Galveston's World War II Era History with George Osborne

Watch this full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/hUIY1lq-jYQ

Galveston Unscripted Video on U Boats in the Gulf of Mexico: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rLQODjyP8c

Galveston.com history video series: https://www.galveston.com/?s=Artifacts


Step back in time with George Osborne, our esteemed guest, whose rich tales from World War II-era Galveston weave a narrative that's as mesmerizing as it is educational. In our latest episode, George, a retired history teacher brings to life the island's 1940s landscape, marked by German U-boats prowling the Gulf of Mexico and the personal sagas of individuals Like Captain Gus Darnell.  With each story, George's deep personal links to the island and his experiences as a volunteer on the Elissa and a seasonal park ranger shine through, offering a uniquely intimate perspective on this pivotal moment in history.

Galveston Unscripted is your gateway to the heart and soul of Galveston, Texas. Dive into captivating tales of Galveston's history, explore the breathtaking stories, and discover the vibrant cultural gems of Galveston. Subscribe for engaging narratives, exclusive insights, and an immersive journey through the essence of Galveston, Texas. #GalvestonUnscripted #galvestonhistory #texashistory 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

So I've kind of divided this up into several things. There's a story with the dog. I want you to think about this. It's a good story. Now, I don't want the truth to get in the way of a good story.

Speaker 2: 0:15

Right, hello and welcome to Galveston Unscripted. In this episode today I sit down with George Osborne to discuss a little bit about World War II history here in Galveston. George is a history enthusiast, a retired history teacher, and he gives some pretty amazing tours here on the island. Now, believe it or not, mr George Osborne is kind of an inspiration for Galveston Unscripted. A few years ago, as I was doing research online about Galveston's history, I stumbled upon Galvestoncom and their video history series featuring Mr George Osborne. These videos were recorded in the 20 teens, but I highly recommend you go to Galvestoncom and check out their video series. George and Lee from Galvestoncom collaborated with the Rosenberg Library and explored Galveston's history through a video series a lot like I'm doing today, and if you haven't checked out their video series, I highly recommend it. Check the link in the description.

Speaker 2: 1:12

Over the past few years, george and I would run into each other at coffee shops and we would sit down and have lengthy discussions about history not just Galveston history but history in general and I always knew I wanted to get him on the podcast. George was kind enough to come into the studio, sit down with me and discuss a lot about Galveston's World War II history. We dive into some information and stories about German U-boats in the Gulf of Mexico in 1942 and 1943 during World War II. We also touch on various topics related to the early 1940s here in Galveston, with a heavy focus on World War II. If you haven't yet, go check out the video I put together on German U-boats in the Gulf of Mexico. That video includes portions of this interview where George helps me tell the story of those German U-boats right off the coast of Galveston. Without further ado, let's hop right into this episode with Mr George Osborn discussing World War II and Galveston. Welcome to Galveston, unscripted George. Thank you so much for joining me on Galveston, unscripted George pleasure to be here.

Speaker 1: 2:15

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2: 2:16

This was probably five, six, seven years ago when I started researching a little bit of Galveston history. Of course I would read the historical plaques and things like that, but getting online I would search something specific like the Galveston Causeway or the Battle of Galveston, and there were videos that popped up of you with Lee, with Galvestoncom, and you guys did a whole video series on history, right?

Speaker 1: 2:40

We did. We did. That was a lot of fun and you could still see those, I think, on Galvestoncom. That was a lot of fun doing with those and research and he tied in with the Rosenberg Library a lot. That was a great time.

Speaker 2: 2:57

So you're kind of the original Galveston Unscripted. You're like the original right.

Speaker 1: 3:01

Yes, yeah, well, thank you. Thank you, I wouldn't call myself that, but you know, sure, yeah, you're my inspiration, I'll hold that. Yeah, you're my inspiration for it.

Speaker 2: 3:10

Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you ended up here in this seat today?

Speaker 1: 3:17

Well, I've always been a history nut. I don't know where that came from. I guess my father was a World War II vet. He was interested in history. They were oh. My grandfather on the other side was an Italian. He was an immigrant, so I think that's part of it. And then I was always interested in history. When the Alicifer's got here I was on the original volunteer crew for that. Wow, that's what brought me to Galveston. I've always loved the history of it. Good stories, Good human stories. So I did that for a while. Then I taught history and then I was a seasonal park ranger for national park service around the country. So that's always love hanging with those people. Some very knowledgeable people. Butch, a bunch of history nerds. You want people to get away from you. You start talking history.

Speaker 2: 4:23

That's right, they'll move away, but you tracked the people who are actually interested.

Speaker 1: 4:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:31

So you were a history teacher. What grade did you?

Speaker 1: 4:34

teach Junior high Okay.

Speaker 2: 4:36

And what aspect of history were you teaching?

Speaker 1: 4:39

Did Texas history a lot. That's some American history too.

Speaker 2: 4:42

That's great. I love that. And so the park ranger. You were moving all over the place to be a park ranger in different parts of the country.

Speaker 1: 4:50

Right, I was seasonal ranger, so you know, usually summer. So that was pretty interesting work, you know. It learned a lot from all kind of interesting people. I worked at a park. It was a Paleo Indian Park, so a lot of the rangers there could make arrowheads out of a way. I have no idea how to do that, but it was really cool to watch them and learn their skills and just see how, how, you know, people lived before Europeans got here. And then I worked at several other places too.

Speaker 2: 5:24

We're going to do back-to-back episodes today, and the first one we're going to hop into is a little bit of history on World War II in Galveston, right, right right.

Speaker 1: 5:33

I want to tell you now this is oral history backed up by research. Now, this story was told, maybe, by a guy named Judge Roy Inglekey. He was from Galveston Really what a hell of a guy and so he was telling me this when Roy was about World War II. Roy is about 10 years old, so when he tells me this story he's telling me it's a 10-year-old telling me. You know, when people remember childhood stuff, judge Roy's uncle. This is early World War II, 1942. Roy's uncle was Gus Darnell. He was a captain of a likes line ship. Now, I wouldn't think about that for a bit. If you're a ten-year-old, wouldn't that be too cool to have your uncle as a captain of a ship? I mean, that's just like wow, you know. So Roy's uncle, captain Darnell, there's a ship called the Tilly, not the Tilly likes, but the Cardonia, his first ship.

Speaker 1: 6:46

Now, 1942, this place would have been wartime. There were blackouts, there were ships pulling in here that had been damaged out there in the ocean, the thing. There would have been a whole buzz about what's going on out of there, from the seamen coming in here, the Norwegian seamen, here the English seamen, the American. There would have been a buzz going on and there would have been a lot of concern and a lot of fearful, because there were articles in newspapers that were not true about German submarine bases in Mexico, secret bases. That was a big fear, and legitimately so. So Roy's uncle, he's out on the Cardonian, so they are attacked.

Speaker 1: 7:40

One morning this is March 1942, early in the war, a few months after Pearl Harbor there's a German submarine on the surface. Now I want you to think about how bold that is. During the day that that U-boat is on the surface, they sink another ship within sight of the Cardonia. The Cardonia is trying to get away. Now these are not fast ships, these U-boats can really move on the surface. So they start chasing the Cardonia. This is during the daylight and Cardonia makes smoke, weaves back and forth, submarine fires 52 shots at them out of their deck gun over about a period of an hour and a half. Now I want you to think if you were standing on the deck of the Cardonia and these Germans are firing this gun at you and not you, the noise, the smoke, the fear, and they will actually hit the Cardonia and eventually knocks out the power. The order to abandon ship is given. There was one man killed. They abandoned the ship. The submarine pulls up, shoots a couple more into the hull to sink the ship. Now think about this. These guys are just lifeboat watching. Yeah, they're helpless. Germans will come over. They will now, later in a war this would not happen. But they give them some water, they give them a compass bearing to Haiti, which is about 15 miles away, just a little bit over the horizon, so they can get that.

Speaker 1: 9:32

And in this boat is captain, the captain's dog. So the captain's dog is named DM for damn mess. Captain Darnell gets his dog, dm, which is short for damn mess, and the dog has been grown up on shipboard the whole time. They come back. He will come back to Galveston and give Roy that dog. He says you know, roy, it's getting a little dangerous out there, I'm afraid to take the dog back out there. So he gives it to Roy. And the dog had one of these things when he would come up to the door he would jump over Remember, watertight chip doors. So the dog would come up and he'd always jump just in the house, he would just jump. That was his thing and he was apparently a real nice dog and Roy had him for a while the captain Darnell.

Speaker 1: 10:36

He goes back out just a couple months later on a ship called the Tilly likes and, from Roy's account, Never shows up again. They don't know what happened to the ship. They assume it was sunk by U-boat. Now, later, after the war, the records are all put together and the tilly likes get sunk by German submarine, essentially in the same waters, and there was no survivors. And so that's how Roy told me this story. Now DM. I was like what happened to DM and he later would get run over by a car.

Speaker 2: 11:16

Oh no.

Speaker 1: 11:17

But he was a little older. But I was taught. You know that interesting story of how this little dog survived a U-boat attack. Yeah and Roy story when he told me that I mean it was very emotional, you know these. When he told me. So that's one of the the interesting stories I find out of all that that is fascinating, and it was sunk right off of the coast of Haiti right off the coast of Haiti and you can find the, you know the coordinates and stuff is on there.

Speaker 1: 11:46

There's pictures of those ships likes line had an office here in Galveston and Like so I was a big, had a big office in New Orleans and that was a big player in merchant ships really for Good part of the 20th century.

Speaker 2: 12:03

Yeah, and that's an interesting aspect of history that I think we here in Galveston we may not really think about too much is that there were ships leaving here and coming to Port, the port of Galveston, who were going through those kind of naval choking points you know, between Haiti and the coast of Florida, or you know somewhere in that area and and they would get sunk by and they were afraid there were tremendous amount of ships.

Speaker 1: 12:29

Now, one of the things I know Roy like to do, back in 94, over at the coasts here 21, there is a monument they put up for 50 years after D-Day and it shows there that ships sunk into Gulf of Mexico and the Bahamas and there's dots on there for that very moving. When you go look at it it's like, oh man, look at all these ships, a lot of ships, a lot of crews. So it's pretty sad things and we have very few Monuments to our merchant Marines that were lost so earlier in your story you mentioned blackouts.

Speaker 2: 13:11

So I learned about blackouts not from Galveston, but when I went to Pearl Harbor last year they talked about the how they would black out the island and turn all the lights off. So why? Why would they turn the lights off here in Galveston?

Speaker 1: 13:25

Well, the reason they're doing that, just like on. The problem is is If there are submarines out there, the enemy and a ship comes Between at night, between the lights and the submarine, it silhouettes that ship. They had a big problem with that on the east coast. They didn't turn the lights out and they lost a whole bunch of merchant ships that way. So that's why you want to black the city out for those sort of things.

Speaker 1: 13:53

And again, we don't know how many you boats are out there at any time. You know in the in hindsight it probably didn't, but we're looking hindsight's okay to look at. We're looking at my god, how many you boats are out there? Do they have planes In Mexico at hidden, secret air bases? So that's, that's part of the deal. There are citizen groups that I Talked to, one woman, her father had been a volunteer beach guy and they would sit out there on a beach with binoculars and look for German submarines. Wow, and of course you know you can imagine a fear. Anything's gonna look like a German submarine, any piece of debris Possibly. Now I read one story where it was a mop with a handle floating around. That's somebody looked like a periscope, would look like one to me. I.

Speaker 2: 14:47

Everything looks like a you know.

Speaker 1: 14:48

I'm a mile or two away and I could. It's like holy moley. Yeah, you know that would be pretty frightening.

Speaker 2: 14:54

There's a newspaper article I believe it's in the Galveston news or one of the older Houston newspapers. There was a tugboat running from Galveston to Freeport to go assist the ship over in Freeport during World War two. And as the tug is making its way over to Freeport they spot a, a submarine or a U-boat right, maybe a mile away from you know off the coast, because they're, you know, they're only maybe half a mile to a mile running over to Freeport. And the captain Said whatever happens, I'm not gonna allow this German U-boat to take over this tug, but I love God as a 22 caliber rifle.

Speaker 1: 15:34

Yeah, it's like these. These they are unarmed vessels. Yeah, you know, if they did have a Weapon on it, sometimes the naval arm guard they would put these. But this was some. Some of these old cannons had been sent in front of Vfw from World War one. They put on these ships. So it it was. It was a very, very, very dangerous situation for merchant semen and anybody out there. Now just a Other note on these these two U boats that sunk the Cardonia and then the tillie likes. They would lost, be lost later in a war with all hands. So they, they did not survive the war either. Now another story I'll tell you. Now. This comes from a Guy named Ballinger Mills. In fact his office was in this building.

Speaker 2: 16:31

Oh, really sure yeah sure, okay, it was a yeah it.

Speaker 1: 16:36

Interesting man, interesting man and I would know him just like chatting with him. So he told me this story. Now, during World War two, he is a Navy officer and he is stationed in New Orleans and the FBI comes by To the office and says mr Mills, we need to see you in Galveston almost immediately. So he got the first train over here. Now he was released. The Navy, this is the FBI, this is J Edgar Hoover's FBI FBI coming to talk to you. So they came over to the house. He met his wife at the house. These FBI goes. The guy said Mr Mills, we want to rent a room in your house. Can't tell you why. We just want to rent this upstairs room. He goes how much? How much will that cost us? And Ballinger goes a dollar. He said the FBI man opened his wallet and gave him a dollar. So later he goes back on. So later, few months later, his wife calls him and says they're gone. Fbi guys are gone.

Speaker 1: 18:11

Now the FBI man would come by in New Orleans and goes Mr Mills, he goes. You cannot tell this till after the war. This is a secret, but we were in your home. We respect that. You just have to know why we were in there. So they suspected across from his house there was a German who lived, who has worked at the beer brewery down here, the Falstaff brewery. He was one of the brewmasters. Now they suspected him of having an antenna through his in his house and the way Ballinger described it was it was a big house that this antenna supposedly ran from the bottom up to the deal. As far as we know, nothing happens.

Speaker 1: 19:01

So part two to this story is I see an article in the paper one day this is, you know, 20 years ago maybe and the guy is looking for does anybody know any stories about this kind of thing? So I call him up and he meets me, I'm telling him this story and when I say the FBI and I'm telling him he gets focused right in on me. He is like giving me this yeah, look. So I finish his story and he goes well, I've been to the FBI, the research and research, this whole story. Now I don't know what the thing. Now I don't know for a fact. I don't believe that there the guy had an antenna, but that, considering the time, people are scared, people are frightening, they're gathering up Japanese, or they're gathering up Italians, they're gathering up German nationals. They're having people to move off the coast. Joe DiMaggio's father, who was an Italian, had to move. He had a fishing business in San Francisco. He had to move off the coast. So that's the climate we're in on this stuff.

Speaker 1: 20:18

So there's a lot of mythology about this. There's a lot of frightening stuff that happens, you can see in our own time. People are frightened of different groups, and that's what's going on there. Now, a couple of other myths that I think. Now I want you to think about this, though too. Just think of that. Radio was there. Now, considering 1940s technology, he would have had to send it to a U-boat here, and you know, it just doesn't quite seem to be able to work. Now, another myth that I've heard is that now is and I heard this from somebody worked at the Galvez. Now I want you to think about this. It's a good story. Now, I don't want the truth to get in the way of a good story, but somebody had told, somebody had told somebody had told that there was an old German guy who came there and he goes. You know, we had our submarine right off the shore. We could hear the band playing at night. Now that's a good story, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 21:36

They could hear the band playing. Yeah, they were that close.

Speaker 1: 21:41

But now think about this it's pretty shallow off right over.

Speaker 1: 21:45

There's no place you would want to come in with a U-boat. Now you're going to have to hear that the south wind is blowing the opposite way. You know, don't let the truth get away with a good story. So those are kind of one of the other things. There was a couple other things I wrote down now. Now this is also. There was heard this from Nagoya. There's a whole lot of Italian shrimp boats here, so they are actually coming down. Later there will be a federal agent. I'm going to get some more detail on that, but the rumor is that these Italian shrimp boats are going off rendezvousing with German U-boats Remember, italy is an ally of Germany and giving them diesel fuel. But think about this a little bit. Number one how much diesel fuel does a 1940 shrimp boat have?

Speaker 1: 22:48

Probably not much, not much. Then you would have had to rendezvous at sea with a German submarine off. It's a good story, but it's also based in fear. It's a climate of fear. We can all understand how that goes. There was a federal agent and we'll talk about this guy named Al Scharf, who had been involved in arresting smugglers and stuff back then, and he came down to investigate that and, as far as I can find, there was no truth to that. But they investigate all these rumors, so that's one of the real deals.

Speaker 2: 23:32

I mean the best they could do, even if they could rendezvous in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, which would be very difficult in the 1940s without the like we don't. They didn't have the equipment, we have now.

Speaker 1: 23:41

Oh, no, no.

Speaker 2: 23:42

The best they could do is maybe give them some food. Yeah, that's pretty much it.

Speaker 1: 23:46

That's the best they could do.

Speaker 2: 23:48

Yeah, some provisions, some shrimp. Here you go, have a shrimp boil on the U-boat.

Speaker 1: 23:51

So those, but it is. Now it almost kind of seems silly, but at the time you got to think about, people were terrified. Ships were disappearing, casually less were gone. It's a pretty difficult situation and especially when you're reading these stories in newspapers about German spies and Hollywood's making these movies on German spies and so, yeah, I could, I could see that would be pretty scary. Yeah, but again, think about that. We are involved when I say we Galveston, this part of Texas. We got military bases here. We got a blimp flying around looking for submarines. We got an air base here that's training people. We got Fort Crockett. There's a lot of active military activity here, lots of military activity, ships going out.

Speaker 2: 24:47

So it would have been the prime spot for spies, for sure would have been Especially you know, like you mentioned, you got the blimp, their base you got the coastal artillery. You have all that, so you know, and not to mention a heavy German population in Texas, in this part of Texas. So, yeah, it's it's very plausible that there were there were some messages getting back to Germany about what was going on.

Speaker 1: 25:09

It is, and they, they did round up German nationals and put them into a prison camp. There was a big prison camp down in South Texas had some Japanese Germans and some Italian nationals. So those were, those were pretty frightening.

Speaker 2: 25:26

Yeah, and what's interesting, a lot of people don't realize there were POW camps here on the island and in Bolivar as well. Yes, and I'm sure right across the causeway up in the mainland as well, yes, there were.

Speaker 1: 25:36

There were German POWs here at Fort Crockett. There were some over there, and they would tend to have them doing. You know, they would, you know, do the laundry or work in the kitchen, that sort of stuff they were, they were doing those sort of things that they, they just needed. And I remember talking to some old, some old guys who are younger than I am now, by the way, but then they were children. They lived right behind Fort Crockett and so the Germans would come up and talk to them. Some of them could speak English pretty well and they would talk to these, these boys. You know, some of these Germans, they weren't that old, you know, they were teens, early 20s. So that was a very memorable thing to them.

Speaker 2: 26:23

Yeah, I mean, how fascinating would that be. Just you know, growing up in Galveston, you're a kid maybe 12, 13.

Speaker 1: 26:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:28

Walking up to the fence, seeing a guy who's just a few years older than you, who'd been captured in Germany.

Speaker 1: 26:34

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:34

You know, and I wonder what that exchange would have been like.

Speaker 1: 26:37

Yeah, it must have been real interesting because you would have. You would have had an older brother, yeah, you would have had cousins that were in the US military. So, yeah, there's a whole lot of thoughts on that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2: 26:47

Yeah, yeah, it's really interesting and especially even though you have a fence in between you, it kind of makes it more personal, it's a personable exchange.

Speaker 1: 26:57

Yeah, yeah, it's weird.

Speaker 2: 26:59

I heard that there were some German POWs who actually, when they were released, they actually moved back to Texas.

Speaker 1: 27:06

There were. We had a whole lot of German POWs and Italian POWs up here there was, and Texas had a bunch of them because the weather was nice. They needed hands for farming Up in the panhandle I visited a site when I was up there and the Italian there were 30,000 of them now there. Now it's just a field and they had built a chapel that the Knights of Columbus still maintains and it's a little bitty chapel out there, out down a dirt road. But it's just kind of cool when you think about all this sadness of World War II going on and hear these, these guys out here and then the local Catholic priest would come out and do mass forum and stuff.

Speaker 1: 27:51

And those guys were POWs, or they were POWs, they were Italians. Wow, wow, and they painted. I'm trying to remember they painted a fresco at the local Catholic church.

Speaker 2: 28:03

Of course they did. They're Italians. Yeah, they're.

Speaker 1: 28:04

Italians. And the big thing, they couldn't pay them, but they could feed them. So they'd have a big feast over there for these Italian guys and, yeah, some of them would stay or come back.

Speaker 2: 28:16

Yeah, what a fascinating aspect of history. What a fascinating, you know. It's kind of interesting. Like here on the grounds in the United States you had internment camps for the Japanese and in some Germans, but then you had POW camps. So it was just interesting how fear really ran a lot here in the. United States, especially on the internment side. But then you hear about the POWs who moved back to the United States or even just stayed here, yeah, so it's a really interesting aspect of. America's history.

Speaker 1: 28:47

Yeah, yeah, something. It gets overshadowed a lot by the bigger events of World War II, but I think it's an interesting human story also for that. I had a. I worked with a guy many years ago and he was in the American Navy and there was a POW camp nearby and later toward the end of the war they would come by and drop the same German soldiers off to work on your farm and they made friends with about three of these guys. They would drop, they were their farmhands and they had them over for Christmas, you know when they did, and so and I could see that because his parents they had a son that was about the same age, it was off in the war and here's these young German guys. So it's just a human thing.

Speaker 2: 29:37

Yeah, it's a nice human story. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 29:40

That didn't happen all the time.

Speaker 2: 29:42

Of course.

Speaker 1: 29:42

But it's nice to reflect on some of those things.

Speaker 2: 29:45

Yeah, and it just goes to show. Just about war, it's usually the people at the top warring with each other over borders and boundaries, but the people who get caught in the middle are usually the young men who had nothing to do with starting the war in the first place.

Speaker 1: 29:59

Yeah, so that's more into this books written about that. People can research all that stuff and there was a professor, arnold Kramer, out of A&M, who's written several books about German POWs in here, and so there's a lot of good information and a lot of good research if somebody's interested in that.

Speaker 2: 30:18

Great, I'm going to find those books and link them in the description. Okay, you got anything else for us? No, I think that's pretty much covered up.

Speaker 1: 30:25

Hopefully, you know I could go all day long. But I think that we hit the high points on that one.

Speaker 2: 30:30

Yeah, Of course. So currently you're giving tours here on the island, right?

Speaker 1: 30:34

Yes, we give a with a. Yeah, it was a historical foundation. We give what's called a blood and thunder or thunder and blood tour. Now, that's a term that was used in the 19th century for these novels of, you know, mayhem and destruction. So what we concentrate on is 1900 storm and a lot of gangland murders in the downtown area which were there just quite a few of them down here.

Speaker 2: 31:05

So that and that's put on through GHF.

Speaker 1: 31:07

That's put on by the Galveston Historical Foundation.

Speaker 2: 31:10

Awesome, awesome. So I'm going to link that in the description as well.

Speaker 1: 31:13

Thank you for having me Appreciate your time.

Speaker 2: 31:15

Of course. Thanks, George.