Billy Fyffe: World War II (Part 1)
Interviewed by Joanne McMillen
Interview date June 2004
Q:
Bill when and where were you born?
A: I
was born on January 22, 1922, at Rush Springs, Oklahoma.
Q: When did you first begin thinking that the United States might get
involved in World War II?
A: Six months before it happened.
Q: Really?
A: Six months before I enlisted.
Q: Oh, six months before you enlisted?
A: Yes.
Q: OK. Did that occur after the attack on Pearl Harbor? Or did you
think that the US involvement in war was inevitable?
A: I thought it was inevitable.
Q: What was your reaction and the reaction of your family and friends
when Pearl Harbor was attacked?
A: I was fighting for my life. I was there when it happened.
Q: OK.
A: And I had no, ah, I had no connection with my family for six months
after it happened. I never heard from anybody.
Q: When you finally had contact with them, what were their comments?
A: They were worried about me.
Q: Sure.
A: And my oldest brother – I mean my brother, Jack, who was lost in
the navy, he was worried so much about it, he went and joined the navy so he
could come in there and be with me.
Q: Ah-huh. How did they finally find out you were alive?
A: About six months after the war broke out they got a letter from me
that I had written about six months before that.
Q: OK. And phone communication? Were you able to do that at all?
A: None. None whatsoever.
Q: How old were you in December 1941?
A: Nineteen years old.
Q: OK. The next question asks – you were already in the military?
A: Yes.
Q: And the following question asks if you were drafted or enlisted?
A: I enlisted.
Q: Were you worried about being drafted? Or did you enlist because you
felt like that was the right thing to do?
A: No, I wasn’t worried about being drafted. I just felt that I should
get in then. And when I got in then, I was in about two years before the war
broke out and I am here today because of that. I had learned enough what to do
and what not to do.
Q: OK. How did the other men in your area feel about serving in the
military? People in your community?
A: Well, I really didn’t know that because I was gone already.
Q: OK. So you were like the first in your class – the first in your
community?
A: Oh, yeah. I was the first in my class to leave. I graduated in May
and left in July.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: So I was the first in my class to go.
Q: Did you have plans for college while you were in high school?
A: No. I was poor as a church mouse. People don’t know what that is
today – they absolutely don’t.
Q: So what were your original thoughts about life after high school?
A: That I would go into military service.
Q: OK, so when you were in high school you were already thinking about
that?
A: Oh, yeah, I was.
Q: OK. How did your family, wife, or girlfriend feel about you going
off to war?
A: Well, the war wasn’t here then, and my mother wasn’t too worried,
and my girlfriend didn’t want me to go, but I told my girlfriend when I left, I
said, “don’t wait for me, I may not be back.”
Q: That’s not the lady that you married is it?
A: No.
Q: OK. What did she say when you told her that?
A: She looked a little dumb-founded.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: But she didn’t question it.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And she didn’t wait.
Q: Did you correspond for a while?
A: For a little while. But it got to where corresponding was one of
those things that might happen and might not happen because I went to sea as
much as six months at a time and never heard any – didn’t receive any mail from
anybody or any place.
Q: Why did you choose the navy over the other branches?
A: I just – somehow or other I just felt that the navy was for me.
Q: Ah-huh. Did you know how to swim before you went in
the navy?
A: Oh yea.
Q: OK. I was surprised to learn that a lot of people did not know how
to swim.
A: Did not know how to swim, but they went through boot camp wherever
it was and they took swimming and if they didn’t pass it they were – they made a
quick exit from the navy.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: You had to swim or you couldn’t stay in the navy.
Q: Right.
A: When I went in the navy, if you had a scar over an inch long, you
couldn’t get in the navy. Now why that was I don’t know.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: I had one on the bottom of my foot that I stepped on a piece of
glass when I was running around barefooted and they didn’t see it. But when I
went in the navy there was about 37 of us went in to go in the navy and only two
made it in the navy. All the others were turned down and they went around and
joined the army.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And that took place in Enid – up in Enid, Oklahoma.
Q: Had you been on a large ships or boats of any kind before?
A: No.
Q: That would have been a new experience for you.
A: Oh, yes, very much so.
Q: Where did you have your basic training?
A: San Diego Naval Training Center.
Q: And what was that experience like?
A: (laughs) Different!
Q: Can you tell me a little bit about that?
A: Well, they had rules and you abide by the rules.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And if you didn’t abide by the rules, well, you took the
consequences.
Q: Was it pretty much what you expected it to be?
A: Yes, I think it was. They were very disciplined. As a matter of
fact, that was the most disciplined time that I’ve ever spent in my life, was
when I went through boot camp.
Q: I would imagine it gave you the opportunity to be with people from
different parts of the country you’d not met before.
A: Oh, yeah.
Q: How did that go? What were those experiences like?
A: (laughs) It was different. You’d meet a ‘wop’ from New York and
you’d meet a Cuban from Florida and there were – they were letting the blacks
come in and most of them were either officer’s stewards or officer’s cooks. And
the Filipinos were the same thing – they had a lot of Filipinos in there.
Q: Did people get along?
A: Yes, very much so. Very much so. I mean, that’s one of the “thou
shalt not do” things in the navy is fight in the navy. You get in a fight in the
navy with somebody else you you’re liable to be thrown out of the navy.
Q: Now you were nineteen?
A: I was nineteen.
Q: Were most of the men in basic training as young as you?
A: Most of them were, yes. They had older boys in there, but most of
them were about eighteen or nineteen.
Q: And how long was the training?
A: Uh, I’ve often thought about that. I think it was thirteen weeks.
We had six weeks in the south camp and six weeks – seven weeks in the north
camp. And they had big fences – ten foot fences running around them – you
couldn’t get within ten feet of that fence to talk to anybody on the other side.
When we were first put in there, we went three days in the – in the – in the
bullpen. That was to see if you had any kind of disease or anything.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And if anybody broke out with something in there, well, they were
eliminated, and if you broke out with something and they could treat it, they’d
treat you, but you spent three days in there, and then you went out and joined
the group in the south section.
Q: OK, so the north section was the holding section?
A: No, no. The north section was where you finished your training.
Q: Oh, OK.
A: And then you ended up in a holding section there, and then you’d –
but they didn’t hold long. Just as soon as you finished, they had a ship and you
went to the ship.
Q: So what kind of things did they teach you on the south side that
were different than when you on the north section?
A: Oh – marching!! Marching, marching!! And carrying a gun – carrying
that knapsack, and that stuff is heavy!
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Yes, siree! And then if you did anything wrong, well, they had –
they got you out in the middle of the night running around that track carrying
that big duffle bag.
Q: How much did it weigh?
A: Oh, my! It must have – it must have weighed about sixty-five
pounds.
Q: Gracious!
A: It was pretty heavy.
Q: Was that with your rifle or without?
A: That was without the rifle.
Q: And the rifle was – how heavy was that?
A: I don’t know how – I think it was around three pounds, I believe it
was.
Q: Is that all?
A: Yeah. It was, ah, World War I-type rifle.
Q: I would think that would be heavier, but, ah . . .
A: No, not necessarily. It was a carbine from World War I.
Q: Did you wear helmets when you trained?
A: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Q: Were some of the basic training maneuvers in water?
A: Ah – swimming?
Q: Ah-huh.
A: If you couldn’t swim, you had to learn to swim. If you didn’t learn
to swim, out you went!
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And they – they did semaphores for signalmen.
Q: What’s that?
A: Well, you learn the alphabet by making hand signals.
Q: Oh, OK.
A: And then, ah, well, you had to learn that. I’m going to miss some
of these things that we went through because I don’t remember exactly all of
them.
Q: That’s fine. That’s an important part of trying to get the stories
because it’s easy to forget some of these things.
A: But it was, ah, it was pretty rough, that basic training. They
didn’t want to make it anything less.
Q: Right.
A: That way they weeded out a lot of people they didn’t have any use
for. You know, a lot of people went in there and thought they was going to have
a easy ride (laughing). It wasn’t that easy.
Q: Was the training in the north camp the same? More intense, or how
was that different?
A: Well, up there we . . . we learned to tie a bunch of knots when you
got in the north camp. And, ah, you improved on your swimming. And you improved
on your semaphore. And you had to tie – had to fold all your clothes a certain
way to get them in these. . .
Q: Duffle bags?
A: Duffle bags, yeah. And it took a lot of time.
Q: What did you do with your free time?
A: (laughing) I didn’t have much free time! Well, one time I got off,
I think, on a weekend – one day. And I went up to a hill west of the base and
looked down on the ocean and that was the first time I’d ever seen the ocean. It
looked like the ocean just came right down and went in the ground just like
this. It was weird.
Q: And that was the first time you ever say the ocean?
A: First time I ever saw the ocean.
Q: And you were getting ready to sail the ocean.
A: Oh
yeah. Oh, I loved the ocean. I loved the navy. My wife wouldn’t understand.
Q:
OK, let’s move on. After basic training, where did the military send you?
A: We boarded a bus and went right down to the naval docks in San
Diego and I went aboard the USS Patterson, DD392, a destroyer. Went aboard that,
and as I came aboard that old second class bosunmate looked me in the face and
he looked like he had – like his face was made out of leather. I gave him an
eye, and he says “That-a way.”
Q: Presumably, they separated people from basic training – you went on
different ships?
A: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, separated them. They just – I don’t know
how they did that but they probably had an order they wanted six men for this,
and three for that, two for that, then they sent a bunch of submarines, a bunch
of battleships, wherever they needed people that they needed to replace.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: They had people getting out and getting transferred. They had
replacements – they put in a requisition for replacements. And they got the new
recruits coming in.
Q: Now how did you find out where you were going?
A: I never knew until I went down and crawled on the Patterson.
Q: Until you were there?
A: Until I was there. Never knew. None of us knew where we were going.
But that was pretty good. I liked the Patterson. It was a nice ship.
Q: How large was it?
A: Fifteen hundred tons.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Now a destroyer is eight thousand tons. About six times as big as
we were.
Q: Right, but it was the same size as the other destroyers? How did it
compare with them?
A: No, ah, they had a fifteen hundred class, they had a sixteen
hundred class, then they had a – then they had a twenty-one hundred class. And
they were the squadron flagship, the twenty-one hundred class. They, they, they
weighed two thousand, one hundred tons. And they were probably about – we were
about three hundred and fifteen foot long and they were probably about three
hundred and forty foot long. Maybe three hundred and fifty foot long.
Q: When you went off to battle, you went out with other ships?
A: No, not necessarily.
Q: OK.
A: Not necessarily. If we were going for patrol duty we could have
been going by ourselves. If we – generally when they went out west of Hawaii
they’d go in groups. In other words, a whole division – four destroyers and a
squadron flanked it – they’d all go in a group and go west.
Q: OK. In what capacity did you serve during World War II? Duty, rank,
and the places where you served?
A: Places where I served?
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Well, I, ah, when I got aboard ship, I was a deckhand. And they’d
separate them – they’d put them in deckhands or black gang – down below in the
engine room and fire room. You were one or the other. I was a deckhand. So about
the second day I was on there I was going up amidships and this second class
bosun’s mate had a big bucket of water there – about that big around and about
that tall, and had a sponge or two and a rag and he said, “You see that stack? I
want you to clean that up.” (laughing) I looked at that stack, and man, it
looked as big as this house! So the executive officer – a guy by the name of
Miles Hunter Hubbard, a lieutenant – came walking by there and I says, “Sir, I
wonder where I can start striking for yeoman and when?” And he looked at me and
kind of swallowed and he says, “Come with me.” Never did any work as a deckhand.
Put me to work as the log room yeoman working for the chief engineer. In other
words, they’d write up the log everyday on the ship, and then when they’d get to
it and got an officer to sign it, it would come to me and I’d type that all up
for them real nice and take it around and have all of them sign it again, and
then one went to the ship’s record and the other was sent to Washington, D.C.
That’s when I first went on board ship.
Q: OK. And . . .
A: And when I, when I first started – when they’d call general
quarters when I first went on there, I went back and I was handling ammunition
on the number three gun on the afterdeck house. In other words, it would come up
out of the chute and I’d pick it up. I was handling the powder. And I’d pass the
powder over to the next guy and he’d take and put it in the chamber, and then
they’d put the shell above it, and throw the thing and shoot it, see?
Q: Ah-huh.
A: So that’s what I did. I didn’t do that for long, I guess about six
months, and then I was on the bridge – was the captain’s speaker on the bridge.
And I stayed right there until I lost my destroyer in the Philippines.
Q: So tell me a little more about that position.
A: Well, it was critical. It was probably the most dangerous position
on the whole ship.
Q: It sounded like it.
A: Well, and whenever the Japs come in in planes and they’d start to
bomb us and, ah, and shoot at us with guns, they were only trying to hit the
bridge and that’s where I was – up on the bridge.
Q: Right, right. And you were the one who was telling the others. . .
A: I was telling everyone on that ship what to do through the
commanding officer.
Q: Ah-huh. Were there times when it was hard to hear him?
A: No.
Q: No? It was always pretty clear?
A: It was pretty dang clear. He said and he said it emphatically and
you repeated it and he listened, too. And if you made a mistake it was corrected
on the spot. I didn’t make many mistakes.
Q: OK.
A: ‘Cause you can’t afford to make a mistake when you’re fighting. I
mean, you’re firing all those guns and firing torpedoes and throwing, ah, ah,
depth charges. I mean, you just can’t do that. And all of them are listening for
instructions from the bridge.
Q: Ah-huh. Was there was limit – were there times when you were in
battle for a long time someone would relieve you or you just stayed for the
duration?
A: One time I stayed for thirty-six hours.
Q: Wow!
A: A lot of times we were twelve hours. Several times twenty-four
hours. But one time we had thirty-six hours and I was tired. I crawled up there
right beside my office and I laid down on that – on the, on the steel walkway
there and went to sleep and a man came by and he told me to go get in bed!
(laughing)
Q: So was that the position you retired from? How long were you in the
navy?
A: I was in the navy almost seven years.
Q: OK, so at the end of seven years, was that the rank that you . . .?
A: I made chief in October of 1944. And I went in in August of ’40. So
I was in there about – that was – yeah, ’44. I made chief when I was the
youngest guy in the Pacific fleet. And then I made permanent when I went to
Washington and then went back to San Diego to my reassignment. A year from the
day that you made temporary, you made permanent if you had a clear record. And
you had to have 4.0 in your conduct, too.
Q: So, specifically, what did they look at when they considered a
promotion? For you or anyone else?
A: A lot of things. You’re manners, you’re means, what you did, what
you didn’t do, what you should have done you didn’t do, you’re – you’re, ah,
you’re conduct that you got and every so often you were given a conduct rating
and then they put it in the back of your service record. That’s why I wanted
that. I wanted to show you that, but I couldn’t find it. I don’t know where it
is.
Q: You might have it next time. Did you have to take a written test of
any kind to go from one rank to the next?
A: Oh yes, absolutely. I was going to tell you about that. We studied
– there was a preliminary bunch of tests you took in order to take the final
test to make a promotion. Like going to third class, you had all of these
preliminary tests you took. It might take you three or four months – six months
– a year – to do them.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And then when you take the final test and pass it, then they put
you on a list and it goes in to the bureau of personnel and then they promote
from that list. Now you might make a hundred on your score, but if they only
promote three and you’re five on the list, you’re not going to get promoted.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And I saw that happen.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: I took a seaman first class exam that the chief petty officers
couldn’t pass when I went in.
Q: Was it difficult to find time to study?
A: Well, you just had to do that on your own.
Q: Right, ah-huh.
A: Ah, if I got everything done in the office, then I’d turn around
there and work on that, but you didn’t have much time, really.
Q: Yeah, ah-huh.
A: I took an exam and a test for everyone of my promotions from the
third, second, first, chief – I took one for every one of them.
Q: Ah-huh. Ah-huh.
A: Now a lot of the guys were lazy and they wouldn’t do that and they
never did get promoted.
Q: Right.
A: But you had to take it.
Q: I thought there was some testing for that, too.
A: Oh, yes.
Q: And even though you’re in combat, they still have the same
restrictions. That part doesn’t change.
A: Absolutely. And the ironical part of it is those tests might have
been made up by the people over in the Mediterranean area and they’d make them
so hard – that the people out in the Pacific couldn’t answer them!
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And that’s the way they’d do. They gave a certain locale to make up
the test for this bunch of people, ah, third class through chief or motormac or
machinist’s mate or water tender, and then they’d make those tests up and send
them on out to the fleet, then they’d give the tests.
Q: Ah-huh. So it sounds like the tests were written for one area, for
one geographic location, but if you were in . . .
A: At on location. And if you were out half way around the world you
were going to get that test and some of them were pretty rough.
Q: Ah-huh. The last question talked about the places where you served.
For seven years were you on the same battleship? You said until you lost it.
A: No, no, no. I was on a destroyer. I got on destroyers and couldn’t
get off until I was blown off one.
Q: OK.
A: Once they found out you could ride a destroyer, you never got –
they never gave you a transfer. I put in many times for a transfer off that
destroyer and the exec just grinned at me and put it in his little can – that
can right there by his desk.
Q: Why was that more difficult?
A: They’re hard to ride. They’re hard to, hard to, hard to keep a
mental health, ah, and keep physically fit without getting sick on them. They’re
just rough to ride, I mean, apparently you’ve never been on a destroyer, but . .
.
Q: No.
A: If you ever get on one and go to sea you’ll find what I’m talking
about.
Q: That’s why I’m asking. It’s a rough ride – you can feel the motion?
A: It’s a rough ride.
Q: A lot of people getting sea sick?
A: Oh, Lord, I saw a guy 30 years old get so seasick he wanted to
quit.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And I was a boot on there, I slept all the way through it.
Q: OK, so it’s a rough ride. Small area?
A: Small area. Very small area.
Q: OK. So how did you stay fit in an area that small?
A: Well, a lot of people vomited down there and I saw it get so bad,
it was just all over the floor. The steel deck down there and they had to clean
it up. When you get seasick, it’s tough. I mean there’s nothing like
seasickness. Have you ever been seasick?
Q: Ah, a little bit. Not like that, I’m sure.
A: I’ll tell you what, if you ever got seasick you’d wish you weren’t.
You’d wish you were somewhere else.
Q: Did they have a doctor on board that maybe gave some medicine for
that?
A: When I went in, no. But after they hit Pearl Harbor they got
doctors on destroyers, at least one on each destroyer if they could get it.
Q: Ah-huh. What about physical fitness? Weights? Working out? Was
just the job itself the way you did it?
A: The job itself kept you physically fit. I never saw a fat guy on a
destroyer!
Q: OK.
A: I never saw a fat guy on a destroyer, no sir. I went on there at
130 pounds and I got off there 130 pounds.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: It was – it was very difficult to stay on one of those.
Q: What places did you travel to?
A: Oh, you don’t want to know! I traveled to every bunch of islands in
the Pacific except the Bone Islands. Do you know where the Bone Islands are?
Q: No, I don’t.
A: They’re off the coast of South America. And I was at, ah, I was at,
ah, the landings at, ah, at, ah, in New Guinea, Guadalcanal, Buin, Gono,
Finschafen, ah, I was at the landings of Cape Gloucester, all through there – I
was at all those landings. I missed the Coral Sea and I missed, ah, where my
daughter just came back from, ah, that big island south of Tokyo – south of
Japan over there. I can’t think of it right now.
Q: OK, but you used the term you were “in the landings.” Does that
mean you actually got off the destroyer?
A: No, we were right there. We – we – we – they used us a fast troop
transport a lot of times, so soldiers would come and get on our ship and then
they’d send those Higgin’s boats around and we’d load those up with a bunch of
soldiers and they’d stand three deep – three up here and three all the way back
– and then they’d send those in to land them on the beach. . .
Q: OK.
A: . . . and then they’d turn them around and send them back. Well,
we’d just load this one little boat up, sent them in, and when they come back
they had the three guys in there that was standing up – they took a mortar shell
right in the middle of them and killed all three of them. So they brought them
all, put them on our ship. Had some baling wire there to wire them up so they
wouldn’t spread everything out on everything. . .
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And then threw them on the afterdeck house because they were dead.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And I’d just talked to one of them. That’s the kind of stuff that
went on.
Q: Ah-huh. So when those guys went out, did you wait for them to come
back?
A: Oh, no. We were there waiting for another Higgin’s boat to come
around to pick up some more soldiers. But when that boat came back, he had those
guys in there, so we took them on. And gave them another load and they went in.
Q: Ah-huh. Did you transport dead bodies routinely?
A: Well, we did that – well, we did when we had to.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Ah, we had one man, one of our – I think he was a machinist’s mate,
he was electrocuted on our ship. He had, you know, one of these welding rods,
and he grabbed a-hold of the stinger and electrocuted him, so we buried him on
an island out there and then they went back and got him after the war was over
with and brought him back home.
Q: Ah-huh. What about the names of the destroyers you were on? Do you
remember?
A: Oh yeah, I can give you a few of them. I was on the Patterson, the
Jarvis, the Mugford, the Mahan, the Ralph Talbot, the Flusser, the Blue, and I
was on a destroyer-tender called the Dixie, and the Whitney – just on there and
off, just momentarily. But most of my time was spent on destroyers sea-bound all
the time.
Q: Ah-huh. What was the longest time you were at sea?
A: Six months I spent at sea one time without seeing a tree. I’d given
a five dollar bill to see a tree grow!
Q: The next question talks about your experiences and the conditions
you had to work and live in and we’ve talked about that a little bit, but can
you expand on that, like from the food that you ate to your clothing and . . .
A: Oh, well, the menu was – they had a seven-day menu and it was the
same every week for seven days.
Q: You always knew what you were going to have on Monday?
A: On Saturday we had, ah, beans and cornbread. On Friday we had fish.
Wednesday it was something else, and Tuesday it was something else, Monday
something else. Sunday we – they’d vary a little on Sunday sometime, but one
time we used all our food up and had Japanese rice for two weeks. That’s all we
had.
Q: Ah-huh. I wonder about fresh produce. Did you have some of that in
the beginning?
A: We had it if we could get to it, or get it, but, ah, the food in
general was pretty good, but, ah, I didn’t like that lamb – that Australian
sheep they put on there. Ah, the guys would go up on deck and smell that lamb
and somebody’d go baa-aa-aa, and then they’d all take off for the fantail. They
just didn’t like it. The officers, they were eating good. They really did. But
they had that – they had those cooks – those stewards that was waiting on them
hand and foot, so . . .
Q: Ah-huh. Were. . .
A: We lost an officer when we – they sank the Mahan out on the west
side of Leyte at Ormoc in the Philippines. He was a mathematician and he left
his duty station, which is a no-no, and went into his room. The, ah, officers –
where they ate was right here and then the rooms start up here, and then his was
the next one down, so he left and went in there and this plane engine hit and
killed him in there. The engine went right through his room and went down and
hit the number two handling room and set off all the fireworks. And the other
engine went up here and went through my office – went through my office and
started in through the radio room and those guys were trying to get out those –
they were back of these big radio – we had the big radio equipment in there –
and they couldn’t get out – they couldn’t get out of the way quick enough. But,
ah, we, ah, they had, ah, eight betty bombers – they called them betty bombers –
looked like a cigar up there – and they had about a half-dozen Zero fighters
protecting them. And they had just come back from a bombing run, but they still
had most of their gasoline on there, and I’ll tell you one thing. . .
Q: They did it on purpose? They flew into the destroyer intentionally?
A: Absolutely. Absolutely. They called them kamikaze pilots, and
that’s exactly what they did. We lost a lot of ships out there with those. They,
ah, we were on picket duty, on the 7th of December three years to the day after
Pearl Harbor, almost to the hour, on the west side of Leyte – you know where
that is? In the Philippines. It’s the island south of main island and on the
west side of that at Ormoc we had landed fifteen thousand troops. Lost one
soldier in the landing, and then we just were pulling back from that and these –
these bombers come in and caught us. This one bomber came in – this was our
ship, see, and he came in like that and, and, knocked every life raft ad boat
and everything off one side there. All of our life raft stuff . . .
Q: Ah-huh.
A: . . . just demolished them. And then another one came in like that
and one engine went up here and one went down there. Then another one – I think
four of them hit us. And that one that hit down there, the engine went down in
the handling room – it was setting off that ammunition. It was going to sink us
– it was just a matter of time. A fire was down there.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And, ah, that’s when I sailed over the helmsman’s head and lit on
my fanny over there and the USS Ward was with us, was one hit that, and they was
using that as a fast troop transport for aviation gasoline. And they hit right
where that was – it wasn’t full of gasoline – it was all gone, but it had the
fumes in there – that thing blew up and there wasn’t anything saved on there at
all except a boat – a little boat – about a 20 foot boat floated off of it – the
rest of it just disappeared.
Q: All the people were . . .
A: All the people were gone. Killed.
Q: So what happens when your destroyer gets hit and you’re in the
middle of the ocean?
A: By golly, you – you evacuate ship when the old man tells you to.
Q: Well, definitely. Do you get on lifeboats – do you have life
jackets?
A: (laughing) We didn’t have any lifeboats! They sank the one –
this guy came along and his wing cut that one in two, and half was hanging by
this davit and half was hanging by this davit, see?
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And it was useless. All the floating rafts along there were out in
the ocean, so we all hit the water with a very few things out there.
Q: Ah-huh. It had to really cold.
A: Huh?
Q: It had to be very cold.
A: The water?
Q: Yes.
A: No, that was in the Philippines. It was . . .
Q: Oh, OK.
A: It was warm out there and then the water was just loaded with
sharks and we didn’t get one shark attack – I can’t figure that out to this day.
It was loaded with sharks. Another destroyer come around there and started
picking us up, and so he – I crawled up the side and went up there and got on
top of the – they had a vent about that big around – sucking air and going in
down center . . .
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And I was sitting on top of that and all of a sudden I heard a
bunch of commotion and everybody ran to one side and I thought they was going to
turn the thing over. Ah, ah, a kamikaze fighter was going to ram that thing and
kill everybody on there that got off that other destroyer, but they shot him
down before he got there.
Q: Oh great! Yeah.
A: We had protective cover. We had a Major Bong and a Major Johnson
was our fighter cover that day out there. Both of them have subsequently died,
but they were . . .
Q: Ah-huh.
A: They were very good fighter pilots.
Q: So every destroyer had planes overhead watching out for it? No?
A: Oh, no. We had 87 raids in one – one – two days. We didn’t have any
help at all. They were just trying to get us, but they didn’t get us. They tried
desperately. They’d have give anything if they got those destroyers.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: They didn’t get many destroyers out fighting like that. The only
got – like at Pearl Harbor, they got one that was in dry dock. Didn’t get the
destroyers.
Q: When you’re transporting people who – you mentioned earlier you
were transporting some of the troops to fight – were those navy people?
A: No, army.
Q: Army. OK.
A: But they had navy corpsmen with them.
Q: OK. And that was pretty routine that the two military services. . .
A: Well, they did. The marines had navy corpsmen with them, but the
army had their own corpsmen that went with them into the landing. I was in a lot
of landings out there.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: All the different islands. I didn’t hit Iwo Jima and I didn’t –
Okinawa was the place I was thinking of awhile ago.
Q: OK.
A: I wasn’t in Okinawa and I wasn’t in Iwo Jima and wasn’t, ah, at one
down south which I previously mentioned. But I got all the rest of them. They
worked us 24 hours a day.
Q: Ah-huh. Was it difficult finding time to sleep? Did you sleep in
shifts or were you so exhausted you fell asleep?
A: (laughing) You slept when they relieved you of duty.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Then you went to sleep.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: But still, I still had my work to do. I had to do my work.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: So that kept you – kept you going.
Q: So what were some of the adjustments that were (telephone rings and
interrupts interview). . . (discussion about the effectiveness of the tape
recording equipment) . .
OK, tell me more about life on a destroyer. We talked about the
food. We talked about the small spaces that you had, the demands on time. What
did you do for fun? Was there a place where you guys could play cards or
something or that was out of the question?
A: In the mess hall.
Q: OK.
A: Played in the mess hall. And they’d play cards down there.
Incidentally, the night before they sank my destroyer we were playing poker down
there and I won about a hundred and forty dollars on penny-ante poker. So I gave
it to the, to the, ah, officer that handled the funds for paydays. He was a –
what was he? He was a, ah, I want to say commissary, but that’s not right. Ah,
he was a, ah, procurement officer for food and stuff. He bought food and stuff.
And so he was also the pay-day officer. So I gave him my money and he put it in
the safe.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: The next morning we lost the damn ship! (laughing) And I just had a
piece of paper that he owed me some money!
Q: (laughing)
A: And, ah, but anyway, when we got to Pearl Harbor, well, he gave me
my money. He got some money over there and paid me my money and so I loaned
seventy-five dollars to the guy that worked for me – second class who worked for
me and gave some, ah, twenty-five to somebody else and I never got a penny of it
back – never sent me – never told me a thing.
Q: Some people are like that, aren’t they?
A: Well, I didn’t expect it from one of them, but the other one – he
was Garcia – so he was probably Mexican . . .
Q: Ah-huh.
A: He was a pretty good worker and so, ah. . .
Q: Earlier you said that all the groups got along, that there was no
fighting. Was that the case on the destroyer also?
A: Well, one time I got in a little tussle with a guy. I came off
lunch, went down and was getting ready to get in my bunk and I got in there and
he turned the light on right above me. There was a light right up there.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And I asked him if he would turn it off please. And he hit me in
the nose! Well, I just swung out of there, and I’m left handed, and I hit him
right between the eyes there. Blacked both of his eyes and flattened his nose
out and a chief commissary steward came up through the door right after it
happened and he turned us in. And we went to captain’s mast. And the skipper’s
name was Frank R. Walker. I just noticed it in there on some papers I was
looking at while ago. And so we – I went before the mast, you know, and he said
– and he looked at me and he said, “Were you mad at him?” I says, “No, sir.” I
got this guy and I said, “Now you better walk a tight line when we get up there,
or else we’ll both be having bread and water for supper tonight.”
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And so, then he looked at the other guy and he said, “Were you mad
at him?” “Aw,” he said, “no.” And he had a wart on his face up there and he’d
just constantly piddle with that wart, you know?
Q: Ah-huh.
A: This captain would, you know? And he says, “I don’t know what’s
going on here, but I’ll tell you one thing, if either of you guys ever come up
here fighting again, you just plan that that’s the end of it.” (laughing) And
so, that was the end of it.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: But, ah, no, I – you don’t see no fighting on there.
Q: What did they do for church or religious service? Was there
something done along those lines?
A: Well, when we were – no – out there, no. Ah. . .
Q: Did you have a chaplain? Is there a . . .
A: No, too small for that.
Q: OK.
A: But when we’re in port, then, then you could – if we were alongside
a tender, we’d go over there and they had a chaplain and we’d go to church on
there. But, ah, not on our destroyers. These destroyers today probably have
chaplains on there, but not on those. They’re just too tiny. We had, ah, they
had, ah, living, ah, living comfortable spaces for 135 enlisted men and 15
officers. We had 31 officers – 31 officers, and 360 enlisted men on that. So
what they did in there, they took and started in the bottom deck back there and
they hung these bunks about that far apart and they hung four of them up in a
row, where as opposed to, generally that room would have three and sometimes
only two.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And if you were chief you slept in the forward part of the ship,
which reminds me of a little incident that happened. We had a chief commissary
steward on there and he was in his bunk one day. And we were doing drills. This
was before the war broke out. And this ship come around somehow or other they
got crossed up and were going to crash into us, see, so they turned it and this
bow of the ship come right through and he was sleeping like this and (laughing)
that thing cut above his head about that far – above his head – right above his
head – and went right down – and we never could get him to go back down to
chief’s quarters. (laughing) He wouldn’t go! A lot of weird things happened like
that.
Q: Hard sleeping with all those men snoring?
A: Huh?
Q: Was it hard sleeping with all those men snoring?
A: Well, some of them made it pretty tough, but if you got tired
enough, you’re going to sleep. And everybody young – they – they slept pretty
well.
Q: OK, let me move on. What kind of contact did you have with people
back home when you were . . .
A: No contact at all. Only writing letters and then we couldn’t get
them off the ship unless they were someplace where it wasn’t – it wasn’t
interfering with the operation that we were on.
Q: So you had to take care of your own mail? They didn’t collect it
for you?
A: No, you had a place to put it.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And then, we had a mailman on there. And when he got to a place
where he wasn’t interfering with any operations of the ship or we weren’t in a
battle or – or – weren’t going somewhere or something else, well, he’d take the
mail over for us.
Q: Ah-huh. What about getting mail? How did you get your mail?
A: Now before the war broke out. . .
Q: Ah-huh.
A: . . . our mail came in on Pan American clipper, and came in – lit
in Pearl Harbor and went over to this little place – this little city over there
– I could tell – show you on that map. And, ah, it (garbled) and then about an
hour later we’d get our mail.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: So that was pretty good of them.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Air mail was six cents (laughing). You know they send mail air mail
now, but you can’t put air mail postage on it and get them to go that way, but
they still send it, you know. You got the air planes taking off and they all
take a bunch of mail on wherever they’re going.
Q: Ah-huh. Ah-huh. Were you asked not to talk about certain things in
your letters or . . .?
A: Oh, my, yes. Some letters – all officers had a secondary duty of,
ah, of, ah, reading the mail, and some of them were just solid black lines. They
had this . . .
Q: They would read your mail before you sent it out?
A: Oh yeah, you bet.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Well, they’d just – all you’d see was “Dear John. . . He went . .
.” and all the rest of it was blacked out. You couldn’t read it, either, no.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: I didn’t get very many of mine that way because I never talked
about anything.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: I mean other than just personal stuff, I never – that censorship
was quite strict.
Q: Ah-huh. It must have felt strange writing a letter to people back
home knowing someone else is going to read it before . . .
A: No, it just got to be an everyday occurrence, you know. Some of
those officers, though, they would read one that was kind of strange and they’d
pass the fun around between the other officers and I was in there on that
because one of my additional duties was on the code machine. And I’d be sitting
there working and they’d be laughing about something they read in a letter and I
didn’t think that was very nice.
Q: Ah-huh. Ah-huh.
A: But normally they were pretty decent about it.
Q: Ah-huh. Were you able to call when you were in basic training?
Phone calls when you were in basic training or at any other time when you
landed.
A: Never – never was called. Well, I called back.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: When we came back – when we came back to San Francisco one time,
and I called back. But, ah, the connections were pretty bad back then.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Wasn’t clear like it is now.
Q: What other method of communication would there be? Telegram, but
that would be too expensive.
A: You could send a telegram. I sent two or three telegrams.
Q: Were telegrams used more for bad news or good news or just . . .
A: Mostly bad news.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Yeah. Like when my brother was killed in the navy – see my ship was
just perforated with holes that we’d gotten in battles. They decided to send it
back to Pearl Harbor to get fixed up, so it wouldn’t look so bad and wouldn’t –
you know. So the day that his ship relieved mine out there to come back, this
little Jap plane – little fighter came over and dropped two bombs right on
mid-deck and my brother must have been standing right there because he just
evaporated.
Q: Um.
A: And so the wire come onboard ship when we was in Pearl Harbor
getting fixed up. . .
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And the exec wouldn’t give it to me.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And so, I didn’t even know it was on board, and when we started
back to sea again, well, he came up and said, ah, he said he suspected I should
read that. I read and found out what it was and I looked at him and I said,
“How’d you like to be thrown over the side?” (laughing) You shouldn’t do that.
Where was I going to go? Go AWOL to Honolulu? That’s what he did. Had in onboard
ship three days before he showed it to me.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: I could have got him canned, but I didn’t.
Q: Do you think he just. . .
A: I could have gone to the old man and he’d of gave him a new supper.
Q: So when you sent telegrams, if it’s not too personal, why did you
send telegrams? I thought I heard you say you sent three?
A: Well, I sent a couple. One to tell them I was OK after Pearl
Harbor. I got over in Pearl Harbor and I went to the YWCA and they took it there
and sent it. Then another I sent to my girlfriend one time and I never heard
from her so I didn’t worry about it. I told her not to wait. I guess she didn’t.
She got married pretty soon after I left.
Q: Ah-huh. How long were you dating her?
A: Oh, a year and a half, I guess.
Q: Well, you’d been dating for awhile then.
A: Yeah. Yeah. That’s quite long.
Q: So the communication was – my goodness, if you were able to go to
send a telegram, then they couldn’t sensor that, could they? I guess they hadn’t
thought about that.
A: No, but they – those people over there had their orders.
Q: Ah-huh. And they wouldn’t send something that would. . .
A: Oh, yea. You know, when Pearl Harbor – there was a lot of Japs that
were killed over on the beach just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time
after the attack, you know. This one Jap drove up in a filling station to get
some gas for his car and this guy come out and shot him and pushed his car off
in the street – got away with it. A lot of things like that happened out there.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: You know, the night before that they hit Pearl Harbor they had a
big shindig over on the beach. It was a Saturday night and that Saturday they’d
opened all the ships from the top plumb down to the gunnel – all the watertight
doors were open and everything for inspection. And hadn’t shut them back. They
didn’t put them back. If they’d put them back, it wouldn’t have sank them –
wouldn’t sink a battleship or anything.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: They were all open. But it didn’t take long to close those tin cans
up, I’ll tell you. And then they were all over there shaking hands and the damn
Japanese smiling that silly smile of theirs and our officers were over there –
they were having a big ball or something. Well, the next morning hell broke
loose.
Q: Ah-huh. So what did you think was happening when you heard the
planes coming on that day?
A: Well, I was – I just turned and walked into my office and sat down
and I heard a boom and I heard the bosun’s mate say, “They’re bombing Pearl
Harbor!” And I said, “You’re crazy!” I went over there and looked out the door
and here come a Japanese plane by the ship. He had his canopy back and he had a
little – little purple ribbon tied to the top of his hat right here and it was
floating back like that and he looked over at me and just grinned like that –
that was fun to them. And I said, “If I’d had a (garbled) I’d have knocked them
down!” Then I knew it was for real.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Yea, it was for real. They had a, ah, ah, I don’t know how many
B-17 bombers come in that were brand new, and just had them built, and I saw
them coming in when the fighting was going on, and I don’t know where they went
to – never heard what happened to them or anything.
Q: Huh.
A: But I saw three or four of them flying in there, you know, low, and
I – I – I just said, “Well, I just hope they get to some flying field or
something around here where they can get out of the sky.”
Q: How long did all of that battle actually last – the bombing – was
it more than an hour or less?
A: Oh, yeah, they started about 7:15 I think – something around 7:15.
. .
Q: In the morning?
A: Yeah, and they were still going at 9:30.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: But we got out of there pretty soon after that. We unhooked – next
to us was the Ralph Talbot and they had these canopies up, you know, for the
movies? They didn’t stop to take the canopy down, they just raised that gun up
and shot it off! Put a shell into it – well, it left then in a hurry!
Q: Ah-huh.
A: I never saw that happen before – that was different.
Q: Yeah.
A: Yeah, we started out of there. We got out and we went hunting. It
was, ah, different. Our skipper came aboard ship when we was half way out the
channel going to sea. He’d been in town to the shindig.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And the exec took us out to sea.
Q: Ah-huh. So what was your command for that time and the response?
Were you looking for other battleships? Were you . . .
A: We were just looking for anything out there that didn’t – wasn’t
supposed to be there.
Q: OK.
A: And we – our – our sonar people picked up that sub as we were going
out and we dropped some – some, ah, depth charges on him and got him. He didn’t
get anywhere. Well, they got several around the entrance to that Pearl Harbor.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: But those little subs rode in on the back of the big subs from
Japan, you know, they didn’t have enough stuff to get them over here. Then they
got rid of them outside somewhere and then they got down and started something –
I don’t know of any of them that really did any damage. I don’t – personally I
don’t have no knowledge of that.
Q: What was the climate like on the destroyer?
A: Summertime. It was cool.
Q: Not the outside, but what were the guys thinking? What were the
attitudes and feelings of the guys aboard the destroyer?
A: Well, they couldn’t – they didn’t believe it.
Q: Ah-huh. So they were shocked?
A: Oh, not really. I don’t think anybody was really shocked.
Q: Ah-huh. Was there any anger? Did you see a lot of anger?
A: Oh yeah, yeah. A lot of anger. A lot of people killed out there.
Q: Oh yeah, ah-huh.
A: They must have killed 2700 sailors out there . . .
Q: Ah-huh.
A: . . .and marines. And all they had to do, see, they knew something
was up because they had this sergeant that was on the radar out on the mountain
on the east side where they came in and he picked them up – the bogies up thirty
minutes before they ever got there, and told the people about it. There was a
lieutenant out there and says, “Ah, them aren’t no bogies.”
Q: Ah-huh.
A: But after it was all over, they made him a second lieutenant and
shipped him to oblivion. Nobody every heard what happened to that sergeant.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: But the thing about it is, Roosevelt knew it was happening and he
was back in the states. And he wouldn’t tell General Kimmel, I mean, Admiral
Kimmel or General Short, who was the head of the ground forces that anything was
amiss at all. Wouldn’t tell them anything. And then made them the scapegoats.
Q: You mean after it happened?
A: Yes.
Q: He knew it . . .
A: No, Roosevelt knew it was happening. Absolutely!
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Absolutely! And then I’ve hated him ever since then. Yes sir,
he knew it was going to happen. That got him out of trouble. He was in bad
trouble. And it all started – they were shipping iron to Japan, I mean to
Valdivostock, they were shipping, ah, you know, scrap iron, and they told them
to quit doing that. And this led to that and that led to that and then, of
course, you’ve probably seen enough on TV to see what happened – that they set
out and came north, you know, to Honolulu. If we’d have got out there with three
or four tin cans they would have played heck with those things. But they got
them later. They sank four Japanese carriers at Midway Island. And I knew one
guy that was in one of those, ah, those, ah, planes that was off one or our
carriers out there. He was in on that, when they got those Japanese carriers.
That hurt them, boy, when we got them carriers. They couldn’t believe that. They
got the rest of that fleet out of there so they wouldn’t get caught.
Q: Ah-huh. When your destroyer went out of the harbor after the
bombing, how long were you out? Were you out for an extended period of time?
A: Let me see, we were out – well, we were out probably, just
guessing, about ten or twelve days. But the funny part about it is, I got
appendicitis out there. Couldn’t do anything about it.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: I went down and got in my bunk and stayed there for eleven days.
Nothing to eat or drink. I got one glass of either water or juice in that eleven
days. And they had it fixed so that if anything happened, that they would put me
on two canisters that had powder in them – that were empty canisters and I’d
float off the ship in case the ship got banged up, see?
Q: Ah-huh.
A: It didn’t happen and when we got in, back in port, man, I couldn’t
even move and the exec made me get out of that bunk and carry my dad-gummed
luggage and get down there and get in that boat – no help or no nothing. And I
went over to the Solace – USS Solace [a hospital ship] – and they
operated on me for appendicitis and as the doctor opened me up, it broke! He
says, “You’re a lucky man!” And I was in there with all the people that got hurt
in Pearl Harbor. . .
Q: Ah-huh.
A: . . .and they had a guy in there who was off my ship and he’d got
hit in the head right here with a two-by-four, and it was just a two-by-four
like that up like that – just like the end of a two-by-four, and it hit in the
head and they had a big wire thing over it, protecting it. Had a lot of people.
. . hurt bad.
Q: Did the ship carry pain medicine for people who were – in case
something happened? What kind of medical – you said there wasn’t a doctor . . .
A: Well, we had a chief pharmacist’s mate. . .
Q: OK.
A: And another pharmacist’s mate of a lower grade was there. They were
pretty good. You probably read where they had a chief pharmacist’s mate who
operated on a guy for appendicitis and saved his life – things like that. Well,
this guy was pretty good like that. But they didn’t get a doctor on board until
way after the war started.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: They got a doctor on there because when we were coming up the coast
of New Zealand on the east side, and I was caught by a wave, you know, an ocean
wave hit me in the back, picked me up and threw me into a torpedo tube. And it
broke my wrist a half-inch above the joint, tore two cartilages loose up here,
broke two ribs down here, and just crushed my chest, first it hit my hand and
broke my wrist and then my hand fell down and hit again and I had a pencil up
here and it just broke the end of that pencil off just like that. And then I
went down to the sick bay and they – the pharmacist there put my arm around, and
we had a doctor by then, and he put my arm around him and put a chain in here on
it and pulled on it and tried to pull it out, but he couldn’t pull it out. So
they just put a piece – I never saw a piece of tape this big – went from there
all the way up here – one solid piece of tape.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And then they put me off in New Zealand, US Mobile Hospital #4, and
I was down there in the hospital for two months. And so when this nurse took
that off, she says, “I can see why you hurt!” I says, “You bet I hurt!” All that
gore was out of there, and I was in the hospital down there with the second
mobile – ah, Second Raider Battalion and the First Seabee Battalion off of – off
of, ah, Guadalcanal – fighting – men that got hurt, they were in down there in
the hospital, and, man, they had them in there for everything. This one guy was
in there and he, ah, he was going along in a Jeep and it damaged his leg, and
they had his leg in a wire cage. It had so much proud flesh in it, that they put
a wire cage on it and put, ah, ah, maggots in there to eat all that proud flesh
off. And that’s the only way they could save his leg – or save anything.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: They couldn’t cut it out. So those maggots would eat all that out
and you’d just stand and watch them going after that stuff. They had a lot of
people in there like that.
Q: What was the medical treatment like when you were in the hospital?
A: It wasn’t bad. Wasn’t bad at all. But, ah. . . of course, one time
before the war broke out, we were out maneuvering and this ship come around and
just went right down and cut down the side of the ship and this guy was sleeping
on an afterdeck house. They had a gun mount in there and he was sleeping on
that. And this ship just went by and cut both of his dang legs off right here.
Of course, he died.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Cut his legs off, and he sleeping up there. But he shouldn’t have
been sleeping up there. That’s being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Q: Ah-huh. My impression is from everything I’ve heard you say so far
pertaining to the battles you were in in the navy. . .
A: I was in a lot of battles. . .
Q: . . .that you were always on the ship. There wasn’t any
face-to-face?
A: Do what?
Q: There was no face-to-face combat? You were always on a battleship?
A: Oh, no, no, no face-to-face combat, no, no. I wish there was. That
wouldn’t have been so bad. Sometimes it got pretty rough, it really did. When
you hear a 5-inch, or from 5-inch to 8-inch or 16-inch shell come whistling
through your stack, you better find some cover! (laughs)
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Oh, yeah. We had a terrible time out there on three or four of
those Solomon Islands battles.
Q: What was happening?
A: Well, the Japs were bringing troops in down the slot and, and, land
them on Guadalcanal. And we were trying to keep them from it.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And one night we lost four cruisers, just one right after the
other. We lost the Vincennes, the Astoria, the Canberra, and one other cruiser,
all on the same night. North Hampton, that was it – that was the four we lost.
But they lost everything they had. They had an ammunition ship, and we put a
torpedo into it and that thing blew up, boy, it just lit that place up just like
daylight.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: It really made a bang.
Q: Was there any repercussions from that, when you hit a ship like
that?
A: No, we were – oh, man, we must have been at least three to five
miles away from it. But it blew up – boy, that thing lit up just like daylight,
like mid-day, boy, you could see everything, but it didn’t last long. But they
lost everything they had in there that night. But they – well, you could just
stand there and look down at the water and see torpedoes running under us. We
drew twenty – or eighteen – foot of water and they were set at twenty feet.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: But twenty feet gets these cruisers, see, and they got the North
Hampton right ahead of us.
Q: So it was an advantage being in a smaller ship.
A: (laughing) I don’t know what! I couldn’t get anybody to trade
jobs on any of them! Several times I asked some people on another ship, “Would
you like to trade jobs with me?” And they said, “Where are you from?” And I’d
tell them, and they’d say “I don’t think so.” (laughing) Because you see, we
were out one time on picket duty. . .
Q: What’s picket duty?
A: Well, that’s . . . you’ve got a picket line and you run . . . you
never read anything about the Civil War or anything?
Q: I don’t know military. . .
A: Well, anyway, we were going from here to there and back down here
like that, and just to see that nobody came in to do anything, and we hit a
hurricane. Two of the destroyers capsized and they lost everybody on there.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: And our skipper, he would go into that thing just as fast as he
could go and when he turned around, he turned around and then he’d just sort of
run it back this way – back with it. And he kept our afloat, but they lost two
destroyers in there on that and everybody on them, just on a darn hurricane.
Q: Well, it had to be a rough ride.
A: Oh, you better believe it! That’s why I’m telling you I couldn’t
get anybody to change place with me. A lot of guys, even on submarine duty, they
wouldn’t trade with you, ‘cause those submarine guys, they ate pretty good food
down there, they did pretty good. We lost a few submarines, but then the Japs
lost a few, too.
Q: So, tell me a little bit more about the combat situations you were
in – the battles you were in.
A: Oh, I was – we were in many battles – many battles. One time the
Japs were trying to get us again with airplanes and so they were doing
everything in the world and they sent this one coming in ten feet off the water.
And so the skipper just put this gun down and shot a shell and we had
centrifugal fused shells on there and as he went towards in that plane and he
started – he built up a momentum and when he started to leave the momentum was
changing and blew that thing up and blew his plane right out of the water –
right out – he just pan caked right in the water just like that. Another one
went across the bow and they – they – he was leaking gasoline and it went all
across the ship and we hit him as he went across and he fell over like that.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Then one day we had another – a Jap Zero – and we had a P-38 trying
to get to it and every time that P-38 would start shooting at him and start
trying to get him, we’d start shooting at that plane, so the guy said, “Heck
with you guys,” so he just waited and let that Zero get way out ahead and he
went and caught him and shot him out of the air. But he was having a heck of a
time trying to shoot him down when we were trying to shoot him, too.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Boy, lots, lots of airplanes. Man, they lost a lot of airplanes.
Q: Were there some men that were able to get off of the battleship and
were not able to handle the stress of being in that situation?
A: We had – it was a destroyer, not a battleship.
Q: Sorry, there I go again!
A: Anyway, what I saw – I saw one guy that, that just lost it and
they had to put him in a – they put him in one of these wire – you’ve seen these
wire things that look like – that sometimes a cop uses to put a body down in,
you know. They’re built up like this with sides on them around like that and
around like that and around like that and then down here and across on the end.
Well, he was – they had to tie him down in that, and we got him transferred. But
that’s the only one I saw.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: Then we had another guy turn white-headed overnight.
Q: Literally?
A: That’s right. He was a black-headed man – black-headed man. Wasn’t
colored – wasn’t black, he was white, but he had black hair.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: The next morning he got up and his hair was just a white as that
sheet of paper right there.
Q: Ah-huh. Was that after a battle?
A: Yea. We – you’d be surprised how well they took that out there. I
mean, ah, the, ah, camaraderie and everything between them, the esprit de corps
that they went through – it was pretty good.
Q: Ah-huh.
A: I’m getting hoarse!
Q: Getting tired of talking? Need some water?
A: No, I’ve got some water out on the porch.
(tape stops for break – interview continues on A side of Tape #2 – side #3 of
5 sides)
Q: OK, I’m continuing my World War II interview with Billy Fyffe.
Billy has presented to me a document that he wrote sixty years ago, his last day
aboard the DD3364, the day his destroyer got hit by kamikazes and lost at sea
and all the stories of the planes bombing at them and the torpedoes aimed at the
ship. Rather than read through this, I’m going to submit this to the
transcriptionist to put in our story:
“My Last Day Aboard the Mahan DD3364”
“Little did I know what was to take place on that day, December 7, 1944. In the
wee hours of the morning I was called and told we were preparing to leave port.
I hurriedly dressed and went topside. The night was dark and quiet with the
exception of some unfamiliar sounds that resounded from the beach. Prior to
getting underway we took aboard technicians from the USS Blue Ridge, a
communication ship that was anchored near by. They immediately began to set up
odd looking radio sets on different parts of the ship. I little realized just
how important these radios were to be within a few short hours.
“As
we glided silently out of the harbor everyone was quiet except for an occasional
question. “Where are we going, what are we endeavoring to do?” In an hour we had
overtaken a convoy consisting of LST’s, LSM’s, and several cargo ships of
various denominations. We passed through Surigao Strait and headed the ship
westward. I knew then that we were headed for enemy territory. We rounded the
top of Leyte Island and the compass soon read 350 degree T, which meant we had
again changed course. Since leaving port our speed had not been altered although
the engineers were cautioned to be ready for full speed. Daybreak caught us only
a few miles from our objective. As the first streaks of light penetrated the
darkened ship, I heard the sound of approaching planes. Fortunately they were
friendly planes and resumed my watch. By this time the escorting ships had their
position and were preparing the beach at Ormoc for the landing of some
15,000 troops. My ship was directed to take it’s station approximately five
miles from the beach and start making reports on enemy activity.
“It
was about nine thirty when I spotted a group of planes approaching from the
southwest. At first they appeared to be friendly and nothing was reported on
them. When they were directly overhead I could distinguish them, and after
looking at the insignia knew instantly that soon I would be very busy. The
Captain relayed the work for the gun crews to open fire as soon as practicable.
No sooner had they received the word, when the ship began to vibrate with
concussion from the guns. I was the captains talker, and relayed messages to
various parts of the ship. In this way I kept the crew advised of the activities
that were taking place. The first few shots scattered the nine Jap bombers and
they began to reform for some kind of a retaliation. I sparsely had time to
inform the captain that they were returning, when the first bomber cut across
our bow raking the ship with machine gun fire. The second bomber came in on our
port quarter and struck the ship directly under the bridge. The force of the
plunging plane knocked the mast down the bridge and threw me against the far
bulkhead. I picked myself up and found I was almost completely covered with
gasoline. The third bomber came in on the starboard quarter and struck the ship
between the bridge and the waterline. The motors were torn from their mountings
and went completely through the ship. This bomber started fires in the forward
part of the ship. The fourth bomber was shot down by five-inch gunfire as it
turned for it’s death defying run. The fifth bomber suffered the same faith only
at the hands of a 40 millimeter machine gunner. The sixth bomber was sure of his
run, because he swept down the starboard side of the ship tearing both stacks
down and breaking the whole boat in two. The seventh bomber plunged into number
two gun shelter, killing all men inside. The eighth plane was shot down by some
fighter planes. By this time the ship was considerably damaged and in a sinking
condition. The planes had been accounted for and the crew turned their attention
to saving the ship. The forward compartments including the Officer’s quarters
were slowly filling with water. The captain said “Prepare to abandon ship.”
Everyone, including myself made preparations. All of our life rafts were
demolished with the exception of three. The fire was out of control and the
torpedoes were jettisoned to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. I left
the bridge and started down the ladder on the port side. When about halfway down
I had to assist in moving a wing and landing gear of a Jap plane before anyone
could reach the main deck from the bridge. When I reached the main deck I
noticed that someone accidentally tripped on the quarterdeck and a raft went
overboard. Three shipmates and myself immediately jumped overboard to save the
raft. The current was strong and carried us rapidly toward a small island
occupied by the enemy. It seemed as though we would never reach the raft. One
shipmate stayed close to me and I noticed he was wounded in the shoulder. I
assisted him as best I could, while still trying to reach the raft. Once we were
on the raft the wounded were put inside, and the others hung on the outside,
keeping the raft away from the islands. We were picked up by another destroyer
after being in the water for two and one half hours. My ship was a blazing
inferno. The Task Force Commander gave orders to have the ship sunk. My feelings
were low when I saw that torpedo strike it’s deadly blow.
“Now that the melee was over and we had accomplished our task we headed for
friendlier waters. On my return journey the ship that I was on had a close call
with a Jap plane. This incident made me recall just how fortunate the crew of my
ship had been. We lost seven men and had fifty wounded. This was considered a
small price to pay for the task we had accomplished. On tomorrow’s Japanese
papers it would state how they had annihilated another Task Force. My ship was
small but the Japs paid for their intrusion with nine badly needed planes.”
(Interview
continued on Billy Fyffe, WWII, Part II)
