Leland J. Kennedy Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

A: Alright. August. I'll tell you - Red Cross got me ten more days and then I got orders
to go to San Antonio, why I don't know. I was only down there - I had orders - you
followed orders and they sent me back out west. And I went to San Francisco and got
orders there to go to Marysville, California. That was up north. And I went back to duty
I think on the thirtieth day of September and if now my memory is correct I think that
was - we were on double daylight savings time at that time, I believe, if you recall that.
Don't you remember, instead of having one hour we had two.
Q: I think so, yes sir.
A: And I believe we changed back to standard time on two consecutive weekends.
SESSION 4, TAPE 8, SIDE 1
Q: And did this confuse the issue then because you had double daylight saving time?
A: Well it confused it maybe when you were overseas because, hell, it never got dark.
Q: I see.
A: Of course it never got light either, till late. You know, that was I guess to accommodate
you people in the air force - I don't mean that disrespectfully - so they'd have more daylight
bombing time I guess. And I guess you could hit the targets better in daylight. You
done a damned good job hitting them anyway. But they . . .
Q: Well let's see - when you went to San Francisco and then on up to . . .
A: Fort Mason.
Q: . . . Fort Mason.
A: Was Fort Mason at Frisco?
Q: I - I'm not sure.
A: I believe that's where they sent me. I was by myself. I wasn't with them. I was by
myself. And I got there and they says, "Well, Kennedy, you've been AWOL [Absent Without
Leave]." And I said, "No I haven't," and I showed them some papers. But they just sent
me up to Marysville. And how far Maryville is above Frisco, I don't know. It's right in
the Sacramento area I believe, Marysville is. But that was a supply depot and they had a
lot of German troops there.
And one thing of interest - they were supplying troops to go overseas, not with weapons
but with, you know, personal supplies, clothes and their gear - but one fellow who was
supposed to have gone through our process place was Shirley Temple's first husband, what
. was his name? Agar, or something like that. I think he went through. You've seen him
on movies occasionally now.
Q: Agar I believe is his name.
A: Well he's supposed to have gone through there but it was getting late and you were pretty
close to the Pacific Ocean, and you thought maybe they might ship you out. So I went down
to see an officer one day and I said, "When in the hell am I going to get out?" And we
talked. And he was about my age, maybe a little older, kind of a fatherly guy. I think