James Alspaugh was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in January 1925. His parents came to Oklahoma when it was still Indian Territory [Annotator's Note: a general term to describe land set aside by the United States for the relocation of Native Americans in 1803]. They came by train with their goods and animals. His father and a cousin went to Wewoka [Annotator's Note: now Wewoka, Oklahoma] near Keystone Lake. It was an important community in those days for providing water for steam locomotives. He went to school in Tulsa where the University of Tulsa is now. He had four older sisters. Two brothers died when they were young. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Alspaugh if he remembers where he was when he heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] He was fortunate. An assistant Scout Master [Annotator's Note: a leader in the Boy Scouts of America, scouting and youth organization] of his had served in the Navy and had been stationed in the Pearl Harbor area and was very knowledgeable of it. At the time of the attack, he could identify places on a map and showed them everything. Alspaugh spent four or five hours at his house that afternoon after church and hearing the news. The Scout Master was also proficient with Morse Code [Annotator's Note: a method of telecommunication encoding characters in a system of dots and dashes] and worked with the aviation part of the government as a radio operator at the airport. It did not mean anything to Alspaugh personally at the time. His [Annotator's Note: current] stepson's father was in a crew on B-25s [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] and was lost while in the 11th Air Force near the Aleutian Islands [Annotator's Note: Aleutian Islands, Alaska]. Alspaugh continued with his education and at age 17 he started college. He had worked odd jobs throughout school and had saved his money. He went to OU [Annotator's Note: the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma]. He took a test in April [Annotator's Note: April 1943] and made a high grade for the ASTP admission [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program; generally referred to just by the initials ASTP; a program designed to educate massive numbers of soldiers in technical fields such as engineering and foreign languages and to commission those individuals at a fairly rapid pace in order to fill the need for skilled junior officers]. He was then drafted at 18. He had been going to be an engineer. He went into Fort Sill [Annotator's Note: in Lawton, Oklahoma] and went from there by train to Fort Benning [Annotator's Note: Fort Benning, Georgia]. The trip went through Tulsa, but they were under orders to not speak to civilians.

James Alspaugh went to basic training in Fort Benning [Annotator's Note: Fort Benning, Georgia]. The staff had been training second lieutenants. They got up early and walked an extra hour to the training sites. The officer training people rode to the sites. They were out on Christmas leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] 1943 and came in on a 20-mile march just before that. The lights in the barracks were on and it was great. The roads had been muddy and memorable. He went to the midnight service at the chapel. After New Year's [Annotator's Note: 1 January 1944], they finished up training. He traveled by train to Heidelberg College [Annotator's Note: now Heidelberg University] in Tiffin, Ohio to continue his ASTP training [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program; generally referred to just by the initials ASTP; a program designed to educate massive numbers of soldiers in technical fields such as engineering and foreign languages and to commission those individuals at a fairly rapid pace in order to fill the need for skilled junior officers]. After one semester, ASTP was reorganized due to the war. The only other students were young ladies and that was a great thing. This was in dairy country, and they would get a half a gallon of milk for every two people at the table. The kitchen facilities were not large enough for all of the people, so the ladies in the kitchen would make desserts at home and bring them in. It was really a change from typical Army food. His room was by the front door of the dormitory, so it was easy to get out for roll call in the mornings. His roommates were Jack Baker [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] and Gordon Arneson [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify]. When ASTP was cancelled, they went into the 102nd [Annotator's Note: 102nd Infantry Division] at Camp Swift [Annotator's Note: in Bastrop County, Texas].

James Alspaugh joined the 102nd Infantry Division at Camp Swift [Annotator's Note: in Bastrop County, Texas] in 1944. The unit had already been training older guys who were not up to the physical strains of being in the infantry. They had been on maneuvers, and it shook out the non-qualified ones in the end of 1943. Alspaugh had gone in [Annotator's Note: the service] in September [Annotator's Note: September 1943]. They went through a second basic training at Camp Swift. A lot of the platoon sergeants were in training too. They had guys from the 2nd Infantry Division that were Regular Army [Annotator's Note: Regular Army of the United States, now a component of the United States Army]. They got qualified and went to for more advanced training. [Annotator's Note: Alspaugh apologizes for losing his thoughts.] They went to Fort Dix [Annotator's Note: now Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Trenton, New Jersey] and finished training for overseas at battalion level for the Secretary of War Patterson [Annotator's Note: Robert Porter Patterson Senior]. In that training, artillery was live fired over them. There was a strike by the transportation people in Philadelphia [Annotator's Note: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]. Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] called out the troops, so they went and camped in the parks there. They rode the trains because everybody traveled that way. Some of the men were on duty for 24 hours at a time. The people of Philadelphia was very appreciative of them making it so they could get to work. One man gave a soldier the keys to his apartment so he could rest and shower. The 84th Division [Annotator's Note: 84th Infantry Division] relieved them there after about a week. Things were settled and they went back to Fort Dix. They then went by train that had kerosene lanterns and coal stoves. From Fort Dix, they took another train and then by ferry across New York Harbor [Annotator's Note: in New York, New York] to board their ship. The Red Cross [Annotator's Note: Red Cross, an international non-profit humanitarian organization] was there with donuts and coffee. One guy had horseshoes with him. They carried everything including their weapons. They went across in a convoy and were a priority because of the number of people aboard. They sailed at night, so he did not get to see the Statue of Liberty on the way out.

James Alspaugh's company [Annotator's Note: in the 102nd Infantry Division] was assigned to help in the kitchen [Annotator's Note: on the ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean]. They were offered breakfast, but he could feel the motion of the ship [Annotator's Note: and did not want to eat]. His job was to see that everybody cleaned their mess gear properly. He must have cleaned nearly everybody's mess gear because the people in line with the steam and everything would get seasick. They knew they were going to Europe but not where to exactly. The ship was a converted C3 Merchant Marine carrier [Annotator's Note: Type C3-class ship, a cargo ship]. They were called banana boats. They were fairly deluxe with cabins in some areas. Most of it was multiple layers of bunks so close together that you could not sit on them. They were the first troops to go directly to the continent [Annotator's Note: Europe] from the United States about September 1944. They spent one night in a harbor in England. The weather was bad. They went to Theville [Annotator's Note: Théville, France]. He recently watched the French bicycle race, the Tour de France [Annotator's Note: annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race]. His stepson had been there several times and knew the area where Alspaugh had been. Alspaugh and his outfit went down ropes into the landing craft. They then took trucks to Théville. They had trained for taking possession of the harbor towns. There were problems with supplies. The British had the "bridge too far" [Annotator's Note: nickname for Operation Market Garden, Netherlands, 17 to 25 September 1944] and about the end of that time, they moved by train from France into Belgium. They got off there, he could hear artillery in the distance. They had not encountered any Germans yet. That first night they went into a wooded area and dug in. He did not need to be reminded to dig. It was real. His tent mate, Carl Foulman [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify], was a German immigrant whose father owned a clothing manufacturer. They had surrendered it to the Germans so they could get out of there [Annotator's Note: Germany]. Alspaugh still speaks to him. Foulman had been a German Boy Scout. He had come to the States in 1940. He was a very good soldier. A lot of the others did not know he was German.

About the time of the "bridge too far" [Annotator's Note: nickname for Operation Market Garden, Netherlands, 17 to 25 September 1944], James Alspaugh and his unit [Annotator's Note: 102nd Infantry Division] probably would have moved on if the British had been successful. When they were first in France, the Red Ball Express [Annotator's Note: Allied forces truck convoy system] was established. All of his unit's six-wheel and four-wheel drive vehicles were taken for that for a while. He and the rest just stayed in their camping places. They had a shower after about 45 days. They visited some of the fortifications that had not been attacked in the area. It was scary to look at. They left by train and slept on top of their duffel bags. He still had not been in combat. This was about the time that Aachen [Annotator's Note: Aachen, Germany] fell. They relieved the 30th Division [Annotator's Note: 30th Infantry Division] for a short while as well as the 29th Division [Annotator's Note: 29th Infantry Division]. [Annotator's Note: There is a tape break at 0:50:04.000.] The 9th Army was being activated and moved into the line. His unit replaced part of the 2nd Armored Division. On 16 November [Annotator's Note: 16 November 1944], they made their first attack. About 2,500 planes bombed the front lines. The Air Force had previously done reconnaissance. They went through Emmendorf [Annotator's Note: Emmendorf, Germany] and Apweiler [Annotator's Note: Apweiler, Germany]. They were in reserve part of that time and would fill in at places that had been taken to let troops of the other divisions rest. They moved a lot at night. [Annotator's Note: Alspaugh starts and stops continually without completing his thoughts.] Alspaugh and Carl [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] were working with telephone lines by the cemetery where the lines had been broken. They went nine or ten miles forward in that week and were attacked during that time.

About 2 December [Annotator's Note: 2 December 1944] James Alspaugh and his outfit [Annotator's Note: 102nd Infantry Division] took Linnich [Annotator's Note: Linnich, Germany], where Alspaugh was wounded. It was on the Roer River which had been difficult to cross. They took over for part of the 405th Regiment [Annotator's Note: 405th Infantry Regiment, 102nd Infantry Division]. Alspaugh was working on the telephone system. The river was flooded. On 10 December [Annotator's Note: 10 December 1944], he went out and checked on the phone lines that had been interrupted. One had been poorly done and had been run across a cut for a highway. That would let the enemy know exactly where they were. He got caught in the open repairing wire. He took shelter in a zig-zag trench that had been dug by Germans. When Alspaugh went to repair the phone line, he got to the cut in the road, and they threw artillery at him. He was hit by shrapnel. He still has the shrapnel, and he shows it to the kids he talks to at schools. He tells them Forrest Gump [Annotator's Note: the main character in "Forrest Gump", a 1994 American film] and he are brothers. The shrapnel hit him right below the buttocks. It was a million-dollar wound [Annotator's Note: military slang for a non-fatal, or non-crippling, wound serious enough to be remove a soldier from combat], but he did not get sent home. He was at the Division clearing station and Buddy Quackenbush [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] was there. They spoke a bit and it was good to see somebody from home. He went to a hospital at Maastricht, the Netherlands and then to Liege [Annotator's Note: Liege, Belgium]. The Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] started and then they could not fly because of the weather. V-1 bombs [Annotator's Note: V-1 pulse jet flying bomb, German name: Vengeance Weapon 1; Allied names: buzz bomb, doodlebug] were being used against bridges in Liege, so he was moved by hospital train through to Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France]. [Annotator's Note: Alspaugh stops to speak to his wife.] He was moved to a hospital there and got his dressings changed. The next day he was back on the train to the Cherbourg [Annotator's Note: Cherbourg, France] area to a tent hospital about 22 December [Annotator's Note: 22 December 1944]. His mother got notice that he was there. A lot of guys were there with trench foot [Annotator's Note: immersion foot syndrome]. The hospital ship had been moved from there to get casualties from the Bulge. He stayed there for Christmas and New Year's. On New Year's [Annotator's Note: 01 January 1945] the ships in the harbor were firing off shells in celebration. He then went to Southern England to another hospital. A medic there saw that Alspaugh was from Oklahoma and would share his hometown newspaper with him. He recovered there and did some repair work. The medic asked if Alspaugh thought he could go back to his unit and he said he could. This was just before the Rhine River was crossed about 4 or 5 April [Annotator's Note: April 1945].

James Alspaugh [Annotator's Note: in the 102nd Infantry Division] ran into a friend of his who had been a classmate and Scout [Annotator's Note: Boy Scouts of America, scouting and youth organization] friend, who was in an engineering outfit. They got a pass [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time], went to London [Annotator's Note: London, England], and took a taxi tour. Alspaugh then started across the Rhine [Annotator's Note: Rhine River in Germany] with the replacement depot about the time that Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] died [Annotator's Note: 12 April 1945]. Alspaugh got back to his outfit [Annotator's Note: the 102nd Infantry Division] on the Elbe River [Annotator's Note: near Berlin, Germany] about 28 April [Annotator's Note: 28 April 1945]. The war ended 8 May [Annotator's Note: 8 May 1945]. They then got into trying to consolidate and move troops around in occupation. He went to San Touflen [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] that had been a Hitler Youth [Annotator's Note: a youth organization of the Nazi Party for young men] place to get ready to return to the United States. Back around 4 or 5 April [Annotator's Note: April 1945], he and John [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] were in a hotel room of the Red Cross [Annotator's Note: Red Cross, an international non-profit humanitarian organization] near Marble Arch [Annotator's Note: 19th century triumphal arch in London, England] when the V-2 bombs [Annotator's Note: German Vergeltungswaffe 2, or Retribution Weapon 2, ballistic missile] came in. He had been under fire now from both V-1s [Annotator's Note: V-1 pulse jet flying bomb, German name: Vengeance Weapon 1; Allied names: buzz bomb, doodlebug] and V-2s. He left San Touflen and the weather was extremely bad in the North Atlantic. He was discharged from Camp Chaffee [Annotator's Note: now Fort Chaffee Joint Maneuver Training Center in Fort Smith, Arkansas] on 6 February 1946. He rode the bus to Tulsa [Annotator's Note: Tulsa, Oklahoma]. He did not even call home and just rode the bus there.