But his yearlong deployment changed on Dec. 7, 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor.
“I spent 4-and-a-½ years in the Army,” says Kleinberg, a resident at Riddle Village in Media.
Kleinberg, who grew up in Philadelphia and attended Olney High School, had to put on some weight when he entered the service.
“I was 113 pounds and you had to be at least 115 pounds,” says Kleinberg, who dropped back down to 113 pounds when he was discharged.
After maneuvers in North Carolina, and training on the East Coast, he was sent in to Fort Ord, an Army post on Monterey Bay in California, in December 1941. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, there were near panic conditions in California because tens of thousands of its citizens expected similar attacks on the state’s cities.
“We spent Christmas sleeping outside in a pup tent in a field and not in the barracks. We didn’t know if the Japanese fleet was off the coast of California,” he recalls.
In January 1942, the men were transported to San Jose, Calif., and met with the 7th Army Corps. Nearby was Camp Haan in California, an anti-aircraft artillery training facility that supported 85,000 troops at the height of its activity.
“We could hear the airplanes warming up there at Camp Haan every night,” he says.
While in California, Kleinberg visited the Pasadena Playhouse and the Rose Bowl in Hollywood to see free live radio shows, one featuring Red Skeleton as Sir Walter Raleigh. He also stopped at the USO in Hollywood and saw Bob Hope.
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