The War Years: Finally Home

Army Service Forces - Transportation Corps - Army of the United States
New York Port of Embarkation
Claude E. Hoskins 39 243 452 Tech 5
826 Engineer Aviation Battalion - Army of the United States
returned to the United Stateson the ship “Queen Mary” (Cunard White Star)
which sailed from Southampton, England on 11th October, 1945
Sig. (Dallas D?) Col., T.C., Transport Commander

Finally, I got a space on the Queen Mary. This is a beautiful ship and we enjoyed this. It took us five days to cross the Atlantic and into New York. As we came into the harbor, it was beautiful, but the prettiest sight was the Statue of Liberty. As we came in, there were all kinds of boats and people, horns and fire boats with their hoses spraying. It was gorgeous.

They took us into Fort Dix and there they set us up with a big steak dinner. Boy, was that good. In Europe, food wasn’t as good as at home.

I didn’t stay there very long. The first thing they asked was who would volunteer to fly to the West Coast. I was the first one. They took us to the plane, which happened to be a two engine cargo plane. It had notched seats along both sides, similar to the seats on a machine that cuts alfalfa like when I was a kid. We headed south and had to stop to pick up gas every so often. The second stop, after getting in the air, we saw oil sliding across the window and thought maybe we had a problem. The pilot turned around and landed. The mechanics fixed the oil leak. We got back on the plane and they tried to start it. It wouldn’t, so this man gets a big tool out, sticks it into the wing and begins to crank. Evidently, it was a starter generator that takes a crank to work. Anyway, it started and we headed out again. Everything worked good until we started over the mountain range. The plane would go along and suddenly drop a few hundred feet. Your stomach would come up in your throat and give an awful feeling. Everyone around me started throwing up. It was a mess. I found out quickly that if I hollered as loud as I could on the drop, I could keep my stomach settled. I was the only one that didn’t get sick.

It took 48 hours to come from New York to Camp Beale near San Francisco. We came into Palm Springs and picked up gas. Then, to get altitude to get over the pass, we climbed and circled around for ten minutes before we could be high enough. They took us back to Camp Beale where I was discharged from the Army. They asked if I wanted to stay in the Reserves. I said NO.

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