• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Leon Frankel Narrator Thomas Saylor Interviewer October 8, 2002 Leon Frankel home St Louis Park, Minnesota TS: Today is the 8th of October 2002. First, Mr. Frankel, thanks very much on the record for taking time to speak with me today. I appreciate it very much. I LF: My pleasure. TS: I know briefly from speaking with you before we started to record that you were born in St. Paul, Minnesota, the youngest child of parents of RussianGeneration extraction,Part on the 5 th of September 1923. You attended school and graduated from Mechanic Arts High School in St. Paul in 1940, and you briefly attended the University of Minnesota before enlisting in the U.S. Navy. Before you enlisted, the U.S. did become involved in World War II, specificallySociety after [the Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on] December 7,1941. Let me ask you, what were you doing when you first heard that news? Project: LF: As you know, it was a Sunday morning.Greatest And the S unday morning ritual was that a friend of mine by the name of Sonny Zuckerman, our ritual was to go to a pool hall on Sunday morning, known as Bilbo’s, in St. Paul. It was like a famous hangout for everybody. Of course, we were at the pool hall when the news came over the radio thatHistorical the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. I was eighteen at the time. I remember Sonny and I both looking at each other, and of course the draft was on prior to this and a lotHistory of our friends and people we knew had gone into the Army. We both looked at each other more or less with the same thoughts that it looks like, being of eligible age, sooner or later we’re going to wind up somewhere in the military. That’s where we were when it happened.Oral It was qui te a shocker. Quite a shocker. Most people had never heard of Pearl Harbor.Minnesota's Didn’t know where it was. Slowly but surely we started hearing the news of what took place there and it sounded pretty devastating. Minnesota TS: The people in this pool hall and a number of other people were around. Could you identify a certain mood among the people in the place? LF: Yes. I think they all felt about the same way we did. They just didn’t know what to make of it. It was such an overwhelming event. We knew that there were all kinds of negotiations going on. Japanese envoys were in Washington [D.C.]. And there was all kinds of talk about this, that and the other. War seemed like such a far off—it was going on in Europe, of course. Places in Asia. But we never thought we’d ever be affected by it. 11 TS: Now you were living at home with your parents still? LF: Yes. TS: How did your parents react to this news? LF: They were frightened. Of course, my dad lived during World War I. But being married and having a couple children at the time, he was exempt from military service. I had an uncle, his brother, who had gone off in World War I and was killed in France. I tracked him down. He left from Toledo, Ohio. He was the art editor of the Toledo, Ohio Blade newspaper. He was a painter. He didn’t have to go, but he volunteered, and he wound up as a sergeant major in the Army. My dad used to talk about him all the time. I finally tracked him down. He was in every major battle that United States fought in World War I. He’s buried in St. Paul. My grandfather had a little money back in those days and he had his body shipped from France to St. Paul. And he’s buried in the Sons of Moses Cemetery on the east side of St. Paul. My UncleI Eugene. My brother was named after him. TS: Once the U.S. joined the war, got involved in the war, did thoughts cross your mind that, “I’m going to be drafted,” or were you anxious to volunteer?Generation Part LF: I had heard all these stories. After all, I was a World War I baby. I was born just five years after the end of World War I. About trench warfare. I said, “There’s no Societyway Leon is going to fight World War II in the trenches.” I’d always been fascinated with aviation. So in the back of my mind I said, “When the time comes . .” Of course, we all had to register for the draft, and being eligible— Project: Greatest TS: So you had a draft card already? LF: I had a draft card already. 1-A [draft classification]Historical and the whole bit. I said, “I’m not waiting for the draft. I’m going to enlist in the Army Air Corps if they’ll take me.” So this was about in July or August of 1942. TheHistory recruiting office at that time was in Minneapolis. In order for me to get to Minneapolis, I had to take the streetcar from St. Paul to Minneapolis. I got kind of dressed up and I went to my usual spot, the pool hall down there on Fifth and Minnesota, somewhere in that area.Oral It’s no longer there. Cardozo’s Department Store was next door to it. No, on Wabasha.Minnesota's Anyhow, I went into the pool hall and I bumped into a buddy of mine by the name of Red Fogarty. Norville J. Fogarty. Never forget him as long as I live. He had never seen me dressed up. We never dressedMinnesota up. We had on our clothes that we hung around in. He said, “Where are you going?” I said, “I’m on my way to try to enlist in the Army Air Corps.” So he said, “Oh, you got to be out of your mind! Why don’t you join the Navy Air Corps?” I said, “Well, gee, I never thought about the Navy. But don’t you have to be a college graduate and meet all these—?” “No,” he says, “they’ve lowered the standards, and if you’re a high school graduate and you can produce three letters of recommendation from prominent citizens in the community and you pass the physical and all the other examinations.” And he says, “The Navy is the greatest.” And he pulled a card out of his pocket showing me that he had enlisted in the V-5 Program [military services training program]. Waiting to get called. That moment in time I 12 changed from the Army Air Corps to the Navy Air Corps. It was just like, we have an expression in Yiddish called beschert—it was fated to be. That I bumped into Red Fogarty and he steered me into the Navy Air Corps. TS: He was a fork in the road. If you hadn’t run into Red Fogarty you’d have gone to join the Army. LF: I’d have gone to join the Army Air Corps. In the meantime, Red goes into the Navy V-5 Program and washes out in primary flight training. [Laughs] I bumped into him on my first leave and he’s wearing a sailor suit. Then I bumped into him again and I said, “What happened to you?” He said he washed out in primary flight training. He ended up as an enlisted sailor in the U.S. Navy. So I went over to—the Navy had their recruiting set up at Wold-Chamberlain Field [in Minneapolis]. They had a Naval Air Station there, and I took the streetcar andI went out there and filled out all these papers and waited to get called for a physical, which I passed just barely because I had torn up my knee playing basketball one time. To this day I’ve never had it repaired. I’m sure it was an ACL [anterior cruciate ligament] because my son did the same thing a few years ago. I managed to do the squats and go homeGeneration with a swollenPart knee and packed it with ice. I got through the physical all right. TS: You weren’t going to tell them? Society LF: No way. And years later I felt it, because when I would fly I would have to push the seat back and stretch my legs out because my left leg wouldProject: get tired. Even to this day. Anyhow, I passed it. I got three letters of recommendaGreatesttion from three prominent citizens, upstanding citizens, and then I got called before an examining board. It consisted of a psychiatrist and some Naval officers and they stand you up in this big room. Just you all by yourself. And these guys are all sitting around this table and they start askingHistorical you all these questions. TS: You were standing up and theyHistory were sitting down. LF: They were sitting down. “Tell us about yourself.” I looked at this guy and I don’t know what—what do you sayOral when somebody says, “Tell us about yourself?” This, that and the other. I don’t know.Minnesota's Anyhow, I fumbled my way through it and they guy says, “Okay. That’s it. Go home and we’ll call you.” And sure enough, I got a call in a week’s time saying that I’d been accepted, and to come overMinnesota and get sworn in.

Load more

  43

Copy Link