Interview with Gary Leib # VRK-A-L-2010-044 Interview # 1: October 5, 2010 Interviewer: Mark DePue COPYRIGHT The following material can be used for educational and other non-commercial purposes without the written permission of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. “Fair use” criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. These materials are not to be deposited in other repositories, nor used for resale or commercial purposes without the authorization from the Audio-Visual Curator at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, 112 N. 6th Street, Springfield, Illinois 62701. Telephone (217) 785-7955 Note to the Reader: Readers of the oral history memoir should bear in mind that this is a transcript of the spoken word, and that the interviewer, interviewee and editor sought to preserve the informal, conversational style that is inherent in such historical sources. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library is not responsible for the factual accuracy of the memoir, nor for the views expressed therein. We leave these for the reader to judge. DePue: Today is Tuesday, October 5, 2010. My name is Mark DePue, Director of Oral History with the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, and today I have the honor to be with Gary Leib. Good afternoon, Gary. Leib: Good afternoon, sir. DePue: We are in Gary’s home in Winchester, Illinois, and we’re going to be talking about your experiences, Gary, during the Korean War. But fortunately for me, it’s not an Army perspective; it’s the Navy perspective, and I haven’t had the opportunity to do too many of those. I know most of that discussion is going to focus on your experiences with the USS Boxer , which is an aircraft carrier. But let’s start at the beginning of your life and tell me when and where you were born. Leib: I was born November 19, 1929 in Winchester, Illinois, over here on Cherry Street, at home. DePue: Kind of bad timing to be born, isn’t it? Leib: Right at the height of the big Depression, yeah, right after it got started. DePue: Tell me a little bit about your family, how they ended up in Winchester in the first place. Gary Leib Interview # VRK-A-L-2010-044.01 Leib: Well, my parents, prior to my being born, were living in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, working with a cousin down there that had a plantation, and then they came back here, where I was born, to be around the rest of the family, my grandparents and whatever. I lived most of my life, or my younger life, with my grandmother and grandfather Evans and back and forth to my grandfather and grandmother Leib. Also I spent a lot of time with my mother’s sister, her older sister, my aunt, which was very good to me, and my grandparents. After my grandfather retired, they spent a lot of time going to Arenzville, AH- renzville some people say, so I actually grew up in two communities, and most of my summers were spent in Arenzville, Illinois. Most of my winters and my school time was all right here in Winchester. DePue: Okay, tell us a little bit about why you were going to a lot of different places while you were growing up. Leib: Well, the Depression times was kind of ugly. It was hard on everybody. My dad didn’t make a lot of money. He was a good electrician; he worked part- time as a mail carrier. Actually, when I was a little kid, before I remember, he was assistant manager of a local grocery store. And we moved from here to Auburn, Illinois, where he was an assistant manager there, or to be a manager, and unfortunately, the Kroger store there went down the drain. It closed, and he moved back here. And he had various different jobs, fantastic salaries of fifteen, twenty dollars a month or something like that—very small income. So finally, we moved back in full-time with my grandparents, Grandfather and Grandmother Evans. DePue: On your mother’s side. Leib: On my mother’s side, yes, on the Evans family. DePue: What was your mother’s maiden name, first name? Leib: My mother’s name was Helen, Helen Evans Leib. She had some other things on her name that she didn’t like to use. I think her full name was Ethel Helen May, which she hated, so she just went by Helen. My father was named Carl, Carl Herbert; everybody called him Herb. DePue: What was it like, then, growing up in central Illinois in the Depression? Do you remember much? You were pretty young. Leib: I thought it was probably the greatest place in the world, to live in a small town, and it's the reason I came back here twenty-one years ago to retire here. It’s a comforting thing to be in a small community and around people that you grew up with, even though this little town has changed quite a little bit. I do not know a lot of the younger people, because moving away from here and working away from here many, many years, I lost track of their children and their names, but a number of them are still here that I started first grade with or started kindergarten with. Then the same thing up in Arenzville, that group 2 Gary Leib Interview # VRK-A-L-2010-044.01 up there. I spent so many summers up there and holidays and odd times that I have a lot of acquaintances from that area. DePue: Was your mother working? Leib: My mother went to work during the latter days of the Depression with what they called an NYA, National Youth Administration, and she moved up from there to what the welfare department called a visitor in the welfare department locally, Illinois Public Aid Commission. She stayed with it for thirty-some- odd years and moved on up to supervisor, travel staff, et cetera, and lived in different places around the state of Illinois. DePue: Well, if you don’t mind, were your parents married through all this time? Leib: My parents were married until about ’44 or ’45, and they finally got divorced. Two very incompatible people. DePue: But you were sixteen at the time, then, roughly. Leib: I think about fourteen or fifteen, so maybe it was ’43, ’44, along in there somewhere. DePue: Okay. Well, let’s jump back a little bit. You were still pretty young, but 1941, December seventh, an important date in our history—do you remember Pearl Harbor? Leib: Very distinctly, because I grew up in what you call a very patriotic family. My great-grandfather served in the Mexican War and in the Civil War. My uncle was a very well-known local hero in World War I, served in the Big Red One, the 1 st Division, first to go to France, last to come back, and was in every major combat deal, and one of the fifteen survivors out of his original company. And of course wounded, gassed, all different things. DePue: What was his name? Leib: Jesse O. Evans, Jesse Odis Evans, Jesse O. Evans. He was well-known locally as the boy hero. Grandpa signed for him to go in when he was only sixteen years old. He spent his seventeenth birthday down on the border with Pershing when they was getting organized down there, where they were still chasing the Mexican bandits down there, and then they went right into France, the 1st Division, Big Red One. DePue: Well, let’s go back to Pearl Harbor, then. Leib: Pearl Harbor was a terrible day, and I remember it very distinctly—because I guess I was twelve going on, or just turned thirteen—just a really significant thing. I grew up in the war years, and I was a great scavenger of scrap iron and aluminum and got real into the war effort, because that was the thing to 3 Gary Leib Interview # VRK-A-L-2010-044.01 do. My grandfather ran a pool hall and saloon here in town. He was very well- known. He’d either spent his life as a saloonkeeper, pool-hall deal, or as a local police officer, and very well-known. Strange thing about it, he spent his life basically around taverns or in taverns and never drank. DePue: You mentioned you remember Pearl Harbor very well, but is there a story connected with that for you? Leib: Well, Pearl Harbor sticks in my mind real strong because my uncle, Arenzville’s favorite nephew, was one of the first to get drafted. He was sent immediately to the Philippines, along with my father’s best buddy that he run around with and went hunting all the time. Both of them ended up going right to the Philippines, and they were there when Pearl Harbor happened. Both of them were killed, and it left an indelible impression on my mind and of course, upset both families. DePue: Does that mean they were in the National Guard before the war? Leib: No, they were the first— they started drafting, if I remember correctly, in 1941, building up the peacetime. DePue: Late 1940 they started the draft. Leib: Nineteen forty. Well, they were the very first ones that got drafted, and they were both young guys. Unfortunately, they both died shortly after Pearl Harbor in the Bataan Death March and left a lasting impression on the whole family. Both families were affected, along with all the other guys.