Sam V. Abate was born in Saint Rose, Louisiana in November 1920. He lived there for the rest of his life after he came out of the service. He built his home on his father's farm. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Abate what it was like living through the Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945.] They were fortunate that they lived on the farm and had food. They had no money. They sold products that they shipped to large cities on consignment. Abate was drafted. One brother went into the Coast Guard. Another brother did not pass the medical due to his eyes. Two other brothers who had families were deferred. Abate went to the Army on 10 August 1942. He would have liked the Navy or Coast Guard, but he gets seasick. He went in the 634th [Annotator's Note: Reconnaissance Company, 634th Tank Destroyer Battalion, 1st Infantry Division]. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Abate where and what he heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] He heard about it Sunday evening on the radio. It spread like wildfire. While he was on the farm, he and his brothers worked at the City Service Oil Company. They were exporting oil to Japan and Italy. The Japanese were the biggest buyers of gasoline. The Italian ship they loaded had not made it to the mouth of the river [Annotator's Note: the Mississippi River] when this happened [Annotator's Note: the Pearl Harbor attack]. That Sunday afternoon, he and his friends were pissed. What shocked Abate was that all the battleships were in port [Annotator's Note: in Hawaii]. The war was going on in Europe so he could not understand why the Navy was docked over there. They should have been out at sea.

Sam V. Abate reported to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] to get a physical and to get sworn in [Annotator's Note: after being drafted on 10 August 1942]. They went home for a few days and then went to Camp Beauregard [Annotator's Note: in Pineville, Louisiana] and boarded a train to Camp Hood [Annotator's Note: now Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas]. There, he was assigned to the 634th Tank Destroyer Battalion [Annotator's Note: Reconnaissance Company, 634th Tank Destroyer Battalion, 1st Infantry Division]. There were guys he knew but they all went to different outfits. A boy from Hammond [Annotator's Note: Hammond, Louisiana], Archie Bennett, went with him and they stayed together throughout combat. Abate was in the Reconnaissance Company. The line companies had the M10 tank [Annotator's Note: M10 three inch Gun Motor Carriage, tank destroyer]. They were bigger than the Sherman tanks [Annotator's Note: M4 Sherman medium tank]. The Sherman had a 75mm [Annotator's Note: M3 75mm gun] and they had the 76mm, which is a three inch gun [Annotator's Note: M1918 three inch gun]. Abate was assigned to A Company [Annotator's Note: Company A] of the battalion. They had about 12 tanks; four to each platoon. They were always together except on maneuvers. In Normandy [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France], they did not do too much fighting because the hedgerows [Annotator's Note: man-made earthen walls that surround a field that are often overgrown with impenetrable vegetation] made it more of an infantry fight. The tanks were being used as artillery. The hedgerows were ideal for the Germans who were dug in. A tank had a dozer blade put on the front to make their way in. Once they got in, it was all mined. They made it through and then went to Saint-Lo [Annotator's Note: Saint-Lô, France] and reorganized. They were attached to the 1st Infantry Division. Abate was attached to the 16th Regiment [Annotator's Note: 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division]. They were not too far off the beach. They were to head towards Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France]. They said the bombers were going to come over and open up Saint Lo. They were dropping bombs a block away. One of the Generals got killed; he thinks it was a Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: US Army Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, III was at Saint Lô but was not killed; Abate is referring to US Army General Leslie J. McNair]. They broke through and took off. It was dog eat dog. There were battles every day and fought mostly at night. Once the Germans were on the run, it was a lot better. They had superiority in the daytime with the fighter planes. The P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] could come in a drop a few bombs. The Germans came at night. Abate was the lead jeep leading the whole thing into battle. They had .30 caliber machine guns [Annotator's Note: Browning M1919 .30 caliber air cooled light machine gun] on the jeeps. Behind them was an M8 light-wheeled vehicle [Annotator's Note: M8 Greyhound Light Armored Car] with a 37mm [Annotator's Note: M3 37mm gun]. The doughboys [Annotator's Note: nickname for United States infantrymen, popular in World War 1] were on the side riding the heavy tanks. The convoy was about three miles long when the Germans came. The German flares lit up the area. Abate left his jeep and ran into the wheat fields and dug in. Hunks of dirt were falling on his back when the bombs hit. The shrapnel would make the trees come down. He heard a bomb come down and hit. It did not go off. It was about 100 feet away from them. He ran back to the jeep. At all clear, they went to a village. The French came out and were giving them cognac [Annotator's Note: alcoholic beverage]. The Germans had taken the French people's horses and wagons. The French really suffered.

Sam V. Abate did reconnaissance and field artillery training [Annotator's Note: at Camp Hood, now Fort Hood, in Killeen, Texas with Reconnaissance Company, 634th Tank Destroyer Battalion, 1st Infantry Division]. They had skirmishes between the companies. They had paper bags with baking flour. They would bivouac [Annotator's Note: a bivouac is a temporary campsite] and at night go on patrols and try to penetrate into the lines. If they did so, they would throw the bags of flour onto the vehicles to mark them. The training was rough. Abate's job [Annotator's Note: in the war] was a jeep driver. He had an assistant to operate the machine gun. A lot of times the enemy would let them through and then hit the troops in the back. His job was to seek and spot for the line companies. They left Camp Hood directly to the Maneuvers [Annotator's Note: VII Corps Louisiana Maneuvers, near Mansfield, Louisiana, 27 July to 21 September 1942] with the 1st Cavalry Division who had horses. The 84th Infantry Division was there too. Most of the combat was nighttime. They would maneuver for two weeks, day and night. Then they would bivouac, bathe and get chow. After that, they went to Camp Claiborne [Annotator's Note: in Rapides Parish, Louisiana], which was their home base. It was nice. They wore dungarees in the daytime and at retreat they had to be in dress uniforms. They would go to the PX [Annotator's Note: post exchange] and drink beer. They had classes in the daytime. They had to take their guns apart and put them back together blindfolded. There was nothing to do in the town. Abate would go home quite a bit on weekend passes [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. They had barracks inspections on Saturdays. That ended at noon, so he would run and get a pass. Getting back for reveille [Annotator's Note: a signal sounded to wake personnel] could be rough.

Sam V. Abate left Camp Claiborne [Annotator's Note: in Rapides Parish, Louisiana] for Camp Kilmer, New Jersey [Annotator's Note: There is an odd tape break at 0:31:42.000.] It took two or three days to get there. The whole battalion [Annotator's Note: Reconnaissance Company, 634th Tank Destroyer Battalion, 1st Infantry Division] was on the train. They could not get off when the train stopped. It was cold and snowing at Camp Kilmer. They went to the barracks which were warm. They each had one blanket. When they made the Normandy invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], they had their Class A uniforms on. They had a one-piece suit in case the Germans used gas. As soon as they got on the beach, they threw those off. He drove his jeep off an LSI [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Infantry] that had 18 heavy tanks on the bottom. They could not make the beach the first day and had to wait for the tide. They were bombed every day but they only lost one vehicle. An M8 [Annotator's Note: M8 Greyhound Light Armored Car] hit a bomb crater. They got it out. Ducks [Annotator's Note: DUKW, six-wheel-drive amphibious truck] were hauling in from the merchant ships. The German prisoners were on the beach too. They would be put on an LSI and taken to England. Some were sent to the United States. Abate did nothing at Camp Kilmer but wait to ship out. They took a train to Staten Island [Annotator's Note: Staten Island is one of the five boroughs in New York, New York], then a ferry to the boat. They had to wear lifejackets. They were not on deck until they were out at sea. Abate and the men were all disgusted to be in the hold of a cargo ship. There was no place to lay down. During the day, they could go on deck. He slept on the deck or in the stairway on the whole trip over. The officers and Army nurses had all the bunks. They hardly had food. They had crates of oranges and apples. It was a Limey [Annotator's Note: period derogatory term for British people] ship and they only made tea. It was rough going overseas. Once they came under attack in the vicinity of Iceland by u-boats [Annotator's Note: German submarine]. They got close to England and the convoy split up. Some went to Russian. Abate landed in Liverpool [Annotator's Note: Liverpool, England]. It was raining and foggy. They took a train and rode all night to Bognor Regis [Annotator's Note: Bognor Regis, England]. It was a resort town, and it was nice. They lived in private homes. They lived there until the invasion. They trained daily with new vehicles. They then went to Bournemouth, England and trained in the daytime in small, infantry landing craft. A German plane came to bomb and strafe them one day. About three o'clock in the morning, he could hear the bombers forming up to head off to Germany. They would come back in the evening and some would be shot up. About six o'clock, the Limeys would do the night bombing. It was around the clock. There were real nice civilians in England. It was mostly elderly people.

Sam V. Abate would walk guard duty. The Germans would come at night with PT-Boats [Annotator's Note: E-boat; Allied designation for German fast attack craft, Schnellboot, or S-Boot] and infiltrate. Two guards would be together. They would stop back-to-back. The English Channel at night was always misty. The English people would bring them hot tea. The battalion [Annotator's Note: Abate was a member of Reconnaissance Company, 634th Tank Destroyer Battalion, 1st Infantry Division] would have meetings with headquarters to brief them a little bit. They did not know anything exactly. They were just training and ready. They went to marshaling area and had their vehicles waterproofed. They were around Weymouth, England. It was only G.I.s [Annotator's Note: government issue; also, a slang term for an American soldier] who were heavily guarded. They waited for two or three days to board and go over. The kitchen was open any time. They could get steaks and ice cream. They loaded on LSIs [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Infantry]. At daybreak, they were in the Channel [Annotator's Note: English Channel]. The Channel is rough all the time. It was hell just sitting out there. He did not get seasick on the LSI. It was fear. They had all the coffee they wanted to drink. They only had C rations [Annotator's Note: prepared and canned wet combat food] to eat. The doughboys [Annotator's Note: nickname for United States infantrymen, popular in World War 1] were on the beach already. There was not much of a use for tanks at the time of the first wave. He could hear the machine guns rattling day and night. He was in reconnaissance and they went to see what was happening. A lieutenant went out in a jeep and he was their first loss. That guy always carried a picture of his wife and his little girl. The Germans lobbed a mortar shell right into the foxhole where he ran for cover. Some of those guys were pretty accurate.

Sam V. Abate was attached to the 1st Infantry Division [Annotator's Note: Abate was a member of Reconnaissance Company, 634th Tank Destroyer Battalion, 1st Infantry Division]. They all had to move together. The 1st Army and 2nd Army were there. The Limeys [Annotator's Note: period derogatory term for British people] were next to the 2nd Army and the Canadians were on the northern flank. The Limeys were with Montgomery [Annotator's Note: British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery]. During the invasion, he wanted Ike's [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; 34th President of the United States] job. Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] said no. Montgomery and Ike could not get together. Montgomery stayed in Caen [Annotator's Note: Caen, France] a long time until being told to move. Montgomery was a stubborn General. Fighting in the hedgerows [Annotator's Note: man-made earthen walls that surround a field that are often overgrown with impenetrable vegetation] and the small villages was difficult. All Abate saw was apple orchards. In the Rhineland [Annotator's Note: a strip of German land that borders France, Belgium, and the Netherlands], it was all wheat fields, sugar beets, and potatoes. They would dig potatoes and onions and get the eggs out of the henhouses. The French civilians treated the men really well. One boy was a real Cajun, but the Cajun accent did not go with the French accent. [Annotator's Note: There is a tape break at 0:58:54.000.] When they landed in Normandy, he was with the 1st Army. They went into Saint-Lo [Annotator's Note: Saint-Lô, France] and all got together. That is when the 3rd Army and Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] came in with the 3rd Armored Division. They mingled with them sometimes. They were moving and not fooling around once they hit the wide-open space. They did not stop until they got to "Gay Paris" [Annotator's Note: nickname for Paris, France] on a Sunday evening. They stopped about ten miles out. They wanted to let the Free French [Annotator's Note: Free French Forces; forces of the Free France government in exile] take Paris. A couple of sergeants went in a jeep and came back. They told the men about the French women who were collaborators. They were in a pen, completely naked. It was a sight to see. Abate and his unit went to the left flank to Liege, Belgium. The worst fighting for Abate was after Saint Lo and into the hedgerows [Annotator's Note: man-made earthen walls that surround a field that are often overgrown with impenetrable vegetation]. That was bloody to break through. There was not a building left in Saint Lo. They were running out of fuel and ammunition. Abate was told to go back to get the gas and ammunition trucks and escort them to the line. There were replacement G.I.s [Annotator's Note: government issue; also, a slang term for an American soldier] there. They wanted to get back before dark. One replacement was someone Abate had gone to school with. Abate told him he was not going to sleep that night. About three o'clock in the morning, they took off again. They hit the Rhineland it was wide open and beautiful with beautiful weather.

Sam V. Abate thinks they [Annotator's Note: Reconnaissance Company, 634th Tank Destroyer Battalion, 1st Infantry Division] had good weapons. He had Tommy guns [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber Thompson submachine gun]. They were taken away and they were given carbines [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic carbine]. Some had .50 caliber machine guns [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun]. They were as good as the German guns. He liked the Thompson, but it was for close range. They were given the carbines when the fighting got heavier. The doughboys [Annotator's Note: nickname for United States infantrymen, popular in World War 1] used the M1s [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand]. Usually they were face to face and needed precision. The carbine was pretty good. It was rapid enough. The Germans had burp guns [Annotator's Note: MP 40, Maschinenpistole 40, German 9mm submachine gun]. He came up against the German MG-42 [Annotator's Note: German: Maschinengewehr 42; 7.92x 57mm general purpose machine gun]. All you could do is lay on your stomach and watch where it was coming from. Abate had to get out of his jeep. You cannot run, so you get out and find a place to hide. He could see the Germans running from foxhole to foxhole. Abate had a lieutenant from the 1st Infantry Division who was bleeding and was gone. He was right next to him. He does not know how he did not get hit. They had to leave him there. It was sad to see the dead men being picked up and thrown in a truck. There was a special crew to do that. Everyone carried their own bag that they would be buried in. At Normandy [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], the lieutenant asked him to take a ride. Seeing the dead men being picked up made Abate feel bad. It scares you, but you cannot give up. You cannot lose your morale. If you lose that, you are going to get hurt. The Germans had two types of Army, the SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization], and the regular Army, many of whom were from Poland and made to fight. When you were up against the SS, you had a fight on your hands. They went up against them in Mayenne, France. It was a wine-making town. That night, they took the town with tanks and barricaded it. The Heinies [Annotator's Note: derogatory term for Germans] had decided to come back. The SS brought a bunch of women too. They were drunk and the doughboys laid the boom on them. The Germans were stacked up in the street. At daybreak, the French were kicking and stomping the dead men. A Frenchman said there was someone in a house upstairs. Abate and another man went to check. It was a German officer who was using the Frenchman's wife. They brought the German downstairs. The Frenchman was behind the door and hit the German in the head with an axe. They caught one SS trooper who would not talk in interrogation. They put in him in front of a jeep and told him to run. When they got through with him, he talked like a mockingbird. Abate went into the winery with four or five of his men to look for Germans. They heard talking inside the cellar. It was Frenchmen who asked them to join them for some wine. They took wine out with them and found that the Germans had counterattacked. A friend of his was washing his face and an artillery shell hit the well. He does not know he was not killed. Another soldier told him the Germans took one of the tanks. They left the town on fire but came back and took the town back the next morning.

The M10 tanks [Annotator's Note: M10three inch Gun Motor Carriage, tank destroyer] had a heavy turret but it was open, and they had a .50 caliber machine gun [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun] there. During a reconnaissance run, a radioman got shot so they put Sam V. Abate in to operate the radio. They engaged with some of the tanks [Annotator's Note: German tanks]. When you see those big clumps of dirt flying up from shots that missed. An M8 [Annotator's Note: M8 Greyhound Light Armored Car] ahead of him, ran into a minefield and blew up but the crew survived. Abate thought an 88mm [Annotator's Note: German 88-mm, multi-purpose artillery] had hit it. The 88mm was a wicked gun. The sound of it gave him chills. That was the weapon Abate feared the most. When you heard it, you had better find a foxhole. The pillboxes [Annotator's Note: type of blockhouse, or concrete, reinforced, dug-in guard post, normally equipped with slits for firing guns] the Germans had on the beach in Normandy [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France] were hit by the battleship Texas [Annotator's Note: the USS Texas (BB-35)] and it only chipped the concrete. Those pillboxes had bunks inside. The 88mm was mounted there with a big shield in front. They covered the whole beach. Abate ended up in Belgium, taking Liege. They went to the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s]. The road was into Aachen, Germany where there were metal pillboxes with snipers. They also had two big pipes of solid iron and chains across the road. No tank could go through it. The Germans left the pillboxes when the Allies broke through. The Germans counterattacked the next morning. The engineers had welded the doors on the pillboxes and the Germans were slaughtered. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Abate what the worst areas he went through were.] On the outskirts of Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France], they built a pontoon bridge across the Seine River. They blew that town up and the Germans were pouring artillery on the bridge. Abate and his outfit [Annotator's Note: Reconnaissance Company, 634th Tank Destroyer Battalion, 1st Infantry Division] crossed in the evening with the heavy tanks. Once they got on the other side, it was hell. The Germans were pushed back. Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] went across the bridge next day with Dinah Shore [Annotator's Note: Fannye Rose Shore; American singer, actress, and television personality].

The Belgian and Dutch civilians were nice people. Sam V. Abate felt like he was at home. Belgium was alright but it was beaten. Antwerp, Belgium was a seaport, and the Germans were using the buzz bombs [Annotator's Note: V-1 pulse jet flying bomb, German name: Vengeance Weapon 1; Allied names: buzz bomb, doodlebug] there. Abate could see the buzz bombs from Liege [Annotator's Note: Liege, Belgium. They were 2,000 pound bombs with a wing and jet motor. You could see them at night. In the daytime, you could hear them. The British had the only airplane that was fast enough to catch it. The Spitfire [Annotator's Note: British Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft]. They would watch the Spitfires put a wing under the bomb and knock it off course. If you could hear it, once it was over your head you were alright because they came down when they ran out of fuel. If it ran out of fuel, you could hear it make a putt-putt-putt sound before it came down. Abate was afraid of them and could not sleep at night. They sent a lot of them to Liege and over the English Channel to England. When he trained in England, they had air raids every night. They would be out in the pubs drinking beer and they would hear the air raid sirens and they would run out and watch dog fights.

In December 1944, Sam V. Abate got sick and was put in 358th Engineers [Annotator's Note: 358th Engineer General Service Regiment]. They laid pipeline from Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] to Liege, Belgium. He had a seven man crew, and they laid a mile per day. One line was for oil and one for gasoline. Every ten miles was a pump station. In Belgium, they had to cross a river. They hung the pipes from cables. Abate was transferred to the engineers just before the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. Abate was in Liege when it broke out. That was the last strike for the Germans to win or lose. They were fighting for their lives. The good German officers made those guys fight. Those SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization] guys were patriotic and fought to the death. The German Army was like a regular one. They had skirmishes in Liege as engineers. There were loose soldiers running around that would never give up. You never knew who you were going to meet. He carried his weapon all the time. Abate was up in Germany when the war ended. They regrouped and went to a convoy with their equipment. They traveled all night in the mountains. They could use their lights for a change. Abate was in the lead jeep with a lieutenant. He climbed a mountain and could see the six by sixs [Annotator's Note: two and a half ton, six by six truck, also known as deuce and a half] for ten miles. They went to a big school building. After two days, they turned around and headed to France to turn in the vehicles. Abate drove a weapons carrier with a lot of TNT [Annotator's Note: flammable toxic compound; high explosive] on it. He went to a tent town. There was nothing but vehicles as far as he could see. The war with Japan was still going on and he started training for that. They took the engineers as an advance crew to Southern France and then they were to go to the Suez Canal [Annotator's Note: in Egypt] to the Indian Ocean and straight to Japan. They heard right away the war with Japan had headed. The Red Cross had big tents and made coffee and doughnuts. He was having coffee and doughnuts and heard about the atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945]. Everybody was jumping with joy. The war is over. Thank God.

You had to have 85 points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] to go home. Sam V. Abate was in the 80s but not 85. They were put in tents according to the points. There were officers to take care of them. He was there about a month and a half. It was close to December [Annotator's Note: December 1945] when he got on a boat to Marseilles, France. A Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship] was loaded up first. Abate got on a Victory ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship] which went faster. They passed the Liberty ship up. They went through the Mediterranean [Annotator's Note: Mediterranean Sea] and it was beautiful. As the left the Straits of Gibraltar, the waves were as high as a building. They went across the North Atlantic and it was terrible. They were supposed to land in Boston [Annotator's Note: Boston, Massachusetts] but landed in New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. That Liberty ship lost its rudder and wound up around Bermuda. Abate saw the Statue of Liberty and there was a band playing. The ship was covered in ice. The fresh air felt good. He was put on a train to Camp Kilmer [Annotator's Note: in Piscataway Township, New Jersey and Edison Township, New Jersey] and then left for Camp Shelby, Mississippi [Annotator's Note: near Hattiesburg, Mississippi]. He felt good coming up to see the Statue of Liberty. He had never eaten because he was so constipated. He went to a hospital right away. Then he got on the train and had a good bowel movement. He felt good then. Everybody was happy.

Sam V. Abate's service time was a waste of three years. He came back to nothing. He could not get a job and tried to get some education. He got a job at International Harvester Company but did not make much money. Things got a little better, but then the plant in New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] was closed. He would have had to go to Memphis [Annotator's Note: Memphis, Tennessee] to keep the job. He was married. He asked if he could go to the plant in Melrose Park, Illinois. He got the job in the tool crib. He stayed about a year but hated the weather. They moved back and Abate went to work for American Oil Company. A friend worked for the FBI [Annotator's Note: Federal Bureau of Investigation] and Abate told him he wanted to be a State Trooper. Abate took a test and passed it. He would have to go to Baton Rouge [Annotator's Note: Baton Rouge, Louisiana] to train, so he did not go. He then went to work for an oil refinery. It closed after six years, so he became a Sheriff. He left that to work in Public Works where he retired. Abate thinks it was necessary for the United States to get in the war. Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] was going to take over everything and whip the Russians. Stalin [Annotator's Note: Joseph Stalin; General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] wanted Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] to hurry up and open up the front at Normandy [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France]. Between Hitler and Japan, Abate does not know where we would have been. The Japanese would never have given up. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Abate if he thinks it is important for there to be The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.] It brings back old memories. A lot of good things and a lot of bad things. It gives the people an idea. During the war, all of the people went to work. People would put notes in the packages of the things they made for the war. The people were really patriotic and working day and night.