Border Patrol Agents George I. Hendricks and Paul Marbry were jointly interviewed on April 8, 1987 at the National Border patrol Museum by Ms. Terrie Cornell. Mr. Marbry was a member of the 17th Border Patrol Session, and Mr. Hendricks was a member of the 16th Session, both at Camp Chigas, El Paso, Texas.

 

TC - Would you state your name, please?

GH - George W. Hendricks.

TC - And yours?

PM - Marbry: Paul Marbry.

TC - Mr. Hendricks, when did you enter the Border Patrol?

GH - In December of 1941 from Roswell, New Mexico.

TC - Why?

GH - I was paid $25 more than where I was working.

TC - Where were you working before?

GH - For the Southwestern Public Service Company.

TC - A utility service?

GH - Yes.

TC - In Roswell?

GH - Yes, in the electrical department.

TC - You heard about the Border Patrol hiring?

GH - I think a Border Patrolman there — I can’t remember his name
— asked me why I didn’t put an application in as they were accepting Border Patrolmen. I took the examination and was called not too long after that for an interview. And not too long after that, I was notified to report in El Paso.

TC - Where did you take your interview?

GH - In Albuquerque. The examination and physical and interview was given in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

TC - When did you go to the Academy?

GH - I cannot tell you. I really don’t know because I was sent on detail as soon as I came in and bought a uniform, and it was several months before I got to go to school.

TC - You bought the uniform right away?

GH - Yes, the first week I was there because I thought it was pretty! (Actually, I had some extra money from my former job.)

TC - (To Mrs. Hendricks) Tell the story that you told me - that they sent him on detail right away because he had the uniform.

Jean Hendricks: That’s what he always said — he was one of the first ones that had a full dress uniform and he got sent on these details because he did have it.

TC - Where was your first detail?

GH - I believe it was to California to pick up a bunch of aliens to transport to a detention camp in Texas, all Japanese.

TC - This was after Pearl Harbor?

GH - Yes.

TC - Where were you on Pearl Harbor day?

 

GH - On the river, on the bridge, working the river in El Paso. There were barrels across the river there for fire guides and everybody was so scared that we could see Japs running back and forth between those barrels. We thought we could — that was our imagination. It was real scary.

TC - So immediately you were sent to California?

GH - It was, oh I don’t know, two or three weeks, something like that. They came out and asked who had a full dress uniform, and I had one, so that is why I was sent on a detail to pick up aliens. At that time, they were beginning to intern Japanese.

TC - Did you take them to Crystal City, Texas?

GH - I believe that was the name of it.

PM - Yes, it was Crystal City. Then we made another trip back later on and picked up everybody at Crystal City, closed the camp and took them to New York and put them on the Gripsholm.

TC - Were they all Japanese at Crystal City?

GH - Yes.

PM - They were all Japanese.

GH - They picked these people up. The Japanese, I think, had sent the United States a list of the people they wanted, so we had a lot of doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, that Japan wanted back. I don’t remember exactly — that was a long time ago — when we got to New York City, I think we had 1,500 all told in the Pennsylvania Hotel and we were there for several days processing them, separating what they were supposed to take with them and what they couldn’t take with them. And then we were sent back to El Paso.

TC - So these educated, professional Japanese that they wanted right away, they were the first ones traded for our prisoners?

GH - That’s right.

TC - They were all traded?

GH - Yes, they were exchanged.

PM - He went around over the country hunting them.

GH - Oh, yes. One of the first places was Clovis, New Mexico. There were — I don’t remember how many — about twenty five or thirty, something like that — that were afraid to get out of their homes. we were sent over to pick them up and bring them to a little ranch close to Fort Stanton, New Mexico. That’s where they were not exactly interned, but they were put up there for their own protection. They landscaped and raised vegetables and garden flowers and made a beautiful spot out of it.

PM - Did you tell them how cold it was up there?

GH - It was pretty cold. They would bring in beautiful loads of vegetables and the people, I think the first load, they bought but they found they were raised by Japanese and then they wouldn’t buy them then. That was all of it.

PM - But it was also in that same encampment there up in the mountains from Fort Stanton. We had several from California.

TC - Several Japanese?

PM - Yes.

GH - In which camp?

PM - The old CC Camp.

GH - That was all Germans, wasn’t it?

PM - No, no, there were two camps, George.

GH - O.K.

PM - The German camp and then we had the Jap camp about 15 miles up in the mountains. It had been the girls CC Camp.

GH - That’s the one where we placed the Japanese from Clovis.

TC - That’s where they grew the vegetables?

PM - Yes. I was up there in September. It got so cold that I had to sleep under six blankets. It was very high altitude.

GH - I was never at that camp except to help deliver the Japanese there——I was never stationed there.

PM - I was up there two weeks by myself.

JH -Was the other camp where the German’s got trichinosis?

GH - That’s right. As I remember it, they wanted blood sausage. Pork and barrels of blood clots were purchased from Peyton Packing Company in El Paso. The German~ mixed it. It wasn’t well cooked. I tasted some and thought it tasted like it had been roasted in a hot blanket. All of them came down with trichinosis. Our government brought in doctors from all over the country to treat them. There were about 500 Germans there. It got to the point where we just counted heads. We had pictures and names but we couldn’t even identify them from their picture.

TC - They were so sick?

PM - That’s right. They were so sick. They were so swollen and everything else. They were a very sick bunch. As I recall, only one died. I was in the hospital room - the hospital was so crowded - I was in the room with two of them. One had the worm that causes trichinosis (or whatever it is) right on his top lip and every once in a while you could see it jerk.

We had a cook who was a sorry dish washer. You could pick up one of the coffee mugs, and it was so slimy, that if you didn’t grip it real hard it could slip out of your hand. I got dysentery and it took them three days to get me out of there.

TC - Sounds like you were lucky to only get dysentery.

PM - They treated me for 24 hours with a saline solution in the arm just to get some liquid back in me.

TC - This was before antibiotics, too.

PM - Yes.

Those two poor guys! We would sit and talk about Germany, you know. They would tell me how fine it was. One of them had been trained as a maitre d’. This is how I found out about how involved the training is for a maitre d’. I guess it should be for the money they make. He was from Austria and had trained in two or three foreign countries.

Then they told me they had a machine gun at that time that would shoot more than 600 rounds a minute. I think they said it was air cooled and about like shooting a water hose. I had never heard of anything like it. All we ever had was the old Browning and it was water cooled.

TC - How long were you there at Fort Stanton?

PM - Let’s see, I think I had to pull extra time because I also went to the Jap camp. They had a man up there, I don’t know where he was from or anything, but he couldn’t get along with the young woman who was more-or-less in charge. She had a habit of telling you what you could and what you couldn’t do. Since he couldn’t get along with her, they shipped him down here and shipped me up there.

* (Explanation: The Germans were aliens—in—distress who had been picked up after scuttling a luxury liner somewhere off the coast of Mexico or South America. The ship had been scuttled to prevent the US from seizing it. We brought them from California to New Mexico. Most spoke several languages were highly skilled workers, musicians, or entertainers.)

TC - Mr. Marbry, when did you go into the Border Patrol?

PM - March of 1942

TC - From where?

PM - Southern Illinois.

TC - How did you find out about the Border Patrol?

PM - In the fall of 1941 I was the assistant farm boss at the Illinois State Penal Farm. One of the guards there had heard about it and we got to talking. We were standing in front of headquarters and he told me that he had gotten an application and was going to try to join the Border Patrol. Usually, we worked 7 days a week so he asked me why I didn’t try, so I went to Vandalia and got an application.

The reason he talked me into taking the exam was that I had a car and he didn’t. We had to take the examination in Centralia so I took him with me. In those days I think the exam had 120 questions. Wasn’t that it, George?

GH - There were a bunch of them

PM - I’m sure it was 120 questions on the examination, and you had a time limit to answer them. The instructor, who was giving the examination, said that whatever we did we should not waste time. He told us to skip a question we couldn’t answer try to finish them all then go back to ones we had skipped. Anyway, I passed the examination and the guy I took with me flunked. In about January, I received a notice to go to East St. Louis to take a physical. There were about 8 of us who took it and only 2 passed. Why they didn’t pass it, I don’t know. Then I was told to report to El Paso on March second. That’s how I got out here.

GH - Well, I took the exam in 1939 when I was going to Texas A&M. There must have been 600 taking exams. I had my interview in Albuquerque and about eleven of us were accepted.

TC - Mr. Marbry, did you go to the Academy here?

PM - I went to the Academy in May of 1942. I worked the line part of the time and part of the time I was on one or two day details up or down the valley. Then in November of 1942 they transferred me to Lordsburg.

GH - We went on one or two details together after you were in Lordsburg.

PM - Yes.

LH - When did you come to Lordsburg, George?

GH: 1943.

LH - I know that we had been there awhile.

TC - You were all married when you came into the Border Patrol?

GH - No.

LM - Yes, we had a little boy who the inmates were raising.

TC - Not a very good influence?

LM: Yes, they were. They all loved him because he was the only little boy around.

TC - How long were you in Lordsburg?

PM - Two and a half years.

TC - But, you were sent on detail the whole time?

PM - It seemed like it. We were in and out of there quite a bit. George, at that time, wasn’t married. In those days when you went on a detail, you furnished your own money. Eventually your per diem caught up with you.

TC - Tough.

PM - Wicked. If you were careful it covered your expenses.

TC - Real careful.

PM - You didn’t get anything extra. You had to eat out, you had your laundry, your room rent and everything else. Now, as I understand it, they go down and draw money to take with them. Then if they run short of money they can draw more. Sometimes I had to go to the bank and borrow the money, you know.

JH -George, didn’t you say that you spent 19 days on a train one time?

GH - Yes, I think from the time I left El Paso until I returned, I had been across the US twice. The only thing we had to take a bath in was a wash basin in one of the pullman cars.

GH - We also spent ten days on the train when we left Carrizozo. We went all over the southeastern part of the US picking up Japanese citizens to deport. There were eleven sections of this detail——eleven trains. The other trip was to pick up and deport German citizens.

TC - Eleven trains, or eleven cars?

PM - Eleven trains. We had ten or eleven cars on the section we were guarding--all Germans.

TC - You were picking them up around the country?

GH - It was Sharp Park, just above San Francisco, where we hooked up the first train. That’s where we caught the train first them we came back across and wound up at Crystal City, Texas.

PM - I never was on so many railroads. After all those railroads down in South Texas, I knew where they got the expression, ‘the streak of rust.” On those trains you were doing about ten miles an hour because of the tracks. We ran all over that flat country and after about ten hours it would drive you nuts.

* GH - I remember that we stopped at one station——everybody was hungry. There was a guy selling candy, Clark bars, a good piece of candy. I asked him to let me have a box and
ended up with a case or 12 boxes holding 24 bars of candy each. To get my money back I had to sell candy-—even some of the prisoners bought boxes.

* (Explanation: Food staples were rationed, other items hard to,find, and some just non—existent. Good candy was in the almost impossible to find category.)

JH -They were both in the Santa Fe riot, too.

GH - I was stationed in Columbus, NM and went to Santa Fe
from there.

TC - You were in Lordsburg?

PM - Yes, they told me to report to Santa Fe as soon as possible.

GH - Well, my partner and I were in Columbus when the order came. We just loaded up and left immediately.

TC - Who was your partner?

GH - Moore, Clayton Moore. When we got there, there were something like 1,500 Japanese in one camp. They had put the rising sun flag in the middle of the camp. Most had shaved their heads and put on white shirts with a rising sun painted on the front. They had notified the guards that they were going to take over the camp.

Well, I can’t remember how many of us got there—-not too many. The brass took our guns away from us and gave us billy clubs or saps, then they told us to go in and push the Japanese back where they belonged and take down the flag. So, the gates were opened and we waded in which turned out to be a little bit rough. Finally, we got the flag and backed them all up.

TC - How many of you do you suppose there were there?

GH - We were outnumbered about fifteen to one, or something like that. About 300 Japanese were out in the yard. I know that Brackeen was the man next to me when we went through the gate. The Japs taunted us saying that they were going to show us what karate and ju—jitsu was like. Brackeen said, “Well, I don’t know much about that but when I come through this gate, you are going to find out about West Texas bulldogging.’ The next thing I saw was this little Jap up in the air. From then on we didn’t have many threats. Anyway, we had had some training in karate.

TC - You had had training?

PM - Oh, yes, when we went through school. We had self—defense, not a lot, but enough to take care of ourselves.

TC - Were these Japanese real nationalistic and militant?

 

PM - Oh, yes, very much so. It’s not like you read in the paper now that they weren’t any of that. The fact is, I never saw anything else, did you?

GH - Not many.

PM - It was quite a hassle but there were some funny things about it. Do you remember Harry Brackeen? Not Harry, that was his cousin the pitcher for St. Louis. Brackeen was a good— sized boy--larger than George. When these Japs would start chattering, the camp commander would tell us to go in and get them. Two or three of us would go in and bring them out. It’s the only way we could control them. This one guy, a ring leader, started chattering. Brackeen and somebody went in after him, We had a dump truck we were putting them in. Brackeen reached down and picked up that guy after he hit him with a billy club. He picked him up, threw him in the truck and said, “Stay there you son—of—a—bitch.”

GH - I think when it was over there were 15 of them taken to the hospital. Not any of them hurt real bad.

PM - Did you go down there in the camp with us that evening to pick up the leader?

GH - No, I don’t think so, Paul.

PM: Let’s see, I drove the car. There was J. Eldon Taylor and the camp commander and I don’t know who the other guy was. Anyway they were in barracks, and I think there were about six barracks buildings.

GH - Yes

PM - They were clear down at the end. We went in the side gate and we were all carrying machine guns. This was the only time I was ever told that if they start anything to shoot—— doesn’t make any difference where——shoot. Well, we had to because we were in the back end of the camp. Let’s see, there was one guy in one window in the middle. I got out of the car and went to the back double doors. The camp commander and Taylor walked around to the front double doors. The camp commander told him,”Come on out, you are leaving here or we are taking you out.” He started crying. Someone said,

Do you want us to take him.” The Jap answered, “No, if you do you will kill every one of us.”

We had the doors open and I was standing there with a riot gun. someone shoved this guy through the window so we just picked the old boy up and put him in the car and took him out. Then they shipped him out and that ended all the trouble.

TC - He was the ring leader?

PM - Yes

TC - An old Japanese guy?

PM - No, he was young. There were not too many old ones.

GH - They were between 20 and 30 on the average. Not old or not really young, either.

PM - The thing that teed me off most was that after that all happened, we had to do our own cooking. That hurt more than going in after that guy.

GH - When that camp was first put in, I was sent up there on detail to wire it——to wire the kitchen and laundry. The laundry equipment was old and I had to rebuild it first.

TC - As an electrician?

JH -You went to several different ones. Wasn’t there one in
Montana, too.

GH - Yes

TC - You wired which camp?

GH - Well, Lincoln, Nebraska

TC - Let’s go on to that one in a minute. Did you wire
Fort Stanton or the garden camp?

GH - No, I wired the one at Santa Fe. It was originally
full of Japanese and Italians.

PM - I didn’t know that.

GH - Yes, they couldn’t get along and had to be separated.

TC - What happened to the Italians?

GH - They put them in another camp. I think they took them to Lordsburg.

PM - They had Italians in Lordsburg at that army camp. That’s the only ones I knew about.

GH - In Lordsburg, yes.

PM - That’s all I knew about. I was in and out of there so much I really didn’t know. I do know this, I had been back from California for three days from a three month’s detail and wound up in Santa Fe.

TC - And then you wired a camp in Nebraska.

GH - Well, I went up to help on that camp.

TC - Which camp was that?

GH - Fort Lincoln, Nebraska

PM - You left as soon as it was completed?

GH - Oh, yes, I left before it was completed but it was already in operation when I was sent up there. I helped to do some wiring then I came back to El Paso.

JH -Back during those days, I guess, they had Patrolmen doing everything. George even spent , what, three months working on cars and jeeps in the garage.

TC - Here?

GH - In El Paso, yes. I also got assigned to load ammunition. Tommy Box and Bob Sparks found out that I had shot a lot and had loaded ammunition. I ended up loading ammunition for every­body to practice with.

Charlie Vail and I also built the first pistol range out on the Carlsbad highway. Neither of us had ever used heavy equipment nor done much rock work. We were having to learn as we went. Chief McBee came out to check on us and said that between the two of us we had done about a dollar fifty worth of work. (Wages at that time were about ~ dollar a day.)

I spent a lot of time on these kinds of details.

PM - Well, didn’t you make the trip when we took Fritz Kuhn
to New York?

GH - Yes, I did. We put him on the Gripsholm in New York City. Fritz had a guy who carried his suitcases. When you got off the train and walked to the top of the Jersey pier, it was thirty—three steps, a long way up. This guy had been loaded down with Fritz’ belongings so before we started up the stairs we took the suitcases away from him and made Fritz carry them up the steps.

When we got to the top, he was handcuffed to me and someone else. I don’t remember who it was on the other side. It was Pat Callahan who came over and handcuffed him to us. Fritz’ didn’t want to appear to be a prisoner so this patrolman and I walked far enough apart to stretch out his arms so that it could be seen he was handcuffed when he walked up the gang plank to go on board the boat.

You know, Keith McDonald almost had to kill him in Fort Stanton.

PM - Well, yes, that was when we were gathering him up to take him out.

JH -Fritz Kuhn was a German Bund leader. The Bund was considered subversive during the war.

PM - He was raising hell one night in the barracks.

TC - In Fort Stanton?

PM - Yes. Keith and J. Eldon Taylor were there. Keith had a tommy gun. He raked out the window glass and started to let him have it. J. Eldon grabbed the gun and pulled it up. Finally, they kicked the door down to get him out. He didn’t want to come out and be put on a train to be sent back to Germany.

GH - We had several who didn’t want to go back to Germany. We had several prisoners who were wanted there for murder, kidnapping, and everything else.

TC - Their fate would be a lot worse over there?

PM - Right, they knew that they wouldn’t have a chance. We had one guy on the train, who acted more or less insane. The story was that he had been brought here from South America, and if he wasn’t returned Hitler wouldn’t take the rest. Whatever he had done we never knew, but he was Hitler’s personal choice to get back.

TC - Poor man.

GH - One of the oddest things happened to me; A German named Rickeplus was in that camp. How he got out and got to stay in the US I never could find out but he was let stay here for some reason. Anyway, he came through Lordsburg looking for me. When he found me, he asked to borrow $20 to get to California. I told him that I didn’t just have $20 to give him, so he asked if I would loan it to him on his watch. I said sure and kept his watch. About a month later he sent me $20 and I mailed him his watch.

PM - He made it to California.

GH - Yes. He was one of the prisoners from the scuttled liner. After he showed up here we did a little checking but we never found out anything.

JH -What group did you pick up where you were ordered to show up with that number anyway you could?

GH - They were in prison out in California. On that detail I didn’t know where I was going. Pat Callahan was the officer in charge and he didn’t know until we got on the train. I think we picked up, I don’t remember exactly, about 30. The order was to get them to New York dead or alive.

TC - Japanese or Germans?

GH - Germans

PM - Let’s see, I think it was a Chicago detail where we took all the prisoners off the train and took them to the county jail in Chicago. We were riding down Michigan Boulevard on a Sunday morning. I was with this guy driving a van load of German prisoners. All at once he decided we were going the wrong way so he pulled a U—turn on a red light and started back. He said he had passed the jail. He made a U-turn on Michigan Boulevard and went back. I sat there and cussed for ten minutes at him and said that I didn’t need to come to Chicago to get killed.

GH - I wasn’t on that one. That’s one you made without me.

JM - Were you both on the detail to New York where Mayor LaGuardia loaned you some policemen?

PM - Well, you were there then.

GH - Yes. We had all these Japs in the Pennsylvania Hotel processing them for return to Japan. We had been on the train for days and days. Mayor LaGuardia came in and said, “I have police stationed at every outlet on this floor. You fellows can have twelve or twenty—four hours off.” The New York City police guarded them and kept them there while we were out relaxing a bit.. We came back and took over all feeling like we would vote for LaGuardia if we ever had a chance.

TC - Out of the goodness of his heart?

GH - Yes

JH -Was that the time someone decided he’d drink a beer in every night spot on Broadway?

TC - Somebody did that?

GH - Yes, Pajadin. was the patrolman. He was off the northern border. We started up Fifth Avenue to drink a beer at every honky—tonk. By the time we got to 42nd St he was pretty well floating.

PM - And you were full of orange pop.

GH - I was full of orange pop. I never drank. One of the funniest things about that evening was that we got into one place where a group in the corner was singing “Sidewalks of New York.” I said that we should help them so we got across from them and started singing “Deep in the Heart of Texas.” The first thing you knew we had a crowd all around us. When we got that quieted down we went on back to the hotel.

Another time we were on detail in Irapuato, a town down near Mexico City, we were processing braceros (workers to come to the US). I was married and my wife was with me. Several Border Patrolmen and their families were living at the El Rijos Hotel. Most evenings mariachis were there playing, singing, and passing the hat. This evening there wasn’t much of a crowd so we borrowed their instruments. I played guitar, another patrolman played guitar, and Bob Gresham’s wife had a harmonica. We played and sang all kinds of songs and gathered quite a crowd. The Mexicans passed the hat and we all had fun.

TC - Was this during the war?

JH -Shortly afterwards.

PM - George, do we talk about a boy named Terry?

GH - I don’t think so.

PM - Going to let that one pass.

GH - Well, I guess for the record since you brought it up. Terrible Terry Allen was the Commanding General of the Timberwolves in Italy. When my partner, Chuck Steele, and I were on a road check near Lordsburg he came through. I had pulled a lot of road check duty when I was detailed to work on the Texas coast. After a military policeman was killed by a man impersonating an army officer, we were asked to co­operate with them and check military men for ID. Anyway, when this big chauffeur driven car pulled up at our stop sign, the man in the back seat rolled down the window a bit. I asked him for identification. He just stuck his hand out the window pushed it in my face and said, “Boy, I don’t have to show you anything.” Well, that irritated me just a little bit. Whether it was good or bad luck that the door wasn’t locked, I don’t know, When I pulled him out of the car, he was digging for identification, When I was satisfied he was a general, I told him that he could go.

Maybe it was a week or ten days later that the military
sent a man to find the Border Patrolman who had abused
General Allen. As it happened it was a man I knew, Captain
Sandrow, who was with a special services unit at the
Lordsburg internment camp.

TC - You knew Captain Sandrow?

 

GH - Yes, I knew him and we liked each other. He asked me what happened. We talked about it for awhile. Finally he said, “I’ll just write a report and say that I couldn’t find anyone who knew anything about it.” I didn’t want him to get into trouble. I didn’t want anyone lying for me so I said, “Tell them who did it.” Not long afterwards I was called into headquarters and put on probation for 10 days.

PM - Now didn’t Allen have—— Who did he have in the front seat besides the driver?

GH - I don’t really remember.

PM - He had a Jap or a Chinese. He had one or the other and he had a Customs Agent.

He had a woman in the back seat with him who wasn’t in uniform. I thought he was showing off for her. I don’t know who was in the front seat. If anyone checked it Chuck did, but I will always think that there were only three people in the car. Later I was told that Allen had been relieved of his command.

PM - At that time I don’t know why we were running a road check.

GH - Well, we did ever so often.

PM - I don’t know who came up with that idea because we didn’t have any equipment. We didn’t have red lights or anything.

GH - Well, we had a stop sign and another that said Federal Officers. We had a red light on the car.

PM - All you were asking for was to get run over. It was cold on top of that.

GH - You can bet it wasn’t my idea. Road blocks were not my idea of fun.

TC - I want to ask you one more thing. Did you know about a camp around Dragoon, Arizona for Japanese from Honolulu?

GH - That’s a new one on me.

PM - Triangle T Ranch was where they put them up. You couldn’t drive across that part of Arizona. You had to go way down to Rodeo and back up. You couldn’t fly over it.

GH - That must not have been part of the Immigration Service.

PM - Lordsburg is only 70 or 75 miles from Rodeo and the Chiracahua Mountains in there. Who was telling you about this?

TC - I think it was Gene Pyeatt.

PM - What years was it there?

TC - During the second world war. A very top secret was the way he described it.

LM - Maybe that explains the bus loads of Japanese we saw shopping in Lordsburg. They bought all the yard goods.

(Explanation: Cotton material was especially hard to find.)

PM - That could very well be. I do know this, when we were in Santa Fe, we knew about Los Alamos.

TC - You did?

PM - Sure.

JH -We were in El Paso when the bomb went off. People in El Paso saw it. George saw it.

GH - I had worked all night and was just below Peyton’s Packing Company when it went off. It was real early in the morning, a little before daylight.

JH -It came out on the radio that morning as an ammunition dump, near Alamogordo, had blown up.

 

GH - It was very plain.

LM - We lived in Las Cruces when it happened.

TC - You saw it?

LM - It just bounced you out or bed, almost. I remember that.

PM - Did you hear anything about Los Alamos when you were in Santa Fe, George?

GH - Three or four of us talked about Los Alamos. It was originally a boys school, I believe. You had to take a dirt road to get to it.

TC - You knew they were working on an atomic bomb?

PM - We knew it was something top secret. We had no idea what it was.

TC - When you saw the atomic test go off at Trinity, did you know what it was?

ALL: No

TC - It looked like daylight?

PM - It lighted up the whole country. I just knew that it was a terrific explosion.

GH - Yes, it lighted up the whole country.

PM - It was quite awhile before we knew what it was.

LM - I don’t think we actually knew what it was until the bomb was dropped in Japan.

TC - Where were you on Pearl Harbor Day?

LM - At Vandalia, Illinois at the prison.

PM - I had already passed the Border Patrol exam. I knew I had passed it. We were more or less getting prepared to move out and back to our home town.

LM - No, I don’t remember that. I remember Pearl Harbor day.
I remember when you took the Border Patrol exam and passed.
I remember that he didn’t, but I don’t remember that.

TC - Where were you?

JH -I was going to school in Chillicothe, MO. I don’t know where George was, I hadn’t met him yet.

GH - I was working the river. I was already in the Patrol.

JH -He was also here in El Paso on VJ and VE day. All police units were called out to control crowds.

GH - El Paso was a riot——everyone was out in the streets dancing and shouting. Mostly just a happy bunch——not unruly.

LM - We were in Lordsburg on VE Day on in Las Cruces on VJ Day.

PM - Now what do we talk about?

GH - Well, another interesting detail was the one I went on to Matagorda Island. Germans had filtered into the Texas coast along the Inter Costal Canal. Subversives or spies, whatever you want to call them, had come in by raft or small boat to the beach. They had different clothing to change into and had American money. Some of their rafts were found.

TC - They really did this?

 

GH - They really did. At the time we were down there 28 were apprehended.

At that time the coast was practically blacked out. Most of the lights were turned off in the streets. I believe you could have lights in a building up to the second floor from there on up windows were blacked out. We patrolled up and down the whole coast. We used what was called a J—boat (32 feet). We had our pistols. I had a .35 Remington Automatic Rifle, and there was an old rusty machine gun on the front end of the boat. Frankly, I thought we were sitting ducks but we patrolled up and down the entire Texas coast watching for signs of submarines.

After Matagorda, I was sent to Aransas Pass and then on to Galveston. Someone finally surfaced one of those submarines out there. On board was a native of Galveston. He was there to tell their pilot how to get in and out of those places. I also rode airplane patrol, submarine spotting, for quite a while——sick every day.

TC - This was on detail from El Paso?

GH - Yes

PM - Yes, it was about three o’clock one afternoon when the call came. It think it just about wiped the El Paso Sector out of manpower.

TC - Everyone went to the coast?

PM - No, I didn’t. I don’t know how I missed that one! Well, I guess I do know how. McBee got big—hearted and told me to go to Ysleta and work with Smith, the senior down there. It was about three and I was working when the radio started hollering. They kept calling names and more names to report
in. Smith said, Well, they are going to get us in a little bit.” Thank goodness they didn’t. Most of the ones called were out of town by five O’clock. I mean they moved them!

TC - On the train?

GH - No, cars. We worked all kinds of hours——sometimes 18 to 20 straight. When I got back to El Paso some of the men were hot about the “voluntary” overtime we had put in. Our straight pay was all we got. Someone decided we should hire an ambulance—chasing lawyer to try to collect some overtime pay. I think we each put in $50. That must have been in 1945 or ‘46.

PM - Early fifty’s, George.

JH -No, he got out in 1949 and we went to Alaska.

TC - Did you go over to Immigration?

GH - No, I just went to Alaska.

TC - You left the Border Patrol?

GH - Yes. We had been in Alaska several months. All of a sudden I got a check for about $2,800. Maybe another six or eight month’s later, I got a second check——not quite as large. That covered a part of the overtime we had put in.

TC - What did you do when you went to Alaska?

GH - I went back to the electrical trade. I walked into the Union Hall and the Business Agent said, “I hope you are an inside wireman.’ I said, “I have been.” He said, “Get in the car and I will take you out to the job.’ I said, “Wait a minute I have to go back, change clothes, tell my wife where I am and get some tools.” I went to work at 1 pm.

JH -He had gone down and talked to the Chief of Police that same morning. By three o’clock that afternoon a patrol car stopped by the motel we were staying and said the chief had decided to offer him a job as Chief of Detectives.

GH - In the city of Fairbanks, Alaska.

TC - You turned that down.

GH - Yes, I had already signed up and an electrician and I wanted to see what it was like making a living in the daylight.

TC - Mr. Marbry, when did you leave the Patrol?

PM - I left in 1947. I quit to go into the dry cleaning business. I’ll tell you the big reason I quit, I had a son who wanted to finish school in the same place——we had moved around so much. I had opened up the Border Patrol station in Hatch and was in charge there. Rex Kelly came up one Monday morning and said, “Paul, next Monday we are going to see you in El Paso.” I said, “Rex, along about the middle of the week you are going to have my resignation in writing~ He asked me not to do that to move back to El Paso. I told him that I wanted to stay there and get my kid through school.

TC - You stayed in Hatch?

PM - Yes

LM - Our son graduated from high school there.

TC - That’s a very important consideration.

LM - We did the right thing.

GH - After I left the Border Patrol there were only two good jobs as far as I was concerned--the one I had just left and the one I was going to. Alaska was the adventure of our lives, though.

PM - Back to Lordsburg——a sailor who had escaped out of the County Jail in Albuquerque cane through Lordsburg. For some reason or another he got off the bus at Lordsburg, and we found out about it. At that time the Sheriff was Oscar Allen. Oscar was an old time Western Sheriff, I mean, he was the real McCoy. There was J. Eldon Taylor, Chuck Steele, Oscar Allen, and myself. J Eldon was carrying a .12 gauge pump gun. Oscar Allen was carrying a .12 gauge pump gun. For some reason Eldon didn’t have any ammunition so Oscar gave him three shot gun shells. They had a lot of brass on them and J. Eldon just put them in the magazine and pumped one into the chamber. This sailor was running and all at once he turned around. He had a blue steel revolver right against his blue uniform when he started to shoot. Eldon shot him with .00 buck. He was far enough away that he just got hit on the nose, I think, one or two in the chest. It knocked him down and he started screaming. Eldon pumped the shell out of the gun, it fell to the ground, and he reached down and held it up. He said, “Oscar, where did you get this kind of a shell? Oscar said, “Oh, that’s an old Wells Fargo shell, about 20 years old.” Eldon started cussing. Finally, he shut up and said, “okay,” He pumped the other two out and handed them back to Oscar and told him to put them some place. We never did know why the gun even fired. If it hadn’t fired and knocked the guy down, he probably would have killed Eldon.

JH -Who was the doctor down there who asked the jailor for a marijuana cigarette?

GH - Oh, it was at the jail in Lordsburg one night. I can’t remember names like Paul does, but, Lab Garcia, City Marshal, had hit a guy over the head with his pistol. He had been raising hell and shooting up a bar there. Lab threw him in jail and the guy was hopped up on marijuana. Lab called a doctor to come down to sew his head up.

PM - Doctor Baxtor, of course.

GH - When the doctor got there, he looked at him and asked, “Isn’t he high on something.” He was told it was marijuana. Doctor Baxtor said, “If you want me to go in there, you had better get me one of those cigarettes.”

JH -Another interesting character George encountered was Billie Sol Estes. I think he may have been the first one to arrest him.

GH - I was stationed at Sierra Blanca, Texas. My partner and I, who it was I cannot remember, were working between Sierra Blanca and Van Horn. All of a sudden a sheep truck came by. It was supposedly empty, but something caught our eye. It was someone’s head in the lower part of the bed. We chased it down and stopped them. There was something like 40 aliens stacked in there like cord wood——on the bottom of this big sheep truck. The truck was driven by a ranch foreman from the Estes’ farm near Pecos, Texas~ Billie Bob happened to be in the truck, and they were taking the Mexicans to his farm. We took them back to El Paso getting there around one or two in the morning. The ink wasn’t dry on our report before a lawyer was there to get Billie Sol out. His story was that he had picked up the Mexicans all around El Paso and they wanted to go to Pecos to work. The aliens claimed that Estes and crew had recruited them all in Juarez. Telling them that they would meet them across the river and take them to Pecos. The next time I heard about Billie was after we had moved to Alaska. He had been selected as one of the ten most out­standing young men in the United States.

TC - When you picked him up with the wets, was that during the war?

GH - Right after the war——1947 or 1948.

TC - He had a ranch?

GH - Oh, yes, they had a big farm and ranch. I think one of his boys still lives right out of Van Horn, Texas. The family was from somewhere down in that country. The old man Estes had a little ranch somewhere around Van Horn. I didn’t know him.

TC - Did you know Dogie Wright when you were there?

GH - Very well, I worked for Dogie for over a year.

PM - He was in charge of one of our details to New York.

TC - Dogie was?

GH - I don’t believe I was on that one with Dogie.

PM - Yes, you were.

GH - Was I? Maybe so. Those details to New York were something for a country boy~

TC - Where? New York City?

GH - Those automats! We put our quarter in for a piece of pie and before you could reach in and take it out, a hand would reach in and get it. Finally, we blocked it off. We walked into a coffee shop. It was rushed, everyone was just running wild. This was about the middle of the war. We ordered coffee and H. Maurice Dixon, he was something else, didn’t get a spoon. He had poured sugar in it and asked the waitress for a spoon. She wouldn’t get him one so he took his gun out and stirred the coffee with the barrel. Talk about drawing an audience! We drank our drinks and got out of there.

TC - He was a little bit crazy?

GH - No, he wasn’t crazy. He was in charge of the station at Columbus when I worked there. I’d heard he was an Oklahoma Indian, although, he and his wife were Mormons and had lived in Utah and Arizona.

I think he finally ended up in Cuba. He must have gotten in with a wrong crowd. I heard he was killed in the Florida Keys. Maybe a little windy, but he was a good Patrolman.