SSgt. Howard A. Ellis, USAAF, at Membury Air Station, England, 1944 -
MY GOD, THE LIGHTS ARE ON...DUCK!
by HOWARD A. ELLIS, MSgt. USAF-retired
MORENO VALLEY, CA., U.S.A.
April 17: I’ve been retired from military service since 1965, after 23 years of military service in the United States Army Air Corps, the regular Army and the United States Air Force. I haven’t worn the uniform since Feb.1, 65 but there’s one memory of that military career I treasure above all others - V-E DAY, MAY 8, 1945 at our base at Monchengladbach, Germany where we’d only been assigned a month earlier.
No less patriotic and victory-hungry than any combat trooper, from a survival standpoint this 20-year-old NCO was one of the lucky ones...A non-combatant support troop assigned to the behind-the-lines 877th Signal Service Company, 16th Air Depot Group, 9th Air Force Support Command. I was a cryptographer always kept in a safe/secure place cause I had secrets in my young head.
If I recall correctly, the morning of that Great Day when the war ended, I was busy with one of our men deciphering a coded message from Hq.....to our gratitude, it announced, The German High Command has unconditionally surrendered and hostilities have ceased this date. We’d all been expecting the news what with The Allies sweeping across Germany trying to catch up with the speedingly victorious armored tank forces of Gen. George Patton and his heroes. But that confirming message evoked the sheer awesome realization the war was over...and grabbing the decoded message, I ran from the Code Room into the Message Center wildly waving the message and shouting, the war is over, the war is over…
My buddies were obviously not surprised, but just as obviously amused...whats the big deal, Sarge? one of the clerks asked. We heard it on AFRS radio a few minutes ago and didnt want to bother you cryptonuts while you were busy...we didn’t know what kind of incoming you were working on.
Formation was called and our commander, Maj. Joseph A. Plihal, put us at ease and made it formal, advising us to get back to business as usual...I think wer’e now an occupation army. On this first day of Peace in Europe after six years of war, it was only natural to head toward the recreation center on our former Luftwaffe training base and talk about going home...My buddy Cpl. Jerry Lorenz of Passaic, New Jersey, and I decided to head to the club right after evening chow when it was already getting dark. Excitedly we hastened across a field to the club in an old Luftwaffe hanger... As we walked in the gathering darkness through the middle of that otherwise empty field...sort of as big as a soccer field...SUDDENLY from every place on the base lights went ON and we were standing alone literally ablaze in a sea of daylight...Long used to wartime blackouts indoors and out, for an instant we panicked as Jerry hollered, MY GOD, THE LIGHTS ARE ON, DUCK! ITS LIKE DAYLIGHT, HIT THE DIRT...
We ducked and we dived...throwing ourselves to the ground and covering our heads...and then burst into laughter...When the lights come on again, all over the world, then there’ll be time for things... was it Vera Lynn who sang that?
Jumping abashed to our feet we looked around as we heard whistles and sirens piercing the electricity-illuminated daylight...and simultaneously blurted, the lights ARE on again, the blackouts are over, the (CENSORED) war is over...no more air raids, no losing guys in the fighting, no more shooting, none of it...and were really gonna go home...and we two yanks found ourselves hugging and, dammit, squeezing some tears of relief and joy - Hey, even support troops can experience that kind of euphoria knowing we’ve ALL survived the worst war in history. Jerry Lorenz and I finally made it to the recreation center and the celebrating buddies who’ve all apparently disappeared from our lives and into the time warp of that era. It was our V-E Day, May 8, 1945; by July we had boarded the U.S.S. Wakefield, an American troopship at LaHavre, France, and did sail home.
A month later, Japan surrendered (I was actually on Time Square in New York City when THAT was announced - WOW!!) Military plans to transfer our 877th to the Pacific Theater of Operations became obsolete and our outfit, back from furloughs, was re-assembled at an airfield near Laredo, Texas.
There, we mustered out of uniform and into civvys, into civilian life. My wartime began with enlistment in St. Louis, Mo., on Oct. 24, 1942 and ended there in Texas, Oct. 16, 1945; but I decided to make the military my career until I retired in 1965.
Of course there was a second career, as a staff writer for 25 years with The San Bernardino (Ca.) Sun Telegram newspaper from which I retired on Feb. 1, 1990 and it was actually 25 years to that day I finally donned that Air Force blue suit...long, long after WORLD WAR II became history - and we were part of it, we were - we ARE its veterans.
Copyright 2005
Howard A. Ellis
Published in U S Legacies Magazine June 2005
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