Soldiers. Nazi American History tv is on cspan3 every weekend, featuring museum tours, archival films, and programs on the presidency, the civil war, and more. Heres a clip from a recent program. But i want to tell you about him, because when he came to the home, he never stopped being involved in the community. He had a regular column. He wrote so frequently that the local paper started section where he would started a section where he would report on everything. Sometimes they were bible lessons. Sometimes they were on who came to the home and who left. Constantly engaged in the community with the home. Probably the most popular news were weddings, when veterans and widows would fall in love and get married. My favorite was one of the widows who i think had married eight times by the end. Her famous phrase when asked why she married so many times, well, if the lord keeps taking them, i figure i should, too. [laughter] so, they are isolated from the community. This is a very vibrant Home Community that is doing very well. You can watch this and other American History programs on our website, where all of our video is archived. Thats cspan. Org history. Listen to lectures in history on the go by streaming our podcasts anywhere, anytime. Youre watching American History tv, only on cspan3. June 6 was the 75th anniversary of the allied dday invasion of nazi occupied normandy, france. World war ii veteran George Morgan was with the u. S. Naval combat demolition unit, considered the forerunner of the navy seals. Mr. Morgan talks about his training in explosives, arriving on omaha beach on dday, and his units inability to carry out its assignment. The National WorldWar Ii Museum in new orleans recorded the interview. Well start with your full name. George George Edward morgan. When were you born . 1967. Where . Lyndhurst, new jersey. I had gone over and enlisted in the navy. I had to go over to Church Street, new york. So, they said it would be a couple months before they call me. So, thats the reason why i did this baseball thing. I figured, well, you know, maybe i will flunk the physical or something. But, anyway. After wasnt two days that i got the letter from the dodgers about going to elm ira almira. I got the letter from the navy to report to go to boot camp. So, i never got to play ball. Toent over to Church Street get sworn in. They gave us a perfunctory physical there. It was probably a couple hundred of us. They took us over they walked us over to penn station. We got on the train. It took us up to samson, new york. This was a new boot camp. It was i dont know how long it had been open, but not very long, because we spent a lot of time while we were there helping build barracks for the guys that were coming after us. I remember i went into when we got off the train, they took us into give us the haircut and to examine us. And the dentist looked at my mouth, and i was in that chair for over two hours. 26 feelings, they put into my mouth 26 fillings, they put into my mouth. We couldnt afford to go to a dentist. That was the last thing we could spend money on. Fillings. Boot camp lasted about four weeks. Got to come home. For five days. I think. Back to the boot camp. Two days later, they put us on a train to go to the amphib school in fort pierce, florida. When we work on that train going to florida, every time we went ps camea city, the s through and make sure all the window shades were down on the windows, because they didnt want people to know if there was whats or whatever kindo of troops were moving where. Of course, we had uniforms on, so it was easy to see this was the navy sending people someplace. Every time we went through a city, we had to pull the shades down. It took us a couple days to get down there. We got off the train. Went to a reception area. Thats where i made the biggest mistake of my life. I sat down in front of this interviewer. He started asking me questions. And he said, can you swim . I said, yes, i used to be a lifeguard. I forgot to tell you that. I used to be a lifeguard at home. I worked 80 hours a week and got 20. That was a lot of money, even though it was 80 hours a week. Yeah, i used to be a lifeguard. He says, oh, go stand over there. So, went over and stood over there, three or four other fellas standing there. Finally, they finished interviewing everybody. They loaded half a dozen of us altogether on a truck. And they took us to a fenced area on the outskirts of the base. Fence, through a wire but they opened it just for the truck. As soon as we got in, they closed the fence gate. I thought, what the heck is going on here. I had absolutely no idea. We got out of the reception area and we found out we had just volunteered for underwater demolition. I had no idea what that was. I didnt know that i had volunteered. I wasnt arguing. You know. This was the navy. So. So, here we were. In this area. They dropped us off at an area where they had these sixman and eightman tents. This is florida. Sixman and eightman tents. They counted us off to each tent. We had our sea bag and our hammock that was issued to us when we joined. And i went in and a bunch of bunks, canvas bunks. Not anything but that. Just foldup bunks on the tent floor. I picked out one, threw my stuff on it, sat down, and waited for someone to tell me what to do. Eventually, some other fellas came in, threw their gear on bunks. None of us knew each other. Finally, a petty officer came in and said, ok, you fellas, line up outside. They marched us to the chow hall, fed us, marched us back to where we were. And then it started. We were d out that what outfit we had been assigned udtsderwater demolition, as the other people in the navy used to call us, undesirable tourist. So, they explained to us that what we were going to do is learn how to blow up obstacles that the enemy was putting on the beaches, to prevent the invasion of the various islands in the pacific and, of course, over in europe. We , then we started learning how to handle explosives. Tetrytol. Tra tech the sack had a long strap on it, which was adjustable. That came outse of it. They took us out let me think. Where did we go . I guess they took us out to one of the beaches, where the sea breeze had where they had constructed some tetrahedrons, which was an obstacle, a block of concrete with ive got some pictures over here i can show you. They put them on the beaches for the tanks. George thats right. They showed us that this was the type of obstacle that we would , how to put the charge on it, how to hook it up to the prima cord that went. Round the obstacles while we were doing it, somebody was coming by. We were doing it in the water. We would make sure we would tie it in right. That, meantime, before they had issued us swim fins and a face mask. The swim fins didnt fit. You had to cut the top part to fit the arch of your foot. Otherwise, it was very uncomfortable. The facemask, none of them fit, because you had to cut those so they would fit the contour of your face. This first couple of days, we didnt know that. We were having trouble with the fins and the facemask. It was a mess. , oh, ire making us swim guess it was probably a little over a half mile, which wasnt much. Because during hell week, which came later, you know, every day, we swam four miles in through the surf and out through the surf twice. We ran, god, i dont know how many miles. We crawled on the beach. We were learning how to to detect mines that were buried in the sand. And how we did that was by feeling our way across the beach, soaking wet. We were on the sand, our bodies covered with sand. It was very uncomfortable. Minew asng for these w mines as we crawled across the beach. If you trip one, it was just a firecracker that would go off and blow up in your face. You would get covered with sand. That was how you learned how to feel for mines. Week. Is was during hell i think probably durin gtha during that week, we never got back to where we slept. We never had a meal. Seaived on k rations and rations. I think in that week if we got maybe five hours of sleep, it was probably a lot. And to be honest with you, i dont remember if we did sleep, where it was that we slept. Because if we werent running, swimming, we were going through the manual swaps outside of fort pierce. That was brutal. We did that for a week. Day, last day,st they told us, they said, fellas, this is your last day, but weve got a special treat for you. Oh, shoot. They took us we walked through the swamps. They took us to the open field. When we got to this field, theres a bunch of foxholes already dug. All right, pick out a foxhole and get yourself in it. Fine. So, i took one over here, got myself in it. And then they said, over a loudspeaker, that what they had edne, they had asked plant explosive charges all around and in this field and they were going to set them off. And what this was supposed to do is to acclimate us to what it would be like if youre under fire. They set first ones off, to me, they sounded like they were outside the perimeter of the field. I said, well, this isnt too bad. Then they started getting a little closer. They started having them go off in the field, near the foxholes. Probablyem went off three or four feet from my foxhole. And a rock came and hit me in the side of the head. God, i thought i had lost my eye. Medic. Medic, medic, so they stopped firing. They come in. Blood was pouring out of here. It must have been a mess. So, they took me out of the foxhole and took me over to an aid station. The corpsman took one look at me, my god, hes lost his eye. That made me feel even better. But it wasnt. It was just a bad mess. So, they cleaned me up. I dont think they shot off anymore explosives. I think we all got on the trucks and went back to civilization. But that was hell week. Was i dont know. Some fellas dropped out. I know that, cause i never saw them again after we got finished. Leave, forasked to whatever reason. I dont know that either. So and they still have hell week noty for the navy seals, exactly what we did. cause ive been to that navy seal base over there in coronado. They do things quite a bit different now. Im sure glad i dont have to do what they did, because i dont think i couldve done it. And anyway what were the big differences between today and back then, the first things you noticed . George first of all, the fellas were in a heck of a lot better shape than we ever were. I mean, these fellas, when theyre not doing their training, they are doing exercises on the weights and i mean, those guys are theyre built like rocks. We were just a bunch of kids off the street. I never lifted a weight in my life. Wasnt it. Muchhese guys are in so better physical shape than we ever could have been. And theyre trying to do better. They keep at it. I got talking to one guy over there who was a corpsman, team six. And i was asking him about because i saw him in the gym. I just, by chance, walked into the gym, and these fellas were working out. And my nephew was with me, who is a retired Lieutenant Commander in the navy. And so, we were standing there in the gym, watching these fellas work out. And this guy came over and he said, can i help you with anything . I have a hat that says world war ii vet Navy Frog Man. He said, were you a Navy Frog Man . He said, come on over here. He toured me the whole place. Showed me the warehouse where they keep all their dear, all that stuff their gear, all that stuff. I said, is this what you fellas have to do every day . He said, no, this is all voluntary. They were voluntarily doing that, along with what they had to do regularly to keep in shape. I just couldnt believe it. But anyway, it was interesting. We we stayed there in fort pierce, month, month and a half. They picked probably two doezn dozen of us. Why, i have no idea. Were going to take you over to normandy. And so, we got our gear and we they took us out to the airport. We got on a plane. And we flew from fort pierce, i think to someplace in virginia, where we refueled, and then we flew from there to someplace up in maine, where we refueled. Bangor, maine . George i dont know. Someplace up there. I know it was pretty cold. There towe flew from newfoundland and refueled. And the next stop was someplace in scotland. Where we refueled. Down to they flew us southern england. And thats where the trip ended. When the normandy invasion on off, the fellas that ncdu, navalt was combat demolition units. Any were fiveman teams with officer, usually an ensign in chrage in charge of that fiveman team. These fiveman teams were to take care of the obstacles that. Ere on the beach ,hat happened at omaha was that because of the water coming across the channel, when they got to normandy, it was so bad, theirgh, they lost all explosives. They had nothing to work with. The fact that the one big mistake that they made as far as the invasion was concerned was that these ncdus should have gone in before the invasion, rather than with the invasion. Because a lot of the gis were hiding behind the stuff that we were supposed to blow up. Even if we had our explosives, we couldnt blow it up because these guys were hiding there. They didnt want to go any further because of the of what was happening. Beach, the channel i dont want to use the word channel. Mechanized that the units needed to get through the beach and to get up in behind the go line, we couldnt get those obstacles out of the way. So, thats what screwed up omaha beach real bad, because the mechanized stuff couldnt get through, because the obstacles hadnt been blown up. So, that was that was a real snafu. And there probably were others, too. But that was that. Which unit did you land with . The second rangers . George no. No. I saw the rangers go up the cliff. I could see them trying to get up there. I was watching it. I said, my god, im glad im not trying to do that. I didnt know whether i was going to see the sunset that day. I was so scared. I pissed my pants. Was what in the world am i doing here . I just it was awful. The noise. The noise was terrible. I cant thunderstorm and a crack of lightning, the crack is right above your house. The crack and then the thunder, and thats what its like continuously, hour after hour after hour. You just cant get away from it. Is just terrible. Its just terrible, awful. Not good. No. Bad. So, but, anyway. Did you go in with the 29th . George i dont know. I have no idea. The two things i remember very arly, one is i think it was a canadian. Im not sure. But i think it was a canadian uniform. He had a hole blown through him. You could have put a bowling ball through it. Fella nother i saw his arm get shot off. Evidently, he didnt realize what had happened. Because when his arm was shut off, his rifle was laying there. And he saw his rifle there, and he tried to pick it up with his right arm, but he didnt have a right arm. It was terrible. Terrible. But, anyway. How old were you when you joined the navy . George 17. Did your parents have to sign a waiver . George yes. Why the navy . George because my father told me what the army was like through the world war i, and i didnt want any part of that. I figured if i went in the navy, i get three meals a day. [laughter] they guarantee a place to sleep and a place to eat. The army is like, i dont know where im going to be tomorrow. George thats exactly what i thought. My father said, why the navy . I dont want to go through what you went through. , mean, after all, you know food and sleep are important. Thats the reason. Never dreaming that id wind up doing what i was doing. But, anyway. So, omaha beach was your only assignment. Your assignment wasnt to go further in george no, then they took us off. We came back to fort pierce. And thats when commander kaufmandr l. He was in charge of all underwater demolition. I dont know how all of this came about. Starteds when we orming into 80man teams, 88men teams. And 12 or 13 officers. So, we started doing the team concept. What we were learning how to do and were training to do because we were getting ready to. O the islands in the pacific i think the first one that udts did was saipan, but im not sure. I wasnt there. What we started doing in that rce was one platoon would be assigned to an lcvp, lending craft vehicle craftnel landing vehicle personnel. That was our boat. The boat had a crew of three, a coxswain, a guy who took care of the motor, and the communications fella, who handled the radio. And then it would be our platoon, which would be about 20 fellas. Delay the way that we were taught that we were going to take care of the work that we had to do in the pacific was lash a rubberd bullet to the port side because position was his aft on the port side, where you control the speed and direction of the boat. He could look down and see the rubber boat tied to the side. He definitely had a line, probably 1. 5 inch line attached to a cleat on the port side of the lcvp. It was just long enough. Eye atend, we made an the end of the rope and put tape on it so that we would not cut our hand. We put tape on it so that this to a swimmerhanded washe water, as the lcvp going by with the rubber boat on the port side, with a man in the rubber boat. He would take that eye and hand it to the swimmer. He would swing it around to the back of the rubber boat, and he would clip his fins, and pulled himself up into that rubber boat. The fellow in the rubber boat would take the line and give it to the next swimmer that he would come to. Up, so wew we picked did not have to stop the boat, to pick somebody up, because if you stop the boat, you are vulnerable to getting hit. He had we did not want to lose the boat and all those men at one time. Off to swim the way. We would go over to the side and into the rubber boat, and we would roll into the water. We did that every 25 yards. We always swam in pairs, so there would be two of us that lindell at the same time. Swimming and it was pointing at the sea. There and we put that up. We lost one or two fellows doing that, i think. Spot, gotten into a good and everybody was happy. The beach that we worked, it was to my left. It was overlooking the whole island. It was over on my left. I never did see them raise the flag because we were long gone before that happened. I remember seeing the mountain sitting up there. Some of the other problems that maybe it will come to me. That love us and was a different type of great. Grit. , that itwas so loose was hard for troops to get up on their. There was miles of it. George the beach was all lava sand. I think they were concerned about whether the stand would support machinery. Someplace thatad they had already tested that out on the island of hawaii because they had beaches there that were all lava sand. That outhey tested that the they knew lava sand would take certain kinds of mechanized equipment. To bring back samples of that stand. We each carried a little bag with us. When we got on the beach, we filled the bag with sand, tied it on tara waste and brought it t and broughtwais it out. To do no equipment anything. A little sack so that they could analyze it. Like it was Something Else that we did there. I do not know. Maybe it will come to me. Thatom what i know, i know a lot of them went up there. When the tide would come in if you came in at low tide, you would have 500 feet before the first embankment. Then they would have to hundred feet. Now you are dropping equipment on top of this. You had to do recon of the area. Looked at all the obstacles you looked at all the obstacles. You are the eyes and years. You had to tell them where all the gun placements were. Where the sand dunes and , that isn started where our responsibility ended, supposedly. Invasion people wanted to know what was behind that, so we would always have to go a little bit further to see if we could see anything. They camouflaged something and we do not see it, we do not see a. Half mile off the shore and. Ou swam with your team it was only you and your team. In essence, you are the invading force, in their mind, but you cannot be seen. George we did not have any breathing apparatus at all. We just held our breath. At one point, i could hold my breath for about three minutes. Three minutes. Just to, i went down see how far i could go down. With just a77 feet facemask on, no breathing equipment at all. When i came up, my ears were bleeding and my nose was bleeding. It was a stupid thing to do, but i did it. You did not bring any weapons with you. George no. At one time, they had the idea that we would carry a 45 with us. For what reason, i do not know, but we never did. You could put 45 in saltwater for a wild. George we didnt carry a nice. We carried our coil for measuring out the distance. Some of the fellows who are less but i never did. There was a kind that if you got , you could break the co2 tube and it would inflate, but i never wore one. Had a facemask, fins, and that was it. Article that i have over here is from the saturday evening post, in the title 1945, and of the article is that they hit the beach in swim trunks. It was underwater demolition teams. Your uniform was some trunks, masks and that was it. George and we carried the explosives on our back. Carried 60 pounds on our back when we were going to start blowing. He landed on normandy with the invasion. Ok. Ge i forgot about this cord. My mother cut this out. This was taken in florida. , here is theere title of the article. Here is a date. That one is another picture here someplace. Ok. This is all my platoon. Andy. S this is me, back here. Grady, i will tell you a story about him. This is commander kaufman. Told you about going in and out of the water in the boat. This is all we had. This is it. I will tell you a story about kaufman. Im sort of digressing here. No. I love hearing about it. George he was in annapolis graduate. His father was an admiral in the navy and he was a superintendent at one time at the Naval Academy. War, he alsor the became a superintendent at the Naval Academy, only time in history where a father and son, both were superintendents of a military academy. When the war was over when we , theback from japan commander was coming back with us. We left first so we got back first. Backlled in and on the way , as we were crossing the pacific, he put the word out, anybody interested in going to annapolis, come up and see me. I thought about that. I said, maybe i will go see him. , three other fellows and , so i had the same idea went up to see him, and he sat and talked to me for a couple hours, wanting to know what i did in the boy scouts, how far i advanced and what i did for a living before i came in. All kinds of stuff. And he did the same with the other fellows. Up to hise called us cabin, individually, and he said, i want to give you an appointment to go to annapolis. Whiled, it has been a since you have been in school, so when we get back to the states, i want to give you a 60 day leave to go home. While you are home, go back to your local high school and sit classes, thath sort of thing. Memory onfresh your some of these subjects. He said, when you get back to california, you are going to get orders to go to the Naval Academy prep school. From there, you will go to school and people prep for the Entrance Exam to get into annapolis. Home i have to tell you this one. The war was just over. We come into coronado and we are one of the first ships back. A sign says welcome home. I love that kind of stuff. Peer, pp to the is a blackthe pier navy band. They are playing what i guess was the hit song at the time in the states. It was called caledonia. It was one of those jive songs. We had never heard it for. Anyway, we got in there probably around 2 00 in the afternoon. This one that we traveled on , the normal complement on that ship is 200 men. They put us on, which was another hundred. 200 men. Handling it was pretty tight. E slept a steel room on the after deck of the ship is where they put us. We had five bunks. Part of what we needed to supply cans. They did not have Storage Space to handle this many people. Sea for aere out at couple of days, no more fresh. Ilk or fresh vegetables everything was candid, dehydrated or powdered. That is the way it was and that is what you lived on all the time. Except when he pulled up next to a supply ship and they replenished supplies. Then you would have some fresh milk, but maybe not a lot. It was tough. In about 2 00led or 3 00 in the afternoon and the space is just getting started. T is designed specifically the only one they had was in maui. Kaufman got in hold of the mess hall and asked, do you want to open up for us when we get in there . We got off the ship. They got us to the mess hall. You see all this good food. We are going through the childline. He wanted the server to put more food on his tray. He is telling him. Childline across the and grabs the server i the shirt. Ront he says, take your hands off him. Thatnnot understand a word you are saying. They were all german pows serving food. That was part of their jobs was to serve the food in the kitchens. That sunday afternoon, the pows had off. That is the first time i ever saw soccer being played. I was watching those german pows playing soccer. I could not understand why they did not catch the ball in their hands. He had i knew nothing about soccer. Nobody did because we had never seen it. Pass,ad a weekend. O we decided to go up to l. A. And we had heard about the , so we got up to l. A. And i guess we took a trolley car. Out and the place was jammed. No liquor or alcohol. Snacks. S soda, they had a band, you could dance. There were some comedians and a there was entertainment. On one side of the room, they had this long bar. At the end, Joan Crawford was signing autographs. On the other cited the room, setting up on a platform was betty davis. She was doing the same thing. That point wast robert alders father. It was his father performing. The one jokeforget that he told. Place is crowded. It is walltowall gis. He said, you will never guess who walked into the back door. He paused for a minute. He said, sorry. Anyway, Joan Crawford had to be my mothers favorite actress. Was maybe three or four fellows away from being in front of her to have her sign, so i could send it to my mother. I said, she must have a sore hand after doing this all day or all night. She looked up and said, who said that . She said, did you say that, sailor . He said i enjoy doing this this is my pleasure to do this. Finally, it is my turn. She says, what is your mothers name. She said i said grace. Wrote, your son, edward is standing in front of me and he looks fine. Wishes, Joan Crawford. , a coupletes later buddies and myself, beaver standing not too far out on the , and this fellow comes up and taps us on the shoulder. He said, would you fellows like to go out to a movie stars home and have dinner with a movie star . What are you talking about . Who are you talking about . He said, i cannot tell you, but if you would like to do that, i will drive you out. We figured, what the heck . We got in the car and we drove out to this very nice neighborhood in hollywood, pulled up in front of this ranch house and he said, walk up and ring the bell. We walked up to the front door and we rang the bell. Who answered the door but gene tierney. She was a famous actress and she husband, whoo her is a designer of maidens fashions. She invited us in and we sat there for several hours and had a lovely dinner, talked it was a wonderful evening. Fellow drove us back to the nightand we spent at the ymca. Then we had an officer in our don and hehe name of was from minnesota. He went to the university of minnesota. Us that he used to sing with the orchestra. He was in a group and they saying with wes brown. He was a famous bandleader in those days. You can still hear some of his anyway, it just so happened that the westbound orchestra is playing at the palladium in hollywood, which is this huge dance hall with thousands of people there, dancing. Orchestra is out there dancing. He said, lets go. Us went up tof and in orchestra took their break, he said, lets see if we can get backstage. Sure enough, we get to backstage ,nd we are standing back there wes brown is talking to some people, turns around, looked at me and said comes running over to him. We stood there talking with him. Doris dayme was when was just a teenager and she had that hit song, sentimental journey. That was quite a song. She came walking over. It looked like she was dating the drummer. Introduced arneson us to doris day and the fellow she was with. We stood there, talking a little bit. They had to go back out and play, so we went back, and that is just a couple of things that happened. How long did you stay in the navy for . George i am going to get to that. I told you that when we got , they gave usates a 60 day leave. In coronado, outside san diego. We had to catch the drink the train back to new york city. I had to go up to l. A. , so i got fe was thend santa railroad that went from l. A. To chicago. Ticket to get on the train. I could not get a seat. The only thing i could do was stand between the two cars. People were standing in the aisle, and i stood for four days and nights, getting from l. A. To chicago. Off, whereime we got i was able to sit down was when i pulled into a station. We pulled off and it was at that point, the uso was having cause. We would get off and get coffee and doughnuts. Between l. A. We ate and chicago. Stood up all that time. When i got to chicago, i forgot the name of the station. One of them was south street station and i forgot the other name. In fromfrom west came and departed. It was the and couple of miles away was the station where the trains from the east departed from. To make my way from the east station to the west station. It was cold. It was in october, november. I was cold. Eabag, mysee back s hammock over my shoulder. And i had to walk to the other station after standing five days on the train. Finally i got to that station and got a ticket to take the train to new york and i got a seat. I sat from chicago to new york. The family, when i left to go in the navy, my family lived in one house and while i was gone, they moved to another house not too far away. But i didnt know where exactly it was. Inway, i got into new york Grand Central station. I am walking across Grand Central station and i have a white hat on, which was the uniform of the day when i left california. I had my blues on and my white hat. I am halfway across the station and two fellas come up and say, you are out of uniform, you are supposed to have a blue hat on. I did not even have a blue hat. Over to a small office and there was an ensign, the head patrolman. He knew as soon as i walked in why they were ringing bringing me in because it wasnt the uniform of the day for that district. He said to me, where are you coming from . I said, california. He said, let me see your leave papers. I opened up my pea coat, took out my leave papers and i had my spaghetti bar up here. He took my papers and said, where are you headed . I said, im going home, i havent been home for a couple of years. Where is your home . Over in jersey. Good luck and thanks for coming home. That was that. But those sure portal guys wanted to arrest me shore patrol guys wanted to arrest me because i was out of uniform. Lyndhurst. Bus out to i got off at the top of the hill where avenue not knowing the house was that they moved. It was on third but i did not know how far down it was. I started walking, walking, walking. It was way at the end of the street. Probably better than a quarter of a mile. I walked to the front door. Sunday morning. About 9 30. I rang the bell. [sniffing] george im sorry. Ok. Ts easier father said hes here. They were just finishing breakfast to get ready to go to church. I said i wanted to go to church with them. We walked to church in those rationingse of gas and we did not have a car. So, i have been in this uniform almost seven days. I havent taken a shower or bath in seven days. I was dead tired. Mother, first of all i said, i have got to take a bath. I said, can you press my uniform for me . I showed her how to do it, because in the navy, you fold your clothes inside out and you make inside creases. I went upstairs and took a bath. We didnt have a shower. My on clean underwear out of seabag. My mother finished pressing my uniform. I got dressed and we went to church. I was one of the first ones back. Of the serviceman. It was good to be home. American history tv is on cspan3 every weekend, featuring using tors, archival films, and programs on the presidency, civil war, and more. Here is a clip from a recent program. He had been out of touch. He had been captive for two years and to the war had passed him by. He had been a constant adversary of washington. He has fought throughout europe. Ats comes to a head again the battle in new jersey. Given command of the vanguard initially, which is a prestigious position, leading the army at the front. Orders to attack. He turns it down. I shall not deign to accept that. Washington appoints lafayette and lafayette excepts. Lee is upset that a junior officer has been placed in command and of him. So he demands the position. He marches out and his force is facing british brigadiers. He is under orders, the question is it direct or implied, but he is supposed to attack and he retreats instead. Washington catches wind of this and it is actually a drummer that is running back and washington grabs hold of him, what are you doing . I dont know, sir, we are retreating. Washington goes forward and he says to lee, what are you doing . Paraphrasing. Excellence damned coward. There are all sorts of mythical language, that the trees shook at washington swearing. Washington relieves some of command and personally charges righting a potential retreat. Challenges to washington on the political side as well. ,ee will demand a courtmartial saying his honor has been infringed on and he has been insulted by washington but the courtmartial finds in washingtons favor. Lee starts publishing pamphlets about how he has been wronged. He challenged a woman to a duel ingested in jest. He says she got the color of his pants wrong. There will be a real duel fought to defend washington. Washington is opposed to this. It is the end of any push against washington. And other watch this American History programs on our website, where all of our video is archived. That is cspan. Org history. Productsan history tv are now available at the new cspan online store. Org to seenstore what is new for American History tv, and check out all of the cspan products. Cornell College ProfessorCatherine Stewart talks about racial dynamics in the 1930s, including the federal writers project, an effort together narratives from former slaves. We recorded the interview at the organization of american historians annual meeting in philadelphia. Catherine stewart, your book, what period of time are you talking about here . Prof. Stewart its entertainment because it focuses on a project that came out of the 1930s and specifically out of the roosevelt administrations attempt to do something to create work for all different types of occupations. It created a number of Arts Projects to put unemployed writers and artists back to work. It hapd