Published Sunday, May 11, 2008

Thompson, fellow soldiers sailed from Seattle to S. Pacific

The Times-Herald

After a brutal winter in an aging Army barracks in Seattle, Tommy Thompson was ready to go anywhere else. Even a war zone. But when he saw he would be traveling to the South Pacific in a converted Japanese cargo ship, Thompson had doubts. Once he was aboard, things got worse.

New bunks had been bolted to the wall to accommodate as many soldiers as possible. When the ship hit rough weather, hundreds of troops became seasick. Those who couldn't reach the deck went beneath the passenger area to a lower hold that housed the toilets and soldiers' extra gear.

Nauseated sailors spent days throwing up in the hold. Soon the floors were awash in the results. Sailors who weren't seasick got nauseated as they waded through the mess to grab a fresh set of clothes or use the toilets.

Thompson wasn't immune to the deplorable conditions. But he had a perspective some of the others lacked. As a boy, he had been forced to deal with another illness not nearly so gentle.

"I didn't like it, but by then I'd already gotten through some tough times," he says. "I dealt with it."

Thompson was born in Seale, Alabama, in 1924. When he started school, America was entering the Great Depression. Tough times hit rural America especially hard and Thompson remembers the day Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president in 1932.

"Kids came running into school the next day hollering 'Roosevelt won,'" Thompson says. "We all thought things were about to get better."

For Thompson's family that wasn't the case. His father was a mail carrier. In the mid-1930s he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, which was highly contagious and at the time, mostly untreatable.

Thompson's older siblings had already moved out and found jobs in the Midwest. Thompson and his two youngest siblings were moved out of the house to keep them from catching the dread disease. Thompson's father died when Thompson was 14. The disease soon claimed his mother and an older brother.

Thompson wound up in Atlanta with his brother and his wife. He went to Atlanta's Tech High School and did well. But even before he graduated in 1942, it was clear that because of family finances, college was not an option.

During his senior year, Thompson was intrigued by a promise from an Army recruiter. The man guaranteed that if young men entered the Army's Signal Corps after high school they would take some Army training and enter active duty as a 2nd Lieutenant.

Thompson signed up and after graduation was sent to Georgia Tech to learn how to build, service and repair radio units critical to the war effort. One of his classmates was Mildred Burke, a woman from Seminole County. Between classes, the two became friends, then sweethearts and in November 1942, they were married.

After nine months at Georgia Tech, Thompson went to Philadelphia for training with the Philco Company, a major manufacturer of radios. After a year of "unofficial training," Thompson was ready to enter active Army duty. And he knew he wouldn't be entering as a 2nd Lieutenant. In July 1943, Thompson was officially inducted into the U.S. Army Signal Corps as a buck private.

"That taught me a little something about the Army," Thompson says.

Members of the Signal Corps had specialized training and could be assigned to any branch of the Army. Thompson was tapped for the Army Air Corps and sent to basic training in Columbus, Mississippi.

From Mississippi, Thompson traveled to the Army Air Depot at Warner Robins, Ga. Thompson says life at Warner Robins was good. As long as he didn't mind being a bad guy. Thousands of new men were coming through. Part of their training included weekend bivouacs in the field, during which trainees were "attacked" by fake enemy troops.

Thompson was offered a chance to play "enemy" soldier several times. If Thompson played a bad guy one weekend, he earned a pass to go home the next.

"It was really a good deal," he says. "I got to visit with my wife and family; and when you're in the Army, those chances don't come along all the time."

But the good life at Warner Robins didn't last. Thompson eventually went to Seattle, then took the worst voyage of his life on the converted Japanese cargo ship. After brief stops at Pearl Harbor and Eniwetok, it was on to Thompson's final destination: the island of Guam, a tiny spot in the ocean that had been a U.S. territory since the 1898 Spanish-American War.

Americans had retaken the island in July 1944. A few Japanese soldiers remained, hiding in the jungle and sneaking into American camps to steal food. Most were armed, and American soldiers were told to keep their guard up at all times.

One man in Thompson's outfit soon proved that enemy soldiers weren't the island's only danger. The soldier was assigned one of the unit's nastiest jobs... burning waste from the latrines. One day, though, the soldier decided to start a war against the island's aggressive ant population.

He took some of the fuel used to burn the waste and poured it over an ant bed. Unfortunately, the man was peering down into the center of the anthill when he struck the match intended to send the ants to a fiery death.

"It burned off most of his hair and scared him half to death," Thompson says. "He pretty much stuck to business after that."

As Allied forces prepared for the anticipated invasion of Japan, Guam was a beehive of activity. New ships carrying troops and supplies arrived every day. The island's large airstrip became a staging base for B-29 bombers that were striking Japan almost daily. Military brass decided to build a smaller air field for fighter planes.

Since Thompson was trained radio technician the Army naturally put him to work driving a dump truck, removing debris from the site of the new air field.

"That's the Army for you," Thompson says. "Whatever needed to be done we had to do it and that was that. It wasn't a bad job, though."

Dining was another adventure altogether.

Peanut butter was served at every meal. Thompson developed a taste for the product that continues today. He can't say the same for the breakfast chow. The worst dish was dried eggs imported from Australia. Thompson says no matter how the eggs were prepared, they always ended up with green streaks.

"We didn't know what made those eggs turn green, but I can guarantee you we didn't trust them," Thompson says. "They might have been fine, but they sure didn't look fit to eat."

Guam had a parade of guests and high-profile VIPs. One of them was famed war correspondent Ernie Pyle, who would later be killed on the island of Ie Shima during the battle for Okinawa.

Pyle gained fame for his portrayals of common men, the dog-faced GIs who did the war time dirty work. But Thompson says when Pyle visited Guam, the GIs never saw him.

"We knew he was here and we were all excited about it, but he never came around and saw us," Thompson says. "He hung out with the officers and nurses, but that's just the way it was."

After 16 months on Guam, Thompson returned home and was discharged. By then, he was ready for a new life. Once he got back to Georgia, Thompson took a job at AT&T's Long Lines division. A year later the company unionized and workers went on a strike that cost Thompson six weeks' pay.

He sought other work and wound up as guard at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. Thompson soon decided he'd try another side of law enforcement.

"I thought it would be better putting people in jail than watching them once they were in there," he says.

Thompson then signed on with a division of the Internal Revenue Service that investigated violations of alcoholic beverage laws.

"I became what was called a 'revenoo-er,'" Thompson says. "We started chasing bootleggers. And that's when the fun began."

Thompson chased moonshiners from Florida outposts that included Tallahassee, West Palm Beach and Miami, where he stayed five yeas and became head of the post.

Thompson says he always abided by the advice given him by a supervisor in Tallahassee.

"He told me that it was our job to go after these people and shut them down," Thompson says. "But he said to remember that all moonshiners weren't bad people. He said they were good people trying to make a living who didn't know another way of life. He said if I treated them with respect they would be the first ones to turn to if I needed help. He was right."

Thompson was never shot at by a whiskey maker, but was almost run down by a man carrying a load of illegal booze. "I jumped in a ditch to keep from being run over," Thompson says. "We never did catch him, though."

After a few years on the job, Thompson realized the IRS was the wrong agency for enforcing liquor laws and began to lobby the federal government to set up a new agency to deal with the problem.

It took years, but Thompson's continued efforts finally resulted in the creation of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Thompson did such a good job pitching the new program he was invited to join the newly-formed ATF in Washington. He eventually became head of the ATF's Enforcement Division.

Thompson retired in 1974 and moved to Newnan to be closer to family. His wife Mildred died just a few years later; and in 1985, Thompson married the former Barbara Sprayberry. The couple have three children and three grandchildren.

Not long after moving to Newnan, Thompson became active with the local Council on Aging, which offered meals and activities through a program at the former Parrish House of Newnan First United Methodist Church on Greenville Street. He decided a permanent senior center was needed in Coweta County and spent years getting grant money for a building and begging political officials for land to house the center.

When a site for the center was finally approved by the Coweta County Commission, then commissioner Robert Wood suggested it be named for Thompson. Thompson tried to decline, but says Wood jokingly told him, "You're the one that kept nagging us. Every time I looked up I saw your ugly face in here asking for something else for these old folks."

The Tommy Thompson Senior Center is now a fixture on Hospital Road on Newnan's west side.

"I've been very fortunate," Thompson says. "We all saw a little hardship growing up, but you get past those things. And when I talk about the Army, people don't believe me. But I really enjoyed it. Joining up was the right thing to do and I'm glad I was a part of it."