Don L. Chadwick My grandfather, Dr. Don L. Chadwick, was a professor of botany at Weber State for 25 years. He served in the infantry in the South Pacific during World War II and with the Army of Occupation in Japan. Submitted by Shay Anderson, grandson William Joseph Chambers Bill Chambers selected Army specialized training over officer training during the war. He was assigned Mandarin Chinese language study at Harvard. This school was closed, however, and Bill was assigned to the U.S. Infantry, 26th Yankee Division which saw action in the European Theater of Operations. He was awarded the Purple Heart. Bill attended Weber College from 1937 to 1939. Calvin Shaw Chandler Calvin Chandler was one of many veterans who were steeled by the depression before going to war. He attended Weber College in 1938 and 1939. He entered the armed services in 1941 and served until the war ended in 1946, attaining the rank of captain. Calvin took basic training at Camp Roberts, California, and then went to Duke University in North Carolina for OCS (Officer Candidates School). He served with the Alaskan Defense Command at Yakutat Landing Field and at Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands. He later supervised German Prisoners of War in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After the war, he studied at the University of Utah, where he met and married Adele Hughes who was also a veteran of WWII. Donald S. Child I was working at the Ogden Arsenal as a mechanical draftsman when inducted into the service, January 4, 1943, at Fort Douglas, Utah. After a week of processing, I went to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, for basic training for a month, then to Richmond, Virginia, to the Headquarters & Service Company, First Battalion, 924 Engineer Aviation Regiment and was assigned to H & S Co. as a mechanical draftsman. The company did not need another draftsman so I was assigned as the H & S Company Sign Painter. Then the battalion was renamed to the 1905 Engineer Aviation Battalion, and in April 1943 was sent to Dow Field in Bangor, Maine, where we trained building roads and landing strips, and also did military training. September found us on our way to New York to board ship to a destination unknown. After 32 days at sea, going around the southern tip of Africa and crossing the equator twice, we arrived at Bombay, India. From there we traveled across India by a very slow train to Nathkaw. Our job was to build a road from India to connect to the Burma Road, and to build air fields for fighter planes and bombers along the way. The Ledo Road was being pushed through the mountains and jungle, cut from the side of the mountains with a high on one side and a bottomless slope on the other. In February, two hospital planes flying over our camp at Saturday River collided and went down. Both pilots and Chinese passengers died. It took three days to find the aircraft in the jungle. In May 1944, tryouts were held to form a battalion band to entertain the troops working on the Ledo Road. I played the trumpet while at Weber High School. So 82 was chosen to be in the band. We called the band 'The Music Makers'. From that time on, we would travel up and down the Ledo Road to the various outfits working on the road as well as playing at the different officers' mess halls for dances and enlisted men's clubs. Also, we played for Armed Forces Radio once each week. In the spring H & S Co. measured the monsoon rain fall from 16 June to 12 July, and 42 1/2 inches of rain fell. In August, the band traveled to Shingbwigang for a program at the Red Cross. After the program, we played for a dance at the officers club of the 88th Fighters Squadron. The purpose of building the Ledo Road from India through Burma to China and the Burma Road was to get men, equipment, and supplies into China for the troops fighting the Japanese army. Building and maintaining the road continued until VJ day. Some of the men who had enough points started being sent home after VJ Day. I had enough points to come home by way of the Red Sea, through the Suez Canal, Mediterranean Sea, past the Rock of Gibraltar, across the Atlantic Ocean back to New York. To see the Statue of Liberty as we sailed into the New York Harbor was a real thrill, after being overseas for 2 and 1/2 years. We traveled by troop train to Utah and I was discharged on 11 December 1945. Mathis E. Cleveland Mathis Cleveland was one of many pre-war soldiers who spent part of their military career in Northern Utah. He was assigned to the Ogden Arsenal from 1939 to 1943, where he was chief of security. He was then transferred to Stockton, California, in 1943 to command a prisoner of war camp for Germans. He was assigned, at war's end, to escort them back to Germany aboard the SS Marine Shark. Interestingly, he returned to Germany in 1958 for a reunion with about 100 of 3,000 former prisoners. Mathis retired from the Army with the rank of major. He attended Weber College in 1950, taking some watchmaking classes. Press reports from the time show him using wood from the Black Forest in Germany to make the wooden gears for a clock. Alma 'A.C.' Cook Al ma Cook, better known as 'A.C.' was in the 222nd Field Artillery Band during WWII. He also was involved at the Battle of the Bulge. Howard B. Cottrell Howard worked in the Ogden Arsenal for a year prior to his being called into the service. He knew every phase of preparing, making, loading and shipping bombs. He was inducted into the U.S. Army at Fort Douglas on October 2, 1942. While he was there, the colonel in charge called him in and told him he was writing on his record a request for him to be sent to OCS (Officer Candidates School) as soon as he completed basic training at Fort Ord, California. From there, Howard was sent to Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland for OCS. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in August and then sent for more intensive ordnance work for three months to Camp Gordon in Georgia. He made first lieutenant there and was sent overseas on September 7, 1944. Howard landed on Utah Beach, France and from there on they could really see the devastation of the war. He went in with the 653rd Ordnance Ammunition Company, and then was transferred to the 54th Ordnance Ammunition Company under EUCOM. They saw terrific fighting during the Battle of the Bulge. German city after allied bombing A German bomber dropped a bomb on their rail yards and set a car on fire. It spread rapidly and for three days the countryside shook with the explosions. Howard said every time a railway car blew up, it made a hole the size of an apartment building. Steel rails from tracks and cars rained down on them (over 800 cars). 83