A Look Back

Jim Hoel's encounter with a German Corporal who had, at one time, been a neighbor in Evanston, Illinois, must have caused him to reflect on the many unbelievable ironies of war; but also, the early circumstances that led him to this point, a prisoner of war in Germany. Here is Jim's description, in his own words of his perceptions of the state of our nation before the United States entered World War II and his thoughts about serving his country.

As a start, I think it's important to do a little background on where we were when World War II started, as long this undoubtedly is going to be directed to people who are younger. We had been in a Depression for 10 years up until the start of World War II. The United States, following World War I, became an isolationist country. All of the people in the United States, or at least the majority, and the government itself said we don't want any part of any wars any place, any time, and therefore we don't have any military. The war, at the time we got involved in it, had been raging in Europe from 1939 on until 1941 when Pearl Harbor happened.

It's hard to believe, but we as a country just absolutely paid very little attention to that war going on in Europe. Germany almost conquered all of Europe. It's amazing that they didn't invade England because England itself had been an isolationist country; had a weak military in comparison to Germany's. So, there we were, not willing to become involved and happy with the whole thing.

Personally, I had gone to college for a year and a half and just became a little discouraged with it, I don't know why, so I quit and I was negotiating to go to Canada and join the Royal Canadian Air Force for flight training. In fact, I was all set to go in early December 1941. My father had been in World War I, and in discussing it with him, he said he understood my feelings completely. He had tried to get from the Ambulance Corp which he was in in World War I, into the Air Force then, but he couldn't pass the physical test to do it. So, as I say, he understood what I wanted to do.

He did suggest that I wait and get into our service, which I couldn't do because I didn't have 2 years of college credit to do it. So he prevailed upon me to stay through Christmastime with the family because he was convinced that it was going to be a long war and then eventually we were going to get drawn into it. Again, bear in mind, here we come up to early December and the American people wanted no part of any war and Congress wouldn't pass an appropriation for a nickel's improvement in our military situation.

On Sunday, December 7, 1941, we were sitting in the living room (my whole family--my sister, my brother and myself and our parents) when the announcement came on, "Pearl Harbor has been bombed." This was a complete shock to everybody in the United States that you couldn't believe.

The following morning President Roosevelt declared war on Japan and that automatically became a declaration of war against Germany because the two of them were allies. And of course, the American public at that point, incensed at this attack said, "Let's go get 'em," and the mood of the country switched overnight. We've got to get involved and really do it and we'll get it over in a hurry. What they didn't know, or didn't think through, was we didn't have any Army, we didn't have any Navy, we didn't have any Marine Corp, we just really didn't have a military machine.


That we have to know going into this story I'm about to tell.

A Personal Note

I have received a surprising number of emails from people around the globe who have thanked me for this Blog. Most of these responses have been from people who never had the chance to know their fathers who died in the War or from people, much like me, who took their father's World War II experiences for granted while growing up and raising their own families. Their fathers passed on before they had the chance to truly understand their experiences and lessons learned during the War.

As I responded to a very thoughtful email today, I explained how very lucky I am that my father is alive today at 87, and of course lucky to be here myself. Had a few things gone differently on May 17, 1943, I would not be here today. I am also getting to know my father so much better these days, visualizing as I write, his life at 22 years old.

I mentioned in an earlier post, in passing, that as my father was sitting with is back to the bulkhead, bracing for the crash, he was not afraid. I asked him today what was the basis of that sense of acceptance, was it a faith in God, a surrender to the inevitable or something else. He didn't have an easy answer. My father is a much too humble man to suggest that bravery was an explanation.

He finally said that he never believed there was any way to survive a B-26 crash. As will be described in later posts, many B-26 airplanes crashed during training in the United States and over seas and my father had never seen one person survive one of those crashes. My father, I believe, simply accepted his inevitable fate. This forces me to look deep into my own heart and wonder how I would have responded in these circumstances.

The certainty in his mind of his impending death, forced some form of acceptance and as he says "I was at peace." He told me, as many have said before, "My entire life in 30 seconds or so flashed before my eyes, from a young boy to the present." As I mentioned earlier, his only true regrets were the telegrams his parents would soon receive, the first, a "missing in action" message, and later "killed in action."

My father always stresses that the real heroes were those who never returned and as you can imagine he gets very emotional these days as he recalls all the friends and true heroes who died so young.

As I explained today in response to one of many emails, I have been sitting on my father's tapes, documents and pictures for much too long. I am so fortunate to have the opportunity to write this story with my father today.

It is ironic perhaps that this was my father's first time in Europe. A short distance to the north, The Hoel family had left Norway, and made the hard journey with my great-grandfather, Olaf Hoel, to Minnesota in the late 1800's. I will talk about that tomorrow and the many struggles my father's earlier generations experienced that perhaps contributed to my father's courage that day.

There are so many stories to follow that I get impatient to tell them all right now. I will give you a glimpse of one that occurred just following my father's interrogations by the Germans. Hearing that one of the prisoners, my father, was from Evanston, Illinois, a young German soldier who had not been involved in the interrogation asked his superiors if he might have a word with Second Lieutenant Hoel.

It turns out that my father and this now German soldier, both 22 years of age, had grown up in the same neighborhood in Evanston, Illinois. As the result of a cruel "invitation" to "Dual Citizens", young German men living in the United States, who still retained their German citizenship, were a few years earlier invited to take a free vacation to their homeland. Shortly after arrival they were "conscripted" into the German army and unable to return home.

The ironies of war.