Back in 1942 and Africa life was pretty normal except that I was working for the army instead of working for the telephone company. We had an officer’s club, and at one time we had 100 signal officers all in one place. We had dances and we got acquainted with the local population.

In fact I got married over there!

My wife’s name is Andree. I had to get the generals’ approval to get married so this wasn’t a rush job. We were billeted in homes. Some of these people had very large homes and they threw frequent parties. We met and got acquainted during those parties.

Andree claims that she had a date with a colonel. But her girlfriend talked the kernel into letting her go with me. Andree I was a local French girl who spoke English and worked for the army.

The French government had been conquered by the Germans, and Andree was Jewish, so she was in a terrible position. Her father had owned a department store but he had died several years earlier. Her brother was the agent for General Motors cars in Oran. The Germans were making things difficult for him; he still had the garage but they weren’t letting him bring in any more cars.

Andree’s family had been very well to do before the war but they were suffering in the war and from their Jewishness. Andre was born and raised in Oran which had been a state of France for about 100 years. It was an offshore state of France.

In some ways life was better in Oran. Take education for instance. Teachers received a pay differential for working outside of France. The very best teachers liked the extra money and came there to work.

Oran was more of a normal life than you would imagine. I wasn’t in any great danger of being sent to the front lines. By that time I was a captain. But remember there were no jet airplanes during this time. If the plane was to come from the United States it either had to come on a boat or it had to go down to Brazil fly across to Dakar and then up the coast of Africa to Casablanca and then over to Europe.

So Casablanca became a lot more important than it had been and Oran diminished in importance. Meanwhile, everyone Want to go to Europe, but I was already married so I was happy to stay in North Africa. We moved to Casablanca late in 1944 after having been married for about six months.

I was the signal officer of Casablanca, which was another promotion we handled supplies and communications such as radio beacons up and down the coast.

Planes had the ocean on one side and the Sahara desert on the other side and there was just a narrow strip where they could come up the coast to Casablanca.
One day the American consulate said that they had a problem in Tangier. Tangier was international; we had a consummate there and so did the Germans. There was no direct telephone service; everything was sent via radio telegrams. They were afraid that the messages were being intercepted.

I went up to ten jeer to see what the place look like and what it needed. Turned out to be a place you could never believe!

Liquor was $1.00 a bottle. There were windows full of Swiss watches. They had cloth and material that no one had ever seen before, and for very little money.

By that time we knew we had a child on the way. It took one trip to ten year to find out what they needed, and another trip to take it up there. Between those two trips I got a lot of good stuff to supply the baby. That was a lucky break.

Our oldest baby was born in the hospital and Casablanca in 1945. Our first child is named Carole. She now works as a pediatrician near Boston.

As a result of my trips to Tangier I contacted hepatitis. I’m pretty sure that’s where I got it, and it laid me up for about a month.

Carole was about six months old when we got home in 1946. after I get home by boss told me that we had a problem. The state department had sold all of our radio stations and relay beacons to the French, but the French didn’t know how to operate them.

The guys who had been operating this equipment had been working there for several years and it was time for them to come home. We had to send in replacements and operate the stations until the French can take over.

What that meant was that we had to take a plane full of guys from Casablanca to Dakar. From there we went to the gold coast which is now known as Ghana.


After the War, I Get The Slow Boat Back to the States

Now remember that Africa is about twice as big as North America. These places are called for part. When we got to Ghana, we turn around and came home. Now, it’s January or February of 1946. Our agreement was that in return for doing this duty I would be on the same ship going home with my wife and baby.

But when I got back new orders came in from headquarters in Cairo. A hospital ship was to take all war brides and female dependents, but not male service personnel, back to the United States.

So one day in spring my wife and baby left on this hospital ship from the port of Casablanca. I left on a liberty ship. It took the hospital ship one week to get home and it took the liberty ship two weeks to get home.

Fortunately one of my friends in the telephone company meant Andree in New York, took her off the boat and back to Washington. They practically had a brass band to meet her at the station with all of her old friends. She stayed with my aunt and uncle until I got home a week or two later.

Then we bought a house, and due time I went back to work for the telephone company. We bought a house in Chevy Chase Maryland.