Thomson:  That's correct.

Zarbock:  Now, Mr. Thomson and I have known each other for a few years and it sounds rather cheeky of me but, from time to time, I'm going to refer to him with the familiar "Ed" rather than Mr. Thomson, if that meets with your approval?

Thomson:  Please do.

Zarbock:  All right. Well, good afternoon and how are you, sir?

Thomson:  Oh, I'm just fine.

Zarbock:  Off camera, we were looking for a way to start this interview and you told me what I thought to be a mighty interesting story about being, what, you said 20 years of age?

Thomson:  Right.

Zarbock:  And you did some educational-- provided some educational services when it came to radio. Tell me that story.

Thomson:  I think it's interesting to start with where I uh... first got involved with the military. I went to Perdue University, discovered that all freshmen, physically qualified freshmen men, that is, had to join the ROTC. So I spent two years in ROTC.

Zarbock:  And what year was that, sir?

Thomson:  That was in 1934 and five. And after my sophomore year, uh... oh, by the way, I was a ham radio operator by that time. I used Morse code and could send and receive messages. So, after that two years of ROTC, when I'm home on vacation, summer vacation, a local National Guard company commander looked me up and he said, "We've just been issued a radio to use at our summer camp that coming up in about a month but it's a code radio and I have nobody that can use code. How about you join the National Guard and operate that radio?" I said, "That's interesting. I never thought about such a thing. But uh... oh, wait a minute, I don't want to be in the National Guard, I'm going back to college." "Well," he said, "this is Kentucky. You're going back to college in Indiana. When you leave the state, you're automatically dis-discharged from the Guard so that's no problem." So I spent a month in the National Guard, two week summer camp. I uh.. man that helped me, he pedaled the bicycle that operated the generator to run the radio and I'd operate the key and send and receive the messages. And taught two or three other people how to do it. I don't think I ever got anybody real proficient in the code but they'd begun to learn, at least. So that's when it started.

Zarbock:  So you went in as a private and you came out as a private?

Thomson:  Absolutely. I was only in about a month. (laughs)

Zarbock:  For the purpose of the record, I'm going to point out that, when Mr. Thomson finally ended his military career, what was your rank?

Thomson:  Ah, oh, after then you mean?

Zarbock:  Yes.

Thomson:  I was a second lieutenant.

Zarbock:  But when you completely retired from the reserves and everything else?

Thomson:  Uh... colonel.

Zarbock:  Well, not bad, from private-- from a summer private to a colonel.

Thomson:  That's right.

Zarbock:  Well, that's a...

Thomson:  I was very fortunate. Knew the right people at the right time.

Zarbock:  Let me take you back to that period in 1930. There was a depression. There were-- Hitler was growing in popularity and in strength in Europe. In Japan, there was war on the mainland, in Manchuria, Korea, Northern China, with the Japanese army. Reflect a little bit what was life like for a young man who was seeing these glacial changes taking place.

Thomson:  You tax my memory. That's a long time ago. Actually, I think the war in Europe was a distant thing. Uh... I don't think we thought about it much. Then came, what was it, September of '39, I think, when uh... the Blitzkrieg started-- invaded? Yes. Then it hit us. Something's going on over here. We're not involved yet but maybe we will be. And then I remembered I had a reserve commission from Perdue University that I had not done anything with since I graduated and I thought, hm, I wonder. And, sure enough, (laughs) I got a letter in May of 1941 that said uh... "Lieutenant Thomson, you will report." Not please. Not have you thought about it. "You will report." For one year's active duty training just in case.

Zarbock:  Now, the war had not started yet.

Thomson:  Oh, no, no. This is in '41, in June of '41.

Zarbock:  You showed me a photo of a officer in uniform. Are you in that photo? Was that you?

Thomson:  No, no, I'm not. And, by the way, that was before this. That was in 1937 at the ROTC summer camp at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Zarbock:  What was the uniform like?

Thomson:  That uniform was the duty uniform. It started out on top with the old co-campaign hats, sometimes called the Smokey Bear hat, a uh.. khaki shirt with uh... a tie. Long sleeved khaki shirt, no matter how hot it was. The enlisted men had the khaki pants and wrapped leggings but the officers had plain old riding breeches, spelled B-R-E-E but pronounced britches, with boots and spurs. No matter whether you ever saw a horse, didn't make any difference, you wore spurs. And that was the duty uniform. Not fatigues like it is today. Fatigues were only worn on-- inmates of the stockade with a big "P" on their back. Nobody else wore fatigues in those days. Now, it seems to be the uniform.

Zarbock:  So everyone went around what may have been called then class A uniform?

Thomson:  Yes, that's right. Well, that was not class A, that was duty.

Zarbock:  Duty.

Thomson:  Class A included the coat, the jacket, the __________________ and so on. Yeah. That would be a class A.

Zarbock:  But I'm interested-- you wore spurs?

Thomson:  Yes. Yes. Interesting, isn't it?

Zarbock:  Well, it sounds a little facetious.

Thomson:  Let's, let's go back again to the-- uh... time at Perdue when I'm a senior and, and uh... wearing the uniform, we had a military ball, boots and spurs. At the door, to go into the military ball, we checked our spurs because the ladies had long dresses and didn't want to get 'em mixed up. We checked our spurs but we wore 'em there. Oh, yes. Part of the uniform.

Zarbock:  And I noted, again, off camera, you mentioned something about a saber?

Thomson:  (laughs) Oh, yes. When I first went on active duty, even in '41, the officers still had sabers. Now, they were strictly ceremonial, of course, weddings in particular where they'd make the arch, you know, for the bride and groom to come under, and in parades, they'd carry 'em.

Zarbock:  So it was standard issue?

Thomson:  Oh, yeah. Well, no.

Zarbock:  If not issue, it was part of the uniform?

Thomson:  Yeah, it was a part of the uniform. I think-- the officer had to buy 'em, I'm pretty sure. Yeah.

Zarbock:  What about hand weapons? What were the people carrying?

Thomson:  Hand weapons?

Zarbock:  Yeah. .45 caliber pistol?

Thomson:  Well, the officers had a .45 caliber, either a revolver or a long horn automatic later. I carried a loaded .45 for many, many months that I never pulled it out of the holster, except, you know, never for use, thank heavens.

Zarbock:  And, again, you mentioned something. A .45 caliber revolver?

Thomson:  Yes.

Zarbock:  Most people nowadays are familiar with a .45 caliber automatic but there was a revolver that preceded the automatic?

Thomson:  There was. I think it came from the cowboy days, I'm not sure. But, anyway, early on in my uh... ROTC, there were .45 revolvers. By the time World War II started, I, I've never seen one since. .38s maybe but not .45s.

Zarbock:  Where were you on December the 7th, 1941?

Thomson:  (laughs) Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Well, more specifically, when Pearl Harbor happened that Sunday afternoon, I was married by then, and my wife and I were at a fellow officer's house, playing cards. We went to his-- the telephone rang, he went to it and put a smile on and, pretty soon, his face changed completely and, when he hung up the phone, he looked at me and he said, "All hell has broken loose." I said, "What are you talkin' about?" "The damn Japs," excuse my expression, "the damn Japs have attacked Pearl Harbor." The world changed right then. Completely changed right then. We had a fight on our hands that was brought to us. We'd lick it, no question.

Zarbock:  How strange. You're sitting in a friend's home, a foursome, you're playing cards, and you find out that the cataclysm has taken place.

Thomson:  That's right.

Zarbock:  You were on duty in those days?

Thomson:  Oh, yes.

Zarbock:  What were your orders?

Thomson:  That's interesting. (laughs) I tried to call over to Fort Bragg. See, we were in town. I tried to call our headquarters in Fort Bragg and all the lines were busy and I kept trying, kept trying. Finally, I got through to our uh... I was in a field artillery regimen. I got to the regimental adjutant and, so, "I just heard what happened, what should I do?" And he said, "I don't know." He said, "Things are very confused." He said, "Far as I'm concerned, you just come for duty tomorrow morning as you always have. We'll find out then what's going to happen." __________________ it was chaos. It was very confused. Nobody knew anything. Everybody wanted to do something but nobody knew what to do.

Zarbock:  You were living off base?

Thomson:  Yes. We had a rented house in Fayetteville. See, we were there for a year's training. (laughs) We weren't there for a war. (laughs) Makes a difference.

Zarbock:  And you had a car?

Thomson:  Oh, yes.

Zarbock:  So the next morning, you got in your car and drove to the post?

Thomson:  That's exactly right.

Zarbock:  And reported to your headquarters?

Thomson:  That's right.

Zarbock:  And what was...

Thomson:  On the, on the way out, we passed a—car, the railroad. They were flat cars and they were loading artillery pieces on the flat cars Monday morning. Where they were going, I don't know but they were loading them. And I got to my headquarters and checked in, what do we do? And they said, "Well, we haven't found out yet." You got to remember, we had been peace time training. We did not anticipate going to war immediately but we decided right away we were going to, only, only a fool would not go. We were going to. And it was going to be a long time.

Zarbock:  What was morale like?

Thomson:  Higher than a kite. (laughs) "Gonna beat those damn Japs." I know Japs is not the right word anymore but, in those days, it was. They were traitors, they were barbarians, they were...

Zarbock:  Stabbed us in the back.

Thomson:  Anything you wanna say, they were.

Zarbock:  Well, what duties were you assigned when-- here's December the 8th, a Monday, you're back in camp, did you have any duties? Were you supposed to accomplish anything? You describe people sort of waiting and waiting.

Thomson:  Well, not exactly waiting and waiting. What we did Monday morning after a few conferences and decided all we need-- only thing we needed to do was to continue with what we were doing the week before until we got orders for somethin' different. And that's what we did. We went back to this kinda lackadaisical training we'd been doing. That training we'd been doing up until then was not (laughs) I don't know the right word but it was, well, lackadaisical. (laughs) We might also spend some time planting flowers (inaudible) there was a lot of time policing, picking up the trash and all that. But we knew we were going to have to get down to business now and, very soon, we did. I can't remember the exact times but, within a few days, we had completely new training schedules that were rough.

Zarbock:  You said you were in artillery?

Thomson:  Yes.

Zarbock:  What sort of canon did you have?

Thomson:  Well, we were supposed to have uh... 105 Howitzer but we had old French 75s from World War I. We were supposed to have two and a half ton trucks to pull 'em but we had one and a half ton trucks and some tractors, believe it or not. Track laying tractors. Tractors that were run on a maximum speed about 8 miles an hour, no brakes. If you wanted to stop, you throw it out of gear and it'd coast maybe four feet, five feet. Big old heavy things, wow.

Zarbock:  You know, what a-- in those days, we thought, we were protected by an ocean to the east and an ocean to the west, a friend to the north, Canada, and a slumbering nation to the south.

Thomson:  Right.

Zarbock:  So the military, as you described it and as I've read, the military really was the rump of all the funding sources. If you want to cut something, you cut the military.

Thomson:  I think that's true. Now, as a second lieutenant, you don't know those things.

Zarbock:  No.

Thomson:  But I think now, I think that was true, yes.

Zarbock:  Oh, by the way, what was your salary as a second lieutenant, do you remember?

Thomson:  As I recall, it was $110 a month. By the way, a private got $21 a month. But then a private, they didn't need any money. He was furnished his food and his lodging and everything else and cigarettes were pretty cheap, free, even. Coke was a nickel and a candy bar was-- so he didn't need much money. Now, an officer had to buy his uniforms and all that and that makes a difference.

Zarbock:  You had to buy your own uniform, you had to buy your own food, didn't you?

Thomson:  That's right. Exactly.

Zarbock:  And you had to provide your own housing, be it at the bachelor officer's quarters or...

Thomson:  Well, you could go in the bachelor officer's quarters or, in my case, where we lived in town, I had quarters of my own. I don't remember what it was. It wasn't much. (laughs)

Zarbock:  Well, as the events, national events took place and began to change, what were you ordered to do, eventually?

Thomson:  I think it's time for a little levity here. Uh... between Pearl Harbor and Christmas was a short period of time. Well, when Pearl Harbor occurred, I had already been approved for a 10-day leave for Christmas. Well, I knew, offhand, now, that's going to be cancelled and sure enough it was. Within a day or two, it was cancelled. So I forgot all about Christmas. We had dug into our new training schedule and so on and then orders came down, well, a certain amount, certain number of people can have leave. So I immediately applied for it. And it was approved. So now I'm gonna have a week's leave at Christmastime. Two days after that, that was cancelled and then, about a week before Christmas, now, this is, this is the way the army was. It was chaos, it really was. About a week before Christmas, I got, "Yes, you can take your week's leave but you have to take your .45 with you and keep it loaded. Keep it with you all the time." I guess that's for sabotage. I don't know just what. (laughs) Then we uh... as I say, I was married at that time and we decided to go to my wife's home up in Indiana in from Fort Bragg, hopped in the car and headed out, .45 on the seat between us. There we go. Full uniform, of course. Got to Indiana, checked in to my wife's family's house and she said, "Oh, by a way, the telegram came for you today." And I said, "Uh oh." Telegram said, "leave cancelled, return immediately." But that's not the whole story. We had just-- well, we did spend the night. We got in the car the next morning and went back to beyond Fort Bragg. Checked in to the adjutant and I said, "Okay, what's going on?" "What are you doing here?" I said, "Well, I got that telegram. My leave was..." "Did that get out? That was supposed to have been cancelled. Your leave wasn't cancelled." And I said, "Fuck!" (laughs) "Oh, well, here we go." That's the way it was.

Zarbock:  So you spent Christmas in North Carolina?

Thomson:  Yes, I did, at Fort Bragg, that's right. No, it wasn't at Fort Bragg. Now you're jogging my memory. Christmas was the day we moved from Fort Bragg to Camp Gordon, Georgia, Christmas Day. We hopped in our trucks and tractors and-- no, not tractors, trucks and jeeps and things like that and moved from Fort Bragg down to Fort Gordon, Georgia, on Christmas Day.

Zarbock:  That's a fair piece of travel, isn't it?

Thomson:  What's that?

Zarbock:  That's a good-sized piece of traveling?

Thomson:  Well, yes. It was uh... most of the day.

Zarbock:  And this is not interstate highway conditions.

Thomson:  Oh, no. Oh, no. This is US1, right through the middle of all the towns, right through the middle of Bacon, South Carolina, for example. But we don't worry about it being Christmas Day, there's a war on. Now, this was the whole thing we kept sayin' to ourselves, there's a war on. That's the important thing. And it was.

Zarbock:  Yeah.

Thomson:  You're sure bringing back some memories. Your questions.

Zarbock:  Well, so you got to Georgia. Where is your wife? Did she stay in North Carolina? Did she go back to Indiana?

Thomson:  No, we had a rented house in Fayetteville. She stayed there a little while and then joined me in Augusta. She brought the car down. I went with the troops, of course.

Zarbock:  And you went back into training, is that right?

Thomson:  I what?

Zarbock:  You started to train again?

Thomson:  Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Completely different setup. And we got our .105 Howitzers, by the way, and began to learn how to handle them and how to shoot them. That's a great gun, too, by the way. Yeah. We begin to get the equipment we're supposed to have, oh yeah. It was slow coming but we didn't have much to start with.

Zarbock:  The outfit in which you served, was it made up of people who volunteered or were you starting to get draftees at this time?

Thomson:  It was mostly draftees. When I first went on active duty in June, there was only what we called the Cadbury House. There were the officers and only the top sergeants of the enlisted men. We had very few troops. There were more officers than men at that time. But we began to get the draftees who were-- went to the-- were trained there at Fort Bragg, at their replacement-- what did they call it? The rebel devil, I can't remember it. All that's (inaudible) David or something. Replacement training. They would be trained there in the basics and then they would be sent over to us to whip 'em into a unit. Yes, it was mostly draftees, really.

Zarbock:  And what was their morale like?

Thomson:  Ah hah! Listen, you gotta remember, the whole American morale was high at that time. We're gonna lick those guys. We meant it. We were. And we did. I'd say the morale was very-- oh, well, there were some sore heads. There's always some sore heads. (laughs)

Zarbock:  I was listening to a speech the other day and the speaker was saying that, in his experience, you're always going to run across some individuals whom he called red ants. He said they're always going to bite at you no matter what you do and the only thing you can do is to try and brush them off and go about your business because you're always going to find some complainers.

Thomson:  Exactly.

Zarbock:  But, generally, the attitude was...

Thomson:  Oh, yes.

Zarbock:  ...positive. We're in this war together and we're going to win it.

Thomson:  That's right. That's right. Our sole purpose is to beat them.

Zarbock:  So did this attitude extend beyond the wall of the fort or camp? When you got into a civilian situation, if you got off post and-- what was the civilian attitude towards the soldiers?

Thomson:  I think mostly it was a, a way of support, really. Uh... just before Pearl Harbor, the soldiers weren't too welcome in downtown Fayetteville because they might get a little drunk and so on. But right after Pearl Harbor, I think that changed completely. I think that the public __________________ to the army right quick in support of them. We were getting the USOs and all the things that were so wonderful support.

Zarbock:  I've interviewed some people that said, when the war started, after I got out of basic training, I was put on a train. I'd never been on a train in my life. So there were so many new experiences for young men and women when the war started. And during the war years. Can you remember anything that was a new and novel experience for you? You were a college graduate by that time and probably had some life experiences.

Thomson:  Well, I was a college graduate but, for those years between 1938 when I graduated until 1941, I really had nothing to do with the military. So when I went on duty at the end of '41, the whole world changed in, in a sense. And, of course, Pearl Harbor had changed even more so.

Zarbock:  Let me pick up. What were you doing, employment from '38 to '41?

Thomson:  (laughs) Well, I was an electrical engineer, as I've said, and uh... I uh... well, I worked for the _______education administration in Washington, D.C. as a field-- no, no, as an office engineer. It so happened that my boss, a retired army colonel named uh... Sass, S-A-S-S, was a retired army colonel and, when I got my orders for active duty, I immediately went to him and I said, "Tell me, what do I do?" "Well," he said, "the first thing you do it to go where they tell you to go. Do what they tell you to do and don't gripe to higher ups." He said, "You'll get along pretty well." I said, "Sounds good to me." (laughs) That was sort of my introduction.

Zarbock:  By the way, were you living in Washington, D.C.?

Thomson:  Oh, yes. Yes.

Zarbock:  And that was a different town then.

Thomson:  Oh, yes. Before the war...

Zarbock:  It was a small town, wasn't it?

Thomson:  It was a country town. It was a nice town, it really was. We enjoyed living there. We'd been there about two years. See, we were married in February '40 so we'd been there over a year and a half. It was a nice town, yeah, we enjoyed Washington. Went to Forge Theater and Haynes Point and, and, of course, the Kennedy Center and things like that weren't there. Rock Creek Park was there. And the airport was a grass strip across the river. Long before the Pentagon.

Zarbock:  Where did you live in D.C., do you remember?

Thomson:  Well, yes, we lived in a one-bedroom apartment up in the northwest section in Washington, actually about, oh, six or eight blocks from Walter Reid Hospital, the army's main hospital. Incidentally, uh... when I got my orders for active duty, one of the first things you do was to report to Fort Knox, Kentucky for a physical examination. Well, the reason for that was that, when I got my commission, I was-- my address was Kentucky. And we moved to Washington. I never thought to change it. You'd like a little levity occasionally. I went down to the war department then, it wasn't the Pentagon, of course, with my orders to this fella and I said, "Look, this says to go to Fort Knox, Kentucky, and I live six blocks from Sir Walter Reid Hospital." I remember, as if it were yesterday, he looked at me pityingly, "Lieutenant, did you read your orders?" I said, "Yes, sir, I did." "What did it say that you were supposed to do?" I said, "It said go to Fort-- oh, I get you. Yes, sir, excuse me." (laughs) That was my introduction. Do what they tell you to do, go where they tell you to go. That was my theory all during the war. I guess fortunately for my case. They decided early on I'd be a better teacher than a fighter and I never left this country. I never saw any action. I'm not a hero in any sense. I did what they told me to do. I went where they told me to go.

Zarbock:  Your training was-- as a trainer, you always were in the artillery, is that correct?

Thomson:  Well, no, I switched later on to the adjutant generals corps. That's the people who write the orders and, and all that. In fact, I ended the war as an assistant adjutant general on the field artillery school down at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, as a patriot.

Zarbock:  Would you do it again?

Thomson:  Oh, absolutely. I might not want to but I would.

Zarbock:  I was thinking of something else that you go where they tell you to go and do what they tell you to do. Do you remember the other phrase says, "The right way, the wrong way, and the army way."

Thomson:  Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, that's right.

Zarbock:  And once you understand that right way, wrong way, and the army way, and you're in the army, that's what you're going to do.

Thomson:  There was another such saying that came in, "No damn reason, just policy." It fits. Doesn't matter whether it's reasonable or not. Do it.

Zarbock:  Let me tumble ahead a little bit in history. Where were you when they dropped the nuclear bombs on Japan?

Thomson:  At Fort, Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

Zarbock:  Had you-- what knowledge did you have of nucleonics?

Thomson:  Never heard of it. This news came out with a big bang, it was, like, all the-- what's that? I'd never heard of it. I knew nothing of it whatsoever. That was a secret. One of the few well-kept secrets. Yes. Generally speaking, if two people know it, it's no longer a secret but, in that case, it was well kept.

Zarbock:  And, again, what was the spirit of the times when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed? What was the attitude of people?

Thomson:  The group I was with said, "That will stop this big invasion of Japan that was gonna cost a million lives. I'm sure glad they did it and it's gonna stop the war." Which it did. That was our feeling immediately, that war is over.

Zarbock:  But Germany had surrendered earlier, is that correct?

Thomson:  Yes, oh, yes, Germany had already surrendered, yes.

Zarbock:  And, again, reflect, what was it like to be in the land at that time when Germany surrendered?

Thomson:  (laughs) I think very likely to describe that was something I hadn't thought of for years. I tell you, you're bringing back-- your questions bring back memories to me. When it occurred that, that Germany surrendered, I think my wife and I-- I know I went, I think both of us went to the officer's club for dinner that night and most of the waiters were German prisoners of war and we never saw such happy people in your life. They were happy and singing. To them, the war was over, too. They could go home. That's my first thought when you asked that question. How happy they were. And, of course, we were happy, too, you understand. The war in Germany's over, that's fine, but we still got something with Japan. But two nuclear explosions, we knew it had to stop that war. It just had to. And it did. There are people who say we shouldn't have done it. I'll disagree. If we had not done it, a million lives would have been lost at least. Too bad about those Japanese we killed. Uh-uh. No, no question about that. That was very unfortunate. But they started it. We finished it. Talking like an old soldier. (laughs)

Zarbock:  We both are. That's why we're doin' the videotapes.

Thomson:  (laughs)

Zarbock:  We're all mortal and...

Thomson:  Yes.

Zarbock:  Oh, I should have mentioned, too, off tape, I'll mention it now on tape that I've told other people whom I've interviewed, you'll never be a day older than you are today through the miracle of videotape.

Thomson:  Oh, I get it. I didn't get that for a minute. (laughs)

Zarbock:  I keep thinking of President Kennedy as being 40 years of age. Well, he'd be in his 80s now or dead perhaps, you know? So-- but you, your children, grandchildren and other people are going to see you as you are today and you'll always be like this.

Thomson:  Well, my two children, yeah. Don't have any grandchildren.

Zarbock:  Well, your two children.

Thomson:  Yeah.

Zarbock:  But it was-- what was it like after the war? We're now victorious. Where you? Did you accept-- did you resign from the military?

Thomson:  No, I was relieved from active duty was the exact terminology. But I stayed in the reserves. Actually, I stayed in the reserves another 30 years, believe it or not. That's how I got to be a colonel, by the way, was putting in time. No, it-- when the I was relieved from active duty, for one thing, I took off the uniform and put on civilian clothes and it felt so funny because I'd worn a uniform for five years almost, four years. I still had my job waiting for me at the __________________ administration. We went back to Washington, D.C., and started back as a civilian. I could not stand Washington, D.C., it had changed so during the war that, after about a month, I went to my new boss and I said, "Hey, I can't handle this city. I want to be a field engineer." "Well," he said, "that's a coincidence," he said. "Just this morning, he had an opening for a field engineer in Northern Indiana." I said, "That's where my wife's folks are from." I said, "When can I go?" And that's what it was.

Zarbock:  Now, what year was this in?

Thomson:  That would have been '46, I guess, yeah.

Zarbock:  But Washington, compared to now, was still a small town in 1946.

Thomson:  Well, it was but it was a lot bigger and a lot different from...

Zarbock:  The war had changed it for sure.

Thomson:  The war had changed it a great deal. Of course, the Pentagon was there by then, you know, there was a lot of changes by then. Yeah. Traffic was much heavier.

Zarbock:  I got to Washington, D.C., in 1947 and, if you were in uniform, you could ride public transportation for free.

Thomson:  I don't remember that. Of course, I had a car. (laughs) I'm not surprised.

Zarbock:  So, really, it was a war-time capital. There was-- the activities that went on with governance in the United States had a second priority. The first priority was the war.

Thomson:  Well, not only that but uh... not-- the things that are not war connected. For instance, our __________________ administration, almost all the time I was in the army, it was in St. Louis, Missouri. They moved it out of Washington to make room for the war things. They had just moved back about the same time I got back. Yeah, there was-- Washington was a war city, there's no question about it. It's the whole emphasis. Almost everybody in the city probably had some connections with the military. Oh, boy, you should (laughs) make me think.

Zarbock:  Well, so you got to Indiana but you remained in the reserves?

Thomson:  Yes.

Zarbock:  Why did you shift or why were you shifted from artillery to the adjutant corps?

Thomson:  Well, I was only active in the artillery the first two to three years of the war. Then, as I said, the army seemed to think I was a better teacher than I was a fighter and I got moved into administrative work and I was still wearing the field artillery insignia but I was an adjutant of an organization, for instance, and this type of thing. So I gradually began to do the paperwork, got away from listening to those big guns, which I always loved to hear, by the way, even if they did make me a little deaf, and uh... so I, I was actually doing paperwork the last couple of years I was in the war.

Zarbock:  And what was your-- I'm going to catapult ahead. What was your last assignment? You've now been promoted to colonel and what duties were you assigned?

Thomson:  Well, I had what they call hip pocket orders. This was the mobilization designation. I knew, if congress were to declare a war, I need no information except that, I pack my bags and go to Fort Harrison, Indiana, and assume the position of-- oh, as the director of something or other and of the adjutant general's school so that the colonel who was then doing that would be free to go wherever he needed to go. Past-- the three or four summers before that, I spent my two weeks sitting beside him, learning what his job was so that, if congress should declare a war, I'd go there and take his place. Now, interesting assignment, when you think about it. Not to wait for orders, just go.

Zarbock:  By they way, where were your children born? You said you have two children?

Thomson:  Yes, one of them was born in Rochester, Indiana, and the other one in uh... Bogetsford[ph?], Indiana.

Zarbock:  This is-- they were born after the war?

Thomson:  Oh, yes, yes. One was born in '47, the other in '49.

Zarbock:  And where do they live now?

Thomson:  One of 'em lives here in Wilmington. By the way, he was here for lunch today and uh... he has his own contracting business. He's a civil engineer and uh... does site preparation and sewer lines and water lines and paving and all that stuff.

Zarbock:  Is he a Perdue graduate, too?

Thomson:  No, he's Clemson Academy, Clemson, South Carolina. Uh... the other son is uhm... an MIT graduate and he is the deputy city manager of Monterey, California. Now, Monterey, if you know anything about it at all, is famous world over, I guess, and it has things going on all the time that will drive a city manager bats. And uh... the deputy is right behind him. He is-- he's got a job that I don't think anybody could do. (laughs)

Zarbock:  Not in Monterey. (laughter)

Thomson:  Monterey is something. It really is. There's only one Monterey.

Zarbock:  Yeah.

Thomson:  And...

Zarbock:  And, and a beautiful place, by the way.

Thomson:  Oh, it's beautiful, yes. Oh, incidentally, during the war, I was stationed there for three months at the Presidio, Monterey. We lived in a rented house in Carmel, California. Most-- well, let's see, there’s as near to heaven as I can imagine nowhere and we went there about Christmastime of, what year, I don't know, I lose track of the years, but about March, somebody discovered that I was there. They said, "That's too nice a place for that guy, we shift him to Texas." (laughter) But, anyway, we were in Monterey about three months. I said then I was going to retire there and I found out later I couldn't afford to. (laughs)

Zarbock:  I'm going to take you back again into a little military history. At one time, there was the field artillery and the coast artillery.

Thomson:  They were separate.

Zarbock:  They were separate.

Thomson:  That's right.

Zarbock:  Whatever happened to the coast artillery? Was it disbanded during the war?

Thomson:  You know, I really don't know. Uh... I can tell you one thing, uh... fairly early on in my active duty period during the war, I ran into some coast artillery officers from California, I don't know how this happened to be but, anyway, I did and got to talking to them. And they told me that they were sitting out there on the coast of California with these long-range rifles, you know, they'll shoot 30 miles out to sea and all that, and two rounds of ammunition. He said, "If the Japanese had known, they could have walked right into the west coast and taken us over." We were not prepared in any sense of the word. Now, it may be because of that, the coastal artillery (laughs) disappeared. I don't know. But that was an interesting thing to me when I found that out.

Zarbock:  You know, again, to emphasize the character of life in those early days of World War II, there was such tremendous military shortages, including personnel and manpower.

Thomson:  Oh, yes.

Zarbock:  But somehow the spirit of grim determination suggested to me that fool's rush in where angels fear to tread and, like, two rounds of ammunition for a long rifle in California. That, you know, that would be on the news, currently, that would be on the news within seconds.

Thomson:  Oh, yes. It could not have been kept secret. I don't know. You're talking about fools rushing in. Makes me think, you know, the army and particularly the-- well, then, the army air corps, of course, now they're separate but then it was the army air corps, they wanted 18, 19-year-old kids because they know they're going to be in forever. They're not afraid of anything. But when then they get married and say, "Wait a minute. What's goin' on here?" (laughs) Like, the situation changes. But the best soldiers are 18 and 19 years old gonna live forever no problem.

Zarbock:  It's no longer, here in the year 2004, when you turn on the television and see in the Middle East, kids who are 13, 14, 15, and 16 carrying automatic weapons that are almost as long as they are tall, the kids, they're the most fearless soldiers.

Thomson:  Yes. Exactly.

Zarbock:  And their fear is born of foolhardiness.

Thomson:  Oh, yes, that's right. As the old saying, they just don't know anything.

Zarbock:  That's right.

Thomson:  No, I think that's true. I think kids in this country would-- if we let them, they'd probably join up. Well, a lot of kids did during World War II lied about their age and they went in well under age.

Zarbock:  Absolutely.

Thomson:  Absolutely. And they wanted to go in because they wanted to. They weren't drafted.

Zarbock:  Absolutely. Well, you've had a life that's been rich with experiences and a variety of not only were the experiences in-depth but they were all sets of different kinds. What have you learned from all of this, Ed? If you were to leave-- I'm going to ask you to leave a message not only for the people who look at this tape later but also for your own family. What have you learned from all of this, at age-- you're almost how old?

Thomson:  Well, I'm 89.

Zarbock:  Long life.

Thomson:  I know 89 is pretty young but 90 next year is going to be middle age at least. (laughs) I've had long, very nice life. A beautiful wife, two wonderful kids, world of experience a lot of people I know all over the world if really not the world, the country at least. It's been a great life. I can honestly say I've been there, done that. Done most things. Now, remember one thing, when I was during World War II, I was never in danger in my life. I was never a hero in my life. I merely did what they told me to and went where they told me to go. But, still, I had a part in that war. I had a part in winning that war. Now, the army, navy, marines, air force, they not only need fighters, they need backups and if they don't have the backups, the fighters aren't worth much. And that's what I kept telling myself. I'm not where the action is but I'm doing my part. I'm proud of my part. I'm proud I could do what I did.

Zarbock:  Thank you for your time, sir.

Thomson:  Thank you sir, I've enjoyed it. You sure make me remember things.

Zarbock:  And thank you for your contribution.

Thomson:  You're welcome.