FRED AYALA
Age: 91
Born: May 4, 1919
Hometown: Los Alamitos
Residence: Palm Springs
Military branch: U.S. Army Air Corps; 2nd Air Force
Years served: Nov. 13, 1942- Dec. 10, 1945
Rank: Private first class
Family: Wife Rita (deceased); two children, Barbara Eves of Palm Springs and Ronald Ayala of Palm Springs; one grandchild.
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II through the end of 2010 — the 65th anniversary of the end of the war. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
Coming tomorrow
The Desert Sun will publish a 10-page special section commemorating the 69th Anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
More
Fred Ayala's family hightailed it out of his hometown of Los Alamitos after a 6.4-magnitude earthquake rocked nearby Long Beach in 1933.
“It really scared us,” said Ayala, a U.S. Army Air Corps veteran.
“Everybody was scared. We would hear the rumbles after the main one.”
The family's house survived, but his school, Laurel grammar school — an old red brick building — was condemned.
The family relocated to Palm Springs in 1934, where one of Ayala's sisters was living.
His father got a job working at the El Mirador Hotel.
“My brother-in-law was working there as a bartender,” Ayala said. “My father got a job right away.
“I started working right away,” too, he said. “Mostly gardening, that's what was here. I didn't have a trade.”
Ayala had recently married when he “got some greeting from Uncle Sam,” he said, laughing.
“A whole bunch of guys from here left from Indio from the Greyhound bus station,” he said.
After being sworn in at an induction center in Southern California, “The next day they put us on a troop train,” he said. “I didn't know where I was going. I was used to the heat. I saw a lot of pine trees and snow.”
The train stopped in Oregon, then continued on to Salt Lake City, where the men were assigned to Kearns Army Air Base, which had previously been used as a Japanese internment camp, he said.
“Just barracks with black paper — no insulation. It was very cold there,” Ayala said.
After basic training, he was transferred to an air base in Spokane, Wash., where he was soon joined by his wife, Rita.
The day after her arrival, she found a job, and the couple settled down in a rented hotel room. As a married man, Ayala was allowed to live off the base.
He was later transferred to Colorado Springs, where the 2nd Air Force was stationed.
Again, he and his wife lived together, this time renting a little room in a house.
While working at headquarters as a clerk for the 2nd Air Force, both of Ayala's parents died, one month apart in early 1944. His parents had three young children living at home.
“The Red Cross arranged for me so I could get a transfer and come here,” to Palm Springs.
He was assigned to Air Transport Command at the Palm Springs Army Air Force base so he could be closer to his siblings, who were living with relatives.
His first child, a daughter, was born on Dec. 2, 1944, at the now-converted El Mirador Hotel. In wartime, the former hotel functioned as Torney General Hospital.
In an area not too far from the hospital — now known as Ruth Hardy Park — a prison camp was set up for German and Italian prisoners.
Ayala said there were about 500 Germans and 500 Italians living at the camp.
“Torney treated many of the injured POWs,” he said.
By now, Ayala and his wife were living with his mother-in-law.
Ayala was assigned to the parachute warehouse at the airfield.
“All the pilots that were training here — they went up at night to train. We handed parachutes to the pilots, gave them a ticket, they signed and picked up the parachute.
“They were going to send me overseas in 1945,” he said. “They gave me new clothes, new boots and new shots. I got as far as Sacramento.”
After three or four days, he was on the move again — this time his destination was Hamilton Field in San Francisco — where he worked a few months before receiving new orders.
“They shipped me back to Sacramento to McClellan Field for discharge. They gave me a little bit of money. I got on the bus and came home. I had no job, I didn't have a house and I had no money.”
His predicament didn't last long.
“When the war ended, those barracks were for sale,” he said. “I bought one.”
Ayala and his brother-in-law tore it down, salvaging all the wood and nails from the structure.
Tresses and flooring were also removed from the 30-foot-long by 20-foot-wide barracks.
He used the materials to build his first home, in Section 14, a section of tribal land in Palm Springs.
He continued his career as a gardener after the war, working at the homes of clients that included Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lewis, Alan Ladd and Danny Thomas.
