James T. Lingg - WWII
Page 20 - Home Again and Discharged 11 December 1945

I shipped home from Camp Phillip Morse in France. The kind of boats we rode back on were just old welded together "Victory Ships". It took quite a while traveling on those slow boats. On 3 December 1945, we arrived in Boston, Mass. to unload and were sent up to Camp Miles Standish out of Boston. There we were shook down to make sure we weren't bringing anything home we shouldn't and they checked us out pretty thorough.

We checked into different camps there. Then they sent sleepers in. When I say sleepers, they were railroad cars that had triple bunks built in them. Just plain old triple wood bunks.

I had one day K. P. (Kitchen Police) on this train and the thing I remember most was the Sgt. that ran the K. P. group had us breaking eggs. For some reason, instead of letting us break them into bowls so we could throw out any not good, he had us break them right into the kettle. We had a few eggs that were very smelly and if I'd had my way, I would have certainly thrown them out.

We peeled potatoes, washed part of the cooking utensils, (everybody ate out of their mess gear on the train so we didn't have to worry about washing any dishes) and did all the usual type K. P. jobs. When we had the meal ready to serve, we would line up in our cars and go through with our mess kits. We'd pick up our food, carry it back to our car and sit on the low bunk to eat it. In the morning, at breakfast, knowing what went on with the eggs on K. P., we all ended up throwing our eggs away. Nobody ate eggs all the way home.

I rode that train all the way back to Fort Douglas, Utah. On December 11, 1945, I was discharged from the Army of the United States and returned as a civilian to the bosom of my family.   (To be continued .... sometime later .... Reinlistment, Service in "peace" and in Korea, marriage, etc.)