Oral History Program Glen Bean Interviewed by Alyssa Chaffee and Lorrie Rands 30 March 2017 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Glen Bean Interviewed by Alyssa Chaffee and Lorrie Rands 30 March 2017 Copyright © 2018 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The World War II "All Out for Uncle Sam" oral history project contains interviews from veterans of the war, wives of soldiers, as well as individuals who were present during the war years. The interviews became the compelling background stories for the "All Out for Uncle Sam" exhibit. The project received funding from Utah Division of State History, Utah Humanities Council and Weber County RAMP. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Bean, Glen, an oral history by Alyssa Chaffee and Lorrie Rands, 30 March 2017, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Glen Bean as a young man during WWII. circa 1942 Glen Bean 30 March 2017 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Glen Bean, conducted on March 30, 2017 in his home in Bountiful, Utah, by Alyssa Chaffee and Lorrie Rands. Glen discusses his life and his memories involving during World War II. AC: Today is March 30, 2017. We are in the home of Glen Bean in Bountiful, Utah. We are speaking with Glen Bean about his life and his experiences during World War Two for Weber State University’s World War II in Northern Utah project. I am Alyssa Chaffee, and I will be conducting this interview with Lorrie Rands. So let’s start out with when and where were you born? GB: I was born in Salt Lake City, August 19, 1929. AC: 1929. Did you grow up during the Depression then? GB: I did. The Depression started in October of that year, and I was born in August, so I grew up during the Depression years. AC: What do you remember of that? GB: It was tough. But we didn’t know it was tough, because everybody had the same situation. You had to hunt and dig for yourself to make your own entertainment. Entertainment for us was a ballgame out in front of the house every night after school, either a football game or a softball game, stuff like that. AC: That sounds fun. 2 GB: It was a different life, different lifestyle. But you kind of learn to dig in, take care of yourself, and make some decisions that nobody else could make for you. LR: Where did you grow up? GB: I grew up in Salt Lake City. LR: That’s a big area, so where in Salt Lake? GB: I grew up on the West Side of Salt Lake. I remember the old house was 835 S, 8th West. AC: You mentioned that you had to fend for yourself a bit, what did you mean by that? GB: Well, if you wanted to earn some money…This was interesting. I think when I was about 13, I would pass out handbills for a local grocery store, and I would have to walk about three or four miles to hand out the grocery bills to all the houses. And I think I would get 25 cents for it. If you wanted to go to a movie it was ten cents, and a nickel for a bag of popcorn, so… AC: What do you remember of the day that Pearl Harbor was attacked? Where were you when you heard about it? GB: I remember very vividly. It was Sunday, around noon our time. My two cousins who lived just diagonally across the street from us were out working on their car. They were older than me, four or six years older than I am. So I went over there and talked to them, because they knew they were going into the service. But it was a shock. I was young, I didn’t 3 realize the impact of it. But I remember Sunday, talking to my two cousins, and they were concerned because they were going to go in, and they knew they were going to end up in the military. LR: Did you have any siblings? GB: I have two brothers. LR: Are they older or younger? GB: They’re younger. LR: So there wasn’t that worry then. GB: No, no. AC: Interesting. How do you think that impacted your life as a teenager? GB: Well you knew there was a possibility if the war went long that you might be called into the service. I was 16 going on 17 when the war ended, so I missed all of World War Two, and I didn’t get into the military until Korea came along. AC: Did you prepare yourself for the possibility of serving? GB: I thought about it. I used to think as a teenager that I probably wanted to join the Navy, and that didn’t work out. Things happen in your life, and directions change and I ended up being drafted into the Army during the Korean War. AC: What do you remember of war time during World War Two? How did that affect your day to day life? 4 GB: Well, I remember the rationing. Specifically, I remember when gas rationing came on. My Dad took me in the car up to the local service station where he bought gas, and there were cars lined up for miles to get gas. And he filled his tank, and I guess like everybody else, he had a sticker in the window that told us how much gas he was allowed to have. When service guys came on furlough, they were given extra tickets so they wouldn’t use up their parents tickets. Food rationing: everyone was chopping up their flower gardens and making them into what they called ‘victory gardens.’ My Dad had a few chickens that he got, and so he’d get some eggs from there. When the chickens got too old to lay they became fried chicken or chicken noodle soup. And he had a few rabbits and, if he needed it, he’d kill and skin a rabbit and we’d have fried rabbit. I remember you’d be lucky if you got a pack of Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum. You’d have to tear the foil off the wrappers and save that. You’d crush up your tin cans and save those. And, so, it was just the rationing is what you had to deal with. AC: What did you save the foil and the cans for? GB: It was recycle. You’d collect them and return it. What the government was doing with them, I don’t know. AC: How large was your victory garden? GB: My Dad’s wasn’t very big. Just whatever he had in his backyard. He could get in some carrots and radishes and things like that. My uncle had a dairy 5 farm just west of Salt Lake, so every once in a while he would bring in some more eggs and chickens for us. I do remember one time that he had a steer that they butchered. They gave my Dad some meat, because meat was really rationed, it was really tough to get meat. AC: So you ate out of your victory garden a lot then? GB: Oh yeah, my Dad was a great one for raising a garden, even after the war. We had whatever fresh vegetables he could get and raise at that point. AC: Were there rations on clothing as well? GB: You know, I don’t remember the rationing on clothing. I’m sure there was, but I don’t remember it that well. It didn’t affect me in any way. AC: Did you and your brothers do any other things besides saving aluminum for the war effort? GB: Yeah, we bought war bonds. You could get a war bond for eighteen dollars and seventy five cents and when it matured you got twenty five dollars. So we would save up money to buy a war bond whenever we could. LR: Where did you go to high school? GB: Went to West High School. My wife went to East High. LR: What were some of the activities you did in High School that helped with the war effort? Did they have drives and things like that? GB: You know, I don’t remember that too well but I’m sure they did. I know I’d just find a job to try and work during the summer. I only played one year of 6 football in High School and that didn’t work out too well. All I got out of football was a bunch of broken ribs, and so I didn’t play anymore. LR: Do you feel like the general attitude about the war was different from your Junior High to High School years? Since one was in peacetime and the other one was while the war was in full bloom… GB: How did it affect me? LR: Yeah. GB: When I went into high school the war was still going on. And I knew the longer the war was going to go on, the closer my chances were of being involved. And that concerned me, you know. Not to the point I was going to run and hide, but I knew it was something that I may have to face. But you didn’t let it control your life. LR: Do you remember if that kind of attitude was prevalent among a lot of the boys in high school? GB: Yeah it was, because there were a lot of the kids who, as soon as they graduated, joined the military. And some of them joined at 17, who went in. AC: Were the 17 year olds graduated from high school or did they have to leave high school? GB: No, in those days they had what they called an AU, an Articulating Unit. So I graduated when I was 17. They combined certain grades. And so most of them were getting out when they were 17, just turning 18. And so, 7 I can remember kids’ pictures in the yearbook, they’re in their uniform, and somehow they had their picture taken in uniform. AC: What year did you graduate high school? GB: 1947. LR: So what do you remember, as the war was drawing to its close, what were some of your feelings with that? Because you were still in high school, you still had two years to go. GB: As a kid, you would hear the things coming, and back when the war first started, you wondered: Can we win this? What effect will this have in our life? And as it’s going on, towards the end of it, you got to say you know, we can do this, and how’s it going to affect me there? And I can remember when Germany surrendered, in May, Salt Lake City went crazy. There were people parading up and down Main Street, and carrying on, and when Japan surrendered in August, it was a repeat. I remember I was old enough to go up and march up and down the streets and I got home about three o’clock in the morning, which was a no no for my family. And my dad came and told me get out of bed, its six. And I said dad I just barely got to sleep and he said I know, get up. And I didn’t get up, and the next thing I know the bed was upside down and he said, you know, I don’t care, get up you have things to do. So, you know, it was just the way you lived. AC: That’s really cool that there were a lot of celebrations in Salt Lake, I didn’t realize that. 8 GB: Well, it got a little wild in some places. My cousin and I were down there, and you had to stay out of trouble, because there were people drinking; they got carried away, you just had to be careful what you were doing. AC: Definitely. Were you parents worried about you going to celebrate? GB: If they were, they didn’t ever tell me. They didn’t say anything. My parents were very strict about, just stay out of trouble, you know. LR: You said it was wild, do you remember anything specific? GB: I think there were guys trying to kiss every girl on the street. LR: Like that famous photograph? GB: Just like that famous photograph, yeah. AC: And you said there was a lot of drinking? GB: Yeah, it was weird. My cousin grabbed a bottle out of some guy’s hand and smashed it into the gutter. And I thought don’t do this, Bill, we can get in a lot of trouble, we can get hurt. There was a lot of servicemen here at the time, you know. Salt Lake Airport was a place for the military, the air force guys, Hill Air Force base and so forth, so there were a lot of military people here. AC: Did you ever get tired of hearing about the war? GB: You know, I don’t think I did. Of course, communication was so much different then. You didn’t have television as instant communications. You relied on the newspaper and the radio. You’d always listen to Edward R. Murrow London Calling, and then everything was carried in the 9 newspaper. And the thing I remember, a lot of it, was the little flag in the window. If they had someone in the military they got a blue star. And if that individual was killed it turned into a gold star. You would see them in the neighborhood. One day there would be a blue star, and two or so days later it would be a gold star or something like that. AC: What did you do right after the war? GB: Well, I really didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I kind of kicked around for a year, year and a half, almost two years, worked for a couple of jobs. And then the LDS Church called me on a mission. So then I went on a mission up to Minnesota. And I got a letter one day from my mother that said here’s 40 dollars to help you get home. And I thought what’s this? I’m not through, I had an extension. And I called the office in Minneapolis and asked to talk to the mission president, he says he’s not here. And I says how can I get in contact with him? And he says, haven’t you heard? You’re in the army now, you’re not behind the plow, you’re going home, you’re in the army. And so, I came home the first of June and by the end of July, I was in the army. AC: Did your notification get lost in the mail? GB: No it was just a sudden thing. They said you’re drafted, and the next day I was on the bus heading home. AC: So your mother knew you were drafted before you did? GB: She did, they knew before I did. 10 AC: How did you feel about that? GB: I had already been deferred once to do this, and other than saying why don’t you look for another deferment by going to school, and I wasn’t entitled to that. You know, other guys were going, and my friends were going, and I didn’t think that I was any different from anybody else. You just went in, you take your chances. And most of the group I was with in our basic training went to Korea. I was lucky, I was selected to go to school in counterintelligence. And I ended up spending all my time at counterintelligence school in Baltimore. AC: What year were you drafted? GB: 1951. AC: And you were at counterintelligence school for the rest of the war? GB: Yeah, I went to counterintelligence school, then I was assigned to a small unit, Central Records for Army Intelligence. We would process the reports coming in, and then going out to whatever agency requested them. We had files on good guys and bad guys we would process. We were cleared up to top secret, so I had to go through an intensive background investigation, and things like that. LR: Where did you do your basic training? GB: Camp Roberts, California. LR: Okay. And how much time did you spend there? 11 GB: I started there in August, and I left there in November, to report back to Baltimore. AC: How do you feel the general attitude was about the war? Where we had just had World War II, and now the Korean War? GB: There was a lot of difference between World War II and Korea. I’ve never seen this nation so unified and together as it was during The War. There was no Republican, Democrat, Independent, just all people plugged together. Korea, well, they kind of resented that one because, we weren’t attacked or anything like that. They called it a police action, things like that, so there was a different attitude. AC: Did you still feel a sense of pride in being able to fight in the Korean War? GB: Absolutely. I felt it was a distinct honor to serve in the military. I was proud of the uniform I wore. AC: Were you disappointed that you weren’t drafted into the navy? You’d mentioned that that was something you had wanted to do. GB: Not really, I found out I could walk seven miles easier than I could swim seven miles. I loved to swim but I couldn’t swim far enough. AC: Had you met your wife already? GB: I met my wife in Baltimore. I was in the service there, and she was from Salt Lake City High School. She had gone back east with two friends to work, and I met her in Church in Baltimore. LR: Where was she working? 12 GB: She worked for the Calvert Life and Fire Insurance Company. LR: What did she do? GB: Office work, that’s all I knew. LR: I’m curious as to what brought her out to Baltimore. GB: Well, she and her three friends lived in Salt Lake, and one day one of them said you know, we ought to go back east and see what it’s like, and so the three of them uprooted. And they went first up to Connecticut, and they couldn’t find a job that they wanted, then they headed for Baltimore, and there they were. LR: I find that very unique, that they would just uproot like that. GB: Well, I don’t know why, one of them just said, gee, let’s go back East and they did. LR: That is really cool. AC: How long was your courtship for? GB: I met her in September, we were married in February. AC: That’s wonderful. So, were you in Baltimore during the whole war then? GB: Yeah, I was at a little post called Fort Holabird in Dundalk, Maryland. It’s like Centerville is to here. It was a very small, compact post. You could walk across it in half an hour, twenty minutes. AC: So you two got married. Then did she move to the base with you? GB: No. My wife hated Baltimore and when we got married I still had five months left in the service. We came back and got married, and we were 13 here ten days, so after ten days I had to report back for the other five months, so she stayed here and worked till I got discharged and came back. AC: Did you get discharged at the end of the war? GB: No, I was discharged in 1953. The war was still going on. LR: So it was a two year enlistment? GB: Yep, you’re drafted for two years. It’s interesting, I was alerted to go to Korea, and then for some reason I was transferred, and I was sent someplace else. And then I was alerted to go to Germany, and you had to have nine months to serve, and I only had seven, and so they pulled me off of that list and sent somebody else in my place. I never got out of the United States. AC: So, once you got back to Utah, did you and your wife continue living here? GB: Yeah, we lived in Salt Lake. I went to work, went to school nights. I went to Henager’s Business College, and then when I moved to Ogden, I went to Weber. LR: When did you move to Ogden? GB: We moved into Ogden in 1957. LR: And what brought you to Ogden? GB: Well the company opened a warehouse up there, and I was the branch manager for the Northern Utah area US Plywood. LR: And where was that located? 14 GB: We were on Lincoln Street in Ogden. Had a warehouse there. LR: Do you remember the address? GB: It was close to the north end. LR: Okay. So almost into Pleasant View. GB: It was right on Lincoln Street, I just don’t remember the exact address. LR: Okay, I was just curious. AC: What degree did you graduate from Weber State with? GB: I didn’t get to graduate from Weber. I was going to school, and I was working, and my job required traveling, and then I was called to be Bishop up there, and I couldn’t be Bishop and travel and go to school, something had to give. So school went by the wayside. Then I was going to go back after I was done being Bishop, but then I got transferred to Seattle, so I never did get to finish. AC: So you and your wife moved up to Seattle for your work then? GB: Yeah. I was sent up there as sales manager for part of Washington and Alaska. We were up there two and a half years. AC: Did you have children at this time? GB: Two of our children were born here while we were in Salt Lake and two were in Ogden. LR: So you have four children all together? GB: Four, yes. LR: So after Seattle, did you come back to Salt Lake? 15 GB: I was sent back to Salt Lake as the area manager for the company. LR: Okay. And the company's name was US Plywood? GB: US Plywood. They merged with various companies, till now it’s called International Paper. LR: Okay. GB: So I went through three mergers to end up with International Paper. AC: So what brought you back to Bountiful, Utah? GB: As we were coming back, my wife said that she wanted to live in Bountiful. And she was getting pressure from others to live in Salt Lake, Sandy, and she wanted to live in Bountiful. So I said fine, if you want to go to Bountiful, go to Bountiful. And she found the lot, she found the house, the whole kit and caboodle. I was too busy working to get involved with it. AC: Interesting. So did you continue to hold that US Plywood job? GB: I did until they retired me on a disability. AC: What were some of your main duties as part of that job? GB: I was a manager over everything; sales, purchasing, warehousing, everything. And I was responsible for the sales activities in Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming. AC: Was it work that you enjoyed? GB: It was. It was a job I loved. I looked forward every day to getting up and going to work. 16 AC: That’s always nice to have. Lori, do you have any other questions you’re interested in? LR: Well if you don’t mind, I want to go back a little bit, all the way back to when you were growing up during the Depression, I know you were young but, I’ve heard a lot about what it was like on farms during the Depression, but you didn’t live on a farm, is that correct? GB: No, I never did. LR: So what were some of the things that your family did to survive? GB: Oh, okay. I remember, there were about three families to close where we lived, and they would get together and come to somebody's house and somebody would bring an egg, somebody would bring some flour, whatever, maybe some milk, make up some waffles, then eat, then sit and play cards. And that was our whole entertainment. Other than that, just our radio to listen to. But, I think that my Dad finally found a job working for the Salt Lake City Street Department. And I think he made 25 cents an hour when he first started. He finally went to work for Ford Motor. I do remember those neighbors getting together and that was their entertainment. LR: Tell me about your mother. GB: She was a profound woman, she really was. A very stern woman, when it came to doing what you’re supposed to do when you’re supposed to do it. I remember one time I put off one of my duties while I was doing my paper 17 route, and her answer was you never put off to tomorrow what you can do today. And we had our responsibilities in the home; I had no sisters and so we were given responsibility of cleaning in the house. And she was a fanatic on cleaning, on cleanliness. Marvelous cook. A devoted mother. And devoted wife. She was fantastic. LR: I’m curious, because you had to work to make it through the Depression, did that help when it came to all the rationing and stuff that happened during World War Two? GB: Yeah, because we knew what it was like to go without. It was tough. I can remember, you could buy a small loaf of bread for a nickel or a dime, something like that. I complained to my Dad one time about having to eat steak, just a little piece of steak, and he said come on, someone might be glad if they got a piece of steak. My mother was a good cook, but when she cooked meat it was like a burnt offering. That was what they did in those days, you didn’t have barbecues and things. But she was a great pie maker. AC: You said that your dad was in charge of the victory garden. Did he do some cooking as well? GB: My dad never cooked a thing in his life. I don’t even know if he could boil water. But he loved to raise a garden. Hard worker, really hard worker. He’d lived on a farm as a kid, he’d learned how hard it was to work on a farm. 18 LR: So did both of your parents grow up in the Salt Lake area? GB: They did, in fact they lived across the street from each other. LR: Really? GB: Yeah, down on old Genesee Avenue down on the West Side of Salt Lake. The old homes are still there. AC: Did you and your brothers do a lot together growing up? GB: I was four years older than the next brother, but we carried a paper route for six years, and he’d take part of it and I’d take part and we’d split the money. Then, when summer came, I’d take a job working in a service station, and turn the paper route over to him. We were taught to work. AC: Very busy. So not much time for play then? GB: Oh yeah. You know, like I said, every night it was a softball game or a football game out on the front lawn, parking lots, down the West Side of Salt Lake. And, you know, after dinner something like that. AC: So you mentioned the brother closer to your age is four years younger than you? GB: He is four years younger, right to the month. AC: How about your next brother? GB: He’s six years younger. AC: Okay. GB: One lives in Idaho, and the other lives over here by Bountiful High School. 19 AC: Interesting. Bit of a gap then. One last question. How do you feel that World War II affected you as a person throughout the rest of your life? GB: It made me proud of this country. It really made me proud of this country. I had the two cousins that lived across the street from me. One became a bomber pilot, went to England. And the other one became a gunner on a bomber, and he went to the Pacific. And he was involved in the Iwo Jima bombing, things like that. And, the neighbor next door to us, one went to the Air Force and the older brother fought with Patton’s Third Army. They never talked about much, but I remember when my cousin became a pilot. When he came home after flight school, he took me out to the airport, took me up in a plane. He says, okay, now you handle the stick, very gently. And I grabbed it like that and he smacked me upside the head. And he said when I said gently, I meant gently. I loved airplanes, and I guess he taught me the value of an airplane or something. But those, those are the things that I remember. Like I say, I don’t ever remember this nation as closely united for a goal or a purpose as they had been at that point. AC: Why do you believe that was? GB: I think because we knew that our life was in peril. We stood a chance of maybe losing that war. It was scary, and I thought about that. You know, are we going to lose this war? as a kid. And so, you just had that feeling of companionship. There just wasn’t the animosity that there is today. 20 LR: Yeah, I can understand that. So how do you think those memories and those thoughts influence the rest of your life? GB: It gave me a really profound respect for this country, this nation. I’m doggone proud of it. It taught me the value of hard work. It taught me that there’s no free nickel, there’s no free ride. That you got to jerk yourself up by your bootstraps, and it’s up to you to do with your life what you will. And, that was a good thing to me, the Depression and the War years. That you had to work, you had to get in and dig. Education was important. LR: Alright, well thank you. Are there any other stories or memories you’d like to share? GB: I do remember, one family lived across the street from us, around the corner. Didn’t know them well, but one day the gold star showed up in their window, and their son had been killed in the oil raid on Ploiesti in Romania. I didn’t know him, but I remember the effect it had on me at that point. And I’ve met guys, after the war, you know, on different occasions. One I met had survived the Bataan Death March, and he talked a bit about it. Those kinds of things really had an effect on you, you know; what people have done for this country. I sometimes wonder if we appreciate, really, what people do. AC: I’m curious, what would you do to help keep up your morale? Because you said it was kind of scary at times and, obviously, sad. 21 GB: I don’t know, really. I guess I was too young to really get depressed. You know, you can sometimes be concerned, but I guess I was too young to just get really depressed. AC: That makes sense. Alright, well, I think that’s all my questions. LR: This has been fantastic. Thank you so much for your willingness to sit down and talk with us. This has been great.