Veteran's Testimony - Floyd C. Freeman
370th Medical Battalion

Photograph of T/5 Floyd Freeman, taken during his time in Kessel, Germany. September 1945

The following story was received from T/5 Floyd Calvin Freeman (ASN: 37906470), who served with the 370th Medical Battalion as the Chaplain's Assistant. He kindly forwarded details about his service following an Article in the 70th Infantry Division Association's newsletter “Trailblazer” about the WW2 US Medical Research Centre. It is reproduced here with the kind permission of Floyd; it was originally entitled “How I Won World War II”:

In August, 1944 I was stationed in Ft. Leonard Wood, Rolla, Missouri (Engineer RTC & Division Camp) and was in I Company of the 275th Infantry Regiment, 70th Infantry Division. I had been in Camp Adair, Corvallis, Oregon for a year before we went to Missouri.

A greetings postcard from Camp Adair, Oregon.

All of the time I was in the Army, as I had done before I went into the service, I was active in our church. I continued attending church services at the Military Chapel. It was a Sunday evening in early December that I went to Chapel #5 for the evening Vesper Service. There were about 15 GIs up in the balcony with the Chaplain. They were doing their best to sing without any organ accompaniment. It was not very good singing without any music. The Chaplain kept asking if any one of us could play the organ. I had never attempted this instrument, but I had taken piano lessons. I could play almost any hymn by ear. I stepped forward and the Chaplain turned on the big electric Hammond Organ. I was surprised how good it sounded. After the evening the Chaplain asked my name and company and wrote it down.

The next morning I was called into the office as a Chaplain wanted to talk to me. This was Chaplain Ronald E. Hubbard from the 370th Medical Battalion. I was transferred out of the Infantry and was now a medic, being the Chaplain's Assistant.
We went to France a month after the Infantry Companies sailed for Europe. When we got into the battle area, a "Chaplain's Kitchen" was set up for me. Every day a large truckload of French bread was delivered to me and it was stacked like wood in the back of my working table. I had many 5 gallon drums of peanut butter and strawberry jam in the kitchen. It was now my job to cut the French bread in slices, be very generous with the peanut butter and jam and make open faced sandwiches. I served them from a large tray to the wounded men, the American soldiers as well as to the German prisoners who had been hurt. The Government told me when I asked why we did not serve a good bowl of hot soup that this would make men sick, as they had been eating only C or K rations, and the bread with peanut butter and jam was most healthy and probably too heavy on their stomachs.

With a canvas tarpaulin for a church and packing cases for an altar, a Navy chaplain holds mass for Marines at Saipan. The service was held in memory of brave buddies who lost their lives in the initial landings. June, 1944.

This was my daily job, when we were not out in the field attending church services. I was working making the sandwiches 24 hours a day. When I was giving them to the wounded men I asked about my friends in I Company, 275th Infantry, and was told that many had been killed or captured or were in bad shape with Trench Foot. Finally I told the Chaplain that Infantry replacements were needed, and since I was a qualified Infantry soldier, I asked him whether he would release me from my job so I could go to the front. He took me downstairs to a small room in the school at St. Avold, France that we had converted into a hospital. He locked me in the room and told me to go to sleep and rest. Later he returned and had a long talk with me, explaining to me that I had the most important job in the US Army and should stay and continue making the peanut butter and jam sandwiches.

I know that God was watching over me, and I am alive today because I stayed with my job as a Chaplain's Assistant.

"Yes, I still like peanut butter and jam sandwiches."

Floyd also provided the following information about his life following WW2.

“I have been a travel agent fro 40 years, and have arranged and escorted our 70th Infantry Veterans on 16 Return- to- Europe tours.”

Unless otherwise stated, and except for a few editing remarks, all texts in this testimony are courtesy of T/5 Floyd C. Freeman (ASN: 15359023), who was an active member (Chaplain's Assistant) of the 370th Medical Battalion in WW2. The MRC staff are truly thankful for sharing his personal reminiscences with them.