Ch 8, Military Life and Children

In the spring of 1942 Freeland accepted an invitation from his nephew, Henry Bradshaw, to accompany him on a double date with a nurse who was attending school at the Baptist Hospital in Muscogee Oklahoma.

 Anna Bell Betts, 1941

The young nurse’s name was Anna Bell Betts, and she was from Atoka Oklahoma. They saw each other on and off for two years and were eventually married in Odessa, Texas on May 7th, 1943. Freeland and "Betts" spent most of the war years at Odessa/Midland AFB and he attained the rank of Master Sergeant during that time. He also undertook the duties of "Line Chief" before he left there in December, 1945 to take up duties with the 33rd Fighter Wing in "First and Fellbrook" Germany, near Munich.

 William Freeland in Germany, 1946

Freeland had the opportunity, after he arrived in Germany, to visit the Jewish internment camps and see firsthand, the evidence of the atrocities that took place under the Nazi regime of Adolph Hitler. The destruction in Munich was such that the rubble in the streets, even after it had been bulldozed to the sides, only afforded one way traffic. The autobahn was a continual line, on both sides, of displaced persons and families with no apparent place to go. Their plight was discomforting to most of the military personnel at the time. One striking memory is of the Russian military hauling train loads of goods back to the motherland. Freeland remembers open boxcars full of toilets, bathtubs, and other plumbing fixtures.

 

Anna Gail Johnson, 1946

Freeland and Bett’s first child, Anna Gail, was born on the 24th of November 1945, and it was a full year before his wife and daughter would join him in Germany. Freeland received a telegram informing him that his wife and daughter would be arriving at a specific time and date, but immediately thereafter he received another telegram telling him that his daughter had taken ill and they would not be arriving as planned, so he did not make the rendezvous. To his dismay, the family arrived as scheduled and he suffered a severe tongue lashing from the chaplain for not being a responsible husband and father. Upon arrival at their final destination, they were assigned quarters "off-base" and were required to have a maid in an effort to put the German people back to work and help re-build the German economy.

Aside from the obvious inconveniences of being stationed in a "war-torn" country, their stay in Germany was a good experience. As the German economy began to recover, they were able to procure transportation in the form of a 1947 Chevrolet with a speedometer that registered Kilometers/hr instead of the usual Miles/hr. Freeland paid $1,200 for it and had it shipped over. Soon, the German bakeries were back in business and fresh bread was available, but many of the wives who had arrived to be with their husbands were appalled when the bread was delivered "unwrapped." It wasn’t long before the Germans began bagging their bread. While in Germany, the family also had the opportunity to visit Prague Czechoslovakia and Austria.

The S.S. Sultan

In November 1948, Freeland, "Betts" and Gail shipped out of Bremerhaven Germany for their return trip to the "States." They sailed on the S.S. Sultan for the six day trip to New York. After a couple of days in New York, they picked up their Chevrolet and headed West for Muscogee Oklahoma. They rested in Muscogee for about a month before Freeland left "Betts" and Gail and proceeded to his next duty station at Carswell AFB in Fort Worth, Texas. It wasn’t long before he found accommodations and had the family join him. Freeland remained at Carswell for about a year while he served as "Flight Engineer" on an assortment of different aircraft and traded in the old 47’ Chevy for a brand new "Baby Cadillac," more commonly know as a 1949 Chevrolet Sedan.

In late 1949, Freeland’s piled the family into their new Chevy and headed to his next duty station at McDill AFB in Tampa Florida, but they took a detour to Wichita, Kansas for 18 months while Freeland attended classes and trained his maintenance crews at the Boeing Aircraft Factory to learn the electrical system on a B-47 airplane. After the completion of this training period, the family continued their journey to Tampa, Florida, where Freeland took up duties as the Superintendent of Flight line Maintenance in 1951.

 Anna Bell, Gail, and William at McDill AFB, 1954

Gail started school at McDill AFB. The Johnson’s were at McDill for a full, seven long years during which time they purchased yet another Chevrolet, this time a 1952 Chevrolet Bel-Air "ragtop." They kept that "ragtop" for their full tour at McDill AFB, and sold it upon arrival at their next duty station at Lake Charles AFB in Lake Charles, Louisiana in 1958. They traded it for a 1959 Ford Sedan "Straight Six." It was at Lake Charles that Betts put her nurses training to good use and took a job as an "operating room" nurse at the local hospital, and Gail attended her first year of High School.

The family was only in Louisiana for about two years before another re-assignment, in early 1961, had them driving the "Straight Six" to Oscoda Michigan and Wurtsmith AFB. It was here that Gail graduated from High School and Betts honed her nursing skills at the base hospital.

Freeland was promoted to "Maintenance Control" and helped to accommodate the maintenance requirements of his own squadron plus the added responsibility of three squadrons (Wing) of B-52’s that were moved from the Miami area during the Cuban Missile Crisis.