James T. Lingg - WWII
Page 18 - In Jail, AWOL, and the Shrink's Office

When I got out of the hospital, they gave me a copy of the orders to report to the 19^th Replacement Depot and then told me, "We don't have any transportation, all you have to do is walk down the road to where the "Red Ball Express" is and they'll give you a ride into Paris. From there you can get a ride down to Fontainebleau". So I thought that's fine, I don't mind that at all.

I got my ride. I had my orders with me. I was released on the 21^st of October and we got to Paris the same day. I went to the train station. Being very, very up and above board, I demanded that I be given a ride to Fontainebleau to report to the 19^th Replacement Depot. I couldn't understand what the Frenchman was saying but he was gesturing. There were quite a few of us soldiers standing around waiting to get a ride out to the 19^th Replacement Depot. Lo and behold, the M.P.s showed up. They picked us all up, treated us like we were dangerous criminals and put us in one of their famous Paris jails. We were held here for about three days until they got some work transportation and got us on down to the 19^th Replacement Depot.

At the Replacement Depot, we were told that they ought to call us AWOL. Oh boy, you should have heard the screams from everybody there because we were all in the same boat. We'd all gotten out of the hospital, all reported in to Paris and were all ready to go to Fontainebleau. They checked the time out on us and realized that we had either been in movement, waiting in Paris or in the jail there, so there was nothing to put in our records showing us AWOL, which we were real happy about. We didn't want anything like that.

Up to this point, nobody had talked to me about having been a Prisoner of War. I didn't think anything about it because I thought I just didn't have any information to release and then the Psychiatrist talked to me about it and I guess he thought I was all right because he gave me a clean slate.