Home

We sailed into the New York Harbor about noon, past the Statue of Liberty.  We all stood on deck excited; we were back! I thought to myself that I knew I’d get back.  I knew I’d done the best I could to make this all possible for me.

We expected that we’d be marched off the boat with people cheering, but nothing happened.  We stood and watched.  We couldn’t see anything but warehouses and wharves.  Then an announcement came that we would be taken off the ship on the far side, boarding small boats for New Jersey.  Our destination was Fort Dix.

In Fort Dix we were lined up for a long, long time.  I still didn’t have a watch nor did my friends so I have no idea how long we waited to have our papers checked and to be assigned to barracks.  We waited and waited again and were issued more stuff which I just left there on my cot when I left.

They were ready to feed us.  I think in the last four weeks I’d eaten more than I had for the four previous months.

Finally, we were told the phones were ready, and we could call our homes at government expense.  We all rushed to these outdoor booths and stood in line.  It was past midnight when I finally got to the phone.  I called my mother first thinking she deserved that and called Grace second.  My mother was alone with my father away.  It was great to talk to her after she stopped crying.  Then I called Grace although it was late.  The phone rang several times.  Her father answered and didn’t sound enthusiastic about such a late call until I identified myself, then he got Grace on the phone.

We were in Fort Dix only two days and then we got leave of absence.  It was the end of June, and we were to report at the end of August to quarters in Atlantic City for POW’s and amputees.  We were also reminded that we were to stay in uniform because we were still in the Army Air Force.  But all this was a long way off.  Now I was going home.  I hadn’t been there since December, 1942.

We were all going different ways.  Only Rudy and I would be going to Atlantic City and only Rudy and I to New York now, he because he lived there and I because I had to take the train from Grand Central Station to Scarsdale.  We arrived at Grand Central soon after midnight.  We said good-bye to each other.  Rudy was almost home, but I had to wait till after 6 A.M. for the next train.  I stretched out on a bench and slept till train time.  Then I was off on my last lap.  It was so comfortable to be going home.  I’d lost my concern, at least some of it.

Scarsdale looked the same.  I shouldered my duffel bag thankful that I had abandoned so much stuff.  My mother met me at the door of our apartment and really hugged me.  I called Grace then, but I had to wait to see her till later because she worked.  Now I felt as if I’d been home for days.

The next few weeks were somewhat difficult in a way different from being a POW.  Here I was in limbo--no idea when I would get out of the Army Air Force, no job prospects, no future that I could see, and only the money the Army had accumulated for me while I was a POW.  I couldn’t seem to adjust to my present life, I was confused.  I couldn’t seem to form any plan.  I did nothing but sleep and eat and attempt to reestablish my contact with others.  I didn’t want to talk about my past two years.

I had checked on my promised officer status. It had been cancelled because of my failure to show up before a committee when requested to do so.  My explanation of being unable to appear because of being a POW wouldn’t change their minds now, and I really didn’t care anymore.

It was toward the end of July when Grace and I decided to get married.  We were married on August 25, 1945, and had a short honeymoon to upper New York State.  We had to be in Atlantic City by the middle of the week after our wedding so we returned to Scarsdale for one night and then took a train to Atlantic City.

Here they were gathering all amputees and ex-POW’s from the eastern section of the country.  We were billeted in the fine hotels along the boardwalk.  Grace and I were in the married couples quarters, and my friend Rudy in the bachelor’s quarters.  We were a threesome most of the time.  Rudy waited for us in the morning and the afternoon and the evening.  We had little to do and some meetings to attend so much of our time was just spent enjoying Atlantic City.

Much to my surprise, based on the point system which they were using to decide who was entitled to discharges, at the time I had been shot down I had acquired fewer points than some personnel who had never left London, and therefore, I didn’t qualify for discharge.  I had never been anything but a misplaced civilian and wanted very badly to be discharged. Finally a ruling came through giving the POW’s the points needed for discharge.  They did press us to go into the Reserves, but even this I didn’t want.  I wanted to be strictly a civilian and get on with my life.

In September I started to look for a job while we lived on the third floor of Grace’s parents’ home, but it wasn’t until December that I got a job and made preparations to go to Chicago to live.  We decided on Evanston mostly because Grace had lived there.  We spent Christmas with our parents and left right after that for Chicago on the 20th Century.  Trains were still the way to travel and wonderfully luxurious.  I was adjusting but still felt panic if I was hungry.

We had to look for an apartment.  Many things were scarce after the war, and apartments were at a premium.  Some renters were furnishing apartments with worn cheap furniture and making renters buy the furniture before allowing them to be qualified as renters.  We couldn’t even find one of these apartments.  We got the idea of making up a card and putting it in mailboxes in apartment buildings.  We had 1,000 cards printed and distributed most of them in the area of Evanston where we wanted to live.  We received one answer, only one, and we took the apartment, a living room, a small kitchen-dinette combination, a Murphy bed in a closet and a bath.  We were happy, and this was where we lived until 1950 and where we lived when our first two babies were born.

This was also where we lived when the United States Army advised us we owed some $250 that had been overpaid to me during the war.  They offered no proof so we wrote back and asked for some explanation of this debt.  We should have just paid this, we found later, but we wanted to be sure, and this money was a lot to us then.  We heard nothing in reply to our letter.

In 1950 we moved to a house in Glenview and were in it over a year before we had another letter from the Army.  This time they claimed that they had checked the amount I owed and found it to be $500 that I had been overpaid.  Again I asked for proof.  Two years later they answered; not really, they ignored my letter and simply said that due to an accounting error they found we owed $2,500.  Now we got a lawyer, and we finally settled for $500 plus the fee to the lawyer.  We never did get an explanation.

With the settlement my part in the Air Force was finished.  Now I very seldom dreamed of the prison camps.  I could even be hungry without the desperate feeling coming over me.  We had a nice home, children, and we were very happy.

©Joseph H. Harrison 1999