Published September 2006 as part of the HonorAir article
Hendersonville Times-News

http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20060923/NEWS/609230335/0/search

 Vets Recall World War II

By Jennie Jones Giles
Fred Logan, 81, grew up in the valley of Etowah during a time in history when blacks were segregated from the rest of American society.
He is flying on the HonorAir flight in honor of his fellow black soldiers and in hopes of someday seeing democracy fulfilled, he said.
To his grandchildren and other children at the Henderson County Boys and Girls Club, he is a hero. The young people raised the funds to send Logan on the HonorAir flight.
“I didn’t want to fly,” he said. “I got kind of nervous.”
But the children wanted him on the flight.
“They’re really thrilled for me to go,” Logan said.
On Wednesday, he sat in his childhood church, the oldest black church in Henderson County, Shaw’s Creek AME Zion, reminiscing about a war that was fought by troops separated by race.
“I like to come down here,” Logan said. “I have peace of mind at church.”
Logan rode a bus from Etowah to East Flat Rock and later to Hendersonville to finish his education.
“I completed the 11th grade, that’s as high as it went then,” he said. “Then I got drafted into the Army Air Corps.”
It was 1943. Logan thought he was going to fight the nation’s enemies.
“I was very disappointed,” Logan said. “When I got to training, it was all my own people. I thought we were going to fight a different war or something. It kind of puzzled me.”
He trained in Mississippi, and then went to New Mexico, where, as a black soldier, he cleaned the base and did kitchen duty for the white soldiers.
While playing baseball, he injured his leg. He was given some pain pills and liniment. The injury is still causing pain today, even after several operations.
“I went on doing my duty,” he said. “It was hurting, but I went on.”
After spending time in a hospital with spinal meningitis, he was transferred to a base in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he took care of the barracks and the officers who flew the planes.
“As time went on, things got a little better,” Logan said. “I enjoyed what I was doing. I didn’t know any better. Being segregated, that was confusing.”
By 1945, Logan found himself in the South Pacific on the Philippine Islands.
“We had to go in there and clean up,” he said. “It was the only chance I got to do anything that was beneficial.”
Logan and his fellow black soldiers operated heavy equipment, such as bulldozers and graders, clearing out the jungle for airfields and bases and making roads.
“We were grading out areas for them to move trucks and jeeps in that area,” he said. “We weren’t allowed to eat the fruits out of the jungle. They said the Japanese had poisoned it. It smelled so good, but we weren’t allowed to eat it.
“There were still some die-hard Japanese,” he said. “It took them a long time to get them to quit. They had cement holes they stayed in.”
Logan said he never got the chance to talk to fellow white soldiers. He wanted a chance to obtain an education. He dreamed of becoming a detective.
Logan worked odd jobs in several states before returning to his home in Henderson County, where he married and raised his family. He retired from General Electric.
“I don’t have any hard feelings,” he said. “I hope everybody loves me as I am. It would have been better if it was like we are now, where we could sit down, talk and learn about one another.”