WW2 Veteran Joe Landry joins! Joe is celebrating his 100th birthday!
Live at The American Heritage Museum!
Live at The American Heritage Museum!
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00:00Flex Friday and we are at the American Heritage Museum in in the Hudson getting ready for Veterans Day
00:07We're gonna try this with our guy Joe Landry. Yeah, can you hear us? Yeah. All right. How about that? That's a good
00:14That's one step forward. You can hear us. All right, can we have?
00:18We have a round of applause for Joe for his service
00:22service to our country in World War two
00:24Thanks for being here we haven't seen you since last Veterans Day, how you doing good. Yeah good. I
00:31Did I hear that? You just got your driver's license. You passed the test. You're rolling rolling along
00:36I just got my driver's license for five years. Oh, that's awesome. Wow. So I hope I use it. Yeah, I hope
00:45What was what was your do you remember the first car you bought
00:49Do you remember the first car you bought
00:52First car I bought was a
00:551932 Ford station wagon, and I cut the back
01:00Off made a pickup truck
01:04Probably worth a million dollars
01:07Probably
01:08Would be probably would be
01:11It's so interesting, you know for I for for me for for Courtney for shine for everybody Curtis
01:17Everybody who listens the show to kind of hear
01:21the the stories of the of the way things were and you I
01:26Was thinking about this the other day
01:28How how old were you when you were drafted I was 18 and a half
01:3418 and a half. Yeah, and I was drafted in March of 43
01:40went into Fort Devens, which was right next door and
01:46Went from there to North Carolina for basic training and back to Camp Edwards down the cave
01:54we shipped out to
01:56Out of Boston
01:59to Scotland
02:02And down through England
02:05And all over all over just to be clear for chime and Courtney
02:09You didn't receive your draft notice via email or you weren't notified on Instagram or Facebook. How were you notified?
02:17How I got a letter in the mail saying my friends and neighbors wanted my service
02:23But I didn't know any of them but I
02:29Find it interesting right now with the election just happening and going and casting your your vote on a ballot
02:36But but now they put it into a machine and everything's counted that way but back when you were younger
02:42You know your first election of memory. They were doing that all by hand, right? Like they would have to count all the votes
02:49Yeah, and they don't do that anymore. They're all
02:52Just kidding. I'm sorry. I guess they're all paper ballots and I worked at the polling
03:00Place for a couple of years and my job was
03:04they put the
03:06Ballot in this machine and I would turn the crank put it in the box and a gentle
03:12Gentleman was joking with everybody in the hall. So when he got to put the ballot in my box
03:20Told me says I hope my vote counts I says it won't this is the paper shredder
03:29Who was the who was the who was the first president that you voted for I
03:36Have to say Roosevelt Roosevelt
03:39FDR. Yeah, FDR. I have a question for Joe
03:42first of all the set getting younger without me there with a hundred-year-old is not a great look for me, but
03:50The the day that you found out you were coming home
03:55How was that told to you? Were you able to write a letter home?
03:59What was the process like when the war ended or your service in the war ended? How did you find that out?
04:05What did you feel and how did you let everybody know that you were in debt in fact coming home?
04:10Well, I didn't have cell phone. I
04:14Really don't remember I know I let him know somehow but
04:21We came back. I could discharge out of Fort Devens and at the time they'd give you a taxi fare
04:29To go home
04:31So they gave me a quarter
04:35And that was enough to get the taxi home and I still have the quarter
04:43But you served
04:461945 well you served at the time that you served
04:51Five of your seven siblings were also serving. Do I have that number, right?
04:56I had two brothers in the Air Corps as mechanics. I had a brother in the Seabees as
05:04a bulldozer operator I
05:08had a
05:09sister in the Coast Guard and
05:11Myself in the Army and then
05:14later on my younger brother went and spent 21 years in the Navy and
05:21My oldest sister didn't go into service, but she spent all the war years at the USO building in
05:29Shirley
05:31Hosting GIs and parties and stuff like that. So all seven of us served and
05:38And since my
05:41After I got married and my son went in the service and he spent 21 years
05:48Destroying chemical weapons all over the country
05:53What was that like for your mom with
05:55Well, all of you serving at the same time. I never saw my mother cry
06:01But her hair turned white while you were gone while we were gone
06:06Yeah, there was you know five of us in World War two and
06:11We all came home
06:13But but there was yeah
06:16I and then there with thanks with Thanksgiving right around the corner. There's a story
06:22I think about you being overseas serving and then
06:27Being able to celebrate Thanksgiving with your brother by random occurrence. Is that just by luck?
06:34I was on a trip to pick up supplies from my outfit and
06:40There was a Jeep in front of me and as you know, all vehicles had the outfit numbers on the bumpers
06:47So this Jeep had my brother's numbers on it
06:51so I blew the horn blew the horn to get him to stop to see where they were stationed and
06:58Lo and behold
07:00My brother was in the Jeep
07:03So it's just
07:05unbelievable, you know
07:06I know a lot of people made appointments and when visit brothers and cousins and that
07:13but this was just a
07:15fluke and it was two or three days before Thanksgiving and
07:21He being in the Air Force
07:23they sent an airplane back to England and got ice cream and turkey and the whole bit and
07:31We had a feast and I understand my outfit was eating crack attack, you know k1 rations
07:39And you guys had ice cream and turkey? Yeah
07:44Smart move and
07:47Like I said, we all survived and every Thanksgiving we kind of had a lot to talk about
07:52Yeah, Joe
07:53Let me ask this because I think we all they always say this like who's the one person if you could have dinner with you've
08:00Been on this earth for a long time
08:02What is the who was the most famous person that you were able to come in?
08:08Contact with we see so many great people throughout time, but you've been here for so long
08:13Who was that one person that you were is able to meet famous that you were like, wow, this is an unbelievable experience
08:23During the war or afterward just for all your whole life. Well, I was at a
08:29A ceremony and
08:32St. Marie Louise
08:34France two years ago with the 82nd Airborne and
08:40they had a party and
08:43I was sitting by myself and the woman that was running the party said would you come sit over here and there was three seats
08:51She sat me in the middle and the next thing I know there's a four-star general on my left
08:58That was the head general for the 82nd Airborne and then there was a four-star general on my right
09:07Who was the chief of staff from Washington DC?
09:11So he's probably the most
09:14Important person I've ever met Wow pretty good company other than Vanna white
09:24Wait, how'd you meet Vanna white?
09:26How'd you meet Vanna white but my wife won a all-expense paid trip to California on the wheel of
09:35Yeah, we're having the party and I got to meet her and Pat did she what did your wife win?
09:42Did she win any money?
09:50Because you are you are so funny so witty you look great
09:55Like what is your key to success when it comes to life?
09:58I I want to make sure that I'm doing exactly what you're doing. I won't tell you
10:17The only thing I know
10:20Different was I didn't drink much and I never smoked
10:27I'm still here. Yeah, you're doing right
10:31one thing that you that you can
10:34You can take credit for is that you recently?
10:37Threw out the first pitch at a Major League Baseball game and it was better than both
10:42Whitney and I and we've tried three or four times. Yeah, so how did how did that end up happening?
10:47Well, I belong to the Battle of Boulders Association
10:51And my son happens to be president of it and we were having our convention in st
10:58Louis, so somehow he arranged for me to throw out the first pitch. Oh
11:06Look at this. So here we have if we can we can probably get we could take a picture of that or get it over
11:11But that's the baseball card. So I think was just you threw a strike
11:15Pardon you threw a strike
11:18Yeah, you threw a strike
11:20Like Cy Young, I've been in the right place at the right time. There you go a few times
11:27Pretty cool. Did you ever did you can have that?
11:33You're like, yeah, you're like wiki he brings his own photos
11:38You did you ever see Ted Williams play did I see Ted Williams play at for the Red Sox
11:45See Ted Williams. Yeah, did you know I never you never saw him? No. Okay, Greg has
11:54That's pretty cool, yeah, so were you a big sports
11:57Were you a big sports fan as a kid growing up? I never played any sport. Okay
12:05We played in a
12:07farmer's yard a bunch of kids got together and we used dry couch labs for basis
12:16And
12:21One one kid had a ball all tipped up and somebody else had a bat. Yeah Joe
12:28Before you went to serve in World War two, where was the furthest you had traveled from home?
12:38Probably Boston so
12:40So you went from never going more than 20 minutes away to going to an entirely different continent
12:45How did you what was the boat trip like there? What did you do? What did you talk about? How did you pass time?
12:51What were you all terrified? Were you all energized? How was what was the morale on the ship to the war? Well, I
12:59Don't know kids back then were different kids today. We had to do everything for ourselves and
13:06That's why they call us the greatest generation you are today everything is
13:12Everything is planned for everybody. Yeah, but somebody asked me not too long ago
13:19How I felt about being drafted
13:22So I told I was in a family of seven
13:27They took me out of the family wearing hand-me-down clothes and that kind of stuff
13:33They gave me a set of uniforms
13:35They sent me on a train ride to North Carolina
13:39They brought me back put me on the boat gave me a cruise to
13:45to Scotland
13:47Another train ride down the coast
13:50Put me on a boat across the English Channel
13:54And gave me a truck to drive. They paid the gas
13:59How can you go wrong
14:02I
14:08Mean really like there's a little bit of a difference there when it comes to the way we have
14:13all approached
14:15I would say I
14:17have been very very fortunate all through my life and
14:23thank God for that and I have so many friends that I
14:28Can't come along
14:30But thank you
14:33Driving this is for Courtney and chime and everybody driving the truck
14:38How would you know where you were going? Because you there was no such thing as GPS
14:46They they give you what they call a strip map
14:49Would tell you where to go, but they only
14:53Had the road that you were supposed to be on. So if you accidentally get off that road
14:59You were on your own
15:02And
15:04Because all all the roads over there at the time were gravel and
15:10On one of the particular convoys I was on
15:14The lieutenant was leading the convoy in a jeep driving like crazy
15:20And we couldn't keep up with him and I happen to be the first truck behind him
15:26so I pull a whole convoy off the road and
15:30About 20 minutes later. He decided we weren't behind him anymore. So he came back and
15:37He started chewing me up one side and down the other and I politely told him
15:43you know what and I
15:47Told him I was protecting the convoy and myself
15:51Because there's anybody that's been in convoy
15:55Knows that you might be fighting for your country, but you're also fighting to protect the guy next to you
16:03So I was protecting them
16:08He threatened to court-martial me, but he realized he was wrong so that went by the board
16:18When I when I met my brother outside of Metschranth
16:23I used to take a truck on the weekend if we weren't moving around and I'd go see my brother
16:30which is about 20 miles away and
16:33every Monday morning, I'd get heck from the CEO and
16:37Finally one time he said I'd do the same thing
16:41So, you know I told him I might not be here tomorrow and I got a chance to see my brother and I took him
16:49When when you guys were over there fighting, how would how would you get how would you get news would it just come from
16:57No, yeah news like, you know
17:04Like a magazine that came out once once a week, okay
17:09but you didn't get there was months we got no mail or anything because
17:14My particular outfit we were shooting down airplanes in England and
17:20we were supposed to go in on the invasion and
17:24we couldn't move the whole outfit because we were a semi-mobile so they took us off a D-Day and
17:33finally we
17:35protected the harbor where all the ships were and
17:38one night a German bomber came in and
17:42Our guns couldn't shoot it at it because they'd have shot up
17:47an English outfit that was on the other bank of the river and
17:53He proceeded to blow up an oil tanker in the harbor, it's made quite a fire.
18:00I was very fortunate
18:03to get to Omaha Beach on the 18th of July
18:07before they
18:09Fleed St. Louis and
18:12General Patton couldn't get through St. Louis because the Germans had it really fortified and he called for the
18:208th and 9th Air Force out of England to bomb the town and
18:26You can't hardly believe this but there was about 3,000 airplanes in the sky at the same time
18:35You couldn't hardly see the sky for airplanes
18:39and they bombed
18:42St. Louis almost out of
18:45existence and
18:47a one-star general by the name of McNair
18:51was killed in that particular bombing.
18:55They laid his body on the front of a cathedral that still had the wall standing but nothing else
19:03And they covered him with an American flag and the graves registration came along and took him away
19:10But that was the breakout
19:14for going across Europe with the St. Louis
19:17well, I
19:19We're so glad that you're here and to meet you last year was one of the
19:24One of the greatest things that has come from from doing this
19:29radio show for a long time and what
19:32I probably speak on behalf of everybody here when I say thank you for your service and what you did for our country and
19:38without you we would not be here today, so I
19:42thank you so much for it and
19:45it's it's extraordinary to leave here at 18 having never been out of the country and
19:49To go places that you never thought you'd go and do what you did is really it's it's incredible. So thank you
20:02I
20:04Told a lot of Vietnam veterans
20:08That I'm glad to see that they're finally getting the recognition that they deserve. They've got a bad time coming home
20:16And it's starting to get better for them, and I'm glad for that. Yeah, cuz
20:24I've had too many
20:26things like this that just
20:29unbelievable
20:31Well, we're gonna make it unbelievable for another lunch today, and I thank you so much
20:36I think we have a birthday cake for your 100th another one
20:42What was the best gift he got for your 100th birthday
20:48Well, I gotta say this honestly when they started advertising
20:54about my birthday in town is about 3,000 people showed up all together and
21:00I told them I didn't want any gifts
21:03but people I
21:05told them if they wanted to bring something would you make a donation towards the American Legion and
21:14to the Battle of the Bulge Association
21:17So to me, that's the best gift I got because I
21:22There was I was given over a thousand dollars and I've sent
21:27$500 to both outfits
21:32All right, Joe Landry
21:36Thank you for your service, yes, thank you
21:39We're gonna take a quick break, but we will be back from the American Heritage Museum in Hudson on the Friday before Veterans Day