Wallace Jeffery was born on 27 January 1922 in Sioux City, Iowa. He moved many times but by nine years of age, the family settled in 1931 in Manhattan, Kansas. His father had brought the family there for him to obtain a job. By the time he reached the town, the job was gone. This was during the rough times of the Great Depression and the family had no income. They moved into a garage that was the size of one Model T. There were five in the family. [Annotator’s Note: the Ford Model T was not a very large automobile. The garage was tiny to accommodate a family of five.] Jeffery had two brothers. The garage had a dirt floor and no windows with the only door being the one that opened to allow vehicle access. They remained there for three years. There was an outdoor toilet. An outside pump provided water. The lady who owned the house allowed the Jeffery family to live there for free. Jeffery’s father lined the garage with cardboard and built a stove out of a barrel. The family would all take their baths in the same washtub. Cardboard had to be placed on the ground to prevent the bather from having muddy feet after clean up. Those were hard times. Jobs were difficult to find and if one did happen along the going wage rate was ten cents per hour for a ten hour day. If a laborer did not work hard enough, he would not retain his job. Jeffery did not finish high school. His father had bought eight small pigs for 20 cents each. It was Wallace Jeffery’s job to tend the pigs. His father took a job with a trash collector. In that job, the father would pick up garbage from restaurants and stores. He would go through the trash and take out salvageable parts for the consumption of the family and the remainder would be provided as feed to the pigs. The pigs grew to about 200 pounds each and were sold for eight or nine cents a pound. That provided enough money for the family to leave their garage home. Jeffery was about 12 or 13 years of age. The family joined a traveling carnival. It traveled through Nebraska and South Dakota. Jeffery was taken out of school and went with the carnival during the summer. When fall came, he along with the rest of the family would shuck corn until just about Christmas. By early spring, he was leaving with the carnival again. This cycle continued for three years. Jeffery took eighth grade courses for two years but could not pass them. The principal suggested that he take ninth grade courses but Jeffery felt that would not be any more successful so he quit school. Jeffery worked with the carnival from 13 until 18 years of age. The family sold concessions in the carnival. Jeffery would go on to work for the carnival and not just for his dad in selling concessions. He later would set up, operate and take down the merry-go-round ride. It was hard and long work. He was 19 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. [Annotator’s Note: 7 December 1941] His first reaction was to go to Fort Riley and join the Army. [Annotator’s Note: Fort Riley is between Junction City and Manhattan, Kansas. It is the home of the United States Army 1st Infantry Division—“The Big Red One”] Jeffery’s two older brothers were already in the Army. One was even in Hawaii during the attack and would remain there for six years. Jeffery decided to hold off on enlisting. He got married to a farm girl and they had a son. Jeffery would get a job as an apprentice carpenter at Fort Riley. They worked ten hours a day for seven days a week building barracks. Jeffery received a letter from the local fire department saying that if he joined them, he would not be drafted. He talked it over with his wife and told her that he did not feel right about not going into service. He rejected the offer and shortly afterward, he received his draft notice.

Wallace Jeffery entered service after receipt of his draft notice. He signed up at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. [Annotator’s Note: November 1943] Drafted into the Army, he ended up in the Army Air Forces. From Fort Leavenworth and initial indoctrination, he was sent to Fresno, California. That was the worse camp he ever stayed in. It had been used as a station for displaced Japanese on their way to internment camps. You could catch ptomaine poison there. When washing your mess kit, there were multiple garbage cans for cleaning and rinsing. By the time the washing was done, the rinse can was nothing but dirty water. There was sand at the end of the cans that was used to scrub out the mess kit residue. A final rinse can was found after the sand. Fresno was only a short stay. Basic training was given there. Jeffery was offered a job as an apprentice carpenter, but he wanted to get away from the camp. An aptitude test was given. Jeffery selected three choices within the Air Force but got none of those choices. He was sent to Chicago for radio mechanics and Morse code training. He stayed for five months in a hotel with 5,000 other troops. He came out of the training as a corporal and was sent to Tomah, Wisconsin. The Army had taken over buildings that were formerly used as an Indian reservation. He stayed there about 18 weeks and studied equipment that would be used in warfare. Most of the equipment was designed and already being used by the British. The Bendix Corporation was manufacturing the equipment in the United States. Following graduation from there, he was made a buck sergeant. [Annotator’s Note: there are multiple levels within the rank of sergeant. A buck sergeant is the entry level into the three stripe rank.] The next base was near Orlando, Florida. The trainees practiced there with equipment and planes. Jeffery ran a direction finder out of a van. He would set up his unit on high ground. The rotating antenna was on top of the van. Inside the van, there was a 360 degree map which the men would use to locate the broadcast signal from an aircraft. They could figure where the aircraft was located by checking the strength of the broadcast using sensors and the map. The exact location was found through triangulation with two other vans similar to the one manned by Jeffery. When each of the vans called headquarters and reported their individual fix on the aircraft, a string could be drawn on their map and the intersection of the lines would define the location. The Germans had nothing like this. This was a means of identifying friendly aircraft versus enemy blips on the radar screen. It was also used to find and rescue downed pilots and crews. Fighter planes from Normandy and through the remainder of the war were located using this method. After this training, he received a ten day leave and went back to Kansas. He gave all his pay to his wife and child so he had no available funds to buy a train ticket. The Red Cross helped with the finances which allowed Jeffery to get back home. While he was there, his wife conceived another child which was born while he was in England. His wife had little money during this time. She had to walk to the grocery and take care of the children the best that she could. It was tough on her also. After Orlando, Jeffery went to Boston, Massachusetts where he waited for shipping orders. After three or four weeks, on 15 September, he shipped out of New York City on a small ship called the Mexico. [Annotator’s Note: 1943] The ship had been designed as banana boat for coastal service but it was making a trans-Atlantic voyage. The vessel had a rough time in the convoy because it was so small. There were about 300 Norwegian ski troopers below deck and about that many Americans on the boat with them. At first, it seemed like fun but with the tossing and heaving on the ocean, it became difficult. The voyage went far north to avoid submarine attack. If anyone fell overboard, the ship would not stop because of the danger of attack. The ship hit a storm during its way to Europe and it quivered. The men had to stay inside the ship. The ship would shutter when it went up and down the waves. Jeffery was told the ship shuttered when the rudders came out of the water. Ships adjacent to them would disappear when they went down into the surging waves. The convoy commander told the Mexico captain that he was concerned with the ship not being able to successfully make the voyage. After five days and nights, the seas calmed. Jeffery looked behind his ship and noticed a vessel completely lit up. He was told it was a hospital ship. What they did not know was that enemy submarines had followed the hospital ship into the convoy to get a shot at the other ships. The defensive ships for the convoy pursued the submarines and either got them or drove them off. The men had a hard time eating because the galley was available but the weather was too rough. Candy bars from the ship PX provided food. Many men would get sick on the voyage and those who did not, took care of those who did. The Mexico finally landed in Scotland.

Wallace Jeffery arrived in Scotland and was transported by train to his new camp in England. He stayed there for four months and was assigned at first to the Eighth Air Force which was a bomber group. He then was assigned to the Ninth Air Corps with the Ninth Air Force. Those units had transferred from North Africa. The Ninth Air Corps controlled the fighter aircraft such as the P-38s, P-47s, and the P-51s and P-61s along with B-25 and B-26 twin engine bombers. Jeffery was just outside of Chelmsford, England. The other units were scattered elsewhere. Headquarters was even more remote. There was heavy antiaircraft protection at Chelmsford. The German bombers would come in at night to attack London. The sounds from the enemy bomber engines were quite distinctive. The bombers would be gone for an hour but return to drop incendiary bombs on Jeffery’s location. It was done as harassment more than anything else. Five radiomen along with support crewmen operated in that location for awhile. They were part of a direction finder unit. Before the invasion, the unit was sent to south England along with many American troops. [Annotator’s Note: the Normandy D-Day invasion occurred on 6 June 1944] The men knew something big was going on. They prepared their equipment for the action. They did not know when or where the battle would be, but something was going on. Part of the unit shipped to Liverpool and boarded a Liberty Ship there. The ship went into the Channel toward France. It traveled very slowly. The supply of k-rations began to run low so the men were put on half rations. It took eight days to cross the channel. The vessel pulled into Omaha Beach. The ship anchored on D-Day but the men did not get off. The battle was on and many ships were nearby. The Augusta heavy cruiser paralleled the coast and fired on pillboxes. [Annotator’s Note: USS Augusta (CA-31)] A nearby Liberty Ship hit a mine. Another troopship near Jeffery’s vessel was hit by a mine. Jeffery knew he was in a dangerous position. Most of the crewmen in the injured ships were rescued. The action on the beach could be observed from Jeffery’s offshore position. The next morning, a German observation plane flew by the Allied ships. The Allied ships fired on the intruder but could not hit him because he was flying so low. The next morning, three German twin engine bombers flew up to the fleet. Jeffery had never seen an enemy plane shot down in England. The case was different in Normandy as the first bomber was shot down immediately. The other two enemy bombers fled the scene. There was a lot of Navy firepower that opened up on the German aircraft.

Wallace Jeffery and his outfit of direction finders entered Normandy on 7 June 1944. The men climbed over the side of their vessel into rough waters. They climbed the Jacob’s ladder down to a DUKW or “Duck” down below. The fighting on Omaha Beach was over but destroyed equipment and bodies were scattered everywhere. When Jeffery climbed to the top of the cliff over the beach, he found a young man standing there by himself. He was a Combat Engineer. He said he was the only one left in his company and he did not know what to do. Gunfire was still in the proximity. The infantry had moved in and dug foxholes. A captain put the men in a foxhole and told them to stay in that protected position. They were warned that the guards would fire on them if they left the foxholes. Darkness was approaching and the men could see a house close by. A lot of shooting was going on there. The men were told to cease fire because a Lieutenant Flynn was in the house with a German with a machine gun. Jeffery did not find out whatever happened there. With his visibility of the action limited to only what he could see or experience, he hunkered down. Soon he found that he had to urinate. He did so in his helmet and then emptied it on the edge of his hole. It did not get shot so he felt relieved. The unit moved on. The direction finding equipment had not caught up with them. They were just part of the mass movement inland. They passed a German hanging from a tree. It seemed that most troops took a shot at him for good luck. The men moved into the hedgerow country and set up a camp. They stayed there until the rest of the direction finder units caught up with them. Not everyone made it there at one time. Jeffery remembered that he had ear problems in England. He was sent to a hospital for evaluation at that time. He was told that with his punctured ear drum, he could go home. He was told that if a gas attack came, the mask would not help him. He was subject to have a bad reaction. Jeffery decided not to return home. One evening in the hedgerows, a gas alert was called. It was dark and Jeffery put on his gas mask and put a finger in his ear to protect it. The all clear was called and when he removed his mask, he could not see much. He thought the gas had gotten to him, but it did not. After a period of time, the full group and the equipment caught up. As it turned out, all the support people for the outfit of five men in the direction finder unit were pulled back from them. The five shared guard duties on shifts. Operational activities were usually during the day and not at night. After a few days, a Ranger lieutenant came up and told them to dig a hole and he would return in the morning with a machine gun. He was going to show the outfit how to protect themselves with the gun. They practiced firing in the evenings at observation planes but never hit one. They were training themselves on the job.

As the front moved, Wallace Jeffery and his unit moved. [Annotator’s Note: Jeffery was a radioman in a direction finder unit the 327th Fighter Control Squadron] As a ground based fighter director, he observed many dogfights. The breakout from the Normandy beaches occurred at the battle for St. Lo. The Germans were in retreat so the Allies pursued them. The Falaise Gap was a terrible sight with all the death and destruction. [Annotator’s Note: as the Germans retreated from the Normandy region in August 1944, the Allies attempted to surround them and trap them near the town of Falaise. The opening in the encirclement became known as the Falaise Gap. Many Germans escaped the entrapment through that gap but there were major Axis casualties experienced in the process.] The planes that Jeffery worked with were involved in that devastation. That fighting was one of the main battles of the war with over 10,000 enemy dead. Major forces were involved on both sides. Headquarters were behind the lines but Jeffery and the other two mobile units were scattered out. After that battle, an advance was made on Paris. The decision was made to allow de Gaulle to enter Paris first. There were Polish and other divisions involved in the advance. De Gaulle and his forces were allowed to proceed toward Paris as other Allies stood aside. After the French passed, the other divisions fell in behind them. [Annotator’s Note: Charles de Gaulle was the leader of the Free French forces from the surrender of France in June 1940. The symbolism of the leader of the Free French forces first entering Paris for its liberation by the Allies was a meaningful gesture on the part of the Allied high command. ] While in Paris for eight days, the support unit was billeted in the University of Paris. The people of Paris were celebrating. They were also shooting those who had been collaborators with the Germans. Women who had befriended Germans had their hair cut off. While Jeffery was walking with a buddy through the streets a couple of Frenchmen were beseeching them to follow them. When they did, the Frenchmen brought them to a basement where several collaborators had been executed by them. The Frenchmen were apparently very proud of their accomplishment. It is not hard to understand their frustration with those people who willingly worked with the Germans. After Paris, the Germans were on the run and the Americans followed them into Belgium.

Wallace Jeffery and the 300 or so troops in his unit got together after Paris. [Annotator’s Note: the unit was the 327th Fighter Control Squadron] There were Army personnel responsible for the operation of the radar units. Others, like Jeffery, were Air Corps. The Air Corps was responsible for talking with the Allied aircraft and providing information and direction for them. Every time communication was established with the leader of a plane squadron, Jeffery and his counterparts would get a fix on them. When a pilot was hit and indicated that he was going down, it was particularly important to know his location for a later rescue attempt. A continuous sound would be made by the pilot so that the direction finders would be able to establish a fix on his location. [Annotator’s Note: Jeffery simulates the type of continuous sound a pilot would make for the men on the ground to locate him.] The men on the ground limited discussion with the pilots unless there was an emergency. Jeffery was remote from the action so he never learned whether the downed pilots were rescued. The ground crews sometimes would call in a strike on a target. The objective might be a tank or machine gun position. It was part of the standard operation. Toward the end of the war, radio units were placed in some of the tanks to call in strike missions. The Germans did not have this advantage. After the Bulge, there was a huge dogfight with about 500 planes on each side. [Annotator’s Note: the Battle of the Bulge was from 16 December 1944 to the end of January 1945] That massive dogfight was quite a sight. The unit traveled into Belgium with only limited opposition from the enemy. While in a small Belgium village [Annotator’s Note: name not confirmed], the mayor of the town asked Jeffery to visit. The family became close to Jeffery for a few days. He slept in a bed and took a bath for the first time in months. His helmet was used for bathing most of the time prior to and after that nice bath. It served many uses and was his best tool in combat. This was in the first part of September when Belgium was liberated. There was a knock on the door. When it was opened, a young school teacher with her students filed by Jeffery and offered him a gift of some sort. It was a lesson in sharing. Jeffery had two small children at home and that made him decide to return to Belgium someday. In 2004, he returned to see those people and thank them. The little town was hard to locate on a map, but he eventually did find it. Jeffery took ten members of his family and the villagers were anxious to welcome them. They met the ship and escorted the Jeffery family to their village. There were small children along the sidewalk holding American flags. They toured the Americans around the surrounding areas including a B-17 crash site that had a monument erected in memory of the lost airmen. The occasion was so meaningful, that the villagers asked Jeffery to return on the date of their liberation. He did and it was a wonderful experience. [Annotator’s Note: Jeffery speaks with emotion when recollecting the experience]

Wallace Jeffery was near the Buchenwald concentration camp when the war ended in Germany. The camp had been liberated. He had previously crossed the Remagen Bridge. [Annotator’s Note: Buchenwald concentration camp is near Weimar, Germany. The Remagen Bridge was one of the last intact bridges spanning the Rhine River which was the final major physical obstacles for the Americans entering into Germany.] Jeffery went into the concentration camp even though he did not have to do so. It showed him why the war was fought. He is proud of the effort to stop the atrocities that he saw. [Annotator’s Note: Jeffery becomes emotional at the memory] Jeffery stayed in Europe for a period of time after the end of the war. He had enough points to return home considering his months of service, children and etc. but he stayed for awhile. There were limited shipping logistics available to provide the troops their voyage home. Only so many people at a time could make the trip. On his way to exit Europe, he rode in a troop convoy initially and then in a boxcar with 40 and eight. [Annotator’s Note: the boxcar was sized to carry either 40 men or eight horses] While riding in the troop transport truck, there was a sudden stop. Jeffery looked ahead to see what was transpiring. He saw a GI who had been riding in the truck ahead who had fallen off and was horribly crushed by the tires on the vehicle ahead. The boxcars would bring them to a camp where they stayed until scheduled for the return home. Jeffery was discharged at Camp Crowder in Missouri. He took a bus to Kansas City and then caught a second bus. That bus broke down. The breakdown frustrated Jeffery because he was anxious to get home. When he did arrive home, he got gifts for his wife and sister in law and then returned home to his small apartment. [Annotator’s Note: Jeffery ends the interview with a joke about his return homecoming]