How I Got The Name "Rebel" During WW2

Apr 5, 2018, 4:41 PM

I was inducted into the US Army at Fort McPherson, Atlanta, GA, in September, 1942. Among my issue of clothing were blue fatigues. The Army was in the midst of changing from the blue fatigues to olive drab fatigues. All induction stations were issuing the new olive drab fatigues except Fort McPherson, which still had a small supply of the blues. A few of the other inductees and I were assigned to the Army Air Force at Drew Field,Tampa, FL. The Air Force had not yet become a separate branch of the military.

Arriving at Drew Field at the same time were newly inducted men from the Mid-West and Pennsylvania. When assignments were made to our training company, I was the only one from The Fort McPherson group joining men from the Mid-West and Pennsylvania, and the only one with blue fatigues. Those blue fatigues stood out like a sore thumb. Being from the South plus my blue fatigues, I was immediately dubbed "Rebel" and the nickname stuck during the entire time I was in service.

We had a lot of fun because I was the brunt of many jokes but was able to tell the others -- it only takes one Rebel to handle 100 Yankees. I started calling two of my best friends "Pea Head" and "Cabbage Head" and those names stuck with them. Both were shipped to the Pacific Theater and in our correspondence, our nicknames were always used.

"Pea Head" was stationed in a jungle on one of the South seas islands. The Japanese pilots were strafing their position on a frequent basis. They did have a siren they could sound if they heard the approaching planes and could run to their trenches. There were lots of parrots on the island and some had learned to sound just like the sirens. On many occasions the parrots sounded off like a siren and the men would head for the trenches and later discover it was a false alarm.

flag link

military_tech

thumb_down

thumb_up

I lost contact with "Cabbage Head" after the war but remained in contact with "Pea Head" until his death. "Pea Head" was from Minnesota and received his degree from U. of Minnesota in electrical engineering. He was with General Electric in New York. His daughter was 1st runner-up in Miss USA contest, was on several TV station news teams and married a man whose family owned several cruise ships. I can't remember the line. He called me one time and said the cruise line had bought a new ship and they were taking a lot of travel industry people on their first trip. If my wife and I could get down to Miami immediately, we could go for $25./per day. My wife and I had a previous obligation and could not accept the offer.

We visited back and forth over the years and when he retired, he and his wife moved to Vero Beach, FL. We had made plans to visit them in Vero Beach and about two weeks before our scheduled visit his wife called and informed us of his sudden death due to a stroke. His wife moved back to Peabody, MA to be near some of her family. We visited her one time in Peabody. She passed away sometime before 2010.

I'll post a story sometime about the three of us visiting a night club in Tampa.

How I Got The Name "Rebel" During WW2

Re: How I Got The Name "Rebel" During WW2

Great story

I thought you were going to say the parrot started

JoE...you would be a National Shrine if you weren’t for real!

Love stories like this Joe! Thanks man.

Re: Love stories like this Joe! Thanks man.

Of course you wore Gray when we fought the yankees, right?***

Re: How I Got The Name "Rebel" During WW2

My uncle Archie was in the infantry

Re: How I Got The Name "Rebel" During WW2

That's what of your more interesting ones Joe.

Re: That's what of your more interesting ones Joe.

Thanks for the reply Joe. You have quite a life.

TigerBoard POTD