Louis Berges, Jason Theriot, Hewitt Theriot:

-Part of the rig builders in Baton Rouge in 1941
-Drafted in Baton Rouge in December 7, 1942 and then went to Camp Beauregard for training
-Went into the Air Force and was sent St. Louis, Missouri, put in the Jefferson Barracks (the worst one)
-Left in summer uniforms from Louisiana and it was cold in St. Louis; on the Mississippi River
-After training there went to Savannah, Illinois to an ordinance school
-Berges was given a choice to the next place he could go to so he went to Esler Field, the 98th Airbase, in Alexandria, Louisiana; closer to home
-Stayed there till 1944 or 1945 and then transferred to South Carolina; his wife and child came to join him in South Carolina
-Worked in ordinances at both

(7:42) Start of the War:
-Over in Florence, South Carolina and was drafted out of the Air Force to the Armored Infantry around the time of the Battle of the Bulge (1945?)
-Had to get on a troop train in Camp Beauregard to Atlanta with his wife and son with him
-Put them on another train to East Texas where she had family while he went from Atlanta back to Alexandria again
-Put on another train a few weeks later after GI training to New Jersey, Camp Kilmer, a staging place for embarkation in New York
-Was on a ship with volunteers from Monique that spoke French (Cuban Island)
-Shipped out to France, took 11 days, had all their equipment; stayed in barracks that only had hay for bedding
-Put on boxcars and eventually made it into Austria; the war ended while they were in Austria

-Was in the martyr squad and berserker, was supposed to go in as the third attack with the tanks
-When the tanks went, they went in, not always in order though and most times they went in the first attacks
-A part of the 17th Armored Battalion, 12th Armored Division in the 7th Armor
-Most of the time they were under Patton’s 3rd Armor instead

-They travelled fast along the Rhine River and on the Audubon
-Was heading to Nuremburg but missed it and ended up in Munich; drove a halftrack
-Had to wear the same clothes for days as they had nothing else; 11 men in a squad

(21:25)
-Berges’ job was to carry the martyr and set it up; worked with ammunition
-Set up in farms mostly
-Most German people were friendly in Austria, washed their clothes and traded with them
-Moved from town to town; in the mountains in Austria when given word that Germany had surrendered
-Sent back to Munich and then to a smaller town west, where they stayed with the locals in their houses

(24:47) Story of a prayer book Berges brought back home; trying to find the family

(33:04) Confirming dates of Berges’ draft, training, departing for Europe, fighting and being sent home:
-Earned 2 battle stars, helped him get discharged earlier than the others
-Travelling in the halftrack; injured once in Germany while coming out of the halftrack under fire—strained back
-Halftrack was blown up at one point and they lost all their clothes and other possessions inside it; replacement came in quick
-POWs they met after the war; POWs camps made after the war that they had to guard; sorting out displaced people

-Talking of those they knew that were in the war; looking at pictures

(59:00) went home on a Liberty ship in France
-Was in the 17th Armored Battalion
-Mentions about the favoritism in the Air Force and Army, certain outfits were given more credit than others because of those that were in them

(1:13:50) War was over:
-Found out before they got into Munich but knew nothing after that
-No time to celebrate and quickly had to deal with the POWs camp
-Liberty ship was nicer than the ship he went over on before
-Was under the impression that when he did come back to the states he’d rest and then head out to fight in the Pacific
-While on the ship is when the bombs were dropped; found out when they landed in New York
-Was discharged in Fort Sam Houston, Texas, close to his wife in east Texas
-Took his sister’s car with his family back to New Iberia;
-Every 5 miles the car would stop and then start up again (leak in the pipes that trapped air)