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Talking Texas History
Talking Texas History
Wartime Letters and Legacy
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Join us as we sit down with the remarkable Fred Allison, a West Texas native and Marine Corps veteran. From his formative years on a cotton farm to his adventures as a radar intercept officer, Fred's tale intertwines the threads of academia, military service, and personal discovery.
This episode is a treasure trove as we explore Fred's unwavering passion for history, his work as a historian for the Marine Corps and his commitment to honoring the valiant stories of those who served. We talk about his latest work, My Darling Boys: A Family at War, 1941-1947 (UNT Press, 2023), where he explores his family's wartime experiences during World War II.
Get a copy of Fred's book, My Darling Boys at Amazon https://a.co/d/67Bw4JY
Texas History Podcast and Guest Interview
Speaker 1This podcast is not sponsored by . It does not reflect the views of the institutions that employ us . It is solely our thoughts and ideas , based upon our professional training and study of the family .
Speaker 2Welcome to Talking Texas History , the podcast that explores Texas history before and beyond the Alamo . Not only will we talk Texas history , we'll visit with folks who teach it , write it , support it , and with some who've made it and , of course , all of us who live it and love it . Welcome to another edition of Talking Texas History . I'm Gene Parois .
Speaker 1I'm Scott Sozby , gene . Today we have somebody that we probably don't want to know how to say how long we've known him for . That might date us is correct , right ? Somebody we went to graduate school with and we've known him for a long time . He's had quite the very career We've got Fred Allison with us today .
Speaker 2Yeah , this poor guy was my office mate .
Speaker 1That is terrible for him to have to go through that I know , and he still talks to me .
Speaker 2So , Fred welcome to Talking Texas History .
Speaker 3Well , glad to be here and I really appreciate the opportunity to be part of your show .
Speaker 2Well , we're really glad you agreed to join us , and I'll tell you and I hate to say this , you know , with old friends , but sometimes you don't talk to them as often , and the one thing that you came out with that we want to talk about today is you've got a new book out . But before we get there , let's tell the listeners , who may just be here in the name Fred Allison for the first time , a little bit about you and where you're from . You're from up in West Texas , right at the top of Texas , right that's right , right at the top of Texas , up in the Pantanal .
Speaker 3There I was raised on a West Texas cotton farm outside of Mule Shoe , texas . Actually it's on Highway 70 between Mule Shoe and Earth . So that's quite distinguished upbringing there . And , yeah , my dad and my uncle who are main characters in the book my dad , harold Allison , was in a farming partnership with his brother , oscar Allison , and they farmed about close to 2000 acres there outside of Mule Shoe and also a farm in Tulia , texas , and so that's where I grew up . I've done a lot of hard work there , raising cotton and irrigating , okay . And then I graduated from high school in New York In 1968 and decided to attend North Texas State University and play the major in journalism . But I was having way too good of time at the time when I began college to really accomplish much , and so I actually was on probation and even expelled on academic .
Speaker 3No way , yeah , two times .
Speaker 1Your early college career sounds a whole lot like mine .
Speaker 3Yeah . So anyway , I remember getting a letter from the dean that went to my parents too , said we'll give you one more chance . I'll never forget one more chance . So that's when I knew the time had come , that I had to do it . And so I did , and pretty much after that I was on the dean's list .
Speaker 3But I changed my major to secondary education because I was avoiding foreign languages . And a friend of mine said if you majored in secondary education you could still get all the history classes you wanted and not have to take foreign languages . Well , that's why I got certified as a teacher , secondary level teacher and after I graduated I was wondering what to do with my life , and my dad and my uncles had all been aviators in the military . So that was something I'd always aspire to myself , and I joined the Marine Corps in order to do that , because the Marine Corps offered me an aviation contract and sort of a guarantee to go to flight training . It didn't guarantee that you're going to finish flight training , At least you would get a shot at it . But so that's what I did and entered the Marine Corps , and that was one of the best things that ever happened in my life , because the Marine Corps has really been good to me and a lot better to me than I was for them .
Speaker 3But went through officers training , OCS and the basic school , Then went down to Pensacola for flight training and ended up being a naval flight officer in the F-4 Phantom fighter aircraft sort of a Vietnam air fighter . That all the services flow is very common . It's just a great airplane . My official title guys in the back were called radar intercept officers and what you did was your main job was basically a weapon system type operator and radar . Do the radar work in order to do intercepts ? In order to do intercepts , you operate the radar to find an enemy aircraft and then you set up a , An intercept , a direction that you can know . You can fly your plane to intercept the enemy aircraft .
Speaker 2So you were the one who actually pulled the trigger .
Speaker 3No , we didn't have any . They didn't trust us with a trigger in the back , but besides that , we also backed up the pilot on everything else . In fact , if you get in a dog fight you , the Rio radar intercept officer , has a very important function , mainly to help the pilot keep sight and To direct the pilot in which way to turn or do this or do that . When the pilot often can't see the enemy aircraft he's fighting because it might be behind him or or someplace in a Good Rio never loses sight . So if you never lose sight of the enemy aircraft , you're gonna be a great . You're gonna be a great , be a great real . And the pilots love you , you know . So that's what we did , and there was a lot to it . So did that ?
Speaker 2and how long were you in the service ?
Speaker 3I was on active duty for about six and a half years and Then got off of active active duty and went into the reserves . So I flew the F war out of Navy Dallas after I got off active duty and we had lived and we were living in Greenville , texas at that time and , yes , I had got married to my , to my bride , martha McCall in Yuma , and we're still married now after 45 . Better get this right 44 .
Speaker 1You don't mess this up , fred .
Speaker 3And yeah , cuz she's sitting right here but and four kids later , but anyway , in Greenville , after got out I wanted to teach school . That was in my mind all along . So I did teach in the middle school in Greenville and , and Marty was teaching too . So we were doing good . But the problem arose when she she got pregnant , we got pregnant and Having the kids are pretty consistently there . So I had to find a better paying job and I was still with the reserves , which helps some .
Speaker 3But I got a job with a company called roadway express , which is a trucking company and I was a Basically a manager Kind of did everything at a small City terminal in Greenville and it paid really good . So I did that for about nine years and After , after Martha , my wife , marty , was able to go back to teaching when our youngest child or four child Started school . Okay , so that's when I started working my master's degree over at East Texas State University , or as it's known now , texas A&M Commerce , and I just had some great , great instructors there and as I moved along to my master's , had to get a thesis project and Dr James Conrad I don't know if you don't know he was the oral historian there .
Speaker 3Yeah , jim , really well yeah super guy and he kind of took me under his wing and and said why don't you do a thesis on major field in Greenville , texas , which was a airbase in World War two it was dropped into Greenville and do sort of a Social history on the impact that a a big base would have on a little Texas Southern town ? And so that's what I did and that's when I got into oral history too , because I started doing a lot of interviews with locals that had been there and will work too . And that was just fascinating and Thank God I finished that up and I Think Dr Conrad said why don't you see if the Newspaper in Greenville would be interested in publishing that ? Because you know it's all about local history and World War two and stuff . And sure enough they did . They published the whole thing .
Speaker 3It was like an 11 series of 11 issues and and that just sort of hitting that is . That's the first time I really thought I could write something that people . It's just an amazing feeling to think that somebody was going to read something that I wrote , you know that's much of it .
Speaker 1I'm still amazed he may read anything I write , so I understand .
Speaker 2That was
Passion for History and Military Career
Speaker 2actually . You were kind of leveraging that early interest in journalism and writing and interviewing as well right and kind of marrying those to your . But you said you sound like you had a passion for history even as an undergraduate .
Speaker 3Well , even as a young boy I remember reading books on history a lot and one of my dad's friends , a very impressive gentleman , just out of the clear blue one day gave me a little book . I must have been like eight or nine years old . He gave me a book on World War II and that's sort of I mean that I was sort of a parent , I guess the people that I really liked history , especially military history . So anyway , you know , I've had an abiding interest in that , I guess all my life really .
Speaker 2Well , I didn't realize . I mean , I guess I did , but I guess I knew this but reminded the fact that you had studied under Conrad . And you know , I gotta say Jim Conrad was one of the nicest people I'd ever met and when I was doing my dissertation under at Tech , there under bar , I went and Conrad helped me out a lot too because I was doing getting on a topic on a politician up there from from Paris .
Speaker 1So yeah , jim , when I took over here , these text talks . Of course Jim is a prominent member and he was really good to me in that . Well , fred , you went on after you finished graduate school and you went to work , went back to the Marine Corps as you served as a historian for the Marine Corps . A lot of people may not know what that . You know that the all the military branches employ these historians . So tell everybody kind of what you did as a historian for the Marine Corps .
Speaker 3Okay , yeah , I had continued to serve in the reserve so I still had an attachment with the Marine Corps and my as I got on later in my career I was promoted to major and but anyway my airplane went away and it was replaced by an airplane that did not have a guy in the back . So really I didn't have a job in the Marine Corps . But as a reservist you can kind of shop around and see if there's other billets that you might get could serve in . And so a guy told me . He said you know , the Marine Corps has a history division and I'd started working on my PhD at that time , so people were aware of that . And they said the Marine Corps has a history division that uses reserve officers to do field history work . He said I want you to see if you can get into that organization .
Speaker 3Well , it was in DC and I was in Lubbock at this time . I'd started my PhD program at Texas Tech . But anyway , I checked with them and sure enough , I was able to get into that organization and because I lived so far away , they allowed me to just come in and do all of my drills , that's the weekend drills that you're supposed to accomplish . They allowed me to sort of stack them and come in and do like a third of the years like do four drills , four weekend drills at one time , and so they were very helpful there . And anyway I did that as field historian in uniform with the Marine Corps for two years and retired . That's when I retired .
Speaker 3Okay , so then back to Lubbock and finished up my PhD program , the coursework and whatnot , and then after about four years they had a position come over and for an oral historian as a civilian at the Marine Corps history division and up in DC . I was in DC at that time and I applied for that and I got that job because I had been a . It really helped that I was a field historian and so I had become associated with that organization . So anyway , that required a move from Lubbock to Virginia and we ended up living in Frederick burg , virginia , but just a real blessing and I served there like 20 years , almost 20 years , so actually they gave me like 43 years in the Marine Corps . I never , I had never intended that .
Speaker 1That's a long time . That's it . That's putting your service in for absolute .
Speaker 3Well , it was just like I said . The Marine Corps has been very , very good to me and I just got some , had some great , was able to serve with great people and there's still friends with a lot of them . And you know , you hear a lot of people talk about the Marine Corps . It's always about you know how sort of rough and tough it is , but it's that . But it's also they take care of their people . You know , once you're part of it and you sort of prove and you can do a credible job , they take care of you . They really do so .
Speaker 3But again , a lot of that time was as a reservist , so it's not like full time for 43 years , but so but yeah , the services all do . They have history organizations and most of them will all over much bigger than the Marine Corps . When I was there in the history division they only have like five or six historians or as other services like the Air Force or Army or Navy they'll have , they'll just have bevies of them and they're all scattered out all over the United States . You know , of course they're all bigger services too , but still . But it was , and my job was , as I said , oral historian , and so what I got to do was do a lot of interviews . I think I did about 1,100 interviews in that 20 years .
Speaker 1What was your probably most memorable interview you did with somebody ?
Speaker 3Oh yeah , I wouldn't have to say that my most , my most memorable interview would be , of course , the one I did this book on that was published by North Texas Press to the World War Two veteran who was actually from Mule Chateau and he lived up in Fredericksburg . But he was just an amazing man and he had been in some of the most ferocious battles , or two like Guadalcanal , terawa , saipan , leading a 37 millimeter gun platoon , and anyway , I interviewed him about 30 hours .
Speaker 1Oh , wow .
Speaker 3Yeah , they . My organization , the history division , was very gracious and allowing me to spend that much time on one man or you know , there's so many other people you could interview that have done great things , but they allow me to do that and it turned into a book . I edited the interviews and published and actually got an award from the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation for best biography career 2018 .
Speaker 1That's great .
My Darling Boys
Speaker 2Was that the one with Roy Elrod ? Yeah , the .
Speaker 3Roy Elrod book .
Speaker 2Right , we were going to die . We were going to win or die there .
Speaker 3Yeah , it's a water canal , yeah this exact quote said that the Marines were not , they were not going to surrender , they they would die there before they would you know , before they would surrender .
Speaker 1Well , you've got a new one coming out , right , you got a new book coming out just about to come out , yeah , from UNT Press , my Darling Boys , a family awards , a very personal book . Won't you tell us about , tell our audience about , how you came up with that book ? And then did you learn something about your family ? And tell us about the books about , and did you learn something about your family ? You didn't know , maybe , why you're doing .
Speaker 3Yeah , it was really illuminating because , going out of course , my heroes were my , my dad , who had been a B-25 co-pilot , and his partner and farming , oscar , who had been a B-24 turret gunner flight engineer but had been a POW in Germany , and Lord too . And then there was this mysterious uncle who was their younger brother , who had been killed . He was a fighter pilot and had been killed , and they they really nobody really seemed to know how he had been killed . So it was just a . It was a great , great investigation finding out exactly how he had been killed , and it was in dogfight against German fighters . But , yeah , so much brother stuff to I , because , though , the book is about the home front too , not just the brothers that went to war , but also the family to stay behind , and so I was able to do research on World War two , farming and New Mexico . They were , and their farm was outside of Roswell , new Mexico , and a little town called Hagerman , and my mother's family .
Speaker 3They were neighbors , so yeah just learning about those , those families , and how , how their lives changed in World War two and some of the activities that they they participated there on the home front . These are sacrifices they made . That was all new to me and that was tough to find that information out because and it really not , you know , like most family records they don't really record what their day-to-day activities are . But I was very fortunate that there was a large stock of letters amongst the family members . I think I used 71 letters in the book and there was many more that I didn't use . Well , not many , but maybe 20 years , seven , 20 or 30 , right , or they're talking their writing letters to each other , from the people at home , from the family at home , to the , to the boys at war , and they're can't imagine .
Speaker 1That and I try to think about that time . You know , so many , so many of them , of the men were often so much uncertainty about where they were going to come back and then so many Sacrifices and they were having to make on the front , home front , and I can't help always think I mean , you know , I don't know that we would do that as a nation today . I don't know if we have the what would be the word intestinal fortitude to go through something like that now .
Speaker 3Yeah , no , well , I think they actually Scott , I think they actually they all . They worried about the same thing at that time , to whether Americans really had the the intestinal fortitude to to make those sacrifices . But they did .
Speaker 1They Dank your day , that's without a doubt .
Speaker 2Yeah , we worked out so the title of there the title of the book Fred .
Speaker 3That comes from something your grandmother wrote correct , right , yeah , the boys mother Ali Rizal . She'd actually been Ali Allison before , but the older boys father had died , his name of the Allison first and she remarried to why they grizzled . So that's sort of confusing . But yeah , in many of her letters she will refer to her boys with great affection , like my darlin , this or that , or even she even calls so calls them her baby boy , calls them her baby boy .
Speaker 3I said they had a tremendous amount of affection for her she was . She was such a hard-working mother and I just know that she would Just did everything possible to Raves a good family . Did you know her ? Yeah , yeah , sure did grandma . Yeah , she was a . She was a very Sort of austere woman , very thin , petite , of course very nice . But you know the death of her younger son , wiley , grizzled junior . He was killed in the war and Really I think it really Traumatized her , a type of PTSD even right now she just bore that with her and so she was just not not a really Not a really happy , joyful . She was always Just a little bit reticent , I'm just . She was just suffering from that part of the .
Speaker 3Imagine shit . For so long she did not know all she knew that he was missing in action and so for years Well , like years , many months , it was over a year she did not know . Can you just imagine living with that ?
Speaker 1I can't , man , that's got to be um , but that's just got to be heartbreaking .
Speaker 3Yeah , and then and then , when they did report that he was killed in action , they weren't able to prove it . There was no body , there was . No one saw him crash , they didn't really know what , and she was not convinced that he was dead for the longest time . So that's a yeah , that's . But she was a great woman , just you know , full of love , and it was , um , there's a great , a great role model for her .
Speaker 1Had this book , fred , kind of been in the back of your mind for a long time to do , and it was just when you got the time , or just the inclination to do it .
Speaker 3No , after I retired , I started looking into it . My uncle , oscar , had written a memoir in 1973 . And I had a copy of that and I'd sort of I'd looked at it and I'd read it . But when I pulled it out again in 2020 , I mean 2020 , after I retired , and I started real really reading it and focusing on it and I said , hey , this is a pretty pretty good story . He's a he was a good writer , the very smart man , but he was able to tell a great story . You know , which is the key to being a good writer ? Actually , he's telling a story .
Speaker 1Absolutely .
Speaker 3Yeah , and so he was able to do that . He had sort of a sarcastic , uh jaundice view of life and his experiences . He was , he , never purported to be any kind of a hero . The only thing that he was proud of was that he kept what he said in his memoirs . He kept his family together , which were the other crewmen on his B24 that had all been made POWs , all the enlisted men anyway , and he kind of kept them together that sort of a self-protective , protective organization against the conditions they were in in the German prisoner war camps . But uh , yeah , he's uh kind of nonchalant about a lot of stuff . And then , if you do , your did some research on the events that he was talking about , the conditions in the prisoner war camps . They were really bad , but he never really focused on how miserable they were . He would , he was sort of , uh , you know , skim over it and um , just uh , I think , because he didn't want to do anything .
Speaker 1I think that's a lot . You know , I found that I had great uncles who were in World War II and I you couldn't get them to talk about it and it was like pulling teeth to get them to talk about their experiences . And I think I always said about . I think it was because it was not something they wanted to relive in the large degree .
Speaker 3That's right . Yeah , it would stir up those other emotions and , uh , they , they were afraid of him . And he even has a disclaimer . He put a disclaimer in his memoir saying that , uh , he would try to tell the tell about the events as he remembered them , not over glamorize them , but there were a lot of , a lot of things that he was not going to say and he'd been trying to forget those things since 1944 . Wow , yeah , so that's the , uh , that's the part that I wish I had .
Speaker 1It's absolutely passing . I think everybody's , everybody's listening to this . Now , all of you , uh , make sure you get out there and buy that book .
Speaker 2Fred , I'm going to say this is that I think you did your family proud .
Speaker 3Well , that's what I was trying to do . I was trying to honor you know that because I know my uncle , oscar , by writing his memoir , was trying to honor his fellow serviceman , his fellow crewman and uh , and produce something that would last thing and be appropriate for their service . But there was like he said there were so much that was really ugly about that , but he was not , he was not going to , he was not going to bring that out .
Speaker 2Well , it's a good book and I hope that people will will pick it up , order it . It's put out by University of North Texas Press and , uh , it is . It is a moving , moving story . I mean it's , uh , it's , it's , it's , it's beautiful .
Speaker 3No , thank you , Gene . I take that as a great compliment coming from you , knowing what you have done in the historical field , so I really appreciate that .
Speaker 2Well , you're very kind , you're very kind .
Speaker 1Well , Fred was growing to the end of our time and they always goes way too fast for us . And , of course , when we're ending up , we always ask everyone of our uh uh people we have on there the last question , and this is your chance to give pearls of wisdom to everybody out there as much as you chance . So , Fred Allison , what do you know ?
Speaker 3Okay , what I know is that God is faithful . I , uh , I became a Christian a long time ago and uh , I've , uh , I've trusted , uh , I've trusted God with so many big decisions and sometimes we don't understand . You know why things are going the way they are , but if you keep your faith , even when you're not faithful , god will be faithful to you and uh , but eventually , if you keep your faith , things are going to work out .
Speaker 1That's , uh , that's my pearl of wisdom and that may be that may be the best one we've ever had . Well , fred , thanks for coming . This has been great .
Speaker 3Yeah , Thank you very much again
Appreciation for Book and Colleagues
Speaker 3. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about uh , talk about this book .
Speaker 1Once again , folks , it's my darling boy . It's a family of war . Uh , university of North Texas Press . Uh , hot off the presses very soon . So make uh you can . You can go on the website right now . Uh , in order .
Speaker 2Absolutely Great book . Great book , Fred . Thank you so much . Uh , it was a real honor to be your office mate and to still keep in touch with you . We need to get together soon .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , we're all close . Hey , every October we have East Texas Historical Association meeting . Uh , fred , you need to come up .
Speaker 3Okay , well , again , gene , and , uh , scott , in the office next door . It was a pleasure being there with you , it really was .
Speaker 1And , uh , we had . We talked about it often . It was a fun time .
Speaker 3And we survived . And uh , here we are , Okay .
Speaker 1Thanks for it .
Speaker 3Okay , yeah .
