Mr. Daryl Dean Stemen
[b. 11/02/26]
Recorded on 10/07/07
[Interview starts at 001 on counter]
Victoria Merkle: Today is October 7, 2007. I am Victoria Merkle and I am interviewing Mr. Daryl Dean Stemen at 15909 Bridgewater Club Blvd., Carmel, Indiana. Mr. Stemen is my grandfather. Mr. Stemen is 81 years old and was born on November 2, 1926. Mr. Stemen served in World War II. Mr. Stemen was in the Army and achieved the rank of a buck sergeant.
VM: Were you drafted or did you enlist?
Dean Stemen: I was drafted. I got one of those fancy letters from the government that said “greetings your friends and neighbors have selected you.”
VM: Where were you living at the time?
DS: I was living in a big town in the northwest corner of Ohio, and name of the little town was Grover Hill.
VM: How old were you when you were drafted?
DS: I just turned 18.
VM: Why did you pick the Army?
DS: Well, I didn’t have much of a choice they didn’t ask me what I would like to do. They said you’re in the Army.
VM: Do you recall your first days in service?
DS: Yes I sure do. This is an old country boy who took his first ride on a greyhound bus from Paulding, Ohio clear over to Indiana which was very unusual. From there I went into the service (I can’t remember the name of the fort). Camp Atterbury – and I got my first shots that I ever had – one in each arm.
VM: What kind of shots were they?
DS: Well, I wasn’t really sure just what they were, but I think it was for cholera and just any kind of disease you could possibly get.
VM: Where were you trained?
DS: I was trained at Camp Atterbury for awhile then we got transferred and I ended up in Camp Fanning, Texas. Right up in the very northeast corner it was like Tyler, Texas. They even had oil wells right down the middle of the street.
VM: What time of year was it?
DS: This was in February. It was pretty cold up there.
VM: What did it feel like?
DS: What did it feel like? The weather, it was a lot different than it was in Grover Hill.
VM: Tell me about your boot camp training experience.
DS: Well that was really something. They try to get you so you are really tough. And after about six weeks they check you out and see how tough they made you. The first thing we had to do was take a ten mile hike and we had to wear our steel helmets, the first time we ever had to wear them on a march. And I ended up with a knot on top of my head that my helmet made that I wasn’t used to. And they wouldn’t let us take it off until we got back. That thing really gets heavy in ten miles.
VM: What was different about boot camp?
DS: Boot camp? There was - we had some tough sergeants. Our platoon sergeant was a mean old guy. We come to a creek and instead of walking across a bridge he walked us right down through the water and up the other side. That way you got your shoes nice and wet and your pants. I guess that made us tough.
VM: Did you know anyone else in your unit?
DS: I never saw a guy I ever knew any place. I made a lot of friends. Really there was nobody from home. Even while I was overseas I never met anybody.
VM: Were you homesick?
DS: Well, not right away. It didn’t take too long. About the first Christmas I got homesick.
VM: How did you get through it?
DS: Well, I hate to admit it, but I would go down to the PX and drink beer and just go back and go to sleep. The guys that took off and decided to go home got in too much trouble and I wasn’t going to do that.
VM: Were you allowed to go home on furlough?
DS: At the end of the first training session, yes, I had a ten day pass and rode a bus out of Tyler, Texas to Van Wert, Ohio.
VM: Did you graduate from high school before you entered boot camp?
DS: Yes, ma’am.
VM: Which years did you serve? Which wars did you serve in?
DS: This was in World War II.
VM: Where exactly did you go?
DS: Well, I started out after I got through basic training, I ended up in Oregon, then we went down to Portland. We went right downtown and got on the ship and headed out to the Pacific Ocean. Nobody knew for sure where we were going. I spent thirty days on that ship and never got off. We stopped at Hawaii and the sailors got off and they were going to try out those little ships that we were supposed to get on and make a beachhead with. The first one they took off the ship was had two sailors in it and they sat them down in the water and the crazy thing sunk before they could even get it started. It made everybody just a little bit leery about getting off on these things.
VM: Did you get sick on the ship?
DS: Yes, ma’am I did. The first day was great. We was a going out the Columbia River and you could see the bank on both sides and I thought, “Boy, this is going to be a pud.” And this old APA ship we were on had a thousand GIs and five hundred sailors and they were taking these sailors someplace and going to get rid of them, too. An APA ship is an Army Personnel Attack – that is where they got the name. And the bow was seventy-two feet out of the water. We were standing up on the weather deck enjoying it for the first day and the second day it started getting rough and the third day the bow was taking on water. So the front end of the ship was going down seventy-two inches, seventy-two feet and then coming right back up You would start up the steps and barely get your feet going and then it would start back down and you would start running before you knew it. Everybody had to stand up to eat and it was just a long table in the ship and people were standing on both sides eating and this thing was going seventy-two feet up and down and your mess kit would start one way and the next thing you know your cup was going the other and you’re grabbing things. I was getting kind of woozy and I was doing all right until the guy across the table from me threw up on his plate and that’s when I lost my cookies.
VM: Did you have any jobs on the ship?
DS: No, it was a job just to stay on it. It wasn’t what you would call a pleasure ride at all.
VM: Do you know what route you took?
DS: Well, we weren’t real sure where we were going. First off, we stopped there at Hawaii and we were there for the biggest share of the day and then we took off again and the next thing I know we were going past islands and everybody was trying to think where we were going to get off. We go past Leyte - no way - we kept right on going. There were a bunch of small islands we got by and then in about two days we ended up in Manila. And we got off the ship out in the middle of the bay in twenty foot swells and crawled down a rope ladder on the side of the ship into one of these LCIs. And the minute your feet touched you wanted to run to the back end of the ship cuz otherwise it was going back up twenty feet. There was an occasionally that you would see some guy hanging by his feet on the rope ladder. And that steel helmet on the steel deck when it goes back up makes a funny noise. And it makes you think that your necks’ going to break. After this, thirty days on that ship and actually one morning we had beans for breakfast. And we did have some bread and you’d hold the bread up to the light and there were little black specks in it. And somebody wanted to know what this was and he said, “Those are bugs in the flour but they have been cooked. Don’t worry about it - eat it.” So then I did get a job. I was passing out sea rations. I passed them all out and didn’t keep one for myself like a stoop. We finally got aboard this ship and got into the bank and they took us out to a place that - a rice patty and said this is where we’re going to set the tents up. You guys get to work and set the tent up. We’ll see if we can’t find something to eat. Well first off they had to build a mess kit – a mess hall – so we’d have a place to eat. And we did get a twelve man tent set up, but I – we found some bananas and we ate quite a few bananas. For a couple days, that is. Finally, they got some food in to us. It wasn’t - after that it wasn’t all bad.
VM: What was your job assignment at Manila?
DS: Well, we got transferred in to a motor company – a trucking company and we were hauling things from the ship down at the piers in the different places. We hauled all kinds of things. I had to haul mattresses one day. We hauled them to a medical depot. And they had a little Korean, a little Filipino who was on guard duty and it was very hot. And he said, “would you like something to drink?” And I said, “I don’t know.” You have to use your canteen because I’ve got dry ice in mine. So he poured about an inch in my canteen and I drank it and it was good and cold and tasted like velvet. It went down easy. I got down, unloaded my mattresses and went back to the ship and I passed out. The mosquitoes ate me up. I had fingers was about that big around and I couldn’t hardly let go of the steering wheel. I finally got straightened out and I had a load of mattresses back at the same place and the same little Filipino was standing there and said do you want another drink and I said, “No, thanks.” It gave me the cure real quick.
VM: Do you know what it was?
DS: What it was. Yeah, I found out what it was later. It was medical alcohol – 150 proof and he had it mixed with grapefruit juice. It was very tasty. You couldn’t taste the alcohol, but it worked.
VM: Did you see any combat in Manila?
DS: No. I saw where a lot of combat had taken place. Walled City was a big thing in Manila and it was all blowed up. The American people would never believe the things that we saw there. There were homes destroyed. Kids running around half dressed, hungry and they would give anything for something to eat. Actually the kids did all the black marketing. The parents they wouldn’t even do anything. The kids would dicker on the price of cigarettes. And they were little thieves. They would pick your pocket while you were selling them a pack of cigarettes. So you got smart you know, we thought we could outsmart them and made them sorry that they ever pick pocketed us. So we got to sawing up wood and put it in a pack of cigarettes and we’d fold it back up and it looked like a full pack of cigarettes. Well we got a couple of times we would sell it for twenty bucks a pack but they got smart, too. They wouldn’t buy them unless you would hold them up and look.
VM: What year were you in Manila?
DS: 1945. I spent about six months, seven or eight months there and then I got transferred.
VM: Where were you transferred and what was your job assignment?
DS: Well, I got transferred to Korea. We left Manila and it was 85 or 90 in the daytime and cool down to about 75 at night. We got on board ship and seven days later we were in Seoul, Korea where it was cold, very cold, below 0 and this is the first time I ever had my long johns on, full underwear, I couldn’t believe it. And we slept in tents the first two nights. I had everything I had on trying to keep warm. I slept with shoes and everything on.
VM: What was your job assignment?
DS: I got transferred in to the signal corps and we were actually guarding an air base there – I can’t think of the name of the air base, but they had a lot of planes coming in and out of there. There’s a lot of P-38s flying out of there every day – they were flying to Japan and back.
VM: What’s a P 38?
DS: A P 38 is a plane that is pretty hard to even explain. There’s two bodies to them and the thing that always made me interested is that it had two Rolls Royce engines on it and it could you had to go ninety miles an hour or it wouldn’t even stay in the air they’d just pancake, but they could go right straight up and just keep going. Those things - that was a fast plane in its day.
VM: Were they bombers?
DS: These were bombers. They had small bombs on them. They did a lot of fighting in the air also.
VM: Did you see any combat here?
DS: I never really saw what you would call combat. We had a lot of different things happen to us that was kind of strange. One day we were sitting and playing cards and one of the guys was laying face down on his bunk which was an old canvas that was our beds – and something went “ping” and dust came up off the bed and there was a board that goes across over the canvas and they said well it was probably ammunition that was all over the place and probably the sun set it off and that evening they were down at the mess hall and there was a tin roof on it and there were about thirty rounds that went through that tin roof and they said hey, the sun’s not shining. Something’s going on. When we were at the bottom of the mountain, there was a couple of Japs that didn’t realize that the war was over so they got picked up.
VM: When was the war over?
DS: When was the war over? Let’s see, 1945 – about 1945. We were supposed to be the seventh people to make a landing in Japan and we were to leave Korea and go to Japan and make a beachhead. The only beach I ever made was in Manila with a full field pack on my back. No rifle, even.
VM: Why didn’t you go to Japan?
DS: I didn’t get to go to Japan. I had an R and R to go to Japan and I finally got my papers to go home. We had a lot of Japanese prisoners in Korea and we used them as work details. When I first got to Korea, the boy scouts was running the city because the Japanese had been there for thirty-three years and when the war was over the Japs all took off and tried to get out of there before the Koreans would eat them up. They were driving on the left side of the road and they didn’t have gas stations. The vehicles that the Koreans were driving were fueled by a stove on the back of these little three wheeled cars that formed the gas that ran the vehicles, that the vehicle ran on. Even the trucks. Like an old farm truck they’d have it clear full of wood if they were going to take a trip in that truck – keep the fire going and keep making gas. It was weird – really backwards.
VM: Tell me a couple of your most memorable experiences.
DS: Well, that one where the bullet went into the guy’s bed. I was sitting in the next bed. That’s kind of an experience you don’t want to have again. We had a big party one time and there was a three piece band setting up in the corner like a little hayloft, and this guy had just reenlisted, got his [?] pay, 300 bucks and he thought he’d throw a party for everybody. We were sitting at a round table, twelve of us. I’m sitting here by the door – an old screen door - this was a crappy place. And the waitress said something about she’d like to have her money. This guy was drunk and he got up and broke everything off the tables and I looked up at the band and there was a guy with a 45 looking right at me and I’m looking in the end of this thing and I wondered if I could make it out of the screen door before he could pull the trigger and I didn’t know. I started out the door and two GI’s picked me up – MPs, and brought me back in and said what’s up – well, the guy’s got a gun and they immediately cleaned the band off and got the gun and while they were doing all the interviews, us twelve filtered out through the door and were gone and so our party stopped.
VM: Do you have any other memorable experiences?
DS: Yes. While we were in Korea we had a couple days off and there was two jeeps full of people and we started to go up north and we went to a couple of places where you couldn’t get through because we were all in the signal corps and we lied to them and told them we were checking the lines. So we got clear up to the 38th Parallel which was a no-no. Well, there was a big river there and we had to cross it to get on the other side. Of course we had to go on the other side because it was a place where you shouldn’t go and we could have got shot even on the side we were on. But anyhow, we had a boat there that would take us off but it was all done by hand. They would go upstream and then float down and go across and it was just an old barge and that’s what it was, no motor or anything on it. They couldn’t get up close to the bank on the other side so we decided we’d just get the jeep running there – we had two jeeps on it. That was the size. So the first one started to go and when he got stopped about that much of the windshield was sticking out and the rest of it was under water. So we got smart and we thought well we’d take the other jeep and we turned the boat around and we’d back off that way maybe we could get up and keep the motor dry until we could get on the bank. We finally got it going and one of the guys said let’s take the fan belt off to keep from bringing the water up with the fan belt. So we finally started out and the guy was going as fast as he could go backwards and we got up within five feet of the bank before he got stuck and we all got off and started pulling. We pulled it out and we had some ropes with us anyhow so we tied it on the other one and we pulled it out and we let it set there. Well, while we were there we decided to go swimming too. So we went swimming for a little bit, of course we had some drinks, and we started to go on up and one of the outfits that was guarding that area warned us that if we went on any farther we would probably be shot, so we decided we better head back. So we go back through all that crap again to get back on the other side of the river and while we are going back, the water was in the transmission and the rear end and it was boiling up – it was a mess – we had grease everyplace. When we got back we about got in trouble and the old company commander found out where we had been because they had called him and warned him next time somebody shows up they were going to get shot. So that was a memorable experience I’d like to forget.
VM: Who was guarding the 38th parallel?
DS: Who was guarding it? It was all Russian people. There was a lot of Chinese Russians.
VM: When you were in the signal corps, what kind of signals did you receive?
DS: We would receive everything that was supposed to been secret. We had all these people that were FBI and they would go out and we would interview all these people going around and they would send all these messages back to the office. And it would be strictly secret service stuff and the ones we would always like to read was the “Eyes Only” which would be for a general someplace which was a no-no.
VM: Were you awarded any medals or citations?
DS: Oh, yes. I got some medals like most people did. The “good boy” message, medal like everybody did. I had a good rifle message - medal. Probably the best medal I had were my dog tags.
VM: Do you still have them?
DS: Yes, ma’am, I sure do. I even remember my number: 35858257. And I remember my first rifle. I set the sights seventeen notches up and three to the right. That was unusual. ____ [inaudible] I fired 181 out of 200 – so that wasn’t too bad. In three positions: standing, sitting and crawling.
VM: Did you ever get to fire your weapon when you were in Manila or Korea?
DS: Did I fire a weapon? In Michigan, I got to fire a gas job. It was a thing that fit up on your back that had a tank of gas and a tank of air and it had a nozzle out the front that burners on it pulled the trigger. It had two triggers like a nickel-nosed shot gun. First off you could shoot it and shoot gas that would stick on the side of the building then you set off the igniter set it on fire and you could burn a house down in nothing flat. They teach you to make it in a ball and run it through a pipe and you did that for bunkers. If you came up on a bunker, you could ball of fire right inside the bunker.
VM: How did you stay in touch with your family?
DS: Strictly by letter writing.
VM: Did you send your family letters and pictures?
DS: Yes, I sent pictures home. Different times.
VM: Did your family send you letters or pictures?
DS: Oh, yes. My sister, at Christmas time, she would can fudge and send it for Christmas. And I would always share the nuts with the rest of the guys. She would go uptown there and they had a canning factory and then she would have the stuff canned up in cans. I had a little can opener in my hand so I could always open them up.
VM: How many Christmas’s did you spend in the service?
DS: I spent two in the service.
VM: What was the food like?
DS: Our food wasn’t the greatest in the world. Basic training wasn’t too bad. On the weekends in basic training there were cold cuts. It was kind of like having a picnic every Sunday. When I was overseas, the food wasn’t that great. One thing we lacked was green stuff. We had no salads and no milk. And when we wanted we could get coconut milk. I tried caribou milk one time and I made a decision not to try that again.
VM: Did you eat local food?
DS: Occasionally we would and one time I ate a pear in Korea. And they looked funny. Outside was pockmarked all over, so I peeled the outside of it and I ate it and it was very good. I said to one of the guys there who had been there quite a while, why does the pear look like that with the pock marks all over it. And he said, “don’t you know what they fertilize with here?” And I said no – human waste and they poured down a hole beside the tree and that’s how they grew the big pears. That was the end of my pear eating.
VM: How did the Koreans or Filipinos treat the Americans?
DS: They were glad to see the Americans. The Americans freed them from a lot of crap they had been going through. The Filipinos were really bombed out – they were just blowed all to pieces. There was one section of Manila that was all Russian and it was never bombed out in there. No damage whatsoever. The Walled City was just completely torn up. You could drive a semi right through the wall.
VM: Did you have plenty of supplies?
DS: Yes. We always had plenty of ammunition and supplies. Food was a little short, but other than that, not bad.
VM: Did you feel pressure or stress?
DS: Well, we was stressed out most of the time because you did not know if there was someone behind you that was looking to do something or not. So we walked around thinking pretty much on the idea that anything could happen.
VM: Were you worried about being shot or captured?
DS: I was never too worried about being captured, I was more worried about getting shot. I would rather be half shot any time than shot.
VM: Was there something you did for “good luck”?
DS: For good luck. I don’t know. I guess prayed a little.
VM: Did you attend any religious services?
DS: Yes. We had religious services every Sunday.
VM: What was a typical day like in Manila?
DS: A typical day in Manila? Manila was pretty much a busy, busy place. People were going every place. Like I said it was weird because they had a lot of trolleys running and I saw more people get run over there then I did anyplace. They had no sense of speed. When people would stand on the street corner and would walk right in front of you. The guys on bicycles, if they got hit, the first thing they worried about was the cigarette they had. The bike could be all bent to pieces and that was alright because they could get another bike. Cigarettes were very important to them.
VM: What was a typical day like in Korea?
DS: Korea was a lot different. It was weird. When we first got to Korea, the boy scouts were running the city. They had like nine foot poles and these guys were hanging on the sides of these trolleys and they would run the pole underneath someone and pop them off side of the trolley. That is how a lot of people got run over, too. One of the things they had in Korea was they had an election. It was very dangerous. People were getting shot. One day, we had martial law. They were all notified to stay off the street and if you were caught on the street you were taking your life in your own hands and you could get shot. It was the first time I ever saw the street bare. There was no people there.
VM: How did the martial law impact you?
DS: Well it put us pretty busy. We were on the streets and we were going up and down the streets. We had spots where you stood and stayed there. You kept people off the streets. Everything got quiet and got settled down and it was okay.
VM: Where did you sleep?
DS: We had rooms in an old school house and then I made buck sergeant and platoon sergeant and there was a little four room house on the edge of the school house where the officers stayed so I stayed there. We had a pool and everything. Before I got to that place, there was twenty-four guys in this one room, one school room and twenty-four bunks. It was a mess.
VM: Did the officers have different lodging?
DS: Oh yes. They had nicer quarters. They had nicer restaurants. They had all kinds of things that were nicer than ours.
VM: What did you do when you were on guard duty?
DS: Well, it was all according to what your rank was to what you would do. A lot of times it would be a sergeant and a guard would just be there making sure that everybody got to their guard positions and got relieved on time.
VM: How did people entertain themselves?
DS: Well, there was a lot of guys that took a lot of pictures and different things you could do. Most of the time when a guy had time off he would be sitting on his bunk writing a letter home.
VM: Were there entertainers?
DS: One time there was some entertainment. I mean some actual people. But we did have (?) pretty regular. I did get to see Jack Benny and he played the violin for us.
VM: What did you do when on leave?
DS: When I went on leave? Well, we go to different places and do different things. When I was in the states I would go back home and spent ten days at home.
VM: While in Korea, did you use Korean currency?
DS: Yep. We could use dollars but most of the time we used yen and sen. And like I was telling you then, they counted funny: they’d say ten yen, but instead of twenty, two ten yen, three ten yen for thirty. It was always in tens.
VM: Where did you travel while in the service?
DS: Where did I travel? Well, most of the time I was overseas. When we were in Manila, I did have some time off. The Navy had a PT boat down there and they could take us out to Corrigador. And we’d go souvenir hunting in Corrigador and we were crawling in and out of foxholes, caves. And the Japanese had everything camouflaged and you could be standing right next to, within 5 feet of a 28 mm pompon gun and never see it. And we found a bunch of money back in one cave and we thought we were living. The only bad thing was that it was Japanese money and it had parachutes on it. That’s you could tell the bad money. Of course, Back in the cave you couldn’t see anything all you could see was it was money and until you got out in the sunshine, you couldn’t see that it had parachutes on it and was bad. Talking about the gun that shoots gas and flames, all the piles of bones in Corrigador was like burnt. But when you are standing on Corrigador you can see across the water and see the Death March on the island across the bay. At one time, they had the biggest seaport for airplanes there in Corrigador. That was very popular in its day. And speaking of Manila, Manila was the most beautiful city in the world at one time. When we saw it, it was completely destroyed. And you think about, boy, if the people back home would realize how things would look there if they got bombed back home, they would have a mess.
VM: Did you pick up any souvenirs?
DS: Yeah. I found one souvenir when we were in Corrigador. I got back in there and I found a brand new Japanese rifle still in the ____[crate?]
VM: Do you still have it?
DS: Yes, I knew some of the guys back at camp and I put it in a box for me and I shipped it back home and I still have it.
VM: Do you recall any particularly humorous or unusual events?
END OF SIDE ONE,
SIDE TWO
VM: Were there any women in your unit?
DS: No women in our unit. The only units that had women in it was the WACs that I can remember, in the Air Force. That’s where the name WACs came from.
VM: What were some of the pranks that you or others would pull?
DS: Pranks? It used to be a lot of fun to make ribbons for the officers and on their jackets would be hanging there, we used to sneak a ribbon on and that surprised them. This one guy was a real nice “90 day wonder” and we all enjoyed him because he had a Purple Heart, too. And he always bragged about he fell through a barbed wire fence and that’s how he got his Purple Heart. So we made him this black ribbon. It had a big gold star on it. He said, “boy the other officers really like my ribbon, What kind of ribbon is that anyhow?” We said it was a “bm” ribbon - “bm” - what is that? Black Market. He immediately took his ribbon off. He didn’t want to be accused of that.
VM: Do you have any photographs?
DS: Yes, I do. I had some sent home. Some people were nice enough to keep them.
VM: At the end of the interview, we will have you identify some people in the photographs. Do you have any clothing or other mementos?
DS: I still got my Army jacket. I showed it to your mother. It had my sergeant stripes on the sleeve, a couple of drill stripes down the sleeve, signal corps patch, South Pacific patch. I even had a couple of medals hanging on it. It doesn’t fit anymore. I forgot to tell you that.
VM: What did you think of officers or fellow soldiers?
DS: The officers? We had good officers. The best ones you could always have were the young ones that came out of West Point. They were really sharp. And the older officers were real gentlemen. We had an old colonel who maybe it would be raining and you would have to sit down in the rain. It didn’t bother him a bit, he would sit right down there beside you. One time we were out on the rifle range shooting BARs (?) and those clips on a BAR(?) were very sensitive. You get a little bit of sand in them and you would put it back up in the chamber. So you had a single shot instead of an automatic. That was one thing nobody wanted to carry was a BAR because ____[Browning Automatic Rifle] + Somebody would go, brrrr and ____+ Those had a handle on them up in front by the barrel so you wouldn’t get burned because you could shoot a couple clips right through it, fast and they would get red. So a guy would ____+ It was bad news. Ruin a gun. A piece. Nobody had a gun, everybody had a piece. There was a different language in the service. Nothing was the same. And like I say, for being an old country boy it was weird,.
VM: Did you keep a personal diary?
DS: No, I didn’t. I never got around to doing that. I started one one time but it got to be where it was a challenge to even try to keep it.
VM: Do you recall the day your service ended?
DS: Yes. There was a little bit screwed up. I had telephone orders to go down and appear for this ship that was in. In Korea, there was a 38-foot tide, so the ships that came in had to be there at a certain time and they had to leave at a certain time, and if you didn’t get down where you were supposed to be and missed the ship, you had to wait til the next one. I was there in plenty of time and there were two of us left out that didn’t get on. So we had to go back. The old cook said if you re-enlist for 60 days you’ll be a master sergeant and I said where I’m going, the stripes don’t count. What do you want me to do? He said why don’t you go down and help the cooks. So I went down and started making ice cream. And I like maple ice cream. And I had maple tablets to put in the ice cream. I had it so maple that nobody wanted to eat it but me. So I guess that would be a prank like you was thinking about.
VM: What did you do in the days or weeks afterward?
DS: After work?
VM: After your service ended.
DS: After I got home. Let’s see, I went to work for Lima Locomotive in Lima, Ohio. They were building different things for the service yet.
VM: Did you make any close friendships while in the service?
DS: Not really. I had a couple of guys that I was pretty close to. One lived up in Anderson and he had an accident and passed away and one up in Northern part of Indiana got killed in an automobile accident.
VM: Did you join a veterans’ organization?
DS: Yes. My mother signed me up for the VFW when I was in Manila and then I joined the American Legion when I got home. I still belong to both.
VM: What did you go on to do as a career after the war?
DS: Well I started a couple different businesses. I finally ended up being a salesman on the road.
VM: How did your service and experience affect your life?
DS: Well it made you appreciate home a lot. And families.
VM: Do you think that the draft should be reinstituted?
DS: I think it would be a good idea. I really do. There’s a lot of young guys that don’t have any guidance, never had any really had any good guidance. I think it’s a good thing for them to know how to be on their own.
VM: Tell me about your family or siblings?
DS: My family. Well, I got three kids, pretty nice ones. And I have got some nice grandkids.
VM: Do you have any siblings?
DS: Any siblings? Yeah, I got three of them. Well, there’s about five all together, I guess.
VM: Were your brothers in the service?
DS: I had two brothers in the service. One was in Germany and one was in Italy. The one in Germany got wounded on Christmas Day in the Battle of the Bulge. And the one in Italy ended up in the hospital with jungle rot. I don’t know how he got jungle rot. I thought I was the only one who would get jungle rot. And they both ended up in the same hospital in England. And there was actually four guys from this little town, Grover Hill, that ended up in that same hospital in England.
VM: Is there anything you would like to add that we have not covered in this interview?
DS: No, I can’t think of anything else.
VM: Thank you.
DS: You’re welcome.
End of Interview
VM: Now we’re going to look through some pictures and documents and I’m going to have you identify them. Number one.
DS: Well, this number one, that’s my first appearance as a doughboy. That was after basic training in Texas. I don’t know if you notice it or not, but that jacket I have on is a three quarter length, that’s before they came out with the short ones. That’s the old time jacket, but that’s the one I wore.
VM: Number 1 a.
DS: Replacement School Command. That is my big certificate that I got at the training center in Camp Fanning, Texas.
VM: It says “specially qualified for rifleman.”
DS: Oh yeah. That was my little, one of my little badges I got.
VM: Number two.
DS: That was old skinny me getting suntanned in Manila.
VM: Number 6 or number 4.
DS: Number 4 is my brother and I was home on furlough at the same time.
VM: Number 3.
DS: That’s the – where I stayed as an officer in Korea and there’s our pool.
VM: Oh yeah.
DS: OK?
VM: Number 5.
DS: This is a twelve man tent. We just – no it isn’t. This is a house. This is a house in Korea that was across the street. Real close to this one up here. Probably the same one.
VM: Number 6.
DS: That was me when I was, I was kinda green, I mean I was the color green. I had been taking Adderban(?) pills aboard that ship for thirty days, every meal I was taking an Adderban (?) pill. This, I had time off and I was downtown Manila and the second lieutenant said, “how long you been here?” and I said, “I had only been here about two weeks.” He said, “man, you been taking Adderban (?) pills?” and I said, “Yeah, I have.” He said, “how many you taking?” I said, “I been taking them every day, every meal.” He said, “man,” he said, “you’d better quit or they’ll make you sterile.” So I quit taking them. It took Adderban pills to keep from getting malaria. That’s my brother Floyd, and myself, and my mom, in Grover Hill, right beside Stemen’s Restaurant.
VM: Number 9.
DS: This is my brother, myself and another guy that got shot in Germany. They shot two tanks out from under him, Art Horning.
VM: Number 10. Those look like tents.
DS: Yea. Those were the tents we slept in when we first got to Manila. Those are twelve men tents. See how the tents pull out and we had shelves built out for storage. But it was so hot there all the time that we had air going through them to keep them cool.
VM: Number 11. Oh, it’s the same, just a different guy.
DS: Yeah, that’s a different guy. That’s, I think that’s old strat(?) bean. He and I used to box. He was a street fighter and he went like a pass at me and I ducked and he said, “don’t do that. And he said, “that’s how you get hit.” And he did it the other way and I ducked and he hit me in the middle of the (?) I couldn’t see very good. I went down to take a shower and I looked in the mirror and both eyes were closed. And he was apologizing and he said he hated that and I said, “yea, so did I.” There’s a little Filipino that we had. He was a barber that came around. He’d shave you for a buck and when he shaved you he shaved your forehead and down under your eyes. One time you’d get a shave and that was it. You never asked him to shave you again. You’d get a haircut, but no shave.
VM: Number 13.
DS: Well, that’s a my brother and my mother, and the same one here. We’ve seen these three. And this is my brother and I when I was home on furlough. Number 14. That was a - my old Chevrolet. I had that when I went in the service and I gave it to my mom to drive. The first time she drove it, she drove over to my brother’s house that didn’t go into the service and he had a fireplug out in front of his house and she drove right into – bang – and hit it. I asked her why did you hit it and she said, “I don’t know. I said, “did you put the brakes on?” and she said, “no.” and I said, “Oh, that’s why you hit it.” OK?
VM: Number 16.
DS: This was in the service that I went to and I got presented the flowers to somebody and this is (?) again, the same guy. And there’s our whole unit. That’s a battalion.
VM: Thank you.
DS: 85th Signal Corp. This is a party that we had. A dance. I was invited, October 2, 1946, 8:00 in the evening and they had a special band, an Army band that played and they did a nice job. There weren’t any women there. I don’t know what I was going to the dance for. Well, the officer’s wives, they were there. What’s that? My permit?
VM: Yeah. Says they crossed out everything besides a truck. It says Cargo.
DS: That’s when I was 16. When you were driving with somebody that was when you were supposed to drive with so I drove my mother around when we took a 1940 census in a 1927 Buick.
VM: sneezes.
DS: Bless you.
VM: Thank you. It says Class A pass.
DS: Yep. That’s the first pass I got. It has my number 35858257. You don’t forget those things. This was a special thing right here – Cy Young – this was in Grover Hill and this is my brother Ollie. He’s the one that got wounded in Germany. And this is Korean people. I was invited over to a house one time and I think this is the people I was invited to. You took your shoes off outside and you squatted down to the table. And that’s the first time I ever had sake and that really hit you. They had a little fire under. We had been drinking out of little Seven Up bottles Man that stuff they had. I ate a bunch of stuff and I didn’t know what I ate. I enjoyed it and I got out of there and got home. This one’s in Manila. You know I am not sure I know what this is. That is a Korean
This is all Korea. This is some kids. These kids would stand in line you take your mess kit up and get cans out of the kitchen and they would take this home and feed their families. It was a bad deal.
These – I don’t know if you would see this top and then they wore dresses and in the winter time they would pull them up over their boobs. Ok? And they’d have a little top on and in the summer they’d pull them under their boobs. They were kind of weird. Here’s a little day school, the one the closest. It was a weird country. You remember Karl, this is Rodney. If you remember Rodney, Francie. How about Karl Price? This is I think that was in Graywater Texas. They had oil rigs right down the streets. Weird, weird place. There’s one of my jeeps. When I made the – I think I was just a pfc at the time. Look at the side on his arm – I can’t see it. I was a platoon sergeant, T5 and if I was going to be a platoon sergeant, I didn’t want to be a T5, I wanted to be a sergeant And that was a big deal.
VM: Where is this?
DS: That was in Manila. Is that it?
