Veteran Interview with Dan Miller (C)
Mr. Miller describes setting up camp after arriving in North Africa and his job as a radio operator during World War II. (8:14)Florence-Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive Interview with Dan Miller June 24, 2011 Florence, Alabama Conducted by Clint Alley and Rhonda Haygood Also present are Mr....
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| Format: | Electronic |
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Florence-Lauderdale County Public Library
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| Online Access: | https://cdm15947.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/war/id/139 |
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Electronic |
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War Years at Home and Abroad Collection |
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Florence-Lauderdale County Public Library |
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Florence-Lauderdale County Public Library |
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Military life |
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Military life Veteran Interview with Dan Miller (C) Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
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Military life World War 1939-1945; Radio operators |
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Mr. Miller describes setting up camp after arriving in North Africa and his job as a radio operator during World War II. (8:14)Florence-Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Dan Miller
June 24, 2011
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Clint Alley and Rhonda Haygood
Also present are Mr. Miller’s wife, Winnie Miller and his son, Larry Miller
Clip 3
Dan Miller: And, ah, we completed our trip, you know, and when we got there we landed about Bizerte, North Africa about five or six o’clock, best I recollect, got off the ship in there and of course that town was bombed out. Big ships in that harbor were, they’d just tear them away for a ship to go through, all over there ships standing on their ends, ten or fifteen feet, twenty, thirty, forty feet up in the air and the rest of it down on the ground. That thing was just full of ships. So we got off there and stayed till way after dark, course there’s no lights around there and we’re sitting there on a music bag, I, I carried my guitar along with me, I played guitar and I carried it along with me over there all the trips. I didn’t have a cover for it but I had my raincoat, if it rained I’d cover it over. But anyway, we stayed there till about nine o’clock and we saw a landing barge come up, we were right there close to the water but we was on a, sitting on the banks next to the building, you know, next to the water and about nine o’clock we had to get on that landing barge; I didn’t know where we were going, land over in enemy territory or where. Dark. So they carried us over to another bay about, ah, we was on the ship about thirty minutes, I guess, whatever, and then pull on up to another port on up there close to Tunisia, you know, in that area there and put us off there and we got on a truck, hauled us over to about ten miles out of Tunis, we, we camped about ten miles out of Tunis, set up a tent, well that night we didn’t set up, we got in there about eleven or twelve o’clock, by the time we got there. The moon was shining, though, and the stars were shining; it was beautiful. And it was comfortable at that time, this was in September, and we slept on the ground there that night and next morning they, we put up tents, their area there was, you had to put wires around, coil, you’ve seen the coil wires that they’d put around for protection to keep people from coming in there, they marked us off a place, not a big, you know, two or three acres and put us in there and told us to put our tents and put those pegs down in the ground deep. Said if it rains, that mud gets soft. So they did that and we tied ours down deep, we, another buddy slept with me and we had two to a tent. Clayton Herndon, he was from [unintelligible], Missouri; we went and visited him after that, after we come home. Even, so, lived close, you was just right together, you know, all the time; worked in the same, got up the same shifts in the mornings, worked the day shift and everything, operating. But anyway, it rained a couple of days later and a lot of those boys, about half of those tents went down, all those boys out there and wet. They got up, they had a tent over the, the eating tables down at where we ate, they had a table, they were just sitting there with their, with their blankets over them, sitting on that table the next morning when I got up.
Rhonda Haygood: Oh, no.
DM: So they, they experienced something. Ah, while we were there, there was a family—talking about North African people being desperate, you know, financially and everything, and it was just hillsides there and, and wasn’t many trees where we were, it was all, you know, sort of a desolate area there in Tunisia and they was a family down there that had some small children, one or two. And they were in fights arguing to each other and the wife got mad at her husband, picked up an axe and I thought she was gonna kill him. She didn’t hit him, but anyway, that night it was pretty cool, they didn’t have any heat. See, they just had a little ole hut, a lean-to. At night, they had a, about a half-grown cow, they tied its legs together, laid it down on, under that tent and put their baby down against the cow to help keep warm.
Clint Alley: Hm.
DM: That’s ah-
CA: Goodness. Um.
RH: Wow.
DM: But, anyway, that, ah, that’s part of my experience there. And the next, well, when we landed there that night, I’ll go back to this, when we landed and slept, slept the night, the next night the Germans sent, sent planes over that same Bizerte there where we landed and was trying to bomb that and we were about ten miles from them; I saw three German planes burning, the, our, our Americans had shot them down. I don’t know how many planes come in there, but we saw three, just standing there watching; we could hear them shooting. So you could, at night, you know, you can hear things better at night a lot of times than you can in the daytime. That was my experience there and then when I was operating the radio communications, they’d already taken Sicily and already landed in Italy some, you know. You’ve heard of the Anzio Beachhead?
CA: Um-hm.
DM: Well, I had a cousin, I found out later, he, he landed in Anzio Beachhead when they put in there. Okay the, I was the radio operator at night. It was thunder and lightning, popping and then we didn’t have shortwave radios like you do now, and you get on that AM radio and it popping or lightning, you can hear it pop, can’t you?
CA: Um-hm.
DM: And when you’re trying to send code, listening to code, dots and dashes, and that radio popping, it’s impossible. And they were sending, I don’t know how many airplanes full of paratroopers to land over in Anzio Beachhead area, somewhere in there, I don’t know where they were going. But, they had to fly over to, for protection, fly over Sicily and they couldn’t let the Sicilians, we didn’t have communications, didn’t want to trust our communications enough to let them know that we were going to do that for, for about fifteen to thirty minutes before they were going to do it, before the Germans would have time to decipher it and send some planes in. They handed me a urgent message to get out; there was just about three of, two or three of us on duty that night and they handed me a urgent message to get out. The four-star general’s standing on my back, looking. I started typing, sending that thing in there and the popping and I told the general, “I cannot hear and I can’t understand what they―”; I sent the message out see, I, I could send the message, the popping, it didn’t bother me there. I sent the message, put it in there and I ask for them to confirm it. We had a special code for that. And I couldn’t hear them. Sent another message; couldn’t hear them. I, I sent that message about, I guess, eight or ten times. And after a certain length of time there, the general just told me that’s fine. Found out they’ve shot down two American planes over Sicily thinking it was Germans; didn’t get the message. Excuse me I get, I get kind of choked up sometimes, when I think about it. RH: Yeah.
CA: Um-hm.
DM: So, ah anyway, that was a bad situation.
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| title |
Veteran Interview with Dan Miller (C) |
| titleStr |
Veteran Interview with Dan Miller (C) |
| author |
Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
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Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
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FLCPLwar139 |
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https://cdm15947.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/war/id/139 |
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http://cdm15947.contentdm.oclc.org/utils/getthumbnail/collection/war/id/139 |
| _version_ |
1705462192800792576 |
| spelling |
Veteran Interview with Dan Miller (C)World War 1939-1945; Radio operatorsMr. Miller describes setting up camp after arriving in North Africa and his job as a radio operator during World War II. (8:14)Florence-Lauderdale Public LibraryFlorence-Lauderdale Public LibraryDan Miller2011-06-24sound; textaudio/mp3; text/pdfEnglishPart of the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library CollectionMay be protected by U.S. Copyright laws. Contact the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library for permission to use.Florence-Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Dan Miller
June 24, 2011
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Clint Alley and Rhonda Haygood
Also present are Mr. Miller’s wife, Winnie Miller and his son, Larry Miller
Clip 3
Dan Miller: And, ah, we completed our trip, you know, and when we got there we landed about Bizerte, North Africa about five or six o’clock, best I recollect, got off the ship in there and of course that town was bombed out. Big ships in that harbor were, they’d just tear them away for a ship to go through, all over there ships standing on their ends, ten or fifteen feet, twenty, thirty, forty feet up in the air and the rest of it down on the ground. That thing was just full of ships. So we got off there and stayed till way after dark, course there’s no lights around there and we’re sitting there on a music bag, I, I carried my guitar along with me, I played guitar and I carried it along with me over there all the trips. I didn’t have a cover for it but I had my raincoat, if it rained I’d cover it over. But anyway, we stayed there till about nine o’clock and we saw a landing barge come up, we were right there close to the water but we was on a, sitting on the banks next to the building, you know, next to the water and about nine o’clock we had to get on that landing barge; I didn’t know where we were going, land over in enemy territory or where. Dark. So they carried us over to another bay about, ah, we was on the ship about thirty minutes, I guess, whatever, and then pull on up to another port on up there close to Tunisia, you know, in that area there and put us off there and we got on a truck, hauled us over to about ten miles out of Tunis, we, we camped about ten miles out of Tunis, set up a tent, well that night we didn’t set up, we got in there about eleven or twelve o’clock, by the time we got there. The moon was shining, though, and the stars were shining; it was beautiful. And it was comfortable at that time, this was in September, and we slept on the ground there that night and next morning they, we put up tents, their area there was, you had to put wires around, coil, you’ve seen the coil wires that they’d put around for protection to keep people from coming in there, they marked us off a place, not a big, you know, two or three acres and put us in there and told us to put our tents and put those pegs down in the ground deep. Said if it rains, that mud gets soft. So they did that and we tied ours down deep, we, another buddy slept with me and we had two to a tent. Clayton Herndon, he was from [unintelligible], Missouri; we went and visited him after that, after we come home. Even, so, lived close, you was just right together, you know, all the time; worked in the same, got up the same shifts in the mornings, worked the day shift and everything, operating. But anyway, it rained a couple of days later and a lot of those boys, about half of those tents went down, all those boys out there and wet. They got up, they had a tent over the, the eating tables down at where we ate, they had a table, they were just sitting there with their, with their blankets over them, sitting on that table the next morning when I got up.
Rhonda Haygood: Oh, no.
DM: So they, they experienced something. Ah, while we were there, there was a family—talking about North African people being desperate, you know, financially and everything, and it was just hillsides there and, and wasn’t many trees where we were, it was all, you know, sort of a desolate area there in Tunisia and they was a family down there that had some small children, one or two. And they were in fights arguing to each other and the wife got mad at her husband, picked up an axe and I thought she was gonna kill him. She didn’t hit him, but anyway, that night it was pretty cool, they didn’t have any heat. See, they just had a little ole hut, a lean-to. At night, they had a, about a half-grown cow, they tied its legs together, laid it down on, under that tent and put their baby down against the cow to help keep warm.
Clint Alley: Hm.
DM: That’s ah-
CA: Goodness. Um.
RH: Wow.
DM: But, anyway, that, ah, that’s part of my experience there. And the next, well, when we landed there that night, I’ll go back to this, when we landed and slept, slept the night, the next night the Germans sent, sent planes over that same Bizerte there where we landed and was trying to bomb that and we were about ten miles from them; I saw three German planes burning, the, our, our Americans had shot them down. I don’t know how many planes come in there, but we saw three, just standing there watching; we could hear them shooting. So you could, at night, you know, you can hear things better at night a lot of times than you can in the daytime. That was my experience there and then when I was operating the radio communications, they’d already taken Sicily and already landed in Italy some, you know. You’ve heard of the Anzio Beachhead?
CA: Um-hm.
DM: Well, I had a cousin, I found out later, he, he landed in Anzio Beachhead when they put in there. Okay the, I was the radio operator at night. It was thunder and lightning, popping and then we didn’t have shortwave radios like you do now, and you get on that AM radio and it popping or lightning, you can hear it pop, can’t you?
CA: Um-hm.
DM: And when you’re trying to send code, listening to code, dots and dashes, and that radio popping, it’s impossible. And they were sending, I don’t know how many airplanes full of paratroopers to land over in Anzio Beachhead area, somewhere in there, I don’t know where they were going. But, they had to fly over to, for protection, fly over Sicily and they couldn’t let the Sicilians, we didn’t have communications, didn’t want to trust our communications enough to let them know that we were going to do that for, for about fifteen to thirty minutes before they were going to do it, before the Germans would have time to decipher it and send some planes in. They handed me a urgent message to get out; there was just about three of, two or three of us on duty that night and they handed me a urgent message to get out. The four-star general’s standing on my back, looking. I started typing, sending that thing in there and the popping and I told the general, “I cannot hear and I can’t understand what they―”; I sent the message out see, I, I could send the message, the popping, it didn’t bother me there. I sent the message, put it in there and I ask for them to confirm it. We had a special code for that. And I couldn’t hear them. Sent another message; couldn’t hear them. I, I sent that message about, I guess, eight or ten times. And after a certain length of time there, the general just told me that’s fine. Found out they’ve shot down two American planes over Sicily thinking it was Germans; didn’t get the message. Excuse me I get, I get kind of choked up sometimes, when I think about it. RH: Yeah.
CA: Um-hm.
DM: So, ah anyway, that was a bad situation.
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