still am amazed, that there never appeared to be any shortage ... of what you needed.  I mean, someplace along the line, the Army had done a tremendous job ... of preparing.

KP:  You had mentioned that your uniform had been treated and you did not seem to be irritated by it.

WG:  You mean physically irritated?

KP:  Yeah, because a lot of people complained that the treatment that had been provided had caused irritation.

WG:  No, I don't recall.  ... I think I wore the same outer garments from the day I landed ... in Normandy ‘til I was taken out.  I expect I wore the same undergarments, too. [laughter]

KP:  Did you get any hot showers in the two months you were on the line?

WG:  ... When I first wrote the account, I thought not, but, [upon] further recollection, I think twice in the two months I had the opportunity to go back ... to where there was showers available.

KP:  Did you ever encounter any chaplains during your two months in France?

WG:  In the medical evacuation area, there was a chaplain, I recall.

KP:  Was he a priest giving last rites?

WG:  Well, I think he ... was a Protestant clergyman.  I couldn't swear by that.  I mean, ... he talked to me and I was lying on a cot.  I only remember ... it must've been after I was treated, which involved ... digging the piece of metal out of my hip, which, somehow or other, was given to me, and I still have it at home, and I think I mentioned this in my account.  I mean, it was not ‘til then that I realized that my hip was, in fact, broken.

KP:  So, some time had elapsed before you realized that your hip was broken?

WG:  Yeah, I mean, ... it would be like less than twenty-four hours.

KP:  Yeah, but, still, quite a bit of time had passed.

WG:  Yeah, I mean, you know, I was hit late in the afternoon and, now, I'm talking about early the next morning that I was lying on the cot with my ... hip bandaged up.

KP:  You mentioned that you had some contact with French civilians and that you were able to use some of your college French.

WG:  Well, ... this was primarily in the period after we had landed in France, before I was assigned to the 38th Infantry.  I mean, after I was assigned to the 38th Infantry, I have no recollection of having any contact with any civilians.  I mean, we had, by that time, bypassed the civilians.  ... In the couple of days there, waiting to be assigned, there seemed to be quite a few.

KP:  Did they hang around the camps?

WG:  Yeah, but, as I said, ... I couldn't communicate with any of the adults, but, youngsters, ... I was able to make myself understood and [was] able to understand them, to a degree.

KP:  Were they glad to see the Americans?  Did they treat you as liberators?

WG:  I guess they were glad ... to see us.  I mean, they certainly didn't evidence any objection to our ... being there.  [laughter]

KP:  Did you get a sense that the euphoric time had passed for them, the French civilians, that they had gotten used to the fact that the Americans and the British were there?

WG:  Yes.  The only thing I can add to that is, ... they not only didn't know we were Americans, they didn't know what Americans were.  ... I mean, I'm talking about ... these youngsters that I talked to now.  I mean, all the time they had been in school, they had never learned anything about America, but, they knew about England and they thought we were English.

KP:  You had mentioned that the commanding officer for your battalion was Lt. Col. Olinto Emparsenatti.

WG:  ... Barsanti.

KP:  Excuse me, Barsanti, and you characterized him, in your account, as a rough, tough, and aggressive leader, as well as a West Point grad.

WG:  That was pure speculation.  I didn't know that.

KP:  What was your sense of him at the time?

WG:  It's just what I have said.  ... I, personally, had very little contact with him.  I don't remember specifically, but, I'm sure, when I first joined the unit, I met him.

KP:  However, that was about it?

WG:  That was about it.

KP:  Who did you have the most contact with when you were on the line?

WG:  Lt. Sperla, who was the commander ... of Company M, who, later on, I found, after I came back, was killed the same day I was wounded.

KP:  What do you remember about him?  How effective a leader or an officer was he?  Do you know anything about his background?

WG:  Nothing.  I mean, as far as I was concerned, he did everything that could be done.

KP:  What was the first time you saw somebody get wounded or killed while you were on the line?  What was your reaction?

WG:  ... It was the day that we attacked Hill 192.  I saw a number [of casualties].  I did not see a number get wounded ... or killed, but, saw them afterwards, and, again, not just for myself, I mean, I  was amazed at ... the way the medical personnel, aid men, ... came to do whatever could be done for the wounded.  I mean, in my own case, you know, it was a couple of hours, I guess.  I didn't keep track of it, but, I don't remember ever having any concern that sooner or later ...

--------------------------------------END OF TAPE ONE SIDE ONE-------------------------------------------

KP:  In other words, the speed that corpsmen would reach someone who was wounded gave you, and it seems like a lot of your men, confidence that, if you did get wounded, the Army would take care of you.

WG:  I think so, yes.  I mean, I didn't have any doubt that sooner or later ...

KP:  That they were going to get to you and do whatever they could for you.

WG:  ... Right, and it ended up, you know, I got a shot of morphine.  I think the wound was bandaged up, and I think they put sulfa powder on it at that point, and I don't recall whether I had to wait longer.  ... There were a couple of men available to load me on a stretcher and to carry me back.  How far?  Half a mile, maybe, and it was not easy going to get me back ... so they could load me on an ambulance ... that went back to the field hospital, I guess ... is the right name for it, where they actually had an operating room.  It was just a tent.  M.A.S.H. gives some idea, I guess, of what it was like.  You know, ... and all throughout, the availability of penicillin and the sulfa drugs seemed to be a great benefit in treating wounded men.

KP:  Did you know about penicillin and sulfa drugs when you were injured?

WG:  No.

KP:  It was only after the war that you learned how important they were?

WG:  Right, and, you know, I guess I had heard of penicillin, and my recollection ... is, after I had received the penicillin, they put a "P" on my forehead, ... some kind of marking to indicate that I had a shot of penicillin, and I later found that ... the wound, which was both in the front and back of my hip, that they had packed it with some kind ... of a gel.  ... So, I never had the slightest bit of trouble with the wound.

KP:  No infection?

WG:  Nothing, absolutely, and no real pain.  It was just the bone.  ...

KP:  So, your wound was one that they could treat relatively easy.

WG:  Yeah, and I ... had every confidence ... that they could.  I mean, even when I was confined to a bed ... in a hospital in Hereford, where they tried several casts.  Well, first, they tried traction without a cast, and then, they tried casts, and they had to change it a couple of times, ... and then, I ended up with my legs spread apart, and I had to stay there, ‘cause they couldn't get me through the ... doors of anything, and so, finally, when it came time to be evacuated to the ... interior, they put a new cast on with my legs closer together, so that they could get me ... through doors.  ... Well, I just never had any reason ... to doubt that I was going to come out of it able ... to walk on my own.  ... I didn't think about whether I would limp, or have to use a cane, or even crutches, ... or a wheelchair.  I never ... really thought about it.

RC:  Going back a little bit, before you were wounded in the hip, you had an incident with a German sniper.  Would you tell us about that?

WG:  Well, yeah, we were advancing across a field, from one hedgerow to the next, and, when we got to the next hedgerow, we turned left to move along a hedgerow.  Now, why, I couldn't tell you, but, then, a sniper opened fire from what was now behind us, which was really to the right of us, and hit the back of my helmet, went right through the helmet, and [it] obviously was within less than an inch of the top of head.  I thought about bringing it.  I have the helmet.  I thought about bringing it over, but, you know, to tell you the truth, you've got to hear the whole story to understand why the ... entry hole is in the back ... of the helmet and not the front of the helmet.

KP:  What is the story?

WG:  Well, that I was moving to the left and ... the sniper was over to the right.  Exactly where he was, I don't know.  ... Troops moving up on our right had not flushed him out.  Whether he was actually behind their lines, ... I know not.

KP:  What happened to the sniper?

WG:  I don't know.

RC:  Did he shoot anyone in your group?  Did he manage to hit anyone?

WG:  I don't think he managed to hit anyone, but, I don't know.  I mean, no one ... in our platoon did he hit.

RC:  I believe that was on July 26th and you were wounded on August the 14th, so, for the next couple of weeks, I gather you were proceeding to move through the hedgerow country.  In your account, you mentioned that the 38th Infantry Regiment took quite a number of casualties.  Was this whole process just very slow going, at the time?

WG:  Well, I guess you would characterize it ... as slow going, I mean, and it was due to the ... nature of the terrain, the hedgerow.  I mean, even then, you moved ahead one hedgerow at a time.  ...

RC:  How far would you guess you would advance in a day?  Would it be measured in terms of yards, maybe a couple hundred yards?

WG:  I would think more than that.  I mean, I think, at that time, ... the German forces were retreating.  You know, in the meantime, after the fact, and reading about it all, I mean, George Patton and ... his army and tanks were moving, really moving, and they circled around.

KP:  When you were on the line, since you have done a lot of research on it, when you were going through the hedgerow country, how did you think the war was going?  Did you have any sense of how well the invasion was going or were you just focusing on the next hedgerow?

WG:  Yes, really just focusing on the next hedgerow, but, I guess I had every confidence that the American forces were going to be able ... to move as far as Paris, anyway.  I mean, within a reasonable time period.

KP:  So, you had no fear that you would be spending the whole year going through these hedgerows?

WG:  No.

KP:  It sounds like your experiences in the Second Division and, also, in your other divisions and at the reception center, left you with a very favorable view of the Army.  You thought that the Army worked very well.

WG:  ... Yes, as I indicated, I think ... the training program ... at Fort Benning, Georgia, to train officer candidates and officers in the class, it was streamline education, certainly, but, it was effective.

KP:  Were there any problems in your regiment or in your particular unit, any problems with the men or with leadership?

WG:  I don't recall any, no.

RC:  You mentioned in your account, this was obviously before you were wounded, about a July 25th bombing that is fairly well documented where the Americans accidentally bombed their own troops.

WG:  ... Yeah, I mean, I wasn't aware of that, I guess, until I ended up in a hospital back in Hereford where there were several who had been wounded in that bombing.  I mean, I was aware of the mass of planes that came over from England, and they came over us, and turned west to where St. Lo was, ... and that was where it took place, but, I mean, the fact that American troops had been hit, I didn't know anything about that for a long time.

KP:  So, this was several months later that you learned about it.  The wounded men who were bombed at St. Lo by American planes, what was their attitude towards what had happened?  Were they embittered toward the Air Force?

WG:  Yes.

KP:  Who did they blame?  Was it the Air Force in general or a particular commander?

WG:  Oh, I think just the Air Force in general.  I mean, I think ... the feeling of all infantry soldiers was that the Air Force had a cushy job and some of them did. [laughter]

KP:  That is interesting, that the Air Force was viewed as a cushy job.  What about the Navy, was that also seen as a cushy job?

WG:  Well, ... didn't give much thought to the Navy.  ... Even, you know, coming across the Channel, we were not aware of the Navy.  I mean, the ship I came across [on], I don't know what the name of it was, it wasn't a big ship, and ... it was just a freighter kind of thing, and we would all just make do in, not state rooms.  You know, and, when we landed on the Normandy beach, I don't recall having seen any naval vessels.  I think, you know, by that time, they had gone back to wherever they came from.  ... I'm sure there were some of them [that] were still out there in the Channel on patrol, but, not close in to shore.

RC:  Can you give a description of what was going on the day you were wounded and how it exactly happened?

WG:  No, ... other than the fact that being, at that time, in charge of a mortar platoon, and ... my experience with the mortar platoon, ... I can't say that I was surprised when, all of a sudden, a mortar shell exploded.  How did I know it was a mortar shell?  I mean, just from the fact that, if it was artillery, you hear it coming.  A mortar shell, you don't hear it coming.  ... It's just there and it goes off.

RC:  So, you never heard it and, the next thing you knew, you were lying on the ground.

WG:  ... I think I said ... it was like being hit by a baseball bat in the hip, ... and I collapsed onto the ground, and I was able ... to crawl a short distance to some kind of a shelter.  I mean, as I recall, I was actually on some kind of ... path going up the hill, which turns out, later, [to be] Hill 366.  ... I assume you understand these hill numbers were ... simply the height of the hill, and not all hills had numbers on them, but, some of them did.

KP:  Before you were hit, what was your sense of what was going on, concerning the assault?

WG:  I mean, ... from July 25th, we started moving forward, and, as we moved forward, it got faster and faster.  We weren't, you know, running or anything like that, [laughter] but, we were moving ahead faster, and ... it was pretty clear, by that time, that the German forces opposing us were moving back as fast as they could, and I'm sure that they didn't know that they were going to be trapped by Patton's Third Army.

RC:  Initially, when you were first wounded, did you know how serious the wound was?

WG:  No, until, as I said, the next morning.  I didn't understand that ... the bones had been broken.  I just thought I had a flesh wound in the hip.  I mean, until then, I didn't realize that it had come out the back.  I mean, I thought ... it was just in the front.

RC:  So, while you were laying on the ground, waiting to get moved out, you did not believe that you were injured too seriously?

WG:  No.  I mean, you know, and ... it was numb, ... my hip.

KP:  You noted that, when you were wounded, you received a visit by the warrant officer.

WG:  ... Oh, yes, that was in the (Regentville?).

KP:  He interviewed you about your experiences?

WG:  Yes.

KP:  However, you have never been able to locate the interview.

WG:  ... Maybe you want to know more, that's how I got this.  I forget the details, I mean, I'm happy to find out and let you know.  I mean, ... as I recall, I had to write several letters to different places.  ... Somebody, I think, wrote and told me [there's] no way to find a record of this warrant officer's report.  ... I suppose if I had known more specifics, what his name was, exactly what organization he was a part of, ... so, this is all they were able to provide.

KP:  World War II is interesting because it was one of the first wars where there was an effort to document its history with more than just talking to the generals.  S. L. A. Marshall interviewed people when they got off the line and so forth.  It would be interesting if we could get the interview and compare what you said then and now.

WG:  Yes.  ...

KP:  How long did you stay in France before coming home aboard the Queen Mary?

WG:  Oh, I was in England then.

KP:  So, you were first sent from France to England?

WG:  Yeah, I mean, that was like, you know, forty-eight hours ... after I was wounded that I was loaded onto a DC-3, and flown back ... to England, and ended up, for twenty-four hours, in some kind of hospital, and then, loaded on a train, and taken to Hereford, and then, I was there.  I mean, by that time, it was, you know, like August the 20th, or something like that.  ... Close to two months I was there.

KP:  You got a visit from your brother.

WG:  Yes.

KP:  That must have been really great to see him.

WG:  Oh, it was ... unbelievable that ... he was able to find out where I was, and he came, and he spent the night there.

KP:  Had he been in combat at this point?

WG:  No.

KP:  Did you talk to him about what it was like to be in combat?

WG:  Yes.

KP:  Did you give him any tips?

WG:  What I said, I ... don't really remember, and I don't think he would.  He might remember.

KP:  When you were in England, who treated you?  Were they all American doctors and American nurses?

WG:  Oh, yes.

KP:  Were there women nurses, also?

WG:  Yes.

KP:  Was there any sort of entertainment or visits that you remember, besides your brother, for you and the other patients?

WG:  The only other visitors I recall were some local females, and who exactly they were and how they came ... to visit us, I don't recall.  I mean, I'm not implying that there were a lot of them.

KP:  Otherwise, what did you do while you were in the hospital?  Were you able to read?

WG:  Yes, and I have no recollection of what I read, but, I'm sure that anything I could get my hands on.  I mean, otherwise, we talked.

KP:  You talked to other wounded soldiers.  What were their experiences like, compared to yours?  You mentioned one about a Canadian pilot.

WG:  ... Yeah, who landed on his head, and, when he arrived at the hospital, it showed.  He had the worst black eyes I've ever seen, but, on the other hand, I don't think he was seriously hurt.

KP:  What were some of the other wounds on the ward?

WG:  There were some who were [in] very serious condition and they didn't talk [or] have any way of talking, really.  My recollection ... is that none of the men ... in the ward were ambulatory.  They were all bedridden to a degree.  Now, I remember the one right next to me, he had ... an arm wound, and so on.  I guess he was able to get up, but, I don't recall.  I mean, the only people that were up and around were ... nurses and a few of these local girls, and ... I think I mentioned a male medical aid who was a big, strong, football player-type who was able to lift me up, complete ... with the cast, and turn me over.

KP:  You must have hated being in a cast.

WG:  I don't think hated ... is the right word, annoyed, yes.  I mean, it was a great relief when I finally arrived in Atlantic City ... and they took the cast off.

KP:  You came home on the Queen Mary.  What were your thoughts of the voyage home?

WG:  Only, as I expressed, the business about the zig-zag course which caused ... the ship to roll.  ... I suppose I did sleep, but, I don't recall any extended periods of sleep.  ... I think it probably was short naps throughout the twenty-four hour period.

KP:  Did you get seasick on the return voyage?

WG:  No.  Could have, I suppose.  I don't recall any others being seasick.

RC:  On your return voyage, how much news did you receive about how the war was going in Europe?

WG:  Very little.

RC:  I gather, for the most part, you pretty much knew that the war was over for you.

WG:  Oh, yes, I think all of us [knew].  ...

KP:  You initially went to Halloran General Hospital, which later became Willowbrook State Hospital, in Staten Island.

WG:  Which was, I believe, a mental hospital, but, at the time, ... I guess it was a hospital that the Army had taken over.  I mean, I don't think it was one that was established and ... built by the Army.  I think it was a civilian hospital.

KP:  You mentioned that you called your parents and that the Red Cross allowed you to call anywhere in the country.  How worried were your parents about your condition?

WG:  ... Well, I'm sure that they had ... been very worried, ... and were very pleased to hear from me, and to know that I was back in the States.  I mean, the communication, when I was in the hospital in England, I mean, the V- Mail, I mean, I could write letters and they’d get them fairly promptly, and they'd write letters and I'd get them, too.  ...

KP:  How often did your parents write to you and how often did you write to your parents while you were overseas?  When you were on the line, how often could you write to them in an average week?

WG:  You know, maybe once.

KP:  Once a week, but, in the hospital, how often did you write?

WG:  No more frequently.

KP:  You mentioned your father would dictate his letters to his secretary, but, how often did your mother write?

WG:  She wrote frequently, I mean when I was in the States.  When I say frequently, [I] maybe don't mean oftener than once a week, but, that was frequently.  ... I guess, in the account that I told, they were able to visit Fort Benning, Columbus, once, and then, later, my father came and ... stayed with Captain Hull, Major Hull.  I guess it was just the twice.

KP:  When you were in Halloran General Hospital, Staten Island, you mentioned that one of the officers, a Lt. Fred Kassler, knew his parents were not home and could not reach them by telephone, so, he decided to place a call to a number in California, to people he did not know.  Did you listen to this call?

WG:  I mean, he was reasonably close to me, so, I was aware he was doing it, and I don't recall his end of the conversation very much, but, apparently, the people he called, they were perfectly willing to accept the call, and listen to him, ... and respond to anything he said.

KP:  What did they talk about, did you have any sense?

WG:  Not really.

KP:  It seems like a fun thing to do, especially if you have this free call and do not want it to go to waste.

WG:  ... Right, right.

KP:  I also think that, today, if we did that, people would probably hang up on you.

WG:  You think so?  Yeah, maybe I guess you're right.  ... The circumstances then were that receiving a call out of the blue from some lieutenant who was in a hospital in Staten Island would not ... really phase you.

KP:  Your last hospital was in Atlantic City, and, from your account, it seems you have fond memories of your recuperation.

WG:  Oh, definitely.  I mean, you know, in civilian life, I would have been home within a short time after arriving in Atlantic City, and, you know, there [was] recreation in the form ... of shows put on by the USO, and they had the cast of ... the Philadelphia version of Oklahoma come down and perform ... for us, and there were all kinds of ... gray ladies and young ladies.  ... [They] weren't candy-stripers, but, akin to candy-stripers.  I mean, ... there were lots of people.

KP:  The USO shows you saw, were there any noteworthy performers?

WG:  Nobody I had ever heard of, no.

KP:  You got the smaller acts on the USO circuit.

WG:  Yeah.  Incidentally, just the other day, I got a letter from the USO soliciting contributions, saying ... that their source of money had been depleted and their demand for them to do things to help servicemen [had risen], and I made a contribution, which is the first I had ever made to the USO.

KP:  Have you seen any USO shows?

RC:  Not at all. [laughter]

KP:  Sorry, Bob was also in the service.

RC:  In much different times.

WG:  Well, I agree.  I don't think, today, there is anywheres near as much, and I didn't ... have that much experience with [the USO].  I talked about the one time that Blackstone the Magician and ... the Clark Sisters appeared at Fort Benning.  That's the only USO show that I remember in five years, and the ... club in London was run by the American Red Cross, but, the USO, they had something called the Stage Door Canteen ... in New York City, and I guess there were other places, I suppose, on the West Coast and wherever.

RC:  Had you ever been solicited before by the USO?

WG:  No.

RC:  How do you suppose you wound up on their mailing list?  [laughter]

WG:  Well, ... I worry very little, but, [I do] worry about that almost every day when I get something in the mail.  How did they get my ... name and address?  There's a few things that I do know, ...  because Public Service Electric and Gas has had my middle initial as "J" rather than "S" for as long as I can remember, and I've never bothered ... to correct it, and so, every once in awhile, I get mail addressed to William J. Gillam, [laughter] and so, I know where they get the name, but, you know, my feeling is that the USO did a good job, and I think the American Red Cross did, too.  ... There have been some criticisms in recent years of the American Red Cross.  For example, [that they] solicited funds for victims of an earthquake, or something like that, and then, used the funds for something else, because, by the time they got the money, it seemed like the something else was more important than what they could do for the earthquake victims, but, some people didn't like that.

KP:  Your account gives me the impression that you really got to know the doctors, and the nurses, and the volunteers at Atlantic City a lot better than most.

WG:  ... Better than what?

KP:  Well, you got to know something about them and their backgrounds, because you have their names and quite a few details.  It sounds like Atlantic City was an ideal place for you to recuperate.

WG:  ... Oh, very definitely.  [laughter]  You know, the weather, I don't whether I mentioned this or not, I mean, lots of times, we'd read the Philadelphia paper, and there’d be six inches of snow in Philadelphia, and we’d look out, and there's none in Atlantic City, and, of course, the boardwalk was wonderful for orthopedic cases.

KP:  Did you have any concerns, when you were in Atlantic City, that you would not be able to walk very well, that the physical therapy would not work?

WG:  ... I guess, yes.  I mean, because, by that time, it had been, you know, a number of months now.  ... I don't know, I mean, you know, it was a relatively short period of time when I was able ... to get up and start walking ... with crutches, and then, they took X-rays and found that it was not strong enough to support my weight, and then, they operated and put a pin ... in there.  ... After that, things went along very well, but, as a matter-of-fact, I ended up walking with a limp for forty years.

KP:  Before you had been wounded, had you thought that you might stay in the Army after the war?

WG:  I hadn't given it much thought, but, I guess I did when I was at Fort Benning.  I did feel that this was a good life.

KP:  You felt that this might be more than a temporary situation, because it sounds like you and the Army got along well together.

WG:  [laughter] Yes.

KP:  After you were wounded, did you realize that was it, that you were going to be out of the Army?

WG:  I think that was it, yeah.  ... Actually, even after I arrived at Atlantic City, and for several months, I had no idea that I was going to be retired.  I thought I was just going to be discharged after a certain period of time, when I could function on my own.  As I said, I mean, in a civilian hospital, I would've be sent home early.  ...

KP:  Why do you think the Army took so long to discharge you?   Was it a sense that they owed you something or that they wanted to ease you into civilian life again?

WG:  Yeah, I think so, but, I mean, obviously, this was not ... an individual decision by certain officers at the hospital or anything.  It was ... the Army's policy.  I mean, I will say that I feel that reserve officers like myself, National Guard officers, and officers that became officers through the OCS, were treated, by and large, the same as regular Army officers, as far as, you know, anything like this is concerned, benefits and so forth.

KP:  You really feel like you got a fair shake from the Army, that they did not distinguish between the various groups of officers.

WG:  Yes.

KP:  Did you feel that way all the way through the Army, that the Army viewed you as an OCS officer?

WG:  Yeah, I mean, of course, you know, by the time I was in Camp Maxey, ... and from that point on, the National Guard, OCS, and reserve components, in effect, had taken over the Army.  I mean, the regular Army officers were few and far between, and, you know, I never felt any resentment that some of ... them had advanced very rapidly.

KP:  You got terminal leave and you had a very quiet summer in Merchantville.  Did you have a sense that you had missed a good part of the rest of the war in Europe and, also, in the Pacific?  Do you ever feel frustrated that you could not do anything to help the war effort after being wounded?

WG:  No.  I mean, by that time, by the time I got out, in June of 1945, I mean, the war in Europe was over, and there was still the war in the West ... going on.

RC:  Did you ever think that your wound, in some ways, may have been a blessing, not to use the term “million-dollar wound?”

WG:  ... Yes, I agree.  I mean, had I remained, if I thought about it, it was certainly that I would've ended up ... in the Pacific someplace.  I didn't look forward to that in the first instance and, certainly, not in the second instance. [laughter]

KP:  Did you think that after you were done in Europe that you would be going to the Pacific?

WG:  Well, you know, there was never any period where that seemed to be a possibility.

KP:  You took advantage of the GI Bill.  When did you get that idea, that you would use the GI Bill to go to Wharton for a time?

WG:  I don't really remember.  I mean, it certainly was well in my mind before I got out of the hospital in Atlantic City.  I mean, I think, by then, I had decided that what I would do is ... go to Penn for a year.

KP:  Had you ever thought about going to business school before or was this something that stemmed from getting the GI Bill?

WG:  No, not really, no.  ... After I graduated from Rutgers, I was going to get a job and earn my living.  [laughter]

KP:  Then, the Army took you away.

WG:  Yeah, the going to Penn for a year ... was just to sort of make up for five years ... of Army life, ... although it did help me.  I mean, ... the "chair-borne" infantry taught me things about the business world.

KP:  What lessons do you think you learned?

WG:  I couldn't really tell you.  I mean, just the fact that I had sat behind a desk, and had shuffled papers, ... and so forth.

KP:  Did you learn anything about interacting with different types of people?

WG:  Oh, ... I'm sure I did.  You know, ... the officers that I dealt with at the reception center, ... for two-and-a-half years, almost all of them, as far as I'm concerned, all of them, other than myself, were southerners, and I didn't have a very high regard for many of them.  I mean, some of them had kept their reserve commissions and they were physically out of shape.  I mean, I could understand why they were assigned to ... the "chair-borne" infantry.  ... You know, I think [the fact] that I got assigned there was a mistake, from the Army's point of view.  I mean, I don't know [if] it was a mistake from my point of view.  [laughter] I think ... you sense, from some of your other questions, ... that, when I graduated from Rutgers at age twenty-one, I was a very young age twenty-one.

KP:  So, in a sense, the Army had made you much more worldly?

WG:  Right.

KP:  This is a hypothetical question, but, if World War II had not come along, how do you think your life would have been different in the 1940s?  It sounds like you would not have gone to Wharton?

WG:  No, I mean, I won’t say absolutely no, but, I mean, I had no plans, at that time, ... to do any graduate work.  I mean, you know, if you want to get into that, I mean, it took a long time before I ended up in the actuarial profession, and, looking back, ... I can't understand why nobody here at Rutgers had even suggested the possibility that that was a field that I might be interested in, because it's a combination ... of mathematics and business.  ... As I think I told you in the answer to another question, the only other job opportunity that I had [was] an interview with the Prudential and I don't know why they didn't offer me a job, but, if they had, I think it ... might have made some difference, but, I still would've ended up in the Army very shortly, being a unmarried male with a reserve commission as a second lieutenant.  Working for the Prudential wouldn't have stopped them one minute, and then, ... I know not really ... whether I would have gotten into the actuarial end of the business.

RC:  Did the Army give you a briefing on what type of benefits were available to you and what you would be able to do with them?

WG:  I don't recall, really, anything like that.  Where I learned that I could get benefits to go to Penn, I really don't remember where I got that.  I mean, I know that I had decided that that was what I was going to do sometime shortly after I ended up in Atlantic City.  I had figured that out.

--------------------------------------END OF TAPE ONE SIDE TWO----------------------------------------

KP:  This continues an interview with Mr. William S. Gillam on April 24th 1995, at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey with Kurt Piehler and ...

RC:  Robert Colandro.

KP:  When you returned to the Gallop Poll, had the war changed any of its methods of operating?

WG:  Not much.  I don't really know what they did and didn't do during the war, but, any case, [in the] Spring ... of '46, I made a decision that I wasn't going to stay on ... at Penn as a graduate student and instructor, and I contacted the Gallop Poll again, ... and I don't recall any problem ... in getting a job with them there.  ... Without going into any detail, and, some time, if somebody wanted to, I would, but, I finally became convinced that if you ask your foolish question, and you get a foolish answer, you're foolish to believe it, and that's my characterization of the Gallop Poll.

KP:  I was quite struck when you mentioned how Gallop, in one of his television programs, was using New Brunswick as the representative of the nation.  He was convinced that New Brunswick represented the nation.  Polling, really until the 1980s, was widely believed, although there have been some fiascoes, like, say, the Literary Digest Poll.

WG:  ... And, I was involved in the 1948 election where the Gallop Poll showed Dewey was going to win, and then, it turned out that Harry Truman did.  ... I was with the Gallop Poll for six months after that or more, ... and, as I say, what I just said a few minutes ago, I still believe it's not ... the way respondents are selected, although a lot has taken place in that aspect of it, but, even if you get a sample which is a very sound sample, you still have to ask your question and get an answer.  ... You know, ... the Gallop Poll organization had several branches in Princeton, where old Dr. Gallop had a finger in all of them, and some of them were involved in commercial research, even at that time, and I was impressed when they ... would get permission from people ... to go in their homes and examine what products they had in their medicine cabinet and on their kitchen shelf, as opposed to asking them what kind of toothpaste you use, and what kind of cereals you use, and so forth, and so, that's what I mean.  I mean, you ask a person how they're gonna vote, and they tell you something, and you put that down and believe it, you're crazy.  People have all kinds of reasons for misleading you.

KP:  How shocking was the '48 debacle which predicted that Dewey would win, in your own thoughts, for the Gallop organization?

WG:  ... I think that the feeling there was pretty much what had happened with the Literary Digest, that the problem was with the sample.  ... So, while I was still there, ... we started working on efforts to ... select a sample based upon geographic location rather than haphazardly, as it was done before, ... but, I don't think now, in retrospect, that that was the answer.

KP:  It may not have been the Gallop Poll, it may have been the Roper Poll, but, I think one of the pollsters from that ill-fated election, for pollsters, said that one of their problems was, and this particular organization even liked Truman, but, they knew that Dewey was gonna win, so, they basically stopped polling about six weeks before the election.

WG:  Well, I don't say that that was not part of the problem, but, again, it ties in with the fact that what people told them six weeks before, and then, what they did six weeks later, are not necessarily the same thing.  ... Whether people actually changed their minds during that period of time, I know not.

KP:  Were there any other polling efforts that led you to become more skeptical, any other instances where you thought there was a problem in the polling business?

WG:  Not really, I mean, I didn't see any way around that, as long as you were trying to find out peoples' opinions or how the hell they felt.  As I say, the commercial aspects of it could be dealt with in a different way, and it seemed to be perfectly sound, and a lot of that has been done, but, they're still doing it in the political arena, and I didn't see any future in it.

KP:  What led you to leave graduate school after a year?  Had you thought of staying on or did you really view graduate school as a one year thing?

WG:  No, when I went, I viewed it ... as one year to just sort of catch up ... with five years [of being] out of the country, so to speak, and, you know, at the end, or near the end of the first semester, I had the opportunity to ... teach two classes in elementary statistics, and I won't say I didn't enjoy it, but, I had become convinced that a teacher who only knew what he read in books was not a very good teacher.  ... So, you know, I just gave it up and went back to work for the Gallop Poll.  Whether, at that time, there had not been the possibility of going back to work for the Gallop Poll, I don't know what I would've done.

KP:  It sounds like they were glad to get you back.

WG:  ... My father suggested several things to me, like working for the Internal Revenue Service and things like that.  ... I didn't pursue it.  I mean, I was not an accountant, and there’s a great difference between an accountant and a statistician, and accounting just didn't appeal to me at all, worrying about the last cent, you know. [laughter].

KP:  After you left the Gallop organization, where did you go next?

WG:  I got a job with the ... National Bureau of Casualty Underwriters, which is a rate making organization for the ... property and casualty insurance business and I found out about the Casualty Actuarial Society.  They gave a series of eight examinations that was worthwhile taking and I embarked upon that.  ... You know, in retrospect, I would've been much better served if I could've started that in 1940 rather than 1949.

KP:  You stayed with them for the rest of your career.

WG:  Yes.  Actually, the organization’s name changed.  There were a couple of mergers that took place, but, I was with them all the time, from then ‘til 19 ...

KP:  On the survey, you wrote until 1979.

WG:  Yes, 1979, okay.

KP:  It sounds like you liked that work a great deal.

WG:  Yes.

KP:  As well as the organization.

WG:  ... I don't think, in looking back, that there are any other kinds of jobs that I could have found, any other fields, that ... I would've felt more comfortable [in] than I was as a casualty actuary, and I don't know how much you know about the distinction between casualty actuaries and life actuaries, but, there's all the difference in the world.

KP:  What is the difference?

WG:  I mean, life actuaries deal with life insurance and casualty actuaries [deal] with automobile insurance, liability insurance, workers compensation, and so forth.

KP:  So, in a sense, you had a lot of different questions to work on, which made it more interesting.

WG:  To me, certainly more interesting, and I'm sure that many members of the Society of Actuaries, which is a life actuaries society, think that that's the only kind of actuary work that's worth doing.  ... What has happened, I think it was [in] '65, a new organization was formed, [the] American Academy of Actuaries, which encompasses the life actuaries, and the casualty actuaries, and pension actuaries, and so forth, ... but, [it had] become the mouthpiece of the actuarial profession and handles all the dealings ... with the legislators in Washington, and the state, and so forth, and I'm a member of the American Academy of Actuaries, have been since '65 when it was founded, and ... that area has expanded much more than I ever thought it would.  In other words, the American Academy is now doing many more things than ... the Casualty Actuarial Society or the Society of Actuaries has ever done or would ever do.  I mean, but, the Casualty Actuarial Society and the Society of Actuaries think of themselves as being educational, primarily, and testing, but, you know, not interfacing ... with the public.

KP:  The actuarial industry, you began in it when it was still in the slide rule stage and followed it into the computer age.  How did the computer change actuarial and statistical work?

WG:  Well, you know, ... [at first], the actuarial work was done with accounting machines, ... punchcards.  I mean, that was the way of life when I was [in it].  ... We had just really started getting into computers, but, ... still, at that stage, everything was entered on the punchcards, and the punchcards went into the computer, ... and so forth.  ... I mean, now, ... everybody has a computer on their desk and ... I'm sure I would be lost if I tried to go back to work.  In this connection, my son is a casualty actuary.  He came to Rutgers here, and got a Master’s in mathematics, and he met his present wife here, where she was getting her Master’s in mathematics, and, several years after that, she heard about the National Bureau, and came in, and applied for a job.  This was before they were married, so, her name was not Gillam, so, she didn't have any problem getting a job, and, ultimately, she persuaded my son to come in and get a job.  Of course, right away, they knew who he was, ... but, it didn't interfere with them offering him a job.  At that time, there was no concern about nepotism or anything like that and ... they both are working for National Council and Compensation Insurance in Boca Raton, Florida, and they're both making good money at that, and I'm sure that he is satisfied that he didn't get led astray by ...

KP:  By his father.  You are now a member of a number of veterans organizations.  Did you join any of them in 1945?  When did you start becoming active in veterans organizations?

WG:  Yes, ... there was an organization that has now disappeared, Disabled Officers Association, and when that finally ... [closed up] shop, I joined the Retired Officers Association.  You know, and, of course, the Retired Officers Association, you don't have to be retired because of disability.  Lots and lots of them were retired because of twenty or thirty years service, ... and many more of them are regular Army than were in the Disabled Officers Association, and then, later on, I learned about ... the Second Division Association and about the Military Order of the Purple Heart, and joined both of those, primarily to have access to the information that they distributed in ... their bulletins.

KP:  Have you ever gone to a reunion of any of your units?

WG:  No.

RC:  Have you ever been back to France?

WG:  ... No.  ... I would have liked to do that, but, things never just seemed like it would be possible.

RC:  There are numerous tours now and groups of veterans that go back to visit a lot of these areas.

WG:  Yes, ... in addition to the organizations I'm in, I joined the Battle of Normandy Foundation, and I got lots of information about the tours they sponsor, and so forth.  ... I would've liked to have ... been in a position to do that.

KP:  Your two sons did not serve in the military.  Do you have any regrets that they did not?

WG:  No, I felt then and feel now that everybody should serve in the military for some period of time, universal military service.  At the time, I certainly did not support the Vietnam War and was very pleased that my two sons were able to avoid it.  My older son got a low number, or a high number, I'm not sure which one meant that he didn't have any chance, really, of being [called to] serve, and the younger boy went to college, and, by the time he finished college, why, it was over.  ...

KP:  So, you did not support the war in 1965.

WG:  ... No, but, I didn't not support it in any active way.  I mean, it’s my own personal opinions and I expressed my opinions with friends and relatives.  ...

KP:  Why were you opposed to it, admittedly, in a quiet way, but, what made you think this war was different from your war?

WG:  It's hard to put that ... in a few words.  It just seemed like it was a no-win situation ... and, as time went on, it got worse and worse.  I mean, we were expending useful efforts for no good reason, no avail.  I can't say that I reached a conclusion that under no circumstances should we get involved in ... foreign wars, but, I certainly have not been happy about things like Haiti and that ... stupid island that we sent [troops to].  What was it?

KP:  Grenada?

WG:  Grenada, yeah.  I mean, of course, it didn't amount to much, but, I mean, still.

RC:  What did you think of the Korean War?

WG:   ... I guess I felt, at the time, that it was more akin to World War II, Korea.

RC:  However, by the 1960s, you did not see the Communist takeover in Vietnam as a threat.

WG:  A threat to this country, no.  For that matter, I have very mixed views as to, ... what was the war in Arabia?

KP:  Desert Storm?

WG:  ... Basically, my conclusion, that was mainly to pull the Japanese interests out of the fire.  I mean, I'm sure that ... if Iran [Iraq] had taken over Arabia [Kuwait], it would've caused economic problems in this country, but, Japan was really the country that would have been hurt by cutting off the supply of oil, and I'll have to say that ... I still don't have very good feelings about the Japanese, or the Germans, for that matter.

KP:  So, you have never been back to Germany?

WG:  No.  I never got to Germany in the first place.  I would have no desire to go to Germany.

KP:  So, you have never been back to Europe since.

WG:   But, ... I would like to go back to Normandy, yes.

KP:  However, you have never been back to Europe.

WG:  No.

KP:  What did you think of the Japanese and Germans as enemies?

WG:  Well, I mean, ... with the Germans, I guess ... I really felt that it wasn't the German people, in toto, that I was against, it was the Nazis, and I appreciate that many Germans that were involved were Nazis, and involved with the Nazis, and so forth.  With the Japanese, it was something completely different.  I ... just felt that they were all bad.

KP:  Have you ever bought a Japanese car?

WG:  No, ... I never would.

KP:  Or, a German car?

WG:  No, I don't think so.  ... Reluctant sayer, I mean, I would tend to buy American first.  On the other hand, I do agree, from an economic point of view, that free trade is ... essential to [the] well being of planet Earth.

RC:  Where did you learn about the war in the Pacific, from books, movies, other veterans, or all of those sources?

WG:  All of those sources.

KP:  Did you have any Pacific veterans with you in the Atlantic City hospital?

WG:  ... No, I assume that there were some similar hospitals in California.  ...

KP:  Have you seen any World War II movies that accurately reflect your own experiences in the military?

WG:  I can't recall any World War II movies that I have seen.  After 1949, when my oldest son was born, for a number of years, I saw no movies at all, and then, later on, after we had obtained TV, ... [I] saw some movies on TV.  I have gone to see some movies, but, I do not recall having gone to any ... that were World War II.

RC:  Have you seen many documentaries or films from that time period?

WG:  No.  I mean, I'm just thinking that, on public television, there were some things which deal primarily with ... the music of the era.

KP:  Did you like the music of the era?  It sounds like you liked the big bands.

WG:  Yes, definitely.  ... I think there's something to be said for the fact that the big band music has continued to this day, and my older son, who grew up with Elvis Presley ... and rock and roll, has come around to appreciating the big bands sound, ... and he's into CDs with the big band sound.

KP:  Well, Bob has a similar story from doing research for the project and listening to his father's narration of the big band era.

RC:  Well, he saw quite a few of the big bands.  In the New Jersey area and when he was in the war, he was in California, he managed to see a lot of the groups.

WG:  You know, ... I didn't really.  I mean, what was on radio that I was able to hear was sort of a mixed bag.  I think the last time I talked about ... the music down in the South, ... the country-western type of music.  So, it really, as far as I was concerned, was ... after I got out of the Army that I became really familiar with the music that had been developed in the ‘40s.

KP:  From your description of the South, at times, it seems like a different country from the North.

WG:  Yes, yes.

KP:  Have you been back to any of the places you were stationed in the South?

WG:  No.  ... I [would] have liked to have done that, too.  ... My wife and I have ... visited New Orleans, and Atlanta, and Williamsburg, and a number of times in Florida, and San Francisco, and Las Vegas, ... but, never any of the places where I was stationed or had any connection with.

RC:  Now, when you had first gone south, you were with the 24th Infantry Regiment, which was an African-American regiment.  Later on, during the civil rights movement of the ‘60s, did you have any opinions on that or had that experience reflected upon how you looked upon the civil rights movement?

WG:  I guess it did, but, ... I'd be hard pressed to say exactly ... in what way.  ... You know, even today, I ... feel that the blacks were mistreated for years, and years, and years, even after the Civil War, or maybe not even, but, particularly after the Civil War, but, I don't know what I would favor ... differently than what has happened as far as the black [movement].  I mean, I don't want to get into President Lawrence and what [he said].  Well, if you're interested, I'll tell you what I think about that.  I think what he said is what he truly believes.  In spite of ... believing what he said, I think he's done a tremendous job for minorities at Tulane and at Rutgers.  Now, this thing, it just keeps stirring.  I mean, ... Governor Whitman has made some statement, and I'd like to see the statistics on the number of black families without fathers and the number of white families without fathers, and, I mean, I'm sure that it would maybe not support specifically what ... Governor Whitman said, but, nevertheless, let's face up to facts, people.  I mean, Daniel Joseph Moynihan wrote, whether it was a book, or a treatise, or whatever, at one time about the ... breakdown of the colored family.  You know, I think, from what I was able to observe in ... Columbus, Georgia, and area, is that the black families were just as cohesive as ... white families at that time.  I mean, you know, they were very religious people, and I think ... marriage was important to them, and that they looked down on ... blacks who behaved differently.  In Edison Township, ... which surrounds Metuchen, there's an area that was called Potters.  Do you know anything about that?  It was out in the rural area of Edison Township and a colored, a Negro, establishment had been set [up].  ... Well, they built shacks on land that they didn't own.  Actually, it was township owned land that the township had taken over because the owners didn't pay their taxes.  ... Squatters is the word, squatters.  ...

KP:  When was this, in the 1940s?

WG:  The ‘40s, the ‘50s, too.  ... At the same time, there were a group of black families that actually owned their land and their homes in that area and they looked down on the squatters just as much as white people did.

KP:  What ever happened to the Potters?

WG:  Ultimately, ... the township, my guess, with assistance from the federal government, built housing, and was able to provide housing for most of the squatters, or else, the squatters just picked up and left, went back to Newark, I guess.  So, today, it ... still is largely a black population that lives in that area.  It's in North Edison Township, bordering on Clark Township in Rahway.  ...

RC:  How long was it before you heard about the death camps in Europe?  Had you talked to anybody that may have been a witness to liberating any of them?

WG:  No, and I can't really tell you when I first became aware of it.  I'm sure it was ... some time after I got out of the Army.  It was into [the]1950[s], anyway.

KP:  Thank you.  Is there anything we forgot to ask you?

WG:  I can't think of anything.  Now, what's going to happen now?

KP:  Bob will type up a transcript of the interview, and then, we will be sending it to you to for you to correct, or add to, or delete.

WG:  Yeah, I really, ... looking back, I can't think of anything that I said that I would have any objection to, but, I'm sure there are.

KP:  Well, something may come to mind that you might want to add.

WG:  ... Add, or some factual things, just like in my own account.  I amended it with a lot of facts which really don't affect it at all.

KP:  Well, thank you for all of your information.

WG:  Well, going back to the Rutgers bunch at Aberdeen, and I gave you Mike Hill's name and address, but, more generally than that, I mean, are all the members of the Class of '40 going to be invited to participate in this?  I mean, directly.  I mean, if they read the Rutgers Magazine, they would know about it.

KP:  Yeah, if someone contacts us, we send them a form and interview them.  The only question has been, for us, the money, since we can not afford to mail every alumni from the period a mailing at this point, so, we have been asking classes to do that, but, if you would be willing to send a mailer to your class, we would definitely like to interview them.

WG:  Well, I think we're going to have a meeting Thursday, but, I think we've just about exhausted the possibilities of any mailing to our [class].  ... What I'm going to suggest is that we prepare a letter and send it to ten or twenty people who have not signed up [that] we think would be interested.

KP:  Do you know of anyone in your class who is coming from a great distance to the reunion?

WG:  Well, I don't know.  I have not seen the list of those.  I mean, at our 50th reunion, five years ago, we had some coming from Arizona and Florida.

KP:  I would very much like to interview those people when they come up, because those are harder to get to.

WG:  Yes, well, of course, what has happened to our class in recent years, geographically, is that they'd rather move to the South.

KP:  I know.  I have seen that with the Class of '42 and even the Class of '49.

WG:  So, ... we have some in California and Arizona, but, really, not a great many.  I would ... guess in New Jersey, and Virginia, and North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, would take care of ninety percent of our class.  Well, I will report at our meeting on Thursday what's happened and I will specifically talk to Mike Hill about the Rutgers bunch and any other members of ... our group who would be interested.  I will urge them to get in touch with you.

KP:  Yes, I think one or two have.  You are one of the last interviews I will be doing until after reunion weekend, because I have an exhibition opening up at the library and some other things, but, I will be at reunion weekend and I will be doing interviews with people from a distance.

WG:  This is going to carry on for ...

KP:  At least another year.

WG:  Yeah, okay.

KP:  There will be another class following Bob's class that will need interviews.

--------------------------------------------END OF INTERVIEW-------------------------------------------------

Reviewed by Shaun Illingworth  12/28/99
Reviewed by Sandra Stewart Holyoak 1/25/00
Approved by William Gillam 4/00

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