Interview with Mr. William Polzin
Interviewed by Alex Leopold, Andrew Pauszek and Kathryn Lerch
Recorded on
Transcribed on 7/7/08 - 7/10/08 by Shirley Gaughan
Alex Leopold: ... at Park Tudor School and we are interviewing on the right, Mr. William Polzin and on the left, Mr. William Hill. The interviewers are myself, Alex Leopold and Andrew Pauzek.
Mr. Polzin: We understand that you're part of the 96th Division at both Leyte and Okinawa. Could we start with you describing your role at Leyte?
Bill Polzin: Well, I was a medic at both places and I was with a rifle company on Leyte. Luckily, I got sick, so I missed the first part of the Okinawa campaign, which is why I'm still alive, I'm sure. He [Bill Hill] thinks I saw the whole thing but I didn't. I got sick for a while.
Bill Hill: He got sick for a while, but he still had a lot of good experiences, because he was a medic and I was back a lot further than he was.
Interviewer: What was the actual landing at Leyte like?
BP: Well, I was in the 381st regiment and they drew cards I guess, so we didn't land - the other two regiments went in. We landed the third day, I think, but there was nothing, nothing to it.
Interviewer: If you remember, do you ever recall treating a large number of soldiers as a medic after the command post at Leyte was hit by artillery?
BP: No. I don't remember that.
Interviewer: On a little bit different subject...Did you have interaction with the locals at Leyte?
BP: Not really. No.
Interviewer: To what degree were you actually involved in the fighting? Like shooting a gun or hand-to-hand combat at Leyte?
BP: Well, I was a medic, so I shouldn't have had a gun, but I did have a gun, just to protect myself.
BH: What did you have? A carbine?
BP: Yes. I had a carbine.
Interviewer: So as a medic, did you go through all the training like the infantry went through or slightly less?
BP: I suppose. I'm not sure.
Interviewer: How good was your training for the actual experience?
BP: Well, it was fine. I don't...
BH: Did you get all that training in the States? To be a medic?
BP: I went to Camp Barkley in Texas for my basic training. That was where they put me. That was a medical group and then I was going to go to OCS. Instead of that, they sent me to the University of Chicago as a chemical engineer student and I was there about nine or ten months and they folded that program. Then they shipped all of us out to the 96th Division at Camp White, Oregon, which is near Medford. So that's how I got into the 96th Division.
Interviewer: Were there any sort of differences with the sort of type of fighting at Leyte compared to Okinawa?
BP: Well, Okinawa was worse. We lost an awful lot of men on Okinawa. The 96th really took a beating and luckily, I missed that part, because I ended up with them about the same time he did. [Referring to Bill Hill]
BH: Well, now...The strangest thing about this, he was attached to the M Company 381 and I was in M Company 382. I was in the mortar section, but he was a medic. Were you with the mortars or machine gunners?
BP: Machine gunners.
BH: So he was with the machine gunners. What time, when did you join the 96th on Okinawa then?
BP: I don't remember exactly. It was when you guys joined.
BH: I came in on May the first.
BP: Probably about that same time.
BH: Because April was a heavy month for loss, so then he came in like I did, May first or around that area.
Interviewer: Did your experiences at Leyte before you went into Okinawa, did this help you at all, going into Okinawa? Could you describe it? Did you realize the initial plan of attack on Okinawa on Easter Sunday?
BP: I suppose, but I wasn't there then. I had malaria and what do they call it...jaundice. I was really sick. I was in the first convalescent hospital on Leyte for two or three months, so that's why I missed the first part of Okinawa and that's why I'm still alive, because most of the guys I knew were killed on Okinawa and luckily, I wasn't with them.
Interviewer: So you were not involved in the initial sort of landing phase? The first sort of wave?
BP: On Okinawa?
BH: The troops landed April 1st. We didn't get there till May.
Interviewer: I guess maybe Mr. Hill for this one. Can you talk about the strategy maybe of the Japanese? They concealed their positions so well. How difficult was it to fight them or combat them?
BH: Okay. The Japanese had been alerted to the fact that the American troops were going to come in. The fall before we had planes come in and raided Okinawa bombed a lot of the targets and that was a wake up call for the Japanese. And so from that point on, they planned on defending themselves. Well they had a lot of hills, a lot of natural terrain of hills so they - and they're also very good at digging holes and fortifications and so forth, and so that's what they did. They got ready. They knew just about where the Americans might come through and so on the back side of these hills, they dug a lot of tunnels and they set up a lot of gun emplacements and they got ready for them. And so, when the Americans came in there, they were playing the Japanese game. Now when the Americans came in on April the first, they walked across the island almost. There were a few casualties and there's a lot of people believe that this was a grand strategy to let the Americans come on in and go on south, which undoubtedly it was. But the Japanese high command took away their crack division they had called the 24th Division that had fought in China. They were very, very good troops, but they took them away. They were going to send them to the Philippines. Where here - Japanese command on Okinawa was shortsighted, I mean short-staffed and so what they, they did the best they could. Just let the Americans land, down here south is where we're going to defend. So when Americans came in, the Marines headed north and most of the Army divisions headed south and they didn't meet much resistance for three or four days and that's when they met the Japanese who were well in place, waiting for them.
Interviewer: Was there any point where you felt like, this is the moment I'm going to die or something strenuous like that?
BP: Yes. I ended up getting a Bronze Star for going down and doing something with a wounded soldier.
BH: Was it a machine gunner that was hit or did somebody leave him and had to go down to get him? Do you feel comfortable talking about it, about what happened there?
BP: Well, I was with the machine gun - there are two machine gun platoons with a heavy weapons company and there's just one medic. When the machine gun platoon goes back and another one comes up for assault, the medic stays there. So that's where I was and it's a - I'm trying to recall - I didn't know who this guy was, but he was down the hill from a command post and they knew I was a medic so they asked me to go down and see if I could do something with him. Well, there's nothing I could do with him. He was dead, but we didn't know that, so that's when I thought - whoever killed him is going to take a pot shot at me, but they didn't do it. So it's just luck.
BH: So in other words, you think it was a sniper that got him?
BP: Probably.
BH: Rather than artillery.
BP: Yeah.
Interviewer: Was this a similar experience…? Maybe you'd like to recall gaining your Purple Heart.
BP: I got the Purple Heart earlier and that was just shrapnel in my knee.
BH: Was that Leyte or Okinawa?
BP: That was Okinawa.
BH: Was the shell land close to anybody else? Were there any other casualties?
BP: I don't know where the shrapnel came from.
BH: Was there anybody else around you that got hurt?
BP: No.
BH: You got it yourself. Like might it have been a mortar? 'Cause those Japanese were good at those mortars, you know.
BP: Could have been.
BH: It's hard to identify. You got hit. You got hit. Right?
BP: Right.
Interviewer: With this threat of mortars, there was no period to relax or anything, really. There was just a constant threat?
BP: Right. Constant.
Interviewer: The Japanese, you said earlier, that they did lots of bad things. Were there any particularly nasty tactics?
BP: I don't recall any. No.
Interviewer: As a medic, you obviously saw some pretty bad things. Do you possibly remember anything, any other experiences treating someone that was wounded that was a traumatic incident?
BP: Well, I... The Japs didn't have any air power over Okinawa. They had kamikaze that hit a bunch of ships, but they didn't have much air power and we had air power. I can remember... we were on one side of a hill and the Japs were on the other side and we had Marine Corsairs come in and drop bombs and it looked like they might hit us rather than the Japs. We had a red oilcloth thing out marking where our... I was amazed at what those Corsairs could do and it was kind of scary to see that bomb coming down and just missing. Crazy.
Interviewer: This is sort of a hard question to ask, but when you were treating the wounded, did it almost become mechanical sort of? It didn't seem as gruesome or were they all just terribly gruesome? Did you use a professional, mechanical manner about treating the wounded or did every one painful?
BP: Painful?
Interviewer: Were you able to go through them without feeling grossed out or felt sick or did at one point did you just become mechanical in doing so, in treating people?
BP: Well, I remember one case where the guy's left hand or wrist was shot and all there was, was skin left and I took scissors and cut that. Then he had me take his ring off, his wedding ring - it was on his left hand. At the time, we all said he's got a million dollar wound there because he'll head home and we've got to stay here a few more days. That was terrible, really.
BH: Did you give him sulfur? Is that the standard treatment? Pour sulfur on him? What happened to him after you handled him?
BP: Back to the aid station.
Interviewer: On Okinawa, I've read that this was maybe the first couple of times they've used actual blood and plasma. Did you ever use anything like that when you were treating people?
BP: Sure. I had plasma, yeah.
Interviewer: We know that you lost many friends on Okinawa in the initial wave, but what are your emotions concerning these friends' deaths at the time?
BP: I felt terrible.
Interviewer: Was there a sense of anger or sadness?
BP: One of my best friends was a fellow by the name of Norman Patty. He was in this K Company with me on Leyte and he died on Okinawa. I felt terrible.
Interviewer: Maybe because of this, could you compare your feelings towards the Japanese before and after the war?
BP: I really felt sorry for the Japanese on Okinawa because they didn't have the air power that we had and we were blasting them to bits. It was, if I could stand back and think about it, I felt sorry for them. We had so much more firepower than they did. Did that answer your question?
Interviewer: Yes. Do you have any ill feelings toward the United States military?
BP: No, except I wondered, "What am I doing here?" [Laughter]
Interviewer: So you did question what the purpose of the missions were?
BP: No, not really, because everybody was involved.
Interviewer: Talking about your air superiority, was there any superior weapons you possessed on the ground against the Japanese?
BP: Well, I don't know. We had the flamethrowers and they didn't have them. We used them on the caves and things. Sometimes they were handled individually and sometimes they were handled by tanks, but they were really very effective.
Interviewer: Did you feel that there was any difference between the American soldier and the Japanese soldier in terms of willingness to win the fights?
BP: Well the Japanese were willing to die and we weren't. We were over there, not to die, but to win and get out.
Interviewer: Since you are part of... you came later onto Okinawa, were you ever part of the push, maybe if you recall the "Big Apple"? The code name of one of the escarpments?
BP: Yeah. Yazu Dake escarpment. That's where I got my Bronze Star. It was terrible, really.
Interviewer: Since you came a little bit later, was there any difference in moral? Was there as sense of depression or something?
BP: Not that I know of.
BH: When we'd go down the south, Bill, then they were kind of all crowded down there, a lot of troops, did you see any other troops around or were just in an area - you just aware that we had them captured? To me, I never knew any of this stuff. They never told us. Did you ever know any part of the big picture or anything like that? I mean they didn't tell me, "Oh, we've got them all crowded in down here. Now, we'll just finish them off. Nobody ever came around and told me that. How about you?
BP: No, but I remember after we got all the way down to the south edge of Okinawa, then we started back and we blew up all the caves, because we didn't know where the hell the Japs were. We knew some of them were in the caves and they wouldn't come out, so we dynamited the caves. Well, you were there. [Referring to Bill Hill]
BH: We found a lot of civilians and helped find them and help take them back. That was kind of the aftermath of it, you know. Of course, they are hauling back bodies that and did you see those reconnaissance planes, the P38s making reconnaissance flights? I remember seeing those P38s making reconnaissance flights so they could kind of see where everybody was. I thought that was kind of dramatic. Civilians would try to sneak through at night, in the valleys. They were of course, just trying to live, trying to eat, trying to escape, whatever. They were just victims of the whole thing. Like he said, you have to feel sorry for some of those people. I didn't particularly at that time, but you get to thinking about it, so I would concur with what he said.
Interviewer: Did you have any regrets about either your personal actions or general military's actions? Were you upset about the actions of yourself or the military? Do you regret it?
BP: No, not that I know of. I remember seeing - I guess we had a graves registration group that would pick up bodies. I remember seeing them like cordwood, you know. Just stacked up. That was - part of that - they didn't want us to see that kind of stuff. As far as they were concerned, nobody ever died. Just the Japs. I don't know what happened to Japs' bodies.
BH: Were you talking about American bodies?
BP: Yeah. I'm talking about American bodies.
BH: It's kind of depressing to see that, you know.
BP: Yeah, scary.
BH: I've seen them and they were already stiff and they were moving them. I'd never seen that before and that's kind of... Something you won't forget.
BP: Terrible.
BH: They all had the same clothes that you had on, the same kind of shoes.
BP: Right. Because they were soldiers, just like you. Bad.
Interviewer: Do you ever remember possibly, do you have any views of your commanding officers, maybe like MacArthur? Do you ever remember him at all? Did you have any view of him?
BP: No. The only guy I knew was Dan Nolan. He was our battalion commander. He was a lieutenant colonel out of West Point. I remember seeing him a couple of times. We had a general that was killed easily, a brigadier general and I was with him an hour before he got hit.
BH: Was he up forward looking at the troops? Any idea what he was doing up there?
BP: He was up there looking at the troops, yeah.
BH: Did you see him there? You say you were with him before... just kind of curious because this is important to a lot of people. I've read accounts of people what happened and so forth. What's your recollection? Was it a machine gun fire that got him or do you have any idea from what's your perspective?
BP: I think it was a sniper that got him.
BH: A sniper.
BP: Got him right in the head.
Interviewer: In the end, people often call war glorious, but it really isn't. Do you believe in the end that it was worth it? Was the fight worth it? The whole war worth it?
BP: Oh, I suppose. Since we won. [Laughter] That's important. I guess it was, yeah. Thank God for the atomic bomb. We were slated to go into that southern most island of Japan. When Okinawa ended, we ended up on an island, Mindoro and it was on Mindoro that I got sick and I ended up - they flew me to Tacloban on Leyte and I got on this hospital ship. What was the hospital ship? The Thistle. I've never been able to find out anything about the Thistle, but we had a bunch of nurses on board and it was all white. I don't know why the hell the Japanese didn't torpedo it. But they didn't. I guess because they were afraid if they did that, then we'd do the same thing to them. I headed home on that ship and it was kind of nice. I had fresh milk. I hadn't had in three years. It was… We landed in LA and I wrote to my folks saying I think I'll be home for Christmas, but they put us on a fantastic train and took us all the way over to White Sulfur Springs, where they had a big hospital.
BH: White Sulfur Springs?
BP: White Sulfur Springs in West Virginia. Beautiful place.
BH: Were any other Deadeyes in that batch? I didn't know if you had any of your buddies… Of course we don't get sick en masse, do we?
BP: Not that I know of. They had a bunch of German prisoners at White Sulfur Springs at this hospital and they must have been amazed. I mean- I was amazed. I wrote my folks and said I may not get home right away because this is a pretty nice place. I spent a couple of weeks there and then I shipped home.
BH: Backing up a little bit, where you in that typhoon?
BP: Yes.
BH: Were you on the water or Okinawa, or what?
BP: I was on an LST on my way to Mindoro.
BH: He and I can share the same experience, but obviously we weren't on the same LST. How big a storm was it, for you?
BP: Who knows? It was huge.
BH: It made you feel like you were helpless, didn't you? I went down below. Where did you go?
BP: I was everywhere.
BH: I was so seasick I had to stay down.
BP: I didn't get seasick. An LST is a real light attack ship and so a high wind is deadly.
BH: It has a flat bottom almost.
Interviewer: Can you describe some more about the destruction of this or anything else about the typhoon besides it being pretty bad?
BP: Pretty bad. I didn't know.
BH: How many days were you out? Do you remember? Maybe three or four days or so? It seemed like it took probably ten days, but every day began to seem like the one just before. The chow wasn't all that great was it, on the LSTs?
BP: No.
Interviewer: Life wasn't all that great aboard the ship?
BP: Well, this is interesting. On the way up to Okinawa, I was on a LST with five other soldiers and the LST sailors said if you help our mess out, we'll let you eat like we're eating. They had just come from New Zealand and they had fresh milk. They had everything. I learned to make cheese bread, helping the cooks and it was kind of nice. When we pulled into Okinawa, I remember, it was all white in the southern end of the island because the Japs, you know, we were just into that a couple of weeks, or a couple of months and these sailors said they were glad they were still on an LST and not heading over there.
BH: Did you come in on the LST on Okinawa itself?
BP: Yes.
BH: When I came in, I came on a troop ship.
BP: Oh did you?
BH: Yes. When you came in on a LST and walked in on the...
BP: Well there were just five or six of us. This LST had a bunch of heavy equipment and we were just... I don't know why we were on it.
BH: Had to get you there someway, I guess. That's kind of interesting. Sailors are pretty good people, too.
BP: Where did you come from?
BH: Saipan.
BP: Saipan, yeah. See, I was never on Saipan.
BH: Because he was with a unit earlier, he'd come from Leyte and then he went to the hospital and from the hospital to Okinawa. They trained thousands of troops on Saipan and they were just shipping them to Okinawa on a very frequent basis and the last statistics I heard, there were 4,000 of us replacements that came into the 96th Division. That's the casualties that the 96th took. It's all in the book here.
Interviewer: You mentioned that the fresh milk was really great. Did you end up appreciating the smaller sort of luxuries better?
BP: Yes.
BH: Did you have sea rations on Leyte? Do you remember that?
BP: I think so. And K rations. Then on Okinawa we had ten rations.
BH: Yeah. Ten in one rations. Did you smoke then?
BP: Yes.
BH: They had the little package of cigarettes in the... Chelseas.
BP: I don't remember what they were, but the ten rations were really nice. They had cans of bacon that you could cook in the can. They were marvelous.
BH: I don't remember having those ten and ones. We had mostly sea rations. But I tell you what, talking to Marines later on, especially those with the round table, the Marines loved those ten and one rations and they would swap anything to get one.
BP: Oh, yeah. They were good. Really, they really were. And the poor Marines. God. After the battle was over, they were still in pup tents. Our rear echelon guys had put up big tents.
BH: I went back to see some of those guys and they were in hammocks. I said, "A hammock! Where on earth did you get that?" I can't relax in a hammock and here they were in hammocks.
Interviewer: Obviously, you didn't have any break in the action prior to Okinawa or any other place. Did the Army provide you with any entertainment, before or along the way?
BP: The best entertainment I had was on Mindoro. They had the Broadway group of Oklahoma and we all marched down to this big conclave place and suddenly the lights came on and all this Oklahoma music. It was unbelievable. It was really fabulous.
BH: Was that near San Jose? Do you remember where that was?
BP: Could be. I don't know.
BH: He got to see that. I didn't get to see anything like that.
BP: You didn't see that?
BH: No. Well there were how many, there were 12,000 infantry on Mindoro and he was one of the few, I wouldn't say few, one of the several that got to see it. But that's great. We got to see movies. Every night we had to see movies. Didn't we see movies every night?
BP: I guess we did. I don't know.
BH: Even on Okinawa we got to see some movies.
Interviewer: Do you remember any diseases on the island? Do you remember any sickness?
BP: No. I don't really. I'm sure there was, but I don't remember anything.
BH: There's a lot of people that had malaria, though. To prevent malaria, they gave us Adamon tablets, so everyone turned a shade of yellow. That was to prevent a lot of that, of course.
BP: Well, have we covered everything?
Interviewer: You mentioned there was a typhoon, but what was the general weather like on these islands? Did you have to deal with a lot of rain and storms?
BP: On Okinawa, yeah.
Interviewer: Did it make it a lot more difficult?
BP: Oh,yeah. It's all in that book.
Interviewer: Do you ever remember the mud bogging down the transport vehicles?
BP: Oh, yeah. Terrible. I've got pictures of it in that book.
BH: You talk about that particular thing, they had during the rainy time, we had to take the wounded back and they had what they call weasels and they were like a jeep, but they could move in mud. They would strap the litters on these weasels and take them back. That's the only thing that could get through. The wounded had to be treated and that's the best way they could get them back out.
BP: They had a tread like a tank.
BH: That's right. They had tread like a tank and even they had some problems getting through. It was really muddy. In fact, some of those same planes were dropping in medical supplies. Do you remember any of that?
BP: Oh, yeah.
Interviewer: I maybe have one more question. Towards the end when you guys seemed like you had the Japanese pinned down, do you remember any propaganda that the US Army tried to impose on the Japanese towards the end? Do you remember any of that?
BP: We had some Japanese with us who spoke Japanese and we tried to get these guys to come out of caves, so I don't know the propaganda, but...
BH: Did you use microphones or bullhorns or something like that?
BH: Yeah. That was to try and save their lives.
Interviewer: So was that very effective?
BP: No, not much.
BH: So many of them killed themselves, but we did take several prisoners. Some finally gave up.
BP: They were a tough bunch. They really wanted to die rather than to surrender and we weren't like that.
Kathryn Lerch: Can you tell us about some of the things that you have with you here? Since we have these photos here, perhaps you could add some commentary on a couple of these and maybe explain the ribbons that you have here and your Bronze Star.
BP: Well there's the Bronze Star and there's the Purple Heart. I was a medic and that's the medic emblem there. [Holds up photo] The guys in my outfit with a heavy machine gun.
Interviewer: What type of specific machine gun that your group used?
BP: It's a heavy machine gun is water-cooled. It's the same thing as they had in the First World War. I was amazed at a...
BH: Thirty-caliber, water-cooled.
BP: Yeah. I had a friend that went in on in Germany and before they went in, they had them listen to the machine gun and then they had them listen to the German machine gun and it was much, much, much faster than ours, so it was kind of scary.
BH: Now the Japanese machine gun, do you remember it? How it sounded?
BP: No. I don't remember it.
BH: You know what the American sounded like, but... Okay, this is a picture of you when you were 18, was it?
BP: Eighteen or nineteen, yes. There's the hospital ship I came back on. This was the Tenth Corps emblem in the 96th. I've got it on my sleeve here. This is the award I received. My folks put this together. "Polzin was given the Bronze Star medal for action three days earlier." The citation reads as follows: "For heroic service in connection with the military operations against the enemy on Okinawa, June 13th, during the attack on Yazu Dake escarpment from Hill 99, Private First Class Polzin, medical aid man in a heavy machine gun platoon, volunteered to assist, aid men in rifle companies, administering first aid. On three occasions, with utter disregard for his own life, he dashed across 300 yards of open terrain swept by machine gun, mortar and rifle fire to give plasma and to evacuate the wounded. His actions are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service." That's a lot of baloney.
KL: You are too modest. That's very nice to have. It's good that your family put that together. There were comments to the local papers - we're doing write-ups about Okinawa and the June 19th and these other events that made the news back in this country. What what your families' feelings back home at the time. They must have been scared witless. Did you get any communication from them and their thoughts on this?
BP: I remember my mother telling me that my dad was going to make a, build a wing on the hospital in memory of me. They didn't think I was coming back. It was terrible, you know. Really, there were a lot of guys that, as I said earlier, if I hadn't been in the hospital, I'd have not made it. Because all these friends of mine were dead when I got there. You didn't know those guys, but I did.
BH: Sure. You knew them on Leyte and you come back to your - come back to them and they're not there.
BP: That's right.
BH: My understanding is that M Company took a lot of hit, right?
BP: Oh yeah.
KL: You know, the Philippines, it's a very interesting country. Totally different topography. I'm sure it must be from what you had in Okinawa, you had the humidity, you had the bugs...
BP: Oh yeah. That was terrible.
KL: You had the jungle- types of conditions. I understand you didn't have the clay soil of Okinawa, but you the swampy conditions and of course, much higher malaria incidents there. Is that how you managed to pick up malaria?
BP: I guess so.
KL: Probably.
BP: The other thing I had was jaundice and I think it was because they gave us some shots on our way into Leyte. I think these shots were contaminated.
BH: Oh boy. That doesn't sound good, does it?
KL: So they may have gotten a whole bunch of you sick at one time, which was a blessing.
BP: Yeah.
BH: So you think you got sick from the shots?
BP: I think so. Plus I had malaria, plus I had, you know...
Interviewer: How long were you in the area of Leyte? When did you arrive there in relation to the departure for Okinawa?
BP: Well, D-Day in Leyte was October 20th. I went to the hospital, maybe in November and I was in the hospital until May of '45. That's what saved my life. I'd have not made it.
KL: You must have had good care in the hospital then. Do you have fond, good memories, so-so memories of your hospitalization there, being on the other side let's say of the medic's career, being a patient?
BP: I couldn't eat. I had the jaundice and so I wasn't able to eat for a couple of months, maybe. I don't know why they didn't ship me home, but they didn't, because I was with a division, an infantry. Once you are in an infantry division, you don't get out at all. You either die or the war ends.
BH: They'll fix you up and send you back.
BP: That's right. It was terrible.
KL: Thinking of other dates when you were over there, obviously if it was April, you hadn't landed in Okinawa yet, but you would have been on Leyte still when you heard about Roosevelt dying. What was the mood of the people there, from the US GIs there in the hospital when they heard about Roosevelt passing away?
BP: They were shocked, but we had so many guys dying, you know...
BH: A lot of people, that's the only president we knew.
BP: That's right.
BH: And from that respect, when he and I was growing up, that was the only president that we ever knew.
BP: When did he die?
KL: April 19th, I think... It's in the yearbook.
BH: Yeah, okay. You're still in the hospital and I was on Saipan.
BP: Well, have we covered everything?
KL: I guess we have now that I've turned the tape over. Any final comments that you have? Obviously, this isn't the easiest thing, to sit down and bring back memories sixty years later. You had a good start with Kris to get you going on this and you no doubt, shared some stories with your son and we certainly appreciate you coming here today. It gives them good experience in learning how to do interviews.
BP: You're putting together a DVD?
KL: Yes. He's part of the brainchild on this. [Referring to Bill Hill]
BH: We're putting together a DVD and they are also finishing up another book.
KL: So we hope to have representation in a variety of ways to recognize particularly the 96th and the tail end of the war. It certainly wasn't the easy end of the war.
BH: Were you associated with any of the guys afterwards? You go to the reunions?
BP: I've never gone to a reunion and I've never gone back to Okinawa. I have some friends that did, but I didn't.
BH: Were you in contact with any of the guys, Deadeyes?
BP: Yeah, John Holt.
BH: John's going to be here next week.
BP: What's he going to do here?
KL: We're going to do the same thing. We're going to put him right in front of this table here and sit him down and ask him questions. Pick his brain. You may come back. You're welcome to. We'll have a small reunion right here. The three of you.
BH: Where'd you meet John Holt at?
BP: Well, this is interesting. When I got out, I ended up at Eli Lilly. John got out a year later, maybe. I was at Lilly's at work at my desk in my office and this guy came in. Came in three days in a row, copying down numbers off of equipment. Finally that third day, we both looked at each other and said, "I remember you from somewhere." Well it turns out that John Holt and I were one of the six guys on the LST that went up from Leyte to Okinawa.
BH: I'll be darned. Could he cook?
BP: I don't know.
KL: Did he learn how to make cheese bread?
BH: Or were you the cheese bread specialist?
BP: I was the cheese bread specialist. He's been down in Hollandia or somewhere. Not in the First Convalescent Hospital. We both were ready to go home but they shipped us to Okinawa.
BH: That's strange, isn't it that you recognized each other.
BP: Well he came in three days in a row and on the third day, I thought, "Geez, that guy looks familiar." So we started comparing notes and it turned out we were on this LST.
KL: Did you share stories then? Did you compare and say how did you make it here? You didn't stay together once you got on Okinawa, did you? Did you get separated at a few points?
BP: Oh yeah. I don't know where he was.
BH: He stayed with the 96th. In fact, he was a sergeant, if I'm not mistaken.
BP: I think so, yeah.
KL: Small world indeed. Okay, should we wrap it up? Let's finish up in ten minutes.
BP: We had wool sweaters on Leyte. It got very cold. I remember the first night I was on Leyte. I crawled under a tank, just for the protection. I kept thinking, my God if this tank sinks, they'll never find me. So I put my hands up and every once in a while, checked to see if I was sinking. It was terrible. I remember thinking about getting and going to the toilet and I finally decided, hell, I'm already totally wet, you know… it was nice and warm. It was the best part of the night.
BH: Gotta do what you gotta do, don't you?
BP: That's right.
BH: If I remember, it was a lot hotter on Okinawa. Sweaty hot.
KL: So when you got soaking wet, you stayed wet for a number of days or did you ever get a chance to dry out?
BP: I don't think so. You'd finally dry out the next day by walking around probably.
BH: There's a lot of guys on Leyte, slept in water.
BP: Yep. It was terrible.
KL: I've never been to Leyte. I've seen the map. I've seen the layout of the land and where some of the ships came in for Leyte and we have a veteran that we have letters for that came in at Leyte and he did not make it back.
BP: How do you know all this?
KL: I read his letters.
BP: Whose letters?
KL: Lou Allen. He's in our second book and his experiences. He met up with some of the Philippine guerillas who were very helpful in dispatching the enemy and I believe he was going to try and have cosmetics and other types of special things sent from the United States by his family to this young lady who worked in this guerilla unit as a treat, but we'll never know, of course what happened, if that came through.
BP: What outfit was he in?
KL: I'd have to look. I don't trust my memory. It's not as sharp as yours is at this point in time, at the end of the day, at the end of a week, but I think he was in the 21st Marines. The 21st Infantry and he was caught in an ambush, almost to the end of the last of that campaign that they were in. He was on Hollandia and New Guinea. The next stop was the Philippines.
BH: As far as you know, were there any Marines on Leyte?
BP: I don't think so.
BH: I'm not trying to refute what she has to say, but MacArthur did not like Marines.
BP: Well, he was an egomaniac. We did have some Marines. They were in an artillery group. We went in on the third day, as I told you earlier, and we marched along this road and here these Marines were, turning these 155 mm around to fire out over the bay. We said, "Christ, the battle's in here. What are you doing?" Well this was back when we were afraid the Japs were going to come in. So that's what they were doing. They were turning the... That was weird.
BH: If you'd checked the sea battle, what was going on, the things that were going on before Leyte and so forth, that was an absolute possibility.
Interviewer: Did your group and the Marines have much in common? Did you look at each other differently?
BP: I don't think so.
BH: We did. We laughed at them. We were young and you know and we just plain didn't like the Marines.
Interviewer: So there was a dislike between the branches of service, the Navy, Army?
BH: Yes, that's true.
BP: Well, they were a cocky bunch and you...
BH: Oh, yeah. You'd think they could walk through walls.
BP: And some of them did.
BH: I hope some are still stuck in there, right?
Interviewer: So when you were on your way over, you guys stopped in Hawaii? Did you as well?
BH: Yes, I stopped in Hawaii.
Interviewer: So that was the last real civilization that you were exposed to?
BH: Yeah, let's see. Did you go to Yap Island?
BP: We were supposed to go to Yap with the 7th Infantry Division and one day before landing in Yap, they said we aren't going to land in Yap and they took us down to, what was that? Mantis Island. And that's where we got involved to go to Leyte.
BH: Kind of a restaging outfit, I suppose.
BP: Yeah. So we never saw Yap. We were going to go into Yap with the 7th Division, I think maybe a Marine division, but I'm not sure. That head of the Navy said he thought the Philippines were right and forget Yap. We'll go right into the Philippines and that's what we did.
BH: Did you see any Japs on Leyte? Any bodies or Japs, per se?
BP: I don't remember any, no.
KL: One nice thing that you might have remembered though, if you had a chance to face west, were the sunsets. Remember those on the Pacific?
BP: Oh yeah. They were spectacular.
BH: The sunsets on Leyte?
BP: Oh, yeah.
KL: The flying fish? Is there anything else you can think of, gentlemen? Otherwise, I think we are to the stopping point. I think we have about a minute left on this and that's as good place a place to stop as any. Okay?
