[Jerry DeFelice personal remininscence, Army town]

              ARMY TOWN – ORAL HISTORIES1
NARRATOR: Jerry DeFelice
DATE: circa 1996
[Begin Recording]
JD: Hello Greensboro, my name is Jerry DeFelice. I live in East Rochester, New York, where I have spent most of my seventy-three years. During World War II, I served as a photographer in the Greensboro Air Force Basic Training Center, in the office of Public Relations. My work involved taking pictures, developing film, and making prints for our weekly camp newspaper. I also took pictures of recruits during basic training, and made prints for their local hometown newspapers.
Starting in April 1943 to September 1946, when the base closed, I saved around one hundred and eighty copies of our weekly camp newsletter. I believe I’m the only person to do so. In 1991, I donated the papers to the Greensboro Historical Museum, where I met Steve Catlett, your archivist. The delivery was easy. My wife, Alice McNeil DeFelice, also worked in the Public Relations office typing Hometown Releases, during 1945 and ‘46. She lived in High Point, N.C. We married following the closing of the base in September 1946.
On August 4, 1993, Steve Catlett wrote me stating the museum is having a fiftieth anniversary of the base opening in 1943. The display will open on November 11, 1993, on Veterans’ Day, at the Greensboro Museum. Mr. Catlett asked if I would put a few memories of fifty years ago on tape.
I arrived at the base one night in April 1943; only about six buildings were open and the roads were muddy. The next six months saw a transformation from a low, wooded area within city limits to a thriving, basic training center, processing thousands of Air Force recruits. These soldiers went on to training schools for pilots, mechanics, radio operators, photographers, and other skills needed to help win the war. Many returned to Greensboro to process for overseas
1 This oral reminiscence was sent to J. Stephen Catlett, Archivist at the Greensboro Historical Museum, at his request, as part of the background material for use in the Army Town: Greensboro 1943-1946 exhibit and catalog. Mr. DeFelice – who lived in Rochester, N.Y. and was not accessible for a formal interview – was also a major contributor to the GHM Archives. He had been the first BTC #10 base photographer when he arrived in Greensboro in 1943 and remained for most of its history. As he mentions in the recording, he kept many photographs, as well as an almost complete set of base newspapers, for which he had photographed most of the images used, and had kept at set over the years. duty. In late 1945, some returned for the service discharge. I too, was discharged there in February of 1946. My fondest memories: the hospitality of the people of Greensboro, especially the staff at the Greensboro News & Record, and their one news photographer Carol Martin. Our base arranged to use the Greensboro News photo lab, until we had our own in the Public Relations building. Carol Martin helped me in numerous ways, with my photo work for our camp paper. The members at Sedgefield [Sedgefield Country Club] allowing enlisted men to use the golf course at no charge; the memory of Eleanor Roosevelt visiting our base hospital; photographing the train carrying President Roosevelt to Washington from Warm Springs, Georgia, as it slowly moved through the Greensboro station. The yearly war games in downtown Greensboro, to promote the purchase of bonds in support of the war. These were—are a few of my memories. To those of you interested in life at the base in Greensboro from 1943through1946, the one hundred and eighty weekly camp newspapers will provide a weekly event of those four years. Also, there are many photographs depicting scenes in the forties. I’m sure Steve Catlett and his staff have an interesting display for you to enjoy.
P.S. – On August 4, 1993, Steve Catlett sent me an obituary notice of Carol Martin’s death, at age eighty-two. I kept in touch Carol after my return to East Rochester, his opening of Martin’s Studio in 1947 became famous for quality photography over forty-five years. Carol Martin’s donation of one hundred and eighty-five thousand negatives to the Greensboro Museum came as no surprise to me. I will miss him. Thank you all.
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