Additional trains arrived in the days that followed. Hundreds of civilian
workers joined us in the tents waiting for the next leg of our journey.
We soon became acquainted; we were from all across the country: New
York and Pennsylvania, Ohio and Georgia, Alabama and Texas, Utah
and California. The Army Air Corps bases where we signed up were
Griffis and Olmstead, Patterson and Robbins, Brookley and Kelly and
Hill and McClellan. We were part of a vanguard moving out with little
or no advance notice. Except for a carry-on bag with a change of
clothing and a few personal items, our luggage had gone directly into the
ship's hold.
Days passed. The 'alert' came one night about 2 AM, shouted along the
tent lines, 'This is it, you guys. Movin' out. One hour.'
In a torrential downpour, we slogged through ankle-deep mud and
climbed into the backs of canvas covered trucks. Flaps down, escorted
by an armed military escort in Jeeps, all the trucks were blacked out
except for dim lights gleaming through slits in the headlights. We
formed up as a miles-long convoy rolling north along US101 from
Moffett Field, and arrived shortly before dawn at Fort Mason, adjacent
Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.
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