Epilogue

Upon transfer to the 456^th Bomb Group, it was nothing but wait-wait-wait, and plenty of boredom.  The monotony was occasionally broken by an occasional 3-day pass by air to Rome, Florence, Venice or Genoa.  Italian communists in most cities were causing disturbances and sometimes riots.  Personnel going to town were advised to go in groups and go armed.  It was ironic that the war was over and this was the only time we wore sidearms.

In July, orders came and we were off by truck to Naples, where we were quartered in a former German POW camp.

In early August 1945, finally we embarked by ship and arrived in Fort Patrick Henry a day before Japan surrendered.

Leave and discharge followed.

About a year ago (in the Fall of 1985), I was having breakfast with a friend of mine named Adam Reish.  The conversation drifted to his boyhood in Hungary.  Adam said he was ten years old in Hungary in 1945 when the war was over.  Adam collected our peace pamphlets and hid them.  I asked him why he hid the pamphlets, and Adam said if the Russians found anyone with any pamphlets, they went to prison as a capitalist sympathizer.

Adam went on to observe (he is an American citizen) being in this country for twenty six years, peace pamphlets were much better than bombs, being an American is no comparison to living under the communists.  He walked to freedom across the Iron Curtain.  Finally he said, “May no one ever again drop any bombs on anyone.”

And may it be forever thus.

Claude W. Hisey

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

October 24, 1986