Texas Liberators - Jerry Morgan (May 18, 2012)

SLOAN: All right, this is Stephen Sloan. The date is May 18, 2012. I'm with Mr. Jerry B. Morgan. We're doing this interview at his home in Midland, Texas. This is an interview with the Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission's Texas Liberators Project. Thank you, Mr. Morgan, for sitting down with us today. And Mazy is here as well. She's relaxing right now, so we want to keep her relaxed. I want to begin by asking you a little bit about--you were telling me some about the Morgan family, but if you could tell me a little bit about your family there in Oklahoma before we get started.

MORGAN: Well, I was--I graduated from Enid High School. Had a bunch of wonderful classmates. I aspired--my dad told me to get a job, but go to college whatever 00:01:00you did. He said the three blooming fields were entertainment, restaurants, and accounting. So I decided I would be an accountant. Well, during my senior year in high school at Christmastime, my father was killed in an auto accident. I went on--finished high school and worked at (dog barking)--Mazy, Mazy, no! Come here!--and went to work at Pillsbury Flour Mill in the summertime of 1937. It was there that my future father-in-law suggested that I might earn some money by joining the National Guard. So I became a private in the National Guard in an artillery regiment in regimental headquarters battery.

Well, I went to Oklahoma University after I graduated from high school. Mother went with us down there, rented a large home, and set up a dormitory for students. That year was a good one, successful. But, in the next summer, I went back to Oklahoma, back to Enid to work. Then, on her way back one night, she and the lady that helped her in her housekeeping ran into the back of a wagon, horse-drawn, in the middle of the night. She was killed. Well, I was determined--since my dad was so insistent on my getting an education, I was so determined that I went back to school for the next year.

But during that summer, I went to Camp--let's see, we went from Barkeley--not Barkeley, but from Abilene to Louisiana for summer maneuvers. Those were serious maneuvers in preparation of what was to be induction into the army. On the way back home, we were told that we were going to let these guys out that didn't want to go, but the rest of us would be inducted in November. So we went into the service on November 4, 1940. Our first home was at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, 00:04:00because we were in the artillery. That was the home of the artillery training. At Oklahoma University, I had had two years in military training as a reserve officer. Well, a part of what was my learning was during that camp was operating a fire direction center. In other words, we were preparing the data and the means to shoot the guns at a target. It worked pretty well. We had some good training.

So then, we went into Camp Barkeley from there. Camp Barkeley was built as a new camp at Abilene, Texas. I was sent with an advance party to Abilene to locate 00:05:00housing and everything for the unit. So when we got down there, it was being filled with recruits and new enlistments. It was kind of a confused thing, but it was more physical training than anything else. While we were there, because of the war in Africa--which was armored warfare mainly--the conception came to us that we should establish a tank destroyer battalion, which was a new concept at that time in the army.

SLOAN: Do you know the evolution of that concept?

MORGAN: No, someone in the armored forces came up with that design. Well, our first vehicles were half-tracks with a seventy-five millimeter gun mounted on 00:06:00them. That became a tank destroyer. During the maneuvers that previous summer, we had practiced with that. We put a log on a pickup and that became our gun. We would fight with that. But the concept was there even during maneuvers during that previous year.

SLOAN: And this was in a response to frustrations they were having in the field of combat?

MORGAN: Yes. So we trained at Camp Barkeley--more physical training than anything else, getting us physically in shape to be soldiers--and then came word to move and we moved to Camp Barkeley--I mean, Fort Devens in Massachusetts. 00:07:00Fort Devens was an established fort and the maneuver area in that part of the country was not all that good, but we did get into some tactical training up there. Then, in that first winter, we were moved to Pine Camp, New York, where we received a shipment of M-10s. That was our first shipment. The temperature only happened to get down to forty degrees below zero and the tracks on those M-10s froze to the bed of the railroad car and we had difficulty getting them 00:08:00unloaded. That was our introduction to the M-10.

SLOAN: What'd you think of the M-10?

MORGAN: Well, obviously we knew nothing about it because we'd never experienced it before. But we were happy to have it because it looked as if it was going to be something that we could use and handle. But being an artilleryman and being trained as an artilleryman, we knew very little about the mechanics of the gun. We had been there during the winter and just a little bit before Christmastime, there were several of us that were sent to Camp Hood. Camp Hood was a beginning of the training for the tank destroyers. While we were there, we got a good bit of tactical training, how to use and how to combat with that particular vehicle. 00:09:00It was good.

But meanwhile, the division had moved to Camp Pickett, Virginia, in preparation to go overseas. So I went from there, from Camp Hood, to Fort Pickett, Virginia. We were doing training there with our M-10s, and our purpose there was to learn how to load it on an LST. An LST was a Landing Ship, Tank which was nothing more than a great big tub. It would hold about a--almost a company of tank destroyers or twelve vehicles on its main deck. It had huge doors on the front that opened, and we would pull up on the beach and then debark from there. Well, training was 00:10:00new to both the navy and to us just as far as how we were going to operate. It was more experimenting than anything else.

One little incident that happened was that we had what was called a flotilla of the ships, and they were in command of a commodore. I don't know what a commodore's responsibility was, but he was the fleet commander. We sailed from Martha's Vineyard--we went out to an island to practice landing. The command came over the loudspeaker, "Now hear this." He said, "There will be a sound, a 00:11:00horn sound, and the gates will open on the front, and I want these vehicles off of here immediately." So we approached the island, the ship hit the sand, the horn sounded, the doors opened, and my first tank went off. But all that was showing after he departed from the ship was a machine gun above the water. We had hit a small reef. That was the beginning of our training, but then (laughs), we did more than that. The good part of it was that a couple of years later in Europe, I got a letter from the quartermaster--no, from ordnance telling me that I owed $80,000 for that tank. I took the letter to my commanding officer, and I 00:12:00said, "Sir, what am I to do with this? I don't have the money and don't have the means." He said, "Well, let me take care of it." He tore it into small bits. (Sloan laughs) That's the last we heard from it.

Anyway, from there we went up to Massachusetts and did some more amphibious training. We went back to Camp Pickett and departed from there. We went aboard a--the vehicles were transported on LSTs, but the troops, our troops were on a cargo ship--well, actually a luxury Swedish liner which had been converted for army use. We landed at Mers-el-Kébir, Africa. We got a little bit of training 00:13:00there, but then, from there, we went to--well, I've forgotten the name of the port where we departed--but from there, we went to Italy, Salerno. Well, I was still a staff officer at that time, but one of the things that impressed me about war was that our ship landed, and our tanks went off, and I was still aboard, up on deck, and an eighty-eight millimeter round went into the bow of a ship that was within twenty yards of us on our right and blew a hole big enough 00:14:00to drive a car through. That was my introduction to the war. On that LST was an L-1 aircraft, small aircraft for observation. It wasn't harmed, but it sure did destroy that ship.

Anyway, from there we went on north to various places: Benevento, Caserta. We got to the Volturno River where everything quieted down across the river from Monte Cassino. We were stagnated there. They withdrew us back to Naples to load 00:15:00to go to Anzio, and that was a new experience. We got aboard and got ashore safely, no problems whatsoever. Then, our corps commander decided that we were going to hold the little land that we had acquired. Well, Anzio was surrounded by mountains on the north and to the northeast. It gave the Germans time to set up a defense against us. So we sat there until May being shot and returned some shooting.

I spent 515 days in combat, and the worst I ever got hurt was on Anzio. I had 00:16:00become a company commander by that time. And I had driven one of my tanks through the backside, or the shoreside, of a two-story building, a farmhouse, putting me inside the building to where he could shoot out the window during the day, if needed, and could come out and maneuver at nighttime. We had an aircraft that came over almost at an appointed time every night, and he would drop what were called butterfly bombs. It was a case that contained small parachute-equipped bombs that would detonate as they hit the ground. It was an anti-personnel thing. Well, I could hear the aircraft coming, and I knew I 00:17:00better get into cover. Well, one of--it was nighttime and dark, and I ran for the front door to go into the building, and someone had left a gasoline can on the steps. I hit it with my shin. (claps; laughs) But that was the worst that I was ever hurt during--

SLOAN: Ouch.

MORGAN: --during the war. But anyway, that didn't have anything to do with the story.

SLOAN: Well, I'd like to go back and ask a couple questions if I could. I'd like to go back--you talked about your decision to enlist in November of 1940, or to not get out. You were already part of the National Guard, Oklahoma National Guard.

MORGAN: Yeah, I couldn't get out.

SLOAN: You couldn't get out.

MORGAN: I was committed.

SLOAN: Yeah, you were committed. I'd like to ask about your physical training at Camp Barkeley. What sorts of things were you doing at Camp Barkeley?

MORGAN: Well, let's go back--yeah, at Camp Barkeley. It was physical exercise action, and then there were some mesas around Abilene that--we would put on our full field equipment and hike to those. And a twenty-five mile hike was not unusual to climb to the top of those mesas and back. We did that with frequency. Believe me, it put you in shape. Some of that equipment would weigh--oh, as I remember, would weigh up to around fifty, sixty pounds.

SLOAN: Well, once you got to Camp Hood and you were able to really work with the M-10s, what was your impression?

MORGAN: No, there were no M-10s at Camp Hood.

SLOAN: Camp Hood.

MORGAN: It was all theory.

SLOAN: It was all theory at that point.

MORGAN: And classroom about how to defend and--

SLOAN: You got them in New York.

MORGAN: Got them in New York. That's it, yes sir.

SLOAN: In New York, yeah. Well, once you were able to get the M-10s, can you tell me a little bit about--you talked about tactical maneuvers you were practicing. What were some of the things you were working on?

MORGAN: Well, we were learning the equipment--how to drive the thing in the first place. It was operated by handle--sticks, I should say. If you wanted to turn left, you'd pull the left stick. It stopped that track on that side, and this track brought you around. The top speed on it was about thirty, thirty-five miles an hour. Believe me, when you were going that speed, you were flying in 00:20:00that hunk of iron. We had a--there was a .50 caliber machine gun that was mounted on the turret. We had to learn how to use that. The .50 caliber was new to us at that time. It had a crew of four: a driver, assistant driver, and two gunners. We had to learn the procedures that were set out for us of how to operate it. Then there was the matter of shooting it, learning how to lay the gun, how to sight it to a target, how to lay the gun and shoot it from there. (phone rings) Excuse me just a minute.

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SLOAN: We were talking about the operation of an M-10, where you were getting 00:21:00trained on using the M-10--tactical maneuvers with it.

MORGAN: Okay, it was--of course, we were limited in space as to what we could do as far as deployment of a whole battalion. At that time, we had no conception of the actual use that we were going to make up. The biggest thing that we learned to do--our main effort was to learn how to shoot it. We had two rounds. One was a solid slug and the other one was a high explosive. Those rounds were entirely different in their manner of reaching the target. The trajectory was different. The effect was different. One had a fuse on it that you could set that'd cause 00:22:00it to explode above ground or have it hit the ground and then explode. So these were little things that we had to learn.

SLOAN: Well, I know a key feature of the M-10 was how maneuverable and nimble it was.

MORGAN: Yes, sir. It had a twin-diesel motor. Believe it or not, those were motors that were used in cotton gins to process cotton bolls. That's what they were designed for. The gun was a three-inch naval gun. We learned all of the characteristics of it, but the important part to us was how are we going to do this when we get overseas in combat?

SLOAN: Well, did you assume you were going to be doing desert warfare? With--

MORGAN: Well no, but that's all we knew. All of the information we had was how the desert warfare had been conducted. Our training at Camp Hood, our session at Camp Hood was characteristically using maybe a platoon at a time rather than a company at a time. So that was our main training. We were poorly trained for what was to come. Not because of lack of facilities and people, but lack of knowledge.

SLOAN: Yeah. Well, how was the passage over for you--The Atlantic passage for you?

MORGAN: Oh, elegant. We had fine quarters. Ate in a beautiful dining room. We did have some problems. We had escort equipment along with us. There were 00:24:00several incidents and submarines that were in the area. I remember one incident of an aircraft that had pontoons on it that was launched and he returned--I saw him return--it was just off of our bow and we could see every bit of it. He landed on a--let's see, it would be on our outside of the ship, but they never brought him ashore--never brought him aboard, I mean. So we don't know what happened to him, but he didn't make it. That was the only incident of any consequence that we had during the voyage.

The landing at Mers-el-Kébir was quiet. There wasn't any problem there. The town was on a cliff. I'm going to say about--oh, maybe 150 feet above the docks. And it was hot. We got off of the ship on the dock and had to go up an incline up to the town. Believe me, we could have used any kind of deodorant then. It was torture. We had been eight days without any activity at all, and it was--but when we got up to Mers-el-Kébir, we went into a bivouac outside of the town. That was our introduction to the Arab people. Everything was new to us, and we 00:26:00were just curious about everything. We were treated well there by the natives. They were poor, very poor. Our guys were quick to give them chocolate bars and cigarettes and this kind of thing. So we did no maneuver training there at Mers-el-Kébir.

The next thing was that we made an overland hike to--I can't remember the name of that town. Anyway, we got to the port of debarkation and we were going to spend the night and embark the next day. We were right on the shore, and our bivouac area was between a bunch of lights used to sight enemy aircraft and a 00:27:00gun emplacement. They were about 150 yards apart, and we were between them. Sure enough, here came our friends from Germany at that night. I had received a pair of white pajamas from my wife a couple weeks ago, a couple weeks before that, and I had those on. I had dug a slit trench, and here I was laying in the ground in the slit trench in white pajamas. There was this light on looking at the guy up here, and with the gun shooting at him. I was laying right in the middle. Well, you can imagine what was going on. Anyway, we survived the night, but they did eliminate both the guns and their lights.

SLOAN: Oh, did they? Wow.

MORGAN: The next day, we got aboard ship.

SLOAN: But not you.

MORGAN: No, no.

SLOAN: Even though you were a pretty good target in those white pajamas.

MORGAN: (laughs) That's an excellent thought. Anyway, the next day we got aboard ship. Then we traveled overnight and landed at Salerno. It was about eight o'clock in the morning. Then from there we went on up to Naples. We bypassed Naples and went on north. We got to Benevento--I mean, to the Volturno River, and everything bogged down there. It just kind of stabilized. That's when they pulled us out and prepared us to go to Anzio.

SLOAN: Were you facing any resistance as you went up the peninsula there in Italy?

MORGAN: Oh, you bet. And that's where we began to develop this method of operation where we'd put a tank destroyer--the command came from division to battalion to company. The regiment would have an objective to reach. When that was reached, then we would await the next objective. Well, it got to be a day-to-day's work. We would fight all day and, if we'd accomplished our mission, we had to wait for orders for the next objective. That began to develop into this combat team that we worked so well with in Europe. When we went to Anzio, of course, that all changed up. We were on the defensive the whole time.

One of the things that I remember well about Anzio was that the artillery developed what they'd call Time on Target, which meant that every gun that could reach a target would be given an order to fire at a particular time. So when a Time on Target began, every gun that could reach that target would fire in interval, or a prescribed distance. If you've ever thought about what hell would look like, that's what it would look like. It just destroyed everything in the area. Because I was an artilleryman, and I had borrowed what's called an 00:31:00azimuth, an instrument to lay the gun for shooting fire indirectly, I could shoot on some of those targets. When we had our guns dug in, they were buried just--the gun was all that was showing above the ground. So that was our principle mission during the time we were on Anzio.

SLOAN: I see. Now, once you got into Italy, the tank destroyers--how are they working in relation with the tank battalions and the infantry?

MORGAN: Well, that's what I say. We began to develop our combat team.

SLOAN: I see.

MORGAN: I would be assigned--as a company commander, I would be assigned to an infantry battalion. I would take a platoon, or four tanks, and make them disposable to the company commander who was leading the offense. They would 00:32:00mount these men up on a tank, and we would go down the road until we met resistance. Then, at the moment we met resistance, the infantry would deploy. We would begin to search for targets. We would stay there until we could outflank them, the opposition. That was our principle use during the whole war other than the artillery use on Anzio.

SLOAN: I know Anzio was quite different.

MORGAN: Yes. We were in a fixed position. Couldn't do anything. Couldn't go anywhere except down under the ground. We were quite adept at that. Then, from there, we loaded up. Well, they sent us back to a port town out east of Naples 00:33:00to get cleaned up and prepared for the launch to Southern France. We were there about a week getting new equipment and new clothes and getting our guys in shape. While we were there, I went to a nightclub one night and met a navy guy that was in command of a minesweeper. We got along well. Had a few drinks together. (dog barking) He and--Mazy, no! No! Come back here. He invited me to breakfast aboard his ship the next morning. It was a delightful time. My company 00:34:00executive officer and I had breakfast with him. We got to the shore in Southern France. We were on an LST, and who should cross our bow except this minesweeper. I hollered and hollered and hollered at him, but I couldn't get his attention. He was on the deck of his ship. Anyway, we went from there--we loaded on a part of the port in Naples to go to Southern France.

The landing at Southern France was uneventful. We had the guns and the means and the navy to turn the shore into rubble. Any defense there was lost. We got 00:35:00ashore and started out and went north towards Nancy, France. That was our main objective. Well, we were going on one main highway--I think it was the 179th Infantry that we were supporting--and about twenty kilometers to the west of us, the German Army was in retreat, going the same direction we were. Well, we got to Mülhausen, I believe was the name of the town, and the infantry commander said, "Captain Morgan, I wish you would take some tanks and go down this road as far as you can go." Well, that road took me through the Swiss Alps, and I went 00:36:00to the Swiss border. I had four tanks. We took--we were hanging on the side of the Alps with a tank unit. Every once in a while, I would look to see if one of them had fallen over, but we got to this little town and we couldn't go any further. But you talk about a reception now. We had a beautiful reception.

SLOAN: They were happy to see the Allies.

MORGAN: Oh, were they happy. So we got back, and then we went on a little farther. We were given the mission to defend the bridge at a little community called Meximieux, France. And it's written up in that book. What they wanted us to do was to stop the Germans from coming into our flank. There was a bridge and a stream that ran through the town. It was there that we defended quite well. 00:37:00Our whole company received a star for their performance. Anyway, we went on up to--

SLOAN: Well now, can you take me through that?

MORGAN: Sir?

SLOAN: Can you tell me a little bit more about that process?

MORGAN: That operation?

SLOAN: Yeah, that operation.

MORGAN: Well, there was one main road from the west coming into this little town. The road went--continued east towards our main road. Our objective was to hold that bridge so they didn't cross. Well, coming into the town, there was a road that kind of curved up to the north and then there was one that went 00:38:00straight through. Well, my platoon commander had deployed his tanks in the little town in the buildings. There was another platoon that was deployed up on the road that went north. Well, I had a platoon that was in the north end of the town, some distance away from the population area. What I was concerned with was defending a stretch of road that was coming in from the west. And it was raining. And I had met the forward artillery observer in the town. Had a little discussion with him.

And I was at the platoon up above when four German tanks--I could see them on 00:39:00the road coming into town from the west. And I didn't want to give the position away for these tank destroyers, so I called--I was on the radio--and I called this observer, and I said, "Can you shoot these guys coming into town?" And he said, "Sure." And because it was raining, they couldn't get off of the road. Well, we were able to blow away those four, but that night they got around those four tanks and came into town. One of the tanks in the town was facing the east with his back end towards the approaching tanks. They came into town and went past him. They didn't see him. He let a round go about as far from here almost 00:40:00to your car and caught this Mark VI in the back end and blew it away. And then, of course, when the crew got out, they let them have it. And then the platoon up on the north road were situated to where they could pick off what was coming in to town, and they stopped the whole operation right there in that little town.

But meanwhile, the Germans were able to blow that bridge. They got enough troops in there, and they blew the bridge. Well, that didn't hurt us any except that they--they were afraid of us, and we were afraid of them. But when the bridge was blown, they withdrew. Then, of course, we withdrew the next day. But had they been able to get those tanks across the bridge, we would have suffered some consequences. But it was such close reaction to danger that those guys responded 00:41:00to that they were all that brave and earned the Silver Stars.

The rest of it going on up into France--well, just this kind of operation that I was talking about. It would just be--we would go to an objective and then we'd get orders and go the next day. We went to--got to Nancy and then we turned east. It was just the same thing day after day. But we got to--the war was winding down and we got to Nuremburg. And that, for us in our sector, that was 00:42:00the last main scrap. We had a full day of getting shot at and--

SLOAN: So there was a period there when they weren't offering as much of resistance but they--

MORGAN: Well, they were offering resistance in every little community. Every crossroad community had an antitank gun or an artillery battalion or at least a platoon of infantry just to delay what we were doing. Then, they were having main areas of operation like the one at the Bulge and those kind of--but we got to Nuremburg and got that settled and then we--our combat team got together, and the objective the next day was Dachau.

SLOAN: Well, before we get to Dachau, what happened at Nuremburg during that day 00:43:00of fighting? What do you remember most about that?

MORGAN: Well, the thing that I remember most about it was--I had command of the battalion at that time. All of my units were assigned as support infantry units. So my main job was to keep in touch by radio and by mobile contact with them. There was a--artillery regiment, an army regiment--I mean battalion, not a regiment--of howitzers that were real good people. They supported us in a lot of situations. I got the word--well, no, I was standing beside the road and here came a jeep with that battalion commander with his helmet off and with a bullet 00:44:00hole through his head. I just--it just upset me to the point of where I thought, We've got to do something. So I climbed into a half-track, a supply half-track, ammunition supply half-track that had a .50 caliber machine gun mounted. And I got out, and I said, "Let's go. Let's go see what we can stir up here." So we got to the point of where these snipers were and--I could tell where the fire was coming from, so I let them have it with the .50 caliber. The machine gun was mounted on a ring to where we could shoot it 360 degrees. I was shooting the gun, and I stopped to reload, and a round hit on that ring right that close to 00:45:00my face. That was another incident that I don't know how I escaped. But anyway, we cleaned that up and burned the building that they were in, the farmhouse, and went back and rejoined the outfit.

Well, the next day I knew was going to be different. We had heard all kinds of rumors about concentration camps, about how they treated people and what they did to them. One of the rumors that I remember was that they made lampshades out of human skin. Well, that sounded kind of far-fetched. But anyway, the next day we were good to go from Nuremburg to Dachau and to come into Dachau from the northeast. And my approach unit was with the 158th Infantry. I borrowed--from my 00:46:00reconnaissance company, I borrowed an M-8, got in it, and started south on that road. I got to main east-west road that would lead me into Dachau. The objective was the camp, but there was a little community called Dachau. So I kept thinking, maybe we could get into, approach Dachau from the south. Our feeling was at this point that the German Army was pretty much in disarray, and that they had decided that they were being beaten pretty badly. We really didn't 00:47:00anticipate much opposition, so I wasn't too afraid of wandering off by myself. So we got into the city of Dachau. It was a small town, but I noticed this one beautiful mansion there, about a three-story building. And I thought, Well, that's the bürgermeister's house.

Anyway, there was a camp entry--I went on past that a little bit--and there was a railroad that was headed north, northeast. Dachau camp was just a--oh, less than a half a mile from the town of Dachau. So I told the driver to get on the railroad track and let's see where it would take us. It took us into Dachau. As we were going in on the railroad track, here is the main road, the main entrance 00:48:00into the camp from the town of Dachau. A tree-lined road. I didn't want to go in that way because I knew that if there was any resistance, it would be there, along there. So we just kept inching our way into town--or into the camp, and where it took us was to the ovens that were a part of the camp. It was well-paved on both sides of the track, and the ovens were well-built. And there were three gondola cars there. Well, we couldn't see--from where we were, we couldn't see into them. So I had the driver drive up alongside one of them. We both got out and got up on the deck of the M-8 and looked in. Believe me, the 00:49:00Holocaust existed. They were loaded with bodies. The bodies still had their uniforms on, but they were purposely put there for putting into the ovens. The whole truth became evident at that time.

SLOAN: So these are three railcars?

MORGAN: Yes, sir.

SLOAN: And when you say uniforms, you mean the striped uniforms?

MORGAN: Yes, the striped. Uh-huh. Well, we--that was enough at that point. So I said, "Come on. Let's go move into camp and see what we can see." So we went--we drove along this well-paved street, I guess about--oh, maybe 300 yards. We came 00:50:00to the first fence. It was about a ten-foot fence. Behind it were, as I recall, about five men in uniform. But they were kind of mute. They weren't exuberant or fearful or anything. They were just--you know, just had an indifferent feeling. There were no German soldiers in evidence anywhere. I think that because of Dachau being--I mean the previous day's battle--I think they had all evacuated. I was surprised at the low number of people that were in the quarters behind these buildings. Or that we saw. To the left were some barracks-like buildings. This idea of skins on lamps was in my mind. And I thought, Let's go see what we 00:51:00might see. So I went into one of the buildings and the first thing I came to was an office. It was very well furnished, neat. There was, of course, no one there. But I didn't know--but what maybe later in the camps there might be some other people. I knew that I had no business being there. There wasn't anything I could do for those people.

So we turned around and went back out the main gate to the city of Dachau. And it was there that I--I knew we weren't going any farther than that because other units had liberated Munich which was just down the road a bit. Munich would be 00:52:00the next objective, and we wouldn't be a part of it. So when I went out, I stopped at this big house I was talking about. Sure enough, it was the bürgermeister's house. His wife was there; he wasn't there, his wife was there. I had an interpreter, and I asked her where her husband was. She didn't know. And I said, "Well, okay. You have two hours to pack whatever you want to take with you and turn the house over to us. We're going to use it for a command post." It was no objection, no lamentation, no nothing. We went back about three hours later, and the house was vacant. Beautiful place. We stayed there about 00:53:00three days until we were given further orders.

SLOAN: When you said you went out the main gate when you left the camp, did you go through the camp to go out the main gate?

MORGAN: No.

SLOAN: No.

MORGAN: I didn't really know what to expect in the camp. And of course, we couldn't communicate with any of the prisoners because we couldn't speak the language. I had an interesting meeting with a fellow here in Midland about--oh, it was back in the spring. I went to a symphony concert and behind me was a 00:54:00Church of Christ minister that I vaguely knew. He introduced me to his guest who was a German Church of Christ minister who lived in that area. We had a little short discussion about Dachau. I told him that I had been there. He made the comment that most people assumed that that was a Jewish camp. He said yes, there were some Jews there, but the main part, the main use of that camp was for crime--people that committed major crimes--and for political prisoners. They were all treated the same, which was finally execution. It wasn't principally for Jewish people.

SLOAN: You mentioned--how did you know those were the ovens you mentioned? Did you go into that area?

MORGAN: There was no mistaking them. There was absolutely no mistaking them. 00:55:00They were--I would say they were--the tops of them--it was round like this. I'd say the top of them were about eight feet tall. There was an opening that went into them. There was--oh, as I recall--it was a diameter of about two-and-a-half feet. And below were the iron doors where the fuel was put in. There was no question about what the use of it was. I don't know.

SLOAN: Well, while you're there in Dachau, did you go back out to the camp any?

MORGAN: No. By that time, the 158th and other people approaching from different directions had landed in the camp, and I had no command whatsoever there, except 00:56:00just the guys in my own troops and bivouac them. We did have an interesting incident later on. We went into Munich on this main road from Haar, and we went past the railroad yards in Munich. And believe me, our bombers had destroyed those railroad yards. We went through the main part of the town, but there was not any other evidence of destruction. So they were pinpointing those railroad yards. I don't think Munich had anything of a defensive nature in its operation. 00:57:00We went on down east toward Berchtesgaden to a little town named Haar, H-double a-r. That was our assigned bivouac area. Well, we went into it, and it looked like--the closest thing I can compare it to would be a Kentucky horse farm. Beautiful, but it had one building that was about three stories tall. It was a studio for a sculptor. This was where all the propaganda sculptures were made. 00:58:00The house itself was one big room. On one end, on the entrance end, there were about three bedrooms up above.

Well, it also had a swimming pool to it. Well, some of our guys turned the horses loose, and one of the guys rode across the swimming pool because it looked like it had been filled in with dirt. One of the guys rode across that on his horse, and it sounded like it was hollow underneath. So a bunch of the soldiers got their shovels out and uncovered a Mercedes-Benz roadster that had been put in--that Germans had covered up. It was while we were there that they 00:59:00brought the many generals of the southern German Army to surrender at that place. We received orders one day--I guess it was from the corps--he said, "Major, we're going to ask you to post two tanks at the entryway." He said, "I want the rest of your men to stay out of sight, carry their arms with them, and conceal themselves, but do not make appearance because there's going to be a meeting." We didn't know what the meeting was, but we later learned that it was a surrender of the southern army.

SLOAN: You mentioned "major." We skipped your promotion. You got a promotion in April.

MORGAN: Yeah, as I was telling you, my battalion commander was the son of Warren Austin who was the United States representative. He had become pretty well known, so they thought his son would be a good guy to come home and sell bonds. That was when I was made battalion commander. So you'd say I was the first man in and the last man out. Literally, I was the last man out because I developed a green apple tummy ache, and it turned out to be appendicitis.

SLOAN: Oh no.

MORGAN: I was there six weeks longer than I was supposed to be.

SLOAN: Well, I want to ask you about V-E Day when you heard of the German 01:01:00surrender. What are your memories of that?

MORGAN: Well, nothing in particular because we were seeing the German Army lessening. We knew that they couldn't last, and it was just a matter of time before they began to surrender and give up what they had. What they were trying to do was to protect the guys that were left. We had already begun to capture large amounts of them. While we were at Dachau, there was a German prison camp that our guys had established just a little ways from Dachau. They had them in an open field, and there were guards and they had some half-tracks with machine 01:02:00guns on them at the corners. They had guards that were patrolling the perimeter. Well, one of my--my first sergeant of my A Company that I had commanded went to that camp to see if he could find somebody that could cook. He found a German that had lived in the Bronx. They turned him loose. He talked him out. They turned him loose, and he came to the house at Dachau to cook for us. Real nice guy. Of course, when we had orders to leave, we had to take him back to the camp.

But this was kind of what was shaping up at the end of the war. V-E Day didn't turn us on at all. All we were interested in was getting home. They had a points 01:03:00system. You gained points for time, for combat time, for different battles, and this kind of thing. You had to have seventy points to be among the first to be sent home. I'd already accumulated 128 points. And I was ready to be among the first when I got this tummy ache. (both laugh) But I did get home later on. Went to Marseille, got aboard an army transport, and got home and landed at Fort Dix. You know, it's hard to describe what your reaction is to all of that. I had 01:04:00never had any desire to talk about it because I saw one of my very good friends get shot through the heart standing next to me. I thought, How in the world am I ever going to explain what happened to this guy? I was placing the blame on myself for him being there. I was a company commander, and he was a staff officer come to see what was going on.

Well, another thing that happened. I had a platoon commander that was a real quiet type, very efficient, and a good commander. I've forgotten where it was 01:05:00now, but we were in a pass, kind of a cut in the side of the road. We got--started getting mortar fire. We all jumped in a shallow ditch to get out of the way. It went on for some time. When we got up, this guy came up to me and he said, "Captain, that's all. That's enough." And I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Do whatever you will with me, but I'm not--I can't handle this." Well, I could see what his problem was. He just gave up. He couldn't--and I called the 01:06:00medics and had him evacuated. I never knew what happened to him after that, but he literally had had more than he could handle.

SLOAN: Yeah, but on some level you understood what he meant.

MORGAN: Yes. So you're reluctant. After you go through those kind of things, then you're reluctant to even recall them, let alone talk about them. After this passing of time, you look back and say, Well, okay. So we survived.

SLOAN: Well, you know, a lot of the liberators that we've talked to have had difficulty talking about them, but I think the statement that you made when you looked into that railcar and you said, "There was a Holocaust." It's important that that's recorded, and it's important that that's remembered. That's one of 01:07:00the reasons why it's important for you to talk about it.

MORGAN: Well, afterthought was--and this was evidence that the war was at an end. I began to think about, well, why--how long had those people been in there? They couldn't have been in there over twenty-four hours. Otherwise, they would have begun to spoil. They were still in their clothing. So our timing there was such that, oh my God. Panic set in, and they took off. This was what they were doing at the time they took off. But this was evidence that there was a Holocaust. Now, we had not been exposed--in my organization, we had not been 01:08:00exposed to anything but rumors up until this time. Those rumors were kind of wild and wooly and went in different directions. You never knew what was exact and what wasn't. That answered all of the questions you might ever have.

SLOAN: Did it shift for you what the war was about?

MORGAN: Oh, I don't think so.

SLOAN: Or shift how you viewed the enemy?

MORGAN: The indoctrination that we had when we went in to service was, this is what Hitler has done. We can't let him do any more. We've got to go over and stop him. This was kind of the approach that our people took to being over 01:09:00there. In the beginning it was--in the training days and in the beginning of approach, it was kind of like a lark, an adventure. But when I saw that round hit that LST next to me, I decided this was war for keeps. The next day after the landing, I was supposed to have set up a command post for the battalion. Well, our troops were scattered in all directions. I mean, our tanks were scattered. So I went to see if I could find some of the commanders. One of the things that I saw that really brought the war home was here was an American tanker whose tank had burned. He got out and he made it to a tree, and he sat 01:10:00down at the tree and apparently pulled his helmet over his face. But he was on fire, and he died there. Believe me, that tells you that there is a war going on.

My instinct was, whatever you can do, not as a staff officer, get busy doing something. The only thing that I could think of was that we were on the Sele River where the Sele comes in to the ocean. Our troops were on the left of the river and the Thirty-Sixth Division was on the right of the river. What we were careful of was that there was a crossing, kind of a diagonal crossing across the 01:11:00river. The only thing I could think of was I knew where there was an ammunition dump. So I went back and borrowed a half-track and got some mines and took them up and laid them on that crossing. That's the only thing I could think of to do because I didn't know where my commanding officer was or where any of my unit was. I left there and went up the hill to a hilltop and there was an artillery observer up there.

I said, "What's your principle target?" He said, "Well, it's just target of opportunity." I said, "Could you fire an interdiction on that crossing down there?" "Well, I don't know. That's pretty close." I said, "Well, there is a possibility that the Germans will come across that thing or try to get across it tonight. If you can register on that there where you can shoot at it if 01:12:00something happens, it sure would be good." "Well, let's try it and see." He said, "Now, the only problem is I don't know whether that round will clear where we're standing. You want to take a chance?" I said, "Well, sure. Let's go." So he fired a round down there and shot about three more rounds to adjust to the roadside up and down. So I left there with the feeling that, by golly, they couldn't get across that river, that stream. So, you know, this was an introduction to what war was about.

SLOAN: You said it earlier that, at some point, you're fighting to get home.

MORGAN: Yeah. Well, after that period of time, we were all anxious to get home.

SLOAN: What was the reception like at Fort Dix when you got--

MORGAN: I remember a sign above the cafeteria door. "Take all you want, but eat all you take." Fresh milk, fresh lettuce, fresh carrots. (laughs) Everything that we had to eat was prepared and dry. Our C ration, what we called it--well, we had a K ration that was in a little Cracker Jack box. We would go for a week at a time on those things. It would have dehydrated, prepared bar of some kind. 01:14:00But the main part of it was three cigarettes in the package, labeled Pioneer. That was what we got out first, was the three cigarettes.

SLOAN: So you got back to Fort Dix. Then how long were you at Fort Dix before you got to come--before your discharge?

MORGAN: I think maybe twenty-four hours. My family was up in Minneapolis. They put us on a train that headed up that way.

SLOAN: That was a good reception, too, I bet.

MORGAN: Yeah.

SLOAN: They were happy to see you.

MORGAN: Yeah, I had a little two-year-old daughter. "Hello Daddy, I'm glad you're home." That was a great day.

SLOAN: Were you able to correspond with them during the war?

MORGAN: Well, yeah. What'd they call them--not e-mails. It was all scrutinized. You couldn't give away any information, but yeah, we got mail. It was difficult at times. You were in battle, and there was no way you could get mail at that time. If they would put you in bivouac or if you were bivouacked awaiting the next assignment, sometimes you could get mail. And you might get six or seven or eight letters all at one time.

SLOAN: Did you go back to school after that?

MORGAN: Yes, sir. Sure did.

SLOAN: Where'd you go to school?

MORGAN: Oklahoma University.

SLOAN: You went back to Oklahoma? Okay. And so you finished your degree there?

MORGAN: My daughter says it took me thirteen years to get my degree. I went back for one full semester. I got back in time. I couldn't get in in the fall semester, so I went in the spring semester, got ready to graduate, and they told me that I lacked nine hours because, in high school, I had taken some courses that didn't count credits. I was in an accounting office in Abilene, and I didn't have everything that I needed so--they had a pretty good accounting department at Abilene Christian College. So I thought, Well, I'll just go out part time and take some college and some information up in there. Got out there, and my professor was a professor that I had had at Oklahoma. He said, "What are 01:17:00you doing here?" I told him and he said, "Well, I'll tell you what. When you get through with these classes, you send your transcript from here up there and petition for a degree." That's how I got my degree. I sent the letter and they wrote back and said, Send ten dollars and you'll be in the next graduating class. So that's how I got a degree.

SLOAN: As we were talking about earlier, you lived in Abilene. You stayed in Abilene for a while.

MORGAN: Yes, sir.

SLOAN: Did you have an accounting practice there or what--

MORGAN: I was part of an accounting practice. Meanwhile, my father-in-law--while he was stationed there--had met--he was an employee of Pillsbury Flour Mills in Minneapolis. He had met some of the businessmen there. Among them was one whose family and a couple of other friends owned this feed mill. Well, they talked him 01:18:00into coming back and buying into this feed mill. Well, when I got out of school, he said, "Come on down here. I need you. We've got a job for you." So that's how I happened to be in Abilene.

SLOAN: I see.

MORGAN: Ended up closing up that business a number of years later.

SLOAN: That was with the OSHA--is that what we were talking about earlier?

MORGAN: Yeah, they were brand new then and boy, they were high and mighty.

SLOAN: Well, Mr. Morgan, is there something I should have asked you that we didn't cover? Is there any questions that I should have asked you about your service that we didn't get a chance to cover?

MORGAN: Oh, I don't think of any. I think that the attitude all the way through 01:19:00was such that, we have a job to do. All you had to do was to say to a guy, "Hey, we need to do this." "Yes, sir." And it got done. There were never--I never had anybody say, "Well, what are we doing that for?" I think that's really what put us through what we were doing. It was a national intent that everybody participated in.

SLOAN: Yeah, everyone was focused on one goal, yeah.

MORGAN: Right.

SLOAN: I think Robert may have a question he'd like to ask you.

DeBOARD: Yeah, I'd like to go back to North Africa a little bit and--if you can, 01:20:00kind of, describe--because it seems like that would be with a predominantly Muslim society at the time--I mean, even if it's French colonial, seems like it would be the biggest culture shock that you would have--kind of, North Africa. If you could describe your interactions with the North Africans and your time there a little bit more.

MORGAN: Well, of course, we were isolated pretty much. But on the way to Bizerte--that's where we were going--we camped, we bivouacked one night. We had a guard posted. We had the whole battalion in one area. We were sleeping on cots, believe it or not. The officers had cots with them, of all things. Well, 01:21:00we set up camp and had dinner--the mess made dinner. That night, the camp was infiltrated--by how many we don't have any way of knowing. But they swiped shoes, they swiped clothes, they swiped equipment, and the guards had no idea how that happened. We had very little contact with them as a matter of fact, but that was the one experience that we had.

But I do remember--while we were in that bivouac area, I remember an Arab lady walking down the road with a jar that had to be that high sitting on a towel on the top of her head, and she was walking at a normal pace. Now, whether that was 01:22:00full of water or not, I don't know, but she was well-practiced in what she was doing. But this was kind of the way they were living in that area. I think they're doing better today, but--I did have one occasion to be--my company was attached to the--what they called the Second DIM, which was an Arab battalion. They told a story about those guys that, at night, they would go up to enemy lines, and they would rub their hands over the helmets of the enemy and, if it was smooth, they'd cut their throat. If it was sandy, it was an American. Now, that was the story that was told, but that's how stealthy those guys were. And 01:23:00they were unique in the whole theater of operation. They were moved around, but they participated. So there were some incidents in the war that were good ones.

SLOAN: Well, Mr. Morgan, we want to thank you for your time, but we want to thank you for your service.

MORGAN: But what I wanted to do is to take you guys out to lunch.

SLOAN: We're going to go out there with you for lunch, so--

MORGAN: Okay.

SLOAN: Thank you.

MORGAN: Okay, good.

end of interview