Charles Everard Dills

      I don't remember much about Camp Shanks except getting the orders to get on a troop train going to Fort Snelling in St. Paul Minnesota. Unfortunately for me, the highest rank on the train was Captain and my name came first alpahabetically so I was automatically designated the "Train Commander". There were 137 men on the train, all coming back from anything from one to three years overseas. They were ready for "civilization" again and that would not make the job easy. I think they had to have a train commander on the record so they would have someone to court martial if things went wrong. Or so it seemed to me.
      I think there were seven cars with a cook car in the middle.
      When we approached Chicago it was obvious that one of the wheels had a "hot box" and was going to have to be attended to. The train slowed down to a fast walk. It was amazing. We could see a street with liquor stores and the train was more than half empty before it stopped. They came back with enough liquor to float the train. Now I got nervous. I assigned seven officers, one to each car to forestall trouble. I put out that nothing was to be thrown from the train. All I needed was to have some civilian get his head cracked by a thrown bottle. I told the officers that all empty bottles were to be taken to the cook car because they knew how to dispose of them. And then I walked around from car to car. The only fight I was aware of was between two rather large enlisted men in one of those very narrow passageways at the compartment end of one of the cars. One had his back to the window and the other was facing him. They each had a crook'd arm under the other's chin and were bouncing the others head off the wall. They were both so drunk that there was no way they were going to be able to hurt each other. I took a running leap and landed on their upraised arms, pinning them both so neither could move. I talked and talked to them I said that they were putting me in great jeopardy. If anything happened, I would probably get court-martialed and that I didn't think they would want that to happen to me. They calmed down and one of them said he would help stop any fights in his car. As a matter of fact, this man somehow found me the next day and apologized for his behavior!
      Someone must have known what would happen because they sent us on the Soo Line to St. Paul. This one goes up into northern Wisconsin and loops down and approaches St. Paul from the north northeast. This probably took four hours longer than if we had been on either the Great Northern or the Northern Pacific. This gave the people time to more or less sober up.
      Needless to say, I was very relieved when we arrived and disembarked.
      That next day they managed to get the orders cut for all of us, giving me a twenty eight day leave plus a few days travel to my next post, the Reclassification Center at Miami Beach.
      As I was going out into "Civilian Life" at least for the moment, I had to wear my class A uniform, the Greens. But I didn't have a tie. I went to the PX and they were out of ties!
      Well, with leave orders in my pocket, I wasn't going to sit on the base till ties came in, so I put on a nice looking, pressed set of OD's, packed my flight bag etc and left the base. I went to downtown St. Paul to the train station. It was one of those large marble edifices. I was probably ten steps inside the station when two MP's (military police) were on me, one on each arm and they said, "You can't walk around dressed like that!" I told them that I thought I looked better in OD's than I would in greens without a tie and that I didn't have one and neither did the PX. I then said, "Look, I'm very tired, just back from overseas and I am going over to the window and try to get a ticket with a berth to Fargo, North Dakota. Then I will go upstairs to the men's room, and change my clothes to my greens but still without a tie". And they let me do just that.
      I think they realized that that was the only solution so they allowed it. I changed, came back down, smiled and waved and got on the train. I got off the train, probably in Fargo, maybe Moorhead and got a cab to go to where my sister Helen was living. She was living with Edythe and Earl Corbin in the 600 block of North 12th Street in Moorhead. I asked the cab to wait and went up and knocked on the door. It was around 8 AM on Sunday morning and there was no answer. So I got back in the cab and went to the Graver Hotel in Fargo on Roberts Street around 1st or 2nd Avenue.
      Several hours later I called them on the phone and they were excited and wanted me to come back which I did. Then they told me that some magazine salesman had a habit of knocking early on Sunday morning so they ignored it. But then they realized there was a cab outside and looked out the window to see me get in the cab and drive off!
      I must have been a sight. My weight was way down, probably around 105 pounds. I had a three month's head of hair. I was physically in bad shape and didn't know it.
      I stayed at the Graver Hotel and enjoyed a lot of rest.I remember having dinner one night in the Gardner Hotel, a couple blocks south. I was in uniform of course. As I was paying my bill, the door opened and in trooped a huge group of young beautiful girls, all dressed in formals. I just stood there and gaped. It was a beautiful sight. As I stood there, what seemed to be the most beautiful girl of the bunch separated from them and came tripping over to me and said, "Charles Dills, it's good to see you back!" I must have just gaped at her and she realized I didn't know who she was. She said, "I'm Jeannie Hendrickson!" Good grief, I hadn't seen her since we were about ten years old and she had a Dutch boy haircut and could climb a tree better than I could. Her father was a pharmacist in Jamestown and our families knew each other. I vaguely remember visiting them when I was around 10.
      I was one of the very early returnees from combat so I was treated very well. The Fargo Forum interviewed me and wrote a rather long piece about it. I ate and slept and ate and slept.... I'm sure I attended a few of the night spots but in general, I was in a rehab mode!
      I made some trips to La Moure and elsewhere visiting. I couldn't do too much although they did give me some gas ration stamps. I remember going to Bismarck with Donald Ness, Polly Carter and Molly McDonald. There were some others that I don't remember. One night they asked me to drive the car over to Mandan. I learned to fly two years before I learned to drive and got my first car license after I got back to Miami Beach. So I was still in a fighter pilot mode. I felt uncomfortable under 70 mph, takeoff speed for a P-40!
      I visited Uncle JC in La Moure and Uncle Frank in Lisbon. Here's a picture of me standing in front of Frank and Ella's home.

      That's all I remember of that 28 days.

      I took the train to go to Miami Beach. I went by way of Chicago and Washington DC. When I got to Chicago I decided to get a berth for the night. I have no idea how many ticket windows there were but there had to be at least thirty. It was quite obvious that without computers there was no way they could avoid over selling. By now I was an "experienced" traveler. I bought a berth and then headed for the train. The car "porter" was just outside the steps to the car with his little table with the car's floor plan on it. He put my ticket number on his floor plan. I went in and sat down in my seat. About four other people came to claim the same berth but since my number was on the floor plan, I got the berth! I was a Captain and I'm sure that they all thought I was "pulling rank".

      I got off in Washington so I could visit Irene.The only thing I remember about this part of the trip was having dinner with her in a restaurant one night. She got to talking negatively about all the servicemen around Washington. After she went on for awhile, me sitting there in my uniform, I finally said, "I'm sorry to hear you think that way of me." She said, "Oh, I don't mean you!" And I said, "Well, most of the guys I know are just somebody's brother!" And we left it at that. And then, on to Miami Beach. Here's a picture she took while I was there.

      Again I was billetted in one of the grand hotels on Miami Beach. We got physicals and that's when I found out that after a month and a half of eating and sleeping I weighed all of 119 pounds and had a 24 inch waist. I had to get a waiver to go back to flying.