Central California War Veteran s Oral History Project. James McCrory. Porterville, Calif. November 4, 2012

Transcription

1 Central California War Veteran s Oral History Project James McCrory Porterville, Calif. November 4, 2012 Christina Napier: Today's date is November 4, We're in Porterville, Calif. at the home of James McCrory. He will be interviewed by Christina Napier. This interview is a part of the Central California War Veterans Oral History Project. The tape and transcript will be kept permanently at the Madden Library at California State University, Fresno. All right. We ll start with when and where were you born? I was born March 14, 1921 in the town of Hampton because that was the nearest hospital facility to where my parents were living at the time, which was on the extreme west side of the San Joaquin Valley. My father worked on a pipeline, it was owned by Associated Oil Company. At that time, there were no roads or any facilities, so he brought my mother over here to give birth to me. All right. Tell me about your childhood and growing up, any special memories? During the first 12 years in my childhood, my father worked on The Associated Oil Company pipeline which stretched from Taft to San Francisco, the Associated refinery up by Martinez actually. Every 12 miles I believe it was, there was a pumping station to pump this oil

2 2 through the pipeline up to Martinez. There were, six families lived on each pumping station; unless, they were close a school, they all have a little one-room school house. I went the first sixth grade of school in a one room school house with one teacher, all grades represented as if there were enough children. The average group of children were about five, they would be from, say me, when I started at first grade, didn t have kindergarten of course, up to whatever other mix of grades there were. So you got pretty close attention from one teacher and after living there, that was very, very primitive. But not the living conditions, the living conditions were fine, but the access to towns and stuff without a road was extremely limited. The west side of San Joaquin Valley was just a vast prairie of grass, and flowers and stuff in spring and dried grass and that kind of stuff in the winter and summer. There were even small bands of antelopes still roaming out there. There were herds of our native Tule elks, there were a couple of power lines running through; phone lines I believe there really were. In those days, eagles, hawks and stuff were quite numerous, so many times if you were near one of those about every other power pole had a golden eagle sitting on them as far to believe that was. Yeah. Rattle-snakes were just endemic when the first warm days of rain came; you had coyotes and kit foxes, mudcats and all that kind of thing. As a very young boy about six years old, I was given my first firearm and I would go out and hunt rattlesnakes for whatever. It was interesting time for a child to grow up because that would probably the last existing frontier you might see in United States. I would just roam at will you know? I really didn t have any playmates or anything because they re just I don t remember any children about my age. My father was a

3 3 World War I veteran and during World War I, the United States had a program where they credited World War I veterans with I believe, I could be wrong but I think it was one dollar per day for each they served. When they were finally out of the service after World War I, they were credited with x number of dollars and this was given to them in the form of bonds that were to be able, it would be cash in about 20 years. Of course, about the time let s say I was 12 or so, depression was just in full bloom. Unless, you ve lived through that period you have no idea what that could possibly be like. There was just no money. That s why it was not only a depression, but a very deflationary period. When prices just farmland, would say for instance dropped by 90 percent, price of the house dropped 90 percent, wages the same way; there was just total lack of money. Anyhow, in the depths of this depression, these veterans began agitating to be allowed to cash these bonds early. I believe it was finally granted about 1933 that they could. My dad did and I believe he got about just about $2,000. He took $800, to show you what prices were and purchased a 20-acre farm with a two-story house, all those street barns, out buildings and everything for $800. Wow. Then he bought the 40-acres next to that for 1200 dollars; it was 60-acres of good farmland for $2000. Wow. Amazing. After owning that for a couple of years, he decided about 1934 to quit his job

4 4 with the oil company and move on to his farm and begin farming. For the next I was about 14 then, 13 or 14, so then for the next four years and just freshmen in high school, until 1938, I was going to high school. In 1939, I wanted to go on to school and I took the exams to get into junior college. They were just starting junior college in Visalia, but I had no means of transportation. I finally gave up on that, but I had another friend who couldn t get a job or anything, we went back to high school for a year and took the subjects that we didn t take earlier to be college eligible, then we just kind of worked here and there. A steady job was totally unavailable, so we did whatever we could do to make a few bucks. Finally, this one friend of mine, he was about two years older than I was and that time the war in Europe had started and United States was starting to prepare. I m sure the hierarchy knew, they wouldn t avoid to be entangled. Anyhow, they finally end of 1939 or early 1940, started a draft. However, to be eligible for the draft, you have to be 21 years old and I was just about 19. This friend of mine being two years older, was eligible for the draft. When they began thinking about drafting him, he didn t want to be drafted in the Army. He had an idea, he wanted to become a Marine, so we talked it over and I said, Well, I just go with you because I can t get a job or anything. I wasn t going to be drafted because I was still too young, so I got my parents to sign for me so I could enlist. However, when we went up this was probably in October 1941, when we reported up to Fresno, the Gunnery Sergeant running the recruitment area said our recruitment facilities were just overloaded at the moment, he said, meaning me, because I wasn t going to be drafted. He said, Why don t you stay home until after the holidays? And he said, By then we ll thin out and go after the holidays, so that sounded good to me. I didn t go with my friend. Of course, you know what happened on the seventh December preceding the holidays.

5 5 Yes. On that which was a Sunday, the eighth of December, I was up in Fresno at the recruiting station saying, Okay, I m signed up. I m ready to go. However, nothing had changed, they were still swamped, so I didn t get to the recruiting depot until the tenth of January and I was one of the Marine Corps. Would you state for me the years that you were in the Marines? Uh huh. And? And what happened? Yeah. Let s start with when and where did you undergo basic training? I was sent down to San Diego, right in the town of San Diego down on the bay, there was a Marine Recruit Depot and the Navy Recruit Depot, where they did their basic training. I was sent to the Marine Recruit Depot, where we were taught basically how to march and do that type of thing. Then I was sent out to a newly built camp called Camp Elliot, where a little bit more advanced training was given, still very, very primitive; but training weapons and marksmanship,

6 6 that type of thing. At that time, I was assigned to K Company of the Third Battalion, Second Marine Regiment, which was supposedly on paper going to be part of the Second Division of Marines. At that time in the history of the Marine Corps, it had never been large enough to have a division, the largest element they had ever had was regiment. On paper, they were forming two divisions first and the second. Now, the second was basically a paper deal still; they had the plans, but not fleshed out with people. The First Division had the first Fifth and Seventh Marines and they needed the Seventh Marines were in Samoas supposedly defending that from the Japanese, they didn t have their Eleventh Regiment of artillery at operating, so they took the Second Division s Tenth Artillery and the Second Regiment of Infantry which was me; and formed the First Division. Well, to make it clear. The First Division s Regiment were all on the East Coast at Camp Lejeune and there; and the Second Division were out here on the West Coast. Anyhow, about the June 15, 1942, somewhere around there, I m probably off on dates; they loaded us on transports and we set out and to go somewhere, but of course we didn t know where. After we got to sea, we were informed that we were going to be sent to Midway Island to be garrison there. After we were at sea for about three to four days, all at once, the convoy was turned around and sent right back to San Diego because the Battle of Midway had erupted. They didn t want all those vulnerable transports and stuff out there, so that cancelled us going to Midway to be garrison. Also, someone had caught meningitis, so we were totally isolated I think it was a 19-day period because of this meningitis. Very shortly after that, we were reloaded on these transports and in those days, a combat loaded transport normally held a thousand men or a battalion; a regiment was made up of three battalions of infantry and a headquarters battalion. In our case as what we were, we were loaded on the USS President Adams, the President Hayes, the President Jackson and the AKA, which is a combat cargo ship, to Crescent City. These transports

7 7 had all been built under a program that the Navy had with shipping companies. These ships would be built and the government would pay a large part of the cost, and they could easily be changed to troop transports, which is what happened and why we have to be on those. Anyhow, we sailed for oh, I don t know how long maybe two or three weeks, probably three weeks and all at once over the horizon, it came just look like hundreds actually; probably, dozens of ships formed up with us. And that was the First Marine Regiment s people from the East Coast. We formed out in the Pacific, somewhere south of the Christmas Islands, I do know that, this was in July. We had been probably only Marine who ever went out in the Pacific that didn t stop by Hawaii, that this was so secret that they didn t want even to brush by Hawaii. We missed all land until finally, maybe the third week in July, we came to the Tonga Islands. They took us in to Tongatapu and off-loaded us. Tonga is a young man s dream of what a south sea island should be. It s all covered with beautiful coconut trees and all kinds of hibiscus and that kind of blossoms. The people were living in grass houses, the women were all topless, which took a farm boy like me it takes about twenty minutes for the shock and awe to wear off and after that, really it s kind of boring. But you can imagine our reaction to that the first time in our lives. An average age between and 17 and 20 probably had never in our wildest dreams that we d ever seen anything like that. Usually, they put us all to stretch our legs and all those sort of things. It was everything that the islands of Tonga had a real queen, a real honest-to-god reigning monarch. The royal family there were just giants and this lady was probably 6 foot, two or three [inches] and probably 280 or 300 pounds. But she wasn t really fat, she was just a very large lady. She had a Rolls Royce and had a palace there and the postman had a Model A Ford, and that s the only automobiles on the entire island; everybody else had a little cart and a pony that they drove around. The roads were all made out of crushed shell and that type of thing. Anyhow,

8 8 after a couple of days there, they reloaded us on the ships and we sailed. At that time, between then and when we got to Fiji Islands, we were told that we were going to invade the Solomons. We got to the Fiji Islands and practiced landing, which I think was all messed up badly; then we reloaded that was probably about the end of July. We sailed to Solomon Islands and we got there early, early like midnight or 1 a.m. in the morning of the August 7, The reason for us being sent there was the Japanese had come down in May of 1942 and there were a few British pair of troops there, very few; but that was a British protectorate. On the island of Guadalcanal, there was enough space to where they could build an airport, airfield. In the island of Tulagi and Florida, Gavutu and Tanambogo was a beautiful deep water harbor. It was great for any country to own. Anyhow, they came in and took that over and started construction of an airfield, and had they ve been allowed to build that airfield and stock it with bombers and so on; they could have cut off all access to Australia and New Zealand. Australia and New Zealand s troops were all in the far east fighting with Rommel and them, so those two countries were totally helpless. All the Japanese would have had done is get in their ships, sail in to harbor and get off, walk to shore with all of their troops, all of their planes. All of their navy were in the far east, so I guess United States desperately decided, we can t allow Australia and New Zealand fall into the Japanese hands, so that s why we started that. Let s go back and we ll can you describe an average day during basic training and what was it like? It was ridiculous to say the least. We had daylight savings then which was an hour ahead and then they had wartime daylight savings which was another hour ahead, and then the Marine

9 9 Corps, not wanting to be outdone by anyone, added another hour. If we would have got up at 6 a.m., we were actually up at 3 a.m. and stumbling around in the dark. The training was basically how to march and parade and do that sort of thing based, I'm quite sure, on World War I, and to add to that World War I atmosphere, all of our weapons were World War I issued. We had the Springfield rifle. We had the old Browning air-cooled machine gun, the water-cooled machine gun, the Thompson submachine gun which was not issued in World War I, then we had some submachine guns that were made, and I'm not exaggerating, by Daisy BB Gun and some of those people, that were totally useless pieces of junk. Compared to modern armies such as the Germans and so on, we were totally equipped to refight World War I. The Marine Corps never having had large units before just followed their usual Marine boot camp deal in which you were taught to be an incredibly good marcher at parades and linear weapon, doing these fancy things with your weapons, to be a good marksman on the rifle range. Basically, that was all of no real field training, nothing that would have adapted to the jungles or anywhere else. It would have been strictly for an embassy or onboard a ship for honors that type of thing. It was absolutely and totally, in my opinion, ridiculous training to go send young men to war. We were totally untrained. Now, what else? Oh, okay. Do you feel that probably wasn t adequate for what you were expected to do? Oh, no, totally inadequate. Inadequate, I guess, I should say. No, it was ridiculously so. The most physical training we had, we went on one 26-mile hike and that was it. No, it was absolutely inadequate in every possible way including our weapons were inadequate. The Army had modern weapons. They had the M1 Garand rifle. They had all that type of thing. They had

10 10 tanks. They had artillery. In our particular case, we had almost nothing except old World War I type weapons. It was absolutely ridiculous and of course, the Japanese when we finally encountered them, weren t much better armed so that helped. Okay, now what? What forms of discipline were part of your training you received? Discipline in the Marine Corps is just ironclad. Instant obedience is just pounded into you. When we finally encountered Army troops, we were just dumbfounded at what we considered their lack of discipline, just aghast to say to the least. Yeah, Marine Corps discipline is just about like well, what we actually always admired the German Army because we thought they were quite like us. We thought those are good soldiers. They ve got some discipline. What was your specialty in the military? What was that? What was your specialty in the military? I was a rifleman at that time. Every Marine is a rifleman regardless of who they are or what their ranks is. Whether they re a cook or what else, you are a rifleman so that anybody at anytime can be called on to go and fight. Everything about it is just focused on your training as a marksman and your ability to use weapons. Now, actually during our weapons training, I became an expert with what was called a Browning automatic rifle which was a handheld

11 11 machine gun firing 20 rounds at a time. It could fire full automatic like any machine gun or it could be fired single shots. I got an extra because I was an expert. They made me take one for which they paid me $5 a month extra pay for carrying this 19-pound monster which added to my regular pay of $21 a month to give me 26 bucks a month for the first six months of my service. Slightly ridiculous, that s the way it was. Actually, my specialty was automatic rifleman. Okay. Go ahead. In theory, there was myself with the automatic rifle and carrying my ammunition. I carried 13 magazines of 20 rounds each in a specially designed belt and I had my man assigned to me who carried another 12 rounds of the specially designed belt and then we had a third man assigned to us who was supposed to protect us. In essence, we were supposed to form a threeman fire team. Like most plans that broke down the first time a round went off but anyhow. Well, that was I was supposed to be doing was being an expert with this rifle and using it which I did. I used it very extensively. Where were you assigned after you completed your training? To the K Company, Third Battalion, Second Marines. In training, you re not assigned to anything except the recruit people, then when you re done you re given an assignment of what will be your permanent job.

12 12 What was it like going overseas and how did you get there and where did you go? I just went from San Diego City along the beach itself to about 15 miles inland to what had during World War I been known as Camp Kearney but which was now called Miramar on one side of the highway and Camp Elliot on the other. That s probably 12, 15 miles in the back of a state truck. Now, this was for overseas. What was it like going overseas? We had practiced loading ships for probably twice before, so we were quite familiar with it. All you did was take your sea-bag and walk up the gang plank, and salute the officer of the deck, the flag, and go on down your quarters and that s really we didn t have anything to do with loading it. Other people loaded the ship, loaded the ammo and the trucks, and that kind of thing. We were assigned the quarters in the holds of the ship. They had made bunk stacks, I believe, five high with about 18 inches of space maybe between them. Each deck was like that and then the center of these was cargo hauls, actually. They had laid planks over the holds, holds where you could lower and bring your stuff up so it made separate quarters. I don t know how many decks there were. I'm gonna guess three. In each hold for hold for men to be in, there were a thousand men on each of those transports. The three transports holding three battalions plus the cargo ship, the AKA [USS] Crescent City, was one entire Regiment. That s what we went over on. There were what was called combat loaded which meant that the most necessary stuff needed first, theoretically, in a combat operation was the first on. It was on top which would be the first to unload and the very last thing would be the last thing you probably needed

13 13 which might be a truck down in the bottom. What you really needed desperately was ammunition and water and food. Those were just the bare essentials to be unloaded which was a fiasco when we actually got to the doing of it off. It caused us so much misery that you can't imagine. Where do you want to go? Well, what was the first impression of the country you were assigned to? Of the company? Country. Country? When you finally left San Diego. Oh! Well, we left San Diego, like I said, probably very early in June and it was August 7 when we reached Guadalcanal. Our assignment was to be division reserve. When they unload the we got there in the pitch black of night, and of course, the ships with the big guns was stopped, opened up on the beaches and anything that was around there. All you heard was rumbles and flashes and booms, and all that kind of thing until it got daylight in the morning. As soon as it got daylight, we were onboard ship. We couldn t really see anything on shore, just more of a big haze in the distance. We were probably 2, 2-1/2 miles offshore. Anyhow, the first thing that happened was a squadron or two of high leveled Betty Bombers came over and tried to

14 14 bomb us. I don t think they hit a ship, but they sure created a ruckus. Then when that was over I was out on the deck looking and all those ships were firing up and you had just an ordinary sky. These anti-aircraft guns were firing up there and, of course, the shells were bursting and that sky just turned black up there from all these antiaircraft fire. Then all at once after the Betties were gone, off to that side of us was a small cruiser, antiaircraft cruiser called the [USS] San Juan and these so-called antiaircraft cruisers just bristled with guns 5 and 6-inch, and their job was to be antiaircraft. She or her job was assigned to try and protect us a troop ship. Anyhow out past the San Juan, we could see these torpedo-bombers coming like 20 feet above the waves and probably 18 of them I d say coming at us. Of course, the San Juan opened up immediately and we couldn t shoot because San Juan was between our ship and those bombers. Anyhow as she fired, I could see almost over her because I was standing on the deck and looking out and our ship was so much bigger and higher than that little cruiser that I could just see right over her. Anyhow, she didn t seem to be hitting those airplanes. They just kept coming and coming. Finally, she took her guns and shot lower and would hit the water, and when her shells hit the water, they d throw up a big cascade of water. If those planes had even tipped a wingtip into it, they d spiral out of control, and she got all of them that way. We didn t get bombed or scratched or anything. Of course, the Japanese kept trying there for all of the next couple of days. Anyhow, as I say, we were still on our ship while acting as division reserve and all at once the ship began to rumble. What that is, is the anchor chain coming up. When that anchor chain is pulled in, the whole ship will rumble. Anyhow, we got the anchor in and she took off and then we found out that about 26 miles away, across this strait, there were the islands of Tulagi and Tanambogo and Gavutu and Florida and they had landed paratroops, not by parachutes but by putting the men in a landing craft and landed them on Gavutu and Tanambogo, which was the headquarters that the British

15 15 had set up to administer these islands. They were just, at that time, beautiful garden islands landscaped and just lovely. The intelligence had it that there were probably 50 Japanese troops on there, headquarters type. Well when the paratroops landed they found out they got into a beehive. Actually, when it was all over, we found out we had killed 2,300 Japanese on those two little islands, that these two companies of paratroops were just hanging on by their fingernails. Anyhow, they sent our battalion in to rescue them and that s where our actual fighting started. We landed on the island of Gavutu and attacked. It was probably the size of a city block, not bigger than a city block and it had a little hill on it that they called Hill 150 because it was a 150 feet tall; real good reason to mark it Hill 150. Anyhow, there was quite a bit of shooting and chaos and so on there for several hours. Finally, we got that island secured and that probably was 2:30 or 3 p.m. of August 7. At that point, they ordered all automatic weapons to the top of this hill, which of course, I trudged up to the top and Skinner was with me. We were firing on the next island, Tanambogo, which was probably 6 to 700 yards over there from where we were over to this Tanambogo. It too was probably a city block or less in size and had a little mountain on it, 148 feet high, Hill 148. It had some warehouses and so on, on it, and we were firing over there and we d set those warehouses on fire. The Japanese were running back for it trying to salvage stuff out of these warehouses and we were firing our automatic weapons over trying to kill them as they ran through there. Anyhow, we did that for a while and then we were oh, all at once I looked up, and in the mean time, they had a destroyer firing on Tanambogo and they had a squadron of SBDs off the Enterprise. An SBD is a Scout Bomber Douglas dive bomber and they were circling around up there, and then one would peel out of the circle and bomb it, go back to up, and another one would bomb it, go back up. I looked up there and this one bomber was headed right at me and it s just like somebody throws you a ball or something. When the

16 16 ball leaves the other party s hand, you know where it s going or right between your eyes. That bomb was headed right for me and I could see it. I saw it detach from that plane and all I knew that I didn t have time to get up and run so I was on my belly pointed over toward Tanambogo. All I did, I just got to my hands and knees and backed as fast as I could back like a crab down that hill. And I probably got 40 feet or so before that bomb went off but hills are like this. [motions to show hill shape] While I was here, that probably had a little bulge of that mountain between me and that bomb and it exploded and everything turned black. I thought, well I'm dead and then it begin to get light and I thought no, I'm not dead. I looked up and there were 2x4s and pieces of sheet iron and stuff flying around up there in the air, and I thought, well I'm not dead now but that s going to kill me when it comes down. Well, it didn t and then I found out I couldn t hear. I was stone deaf and I looked over and Skinner was right by me and he was just covered, drenched in blood. I thought, well he s been mortally wounded. Now, here you re going to have to make a choice. There are some absolutely horrible, horrible things that happened in these times and I can gloss over them or I can just lay it out the way it was. You can tell it like it was. Because I'm not kidding, they re horrible. There was an 8-man machine gun squad firing water-cooled Brownies, had been up there and on the very top of this hill. The Japanese had built an observation post and they had dug down about 3 feet, 4 feet into the mountain top and then on top of that to keep the sun and stuff off, they had built a roof of another 4 feet or 3 feet. You had roughly 6 feet from the dirt floor to the roof. Unknown to us there was a Japanese flag on top of that roof. Well, this bomber pilot, he didn t realize he had made such a mistake. He

17 17 just sighted in on that Japanese flag and laid a 500 pounder right on it. Well, these machine gun squads plus several others just vanished but there was just sheets of blood flew from them and that s what was drenching Skinner. He was just covered with blood from these machine gunners and stuff. I asked him, "How bad are you hurt?" He said, "I'm not hurt." He was just covered in blood. Anyhow within two minutes or so, they had gotten medical people up there, Corpsman as we called them and they took a look at him and they thought he was out of his head when he said he wasn t hurt. They forced him onto a stretcher and took him down to the aid station and checked him all over, and washed him up the best they could and they found out he wasn t hurt. He did have a few little tiny pieces of shrapnel in arm and hand but then they chewed his butt out royally for taking up a stretcher and four people hauling him down the hill. He had tried to tell them that he wasn t hurt. Years and years later when he was being discharged in his final exam, the doctor said, "Anything bothering you?" He said, "Yeah, these are kind of irritating little pieces of shrapnel." They took some out and gave him a Purple Heart. Anyhow after that, we reorganized and got down below and the powers that be had decided that they were going to assault the island of Tanambogo. Their plan was to put two light tanks in a tank lighter, bring it ashore. They were going to have the L Company infantry land at the same time on a beach there, and we were given the great honor of assaulting across. These two islands were connected by a causeway, probably 300 yards long and 30 feet wide. It came out of the water about 2 or 3 feet, I guess at the most and it went straight over. On the other end of it was a Japanese block house and we were going to our platoon was going to charge right into that machine guns in that block house. At the same time, the two tanks were going to be delivered by lighter and they it was either L or I Company. Captain Crane s Company and I don t remember which. Anyhow, they were to land and assault the beach. Anyhow, we did, we were given the order, we charged

18 18 over there and thank goodness the Japanese mostly were firing over our heads. You could hear the bullets going. By the way, bullets don t go zing or anything like that. They go over your head. They sound like a gunshot in your ear. They re breaking the sound barrier and what you re hearing is the sound barrier being broken and it makes a very distinct crack. It is not like in the movies or anything. You don t see sparkles or anything like that. One friend of mine got hit. He was running beside me and he just upended in a big pink trough of blood, but he got shot right through the neck. His name was Willy Smith from Brookhaven, Mississippi. Anyhow, I made it over there and then we fought there for probably two or three hours until it got dark and the Japanese had these mountains hollowed out. For their entrances, they had taken like sewer pipe, probably 30-inch in diameter and made entrances back into these mountains, which when there s no pressure on you could get in and out of them pretty good. When those tanks landed and when we came over and when the Marine company landed, these Marines swarmed out like ants out of an ant hill and our Marines these Japanese and swarmed all over these tanks. One tank, high, ground up or whatever you want to call it was stuck on a palm tree stump that had been blown off, and the Japanese took crowbars and iron bars and stuff and jammed in the tracks of the other tanks and stopped it. Then they poured gasoline and set them on fire. They killed all of the people in one tank but two people got out of the other one and made it to a munitions locker, I guess, you d call it. It was made out of boiler plate steel and they got inside that somehow and closed the door. The Japanese couldn t shoot through it and didn t get them. In the meantime, it was probably 300 or 400 feet from the beach and where these tanks were to where the main entrance into their underground caves and stuff were. When we came up over a little rise and everyone was firing at the Japanese and these Marines coming up on the beach were firing, they panicked and all tried to get into their little entrance at the same time. There

19 19 were probably 800 or 900 Japanese out there in this open area. Well, anyhow, when we killed them all around the tanks themselves, the Japanese bodies were piled up one on top of each other, like that from 5 to 3 deep right around the tanks. As you got out maybe 50 or 100 feet they were touching and then as you got another hundred feet or so they were scattered. As you got to where they were all trying to get in this entrance at one time, they were all piled on top of each other again. When that was over, we actually counted 1500 and some dead Japanese on those two little islands, two little like city blocks and there was military intelligence said there were 50. Alice [Wife] and I one time here some years ago went down to a senior site here in town to get some shots, I believe flu shots or something like that, but anyhow, I had an old straw hat and when they re so old I'm going to throw away that year, I ll take my old Marine Corps cap on and probably one day I'm going to throw it away and stuck on the front of it. We were starting to walk out and this guy stopped me and said, "Were you a Marine?" I said, "Yes, I was." He reached in his pocket and came out with his car keys. On his car keys, he still had one of his dog tags, Marine dog tags. He said what were you in, and I said I was just a regular infantry man in the Second Marines. I said, "What were you in?" He said, "I was a paratroop." I said which battalion and he said Second Battalion and I said you were on Gavutu and he said yeah. I said I was in those Marines that came to bail you out and he said, "I remember so clearly to this day." He said, "We thought we were going to die because there were only two companies of us and there were thousands or 1500 Japanese and we knew we were going to die." He said, "We looked out and here came that line of Higgins boats." He said, "I remember to this day." He said, "We thought we ve got a chance to live because we could see you guys coming." Anyhow, before we got in our Higgins boats, our Colonel came on the loud speaker and he said, "We don t know if anyone on these islands is friendly. We don t know how many Japanese there are. We

20 20 don t know what s going to happen." He said when this is over, he said, "The only thing I want left alive on those islands are my Marines." That was a direct order. We didn t take prisoners, and of course, they don t take prisoners. What was your evaluation of the enemy and their fighting ability? What s that? What was your evaluation of the Japanese and their fighting ability? Actually, as soldiers, you couldn t ask for anyone better or dedicated but their weapons were basically inadequate. They had one very good light machine gun called a Nambu. Their rifles were a piece of junk. Their handheld devices were junk. Most of everything they had was pretty junky. It wasn t their fighting ability that was so awesome because a soldier s a soldier but it s the fact that they would never surrender. That s something that we couldn t understand because it s one thing to fight to the death but it s another when you see it s hopeless to commit suicide. If you re going to die anyhow, you might as well fight till you can't fight anymore. The Japanese would fight until a battle turned against them then they would all commit suicide. That was something we couldn t comprehend. We never intended to be taken prisoner but we were never going to commit suicide either. They were going to have to kill us because by this time see this was August of 1942 and the Americans and the Philippines had surrendered during April and May, and we were well aware of how the Japanese had treated the prisoners in the Philippines, very well aware of it. We were not going, under any circumstances, ever to

21 21 surrender. On the other hand, like I said, none of us ever even contemplated suicide and we could never understand that about the Japanese. They're totally willing to die for their country and their emperor but why by suicide? I never understood that mindset nor did anybody else that I know. I'm sure the Japanese do, but their fighting ability, their dedication was just unbelievable and their tenacity and their obeying orders you couldn t, in any way, shape or form, criticize them. They would suffer and do without and do without medical aid, do without food and still try and of course, our we soon found out that what you do with someone who will not surrender, you would kill them. We had reached the idea that before that war was over, we were probably going to have to kill every living Japanese woman, child, man, because if they won t surrender what do you do? That was really a problem in our mind, to kill 40 million people. What was your opinion of this war then? Of what? What was your opinion of the war then? That we hoped to still be alive. Our motto was still alive and 45. Anyhow, we took Gavutu and Tanambogo, and then like I said I'm going to tell you some horrible things. On these two islands were a total of 2300 Japanese, 800 on Gavutu, and 1500 and some on Tanambogo. They were all dead. This is on August in the tropics. A human body is a horrible, horrible thing dead out in the open in the tropics. Within two days, they were so blown up they were exploding from internal gases and rot and so on. The flies were there by literally billions,

22 22 I'm sure. We were trying to bury these bodies, but we didn t have even we had trenching shovels is the only thing like that. The Navy had bombed and shelled those islands so much that there were a lot of very large bomb craters and so on. We took and we would load these bodies onto pieces of sheet iron and drag them to these bomb craters and take the sheet iron and lift it and tip them in. You could only do like one before you were gagging and throwing up so bad that you had to back off. The chaplain had a bunch of brandy and he would pass it out, and he would take a rag of any kind and soak it in his brandy and put in across your face. You were working in clouds of flies and it was horrible. Another thing to set the mood, how beautifully we loved it, during the night of August 7, after we had assaulted Tanambogo but before it was totally secured in the morning of the 8, our Navy was out there supposedly unloading things and all that. When daylight came on the morning of the 8, the Navy was gone. They had run away and left us. They hadn t unloaded anymore food or water, or ammo or anything. What we had was what we went ashore with and when you go ashore on something like that, you have six cans of rations in your pack which is three meals but of course, expected to be resupplied from these things that all the supplies that the Navy is faithfully bringing ashore for you. They didn t do it. In fact, one famous saying there was, they ve hauled ass. People just shook their heads and say they hauled ass. Here we were totally abandoned, totally without water, totally without food. We didn t see another United States Navy ship for 26 days. We didn t have any food. We had a little spring of water that ran about a mouth as big as your finger. Water was so precious we put an armed guard on that and 24 hours a day, there were men there running the dam, the jeep cans, and distributing it out by canteen-fulls. Finally, they developed a source of water, I don t know where but no food. Being a farm boy like I was and quite an omnivorous reader as a kid, I had read where palm tree tops were edible and stuff like that and there were coconuts everywhere.

23 23 However, if you eat coconuts to try to fill up your tummy, you will wind up the with the most God awful case of diarrhea you ever encountered. I ate the tops of palm trees which taste very much like cabbage. I went out on the reef and caught a couple of crabs and stuck in a can and boiled them. That s all for 26 days; we called it the starving time and we starved. What was an average day in combat situations? Those two days then was it for us on those islands, then our attention was turned to burying those dead. When we finally got them underground, we were so sick and so malnourished that we were just walking skeletons. We had, from the flies themselves we had caught every disease known to man, then some funny things would begin to happen. Anyhow, that stretch of combat right then was all. After 26 days during World War I, the Navy had built a gillion. I don t know how many destroyers with four smoke stacks. They were called four stackers. They were the very latest thing during World War I but they had several hundred of them in storage. World War II came along. They reactivated them and they put most of them and they gave a bunch to England but then they took a bunch of ours and put them in ship yards, and removed two of the smoke stacks and all the 5-inch guns. They put 3-inch guns on to lighten them and they called them APDs, Attack Personnel, or something like that. One of those little APDs with a deck cargo of rations came sneaking in and came along and they didn t stop. They went real slow and they kicked these wooden boxes of food over the side. They washed ashore and we grabbed them, and then we got food. Then this probably took us to almost the end of August and at that time, the Japanese were really bringing in troops to Guadalcanal. It probably had brought in 10,000 troops more than they didn t have hardly any there when we first landed

24 24 but they probably brought in 10,000 or more. Of course, they had total control of the sea so they could bring their ships down and shell that island anytime they wanted. Anyhow they loaded us up, our battalion, on Higgins boats and transferred us to Guadalcanal. Our first assignment then was on the beach to protect against Japanese landing but within two days the time we got there the Japanese had landed an entire regiment of crack Japanese troops. The Japanese, when they had a unit that was exceptional instead of like us being a 3K2 or whatever, they named it after the leader of that regiment. This regiment was known by its Colonel s name and I don t remember what it was. Anyhow, they landed him on the wrong place and you have to visualize our holding the Guadalcanal. There was an airfield under construction and there was like a cup like this around the airfield and we were dug in like in World War I in trenches and hideouts and whatever just protecting that airfield. Most of your Japanese were over here on the west side. On the east side I'm remembering when the sun came up and went down, on the east side there were almost no Japanese if any. By mistake, they landed this Colonel s crack regiment over here and he was so full of pride of himself or proud of himself or whatever that he said they told him on the way to get to the other troops was to march around us. He said, "No way," He would march through us. Well he started and we were dug in, and we killed all of them. Again, bodies were stacked up like you can t imagine but oh boy. When people die in battle for some reason and I don t know the reason, they almost always die on their back. When you go among these bodies, you re looking at all these faces and most of them when he landed they landed on the other side of this river and this river ran into the ocean there and it widened out at it was really sandy. He tried to march his men across this sand. Well, when we killed them there was no water but then the tide came up and the river came down and it kind of half buried all those bodies in sand. In Europe, people would die here and there but there would be space but here

25 25 was such tight quarters that everybody just stacked up. Then we were moved from the east side of the defenses to the west side along what they call the Tenaru River. We took up defensive positions there where we remained for I would guess maybe a month or two with just occasional shots being fired, no heavy fighting or anything. Then our powers at be decided that they needed patrols out behind Japanese lines. I don t know why we were selected but about eight of us were to make patrols and the instructions were to go 7,000 yards behind Japanese lines and stay that night and observe everything we could see and stay that night and then try to get back to our lines and report what we had seen. What really were looking for were artillery pieces, the location of the Japanese heavy artillery. We made three of those and that s a terrible feeling to be behind enemy lines because you know that you're gone if you're discovered. One day I asked the Lieutenant, I said, Why us, why not somebody else? He said, Jim, I asked captain the same question. He said when you don t come back I ll send somebody else. Well that kind of took care of that. Anyhow, during one of those times we were behind enemy lines, we were on a relatively high hill and we could see in the night fighting breaking out all along the lines where the Marine Corps was established. They fought all that night and then by day time, the fighting stopped. Then the next night they fought again and in daylight the fighting stopped. It didn t start up the next night, so the Lieutenant said, I don t know who won, because there was no way to know who won. He said, I'm going to try to get back to our lines. He said, You guys can come with me or you can go to the mountains or do whatever you think you should. We all decided to go with him so we did get back to our lines and made it back safely. That was the battle that John Basilone who got a lot of publicity for it was awarded the Medal of Honor. Of course we didn t participate. We just looked down and watched it at night back and forth. Then another time we were kind of an orphan outfit. They gathered us up and several other small units

26 26 that weren't too much attached to anybody else and formed what they called a Wayland group under Col. Wayland. They used us for doing things that some units were too small, some were too big, we would make small probes out in the jungle or that type of thing. Up until right after Thanksgiving in 1942 at which time we were transferred to defend the island of Tulagi. We were sent from Guadalcanal to Tulagi because most of us, our health was gone, we were too full of every disease known to man. We stayed there for about a month. Then we were sent, our little group, was sent over to the island of Florida and across it to the far side and then we were there to observe and report any Japanese naval travel, which was a delightful assignment. We just had a dream little village to live in and beautiful flowers and palm trees and all the things that make the South Pacific beautiful and you want to shorten this up quite a bit? Touch on anything you feel that was the most important to your time at Guadalcanal, because we will also go over your time after the military. Okay. I suppose one time we were sent on a mission to go out and surround some Japanese and then cut back to the ocean and try to sweep them up that way. However, the Japanese weren't just out there gullible waiting for us to come. They set up an ambush and they had their big mortars trained in perfectly on this trail. As we were going down the trail mortar shells began to go off. Of course I hit the deck and everybody else did and when they stopped shelling we had several wounded, several killed. We got that done or got those people sent back. Then we pressed on and got to the ocean but in the meantime we came across a Japanese area where they had stashed a whole bunch of supplies, and the Japanese soldiers packs and stuff. So we went through a lot of that. In one soldier s pack I found a beautiful flag. Later on when I got

27 27 back to the area we were supposed to be in, I made my way down to the airfield and there was an Army B-17 there, Army Air Force and those guys were just dying to get souvenirs. I traded them that beautiful flag for a carton of Camel cigarettes, $20 in cash and a gallon can of Christmas candy for a flag and felt that I made a good deal, I'm sure they did too. Anyhow, I took that gallon can of candy back to my unit and we ate it and when we were just about done, in the bottom of it was a double handful of crumbs. A Marine walking by said, What do you got? We said, candy. He said, Got any left? We showed him, he said, I'll give you 20 dollars for that. We said no and ate it anyhow. That s how money wasn t worth anything but something like a little candy or a pack of cigarettes is just unimaginably valuable. Goodness sakes. Anyhow, after our soldiering there on Florida we came back and stayed on Tulagi. There was no fighting going on on Tulagi at that time. We were just there in case the Japanese tried to attack it. It was a wonderful deep water harbor and the Navy was flagging almost every night and having bad casualties, ship being lost, damage and so on. One night three Navy cruisers came in. Their names were The Minneapolis, Saint Paul The Minneapolis, the New Orleans and I think the Saint Paul. Anyhow, the Minneapolis and well, I better not say Saint Paul, I'm not positive. The Minneapolis whatever the other one like it had lost their bows back to the one to the first turret and the other to the second turret but their bulkheads had held and the ships hadn t sunk. The New Orleans had been torpedoed in the side of the engine room and half the engine room was destroyed but the bulkhead again held. She still had half her engine room. We had to go in those ships and get those sailors bodies out that burned and steamed to death and so on and do mass burials which we did, very, very unpleasant job. Also about that time somewhere they had rescued a middle age lady who was what they called a coast watcher, who had been left behind when the islands were evacuated and given a radio and she would report the moving of Japanese

28 28 ships. They had finally found her and rescued her and brought her back to Tulagi. I don t know what they thought kind of animals we ve turn into but when she came ashore they made all the enlisted Marines go get on the other side of the island, which we thought was ridiculous. Still do, haven't changed my mind at all. Of course Tulagi was also a big PT boat base and at night we would go down the list of the radios of the PT boats out doing their thing. They had a five mile per hour speed limit in that harbor. Early one morning we heard a PT boat come in, engine was just wide open. He came in, bow way up and white water flying and ran it right up on the beach. The reason he was doing that is that during the night the Japanese destroyer probably had fired a five-inch shell at him and is going in one side of his bow and out the other without exploding but it made a five inch hole in it. Well the only way he would keep from sinking was to go fast enough to keep his bow up out of the water. So he violated that five mile per hour speed limit real quick and got his PT boat in. That was before Kennedy was there, Kennedy of course made it all famous but it was quite a while before he was there. Anyhow, about I'm going to be vague on dates but about the end of February we were loaded back on those same transports that hauled us in there and sent to New Zealand. We had just gotten underway and I was up on deck just breathing in that good clean fresh air. We looked down and here came two torpedoes at us. A Jap sub had fired two torpedoes right at us. I was just fascinated, I watched those torpedoes coming and finally, I knew they were going to hit just about where I was standing on the ship. I backed up against the bulkhead that was behind me and waited for them to explode and they never did. What had happened was that all the cargo and everything that had been on the ship before had been unloaded and the ship was riding so high in the water the torpedoes actually went under us and didn t explode. It missed us totally because all the cargo was off. Anyhow then we went to Wellington, New Zealand and all of us were so sick with