Mr. William Mulford
[September 21st, 1925]
Interviewed by Samir Khoso
Recorded on 10/26/05 by Samir Khoso
Transcribed on 11/21/05 – 11/28/05 by Samir Khoso
[Today is 10/26/05. I am Samir Khoso and I am interviewing William Mulford at 3060 Meridian Street. Mr Mulford is my interviewee. Mr. Mulford is 80 years old and was born on September 21st, 1925. Mr. Mulford served in World War II. Mr. Mulford was in the 7th Amphibious Fleet, Beach Party 5 and held the following rank: Radioman 3rd Class.]
Samir : Mr. Mulford, were you drafted or were you enlisted?
Mr. Mulford: I was drafted.
S : Drafted.
S : Where were you living at? M : Indianapolis.
S: And why did you join the armed forces?
[005]
M: I chose the navy, I could have gone in the army, but I was in such good health that the navy took the cream of the crop at that time, any draftees if they had any health problems at all they ended up going to the army, if they (stutters) were in a certain level of health you know, good health, and I was in excellent health, I was getting running cross country and track in school and I was in good shape, and I asked for the navy, and I was lucky enough to get the navy.
S: Do you recall your first days in service.
M: Oh yeah, it was riding a troop train prepared to Chicago and Great Lakes Naval Station , and we didn’t get there till’ about 4 o clock in the morning, and we had breakfast it was yucky oatmeal and beans and coffee.
S: Did you ever see combat?
M: Yes.
[016]
S: And many casualties in your unit?
M: We lost our doctor, he didn’t die but he was wounded in Lingayen gulf, our first landed, a Jap plane dove on us, we were getting ready to go to bed, and we stayed here on the beach and uh we were supposed to dig our foxholes and we have them incase but the army gave us some cots to use, and I was about ready to go to sleep in my cot, and then that plane dove on us and dropped that bomb right close to us and I wasn’t in my foxhole but our doctor was in his foxhole and he was the one who got wounded. So they sent him to probably was a navy hospital ship, I lost track of him and I didn’t know what happened to him after that.
[025]
S: What were some more of your most memorable moments?
M: Well when we landed on the island of Cebu, the old beach had land mines, and the Japs had taken these aerial bombs, about this big (Stretches his arms far apart) and dug holes and set them down in the ground and when our trucks and our tanks rolled up on the beach we hit those land mines and we blew the tracks off our tanks and when we set up our radio about 30 yards off the shoreline we didn’t realize but there was a land mine within arms reach where we set up our radio and we were walking all around it , the army engineers came and diffused it and we lost I don’t know how many amphibious tanks that day, and we lost some ducks, that was an amphibious truck. I don’t know if you knew about a duck, it was a big truck, it had 4 wheel drive and it had a screw in the stern it would pull right out of the LST and into the water and it would drive right up into the beach, I went in on one of those and then we had a little bit of sniper fire. Couple Japs in trees firing at us and that evening we had several big LST unloading at the beach, and a Jap plane dove in on us and dropped a bomb, fortunately it landed in between two of the LST’s, so it didn’t do any damage, but it scared us, as you could imagine.
S: Were you ever a prisoner of war?
M: No
S: Were you awarded you medals other that the ones you have described to me here?
M: no this is it.
S: So this one is the WW II medal?
M: Yeah. Filipino Liberation Ribbon is that one there.
S: In the middle?
M: Yeah, and the Asiatic Pacific is that one there. And the Victory ribbon is that one, and the WWII ribbon is that one there.
S: This was your radio badge?
M: Yes that was my rank, and this emblem (taps glass covering) there signified that we were in the 7th amphibious fleet.
S: And is that an angel on top? M: No it’s an eagle. That’s a rifle and that’s an anchor.
S: Yeah I see it now. So you were in the Philippines area.
[060]
M: Yes, I made three assault landings in the Philippines. Luzon Island in the Lingayen Gulf, and I landed in Cebu City, we liberated the… Cebu City was the second largest city in the Philippines we liberated that, and then I made a little clean up I guess you could call it on Negros island, there was no opposition there, we only stayed a couple hours and then we left.
S: Do you remember arriving to the Philippines and do you remember what it was like?
M: Well yeah, I made my first assault landing there, because we staged in New Guinea, when I fist left the States I was sent to Hollandia, New Guinea and then we rendezvous with the army out there in Zanzibar, New Guinea and we made two trial runs, we call them dry runs, we practiced landing on the beach, just like we would in an assault landing, and from there we went aboard ships, I went on an LSD, they took me up there and I went on, the LSD was a landing ship dock, I’ve got pictures of it, it was a big ship, it could carry three LCT’s, they flood the deck, and these three boats could pull right up inside of it, and then when we got to the place where we were going to land, we backed out and hit the beach on these LCT’s. I’ve got pictures of it.
S: Are the LCT’s very big?
M: No.
S: So they’re like motor boats?
M: Well they’ll carry a tank or two.
S: Oh ok, not exactly motor boats.
M: (Flipping pages in book) if I can find a picture in these books it’ll give you an idea, a good idea of what they look like. Oh, I’m sorry, I should’ve had these ready. It shows all the different landing crafts that we operated out of. Here’s a picture, this is where the landmines were, this is the beach we hit, and the city of Cebu City is to the right about 6 miles.
S: Is this all the smoke from the landmines?
M: Yeah, this was a real nice beach, that’s why we hit there, because it was easy for the landing craft to go out of the water, then we had to go inland and then take the city, we didn’t go into the city until after it was secured, it wasn’t our job, our job was just to operate this beach. My first landing was here on Lingayen Island, this is north of Manila, Manila is down south, and we landed here and the army went on down and conquered this area. (soft talking)…I thought I had them out here where you could see them. It gives you a real idea if you can see them (talking about the pictures of the book). I can usually turn right to those pages. Excuse me a minute. (More flipping of pages).
S: Just curious did you ever operate on any aircraft carriers?
M: I came home on an aircraft carrier. USS Sarratoga, after … what they did, they took off the armor off of it, and all the planes, and in the hanger deck they put in a bunch of bunks and brought hundreds of us home at one time.
S: Are they very massive?
M: Very what?
[126]
S: The aircraft carriers, are they very big?
M: Oh yeah, real big, they later used that at the Bikini atoll and they dropped the a-bomb on it, to see how it would react.
S: Were you back in Indianapolis when the a-bomb was dropped?
M: No, I was in the Philippines, we were getting ready to get into Japan, we were going to assault Japan, doing all kinds of training, getting ready to hit Japan, and the atomic bomb saved our lives, they told us the next landing we go on, the capability of dieing was 80% casualties, oh yeah we would have killed two to three million Japanese people, they told us everybody would be our enemy, even women and children, when we assaulted Japan, and fortunately that a-bomb ended the war, not only did it save about two or three million Japanese lives, but it saved a million of our lives, I’m thankful that Harry Truman, our president, decided to use the a-bomb, because it saved our lives.
S: Were all army personnel required to be able to use a gun?
M: Yes, well there’s a… what we call conscientious directors, they did everything… they helped in hospitals, they weren’t allowed to carry weapons, it was against their religion, to carry a gun. Here gives you an idea LST’s unloading a beach.
S: I was expecting something a little smaller.
M: There’s one in Evansville, Indiana, south, a bunch of old LST sailors bought it, we had given it to the country of Greece after the war, just given it to them, and they used it in their army, in their navy, and they were going to scrap it, and some old LST sailors found out about it and they went over there and bought it, and sailed it back over here and they’re restoring it, and I’ve been invited, I joined the organization, and I’ve been invited to go aboard and help restore it, but I haven’t had time to do it, Evansville built a dock for it, its going to be there permanently, and they’ve also built a museum.
[166]
S: Are LST’s still used?
M: No, unless some bodies bought one, and uses them for commercial… but it was…I can’t believe I can’t find it (flipping pages) they’re in this book. You could really understand what these ships were like and what they did. I was on all of them, I was on LST, LSM, LCT, we traveled, I live on a jungle pack for over 6 months, I didn’t open my Christmas presents till may, all the cookies and cakes were rotted. (soft talking). I was just looking at them the other day(talking about LST’s). These are battle ships, the main battleships. We landed in Lingayen gulf, we had to drive right underneath those guns, they had them pointed this way, and we had to drive underneath to hit the beach, we could hear those shells going through the air. Now this is a LCI, looks like it’s beached, had landing ramps on each side.
S: What were these used for?
M: To land troops, LCI meant landing craft infantry, it didn’t have tanks.
S: So that was the function of the LSD?
M: LST, well no LCI, Landing craft infantry, it just landed troops. And the other one was the LST that’s landing ship tank, and (flipping book pages) I want you to see those ships… it would give you an idea of them… I know it’s not in the other books because I was looking at them the other day. Well, why don’t you continue your questions.
S: You started as a third-rank?
M: No, you start in the navy as a apprentice seaman, you have one little stripe on your shirt, then you make seaman second, you get another little stripe, and First class seaman you get three, and then third-class petty officer you get that ( points at emblem inside a case).
S: So at the end of the war you were a third class petty officer.
H: Uh huh.
S: Did you ever sustain injuries?
M: No, only playing baseball (laughs)
S: Did you guys have a chance to play recreational activities?
M: Oh yeah, when we were waiting to go to the Lingayen Beach, we lived with the army, in Zanzibar of New Guinea, and us navy guys played against the army guys in softball, that was fun, we were only there for a couple of weeks.
S: Did you guys win?
M: We won one, and lost one.
S: How did you stay in touch with your family during WWII?
M: Well, back then we (static) well the communications we have now, another thing we did was write letters, they weren’t long letters, in fact they had one of the officers read the letters before we sent them home, and they cut out anything that shouldn’t be written about, they didn’t want the enemy intercepting information. So a lot of the letters would be cut out.
S: Were your letters always guaranteed to go through?
M: Oh yeah, our letters… now a lot of times I didn’t get mail, because I was on the move so much, I didn’t get mail till about five months after I got back to our base, I got a whole stack of mail waiting for me, took me about a day and a half to read them, they were all my Christmas presents. The cakes and cookies were all moldy.
[238]
S: Did the navy always have plenty of supplies for their solders?
M: Oh yes, we had, being in the navy we had ships, the ships is what brought all the supplies over, being in the navy we had just about anything that we wanted, we didn’t have fresh meat all the time, or milk, but butter and onboard ship they baked good bread, had good coffee, and they made spam, have you ever had spam?
S: I’ve never had spam.
M: Have you heard about it?
S: Sort of.
M: Well we ate a lot of that, three meals a day, then I was able to go to Australia for ten day rest leave, I really pigged out there (laughs) , steak and eggs, drank a lot of milk, when I was in New Guinea I would have given fifty dollars for a glass of cold milk.
S: Just out of curiosity, were you ever assigned to one of the amphibious tanks?
M: I went in on a duck, I never rode an amphibious tank, but my first landing was a LCT, which is a landing craft, my second landing was a amphibious truck.
S: So you joined when you were nineteen years old? Is that what you said over the phone?
M: I’d just turned eighteen in November, and I went in December,
S: So you were eighteen years old.
M: yes.
S: So did any of your friends join the army with you?
M: Well it’s Navy.
S: Navy, I’m sorry.
M: Well I had some buddies that went in before me, then my uncle who was married had a child, and he had another child, because I went in, we were really close, and he was like a brother to me, he was just a few years older than I was, he went in after I did, and some of my high school buddies went in, but I never got to see any of them, I ran into one, one time in Australia, and then the only other friend I ran into that I knew from Indianapolis was a passenger on his ship, he was a ships crewman, USS Miser, which was a refrigeration ship , and I was a passenger and I was just walking down the gangway one day , and just ran into him, I’d known him ever since we were babies, hadn’t seen him in years. Small world.
[276]
S: What was the kind of pressure or stress that came with the battles?
M: Well naturally you’re always afraid of being wounded, but we just did our jobs, we were trained to do… I was trained to run the radios, I was trained to survive and get out of a boat, I had to wade in water up to here (Puts his arm across his stomach) during one landing. Little pressure but, I guess there was a time when I was afraid, but it didn’t make any difference, we had to do our job.
S: Did it feel easier to go into battle after you already had done it once?
M: Yeah I guess it was, fortunately the landing that I made, they weren’t all that savage, they weren’t all that bad, I just felt that I was protected as much as they could protect us, our aircraft overhead, and our ships, our big battleships offshore bombarding the beach, they tore up the beach before they got there with their big bombs, their big artillery and naturally the Japs aren’t going to sit there and take that, they moved back, I felt fairly safe.
[300]
S: Did you have any sort of luck charm or something you always kept with you?
M: Well I always carried a cross with me, around my neck, a chain, I don’t know what happened to it, I don’t have it anymore, but I didn’t believe in all that, I knew my mother, dad, and grandma were praying for me so…
S: Were there any sort of humorous events or unusual event that’s you can remember?
M: Yeah, when we hit Lingayen gulf, our little jeep, when it came off the LCPI, the LCVP rather I should say, it went into the water pretty deep, and that hot water messed up the engine, and we needed that jeep, because we were carrying a little trailer on the back of it that carried some of that equipment, and we were only going to be there overnight, and we were supposed to leave the next day, and we needed that jeep, to haul our equipment, and it wouldn’t run, so two of our boats mates, they were walking down the beach, just about one hundred yards from our patrol camp, and they saw this brand new jeep sitting there with no body around it, it was painted in kaki, army colors , it had “United Press” on its side, our guys borrowed it (laugh) brought it back to our control tent, went aboard and got some navy grey paint, from one of the LST docked on the beach, they gave us paint and slapped a coat of navy grey on that thing, it was our jeep from then on (laugh) never heard a thing about it, no body ever inquired about it or anything.
S: Did you guys ever play pranks on each other?
M: Oh yeah, we gave each other hot-foots.
S: What are hot-foots?
M: Well, when a guys sleeping, and he had his shoes on, they’d stick a match between the sole and the shoe and then set it on fire (laugh), stuff like that.
[334]
S: Who are the people in these photographs?
M: Well these are members of Beach Party No. 5, that’s the honorary radiomen, this was a radioman (points), this man was a signalman, a navy signalman, this was our commanding officer, he was a lieutenant. He was a hospital mortician, he was a hospital mortician(points again), this was our executive officer, he was a Lieutenant J.G. Nordberg was his name, this man , his name was Hudgenston, from Washington, he was a signalman, this young man wasn’t navy, he was closer to coastguard, and he joined our group, he was a signalman, probably one of the best signalmen in the south-pacific. This guy was a carpenter’s mate, he was a boats-man mate, this was a lieutenant, and our doctor didn’t make this picture, because he was wounded, and they had already taken him and put him on a hospital ship. This was a signalman, most of these guys were… lets see motor machinist mate. He’s the one who kept our jeep running or tried to. This guy, this guy and this guy are that tanned our new jeep, there the one who borrowed our jeep. These guys were seamen, you called them cock-sins, this guy was a signalman, this was signalman, he was from Detroit, good friend.
S: Just out of curiosity, were the Seals there? In the navy?
M: No, back then they called them Navy Scouts, and navy scouts would go in at night, they’d go by submarine, the submarine would let them out, and they’d paddle ashore in these rubber rafts, oh a few weeks before the landing, just to scout out the beach and then we would come in, with the assault troops few weeks later, but by that time the scouts had already mapped out the beach, they knew exactly where everything was, if there were any obstacles or things like that. So they were the ones who make sure the beach was suitable for a landing. But they were called the… back then they weren’t called Seals. They were called Navy Scouts.
S: Was there any unwritten hierarchy? Such as that, there’s ranking, but is there any such hierarchy so that covert ops, I’m not sure how to say it, but elevated above people of the regular army.
M: Well, I don’t know quite how to answer that, I know in our group this man, and this man, were the ranking boats-mates, and if anything happened to our officers they would be in control, this was an officer, this was an officer, and this was an officer. And if they were killed or wounded and had to be taken away from us, then this guy would, he was the oldest boats-mate, then he would be in command, Is that what you meant?
S: Sort of
M: After him, it would probably be…
S: The one with the flag? M: No he was a motor-machinist-mate. IT would probably be, he was a first class boats-mate, then the next would be the second class boats-mate who would take command, there’s always somebody in command.
S: Did you ever keep a personal diary?
M: No I didn’t, because see I was living out of a jungle pack, and just, and I wished I had, and I’m really sorry that I didn’t because I don’t remember dates, and I did figure out some dates here. We hit Lingayen Gulf on Luzon Island, on January 9th, 1945 and we hit Cebu City march 26th, 1945, then we did a little clean-up on Negros Island, we did that on April of 1945. They dropped the a-bomb in August 6th, 1945 on Hiroshima, and then they dropped on August the 9th on Nagasaki, there were 80,000 people who died in Hiroshima and probably 35,000 on Nagasaki. But those bombs saved about a million of our boys and probably two or three million of the Japanese women and children.
S: Did any of your crew men, did any of them keep diaries?
M: Yeah, I think some of them might have.
S: Was home regarded as something that the people generally didn’t talk about?
M: Oh not, they talked about their homes, this man here, he got married the day he shipped out, never had a honeymoon, and he was… the navy was normally good about getting people home, after eighteen months overseas, they tried to get people home for a leave. Somehow he was over there over two years, and he had a nervous breakdown, when we hit Cebu City, he went all to pieces, and they sent him home, he got to go home, and I felt so sorry for him, marrying just a day or two before he left.
S: Do you recall the day your service ended?
M: Yeah it was up in the Great Lakes, they were discharging on the point system, it was due to the time you spend overseas every night, when I got back to Great Lakes, that’s where I trained to start with, I needed ¼ of a point to be discharged, and I had to lay up there and wait until I earned that point, well I got tired of just laying around and doing nothing, so I went pass the master of arms to get me a job, I had already spent all my money going on leave every night, going on liberty, so he gave me a job of taking 205 new boots right out of boot camp on a troop train all the way to California, I was in charge, I had to take those kids out there, they were going to… there was a receiving base out there, the ships could come in, and assign them to duty, and that was quite a job, I was worried about that, because every time that troop train would stop, those kids would run looking for restaurants or a bar or something knowing the train would take off, they would come running from all directions chasing that train , and when the master of arms assigned me that job he said “You have 205 boots to take out there, and you better have all of them.” Well that worried me, because I didn’t know I would get them out there or not, I thought I would loose half of them , because they all wanted booze and stuff like that, but when I got there I had them all there, I got lucky, that was a real experience.
S: What did you do after your job? Did you move back to Indiana?
M: Yes, I went to school, my grandparents lived here, cousins, uncles.
[490]
S: Did you work, did you go back to school?
M: Well I took a little bit of school, I took some math, but I didn’t graduate, then I went to work, my cousin had a neon-sign shop here in town, and I went to work for him for a while, then when he sold his business I got a job selling paint, I went with the Portal Paint Company, I sold the industrial paint coatings. I retired from them in ’81.
S: Did you make any close friendships while in service?
M: Yes, I made one, well two really, Don McNeal from Michigan, and there was Jean Henderson from Detroit, he ended up being a policeman for the Dearborn Police force, and I went up there once, and I got to see him, but I never… I lost tract of the both of them, I don’t know what ever happened to either one of them, they were the closest, Don McNeal and I went through radio school together in Northwestern University and shipped out the south pacific together, joined the beach party together, and came home together. He lived in Michigan. I’ve lost track of him.
S: Did your military experience influence your views toward war?
M: Well we need a strong army, strong navy to maintain liberty, If It wasn’t for our good army, and navy we wouldn’t have the life we live today, we’d probably live like they do in Russia, to be free you have to have an army and a navy, to enjoy the freedoms we have.
S: What kind of activities does your veteran’s organization do?
M: Well we support orphanages, we support American Legion Baseball, we support hospitals, veteran hospitals. We support young men and women to go to what we call Boys and Girls State, where they go to university in a group and they learn all about Americanism and they conduct course and elections. They will go and elect a governor. And they learn about government, how it works. About our Americanism, And that’s very education, we’ll send about 35 young men to that, they usually go to Indiana State, and spend a week there just learning about Americanism.
S: Do you ever attend reunions?
M: Well we’ve never had any, I keep looking in the American Legion Magazine, thinking that there might be one advertised for Beach Party, but I’ve never seen one, so I’ve never been able to go to one. I would go, if anyone ever advertised, I would go an be with the Beach Party guys.
S: How did the service affect your life besides being away for a long amount of time?
M: Well I grew up, went in as a kid, came back as a man.
S: Is there anything you would like to add that we have not covered yet?
M: Well I think, a lot of young men who walk the streets, if they could just join the army or navy, I think it would really help them in there daily walk, grow up. It’s good for a young man to learn that discipline and respect of others. We’ve got too many young men walking the street, who aren’t even working, all around here, always bumming money off of you, healthy looking people. I feel sorry for them, they don’t have any guidance, they probably don’t even know who their daddy is, had probably no adult supervision, they’re just more or less on they’re own and that’s sad.
S: Mr. Mulford, I think that is all the questions, and I would like to thank you for having this interview with me.
[Searching through book for pictures of LST and amphibious tanks.]
[Interview 2]
M: When I first went over seas, I landed in Hollandia, New Guinea, was there at a receiving base and a short time, they put me on a old refrigeration ship and took me down to Milne Bay, which is the southern tip of New Guinea, and there I was on a supply ship, I went aboard there and I was working in the kitchen, I’m a radioman, but I hadn’t been assigned a ship yet permanently, so I was just there as a passenger and they wouldn’t allow me to just lay around so they had me working in the kitchen and I was with one of my buddies who we both went to radio school together in northwestern university It was a navy radio school, and we shipped out together, and we were on this, the old US Henry TL, it was a supply ship, and that’s where I was working in the kitchen, this ship was like a hardware store, it just anchored there in Milne Bay and ships all the navy ships if they needed part for all the different things, would come there and that ship would supply them with just about anything they needed, well one day a lieutenant came aboard and he told the master at arms at the quarter deck that he needed two radioman, well we were ready to get off that ship because both of us were working in the kitchen so we volunteered to go with him, we didn’t know if he was going on a ship or where, but it ended up he was commander of the Naval Beach Party 5 and when you say beach party you say beach party, in navy, you think of a beer bash where a bunch of people come together to have a party, well this is not what I mean by the naval beach party. Early in the WWII, it quickly became apparent that the orderly flow of troops and equipment and supplies across the assault beach was an absolutely essential element to the success of the amphibious operation, it also became obvious that some special organization was needed to effect and coordinate mass movement through the surf zone and into hostile shores, to accomplish this task, small units called Beach Party teams were formed, in the central pacific the shore party was the intricate part of combat division and was organized around the marine pioneer group or army combat engineer group, in both services army and marines the shore party formed the nucleus to which the various elements were assigned an operation. Naval elements included the underwater demolition team, a naval platoon unit, and boat patrol. The beach parties consisted of approximately 2 officers and about 30 men to support the landing troops, the beach party would land in the objective area and take charge of the beach in the manner similar to that of the present, but they would normally withdraw after the…after the operation was over they would withdraw. The concept was that the shore party was an instrument of the assault and would be relieved promptly by garrisoned elements including a garrisoned beach party to unload the following ships.
[095]
And our first landing when I joined the beach party, we went to Lingayen gulf, and made that operation, and on the way, was in a large convoy, of all kinds of ships, probably a thousand ships, and we had trouble with kamikaze planes, suicide planes, and one ship was hit broadside and the plane went right into a compartment and it killed about 60 sum soldiers, infantry men in that compartment, and they couldn’t stop because we were moving in convoy, so all they could do was close off that compartment and then after the assault landing was complete, this ship radioed to us, we were on the beach, and the tallies they were sending in, about 60 bodies, they would be in cargo nets, and so the army whose on shore with their bulldozers, they dug a big hole for us to burry these bodies, they brought them in on cargo nets, and the stench it was terrible, so that was part of our job, to make sure they were buried. And after the beach was secure, and we hit about eight o clock in the morning, we landed off a LCT and our doctor was with us and he was standing up on one of the tanks onboard, and we didn’t get all the way into the shore and we had to wade in up to our knees in the water and we worked all day on the beach, directing traffic, unloading stuff, the supplies, and at night, when we were getting ready to bed down, they told us to dig some foxholes, which I didn’t, and about that time, just about sundown, a Jap plane dove on us and dropped a bomb right on us, and our doctor was the only one in his foxhole and he got wounded, so they had to evacuate him right away.
S: When you first joined Beach Party 5, did you immediately set out for Lingayen Gulf?
M: No , we went up to Zanzibar, that’s the northern part of New Guinea, and we rendezvous with the army engineer group, that was going to make this Lingayen Gulf landing with, and while we were there we made two or three practice landing, we call them dry runs and then it was time to go. Then after, we were there around two or three o clock in the afternoon, General MacArthur came ashore, and I was standing there and watch him come in, in fact I’ve got a picture of him, I can see myself in the background, then we pulled out the next day, and we were put on a LST and we waited, we had to wait to go on the next operation, so we went from one ship to the next just waiting for orders. And we went for almost 6 months without being paid, or our mail, our mail couldn’t catch up with us and our pay records couldn’t catch up with us. We lived out of our jungle packs.
[139]
Then we finally got orders to go to Cebu City and we made that landing with the famous Americal Division.
S: Why were they famous?
M: it was the name of the army outfit called the Americal Division, and we, my group, we went there on a LST and when they got to the landing area, the LST anchored out on the shore and we boarded a duck, an amphibious truck and rode it into the shore, but before we went in, our army of amphibious tanks had already hit the beach, and they had already gotten blown up, some of them from aerial bombs that the Japs had sunk into the ground, and when these tanks would run over they would explode. And they claim that we lost about half of our tanks on that operation, but the Japs had already pulled back, so there wasn’t a whole lot of firing going on in that operation, so after the beach was secured we went by truck into Cebu City, because our landing was just north of the city, about 6 miles, so we went into the city, our whole group, it was about twenty five of us and we set up headquarters in a old burned out hotel room on the sea wall, and we were on the second floor and with our blinker lights, and radio we were able to direct ship traffic into the harbor so they could unload supplies.
S: Since you were in the heart of the city, could you also use the radio to intercept Japanese messages?
M: No, I didn’t.. I just stayed on the sea wall in that building, we didn’t go deep into the city, we just stayed there because we had to direct traffic to ships coming in and out and we had to do that until the regular naval, they call him port director, he was a navy commander, and he got there with his whole crew from the states, they came right there from the states to take over that job of controlling the traffic in the bay. So we left and at that time about half of our men had been overseas long enough to go home and they sent everybody back to the base, so the ones who had their time could go home, but six of us stayed behind because the navy captain asked if some of us could stay behind incase they wanted to make another landing, which they did, we stayed there for a couple more days and then we boarded an LCI and made a mop up landing on Negros island.
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S: How long were you in the islands before you moved on?
M: Well in Lingayen Gulf I was only there for two days, and in Cebu City we were there a little longer because we had to direct traffic for all the ships coming in and out, I’d say we were there for about three weeks and when we, after we hit Negros Island, then they sent us six back to the base because our base, while we were gone our base was moved to Milne Bay, New Guinea, to Cubic Bay, up to Luzon Island in the Philippines. So as soon as we gone done with these landing we went to our base in Cubic bay, and most of our young men went home on leave by the time I got there, and they brought in a bunch of new recruits to train because they told us our next landing was going to be the worst, it was going to be where everyone was our enemy, even the women, children, old folks, so we knew it was Japan. They put us through a lot of training, I learned to use a demolition, plastic explosives and dynamite, and I taught all the guys in my group how to use a radio incase anything happened to me, they could take over, and they in turn taught me their jobs.
S: When you were preparing for the big Japanese invasion, were you in Negros Island?
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M: No, we were preparing for the landing of Japan in Cubic Bay, in our base, and one evening when we were outside in our outside movie theater waiting for it to get dark so they could show the movie, they came across on the loudspeaker saying that we had dropped the a-bomb on Hiroshima. I didn’t know what an a-bomb was really, and then three days later, well they dropped the first a-bomb on Hiroshima, that was August 6th 1945, and then three days later, August the 9th they dropped one on Nagasaki, and then we didn’t have to make the assault landing, but we did make three occupational landings, we went to Japan and our job was to go into the different harbors and direct ship traffic with our radios and blinker lights and so on. So we did that in three different places, I forgot the… one harbor was on the Hokaito Island in Japan another was in Amori. But we were really glad the war had ended because, going to Japan , to assault, they were equipped to handle 80% casualties, they figured we would probably lose a million people and probably kill three million of the Japanese people, so it would be a real bloody thing, so I’m glad that president Harry Truman decided to drop the a-bomb, it could’ve saved our lives. 80,000 people killed at Hiroshima, and 35,000 at Nagasaki.
S: Any scary moments you can recall?
M: Yeah there were all kinds of scary moments, in landing you know.
S: Any more memorable scary moments?
M: Well when I was going in to Cebu City, and seeing those tanks in front of me getting blown up with those aerial bombs it kind of scared me, we had to drive up on the beach too, we could’ve hit one of those things too, but we didn’t, we just set up on the beach and directed the landing from there.
S: How does the general radio work and how do you set it up?
M: Well I carried a little walkie-talkie, and then our Senior Radioman, he had a larger radio that had a antenna, he could transmit maybe twenty miles away, we would converse with the ships out in the harbor, if the army, the assault troops needed supplies, they could call us, and we knew what ship had what, and we could call the ship and tell them to bring that stuff in. We’d see it was delivered to the infantry.
S: Which assault landing was the hardest for you?
M: Cebu City was the hardest.
S: Reason?
M: Because of that, we didn’t know if our next step would be our last, or all those land mines were. And then, that first evening, at Negros, at Cebu City I was sent down to the flank of the beach to observe and see that everything was being unloaded ok, and no problems. There were LSTs in front of me, there were about six of them, up on the beach unloading, and a Jap plane came over us and dropped a bomb, fortunately it didn’t hit either one of the ships, it landed in between, but I had a fox hole dug behind me, and I had my radio set up on of this Filipino boat, upside down and when that plane came over I started to back up so I could get into my fox hole and I looked back and there were two soldiers that had already beaten me to it, I was left out there to the open, but it was no problem, the plane just came, dropped that one bomb and took off.
S: Did you ever have a problem with typhoons?
M: Yes, on our way from northern Japan, after we had made three occupational landings in Japan, they put us on a flag ship to take us down to Yokohama, which is down south, and on the way we hit a typhoon of about 130 miles per hour winds, we had a destroyer ahead of us and on our portside we had a small patrol craft, and the waves were so high and the wind was blowing water, you couldn’t see.
S: How big were the waves?
M: The waves would be anywhere from fifty to sixty feet high, fortunately the ship I was on was a flag ship, it was a big ship, it had, It was the ship that controlled that area, as far as all the landings , yeah it was a big ship.
S: How was the general weather around Cebu and Negros?
M: It was warm, and we had some rain but it wasn’t all that bad.
S: Was it hard wearing the army gear and trekking?
M: Well you see after we hit the beach we would take off all that gear, we would just stay there and do our job on the beach, we would run around in our short sleeves, so that helped.
S: What about the bugs? Did you have to carry around anti-bug spray?
M: yeah, but our hospital took care of that for us, if we got sick or got cut or anything like that they would take care of us, you see we carried around a doctor with us, and three hospital foreman, they were compliment to a nurse, they knew very well about wrapping wounds and stopping the blood, if anyone got hurt.
S: How does it feel like to make a landing?
M: Well, I was always concerned about what was going to be there, but fortunately, at Lingayen Gulf, before we landed, the battle ships and the destroyers and cruisers, they were out about 5, 6 miles and we lobbing shells at the beach and bombarded the beach, and by the time we landed with the infantry, the Japs had already pulled back they weren’t there waiting on us, they got out of there, and you can imagine two hundred pounds bombs.
S: Is there anything else you would like to add about your feelings in WWII?
M: Well one sad thing that I experienced in the convoy going to Lingayen Gulf, we were plagued with these kamikaze planes, suicide planes, and our ship, I was on a big LSD, fortunately we weren’t hit, but a ship on our starboard bow was hit with one of these kamikaze planes and the next day we were up on deck, we watched them burry, they put 20 some bodies over the side, sea burial, but them in canvas bags with weights in them so they would drop right away. We counted twenty bodies over the side, that was kind of sad, but when they brought the, after we secured the beach, they brought those sixty some bodies out on the cargo nets, that was sad, arms and legs sticking out.. it was a horrible mess, all they could say was their dog tags, their identification, that was a little chain they wear around their neck.
S: Did you know any of them?
M: No, they were all on the other ship, they were all army who got killed.
S: Does this cover everything that we missed previously?
M: Yeah just about, lets see, no I think that’s about it. She wanted me to talk about the various crafts. See being in the amphibious fleet the ships that we traveled on were all amphibious type vessels, and our admiral was Admiral Barby, he was a navy admiral in the first world war, very knowledgeable, he was a good boss, he took care of us, made sure we had everything we needed, and when we were close to Australia he let us go after a landing, he let us go on rest leave. That’s about it I think.
