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Well, we got a PFC down here that needs to be put back here where he belongs. So he said, "well if you insist," and he says, "alright." He told me, "you got to go along." Well we go over there to see the Captain and he hears the story and everything and he calls the PFC in and he tells him, " now private these men are returning veterans they are all noncommissioned officers they will be shown all the courtesy of a noncomissioned officers and if I have another complaint about you, you will be on the next boat out of here." We never saw that dude anymore, he never did come back....chuckles.... So, they sent the German POW's in there and they cleaned up the barracks. They made our bed. We did not do anything. We were guests. That was then and Monday morning and they started processing us out. Tuesday they put us on a troop train and it headed for where ever you were supposed to go and I was on with 5 cars and I was going to Fort Sam Houston and where you were going to be discharged well that is the train car you got in and they told us. They said, you better stay in that car because if you don't you will go some place else and you won't be discharged." Nobody, wanted to miss that train I will tell you that. So, we started out and we went on and we got into Denver. They put us in a side track and they told us we were going to be there for 5 hours and they were breaking up the train and there were cars going in different directions, they were going to split up the train. Well, I got off and some of them went down to the USO and things like that and I went on to send a telegram to my wife and told her where I was at and that I was on my way. Of course, everybody went by the liquor store and got them a bottle and we had the booze on the train and they put us on
behind another train and now, I have come to Texas a lot of ways from Denver, but I never came the way I came. You know, I think they just put us on something, if the train was moving they put you on behind it.
The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Doyle Ebel. Ebel was drafted into the Army Air Forces in March, 1943 and trained at Miami Beach before going to radio operator school in Missouri. He also attended gunnery school before becoming a crewmember on a B-24 and shipping overseas in July 1944. He was assigned to the 26th Bomb Squadron, 11th Bomb Group at Saipan in October. Ebel recalls an emergency landing on Iwo Jima. He flew 37 combat missions before the war ended and returned to the US in November, 1945.
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Ebel, Doyle.Oral History Interview with Doyle Ebel, July 30, 2013,
text,
July 30, 2013;
Fredericksburg, Texas.
(https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1606583/m1/41/:
accessed July 16, 2024),
University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu;
crediting National Museum of the Pacific War/Admiral Nimitz Foundation.