"Draft Board and Military..."

According to my grandmother, my grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer's 16 years ago.  My uncle transcribed his memoirs & gave each immediate family member bound copies.  The following is an excerpt:

"I spent a year and a half working in New York.  The draft board transferred my address to New York, so when I was inducted, I had to report to a New York address.  I was inducted in the Air Force at Camp Upton, New York, October 20, 1942.  They put us on a Long Island train and then to another train to Miami Beach, FL.  About the time we got to Miami, we discovered we were in the Air Force.  We learned that men from the mountains, East Tennessee, and Kentucky ended up in the infantry or artillery.  Men from northern cities were put in the Air Force because they had never learned to shoot a gun before.  That's how I got in the Air Force.

During basic training we were all separated and classified according to our civilian experience.  The Air Force was invading Southern Italy and needed equipment operators to build air fields.  We had one guy with us who could not write his name, but he worked in a steel mill stamping out the plates that go under railroad rails.  The machine that did that was called a Bull Nozer.  When they asked if anyone could operate a Bulldozer, he held up his hand.  In 10 minutes he was on his way to the Corps of Engineers--overseas.  I learned right then to listen closely to what they say and don't volunteer for anything.

All assignments for duty, such as K.P., guard duty, latrine duty, and yard cleanup were done alphabetically.  Of course, I was first in everything, and before they got around to everybody, we would move and start over at the beginning.

They gave us Air Force Machinist Training at Kansas City, MO.  That was easy for me because of my work at New York.  Upon completion of the training, I was classified as Machinist 114.  Then they placed us in a staging area so we could be ready to go overseas, when a need for machinists came about.  While in this area, I discovered I had a planter wart on the ball of one foot.  I could hardly walk and a long march was out of the question.  I missed three shipments overseas because of this.  Of course that was OK with me, but finally the officers had to ship me with my sore foot.  We were at March Field, San Bernadino, California, at this time.  They got order to ship about 900 men overseas.  They only knew the classifications needed which included about 24 machinists.  They didn't know where we would be going or exactly when.  This was all kept quiet because of German spies alerting submarines."

To be continued...