SGT. Robert McNeil
U.S. Army- 40th Infantry Division
740th Ordinance Battalion - Company B
Korea
May 1952- March 1954
U.S. Army- 40th Infantry Division
740th Ordinance Battalion - Company B
Korea
May 1952- March 1954
Robert McNeil was born in Grace Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut on January 16, 1931. His mother Catherine, his father George, his older brother George and younger sister Nancy lived in New Haven, one block from the harbor. Oystering was the family business. His grandfather owned The McNeil Oyster Company where he grew and sold oysters. He also owned an oyster boat named SYMPH. Robert’s father and uncle took over the business when Robert’s grandfather died. Robert’s father Captained his Oyster Boat, Mollie M.
Robert grew up during the Great Depression. Times were tough, but the boys didn’t know that. The family attended church, where Robert was an altar boy. He and George were both Boy Scouts and enjoyed camping and skinny dipping. During the Depression there was no extra money, so the kids made up games with whatever they found lying around. There was no money to replace anything that may have broken so they played with a baseball wrapped in electrical tape and a bat the was cracked and held together with the ultra-useful electrical tape.
When Robert was 10 years old World War II broke out. He recalled blackout shades and driving without headlights. Blackout protocol was prevalent on the east and west coast. The idea was to eliminate any artificial light making it more difficult for the enemy to target any towns and cities for attack. He recalled rationing, local air raid wardens and collecting old cigarette packages. The cigarette packages were lined with tinfoil. George and his brother would soak the paper and peel the tinfoil off and roll it in a ball. Tin was classified as a strategic material that could only be supplied from overseas making it in scarce supply in the states. During WWII the military needed tin for a multitude of purposes. There were tin recycling drives and everyone pitched in. His older brother George volunteered for the Navy and served throughout WWII.
Robert and his brother were industrious kids and always looking for jobs to make money. “I was saving money like crazy when I was a kid…and with parents that were fairly poor, saving money was big”. The brothers did yard work for neighbors and had regular customers they shoveled snow for. Robert recalled saving his money in a Calumet baking soda can with a slot cut in the cover to deposit the money. When he had saved enough money, $18.75, he purchased War bonds.
Robert recalled walking to school and coming home for lunch because the school did not provide lunch. He had to work after school and was unable to participate in sports. Robert worked as a Soda Jerk at Ben Beck’s drug store on Whitney Ave. in New Haven. Just like George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life”,
It wasn’t all work and no play. Robert’s neighbor Barbara Bradley was in nursing school. One day she stopped by with her friend from nursing school, Eleanor “Elly” DeMale. Robert and Elly hit it off and began dating.
Although he didn’t like school, Robert graduated from Hillhouse High School in 1948. He couldn’t recall how many kids were in his graduating class, but he recalled “it was very large”.
After graduation Robert went to trade school at Wilcox Tech in Meriden, CT. where he enrolled in a program for auto mechanics. “What is a guy 18 interested in? Girls and cars”.
After trade school Robert landed a job at Cooley Chevrolet in New Haven, CT as an automobile mechanic. “The car had nothing on it when it came out of the factory. No radio, no heater, no signal lights…no nothing”. Robert did all of the installations.
After two years at Cooley Chevrolet Robert received his draft notice for the Korean War. Robert and Elly had been dating for some time, and they decided to get married before Robert left for the Army. On May 3, 1952, they were married in St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Middletown, CT. The newlyweds had a brief Honeymoon in the mountains of New Hampshire and 10 days later Robert was on his way to Fort Devens for his induction.
After receiving a series of vaccinations, his GI haircut and his uniform he boarded a bus headed for the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Aberdeen, MD. Robert went through eight weeks of Basic Training followed by eight weeks of Advance Individual Training in Fuel and Electric Repair. Basic Training “was no fun” and the endless marching left its mark on his memory. Robert found an off-base apartment and Elly joined him. The apartment was more like a dorm room and afforded little privacy. Elly found a job as a nurse in a local hospital. Money was tight and Robert recalled a big night out for the couple was a ten-cent movie on the base and a bag of cashew nuts.
Robert performed well in AIT and because he had attended trade school, he was told he would be an instructor and remain in the states. Having a sense of certainty, the newlyweds moved into a nicer apartment and life was looking up. That was until one day during formation when the sergeant announced, ‘the following men report for their overseas shots’. He read though the list and when he reached the M’s he called ‘Robert McNeil’.
The couple thought Elly might be pregnant as Robert headed off for his deployment. A short time later they would be proved right. His first stop was Camp Stoneman in California. After a week the troops were transported to San Francisco to board their troop ship headed for Japan. Robert recalled bunks being stacked five high. With 2,000 troops on board the ship, it hit rough waters in San Francisco Bay and by the time they reached the Pacific Ocean the ship was rolling and pitching. Everyone was seasick and Robert went top side to stand on the deck and get some fresh air. There he watched the ship pitch and roll as it was battered by waves that appeared from out of the darkness.
Robert wasn’t as seasick as they others and was assigned to work in the kitchen washing and stacking thousands of mess trays. He recalled that they only thing the mess hall served for the first two days was corn flakes and oranges.
After 17 days the shipped docked in Osaka, Japan. The troops boarded a train and headed north to Kyoto, Japan where they received further processing. Next, the GI’s were loaded on another ship headed for Pusan, Korea. Robert recalled the trip to Korea was short and they arrived in December 1952. Robert recalled participating in advanced combat training where the troops got accustomed to the terrain and the very cold weather. “It was so cold by the time we ate our eggs they were half frozen”.
Robert was assigned to Company B of the 740th Ordinance Battalion of the 40th Infantry Division. This was a support unit behind the combat lines but always in a very rural area. Robert fixed the electrical and fuel components of the equipment being used in tanks and other vehicles. After soaking the parts in cleaning solution and blowing debris away, they would put in new values and other components. The rebuilt parts were sent back to the motor pools. “We had no way to test them. I don’t know if they worked”.
Contending with the cold was a big issue. Robert recalled being issued “Mickey Mouse Boots”. These were insulated and waterproof, cold weather boots designed for the extreme frigid temperatures. Robert considered himself quite luck to have these boots. The first troops deployed in the war were not so lucky and had to contend with frostbite and trench foot. “We wore all the clothes we had”.
Robert took his turn walking guard duty for four hours during the nights. He recalled having to dig foxholes in the cold ground. The combat was constant. “We could see helicopters flying out. Guys were strapped on the side being taken to the medics”.
Robert and his unit would periodically move to follow the front-line action. Travel was dangerous on the narrow roads up and down the hills of Korea. He recalled one base they established was in Chunchon, in the northern most portion of South Korean. When they moved to a new area, they would have to set up tents and dig latrines. The troops would sleep on the cold ground until they could put up larger tents with wooden floors.
After a period of time in-country, Robert was able to go on R&R. He spent a week in Japan where he saw the sites in Kyoto and Kobe.
Robert was in Korea for a total of 14 months before he accumulated enough points to return to the states. He traveled back to Pusan and boarded another ship for the trip to San Francisco. Although there was a truce in effect when he left Korea, he worried that at any moment the fighting might resume, and the ship would be turned around. After 17 days Robert finally passed under the Golden Gate Bridge, and he finally was able to relax. It was March 1954.
After a long, cold flight back to the east coast, Robert was discharged into the Ready Reserve. The Army issued him a new uniform and overcoat and told him to take of them in case he was called back. Robert took a train back to Connecticut and was greeted at the station by Elly and his nine-month-old daughter Debra who he met for the first time.
Robert pondered his future and realized that there was a lot more competition in the oyster business than when he left for Korea. He thought the industry was changing for the worse and he would be better off finding another career. He tried his hand at selling vacuum cleaners “but nothing sold but the hose”. He went back to Whitney Motors and took a job as a salesman. He sold five cars a month but was not enough to meet the quotas and he was laid off. Robert went to the local Dodge dealer and took a sales job but found that the owner would take every customer that walked in. One of the other salesmen told Robert about a position at Metropolitan Life Insurance Company as a collectable agent.
Robert took the job which involved going door-to-door to collect monthly life insurance premiums, depositing the cash and recordkeeping for the various accounts. He was also expected to sell life insurance. It was a tough job and there was the constant pressure of meeting sales goals. During his 34 years at Met Life Robert made the sales Honor Club in seven of those years, and that provided several very nice vacations for he and Elly. Robert recalled meeting a lot of nice people while going door-to-door. To help bring in extra money Elly worked as a nurse on the weekends while Robert took care of the two girls.
After retiring from Metropolitan Robert decided to get his realtor’s license. He enjoyed that and found he was good at it. He later took a job selling retirement homes for a continuing care retirement community where Elly also worked. Robert also resumed his painting, mainly of scenes from Cape Cod. “I started painting a long, long time ago as a hobby. I used to paint on snowy days. I just bought some paints and started”.
The family had spent almost every summer at Cape Cod and Robert and Ellie started looking for a home on the Cape. In 1993 they were both retired and they purchased a home in the Town of Dennis right near “the elbow” of the Cape. Robert and Elly got involved in the Garden Club, volunteering at the library and the Cape Cod Museum and they also joined the Dennis Union Church. Robert found himself a part time job doing home inspections and he and Elly enjoyed driving around Cape Cod seeing the sites on the way to the home inspections.
As time passed, they didn’t see their children and eight grandchildren as often as they wanted. In 2014 they decided to downsize and returned to Wallingford, CT.
When Robert looked back over his life, he wrote in his memoir, “It’s been a great life with lots of happiness and love with my family and the wonderful people I met”. Growing up during the Great Depression left a lasting impression Robert and it greatly influenced his character and view of daily life.
Robert also wrote in his memoirs, “I sometimes think I should have spent less time worrying about nothing and made an effort to enjoy more things that I felt were unnecessary…”. The Great Depression made people practical, frugal and industrious. Worry was just a by-product.
Robert, thank you for leaving your bride of ten days to serve your country. You endured the frigid temperatures and half frozen eggs half a world away so we didn’t have to.
Robert grew up during the Great Depression. Times were tough, but the boys didn’t know that. The family attended church, where Robert was an altar boy. He and George were both Boy Scouts and enjoyed camping and skinny dipping. During the Depression there was no extra money, so the kids made up games with whatever they found lying around. There was no money to replace anything that may have broken so they played with a baseball wrapped in electrical tape and a bat the was cracked and held together with the ultra-useful electrical tape.
When Robert was 10 years old World War II broke out. He recalled blackout shades and driving without headlights. Blackout protocol was prevalent on the east and west coast. The idea was to eliminate any artificial light making it more difficult for the enemy to target any towns and cities for attack. He recalled rationing, local air raid wardens and collecting old cigarette packages. The cigarette packages were lined with tinfoil. George and his brother would soak the paper and peel the tinfoil off and roll it in a ball. Tin was classified as a strategic material that could only be supplied from overseas making it in scarce supply in the states. During WWII the military needed tin for a multitude of purposes. There were tin recycling drives and everyone pitched in. His older brother George volunteered for the Navy and served throughout WWII.
Robert and his brother were industrious kids and always looking for jobs to make money. “I was saving money like crazy when I was a kid…and with parents that were fairly poor, saving money was big”. The brothers did yard work for neighbors and had regular customers they shoveled snow for. Robert recalled saving his money in a Calumet baking soda can with a slot cut in the cover to deposit the money. When he had saved enough money, $18.75, he purchased War bonds.
Robert recalled walking to school and coming home for lunch because the school did not provide lunch. He had to work after school and was unable to participate in sports. Robert worked as a Soda Jerk at Ben Beck’s drug store on Whitney Ave. in New Haven. Just like George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life”,
It wasn’t all work and no play. Robert’s neighbor Barbara Bradley was in nursing school. One day she stopped by with her friend from nursing school, Eleanor “Elly” DeMale. Robert and Elly hit it off and began dating.
Although he didn’t like school, Robert graduated from Hillhouse High School in 1948. He couldn’t recall how many kids were in his graduating class, but he recalled “it was very large”.
After graduation Robert went to trade school at Wilcox Tech in Meriden, CT. where he enrolled in a program for auto mechanics. “What is a guy 18 interested in? Girls and cars”.
After trade school Robert landed a job at Cooley Chevrolet in New Haven, CT as an automobile mechanic. “The car had nothing on it when it came out of the factory. No radio, no heater, no signal lights…no nothing”. Robert did all of the installations.
After two years at Cooley Chevrolet Robert received his draft notice for the Korean War. Robert and Elly had been dating for some time, and they decided to get married before Robert left for the Army. On May 3, 1952, they were married in St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Middletown, CT. The newlyweds had a brief Honeymoon in the mountains of New Hampshire and 10 days later Robert was on his way to Fort Devens for his induction.
After receiving a series of vaccinations, his GI haircut and his uniform he boarded a bus headed for the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Aberdeen, MD. Robert went through eight weeks of Basic Training followed by eight weeks of Advance Individual Training in Fuel and Electric Repair. Basic Training “was no fun” and the endless marching left its mark on his memory. Robert found an off-base apartment and Elly joined him. The apartment was more like a dorm room and afforded little privacy. Elly found a job as a nurse in a local hospital. Money was tight and Robert recalled a big night out for the couple was a ten-cent movie on the base and a bag of cashew nuts.
Robert performed well in AIT and because he had attended trade school, he was told he would be an instructor and remain in the states. Having a sense of certainty, the newlyweds moved into a nicer apartment and life was looking up. That was until one day during formation when the sergeant announced, ‘the following men report for their overseas shots’. He read though the list and when he reached the M’s he called ‘Robert McNeil’.
The couple thought Elly might be pregnant as Robert headed off for his deployment. A short time later they would be proved right. His first stop was Camp Stoneman in California. After a week the troops were transported to San Francisco to board their troop ship headed for Japan. Robert recalled bunks being stacked five high. With 2,000 troops on board the ship, it hit rough waters in San Francisco Bay and by the time they reached the Pacific Ocean the ship was rolling and pitching. Everyone was seasick and Robert went top side to stand on the deck and get some fresh air. There he watched the ship pitch and roll as it was battered by waves that appeared from out of the darkness.
Robert wasn’t as seasick as they others and was assigned to work in the kitchen washing and stacking thousands of mess trays. He recalled that they only thing the mess hall served for the first two days was corn flakes and oranges.
After 17 days the shipped docked in Osaka, Japan. The troops boarded a train and headed north to Kyoto, Japan where they received further processing. Next, the GI’s were loaded on another ship headed for Pusan, Korea. Robert recalled the trip to Korea was short and they arrived in December 1952. Robert recalled participating in advanced combat training where the troops got accustomed to the terrain and the very cold weather. “It was so cold by the time we ate our eggs they were half frozen”.
Robert was assigned to Company B of the 740th Ordinance Battalion of the 40th Infantry Division. This was a support unit behind the combat lines but always in a very rural area. Robert fixed the electrical and fuel components of the equipment being used in tanks and other vehicles. After soaking the parts in cleaning solution and blowing debris away, they would put in new values and other components. The rebuilt parts were sent back to the motor pools. “We had no way to test them. I don’t know if they worked”.
Contending with the cold was a big issue. Robert recalled being issued “Mickey Mouse Boots”. These were insulated and waterproof, cold weather boots designed for the extreme frigid temperatures. Robert considered himself quite luck to have these boots. The first troops deployed in the war were not so lucky and had to contend with frostbite and trench foot. “We wore all the clothes we had”.
Robert took his turn walking guard duty for four hours during the nights. He recalled having to dig foxholes in the cold ground. The combat was constant. “We could see helicopters flying out. Guys were strapped on the side being taken to the medics”.
Robert and his unit would periodically move to follow the front-line action. Travel was dangerous on the narrow roads up and down the hills of Korea. He recalled one base they established was in Chunchon, in the northern most portion of South Korean. When they moved to a new area, they would have to set up tents and dig latrines. The troops would sleep on the cold ground until they could put up larger tents with wooden floors.
After a period of time in-country, Robert was able to go on R&R. He spent a week in Japan where he saw the sites in Kyoto and Kobe.
Robert was in Korea for a total of 14 months before he accumulated enough points to return to the states. He traveled back to Pusan and boarded another ship for the trip to San Francisco. Although there was a truce in effect when he left Korea, he worried that at any moment the fighting might resume, and the ship would be turned around. After 17 days Robert finally passed under the Golden Gate Bridge, and he finally was able to relax. It was March 1954.
After a long, cold flight back to the east coast, Robert was discharged into the Ready Reserve. The Army issued him a new uniform and overcoat and told him to take of them in case he was called back. Robert took a train back to Connecticut and was greeted at the station by Elly and his nine-month-old daughter Debra who he met for the first time.
Robert pondered his future and realized that there was a lot more competition in the oyster business than when he left for Korea. He thought the industry was changing for the worse and he would be better off finding another career. He tried his hand at selling vacuum cleaners “but nothing sold but the hose”. He went back to Whitney Motors and took a job as a salesman. He sold five cars a month but was not enough to meet the quotas and he was laid off. Robert went to the local Dodge dealer and took a sales job but found that the owner would take every customer that walked in. One of the other salesmen told Robert about a position at Metropolitan Life Insurance Company as a collectable agent.
Robert took the job which involved going door-to-door to collect monthly life insurance premiums, depositing the cash and recordkeeping for the various accounts. He was also expected to sell life insurance. It was a tough job and there was the constant pressure of meeting sales goals. During his 34 years at Met Life Robert made the sales Honor Club in seven of those years, and that provided several very nice vacations for he and Elly. Robert recalled meeting a lot of nice people while going door-to-door. To help bring in extra money Elly worked as a nurse on the weekends while Robert took care of the two girls.
After retiring from Metropolitan Robert decided to get his realtor’s license. He enjoyed that and found he was good at it. He later took a job selling retirement homes for a continuing care retirement community where Elly also worked. Robert also resumed his painting, mainly of scenes from Cape Cod. “I started painting a long, long time ago as a hobby. I used to paint on snowy days. I just bought some paints and started”.
The family had spent almost every summer at Cape Cod and Robert and Ellie started looking for a home on the Cape. In 1993 they were both retired and they purchased a home in the Town of Dennis right near “the elbow” of the Cape. Robert and Elly got involved in the Garden Club, volunteering at the library and the Cape Cod Museum and they also joined the Dennis Union Church. Robert found himself a part time job doing home inspections and he and Elly enjoyed driving around Cape Cod seeing the sites on the way to the home inspections.
As time passed, they didn’t see their children and eight grandchildren as often as they wanted. In 2014 they decided to downsize and returned to Wallingford, CT.
When Robert looked back over his life, he wrote in his memoir, “It’s been a great life with lots of happiness and love with my family and the wonderful people I met”. Growing up during the Great Depression left a lasting impression Robert and it greatly influenced his character and view of daily life.
Robert also wrote in his memoirs, “I sometimes think I should have spent less time worrying about nothing and made an effort to enjoy more things that I felt were unnecessary…”. The Great Depression made people practical, frugal and industrious. Worry was just a by-product.
Robert, thank you for leaving your bride of ten days to serve your country. You endured the frigid temperatures and half frozen eggs half a world away so we didn’t have to.