Lacy, Margaret

Description

In this interview, Paul Cadenhead remembers his childhood, education and career as a paratrooper and later as an attorney. He grew up in a sharecropping family; later he supported his family by working in a mill and going to school in the evenings. He worked as a messenger in Atlanta and recalls landmarks such as Terminal Station, Union Station and the Rialto Theater. Knowing the war was approaching, he kept himself fit by using the stairs instead of the elevators in office buildings such as the Candler building. Enlisting in the Army, he became a combat communications paratrooper, jumping with 100 pounds of equipment. His final jump was a simulated jump into Japan in preparation for the invasion, which was halted due to the atomic bomb. He relates many stories of people and events that influenced his life, and describes the mood of the nation at the end of the war. After the war he remained in the Reserves and earned a law degree.Paul Cadenhead was a paratrooper during World War II.A. Paul Cadenhead Veterans History Project Atlanta History Center September 16, 2004 [Tape 1, Side A] Interviewer: [inaudible] My name is Margaret Lacy, and Mr. Alfred Paul Cadenhead is here to speak to us this morning. Thank you very much, Mr. Cadenhead. Cadenhead: Thank you for having me. Interviewer: Where do we want to begin? When you first started or when you got in the service? Cadenhead: Well, I originated down in Troop County in a rural community called...

Record Contributed By

Atlanta History Center

Record Harvested From

Digital Library of Georgia