David Hardacker
[10/7/25]
[00:07 counter start #]
Kyle Hardacker: [“Today is October 7th, 2007]. I am Kyle Hardacker and I am interviewing Dave Hardacker at 11040 Queens Way Circle. Mr. Hardacker is my grandfather, and was born on October 7th, 1925 and is 82 years old. Mr. Hardacker served in World War II. Mr. Hardacker was in the 6th Motor Transport Battalion and held the following rank of private first class.
Dave Hardacker: Then you have it down there, the 6th Marine Division; you got that down there don’t you?
KH: Yeah.
DH: That’s very important because that’s the big unit, see, that’s 15,000 men. That’s a big unit; I’m just a little guy, a little unit. Our company was just a few hundred.
KH: Were you drafted or did you enlist?
DH: I was drafted and stamped “Navy” and I said,” I didn’t want the Navy.” So they gave me the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps is part of the Navy and I enlisted in the Marine Corps you could say. But I had been drafted to be there, they stamped me Navy. I told them I didn’t want the Navy and they said okay. Once they stamped me in the Navy, I had to stay in the Navy.
KH: Yeah
DH: The Marine Corps is part of the Navy. So they said,” you want to jump on the Marine Corps.” And I said,” I’ll take that yeah, yeah.” And I had to buddies come right behind me and they said we’ll be with you Dave, but they wouldn’t take them. They didn’t have any openings. I’m originally from close to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and they had sent me clean up to Buffalo to get sworn in because there weren’t any openings down around Pittsburgh or up at Eerie, PA or any place. They had to send me clean up to Buffalo to get an opening in the Marine Corps. They sent me up there on a bus overnight and I stayed in a hotel overnight and got sworn in the next day. Then they sent me on a bus back to Pennsylvania.
KH: Why did you pick the Marine Corps?
DH: Why?
KH: Yeah.
DH: Well, to be honest with you, I wanted the Army because the Army was gonna stay home for Christmas, they were gonna stay home longer. The Navy was only going to be home a week. The Marine Corps was home for two weeks, but I didn’t know that though. Some of the guys said they were gonna go in the Army and they were gonna be able to stay home for Christmas and so “ooh, I’ll take that.” I want to go in the Army and stay home for Christmas. But then at that particular time they needed a whole bunch of Navy guys. See, the Navy was big and the Army was big and the Air Force was big. So whenever they needed a whole lot of men that particular day, they’d stamp a whole bunch of them. You couldn’t volunteer, they’d just stamp you. I volunteered for the Army, because I wanted to stay home for Christmas for sure, and they said,” no you’re in the Navy your stuck.” And then I said,” wait a minute I don’t want to be in the Navy, I don’t want to be sunk in ship, get sunk in a ship way out from under me.” I thought they’d say okay we’ll put you in the Army, but they didn’t do that. They said,” Well, we got the Marine Corps you want in the Marines?” Because the Marines is part of the Navy, see? So then I ended up in the Marine Corps. “Okay I’ll take the Marine Corps.” But at that time, to get me sworn in, they couldn’t get me sworn in there. They had to send me clean up to Buffalo which was about a three hour drive away, and I got sworn in the next day up there and got sent back home. So that’s how I went into the Marine Corps.
KH: What was the date you enlisted?
DH: I was sworn in on December the 7th [1943]. See, I was drafted on the 6th, I think it was, and they sent me up to Buffalo the next day on the 7th and I was sworn in on December the 7th. So I was drafted it must have been December the 6th, I would say. And then when I told them I didn’t want in the Navy… if I’d stayed in the Navy I’d just gone home that night and been home for a couple a weeks and went in the Navy or a week I forget. When I said,” Oh no, no I want to go into the Navy,” and they stamped me in the Marine Corps then I had to go up to Buffalo to get sworn in. So they sent me on a bus the whole way up to Buffalo, put me in a hotel overnight, and I got sworn in the next day. Then they put me on a bus and sent me back home. They didn’t do that with anybody else. I was the only guy that did that.
KH: What year was it?
DH: That would be 1943. December the 7th, 1943.
KH: What were your first days in the service, how did they train you?
DH: Well, they took you into what they call a boot camp and they did a lot of training, did exercises and stuff. You did marching and learned how to march, parades and stuff like that. Gave you weapons and rifles and shoot some rifle. Go out in the rifle range and do some target shooting and stuff like that. You’re getting ready to go into combat you know sometimes. A lot of exercises, you did a lot of exercising and running…and then you did marching with other men, you’re marching and marching and marching. That was part of it and the exercising. You get three months of that as I remember it or three or four months of that. And then I went up to Camp Lejeune and went to school, Motor Transport School, to learn to be a mechanic, automobile mechanic. I put in six months, I think, there. I was in the service for nine months before I went overseas.
KH: Where was the camp, Camp Lejeune?
DH: Camp Lejeune was the second one; the first one was Camp Parris Island. Parris Island, where they train you when you first go in and when they wanted to educate you, you go up to Camp Lejeune and that was where they had these different schoolings. For air force mechanics and automobile mechanics and maybe medics, I don’t know what all. I went to this Motor Transport School…to be an automobile mechanic for six months.
KH: Where was it? Where was the camp located?
DH: Camp Lejeune that’s in North Carolina I think, as I remember. I remember it’s in North Carolina. I’d have to get a map out to be sure, look it up except that’s the way I remember it. Then after that we were done with training there, we…went over to the Marine Corps base at San Diego. I think we were there for a week. ‘Til they got a whole bunch of guys come in and we got ready to go overseas, go over the Pacific to the island Guadalcanal and formed the 6th Marine Division. New people came over like us and they all had some other troops already over there that had been over there for a year and put us all together, formed a whole division. Sometimes they formed divisions in the United States and sent you all over. The 6th Marine Division they formed over there, because they already had some regiments that had been fighting on different islands over there Tarawa, and Peleliu, and different places and they had already had some experience. So they formed a division by sending some more of us over to join them together and form a division which is about 15,000 men. Then we went up to the final battle Okinawa, that’s part of Japan. The next battle was further up in Japan, but the war ended in July. We were up there from the first of April to the end of June. We went back to another island, I forget which island it was, and we were supposed to go on back up to Japan again, I don’t know why they didn’t keep us at Okinawa but they didn’t. They sent us back down the Pacific further, to some other island; I forget now the Balik Island. Then, we were supposed to up to Japan then and then they didn’t they took us up into China. The war ended so instead of going to Japan for another battle why the sent us into China and we disarmed the Japanese troops in China and sent them home to Japan. And then there was another Marine division that had come in there. There wasn’t any fighting or any war we were just sending the Japanese home. They’d surrendered… Then I’d come home in July of 1946. So, I was in about 2½ years.
KH: What was your job in the Motor Transport Battalion?
DH: Well, I was a mechanic. I was trained supposedly to repair automobiles… and actually the job they gave me, I was doing grease jobs. I ended up on Okinawa, and I was doing trucks…just like you’d take your car to a garage, to get it greased, and get the oil changed…I did that kind of work. I didn’t do the repair work…repairing anything. Most of the trucks were new, and didn’t need repairs, unless, they got blown up or something, because they weren’t old, they weren’t over there for years. A lot of them were brand new and I did grease jobs and oil changes…oil changes mostly. But then other times, I did extra work too; extra jobs that they had you do just to keep you busy for a while. I was on mess duty…for a month or two. In mess duty you worked in the kitchen, but you were off between times. You worked in the kitchen for breakfast, dinner, and supper, getting the meals served…and cleaning things up, and then between the meals you had a couple of hours off. So, when we were down in Guadalcanal, I went down on the beach and went out on a raft out there behind the officers club…I wasn’t supposed to be there, but I went out there because my mum had sent me some fishing lines and some hooks…to go fishing. So I had time off of the job. I wasn’t busy all day; I'd be busy at breakfast then have a couple hours off at least, then dinner, then I’d have a couple of hours off. So, I took off on that thing that they had there …for diving in the water…behind the officers club. It wasn’t for all of us to use, that was supposedly for the officers to use, but I…snuck out there during the day, because all the officers were out and busy and there wasn’t anybody around. So, I went down there to the beach and swam out to that thing, it was a diving platform. People go out there and swim and dive in the water out in the ocean. They didn’t have one for all of us they just had one for the officers. But there were no officers around so I snuck out there and went on it. I got a bad sunburn because on Guadalcanal it’s hot, it’s near the equator, it’s real real hot and I wasn’t thinking about getting burned, because I wasn’t gonna stay out there an hour or so and heck an hour in the sun, that’s not bad. But in the Equator the sun is real real bright and I got burned, boy, the skinned peeled off real bad. But that’s because I was out there an hour or so which isn’t a real long time, but the sun was brighter than the dickens out there. And I never thought of getting burned like that. I told you about how I was in showing some of the officers in the outfit how my skin was peeling, well there were big peels coming off. They laughing about it too, but they were saying…,”that’s too bad but you still have your job to do and if you can’t do your job you’re going to the brig, which do you prefer?” I said,” I can do my job okay.” My job wasn’t that much, hell it was nothing.
KH: What time of day were the meals?
DH: What time of the day?
KH: Yes
DH: I can’t remember anymore. I suppose about seven and twelve and five, I think, but I can’t remember exactly. Different people were appointed to be on this mess duty. Now, they had some guys that were permanent on it that were the cooks…that was their job, but we were the guys that were supposed to get the dishes washed get the food out and hand the food out to everybody and things like that. So we just had a temporary job, we had for a month, a couple of weeks or a month I forget now but it wasn’t a bad job it was an easy job. I didn’t mind it at all.
KH: What type of food is there?
DH: Oh we had all kinds of food. You would eat whatever they fed you. All kinds of food, I couldn’t tell you what the heck it was anymore. I eat anything, food’s all good to me, I can eat anything. Some people didn’t like it, but hell I liked it. It didn’t bother me in the least bit, it was good food.
KH: So there was no food that they served every day?
DH: It would be different foods. You had to have it shipped in every day from the States in big ships. I can’t remember what the heck it was anymore. Just the regular food like we had back home. Same kind of stuff you had back home.
KH: How was the food different when you were in the lines in Okinawa than when you weren’t?
DH: Well the guys in the lines, they couldn’t be back in the mess hall. So we had the food cooked for us right there, but in the lines they had to have food, sometimes sandwiches, in their knapsacks. They had food packages that they brought up with them, and once they got back out of the lines they’d have guys feeding them and guys bringing food right to them, but up in the lines they normally had mess meals, sandwiches and stuff, in their packs with them so they could eat, they didn’t eat regularly. You were up in the lines for so long and then you went back out. You didn’t stay in the lines forever, normally speaking, you were in the lines a week or so and back out…so you could get a break now and then, I forget just how they did divide it up. Your unit went up into the lines for, I don’t know if they went up for a week or two, and back out for a rest for a break. Then another unit will go up there for awhile then they would stay in the lines for a couple of weeks or a month I forget how they did it.
KH: How long were you in the front lines?
DH: Oh, I was never in the front lines. The only time I was up there was one night in the capital of Okinawa, Naha. Naha had a bay come in off the ocean and they had a bunch us down there, sitting on the edge of this bay in case the Japanese tried to come across. We had chased them beyond it and in case anybody tried to come in and land there or come across from the other side to come back over here. We had already taken most of the island over. We had taken over ¾ of the island. We came in on the top of the island where there weren’t as many of them and killed them off and chased them back down to this end down here because this was where most of the caves and armaments were to protect the capital. We went in where there wasn’t as much protection because you can get in easier and get landed then start down towards the capital and take the whole place over. Where I was, in the lines, was right down there by the capital for one night. We had just come down for reinforcements in case the Japanese tried to come back across this bay into where the marines were, but they didn’t try to come back at all, they just put us there just in case, they didn’t come back. The next day, they pulled us out and took us back. Because, I guess, the commanding officers there didn’t want us up there. We weren’t supposed to be up there. Our commanding officer was a friend of theirs, and he brought us up to reinforce them. I guess that guy in that battalion there, that outfit, that unit there, he hadn’t asked for us. Our company commander was a friend of his and knew he had went up there and just brought us up there to support him and the next day they took us out and said they didn’t need us…Nothing happened, none of us got hurt or anything. Nothing happened, we went back out. During the campaign in there when we’d move, as the island got taken more and more, our unit would move down behind the lines to have the trucks…and ammunitions brought down. You’d have them close to the lines and they’d go up to the ships and get the machines and the guns and take them down to the lines. We’d repair the trucks and give them gas and keep them running. So we were behind the lines. We weren���t in the lines we were behind the lines. We had it easy, nothing happened. We’d go on patrols, though, up around hilly country. We’d take patrols around our camp to see if there’s any Japanese hiding around there, but we never ran into any. I volunteered to go on those patrols. The first time they went they didn’t ask me, and then I went up in the front office and told them, “Why didn’t you ask me? I wanted to go those patrols.” I told them,” I wanted to go?”
“Well we didn’t think of it,” or something I don’t know why it was, but then after they got me. They told me they were gonna go and I got along. I wanted to see what it was like. But then after the campaign they wanted volunteers to go down and fight in the front lines. Now that’s where you get killed easy and get wounded. I didn’t volunteer for that because I went up to see what it was all about and one of the guys met me at the door and said,” You dumb bastard, you don’t want to volunteer for line duty. Those guys get all shot up and maybe get killed. What the hell do you want to go into that for you dumb bastard.” I got to thinking; jeez I think you’re right. I turned around and walked away, but there were half a dozen that did go in and volunteer, four, five, and six of them. I forget how many volunteered to go into the lines. I would have volunteered for a few days or a week or two. When I actually thought about it, I didn’t want to volunteer forever because if we’re going to another campaign somewhere else, you don’t get killed her then you’ll get killed in the next one. So the guy that met me at the door said,” Don’t be so damn dumb.” Yeah he got me thinking why I wanted to volunteer for because I volunteered to go on these patrols and I went up and complained when they didn’t take me the first patrol they made. Then I went up and volunteered to the company officer. So then after that they always called me to go on patrols with them. We never ran into anybody, we went on two or three patrols around our camp like that. We never ran into any Japanese. The Japanese were sticking together, retreating, and falling behind. They didn’t stay up around…They stayed with the rest of the gangs and they moved down further and further to the south. Retreating and everything, I had it easy, real easy. I didn’t mind it at all.
KH: What was the purpose of going to the front lines when you were going to volunteer?
DH: Well, you go up to volunteer because you had so many casualties, you had so many guys getting killed and wounded, and you had to get men sent in from back in the States. When you went into combat like that you had a bunch of guys, extra men, for replacements, but when your casualties where way over what you expected, you were getting short in supplies of men up there. So then you had to get volunteers to go up because you couldn’t get enough guys to come over from the states. They had to ship them over in the hundreds and hundreds and they didn’t have that many around. They didn’t think they were going to get that many casualties.
KH: Why did you want to volunteer in the first place?
DH: Volunteer for what, you mean?
KH: The front lines.
DH: The front lines. Well, I wanted to volunteer because I wanted to go up and try it and see what it was like, but when I went up to the office they said, “Well, gee you don’t want to go up there. You’ll be stuck up there for the rest of the campaign, and we got another one yet to come.” Because we thought we were gonna have another campaign after Okinawa into Japan further. They said,” You’re stupid. You’ll get yourself shot up.” And I turned around and went back out and though well jeez maybe you’re right. I wanted to try it just to see whether you had the guts and could stand up to it. That’s why some of the guys volunteered for it, they wanted to go up there and see what it was like. We had guys volunteer for it and some of them got wounded. I don’t know if any of them got killed or not. They didn’t need to volunteer, they just wanted to go up and see what it was like and see if they were tough enough to stand up to it. I think there were half a dozen that went. I think three of them got wounded; three or four of them got wounded. I don’t know if any got killed, I never heard. Nobody ever said anything, they didn’t want to admit or talk about it because they were volunteers. They volunteered to go up. What happened was they were short on man power and they had a hell of a lot more casualties than they expected to. So they were running short of men and they had to get volunteers. Theoretically they could make you go, maybe that wasn’t legal. Normally they had men come over from the States from different areas back where they had extra men and they’d send them over because they had a lot bigger casualties on Okinawa than in most battles. There was heck of a lot more people killed as I remember on Okinawa than anywhere. I t was one of the worst casualties of the war for the length of time and all. Army and marines, the army was there too. The army had at least two or three divisions there. The marines had three divisions there. There were two divisions in the lines and the third division there if need, but they didn’t actually put them in the lines. They just kept them as reinforcement in case they had to need them for someplace else. But I think there was another marine division there; there were two I’m sure, the 6th and the 3rd Divisions. The 1st Marine Division was the first one to go overseas. They were the first to fight on Guadalcanal. That was the first Pacific campaign they had, the island of Guadalcanal. The Japanese had already come in and taken it over. Originally Guadalcanal was English or Australian. The Japanese had taken over the Pacific early in the war. They were much more powerful than everybody else because we were supplying men and getting ready for the war over in Europe more and weren’t really looking for that war over there, with Japan.
KH: When you went to Guadalcanal, had you already captured the island?
DH: Yeah they had already captured the island when we got there. But some of the guys that were in my outfit had been there. They were in a different unit. Like I said the units were broken up into companies and regiments. Companies were only a few hundred men. Regiments were 5,000 men and a division is about 15,000 men. The original invasion of Guadalcanal was the 1st Marine Division. That was one of the first campaigns in the Pacific. They took Guadalcanal from the Japanese and when we got over there, the 1st Marine Division was still there unless they sent them someplace else. My 6th Marine Division was formed on Guadalcanal. The 1st Marine Division might have still been there. My division, the 6th Marine Division, was two regiments there, 5,000 men apiece, that’d be 10,000 men. So they brought another regiment from the United States and different companies, like my company, Motor Transport…brought us over there and formed the division, the 6th Marine Division. So then we were ready to go up to Japan with the 1st Marine Division, which was the first one to go out into combat in the Pacific way back in the beginning of the war way back in ’43, ’44. So we went with them up to Okinawa and then we went with them into China. We were going to go into Japan on another campaign, but then Japan surrendered. So then we went with the 1st Marine Division into China and that was to disarm the Japanese in China and send them home. And then I think we were there, too, to keep the Russian communists from coming in there and taking over China because some of the Chinese went communist, and I think we went in there to keep the Russians out because we didn’t want the world going communist. Russia was our allies in the war, but otherwise they were against us for years…and we thought that the Russian communists were going to try and take over the world and we were on the other side to keep them from taking over the world. Now we’re allies with them, but then we were allies during the war but then after that we were on the verge of maybe going to war with them. We were right on the verge of going to war with them all through the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s but now we’re not going to war or anything.
KH: Where in China were you stationed?
DH: A city called Tsing Tao, T-S-I-N-G T-A-O. Now I don’t know what they call it…it was in the northern part of China close to Japan. If I had a Chinese map I could see what they had there, I don’t know what they call it. It might have a completely different name now. But it was Tsing Tao when we went in there T-S-I-N-G T-A-O Tsing Tao. They called it Tsing Tao (Chin Tow)…as I remember. It was right on the coast, I can’t think of the particular piece of water it was, but it was on the Pacific Ocean border. It was a port. The 1st Marine Division went inland more. We stayed right on the coast. The 1st Marine Division went inland a couple hundred miles from us. And what we were there for was to disarm the Japanese and send them back to Japan and to keep the Russians from coming down and taking over China because China had a big population and we didn’t want them going communist. We had been allies of the Chinese from a way back in the early ‘40s and the Japanese were invading all of Asia and they had gone into China to take over China because China had coal, steel…maybe oil. And Japan was invading other countries because other countries had oil and steel that they didn’t have and they wanted to expand and be a bigger country. And Germany was doing that in Europe; they were expanding and taking over Europe. So Japan…became an ally of Germany and they started taking over Asia. They invaded the Philippines and were kicking us out of the Philippines because we had the Philippines. They were going to take over Australia, but we had sent troops into Australia to keep them from taking Australia over. Guadalcanal was close to Australia so we moved up into Guadalcanal with the 1st Marine Division then started the war against the Japanese out there. Then the Army ended up going back into the Philippines to kick the Japanese out of the Philippines. The Philippines kicked our Army out and took everybody that was left there… captive and actually killed a lot of them. A lot of them starved to death and killed them. They mistreated them. They had pictures of marching them, and they were skinny and real real thin. They hadn’t had much food and were getting weak and falling over and the Japanese would just abandon them and kill them. So then at that time we hated the Japanese and we’d kill them all, but actually when you think about it we bombed the Japanese, killed millions and millions of them but we were killing the women and kids which had nothing to do with the war really, but in those days you didn’t think of it because everybody else was doing it. Everybody else was bombing everybody else. The Germans started, they were bombing the British. They were bombing anybody they could and so were the Japanese…so we did the same thing. We never thought anything about it. But since then I’ve seen people bring that up that we shouldn’t have been killing women and kids like that. But then if we’d have went in and invaded we’d have been doing it because we’d have had to be bombing all the cities and blowing everything up so there’s two sides to it. They certainly would have done it to us. The Japanese definitely would have done it to us if they had the atomic bomb, but they didn’t have them and they didn’t have the air craft either that were big enough to get over to us. They would have tried to but they couldn’t. It was too far away for them. We were much better equipped than they were. We had more facilities for building planes, guns, ships, and tanks. We had oil…steel, and coal.
KH: What was your reaction when Japan surrendered?
DH: Where was I at?
KH: What was your reaction? How did you feel?
DH: Well I was glad it was over because I didn’t have to go invading. We all figured that we were going up into Japan next. That’s what we were scheduled to do, but then the war ended surprisingly. We didn’t know about the atomic bomb. When the war ended we were surprised. Boy that was something wow that’s good the wars over. Then we found out about the atomic bomb.
KH: [What was the food like in China?]
DH: Well, I liked food anywhere. It was good to me. I eat Chinese food here. I used to stop at Chinese restaurants, I like Chinese food. Far as I’m concerned it was good food. When we were there we were eating Marine Corps food, we weren’t eating the Chinese food. I didn’t go out to the restaurants in the first place. I didn’t spend my money when they’d feed me. I never had much money so I sent it home to my mum. I sent all my paychecks back to mum but just a few bucks. I only kept five or ten dollars a month for myself because I didn’t smoke, I didn’t need any money and I didn’t drink so I didn’t need any money. I sent all of it home to my mum. She need it, she’d spend it. She didn’t, put it in my bank account. So far as the food, I wouldn’t go out and eat. I wouldn’t spend the money. In the service they fed you the Marine Corps food. They didn’t feed you the Chinese food; they fed you the Marine Corps food that the Navy brought for us. Some of the guys went out and ate and said it was good food. They liked eating out. I thought about it but I thought no I’m not going to spend my money. I went out and ran around some, but I wouldn’t spend any money. I was too tight; I didn’t have much money so I held onto it. When I went home I’d need a job, and I don’t know where I’d get a job and I want to have some money because I never had much money. My daddy died when I was real young and the only money I had was the money I went out and earned myself because my mum didn’t have much. If I wanted any money I would have to go earn it. Sometimes my grandparents would give me a couple bucks for a birthday. Give you a five dollar gift or a ten dollar gift for your birthday or Christmas. When we were kids we would go out and sell scrap iron. I’d catch crabs in the creek…soft-shelled crabs and I could sell them and make money, sell night crawlers…because people were buying night crawlers. I’d catch them to fish myself but also to sell them to people. If they didn’t have a yard with very many and didn’t know where to get them, I knew where to get them because I knew people who watered their lawn all the time so there was always a lot of night crawlers out and crawling around at night. If you didn’t water your yard during the summer then it would be too dry and they wouldn’t come up much. People counted on me to get them the night crawlers and minnows, soft-shelled crabs. I used to sell newspapers to make money. One little town nearby by had a newspaper and people in my hometown used to by that newspaper, it was a daily newspaper. The Pittsburgh paper was more popular because it was bigger. This other town had a little newspaper that came every day. I sold it to make a couple of bucks, a couple of cents on each, a nickel on each paper. I’d only sell a couple dozen, but sold them seven days a week. Anything to make money I would take a job. Somebody tell me about a job here, a job there, I’d take it.
KH: How did the Chinese civilians react to the soldiers?
DH: Well, they treated us well and we were there because we rescued them, but I never got around talking to them because I never got outside at all. Other guys went out and went to the restaurants and normally I thought I can’t talk the language, but some of them could speak English. There wouldn’t be anybody who spoke Chinese. None of our guys could speak Chinese. They might have had some Chinese that could speak English. I never remember talking to anybody. Most of us stayed and ate the military food…some guys went out because they had lots of money. Their mum and dad would send them money. Well, they’d take all their pay too whereas I sent all my pay home to mum. So I didn’t have much, but a guy that took all of his pay, well he’d have plenty of food to eat...
KH: How did you disarm the Japanese? What methods did you use?
DH: Well, I don’t know what they used, to be honest with you, I wasn’t involved with it. They’d come and surrender their weapons otherwise we’d kill them because we didn’t trust them. If they wanted to surrender then they come down and give up their weapons. Normally the Japanese were brave and would fight to the death normally. Once the war was over then it changed. Normally they wouldn’t surrender…that’s what they were taught; you’re supposed to give your life for your country. That wasn’t taught to you in our country. Some guys did do a lot of brave things like Audie Murphy, I read about him, he was a real hero, but a lot of guys weren’t near as heroic as he was……they weren’t supposed to surrender…that was cowardly and so most of them did fight to the death. Some of them surrendered but not very many…because if they’d surrender then good come out and surrender but if they wouldn’t…we’d have to come up with flamethrowers and tanks and burn them out and kill them off otherwise you’d get killed. You couldn’t go up and ask them to surrender very well because they’d see you coming and they’d shoot you……that wasn’t our code. We were supposed to fight for our country but it never said you were supposed to die for it. That was their code of honor…so you got to give them credit, they were good men. Japanese are good people in a lot of ways. When they started the war I didn’t feel that way, I hated their guts, but then the little guys like you and me didn’t start the war. It was the big guys that wanted to be the big wheels; they started the war…and run things. Little guys like you and me just do as we’re told.
KH: Where you in any of the small skirmishes where they fought, the Japanese fought back? Were you actually fighting them, ever?
DH: Well, I wasn’t involved with that at all. If they didn’t come out with their arms in the air, you’d automatically shoot them down because normally if they came out they were coming out to shoot you, to kill you. A lot of times if they were in a cave, they would stay in there because it was safer in there, and if you tried to come in there, they’d blow you away. So then we used tanks with flamethrowers and we had men with flamethrowers and we’d go up, turn the flames on, burn everything out, then go into the cave, blow it up and cave it in. You didn’t want to go into the cave looking them up. That was dangerous as heck and dumb. It was really stupid to go into a cave…blow the cave up and the hell with it, leave them in there to die. Some of them went in. I’ve seen pictures of people going in and to me that was stupid. It was much better to get a tank up there and blow the cave in, collapse it…with them crawling around they’ll shoot you as soon as they see you. Before you see them, they’ll see you and shoot you……So we had flamethrowers and they were great weapons…otherwise they’d come up behind you and shoot you. Japanese…had a strong sense of duty. Real strong sense of duty…
KH: What was the date when you finally went home?
DH: I can’t remember if I went home on the July 19th, July 13th, or July 16th. It might have been July the 16th. I came home in July from China. I think I left China in the end of June or in the middle of June…around June the 13th or 16th and it takes a month to get home. I came home, think it was July the 16th, 1943 and I had left from China in June, the middle of June, about the second week of June. The second week in July I got back in the U.S. and I got back home in Pennsylvania July the 16th. When I got discharged, it was out in Washington. When I came back from China, we’d come into Washington. We didn’t come in in San Diego. We came into Washington, that’s the northern state. I must have flown into Pittsburgh, PA and then took a bus home. Maybe they flew me into Pittsburgh and took a train up to the town below New Bethlehem, a little town called Kittanning and I got of there. When I’d come back from getting discharged from the Marine Corps, I think I got out in this little town of Kittanning which is a little bigger than our town. It’s about twenty-five, thirty miles away. I got out of the train down there and thumbed home. As I recollect I think that’s the way I got home. I remember going home from Kittanning that way from boot camp and it seems that’s the way I got home from getting discharged too. I went to boot camp in Parris Island, that’s where you go down for three months and get that training…you go in exercising and marching and learning to take orders, then you go home for a couple of weeks. Then you go back and get ready to go overseas. I remember getting into Kittanning, come into the train for Pittsburgh and getting out. There wasn’t any buses or anything so I just went up and thumbed my way home, wasn’t too far. Didn’t take long to thumb home, there was lots of people going my way……When I got out of the train I thought this is where I got out of the train before and thumbed home. They wouldn’t give me a bus ride the whole way home, I had to thumb home.
KH: What did you do with your gear, like your rifle and such?
DH: Beg your pardon
KH: What did you do with your rifle? Did you keep that or did you turn that into the military?
DH: No, they keep it. They didn’t let you bring it home with you. I left that back in China.
KH: So you turned that in when you were going home?
DH: Yeah, when I was getting ready to go home I turned that in. Left it there in China, wouldn’t let me bring it back.
KH: You got to keep your uniform though right?
DH: Oh yeah, kept the uniform. I kept my one cap. When we were in there, we had just this little cap that laid on your head, but then a friend of mine had a cap that has a visor on it and I got a picture taken with that in my picture of the Marines with my wife, with Arlene, your grandma. It shows me with this cap on and I had to borrow this cap off my friend. He was a classmate of mine and he came in the Marine Corps because I went in. I went in ahead of him; I was drafted ahead of him. Since I went into the Marine Corps and he volunteered for the Marine Corps too, and he was over there in Okinawa with me. But he was in the 1st Marine Division in the infantry. I went to see him when we were on Okinawa and his outfit came into Guadalcanal when I was there. The 1st Marine Division had a training program on Guadalcanal; this is after the combat on Guadalcanal. The 1st Marine Division took Guadalcanal and then they left the island and were on an island right nearby somewhere, but they weren’t on Guadalcanal, we were on Guadalcanal to form our division. They put the 1st Marine Division on another island nearby somewhere, and they’d come over to our island, training. And when he went into the 1st Marine Division I wrote to him, he wrote me, and I wrote him all the time. I got his letter right within a day so I knew he was right nearby, and some of my buddies in Motor Transport were taking supplies over to his unit. So when I heard his unit was over there, I borrowed a Jeep from one of my buddies and I rode over and looked him up, that was fun. His buddies, his friends were shaking my hand, congratulation for coming over to see us. Yeah I saw him there.
KH: Alright, thanks for the interview.
DH: Yep, it was fun, I enjoyed it. I had it easy compared to a lot of people.
