The short snorter was a sign of happier times in the war that left such a significant impression on his father, who would have loved to see the bill again, Ron Pyles said. “It’s like a message in a bottle,” Ron Pyles said. When he turned over the bill, Ron Pyles recognized his father’s handwriting immediately, reflecting that it was just like his dad to be the only one of his platoon to print, rather than sign, his name. The pair arranged to meet there on a rainy afternoon. Turchi made a telephone call, and learned the soldier had died more than a decade ago, but that his son Ron had taken over his business. Here’s this dollar bill signed in 1945 in Luxembourg and ends up belonging 10 miles away.” “What’s really sad is I’ve had this forever, and I was just 10 miles away the whole time,” he said. When cursory Internet research revealed that the man whose name was clearly etched onto his aging dollar bill entered the military and retired just miles away from his home, Turchi was incredulous. “I get to meet a lot of the veterans who served in World War II, and when they find out what I’m up to, it causes this memory to resurface and you see this twinkle in their eye,” Sparks said. He figured that thousands of these bills exist around the world – many as collectors’ items, some undiscovered and each a happy memory for a veteran somewhere.
Currency tracking project dollar bill movie#
The practice became a morale booster, with first lady Eleanor Roosevelt signing a bill, and even movie stars like John Wayne and Gary Cooper offering up signatures, said Sparks, who lives near Seattle. Later, should the bill holder be unable to produce the note at the request of another signee, he would owe a small glass of liquor – or a short snort, Sparks explained.
Servicemen would each autograph the bank note, which one person retained as a keepsake. The tradition began with bush pilots in Alaska in the 1920s and peaked during World War II. Turchi called short snorters “the Facebook of the war,” and indeed they served as a record of soldiers and aviators traveling together, said Tom Sparks, founder of the Short Snorter Project, a nonprofit that preserves, documents and raises awareness about the relics. “I had heard somewhere that people that are involved in a combat situation – they think it could take a few years off your life.”Ĭlearly, the effects of war cast a dark, lifelong shadow over Roscoe Pyles. “I often wonder if maybe that attributed to his life span,” the 53-year-old said. His father suffered a mental breakdown in the 1960s, and died of heart failure in 1998 at age 72, the younger Pyles said. “He talked about getting frostbite in Belgium, he was in the Battle of the Bulge, and all these things,” Ron Pyles said. After a few glasses of Jim Beam loosened his tongue, Roscoe Pyles would tell his son war stories, and few were pleasant. He married, settled in Torrance, and opened a shop that sold decorative concrete products in an unincorporated county area west of Carson.īut life post-war was not always easy. Army, his son said.Īt the war’s end, Roscoe Pyles returned home to California as a veteran at just 19. Soon, he headed to Europe as a member of Gen. Roscoe Pyles survived the Battle of the Bulge, the long and bloody German offensive that concluded 65 years ago last month, but shortly afterward suffered injuries in Luxembourg for which he earned a Purple Heart.ĭrafted as a 17-year-old Los Angeles High School student during World War II, he was processed April 22, 1944, at Fort MacArthur in San Pedro. Nearly every night of his childhood, Ron Pyles was awakened by the sound of his father screaming in his sleep.
Pyles.Ī longtime dentist on the Peninsula, Turchi was so enthralled that he began researching the name.Īnd what he would discover was a priceless link between a father and son that would bring a new perspective to the horrors of a war that left a deep, lasting impression on a family just a few miles away – all at the bargain price of $1. 7, 1945.Īnd on a margin of the bill’s backside, written in neat, bold print, still vivid 65 years later, was a name: Cpl. Scrawled upon the bank note was a handful of names penned in faded loose cursive, the name of a city in Luxembourg, and the date Feb. For nearly 35 years, the aged dollar bill sat in a box inside Lewis Turchi’s bedroom closet, kept so securely hidden for safekeeping that it was nearly forgotten.īut after talk over a recent breakfast with friends turned to a discussion about war, Turchi went home to Palos Verdes Estates and pulled out the short snorter – an artifact of a World War II tradition in which servicemen signed and dated pieces of paper currency.
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