Leroy Redmond was born in June 1922 in Newark, New Jersey. It was a nice town. He was the third son. The Great Depression affected his family immensely. They were better off than most people as his father was a butcher and it [Annotator's Note: work] was steady. There was a total of six of them. He was in parochial school when the war came along and interrupted it. He was drafted in 1942. He tried to join earlier but they would not take him. They gave him a time and that was September 1942. He served until January 1946 in the Army. Redmond was in an amateur group putting on plays in high school. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if he remembers where he was on 7 December 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.] That morning, he was on the way to a church to put on a play. As he was going out the door, his father yelled and told hm the Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] bombed Pearl Harbor. In the car afterwards, they listened to the radio and he knew life was going to change. He did not think about being pulled into the war at that time.

Leroy Redmond started at Fort Dix [Annotator's Note: Fort Dix, New Jersey] and was then sent to Camp Breckenridge, Kentucky. He went to infantry basic there. He began to feel like he would miss the war. He volunteered for combat. The captain asked him if he was kidding. He went to Camp Rucker, Alabama to join the 14th Armored Division. He trained with the 14th and went to Europe. He got on a ship [Annotator's Note: SS Santa Rosa] in New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. They sailed in a convoy straight across just after Normandy [Annotator's Note: Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. He went to Southern France [Annotator's Note: 30 October 1944] as part of Anvil Dragoon [Annotator's Note: Operation Dragoon; initially Operation Anvil] under General Patch [Annotator’s Note: US Army General Alexander McCarrell Patch] and the Seventh US Army. They made it ten miles inland the first night. They drove up the Rhone Valley and kept going until the Vosges Mountains. They fought all the way and broke out into Alsace [Annotator's Note: Alsatian Plain, France] where it bogged down. The Germans had broken through and the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] was taking place. His job there was to hold the flank. Somebody said the 14th Armored fought the most defensive battle in the war. It was the worst winter in 80 years. When the weather broke, they moved up north of Strasbourg [Annotator's Note: Strasbourg, France] on the Rhine River. They crossed the Rhine on Easter Sunday [Annotator's Note: 1 April 1945] at one o'clock in the morning and fought their way into the Black Forest [Annotator's Note: Baden-Württemberg, Germany]. From there, they were on a constant run at the Germans. They had been brought into Patton's [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] Army.

Word from intelligence was that Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] would make a stand in Bavaria [Annotator's Note: Bavaria, Germany]. Leroy Redmond and the 14th Armored Division were to cut across southern Germany to keep them from coming down. They did not do that, so they were just sailing across Germany. They were almost to Munich [Annotator's Note: Munich, Germany] when they ran across Stalag-VIIA at Moosburg [Annotator's Note: Moosburg, Germany]. They took the camp [Annotator's Note: on 29 April 1945]. There were over 100,000 Allied prisoners of war in it. They wanted Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] to accept a truce so the prisoners could be moved but he turned them down. They could not take care of the prisoners. It was so immense they did not know what to do. The men were crawling all over them and giving them things to send their families. Redmond met with an American prisoner who took him on a tour of the camp. As he said good-bye, the man handed him his ID bracelet to keep. Redmond tried to find him in 1995 to return it, but could never find him. Redmond has lost so many men he had kept in touch with.

[Annotator's Note: Leroy Redmond served in the Army as a tank crewman in Combat Command A, 14th Armored Division and took part in the liberation of Stalag-VIIa in Moosburg, Germany.] They left there and went to Mettenheim, Germany. On the autobahn, they finally figured out how they were being attacked. They came to a spot where the median had been cut out that was paved and painted green and hidden under the trees were German planes that had been hitting them. They captured the airfield there and regrouped. They readied to move the next morning and the tanks were rumbling. The captain came roaring down and telling them to cut the engines. The war was over [Annotator's Note: 8 May 1945]. No matter which they went, the places were in Allied hands. Redmond wound up in an insane asylum that they thought was a college campus. They were put there for housing. Then it was time to go home. He went by train to Antwerp, Belgium and boarded a ship. He went through the English Channel at night. They were at sea for five days. He had gone over on the SS Santa Rosa and he returned on the SS Texarkana [Annotator's Note: SS Texarkana Victory]. One Sunday morning, the ocean had gone dead flat. Within 20 minutes, every guy was on deck and then they could see land. At that the very instant, the PA system started playing "America the Beautiful." [Annotator's Note: Redmond gets emotional.] There was not a dry eye on the ship. He was ashore about four days, got his paperwork and pay, and went home. Redmond and the 14th Armored Division were called "The Liberators" for the 1,100 towns they had captured and freed. They kept in touch with guys from Moosburg. They were getting hazardous pay while they were prisoners of war. He found out later that their hazard pay had been cut the day they were liberated.

Leroy Redmond was in Combat Command A, 14th Armored Division, as a tank commander. It was a lot of responsibility and there was always some fear. Dying in a tank was never pretty. You would hope that there would be enough shrapnel to kill you, so you did not burn to death. He has no desire to go back in one, even for a visit. As the commander, you are the driver. You have an assistant driver you have to work with. You manage gasoline and food. In Germany, they were mostly scavenging for food. Nobody was worried about feeding you. He could get ammunition faster than he could get a loaf of bread. It was all K rations [Annotator's Note: individual daily combat food ration consisting of three boxed meals]. Food was not important to him, so Army food was good enough for him. In combat, keeping clean is the thing. In France, they would bring up a water truck with showers on them. They would have clean clothes in a tent. That did not last in combat. There was no privacy. They went through half the war without clothes. Redmond drove a Sherman tank [Annotator's Note: M4 Sherman medium tank]. The replacements were on the way over when the war ended, so he never got to see them. He had an Alabama boy who was the assistant driver. The names escape him. The crews changed. He cannot think about the war without thinking about his buddy named Eddie Canogee [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] that was a pal from home. He was the only son of a widowed mother and he did not have to go. His mother would not sign him in at first, but finally relented. Canogee was killed in the last week of the war in Germany. If you come back, you are no hero. The heroes are the ones who did not come back. That death affected Redmond more than any other. [Annotator's Note: Redmond gets very quiet.] It was not easy to face Canogee's mother when he got home.

Leroy Redmond was part of the invasion of southern France. It was unscathed as the war had been in the north for a long time. There was no war damage and it was so easy. They had heard about the rough job at Normandy [Annotator's Note: Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], and they made ten miles inland the first night. He does not think the Germans really thought we would invade there. That opened up the bottom of Europe and the Germans could not cover that many fronts. The Russians fought like demons. He never got to meet one. He was in complete awe in his first combat. Then he started performing like he was trained to. They had a slogan for southern Germany, "don't get killed the last week of the war". Redmond was usually fighting other tanks. He had objectives including a map and a list of towns. In Bavaria [Annotator's Note: Bavaria, Germany], Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] said to forget objectives. The Germans were told they were coming and would go out and put up a barrier of trees and poles. They knew it was coming to an end when the townspeople starting digging the poles up and hanging white sheets in the windows. Redmond saw Patton twice. In the Alsace [Annotator's Note: Alsace, France], they were moving up. Patton did not stand up in a jeep, it was a weapons carrier. He did not say anything. When the war ended, the 14th Armored Division had a birthday. They went out to an airfield where a reviewing stand had been built. All the equipment was set up on the field. The infantry stood in the middle. Patton came in, got out of the weapons carrier, bounded up the stairs, and tripped. The men laughed. It was funny to see the great General take a flop. Redmond was not part of the operation to liberate the prison camp where Patton's son-in-law was in Hammelburg. [Annotator's Note: Then US Army Lieutenant Colonel John K. Waters was imprisoned in OFLAG XIII-B, Hammelburg, Germany and was liberated on 26 March 1945.] He heard about it though. A special unit had been created to do that [Annotator's Note: Task Force Baum].

[Annotator's Note: Leroy Redmond served in the Army as a tank crewman in Combat Command A, 14th Armored Division and took part in the liberation of Stalag-VIIA in Moosburg, Germany.] They had heard from Americans who had escaped, that there was a big camp up there. The British were scattered all over too as prisoners. Redmond heard about the camp from one of them who said, "big one up ahead laddie." He had been captured at Dunkirk [Annotator's Note: Battle of Dunkirk, 26 May to 4 June 1940], five years before. They learned early that the Germans had a great respect for rank. Sergeants were treated better than a corporal. The British soldier said the Germans never captured a Private in World War 2. The Germans were defending the camp. It was sporadic. They never made an attempt to hold the whole camp. The men were so glad to know they were going home. The Red Cross was in the camp and did a pretty good job. The fight was over in the morning. They knew they were surrounded by all of the Allies. Redmond was allowed to sign out a jeep and go sight-seeing. He went to Dachau [Annotator's Note: Dachau concentration camp complex near Dachau, Germany] and took a look. It was true. He also saw the first jet planes created [Annotator's Note: likely the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter aircraft]. When they saw a plane, they would do three blasts on the horn of a truck to let everyone know one was coming. One day there was a zoom, and he wondered what the hell it was. They had also discovered some hidden among the trees along the autobahn.

After the war, Leroy Redmond returned to his job at Westinghouse. He got married after three years. He married the girl next door. When he left, she was 13 years old and a kid. He was 20 then. When he came home, he asked his mother where his old school mates were. The church was running dances to get the boys and girls together. He dug out an old suit and went. She came up to him and he realized who she was. She told him she was 18, but she was really 17. Her mother thought he was Darth Vader [Annotator's Note: fictional character in the "Star Wars" franchise] when he showed up. Redmond had been written up in the hometown paper. He was six years older than her daughter, too old and too savvy. They waited three years to get married. Redmond took care of his mother-in-law when his father-in-law passed away. She always introduced him as her wonderful son-in-law. Redmond was always independent because he had to be. The war made him "damn independent." At Camp Breckenridge [Annotator's Note: Camp Breckenridge, Kentucky], he heard guys crying in their bunks. Never him, he was going to see the world. It was his passion. He has even seen Antarctica. He and his wife went to China and climbed the Great Wall.