Going Off Base in World War II

In the 1940's there were two local US Army bases outside of Muskogee: Camp Gruber near Braggs and the Muskogee Army Air Field south of town. The latter is now called Davis Field.

Getting off base was every soldier's ideal weekend. Being the largest town in the immediate area, Muskogee was the logical destination for these men. As a consequence soldiers constantly walked the streets of Muskogee during World War II.

The number of soldiers coming into town overwhelmed Muskogee's pre-war population. One measure of this is summed up in the following statement. The frequent query for directions, especially to bars, began to go unanswered during the last years of the war. The 1940 telephone directory listed six bars in town. By 1946 the number grew to thirty-three. The Brown Derby bar at 300 West Broadway was a favorite watering hole for the Camp Gruber crowd.

John Keisler was a Philadelphia-born soldier stationed at Camp Gruber. John felt like he had hardly left the base when he traveled to Muskogee. The son of a beat cop, he was not interested in drinking beer. The Muskogee Hotel always had coffee brewing. John said the waiting line was usually about fifteen soldiers long because the coffee was free.

One weekend he went to Checotah in order to avoid all of the GI's in Muskogee. John traveled to Checotah by hitch hiking. During the war, citizens in America gave GI's rides as their contribution to the war effort. When John got to Checotah, he found a lot of other soldiers had the same idea.

Trying to avoid Muskogee was a fateful decision for John. While in Checotah, he stopped at a hamburger stand during his walking around town. Shortly afterwards, he met his future wife.

Bob Bell was stationed at the smaller base called the Muskogee Army Air Field. As a Military Police officer, he was issued a jeep for transportation on base. With a wife in town, however, he looked for someone who was selling a car.

One day Bob bumped into a soldier who had just received orders to ship out. The GI had an automobile with three tires. There was a fourth tire, but it was flat and beyond repair. Because of wartime rationing, the soldier was not able to get another tire. Bob paid $200 for the car. Then he went to the Muskogee rationing board which approved his request to buy a tire. The car came in handy when air field called him about unexpected emergencies on weekends or at night.

Mostly men took a bus into town. The Breeding Company depot was located at 108 South 4th Street. It operated the Victory Lines that connected the Douglas Aircraft Co. in Tulsa with Muskogee’s bases. Buses also ran to Fort Smith and the munitions plant in McAlester.

John Keisler said the Victory Lines mostly operated worn out school buses in 1944 and 1945. Soldiers regularly placed bets about whether the bus they were riding would break down before arriving back at Camp Gruber. He said he never saw buses like the one pictured in the accompanying photo. He also said that the bridge across the Arkansas River was not wide enough for two passing vehicles when one of them was a bus.

There were more risky ways of getting off base. As documented in the "Muskogee Times-Democrat" in mid-December, 1943, three non-commissioned officers hitched a ride in a laundry truck. The driver was just completing a delivery to the Muskogee Army Air Field and was headed back to town that Saturday evening.

When the truck engine quit on US 64 Highway after crossing over a hill four miles south of town, the soldiers jumped out to give the truck a push in hopes the engine would restart. A drunk driver ran into the back of the truck killing two of the GI's.

The war ended the Great Depression and created a sudden expansion in the number of the soldiers. The end of the war saw the disappearance of these soldiers and a return to more normal times.