James Albert Kitts was born in August 1925 in Phoenix, Arizona. He is the oldest child with two brothers and four sisters. They moved to Tempe [Annotator's Note: Tempe, Arizona] in 1929. He started school in 1931 and the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s] was going pretty heavy. His father was a lineman for the power company for 37 years. His mother was a housewife and was busy with seven kids. [Annotator’s Note: The interviewer asks Kitts about when he heard of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] Kitts got up on Sunday morning and his father had the radio on. He could not believe it. His father was a World War 1 veteran. He did not talk about his own service until after Kitts was discharged in 1945. Kitts finished high school May 1943. Some relatives from Oklahoma were trapped by the war with them. They got some gas stamps and Kitts drove them home. He was there in August [Annotator's Note: August 1943] when he turned 18. He went and registered for the draft. Nine days later he got a telegram to report for his physical. A classmate of his had his physical then too. Kitts lost his right eye in Europe and his friend lost his left eye on Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan].

[Annotator's Note: James Albert Kitts took his pre-induction physical in August 1943 after being drafted.] He did not hear anything for a couple of months. Then, he got a call to report to Phoenix [Annotator's Note: Phoenix, Arizona]. He then had a 21 day delay before reporting for duty at Fort MacArthur, California [Annotator's Note: now part of Los Angeles Air Force Base in San Pedro, California]. He got his shots there. He went by train to Tyler, Texas to Camp Fannin for basic training for 17 weeks. He got a delay and then when he went back Camp Fannin. All but he and one other were shipped out. He was to go to cadre school [Annotator's Note: group that trains incoming members of units] but that did not happen. He went to Fort Meade, Maryland [Annotator's Note: Fort George G. Meade, Maryland] and then Fort Butner, North Carolina [Annotator's Note: Camp Butner in Butner, North Carolina; now the Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, North Carolina] to the 89th Division [Annotator's Note: 89th Infantry Division]. He stayed there three or four weeks before going by train to Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky [Annotator's Note: Camp Breckinridge in Morganfield, Kentucky] to the 75th Division [Annotator's Note: 75th Infantry Division]. The train was a coal-burner and going through the tunnels they did not turn the smoke off. They were given an extra day off to get cleaned up. He did a lot of training there. He then took a troop train to Camp Shanks, New York [Annotator's Note: Camp Shanks in Orangetown, New York]. Anybody who had 20 dollars could go to New York City [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] for the evening. Kitts had sent his money home and could not go. A guy came to the men who remained and told them to cut each other's hair. They then got put on KP [Annotator's Note: kitchen patrol or kitchen police] all night, peeling and "shoestringing" [Annotator's Note: cutting into thin strips] 28 tons of potatoes. The next night, they boarded the Army troopship Alexander [Annotator's Note: USAT Edmund B. Alexander] and 11 days later they landed in Swansea, Wales [Annotator's Note: Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom].

James Albert Kitts then went to Pembroke to Camp Lamphey [Annotator's Note: Camp Lamphey, Pembrokeshire, Wales, England] where B and C Companies of the 291st [Annotator's Note: Company B and Company C, 1st Battalion, 291st Infantry Regiment, 75th Infantry Division] were. It was a bunch of Quonset huts [Annotator's Note: prefabricated metal building] in the courtyard of an ancient castle, Castle Lamphey [Annotator's Note: likely Lamphey Bishop's Palace or Pembrokeshire Castle]. After a few weeks they went to Le Havre, France. They were in pup tents in a muddy field when the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] broke out. It took them eight days to get there. Their first action was on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1944 in Woshavan, Belgium [Annotator’s Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] where they relieved a unit of the 7th Armored Division. On Christmas Day, they had the worst shelling and lost both of their medics. The only casualties they had. They were so green [Annotator's Note: new to combat] that the medics were in the same foxhole. A mortar shell got them both. The unit was put up on a ridge above Vielsalm, Belgium to keep the Germans from getting behind them. Sergeant Dutton [Annotator's Note: likely Army Technical Sergeant Carl Dutton; killed January 1945] took an eight man patrol out and got ambushed. Only one made it back. Dutton and a couple of guys were captured. They were found days later shot in the backs of their heads, in the Salm River [Annotator's Note: Salm River, Belgium]. They then went to Manhay [Annotator's Note: Manhay, Belgium], then Houffalize [Annotator's Note: Houffalize, Belgium] and Grand-Halleux [Annotator's Note: Grand-Halleux, Belgium]. They attacked a ridge there and lost about half a dozen men. Sergeant Hoch [Annotator's Note: unable to identify] and Lieutenant Boone [Annotator's Note: unable to identify] were lost. The Germans were in rapid retreat. Kitts and Sergeant Jack Guion [Annotator's Note: Sergeant John F. Guion] were sent to find people and then got lost in two feet of snow. They found a house with soldiers who would not let them in. They found their outfit. Two days later, Lieutenant Miles, Kitts, and Calise [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] and two others were sent into Vielsalm. G2 [Annotator's Note: intelligence officer] said it had been cleared but it had not. They saw smoke coming out of house, went in, and found two Germans making a meal. They had a Sturmgewer automatic weapon [Annotator's Note: Sturmgewehr 44 or StG 44, selective-fire assault rifle] that was like the Kalashnikov AK-47 [Annotator's Note: AK-47, Avtomat Kalashnikova, 7.62x 39mm assault rifle]. Kitts and his men tried to sneak out of town. A guy approached in civilian clothes who told them where two Germans were. Kitts and Calise went up after them. One of the Germans was about 65 years old and one was 14. They were left there as guards. They both had pamphlets that promised a hot meal if they surrendered. They were hungry so they did. They took them down the road and met the 290th [Annotator’s Note: 290th Infantry Regiment, 75th Infantry Division] coming to clear the town.

[Annotator's Note: James Albert Kitts took part in the Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945.] On 23 January they went to Commanster, Belgium. Kitts had his first hospital stay there with dysentery and frozen feet. He spent eight days there. He missed the Colmar [Annotator's Note: Colmar Pocket, area in Alsace, France] fight but rejoined his unit [Annotator's Note: 1st Battalion, 291st Infantry Regiment, 75th Infantry Division] in Hoorn, Holland. They fought their way to the Rhine [Annotator's Note: Rhine River] at Budberg, Germany. The war ended for him when he was caught in a grenade explosion. He spent the next five months in hospitals. He was in the 32nd General Hospital in Aachen, Germany. He was still on the litter and they put him on a bed with a soft mattress but left him on the litter for four days. He then took a hospital train to Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France]. He spent five weeks there and never saw it. He went in at night and left at night. He had pneumonia. He was taken to Orly Airfield [Annotator's Note: now Paris Orly Airport in Paris, France] and put on a C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft] to Birmingham, England to the 51st General Hospital. He was there on V-E Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945]. The British went wild. He then went to Glasgow, Scotland for evacuation. He went on a C-54 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-54 Skymaster cargo aircraft] to Reykjavik, Iceland where he got his first fresh eggs in two years. He then flew to Gander, Newfoundland and then Mitchell Field, New York. He got off the plane and had steaks and fresh milk. His stomach was so shrunken, he could only eat half the steak and drink a pint of milk. The next day he flew to Dayton, Ohio and the day after to El Paso, Texas to Beaumont General Hospital [Annotator's Note: now William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas]. There were 20 of them on the C-47s and had portable oxygen given to them for a storm they flew through. He could smell something burning and saw one engine on fire. The plane started down and came right down on the runway with firetrucks spraying foam as they landed. He was in the hospital there for ten days and then got a 30-day convalescent leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. He left the hospital weighing 120 pounds and returned weighing 165. That was the end of his military career. He had lost the vision in his right eye and was considered not fit for military service. He did not want any more war anyway and was worried about going to Japan. He was in the hospital for VJ-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945]. In early July [Annotator's Note: July 1945], he was looking to the north and the whole sky lit up. He thought it was a big thunderstorm, but it was the test bomb at White Sands [Annotator's Note: Trinity; code name of the first detonation of a nuclear device in the Manhattan Project, Jornada del Muerto desert, New Mexico, 16 July 1945; now White Sands Missile Range]. He did not know that until much later. On 31 August 1945, he was discharged.

James Albert Kitts landed in France [Annotator's Note: on 13 December 1944] and it was not cold, just muddy. It got cold around the two ro three days later. When they got up to Belgium [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], it was clear through Christmas Day. Then the clouds came in and the snow started. It snowed about two feet on 5 or 6 January [Annotator's Note: January 1945]. He was on a march one night and his feet were frozen. He could not feel them. He would fall down most of the night. They marched into Grand-Halleux [Annotator's Note: Grand-Halleux, Belgium] that night. His first hospital stay was for the frozen feet. He still has nerve damage. They did not have winter clothing, not even gloves. On 5 or 6 January it was about 14 degrees below zero. It was dark when they went in. He was on a BAR [Annotator's Note: M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle] team, a three-man, and moved into a machine gun pit that had been dug by the 7th Division [Annotator's Note: 7th Armored Division]. He returned there in 1991 and found the same foxhole. The Germans pulled back from them and did not counterattack. They shelled them hard on Christmas Day [Annotator's Note: 25 December 1944] though. The only piece of mail he got was on Christmas Day. The rest of his mail arrived after he had returned home. That mail had a one-pound coffee can with a fruitcake baked in it with hard candy on the top that was sent to him by his mother's church. He and another guy ate it all. When he first got in the Bulge, they were getting two K rations [Annotator's Note: individual daily combat food ration consisting of three boxed meals] per day. They were hungry and getting low on ammunition. After a couple of weeks, they got C rations [Annotator's Note: prepared and canned wet combat food], but they were frozen, and they could not heat them up. His first hot meal was during his first hospital stay. In Wales, the people were so short of food, they got two meals a day, mostly brussels sprouts and rutabaga.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks James Albert Kitts what it was like to be in combat for the first time.] It was hard to draw down on somebody, because he was not raised that way. After a few rounds went by his ears, it was not hard at all. The Germans were good soldiers. They were hard to kill. Two of his buddies are still alive but did not make their last reunion. They have communicated for the last 70 years, Charles Widman from Long Island, New York and George Sozby from Macon, Georgia. The only person Kitts shared any stories with was his father until he started going to the reunions. Kitts was discharged when most of the guys were still in Europe. He did not know the organization [Annotator's Note: 75th Division Veterans Association] existed until around 1970. He started going to the reunions and that is when he started talking with people who had been there. He felt others would not believe him anyway. His father had been in the 28th Division in World War 1. Kitts has no problem talking about it now. He understood why his father had not previously wanted to talk about his war experience. That is war, nobody needs to go through it. After he returned, he was not too good for four or five years. He was pretty well stove up [Annotator's Note: slang for physically disabled]. He started college for a year and then quit. He feels he should not have. He used Public Law 16 [Annotator's Note: law which allowed for disabled veterans to obtain a college education] and not the G.I. Bill. He got interested in race cars and college interfered with his racing. He raced for 18 years and then got married at age 37. He had two kids and two grandchildren. He got into auto repair and owned an auto repair and machine shop for 45 years.

James Albert Kitts feels his time in the military was necessary and does not regret it. He regrets getting hurt. He was and is still well taken care of by the military. He is at 100 percent disability. He was discharged as a PFC [Annotator's Note: Private First Class]. Being on a BAR [Annotator's Note: M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle] team, you never get promoted. He started out as the ammunition carrier and within four days he was the gunner. He did not name his weapons. He thinks he was in a hot fire fight maybe three or four times. He was crawling through woods once and a burst of machine gun fire came across. It burned the backs of his hands. A couple of times something came by super-fast. Supersonic stuff kind of cracks when it comes by you. They were fighting in snow. The BAR weighed 21 pounds with the bipod. Loaded, it weighed 22 pounds, seven ounces. He carried a belt with eight magazines. The three men carried a total of 360 rounds. The ammo belts tore their hips up, they weighed seven or eight pounds. You get tired of it. The only thing different from their training was the snow. You just adapt. About the third day in the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], he lost the heel off his left shoe. He could not get another shoe, so he pried the heel off the other shoe. He was still wearing those when he got hit [Annotator's Note: Kitts was wounded by a grenade in March 1945]. Earlier, he broke his thumb playing football in Wales [Annotator's Note: Wales, England]. He went to France with his hand in a cast. When he learned he was going into combat, he cut his cast off. He was wounded going up the Rhine [Annotator's Note: Rhine River]. They ran into a pocket of Germans. Someone threw a grenade, and the Germans threw it back. It wounded him and killed the man next to him. He thought he had been hit with a baseball bat. He never lost consciousness but his face was paralyzed. They put him on a litter on a jeep and took him to an aid station and then to a field hospital.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks James Albert Kitts what he thinks Americans think of World War 2 today.] He has heard a lot of people say that we would be speaking German if we had not whipped them. He does not know if that would have happened as that is a big ocean to cross. His most memorable experience of the war was his discharge. [Annotator's Note: Kitts laughs.] Everything was different and new to him. He was pretty excited getting on the boat in Liverpool [Annotator's Note: Liverpool, England] to Le Havre [Annotator's Note: Le Havre, France]. He registered for the draft because it was mandatory. He went to the induction center in Phoenix [Annotator's Note: Phoenix, Arizona] and tried for the Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy, but his color perception was not good enough, so he ended up in the infantry. At that time, if you could see the wall and hear the guy talking to you, you were in. Kitts feels that the work of the museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] is good because the people should know what happened. He does not understand this Middle East stuff because it is never going to end. We had an advantage in Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 1950 to 1953] and Vietnam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975], politics interferes too much. If they would let the military fight it would be different. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer recaps Kitt's military life.] Kitts says to do your job the best way you can.