“Today is October 2nd, 2010. I am Cassie Shado and I am interviewing Mr. Otto F. Reifies at 3806 Dona Court Carmel, Indiana. Mr. Reifies is my veteran for the Park Tudor Oral History Project. Mr. Reifeis is 85 old and was born on May 30th, 1925. Mr. Reifeis served in WWII. Mr. Reifeis was in the US Navy and held the following rank: Signalman First Class
[00:00:00]
Cassie Shado: So to jog your memory, what made you decide to enlist in the Navy?
Otto F. Reifeis: Well, I was at the, I was at Rose Polytechnic Institute after I graduated from Manual High school, and I was approaching eighteen years old, so I came home and for a weekend which was only seventy miles away and it was about a week before I was going to be eighteen and at eighteen you had to be drafted and you would be have to register for the draft. Soon after that you would be drafted obviously at that time. So I told my parents and my brothers, my grandmother at the time we were eating supper. I said, “I’m going to-not going back to school. I’m going to enlist in the navy because I do not want to go in the army. I don’t wanna be drafted.” So that was it. There was no comment made plus or minus, but it was obvious that it was inevitable.
[00:01:35]
CS: Okay that’s nice. So, do you remember your first days of service?
OFR: First what?
CS: First day of service?
OFR: Oh, first days of service. They let me stay home for my birthday and I reported to the recruited station. I signed up on the 29th day of May and they let me stay home the 30th and on the 31st I went to the enlistment center and went on my way to Great Lakes Naval Training Station.
CS: Oh okay. What did it feel like?
OFR: Well, I don’t know it was, it was a maybe a new adventure or something like that but it was just something that happened-it’s like going off to school.
[00:02:21]
CS: Oh okay So tell me about your boot camp or training experience.
OFR: Well going up to Great Lakes Naval Training Station, which was right north of Chicago and it was-they were building barracks up there because of the large in number of enlistees and navy men and it was a new camp and I was there for seven weeks, five weeks of which we didn’t have warm water because [laughing] it was a new camp we just had cold water and at the end of seven weeks a graduation so to speak took place and right before that they were selecting people to go to the training school.
CS: Oh, okay.
OFR: Different training schools.
CS: So that’s how you got through it?
OFR: That’s how I got to go to signal school.
[00:03:22]
CS: Okay So since you served in WWII, where did you exactly go?
OFR: Where did I go? After I was assigned to signal school, I went to University of Illinois for sixteen weeks and from there I was assigned to the ship, a new ship, USS Achrinar and it was being readied at Brooklyn Navy Yard so I was given a train ticket went to Brooklyn Navy Yard and reported there on Christmas Eve 1943, and we stayed at the Ledo Beach Hotel for about thirty-forty days or so and then the ship was ready for commission and we were assigned to the ship and went aboard.
CS: Okay, do you remember arriving and what was it like?
OFR: Arriving where?
CS: To the-
OFR: Navy Yard?
CS: Yes.
OFR: Oh, it will-well, it was Christmas Eve and it was late at night dark it was dark and it was winter time. It wasn’t very pleasant but I least I got to stay there. I stayed on the base rather than to town for a hotel or something like that.
[00:04:42]
CS: Okay. Were there many casualties in your unit?
OFR: Well let’s see, we didn’t have any casualties at Normandy on D-Day or at Southern France on D-Day. We lost one little landing craft that was it on Southern France. When we got to-when we got done with that we came back to the States we were refitted with additional Aircraft guns went down to the Caribbean, through the [Panama] Canal, went to Hawaii, and then went to the I guess you can call it the Pacific and prepared to go into the invasion of Okinawa. And at Okinawa at night we were hit by a suicide plane and we lost six crewmen and had about forty to forty-five wounded that was the only casualties we had.
CS: Were any of the people that were hit were they anybody close to you like any friends you had?
OFR: The closest one was a fellow-well I think one was the ship’s barber, so to speak, and another one was on the flying bridge where I was and he was about oh, not any further from here to the cabinet away and when the suicide’s plane hit the plane went over the side [noise and begins showing photo]. I was about right there on the flying signal bridge and the plane hit right on hold number three and bounced over the side and the bomb blew in through our mess hall and our mess hall at that time was at battle stations was our secondary first-aid and the fellow-one of the fellow down there was killed and when the plane hit right here, there was an anti-aircraft gun right in here and that people there, there were three in there and one up here and one or two down in the mess hall.
CS: How did you feel?
OFR: Well, actually you were so surprised because it happened at twenty minutes after midnight and it dark and it was quite a bit of confusion I’ll say that. I always wondered why my-why my knees hurt so much. Well, I found out later when the bomb blew off it knocked everyone off their feet and it usually-the knees hit the ground first and they were bruised up, but we were glad and there was a fire set in this area right here and we, our crew had what they called “handy bellies” they were portable water pumps and they put the fire out in about three or four or five minutes.
[00:08:17]
CS: Ok, that’s nice. So, tell me about your most memorable experiences.
OFR: Oh, well there was a quite a few. It was during the war we were always under tension more or less because we were either by ourselves or in convoys or in a war zone. We were in the Philippines and we took aboard troops and the troops were living on Liguayan [?] each there and they didn’t wanna leave; they had it nice there we took them into some other location I don’t remember exactly where but after the war we went into the Espirito Santos which was on the New Hebrides Island down near the Solomons and we took construction battalion Seabees out of that area and took them up to Wake Island. Wake Island was interesting because the highest place on Wake Island was only twelve feet above sea level, so you can be almost on top of the island and not hardly see any and it was just sand and that’s it. We took them into there and did some travel work carrying other cargos between other islands so forth.
[00:10:08]
CS: Okay, were you awarded any medal or citations?
OFR: Well, this is, that’s why, we got area and battle citations this is the American Campaign Medal and this is the Emblematic Pacific Campaigns, this European, and African Campaign and this is the WWII Picture Medal. And this had to battle star here on the Asiatic Pacific and two on the European African
CS: What do those two stars stand for?
OFR: They stand for battle engagements.
CS: Okay, and how did you receive each and every one of them?
OFR: Beg your pardon?
CS: How did you receive each and every one of them?
OFR: Well, they were-they were put onto your navy record. And after the war you could imply and get the medals form. They were campaign medals.
[00:11:15]
CS: That’s nice. Since you were a high rank, did they ask you about any battle planning?
OFR: Any battle?
CS: Planning.
OFR: No. No. Most of that stuff when we were, we didn’t know we were going into Normandy. We were up in Scotland someplace in a lock up there just in a protected anchorage and we knew something was coming up and nobody, nobody in the crew really knew exactly where we were going or who ran until we went down to Plymouth, England a load and while we were loading down there. We were on the ship, hundreds of ships, and one night on the fourth or the fifth of June we had visitors aboard and we found out later was Omar Bradley-General Bradley came aboard and was conferring our ships was one of four ships at Normandy that were communication ships mainly. We had the headquarters company from the 8th Air Force aboard and we had the headquarters company from the 1st Army General Haig aboard and the other three ships besides us was the Bayfield. USS Bayfield was communication ship, the Ancon was a naval communication ship, and the Augusta was a navy cruiser and it was head of the navy ships so we had the three A’s and a B we called Achrinar, Ancon, Augusta, and then the Bayfield.
[00:13:07]
CS: How did you earn your class rank?
OFR: Well, out of the University of Illinois. I miss the-promoted to third class signalmen because of a quirk almost. There were 200 people in the, in the class. Forty of the people dropped out and didn’t make it through the class so that left 160. When we first started out they were given fifty percent promotions if you were in the upper half class you got a promotion but with forty of them leaving that left 160-ten percent and they reduced it to ten percent of 160 was sixteen and I was number seventeen in the class. So I didn’t get the promotion. Then it turned out they had a brig for me because the instructor that I had, he looked at it and he said, “Well,” he says ,“We’ll make up for everything” he says. “I’ll-we’ll give a good assignment.” So I was assigned to a new ship with ten-day’s leave and then reported to the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
CS: So how did you feel to be-to earn that?
OFR: Okay, how did I feel about that?
CS: Yea.
OFR: Oh. It didn’t make any much difference at the time I knew-it was a matter of time and I would get the class rating
[00:14:39]
CS: Okay. How did you stay in touch with your family?
OFR: Well, that was a very unique way. You couldn’t put-at all the mail was censored. It was read by an officer aboard the ship and they would either cut out or delete portions of it. You couldn’t tell where you were or what you were doing and practically nothing. But I had bought 2 small reforms at home I bought 2 small books of Atlases. There about that big and they had maps of all over the world throughout the whole thing. So I told my folks that I would-I would mention a number in the first sentence that I sent back to them. Like Uncle Carl’s birthday was the 27th. That meant twenty-seven- page twenty-seven, so I would take my letter and put it on page twenty-seven there, and I would take a pen a pen and put a hole write through where I was in the letter in fact-put it on the upper corner there and put a pinpoint hole right through it so you could hold it up to the light and you could see the hole. When my folks got the letter, they did the same thing, except they put it on top. They put it on top of their page twenty-seven and put the pinpoint through that and it showed exactly on the map where I was. So they knew exactly where I was the whole time.
[00:16:41]
CS: What was the food like?
OFR: Good. Navy food was a lot better than army food or anybody else’s food. And we had excellent cooks aboard. We had cooks and bakers very, very good. I spent time with the cooks and bakers were a good group.
CS: Did you have like any favorite meal on the Navy.
OFR: No you d-well no. Well, I don’t know. Breakfasts, lunches they were all good.
CS: Ok that’s nice. Did you have enough supplies?
OFR: Yep. We had a supply officer that-he would come up on the flying bridge, the signal bridge, when we were coming into any kind of port, and he would come over to me and he would say “Are than any supply ships in the harbor. Or any-they were looking for refrigeration ships because refrigeration ships had fresh fruit aboard and he wanted to know that and sometimes, before we were anchored-or were heading for an anchorage or a pier-before we got there, he had this landing craft already over the side and he was heading over there to make requisition for food.
[00:18:05]
CS: Okay Did you feel pressured of stressed?
OFR: Pressure or stress?
CS: Yeah.
OFR: No. No I had-except when we were in a battle areas you were more alert and stressed but no. I had a very, very good time up on top side. I knew what was going on most of the time.
CS: Okay So that’s how you were able to maintain yourself-that’s how you were able to maintain yourself?
OFR: Oh yeah. It was-remember, I was eighteen or nineteen years old. [chuckles] You know about that don’t you?
[00:18:41]
CS: Yes. What-was there anything special you did for good luck?
OFR: Well, no. The only thing is if we were in a foreign port, and got a shore, which we got liberty, you didn’t basically want to be alone. You always wanted to be with somebody. But there always, even in Iran, North Africa, when we were there, there were so many Navy ships around and Army people around and it was no problem.
CS: Okay, how did people entertain themselves?
OFR: Well during the day, you were basically on duty for four hours. You worked for eight-pardon me-on duty for eight hours. You worked four of those hours in your own areas and did other things like supply the ship; clean the ship, and everything else. Then you were off eight hours and basically all your on duty four and off eight-you were basically working-you were on duty four hours off eight- four on, four off, eight you’re right on the clocks.
CS: Okay, were there any entertainers?
OFR: Entertaining?
CS: Yeah.
OFR: Oh I think when we were-we were in Hawaii on the pier they had music at times, but other than that there was nothing. A lot of times it was pretty-they didn’t announce the arrival or the departure of ships. It was pretty secretly-done at night a lot of times.
CS: Okay, what did you when you went on leave?
OFR: Well, when I went on leave, if i was oversees then I got a shore it was maybe to the USO Shows, The United Service Organization Shows. It was a place you could, you know, you could see-there was some entertainment, but you could-and some food and restaurant-when we got to Hawaii, we got to go to The Royal Hawaiian Hotel, and that was nice, right on the beach and everything you could go swimming and if you wanted to. When you got home on leave of course that was entirely different.
[00:21:25]
CS: Okay Where did you travel while in service?
OFR: Where did I travel?
CS: Yes.
OFR: Well it was basically the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, Italy, the Island Capri I saw that, North Africa and then in the Pacific it was Panama Canal, Hawaii, the Philippines, numerous Islands: Okinawa, Ulithi, the Hebrides, Wake Island, and then later on at the last voyage it was Japan.
CS: What was it like?
OFR: Japan? Went a shore there just once and I thought it was a small fishing village. It was Yokohama and it turned out later, when I looked into an encyclopedia, it had turned out to be a city of about a million people, but boy it was-people were scared when we went aboard they stayed away. The ones that were out they were friendly, I couldn’t say anything else, but more timid than anything else.
CS: Do you know why they were timid?
OFR: Well they were a beaten nation. They didn’t know what was coming ashore. They were told that the Americans killed everybody they saw.
[00:23:10]
CS: Oh. Do you remember any particular or humorous events?
OFR: When we were in convoy with other navy ships, we had, what they called, signal drills. We practice the visual signals between ships and one of the mains of communication was the-here is the mass of the ship, this was the-this is the signal bridge and this is the signal mass up here. And we would, they would hoist up different flags that had different meanings. And if one time we were the lead ship, we were the ones that ran the signal up and the other ships had to duplicate that, but they’d run it up only half way and when they understood it, they would took it up to the yardarm if they understood the signal, what the flags meant. Well I had been reading the general signal book, which was about that thick and had lead covers on it, and I had found certain signals in there that were pretty hard to find, the meanings of them were pretty hard to find. So, we turn up some easy ones like speed signal or course change signal or something like than I’d run up some of these tough ones. And the other ships would put it up halfway, of course, and then they come on the blinker light and they say “Interrogatory” INT. They would-they didn’t know what it was, so we’d tell them what page it was in the general signal book. So, we did that, 2 more or 3 easy ones then a hard one then an easy one then a hard one and finally we ended-they ended the drill. We got signals back from the other ships saying, “Congratulations to a-for your drill very good drill. Who conducted your drill?” So, a fellow from the Signal Men, that I was close to, and he was from Virginia, and he said he would get on the blinker light and he sent back “Signal Men Third Class”, which was like a jab you know. One of our lower ones did it.
[00:25:57]
CS: Oh okay, how did you stay positive?
OFR: Well, I don’t know. It was-I don’t know, it was daily routine. It was, it was-there was no time to really do nothing. There was always something to do. We had the flying bridge, the whole flying bridge to take care of, which meant shipping the deck, baying the rusty part and repainting, we had to take care of all the shipping equipment to make sure it was in working order, we had to stand watches day and night on the signal bridge while the rest of the crew when we were in port or dock or anchor, they didn’t have to stand watches we had regular General Porter’s battle watch.
[00:26:54]
CS: Okay Did you ever pull pranks on others?
OFR: Pull-
CS: Pranks like jokes.
OFR: Oh yeah but not too much because they could do that to you. It would come around you know.
CS: What kind of pranks did you pull?
OFR: Oh I don’t know if I ever did pull any pranks. Well, let’s see let’s see: No I can’t think of one that was ever pulled.
CS: Okay
OFR: Jokes on me but that was about it.
[00:27:34]
CS: What did you think of officers and soldiers or mates?
OFR: Our officers aboard, our first captain wasn’t much. Nobody cared for him and they were glad when we he got off, but the second officer we got he was a real good man he was very good. Our signal officer was good he was a young ensign board. Our communications officer, which was his boss, was one of four of us from Indiana. They were only four from Indiana on the ship and he was a full lieutenant and he had worked at the Stokley-Van Camp and so he was from Indianapolis, lived on-someplace on North Meridian, they were all fine. I didn’t find any of them that were not good.
[00:28:37]
CS: Okay Did you keep a personal diary?
OFR: No. I didn’t I’m sorry. We had a couple guys that did, but there were specific instructions that you couldn’t keep a diary. Nobody could have a camera aboard. They was only one camera aboard and that belonged to the ships photographer and the only way he could use that camera was with the captain’s permission. So that’s why very few pictures were taken aboard the ship.
CS: Okay Do you know why this was not allowed?
OFR: Well, they said that if the ship was hit, they didn’t want any evidence of where we had been or where we were going or who was aboard or any pictures
[00:29:25]
CS: Okay Do you recall the day your service ended?
OFR: Well, I remember when the first atomic bomb was dropped and it came over the ship’s loud speaker that there had been a large bomb dropped over Japan and that was the first announcement. Two or three days later, there was a second one and then right after that they said that Japan Hiroshima had surrendered. It was August the 8th or 6th I think.
CS: Okay, where were you?
OFR: We were loading up to go into the invasion of Japan so it was-we felt real good about that because that was gonna be a bad one at that
[00:30:23]
CS: What did you do in the days and weeks after war?
OFR: After what?
CS: After your service ended.
OFR: After my discharge?
CS: Yes.
OFR: Ok we were in San Francisco and they had assigned a place system for people getting discharged in the ship and it required eight-fve points, I believe, and I had something like eighty-three and a half or something like that and we were loading up with beer to take it into the marines in China and I figured by the time we got there, to China, by the time we got over there almost, I would have eight-five points so a quartermaster and I, he was in the same boat as I was, he had about eighty-three points. So we went to the executive officer on ship and pleaded our case that why send us-why do we go all the way to China when we half to come all the way back. Especially when we had replacements aboard. We had people aboard, Signalmen aboard that were not eligible for any point discharge. So he told us-he said, “Okay, you two guys can get off the ship.” Because he didn’t wanna lose his experienced people, he wanted to keep them he’s was gonna be, instead of a crew of 435, he was gonna have crew of 165, so he was losing a lot of people. He said, “If you two would get off the ship, and anybody else hears about it,” he says, “You’re going to China.” Well in the end, when they were typing up the orders, someone got in the ship’s office, looked over the guy that was doing (typing) up the ship’s orders and saw our names. In the end, fourteen of us (fourteen people) got off. But he was well equipped. So I got off there and got transferred to Treasure Island, San Francisco and was there seven days and during those seven days we did nothing-we only thing we had to do was stand in line to eat two meals a day and the line was so long you never saw the end of them until you were there. They were four deep, like this, and they went for eons of time, so I decided I could do better than that. So I went to the best cook deal and I said, “Can you use any help here?” He said, “Yeah,” he says, “Come On.” So I would g-I got in the mess hall in the serving line, but you only worked two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon and you didn’t have to stand in line all day. And after seven days, six or seven days, I got an order, train ticket, right through to Chicago and in Chicago I came down to Indianapolis. I take that back, the train came through Indianapolis and I got off at Indianapolis. I was right the first time, Chicago I was discharged at Chicago-I was given a train ticket to Indianapolis, and arrived home on my mother’s birthday January 30th, 1946.
CS: Okay. How did your mother feel when she saw you home on her birthday?
OFR: Probably relieved but-I knew she worried. I have two sons and they were getting close to the age where during the Vietnam War and I know how she felt. It was nerve racking a little bit.
CS: Okay. Can you explain more about the points?
OFR: The point system?
CS: Yes.
OFR: Okay, well, the point system was, you got so many points for months of service and then you got so many points, additional points, for overseas and-let’s see… that’s about it. I mean that’s about what you got. Basically you got points for service.
[00:35:29]
CS: Okay. Okay thank you. Did you work or go back to school?
OFR: Yes. I started-let’s see. I went to Purdue University Extension on North Meridian Street in 1946 and started taking some of the elementary courses and then my brother came home from the Navy and in 1948, he (pardon me 1947) he went to Purdue, and I had taken so many courses, and I had worked at Chevrolet Commercial Body Machine, off of Washington Street, and in 1948 I went up to Purdue. Our brother got out in 1950 and I got out in 1951.
CS: Okay. Was your education supported by the Government Issue?
OFR: It was the G.I. Bill at that time and I-when they announced that on Treasure Island about the G.I. Bill, stayed afterward, after the speech was given, and I went up to the instructor up there and I said, “I want you to explain to me again-I just don’t believe what I hear.” And he said, “Well,” and he explained it and I had, four times eight, I had the equivalent of exactly four years of credit, from the G.I. Bill. Exactly four years. It came out to the month, so I took full advantage of that and it was almost like a gift, you know.
CS: How did you feel?
OFR: Oh very good. Well first of all it felt good about getting out of the Navy. There was a Navy-they were trying to recruit and keep their people and the signal officer made a sign-up for another six months and I knew what that meant, another six months-I said, “No. I’m going back to school.” And that ended that.
[00:37:51]
CS: Did you make close friends while in service?
OFR: Well you lived with-I knew practically everybody aboard after being aboard-well I was assigned in December of ’43 and was with them until January of ’46 so, I knew everybody aboard, not as well as some others, but the signal group yes. You know those guys inside and out. One guy-one fella from Virginia, I knew him he was probably my best friend aboard and he past away about two years ago. He was a good guy.
CS: Okay.
OFR: Good signalman.
[00:38:38]
CS: Did you join a Veteran’s Organization?
OFR: I belonged to what they called a formal group called WWII Round Table and it’s a group that meets-there’s a small group that meets every Friday for breakfast and then another, the larger group, meets once a month. There’s about 80-100 meet once a month. That’s the only one that I’ve joined.
[00:39:10]
CS: When you were on the ship, was there any time you wanted to leave?
OFR: Wanted to leave? No. No the ship was the best place to be any place in the world, except The United States. I mean Italy was-Italy and England-even England had the narrow gage railroads yet. It looked like everybody was fifty years behind us. In Africa it was-well the climate was nice where we were but, you know, there was hardly anything there. We had, I remember distinctly seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven year old kids, they were trying to accumulate American money. Gold Seal dollars, you don’t see Gold Seals anymore there-a dollar bill it’s got that brown thing on it. It was in gold, those were called Gold Seal dollars and they could be exchanged for gold. I found out later that that was the only way they could by themselves out of where they were to go to someplace else. They had to have gold dollars or gold. Paper money was-they had a roll of what we called “invasion money”-they’d have a roll of invasion money like that but it was practically worthless.
[00:40:45]
CS: Did your military experience influence your thinking about war or military in general?
OFR: Oh I had-yes-I had great respect for military people. I think they are the-well if you read the constitution and read the oath of offices and everything it’s-they are the ones that defend everything. So yes I wouldn’t have any problem with anybody no matter who they were or where they were or what they were in this military. And I pity a lot of young people today, they’re passing up a lot of opportunities because when I went in only one out of-let’s see how can I put this… It took fourteen people, fourteen soldiers, to have one man in actual combat so everybody wasn’t shooting the gun, everybody wasn’t being shot at and today’s military, as far as I’m concerned, is a thing with benefits they have is an opportunity that some younger people that shouldn’t pass up. They get an education through that and it’s a good deal, as far as I’m concerned. I wouldn’t-if you got the money to pay for college tuition that’s fine. You don’t have to go, that would be the way to go. But if you didn’t the war with all, the military was on possibility it would be easy.
CS: Okay. Did your experience in the service affect your life?
OFR: No. Not a bit except for the recognition that, you know, what went on that time and well, like I said, before I was twenty-one I saw most of the world. I got a lot of travel in it but that was, sometimes, rough too. Especially the first three days at sea. I got so sick, you know what they call-how they describe sickness don’t you?
CS: Yes.
OFR: You are afraid you are not gonna die. You get so sick, I laid on the flying bridge up on the signal bridge. I’d laid on the deck up there for three days. Just sick as heck and on the third day, I’d tell people I rose and went to the breaker line twice and from then on everything was fine. But seasickness was for the first three days and a lot of times after that, we had troops aboard and they were all sick. They’d all get sick for about three days.
CS: Is there any you would like to add that we’ve not covered?
OFR: Well, no it’s pretty well covered. I can honestly say and, I’m thinking of the write up that I had, I enjoyed the time. I was doing what I was doing because I had to do it, you know, I might not have been choosing to do it, but at that time I was doing everything that was needed and I really didn’t have any objectives.
[00:44:26]
