1946 digital cy
courtesy Lara Ballard
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Profiles
in Patriotism:
An
Ordinary Soldier
PFC
Franklin Kameny
World
War II
Veteran
by
Denny Meyer |
2005: NY City
Council
|
It was an honor being able
to interview a living hero of our history, our own
Dr. Franklin Kameny, the father of modern gay rights.
There are only a small handful, nearly forgotten by
those who came later, who began to demand gay rights
in 1959 and never stopped to this day. From the day
he was sacked from his government astronomer position
due to homosexuality in 1957, Dr. Franklin Kameny has never
ceased championing gay rights over the decades. If
you were to plan to google his name, it would be
advisable to stock provisions first, as you would be
glued to your computer for a very long time.
Yet when I telephoned Dr.
Kameny and asked about his own military experience,
he began by saying the same words that nearly every
single gay veteran whom I have interviewed responds
with: "Well, there's not much to tell; my
service was quite ordinary." Indeed, and that
is just the point.
This is the story of an
ordinary soldier, as much as if one were to have
been able to ask Moses, "tell me about the days
when you were merely a slave."
It would take several
volumes to recount all that Dr. Kameny has done in
his lifetime, with the final volume yet to come.
Just to remind readers, Dr. Kameny did not stop at
his early marches in suit and tie in the late 50s
and early 60s and the founding of the Washington DC
Mattachine. He was also active in the 70s with
youngsters, at that time, in forming the far more
aggressive actions of the Gay Activist Alliance. And
it was Dr Kameny whom Leonard Matlovich first
anxiously telephoned when he heard that he was
looking for a perfect test case of a sterling
service member who was gay (according to the account
in Conduct Unbecoming, by Randy Shilts). Much
has been written about Dr. Franklin Kameny's
lifelong contribution to the battle for our rights.
Yet, it was a rare treat to hear, from his own lips,
the tales of his time as a member of the Greatest
Generation, as an ordinary soldier in mortal combat
in World War II. It was a delight to interview him;
I'd begin to ask half a question and he would launch
into the stories related below.
Gay Military Signal: How did
you enter the military?
Franklin Kameny: I enlisted
in the Army three days before my 18th birthday in
May of 1943. I would have been drafted, at that
time. However, my background is in science, physics, and
astronomy; and the army had a program called ASTP
(Army Specialized Training Program) for people with
particular skills and education. To get into the program
you had to enlist. It seemed like a good deal, so I
did it. I entered Ft. Benning, and after basic
training I was sent to the University of Illinois.
I was in the Sigma Chi fraternity house living in
style for a few months. Then Congress canceled the
whole program. The Army, in turn, ended its program
of training me to become an engineer, And suddenly,
I was in tent in a sodden field in Louisiana. I was
in the 8th Armored Division at Camp Polk, in an 81mm
mortar platoon, the 58th Armored Infantry Battalion
in which I remained to end of war in Europe. When
they finally got us back home, I was discharged on March
24th, 1946. I have the discharge
certificate here.
GMS: Where did you serve?
Franklin Kameny: We were
shipped across to Europe, in 1944, on what had been
the White Star liner SS Samaria, which became a troop
ship. My mother was able to see me off at the docks,
because at that time she worked for the Red Cross
there. We had a vast room full of hammocks. The ship
zig-zagged for three weeks across the ocean to avoid
depth charges. In England we were in Tidworth
Barracks, near Stonehenge in Wiltshire County, a few
miles from there, in south central England. We were
there for Thanksgiving and over Christmas. And then
there was the Battle of the Bulge. At New Years we
crossed the Channel and landed in France, in
Normandy where we stayed for a week. We were an
armored division; we had half track vehicles. We
crossed into eastern France, to a tiny deserted
village, Eply, in Alsace-Lorraine, and were there for
the whole month of January, freezing to death. (The
movements of the 8th Armored Div., during this
period, can be followed via its monthly reports
which may be seen at
http://www.8th-armored.org/aar/ccr_jan.htm)
There had been fighting, we found German bodies all over.
Meanwhile, the bulge was debulged; so after January,
we moved north into Holland. If you look at a map of
Holland, you will see, right along German border,
there is an appendix called Limburg. We were in
Cadier En Keer, between Aachen and Maastricht,
staying with civilians. We moved north with the 9th
Army (at that time there were the 1st, 3rd, 7th and
9th Armies in Europe). The Americans, Canadians and
British in the North were moving into Germany. The
British and Canadians were moving farther north. than
we were. With the 9th, we moved into Roermond at the
German border where the Ruhr runs into the Rhine.
And there we first had combat. We rolled into main
square of Roermond, where there was a huge pile of
furniture on which the British had written, in blue
chalk: "the enemy is 500 feet ahead."
There was lots of shooting. Then we move eastward
into the Rhineland. For much of February, we were in
Grefrath. At that point we had no way of crossing
Rhine until the Remagen Bridge was secured. Once we
got that bridge, our troops moved over and fanned up
and down into Germany, for the first time in the
north. We secured the east side of the Rhine. I
remember, we crossed the Rhine late at night with
hails of antiaircraft artillery flying across the
sky in brilliant colors. We fought hard and got into
Ruhr Pocket, it was not pleasant. And eventually we
closed the Ruhr Pocket and went east into the Hartz
area. By May we were in mid-Germany.
We settled down in a town,
which later became part of the Russian segment,
called Duderstadt, whose history dated back a
thousand years. Back in high school and college, I
had studied Latin and German although I never became
fluent; but, beginning at Duderstadt for the rest of
my time in Europe, I informally became my company's
interpreter with German civilians. The town still
had its medieval moat and wall and two churches one with a
tall
steeple in a spiral. We spent all of May in
Duderstadt. At the beginning of that time, after
Roosevelt died and Hitler committed suicide on May
8th, war came to formal end in Europe. So, we
settled down in Duderstadt during May.
On June 1st, they moved us into Czechoslovakia, to Bohemia as an army of
liberation (in June, July and August). First we were
in Klatovy, a small city in western Bohemia. And
then, later on, we moved into a tiny village near
Pilsen name Štěnovice. They put us up with
civilian homes, and I corresponded with those I
stayed with for several years after.
When we got there, the war
was still raging in Pacific, so they were organizing
to move troops over there, via Italy and Suez, into
the Pacific Theater. We had no expectation of
getting home any time soon. But then, Hiroshima was
bombed in August and everything changed; the war ended.
At that point, they had all
those troops spread out across Europe.
Transportation was not what it is today; there were
a million troops trying to get home. And so while we
waited for our turn to come, I ended in the 4th
armored division in Landsthul, and later at
Regensburg on the Danube, doing clerical work.
Eventually they set up two universities for the
troops; and I was assigned to Shrivenham, near
Bristol in southwestern England. I was there for two
months or so and then was reassigned to Regensburg.
During that time we got weekends off and I went to
England and Scotland. I traveled all over England,
to Edinburgh, York, Oxford, Cambridge, Wales, -you name it- I got to
it on weekends.
Carrying Coals to
Newcastle:
Also at that time, I became
the only person you will ever meet who literally
"carried coals to Newcastle." Way up in northern England, on one trip, I went to York. I
knew I would be going through Newcastle and I was
well aware of the saying, "Carrying Coals to
Newcastle." So I got a few lumps of coal from a
train station coal bin. And when I arrived in
Newcastle, I tossed the coals onto tracks and
thereby, had "carried coals to Newcastle."
Returning Home:
At the end of time, at the
of 1946, I was back in Regensburg Germany through
the remainder of the winter. At around beginning of
March I was on a troop train to Le Havre, and then
aboard a troop ship to Camp Kilmer in New Jersey, I
was discharged and home at last on around the 25th
of March 1946.
GMS: Where did you grow up
and go to school?
Franklin Kameny: I'm
originally from Richmond Hill, Queens, in New York
City. I went to Queens College as undergraduate.
After the war I went back to school in 1946,
graduated in 1948, and went to Harvard for graduate
work.
GMS: Had you been aware of
the Holocaust, --the Nazi torture and murder of
Jews, Homosexuals, Roma Gypsies and others, during
the war?
Franklin Kameny: In
Duderstadt at wars end, we moved in when Hitler
committed suicide, camps were being liberated,
everywhere you went you saw refugees from the camps
in striped gray and black uniforms; we did not yet
know at the time of the concentration camps. I wrote
to my mother that they cleaned out our garbage pails
due to starvation. Nothing was organized, yet, to
care for all the liberated people from those camps.
At that time, certainly through May of 45, we did
not yet know the story of Holocaust, nor what they
found --the bodies pilled like cord wood nor of the
starvation, forced labor and incineration of
victims.
GMS: Can you describe
having been in combat?
Franklin Kameny: I'm lucky
to be alive. We learned to distinguish the sound of
incoming artillery shells that might hit you. They
were faster than speed of sound. The whistling would
stop if they were very close; if it continued, then
it was distance away. A lot landed very close. We
were 81mm mortar crewmen. The mortar was small scale
artillery; and so we were a bit back from the front,
a tiny bit. We were in half-tracks open at top, with
the mortar in the rear, It could be fired from the
vehicle or ground based. There were instances where
I took prisoners and had face to face encounters
fighting with Nazis. On May 1st in Hartz, during
Walprurgisnacht, we were being fired on from the
mountains. Then we headed east out of Roer through
Braunschweig, further east to Duderstadt.
GMS: Did you know you were
gay when you entered the service?
Franklin Kameny: Keep in
mind it was different cultural situation. In those
days I did not know the word 'gay.' For a decade
after the war, I was aware of tendencies; but I
bought into theory of the day that it was a phase; I
believed that. I was not really aware; there were
incidents in Germany, in the Army with fellows who
knew more, where I missed passes. I knew since my
mid teens what turned me on, fantasies; but, I
thought of it as a phase that all young men go
through. It was, intellectually, a different era
from today's self awareness.
GMS: How was it that you
remained a PFC?
Franklin Kameny: Actually,
when we got to that sodden filed in Louisiana, had I
known more, I could have been at HQ. But I ended up
in Headquarters Company, I was not very assertive.
Given that we were at war, I had to be in the
military; but, I did not have to become 'part' of
it. Now, I would not have the same approach. I did
not push for promotion. I'm not sure, in those days,
that I would have been mature enough as an authority
figure. I did not give orders well, I was not good
at that. (editor: ah the humble hindsight of one of
our greatest heroes!)
Medals:
I had asked Dr. Kameny to
enumerate his medals from the war. Here, I saw his
genuine humility. He is most proud of his simple,
blue and silver, Combat Infantryman's Badge, which he wears
on his suit on formal occasions. As for the rest of
his military decorations, "I did not get
wounded, although I came close. I have all those
ribbons, a vast array that go on the uniform (see
photo above left), I don't recall all of them,
European Theater--things of that kind."
GMS: Were you asked if you
were a homosexual when you joined the Army?
Franklin Kameny: When I
enlisted I was asked if I had any homosexual
tendencies; and everybody lied in those days. I had
tendencies, and had more than just tendencies. But,
I was not socially adept, in those days. I came out
later, in the old sense of the word. While I was in
the service there were a
number of passes made at me that I did not
recognize, which I regret now. I have resented for
63 years that I had to lie to get into the service.
In March of 2005, Dr.
Kameny came to New York to testify to the New York
City Council regarding a resolution urging the
President and Congress to repeal the Don't Ask Don't
Tell policy. His most cantankerous remark,
which brought down the house, was: Denying our
military of the services of people who have much to
offer, clearly gives aid and comfort to our
enemies. But under Section 3 of Article 3 of
the constitution, giving aid and comfort to the
enemy is one of the definitions of treason.
Therefore, anyone who supports the military gay ban
whether by direct act or by mere word of mouth is
constitutionally defined as a traitor and should be
indicted, prosecuted, tried, convicted and hanged
for treason. I will gladly provide the cost of
the hangman's rope out of my own pocket.
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