From the interview with Douglas X. Womer of Cockleysville, MD conducted by phone from Fort Worden by Clare Ledden on October 16,2014. Mr. Womer served in the US Army 14th Coast Artillery A Battery at Fort Flagler and Fort Worden in 1943-44. Here he recounts a memory of Fort Worden:

“On July 4, 1944, we had a group go up to Seattle to watch the 4th of July parade. Maybe not the whole regiment, but I know the Battery went up. We had a boat, and we got on the boat and it took us all the way up to Seattle and brought us back.

We had a colonel. The company had an executive officer who was an old farmer and as a boy he helped his father build Fort Worden, putting in gun emplacements and all that. I talked to him when I saw him in Seattle and he told me that he had an emblem on his right side and I couldn’t figure out what it was, so I said to him, ‘what was that for’? He served on the general’s staff at one time in Washington.

General (James H.) Cunningham had another full colonel there who was more or less his aide and his name was Biehl, I think it was. Every time we had a parade we had to laugh. On one occasion his staff car pulled up and they opened the door for him. He always had his dogs with him. And he says, “Come on dogs and you too, Biehl.” Well, that broke us up. I never forgot that.”