Speaker 1: This episode re enacts scenes of war. Listener discretion advised,
Speaker 1: ah ah. Every farmer in the land must realize fully
Speaker 1: that his production is part of war production, and that
Speaker 1: he is regarded by the nation as essential to victory.
Speaker 1: The American people expect him to keep this production up
Speaker 1: and even to increase it. We will use every effort
Speaker 1: to help him to get labor. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: he and the people of his community must use ingenuities
Speaker 1: and co operative effort to produce props and livestock and
Speaker 1: dairy products. Whereas the Great Depression created huge job shortages
Speaker 1: and surpluses of farm food, it seems like we could
Speaker 1: never grow enough. During World War two, food is a weapon.
Speaker 1: Don't waste it. Warrned a government issued poster. One hundred
Speaker 1: and forty million Americans had to be fed, and sixteen
Speaker 1: million of them had to be fed in base camps,
Speaker 1: on ships, and in small companies moving the front lines
Speaker 1: forward all over the world. They brought rations up to
Speaker 1: us all the time, the eyes and the jeep. Many
Speaker 1: times the cooks are sent up to the fur line
Speaker 1: with ammunition and food. Sometimes they get caught in the
Speaker 1: broad All these people who are really reliant on us there.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Service Stories of Hunger and War, a production
Speaker 1: from My Heart Radio and Me your host, Jacqueline Reposo.
Speaker 1: One thing that can't escape us this season is how
Speaker 1: palpably the Great Depression shaped the early lives of our
Speaker 1: World War Two veterans. We've heard them share stories about
Speaker 1: saving trolley fair for a five cent hot dog, about
Speaker 1: industrious parents cooking chicken feet and canning vegetables, and how
Speaker 1: grateful they were to have food at all. And so.
Speaker 1: Part of this fascinating historical puzzle is the shift from
Speaker 1: the Great Depression to war production on the home front.
Speaker 1: As we sent food overseas to our allies before joining
Speaker 1: up in late nineteen forty one, farm production demands increased
Speaker 1: by thirty two percent, while simultaneously around two million men
Speaker 1: were leaving farm life, some to join the service and
Speaker 1: some because they could make far greater money working in
Speaker 1: other war production facilities. Such is the conundrum faced by
Speaker 1: our veteran today. Harold bud Long grew up in upstate
Speaker 1: New York, the third generation of a farming family. Growing
Speaker 1: into adulthood at the start of the war, he walked
Speaker 1: away from owning his family farm to instead work his
Speaker 1: way up the production line at Curtis Wright, the largest
Speaker 1: state side aircraft manufacturer during this time. In some ways,
Speaker 1: farms flourished because of wartime needs, with the military a
Speaker 1: major purchaser of flour, beef, butter, and the like. But then,
Speaker 1: as we heard in our last episode with William Walker,
Speaker 1: the Navy started reporting huge food shortages as if ferried
Speaker 1: food around the world, and victory gardens were encouraged to
Speaker 1: help light in the civilian food load. With iron, rubber
Speaker 1: and steel waylaid for defense purposes, farmers couldn't get their
Speaker 1: hands on new machinery, and even as they increased wages
Speaker 1: from three dollars to five dollars to a whopping twelve
Speaker 1: dollars a day, they couldn't compete for workers with companies
Speaker 1: like Curtis. Bud remembers a starting salary of fifty cents
Speaker 1: an hour and once a huge paycheck of one hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty seven dollars for one week. Bud's working for
Speaker 1: Curtis kept him denied by the Draft Board for a while.
Speaker 1: His accumulated engineering knowledge then made him eligible for the
Speaker 1: Air Corps, and, newly married, he tried to stay stateside
Speaker 1: working as long as possible. But eventually he was sent
Speaker 1: all over Europe, taking bomb sites out of planes and
Speaker 1: laying emergency airstrips. But speeds us through legendary campaigns like
Speaker 1: D Day, the Battle of the Bulge, and the Rhyan
Speaker 1: Land in Germany. To keep him fed, it took farm hands, factories,
Speaker 1: navy ships, army trucks, and so many foot soldiers all
Speaker 1: along the way. And so now from Livingston County, New York,
Speaker 1: let's slow and sit with Harold but Long. My name
Speaker 1: is Harold B. Long. I was staff sergeant on an
Speaker 1: Ice Air Force. Growing up. We had a farm about
Speaker 1: five acres. We had two trackers and two teams of
Speaker 1: horses's during a pressure we appreciate that. We never act
Speaker 1: for food. We always had chickens. We had pigs, so
Speaker 1: we always put your on pig a year. We always
Speaker 1: put your on half heart, so had feet. I always
Speaker 1: had a great big garden. We had a sager room.
Speaker 1: You know, I would you know you could run and
Speaker 1: slide on that thing because its sucking slippery, and said
Speaker 1: you got your chilk, slide around like that on there.
Speaker 1: And I can remember get Lauren looking out one of
Speaker 1: the seas the wagans lined up waiting to go see
Speaker 1: the Saga Rong. I like the horses, but I didn't
Speaker 1: have no patience for him being a kid. Everything. I
Speaker 1: get ahold of the clip and I cut the tongue off,
Speaker 1: but the tracked to run. Dad used to get a
Speaker 1: technof and he said, you know that gas is expensive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but Dad, I got it done and a half the
Speaker 1: time I had because I went to school. I'm a
Speaker 1: big family, seventh of the family. Mother used to pack
Speaker 1: a lunch for me. She always packed extra for that,
Speaker 1: apples and stuff. It was microwave and old freezers. She
Speaker 1: can the beef, beets, carrots. We made butter for a
Speaker 1: while and that was a job. And making butter, I
Speaker 1: always had plenty to eat. I was drafted with MPN
Speaker 1: each side of me. I got down high school and
Speaker 1: I was the only child. This is thirty eight or
Speaker 1: you have no money in so many college. I work
Speaker 1: the farm. You have the farm, said dad. You want
Speaker 1: to work on daylight, the darkst noven days a week.
Speaker 1: You don't know if you're gonna have enough to pay
Speaker 1: the bills. Not for me. Was that a Sunday paper
Speaker 1: hiring for Curtis so I worked on salvage, worked on
Speaker 1: P forties until I was drafted. I was trained what
Speaker 1: to call a m aircraft mechanics. I went to B
Speaker 1: School Medium Bomber, so I flew in twenty six as
Speaker 1: a flight engineer. They called that the little maker or
Speaker 1: the flying coffin because they crashed so much. There are
Speaker 1: a hot plane. You have to fly them in and
Speaker 1: fly them out. No glide to him, well obvious was
Speaker 1: I wouldn't going overseas. Are you gonna take every dinner
Speaker 1: in school? And I get into him, you only told
Speaker 1: run out of school. Went over in the Queen Mary
Speaker 1: and three right at a Christmas time, seventeen thousand on board.
Speaker 1: No escort. Made it across in five days the land
Speaker 1: of the first thing Classgow, Scotland. From there what the
Speaker 1: train took reading England and there I was stationed until
Speaker 1: just before D Day when I landed Alma Beach. It
Speaker 1: was a landing craft infantry held around two hundred and
Speaker 1: some of us, how many engineers and some of candidates.
Speaker 1: They're shooting us. My buddy and I were in the
Speaker 1: back of the ship and the guys ranches to get off.
Speaker 1: They're up on the front when we hit the beach
Speaker 1: a hundre of yards and shore. We had a sandbar.
Speaker 1: They went right over the rail equipment and everything hel
Speaker 1: must fly on. They dropped the ramps. One was twenty
Speaker 1: deep for in the hunter yards and they see me,
Speaker 1: see we're having trouble, and they shot a cable out
Speaker 1: for us. And he went hand over hand because fifth
Speaker 1: going down and at the tops of machine going at
Speaker 1: hundred fifty two rounds, the animal across my back has
Speaker 1: throw that. All struggles and got off gas match that one.
Speaker 1: My shirt went off, my shoes went off, so we
Speaker 1: got the shore all they had their pants on. My
Speaker 1: buddy and I stand on the beach look at HR
Speaker 1: and said, what a hell of way to fight a war.
Speaker 1: And the object was the common engineers. On D Day,
Speaker 1: we're going to make an airstrip where across the top
Speaker 1: of the beach, and he plans he couldn't make it
Speaker 1: back across the channel. We're going to be serviced by us.
Speaker 1: When we landed, they weren't even off the beach shut
Speaker 1: so never materialized. We stayed on the beach most of
Speaker 1: the day and that night we got back in far
Speaker 1: enough to get to a hedgeroll and that was that.
Speaker 1: I'm then on maintaining emergency strip and I went from
Speaker 1: forty seven airstrips across strel five miles off the beach,
Speaker 1: or called the German truck. Germans, they left. We didn't
Speaker 1: have nothing like that yet. Positive traction, Oh vote, that
Speaker 1: truck would started kind of above zero. They always tell
Speaker 1: you to watch your bully tracks. First shot. Will we
Speaker 1: come to a guy Rice from Kentucky. There's a radio
Speaker 1: sitting on the show. He grabs the radio, glows his
Speaker 1: arm right off, And that was, of course the last
Speaker 1: we saw him. That was before we found the German truck.
Speaker 1: So we got up there in the four five US.
Speaker 1: Now what will we do. We've got a big chain
Speaker 1: with a half track and hook on it and pull
Speaker 1: that thing our own up field. Aminted something to explode,
Speaker 1: and nothing happened. Now, who wants to open the door.
Speaker 1: We're gonna throw up and tie on the latch. Nothing happened, Now,
Speaker 1: who wants to try the hood? We poured some gas
Speaker 1: and that we'll figure the combination on start up. When
Speaker 1: we kept that truck all through Europe and were was it?
Speaker 1: The parks struck thrown back from parts to the real Ashland,
Speaker 1: the m peace towys. Why don't you keep it to
Speaker 1: the front. You wanted to tell you you're getting near
Speaker 1: the back of the MPAs to get chicken and they
Speaker 1: will start to pick it up. Most of the time
Speaker 1: it was hectic. Stuff was born and coming, moving all
Speaker 1: the time. With Pattent, we always had his protection ahead
Speaker 1: of us. Like what happens if the front line breaks down?
Speaker 1: One time as a battle of balls are luction were
Speaker 1: the first wave we went in and we lost seventy
Speaker 1: some planes. We always want to pull the bomb side
Speaker 1: over the first thing. They said they wanted to film
Speaker 1: and they wanted any information they could get off of it.
Speaker 1: Dewey and I had left to take the bomb side off.
Speaker 1: We got there and the snow's up there here, we said.
Speaker 1: We went in the warning. We had a l g
Speaker 1: I store. We pick it in the farmhouse. Half we
Speaker 1: brewed up, start a fire and trying to keep warm.
Speaker 1: He looks out, he says, every going their own way.
Speaker 1: They're coming back and say, hey, what's going on? Guys?
Speaker 1: You have better get hot or the crow through one
Speaker 1: a mile behind us. Great, we guys going couple fake
Speaker 1: and the others We already, get taught, will be shocked,
Speaker 1: combat and empty go go, never stopped your checking off
Speaker 1: and there get out of here, Get out of here.
Speaker 1: After the break and ended up, the kids didn't have
Speaker 1: not much to eat. We found him in the morning
Speaker 1: and what we call ten of one rashes. Stay with us.
Speaker 1: You're listening to service stories of hunger and war from
Speaker 1: my heart radio. I'm Jacqueline Proposo, and we're here with
Speaker 1: Harold but Long of the U. S. Army Air Corps
Speaker 1: as he moves to through Europe. About forty minutes into
Speaker 1: the movie saving Private Ryan, we're thrust into a rainy
Speaker 1: hill fire of combat and chaos. Looking closely, we can
Speaker 1: spot Vin Diesel as Private Caparso, picking apples from the
Speaker 1: ground and chomping them down while bullets stream over his head.
Speaker 1: It's a poignant moment of humanity, this reaching, gnashing, dropping,
Speaker 1: reaching again, and then jumping into the fray. It says
Speaker 1: a lot about the last time this soldier got his
Speaker 1: hands on a fresh apple. We're similarly following Bud on
Speaker 1: foot through France. Now there were a few major players
Speaker 1: when it comes to top command in the European Theater,
Speaker 1: and Bud's general Patton was one of them, and a
Speaker 1: few episodes we'll hear another perspective of eating on the
Speaker 1: front lines with laws and chirosa Kai as he moves
Speaker 1: with General Dahlquist's divisions what's most important when facing active
Speaker 1: fire and finding food at the front. Let's return to
Speaker 1: late nineteen forty four and following along. August sixteen, we
Speaker 1: come in Paris with a free French. We couldn't hold it,
Speaker 1: so we went in to see what was going on.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, went right down the sham de leis from
Speaker 1: the arc when the soul. You weren't see a bicycle nothing.
Speaker 1: I don't know where these people did. Finally August little
Speaker 1: of Paris September October one pack of Paris on three
Speaker 1: days pass. There was nothing like it. We seeen Cares
Speaker 1: when we went in first jam with bicycles and they
Speaker 1: all wanted a cigarette Gui cigarette. No little kids like
Speaker 1: that cigarette. Papa. We give tig bars we called boop
Speaker 1: bars at KM one rations. But once while you get
Speaker 1: some dumb ra ka rations. I lived in k Rations
Speaker 1: and Sea Rations kay Rations had biscuits. Of them had
Speaker 1: four cigarettes morning when at the fig bar and them
Speaker 1: and trying eggs, mixed water with it either like that
Speaker 1: sea ragins were in cans corned beef seventy five years.
Speaker 1: I couldn't send us smell it, and they got better.
Speaker 1: Finally put hamburgs and baked beans and they can and
Speaker 1: they started mixing up better towards the end. Another thing
Speaker 1: was orange marmelade had pieces of orange peel and it
Speaker 1: was sitner in August and wast so bad. You used
Speaker 1: to take the bad net and cut the can open,
Speaker 1: room it open and pour it on the ground all
Speaker 1: around where we're gonna eat. They swarmed her there and
Speaker 1: leave us all and I still can't eat it for
Speaker 1: this day. Orange marter relade got them the November and
Speaker 1: apper day, we're in a field, seven guys to attend
Speaker 1: mud freezing cold snow, and couldn't keep warm for nothing. Lieutenants,
Speaker 1: you know it's the town up ahead of us, head
Speaker 1: of school, head of the town hall, head of theater,
Speaker 1: head of hotel, and the school shot right down. When
Speaker 1: they had no coal and there was water in the basement.
Speaker 1: They get no pumps the pump water out because they
Speaker 1: didn't have any electric. And I had six rooms and
Speaker 1: had a good sized kitchen on it, and he said,
Speaker 1: what if we pumped the basement, I'll get the furness going.
Speaker 1: We'll take three rooms. We'll get three rooms. Scare kids
Speaker 1: to go to school. And they bought it. Why not?
Speaker 1: And they ended up the kids didn't have not much
Speaker 1: to eat. We fed them in the morning and what
Speaker 1: we call ten of one rashes. There was enough rations
Speaker 1: in the case for ten guys for one day. And
Speaker 1: then the farmers didn't bring some eggs to make some
Speaker 1: eggs with it. Once in a while, the kids we
Speaker 1: bring milk and from the farm, but there was all
Speaker 1: raw milk to when I was dragon, but their kids
Speaker 1: would drink that. And they left around one or thirty
Speaker 1: or two in the afternoon, and they always give them
Speaker 1: a box of ki or ten of rashers to take
Speaker 1: home with them, because he said, mom, pod got nothing
Speaker 1: to eat, doesn't eat when we're there. From November until February, Mets,
Speaker 1: Germany was right across the river from us, and that
Speaker 1: was to speak west point for the Germans. They shell
Speaker 1: us every once in a while, but couldn't miss our children.
Speaker 1: And if you all around us the airfield and protecting
Speaker 1: this area was a railroad terminal in this town too.
Speaker 1: We want her up tower to one night just to
Speaker 1: see what it was going on and have a drink.
Speaker 1: We called her Mo. She run the hotel. The Germans
Speaker 1: have taken it over and are terrible. She used to
Speaker 1: raise chickens. They take them away, but she had a
Speaker 1: small garden to take everything out of the garden. They
Speaker 1: come in and drink, and they were out for to
Speaker 1: pay for it or anything else. I got to talking
Speaker 1: to her, and she can make it a dying good
Speaker 1: drop instead for us, like an omel or something like that.
Speaker 1: What a difference, she said, I haven't been used in
Speaker 1: four years. Who had water in it? Right up to
Speaker 1: the first of second row we had a mayor holding out.
Speaker 1: We pumped it out and use it. So we pumped
Speaker 1: the basement. Now I'll trick the first and I can
Speaker 1: remember you at Christmas time. We're only three or four
Speaker 1: miles from the front. We're all in their a USO.
Speaker 1: And when you know, one bomber comes over m h
Speaker 1: and dropped the bomb right on the main street and
Speaker 1: slipped down main street right up to the square and stopped.
Speaker 1: All our toury guys were in there with us. Nobody
Speaker 1: was watching the buns or nothing, And that's the sucker.
Speaker 1: What happened to be a dud. But the darned fool,
Speaker 1: I want to go back and see you what he hit.
Speaker 1: He comes back to. By that time, they are total.
Speaker 1: You can grown out their base and they just ride
Speaker 1: a wall off and he ready and got him. But
Speaker 1: somebody in the town tipped him off. He said he
Speaker 1: could have knocked the whole offen out. For most of
Speaker 1: the time, we lived on k rations and box apples.
Speaker 1: Who's the one I missed growing up? And said, all
Speaker 1: going into the apples just an off normity running into
Speaker 1: an apple archer. I think they were for Sayer a
Speaker 1: Marbell or Coniak or whatever they make edible. But that
Speaker 1: was the only time we run into like that. Apples.
Speaker 1: A lot of the guys orangs was the biggest thing.
Speaker 1: A lot of this regular orange. You never saw an
Speaker 1: orange or he and the most saying this home is freedom.
Speaker 1: Well we got fifty miles of Berlin with Patton's outfit.
Speaker 1: We don't know what was going on in politically. Eisenhower
Speaker 1: and Churchill and Saling, they said we're gonna let the
Speaker 1: Russian sea. Patton was really ticked. Oh he was hot.
Speaker 1: He said that, hold on, we're going south. That's where
Speaker 1: I got to know, from central York, right through central
Speaker 1: Germany right to Lens Austria and met the Russian Lens Austria. Oh,
Speaker 1: they're a rough bunch of guys. Them home for four
Speaker 1: were didn't know if they had a home or any
Speaker 1: of the family life. They ain't have a down about nothing.
Speaker 1: We canna get along with Williams. So finally a little
Speaker 1: terrisor and we could go in town one night, they
Speaker 1: could go into the town the next day. We won't
Speaker 1: going to get because we can a big who won this?
Speaker 1: Who won that? And then we were on the concentration camp.
Speaker 1: He could smell that thing five miles away. Wow, it's
Speaker 1: in central Germany. And a little town was there offered
Speaker 1: or something like that. Then we took a half track
Speaker 1: cope Tacadia. Most of the European, French, Americans, Holland and England,
Speaker 1: and they said at one time he had about four
Speaker 1: thousand and they were rough ship. They said. The Germans
Speaker 1: left about three days before. I said, how come you guys,
Speaker 1: and someone were able to He says, you're in Germany.
Speaker 1: Where you gonna go? You said, you get outside the gate,
Speaker 1: so any level to shoot you and you guys weren't
Speaker 1: there yet. We had k rashes worth when we started
Speaker 1: breaking open. The advantage comes that don't know. We'll kill
Speaker 1: them if they ate too much of it. Once there's stomach,
Speaker 1: will swalloup, give him a little bit of time. It
Speaker 1: was he could he couldn't happen. It's just devastating. Guys
Speaker 1: could hardly go. They were landing on the ground or
Speaker 1: landing in a bunker. Wouldn't barracks, you know, half of
Speaker 1: them wouldn't make it either. We talked to a couple
Speaker 1: of guys shot down in the Air Force six or
Speaker 1: eight months before that. They were in pretty good shape.
Speaker 1: But some of these guys have been here for three years.
Speaker 1: The eighth the mayor the German War is that far
Speaker 1: after the end, I mean dense preparations. Germany herd herself
Speaker 1: on Poland at the beginning of September, and in pursuance
Speaker 1: of our guarantee to Poland, and in common with the
Speaker 1: French Republic, Great Britain, the British Empire and Commonwealth of
Speaker 1: Nations declared war upon this foul aggression. After Gallant France
Speaker 1: had been struck down we from this island and from
Speaker 1: our United Empire, maintained the struggle single handed for a
Speaker 1: whole year, until we were joined by the military might
Speaker 1: of Soviet Russia and later by the overwhelming power and
Speaker 1: resorting of the United States of America. We get back
Speaker 1: to France and we said, let's go see my just
Speaker 1: went after left the last place. I went on and
Speaker 1: saw them, Hey, how about eight or ten cases a
Speaker 1: ten on? What you want doing it? And I told
Speaker 1: my story to take as many as you want. We
Speaker 1: pull up there and it was like old Company week
Speaker 1: West in February. Now this is August. Everybody in town
Speaker 1: comes running. Who are you guys? Man, Hey, ma, I
Speaker 1: got some foods for you. I took that answer her,
Speaker 1: Oh you guys, well, you have robbed the place. She
Speaker 1: didn't want to take it. She's always stole or something.
Speaker 1: They give it to us. The war is over all right,
Speaker 1: You guys will never come will never see against him
Speaker 1: suiting back when we sell or coming back to see
Speaker 1: just excatisfied because a notice and attention to go back
Speaker 1: to a lot of things to do would hold yet
Speaker 1: and we hadn't been home from two over two years.
Speaker 1: By the end of the war, six million men had
Speaker 1: left farm life, and the meanwhile, millions of women soldiers
Speaker 1: home on furlough for planting season, interred Japanese Americans, and
Speaker 1: programs developed with school children made up the difference. After
Speaker 1: the war, many returned to their farms, many others, like Bud,
Speaker 1: did not. Bud returned to Upstate, New York and worked
Speaker 1: at Curtis again for a short while. Then he went
Speaker 1: back to school and eventually became a superintendent for his town,
Speaker 1: where he worked until retirement at ninety eight. He lives
Speaker 1: up State to this day. If curious to learn more,
Speaker 1: head to Bud's page at service podcast dot org, or
Speaker 1: check out our Instagram and Facebook. We are at service podcast,
Speaker 1: where we regularly share some extra audio clips and more
Speaker 1: nerdy food history. We met Bud at a community event
Speaker 1: his Livingstone County just unveiled a new war memorial this
Speaker 1: Veteran's Day and making it brought together veteran families across
Speaker 1: many generations. In our next episode, we'll explore how such
Speaker 1: events can help our veterans talk about their war experiences
Speaker 1: and what part food plays in the conversation. Until then,
Speaker 1: I invite you to invite your loved Ones to the Table.
Speaker 1: Service is a production of I Heart Radio. This episode
Speaker 1: was produced and edited by me Jacqueline Reposo. Misty Boddiger
Speaker 1: assisted in production of this episode. Gabrielle Collins is our
Speaker 1: supervising producer. Christopher hassiotis our executive producer. Thank you to
Speaker 1: Jason Skinner of Livingstone County Veteran Services for connecting us
Speaker 1: with Bud for this episode. Thank you for listening. Don't
Speaker 1: forget to subscribe to Service on your favorite platform so
Speaker 1: you never miss an episode, and thanks for dropping a
Speaker 1: review while you're at it. Most of all, thank you
Speaker 1: to those who are serving and those who have served