Oral History Program Walter McBride Interviewed by Robert Tesch 23 August 1971 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Walter McBride Interviewed by Robert Tesch 23 August 1971 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: McBride, Walter, an oral history by Robert Tesch, 23 August 1971, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Walter McBride. The interview was conducted on August 23rd, 1971, by Robert Tesch. Mr. McBride discusses his experiences during World War II and Pearl Harbor. RT: This is an interview with Mr. Walter McBride on August 23rd, 1971, at 6:00 p.m. in the evening. I'm Robert Tesch, representing the Oral History Program here at Weber State College in Eastern Utah, no, in Northern Utah. Mr. McBride, I understand from my reading and also from other sources that you served in World War II, and you served in a specifically. Can you tell me what you did before you served in the war? WM: You mean by work? RT: Yes. WM: Well, I worked in a grocery store, I started working in a grocery store when I was seventeen, and I worked up until the week I went in the service. But in the grocery store I got into when I was young, and I stayed in, even when, after got out of the service I went back into it. I spent 37 years in total, in that grocery business. RT: What was your attitude to war then? Did you have, did you happen to go into war? I'm sure most your friends, and people your age were going, what was your specific attitude? Before you got drafted into the war? WM: Well, the way I looked at it, our country was at stake, our freedom was at stake, and I figured that when my time came up, I would go. A lot of people said, "Well, you can get a deferment, you know working at the store." And I said, "No, I'll take my chances." Just like the rest of them were taking their chances over there. So when my draft number 1 came up, I didn't ask for a deferment, I could've gotten one, being in a grocery store, that was (_____) jobs. But, I don't know. In my heart, I guess I wanted to go, I guess I (_____) the whole thing. And, of course, I was married, and had two children, and that would've been another deferral for this. But when the time came up, I went to Fort Douglas, and did my (_____) and went down there, and passed everything, we had to present, and then I was gone. RT: You mentioned that working in a grocery store, this was something that you could've been deferred from the service. What other thing could've you had been deferred for? WM: Well, like working through, or for the railroads, that would’ve been a deferral job, being a farmer, you could get away with that, and the grocery business, and... I can't remember just how many jobs there were, but those people that were holding little jobs, for the necessity to keep them on jobs, so they would take the younger people, fellows who didn't have any... See, I was twenty nine when I went in. That was... Oh I guess, well, the fellow I was working with, with me, he went down, I think four times during this time that I was away, and got a deferment, by staying right there at the store, so that was kind of a funny deal. After the deferments were out, we couldn't get any more, he couldn't get any more deferments, so he had to go down, so he went to Fort Douglas and he couldn't pass the physical. That was kind of a funny set... When he was a kid he broke his arm and he couldn’t turn his hand over like this. So they wouldn't take him, so he went up to the draft board always and got his deferment, he just went the first time, and they told him he couldn't go, so he stayed home anyway. RT: I imagine a lot of people felt, just prior to when Americans declared war on Japan, was there a general fear of the people , or was there a general theme of the people around 2 in that time that America was going to be involved in a war in very shortly, in your opinion? WM: I think so. Well, I think the older people did, you know, people that we had seen in parts of World War I, and the after mass of (_____). I think most of them figured, "Well, we can't help from getting into World War II there too." And of course, I wasn't quite old enough, but I heard something like that during World War I, and I'd heard so much about war, you know, and what was going on, and of course going to school, well, you read it in the history books all the time, so I think most of the people figured, "Well, we'll get into it eventually." RT: I see. You mentioned that you went to Fort Douglas. Where did you go from there, what unit were you stationed at, and so on? WM: Well, there was a fellow that went down with me to Fort Douglas, a kid that I'd known for years, his last name I can't think of it right now, but anyway, I met him down in Fort Douglas, and he said, "Well, your draft number came up?" And I said "Yeah." And he said, "You want to go?" And I said, "Yeah, I want to go." So we went to our physical down there, they give you a bunch of papers, and then you report back on a certain day. Well, this was in February, and we were supposed to go back until the last of March, but on the way home from Salt Lake, we got to talking and we said, "Well, we've got to go, so why waste this whole month? We had everything in shape and we could leave any time. So he said, "Well, why don't we go now?" So I said, "Alright." So we went back to Salt Lake the following Monday rather than wait the whole month, and...In fact I've just seen this fellow up the canyon yesterday, first time I'd seen him for a couple of years I guess. But we went a together, there were twenty-one boys left in Salt Lake at the same 3 time, we went to together, and we went through all up there, just practically all back, you know, and they put him in one company and they put me in another company. Well I didn't see him, I was up there for eight weeks, and then we got our leave, and we came home I think it was for a week, then we went back to Paragot? Or Faragot? Which made it an outgoing unit up there for about a week, and they weren't, they were trying to wait for a shipment to take them out I can, like just lay around there. So we looked out on the board one day and they said they wanted five hundred fellows for arm guard, well I asked three or four of them around there what it was, and they didn't know. So I walked up there and I signed my name and I said, "I want to get out of this outgoing unit, go someplace anyway." Well, he signed and I signed, and they took me and left him there, this was in February, the last part of February, so I left Paragot and went to San Diego, I went to the gunnery school down there, to the sub-base, one of ours was teaching me how to use a twenty millimeter gun, 3 fifty gun and 5 inch fifty ones. Until they knew where they were going to put you, you know, we spent six weeks going to gunnery school down there, and all through school, they take you to show houses, and they'd have these light turned down low, and the ships were coming across and you were supposed to identify them, you know, and you had to go into this identification, places of identification where they'd fly these planes across the screen real fast and you had to tell them what they were. And then you had to take rifles apart and had to take machine guns apart, take twenty millimeters apart, well, it was just general school on gunnery, they, then next day we would go out and fire these big three inch fifties, and then the five inch thirty eighths. And you, if you haven't been around them, that wouldn't mean much to you, just tell them what they were, but on the three inch fifty, it took a trainer 4 and a pointer on the gun, and a side-to-side setter, which took his orders from the gunnery officer, and then it took three fellows to load it, one guy on the breech, one guy taking the end, they had a lot of ammunition boxes and they'd take it up to the loader. It's quite a job, to watch them, you know, the way they work. And they, then on the five inch thirty-eight it takes eight fellows to run that, because the ammunition is that heavy, see? RT: What was the weight? WM: Well, I can't tell you what the weight on the five inch thirty-eight was, but on the three inch fifties, were seventy-nine pounds, each one of those shells, and they were about, Oh, I guess thirty inches long, from the tip of the projection to the end of the ... RT: That was the total shell? With powder and everything? WM: Yes, with powder and everything. And on the eight...The man would take it out of the ammunition box, gave it to the loader, slam it up into the breech and the guy there would close the breech, see, just working units, if you get a good gun crew, well, that's why they had this arm-guard, they taught him how to g run the guns that they put on these marine ships, see. Now, this ship that I was on, was a little more (_____) out of Seattle, it was one of the Moore McCormick lines in ships, it had been a cargo ship, and they converted it into a troop cargo ship, which could carry twenty eight hundred troops plus the cargo, in the bottom decks, and we were armed to the teeth, we had two or three inch fifty forward and two-three inch fifty left, in gun tops, set up off the deck, and then on the fan table we had a surface gun, a five inch fifty one, and then we had eight twenty millimeters set around on the ship too. So we were really loaded. 5 RT: Now, that's quite a lot of... Twenty eight hundred (_____) of supplies. WM: They had bunks built in the for (_____) hall. They had three places where they could bunk these guys, and the bunks were far enough apart for a man to slide in, you see, and then in the day-time they'd fold them up so they could walk around, and then we had a q pretty good sight hospital there on the ship, and we had two chief pharmacists, and then... Oh I guess ten bed pans specialists running around. And then we would take troops and cargo over to the islands and then we'd bring back the mental patients. We had...Oh I think six beds in there, were screened off and we'd just put the mental patients in there, and lock them in so that they couldn't get out, and there was about ten beds so we could bring the sick back, of course, a lot of the sick was put in the regular cargo holes, where the troops went over in, you know. Depending on how many we brought back. RT: So you would go to all the islands after combat had taken place and pick up people? WM: Yes. We would take these troops over, sometimes we'd join a bunch of ships, and we'd go to an island where they needed them, you know. Now, we then, we'd go to Ulisia (?) and we'd lay there until we got our convoy, and then we'd go along the island, we laid in Ulisia (?) I think it was for about twenty-eight days, waiting for the convoy that went into Okinawa, on the initial (_____). We took twenty-eight hundred troop up there, of course they tell me this, I don't know, to be sure, but they said they left about half of them the first night. RT: I understand Okinawa wasn't pretty first (_____) battle? 6 WM: Oh, it was a slaughter. Well, those Japs, they had all of those caves, they had cement pouring from those caves, and fifteen trees of cement, you know, you've got to, you couldn't penetrate unless you... The only thing you could penetrate was those battle ships laying off shore, and if they scored a direct pit, then they would be alright. So those soldiers and (_____) had to get right up there and burn them up with that would bring them out, hundreds out of the holes. We laid off shore, we laid in the Bay of Naha there, when we took the troops in, that's when they got off, another shore, and we laid there in Naha until the next day, then q we left again, we went back over to... Anawhitak, I think it was, and picked up some troops that they had there, that had come up through the islands, and we took them home. But we were always bringing soldiers back from overseas. We'd take a load over, and then when... We used to have a lot of fresh a fruit and a lot of fresh milk, and stuff like that for the troops all over, you know, and then there would be a lot of those ships who would be shuttling back and forth between the islands, so they although they didn't have any fresh stuff, and we'd give them everything we could afford before we'd come back. So all of them got fresh milk, they never had fresh milk for two years, RT: How long did you serve with this armored division? WM: Twenty-one months. RT: Twenty one months, so you have a lot of experience perhaps in going, oh, I imagine you went to quite a lot of the islands...? WM: Well, our first trip, when I first left San Diego, I went to Treasure Island, I went to Treasure Island for a week and they signed me into a ship, in fact they signed this whole gun troop to the ship, you know what I mean, a whole gun troop to the ship. This 7 ship had been out before at, or had seen service, and they're replacing the gun crews. If the fellows had enough time to get out, they got out wounded, or something like that. And they put me in the five inch fifty in the rear gun tunnel, or tank. RT: In your particular job you didn't have a chance to actually fight except....? WM: No, we was more of a lesser supply on. Now, our first ship, I mean trip, after I got aboard the ship we left Treasure Island and we went clear to Mid-Caledonia all by ourselves. Of course, we went down the coast, kept, you know, close to South America, we went to New Caledonia and then from there we went to New Zealand, and then we turned around and we came back again, that was our first time we I'd been to sea. And then our next trips, we'd go from either San Francisco or Seattle, or Fort Hueneme where we were going to pick up troops, and then we'd go to Pearl Harbor, first, usually out of Pearl Harbor you'd go in the convoy, and then you'd go to one of these islands. RT: Did the convoys usually be in Pearl Harbor? WM: Yeah, that's what they have...That's what they called centration, or concentration? And then as the war preceded along, your convoys would form, and fought around (?). Now, we formed a convoy at Whitak (?). You know, that's there were they practiced after war with all the atomic bombs... RT: Yes. WM: That was quite an island, now, we didn’t leave anything a there, except the quarrels. That was the prettiest...They had the prettiest beach you've ever seen on one side of that island. We had the hook dropped, oh, I guess about a quarter of a mile off the island, in the 4 water there, and we could go ashore every day. We'd take a certain 8 number of guys and take them to Shimore (?). And we could either have a beer or Coca-Cola, whatever you wanted, and we played baseball, or football, or whatever you wanted to do, you couldn't then, you know. And then the next day a bunch of the other guys would go aboard, to go to shore. But that sand was pure white, and for two hundred yards from the beach out, you could see right down through this water, was just a perfect blue that you've ever seen, down this white sand, it was real pretty. They talk about the beach over in Hawaii, you know, being pretty, well, it was nothing compared to that. But you were just stucked there in the middle of nowhere, then on the other side of the island, it was just quarrel, you couldn't even walk around on that other side. So I don't think they lost much when they did. RT: Can you imagine...You probably had a lot of experiences, you mentioned that when you followed a convoy, a lot of times these convoys were attacked by the Japanese, either by airplanes or submarines...? WM: Well, we were never attacked by aircraft, we never were. It was action just one way within the bay and off on. We had every night... As soon as the sun would start moving down, it would get a little dark, the rattle (?) would come on, and the Japs would come in there like mice, they was shootin' em down all the time. But during convoy, we were never attacked by aircraft. A couple of times, they had fig submarines alerts, and the ships...When your convoy staggered like this, the last two ships In the end, they're called coffin corners, you've probably heard of that remark before? RT: Mhmm. WM: Well, then we have a lot of victory ships that were made by Keyser, and they'd usually stick them out on that. A lot of them times, they were ammunition ships, and they would 9 stick them out of them coffin corners, and we had...I think it was the time when we left (Atawhitak?). We had a submarine alert, but they never did see it. The khin khans (?) would run around there and drop them...depth bombs, but there was never anything fired, you know. It couldn't hit him... you never know, like the ship I was on, if you read (?). Probably aboard a commodore ship, you might've got the (_____) whether it was south (?) they saw, or whether they seen, we never knew. RT: I would say you had a lot of interesting experiences, say for example, saving the troops from there? You probably had a chance to talk to {couldn’t get anything, truck noise}. Can you tell me anything about that? WM: You mean, with the boys down Nachifayu (?). RT: Yes. WM: Well, after we left the States, we didn't get to go ashore very much. Of course I did, because I was assigned the mail detail, and each time we'd hit an island some place, I had to go get the mail, you know, there’ll be a gate (?) coming on the side, and I would get into it, and I would go get the mail, and I'd go ashore and get the mail and come back to the ship, now, that was about all that I got to go ashore for. For example we got to...See, we took a lot of the boys on the B-29 (_____) Saipan, when they started to bomb Japan, with the B-29's. We took a bunch of those guys that worked in tank fields, and that B-29. Well, the island Saipan was a...just about secure, when we got there. Oh, they had a big concentration camp there, you know, where they had the Japs, and they'd said they picked these Jap workers out Clear some fields, you know, and they might take ten of them, and when they came back that night, they'd have a couple of (extras, or excellents with them?). The Japs in the field would come back to this camp, 10 and they let us go ashore there a couple of times, but... A lot of the guys were curious, you know, and they you had your boss call you out on the fan tail, and he'd say, "Now, I'm gonna let you go ashore, but I don't want you to be drinking any water, I don't want you be eating anything, and I don't want you picking anything up." You know, Well to the general rules followed, well, the fellow, would say, "Well, I'll do as I want." There were some guys that went along with it, that wouldn't pick anything up, and of course, there were bodies laying all over the place, parts of bodies laying all over the beach, and that's where they had the real bad time, up Saipan. The Japs would put (barbed wire?) right into the water, Oh, maybe as far as the water edge clear up to a hundred feet, they had these barbed wires running through the water, you know, marines couldn't see it, there was quite a slaughter there, and then right along the beach, they had these big cement bunkers built right drawn in the water, and then in the sand it was all sticking up, it was just about that much. Each of them were all slanded with... I guess so they could stick their rifles out through there. Oh, it was bad. RT: How many marines did you estimate that they lost? WM: Oh, I wouldn't dare say. We took back what we left of the Second Division marines from Saipan. They had their start in Canal, and what we left, we took them back. Now, how many were there, I couldn't tell you. RT: Did you talk to any of those men you brought back? WM: Yes, in fact I made a little trade with a boy from (_____) a marine, I traded him cigarettes for a gun, that he said he'd used all the way from Water Canal, up there. Of course, just like I said, there's a lot of people that was in the action combat and the killing that you couldn't get much out of them, useless. Oh, once in a while the guy 11 would get a little free-tongued and start talking about it you know, but the average guy, you'd never get anything out of them, action killing and shooting, so that's...I talked to a lot of marines there, and then when we went back, we went to Sasebo, Japan, and there were a lot a marines there, and I got pretty friendly with two or three of them, but you don't get much out of them, they're quite closed-mouthed. Like, say you met, say, there's a lot of them these guys would tell you about, so much about how many they killed, and what they done, they probably never seen any other than themselves, you heard, they sounded all like that, every day... We had a friend, this one guy, we'd get him talking and then he'd just force the bull on you, you know he's lying half of the time, but I guess he just wanted to make it sound good, you know, so as far as talking to soldiers and marines about the fighting itself, oh, they would all say it was hell, you know, and they was glad that they got through it but the general rounded fellow wouldn't talk about it at all. RT: When you brought back people and soldiers that were wounded in the battle, what hospitals did you take them to, usually? WM: We got them back to Treasure Island, and they took them to see... they have a big hospital there, and then we took some of them to big Los Angeles, or San Diego, rather in the Navy hospital there. RT: I imagine you saw a lot of different... You know all the way from the island to...? WM: Yes, you know, what really got me was those fellows that we had to put them in cages. They were mentally disturbed, you know, some of them were shell-shocked, some of them had (_____) fatigue, and they were... Just like me and you, you know, you'd stand 12 there and talk to them, and then pretty soon they'd wander off, and they'd just get, I don't know, kind of vicious, that's why they had to put them in those cages. RT: As soon as they started talking about the war, they'd get real vicious? WM: Yeah. Every once in while we'd pull...We had to have a guard with them down there all the time, with the doctors, you know, and I stood guard there one night, and this one came to and got to taking about his family. Well, then, it'd make you cry, you know, the way...He must've been twenty-one, twenty-two years old, but he was talking like a kid of seven or eight years old, about things he'd done when he was a little kid, you know, he'd be glad when he got home to do them again, and things like that. And the wounded of course we brought a lot of them, you know, and a lot of those fellows that we brought back from (_____) had the fungus, I don't know whether you've seen it, or heard about it, but we brought back some awful cases. There was one fellow, that they used to take him to the hospital every afternoon, and sat him out on the fan tail, where the sun could get at him, you know, and they'd just kept changing them around. But from right here down and clear up to here, he had about half an inch, I guess, of this fungus just on him. And I don't know whether if they ever cured him, they said that that fungus couldn't be cured, I can't see how they could ever cure all that, but id looked just like a grove on the skin. RT: What exactly did it do to him? WM: Well, what it is, they get it through being in the water, and being wet, so much, you know, and it just takes the skin, and it, what it looks like, it's like a bad sunburn, blistered up with little cakes (?). Oh, it was terrible, and they'd pick him up and carry him up there and pick him up again and take him back to the hospital, and we brought a whole lot of 13 those, of course, a lot of guys...Now, that was the worse site I’d ever seen, this one fellow. I'd seen a lot of them, but had it on their hands and on their feet, they couldn't wear shoes, you know, but this one fellow had it clear from the legs up to the arms. RT: Would you say that was the worst case, the worse disease that you saw? Or, what other type of diseases did you see? WM: Well, there was a lot of fellows with dysentery, and I would say that was the worst, this dysentery, they couldn't cure that by medical treatments, you know, but fungus. I just can't see how they cured it. RT: They just brought him out in the sun decks, to take the moisture out of him. WM: We'd take the moisture out and it would kind of dry it out. RT: Did you ever have any malaria, or any...? WM: No. You mean patients we brought back? RT: Yes, yes. WM: Oh yes, we brought a lot of fellows who had malaria, and in fact there was one in our crew that had malaria, and once in a while he'd have to go to the hospital for a couple of days. He'd...You know, at night, when we was sleeping, he'd call somebody one of his buddies "Boy, I'm freezing to death and then he'd start shaking, well right then we know he had malaria, we'd pick him up and take him to the hospital, and let the doctors take care of him. But there was a lot of diseases that came back from the pacific. RT: Can you give me a little more insight as to some experiences that you had? You probably had a lot of interesting ones, when , or with the type of war that you did in the 14 Pacific, can you state some of your experiences that sort of stand out on your mind, some things that you remember about it, that would be interesting? WM: Well, as far as battle experience, we just, what I should say, that we just went along with the fight, when we was in the Bay in Naoha, there in Okinawa (bay in Nagaoka?). The first night there, after we got the troops unloaded, oh, they'd give us the u run-down on what happened, you know, and what to expect. And as soon as it would get dark, these boys would start putting up a (falk?). Smoke stream, well everybody asked, "What's that for?" "Well in a few minutes you'll find out.'' And then the (redlers?) would just come on and you could hear them, they sounded just like bees, those zeroes would just start coming in, you see. Well, when they put you in that bag, they staggered you. Our troopship, one to our left was the LST, and in front of us was the Tin Canyon, and then over to our far left, would be another troop ship or an ammunition ship, or something like that, see£ and they'd say, " Now, when\the shooting begins, all the ones that were allowed to shoot was the navy ships. That would include the destroyers, and the LST's, and the battle wagons, I think there was three battle wagons, laying in that bay. RT: Was the LST a la (_____) story??? WM: No, that's a landing craft. RT: Oh, a landing craft, OK. WM: Now, I can't remember whether we had any crews laying down in there, but I know we had three battle ships laying in there. Well, it was light enough when the Japs started to come up, light enough for us to sit there and watch them, and they'd come right in, you know, just above the water, and those battle ships those destroyed up there were just 15 picking them out just like ducks, and then, the second night that we was there, they started the same thing over again, and they said, "Watch out for these little killer-crabs." The Japs would drop some suicide folks out there, and then they got in kind of looked (_____) streams, see? And they got right in the bay, in fact one LST, before leaving knew they were in there, they... You probably heard about them, they laid right in those boats, and they rammed them right in the side, see, they had charge right in front of the boat. And they were more or less like a little speed boat. Well, they had that thing wound up and they took right off, it was an honor to die for the Japanese. And they'd take off in one of these ships, you rammed them in the side, and they sank, before they even knew they were in there. They never seen any, they never got as far...Up as far as we were. We rode, in, oh...I'd say about a quarter of a mile off of the beach, we were tied up RT: I imagine you also had a lot of problems with... Zeroes...? Aircraft? WM: Yeah, well, most of those zeroes that would come in every night, they would try anything, if fact when we were there, the hospital ship, one dived Into the hospital ship, killed a lot of patients, a lot of nurses, and about the third night we was there, one came right over us, just... Oh, it must've missed our stack about... Oh, one hundred feet I guess, I don't know what it was aiming for, or what he was aiming at, but he got an ammunition ship, It came right into the island, missed us, and messed this LST, and missed this, other one, I think it was the Tin Canyon, and hit this ammunition ship right at the water edge. RT: It must've made quite an explosion? 16 WM: Oh yes. And then they sent bomber in there, then bomber would come in, they would circle the field, they had a...Seems like they took the island, and there was an air-field, right on top of the island, and this bomber would come in, and lay a couple of eggs right down the run-way. Then it made a circle and would zoom right over us, and of course, it had search lights on him, but there was, or they made enough back up there (?) that lit up the sky, and it was just like day light, and you could see that ship flying through there., with all that flack, and it flew right over the whole bay, and I think everything that was in there, shot at him, and finally these fire, or fighter shot him down,. It was just about back of New Bank (?). In fact, it would have, been fired/ had they been there to shot him. RT: What island is this that you're talking about? WM: Okinawa. RT: Now, how far was Okinawa from Japan? Do you remember? WM: Mileage, I couldn't tell you, but it was one of the closest islands we came to... RT: I was going to say, it isn't very far now? WM: No, it isn't very far from Japan, but every night, as soon as the sun would get down, they'd start coming in. We were there a week, and that was every night, every night. Of course, we had to stay on watch, we had to stand by our guns. The first couple of nights there, I never did like to drink my coffee, (black), but I got so I could drink that just like water, to keep awake, you had to stand there with those heavy battle phones on your head, and you couldn't do anything about it, you had to stand under the gun tanks, and 17 with that flack of light, the flack would fall on the deck of the bay. There was a lot of guys killed right there, with that flack falling on them. RT: What is flack, exactly? WM: That is, after your ammunition goes up into the air and busts, then this is hunks of steel, in this ammunition, see? RT: Oh I see. WM: And it'd fall, some could be that big, some could be as big as your hand. Well, that flack, when these fellows would be out on the deck, a lot of them got killed that was. RT: That's when that one plane hit that ammunition ship? WM: Yes. RT: That must've been quite an experience, something like that. I imagine it was quite a tense feeling over there, you know, for the ships that were in Okinawa, I imagine it was a pretty tense feeling for them? WM: Oh yes. And a lot of... A guy who said he wasn't scared, he was full of bologna. I was 29 years old and I knew what being scared was. RT: What time was this, Mr. McBride? WM: This was in May. RT: May of what year? WM: May of forty-five. RT: I was going to say, in order for American troops to be in Okinawa, Okinawa was really the last battle swamps, you know, before the end of war. Did you find in, that in picking 18 out different people, different marines, that there was someone, that there was a tide changing? Did you notice a changing point when the Americans would start to win, or when the Japanese were beginning to lose? Or was it pretty much the same...? WM: I think that the feelings of most of the soldiers and marines was that we were going to win, they were there to do the job, and they were going to do it, you know, no matter the cost. I noticed that in a lot of the fellows that we brought back. We'd take troops over, and...Everybody was talkative, you know, going over, but you'd bring these battle experienced boys back, you would have to (_____) conversation out of them, practically. But I think the general feeling of most of them was that they were here to do the job, and they were going to do it. I really do, I think most of these guys that were fighting over there, had their hearts and souls on it RT: Yes, I kind of believe that they would, because I think that it is really quite a… I think a lot of the soldiers resent the fact that, of the way America deprives them in the war. For, really I think It was pretty unrealistic when Theodore Roosevelt, his policies of isolation, and so on, cause America was a well-known power and it was getting better all the time, and Japan knew that. Just like originally, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, they bombed It, you know, it was sort of... they staggered (_____) complete, and with this in the Pacific, quicker than the American, quicking it, until built up again. But I think they find out that they probably shoot up more than they... WM: Well, you know, I've seen this show, Tora Tora, they use those... Right at the last, this fellow says something about the..."We went ahead and protected the sleeping dragon, and now we will get the worst of it." That was right at the end of the show, I can't remember which, just what the word was, you know, but that was what the meaning 19 was, that... "Thank America started, now. He'll make them never stop them." Yes, I think that's what the feeling of a lot of these young folks that were fighting over there, they knew that a miracle couldn't work for them. But Japan was awfully determined right to the last day. They fought right up till the last order that was given. Well, even in Japan, the kids were taught war, even the little kids, when they'd get big enough to walk, they were marched to school, and they had uniforms on them, this is the way they were brought up, see? And this has been building up for years and years and years before Pearl Harbor: And they practically made sematics out of all these soldiers. They had them...just like, I get a kick out of my oldest boy, now, he’s a marine, he's on six years of active duty, and he's got 13 years as a marine, but there's seven years of reserve. And I kid him about… then tell him about how tough the marines are, and everything, and I tell him, "They're just like the Japanese armies, they were told they were superior, and that's what they have them believe, they believed that they could win the war. RT: I really noticed that when you go back to Japanese culture, you look at the effort they...And the effort is pretty much they believe is pretty much God himself. WM: That's right. RT: So, if the effort says, "We're going to whip the world." Then from the youngest person to the oldest, they go right along with it. WM: Yes, they go right along with it, whatever the emperor said, they & believed. RT: You know, there's a lot of feeling there, from my readings, I remember that when came, there were a lot of people that didn't want him, a lot of the people that... 20 WM: Oh yes, that's right. No, they wanted to continue on, but I think the atomic bomb put really the fear into them, they saw what could happen, and I could also see what could happen. I was in Makasaki, we, I was able to see Makasaki, well, from a distance, you see. We was in Sacebo, and Sasebo is only seventy-five miles from Makasaki when they dropped the first bomb. And of course, when we got to go ashore, we were laid there at Sacebo for a couple of weeks, and we'd go ashore, and we'd say to them Japanese, "Where is Makasaki?" "Oh, boom, boom." Oh, that's all they could think about, and they never wanted to talk about it. We had an interpreter to go ashore with us when we were there, it was a Japanese boy, he was in the navy, and they just didn't want to talk about the atomic bomb, they’d see more than half of it, and they didn't want any more of it, they didn't want to talk about it or nothing. RT: Yes, I know that these civilians, I think that the Japanese civilians received one half of that thing. It wasn't really the people, or the Japanese soldiers who... A lot of the Japanese soldiers who were many miles away, just kind of shrived off. WM: That's right. It was the civilians that took the real pounding on them, in the two atomic bombs. RT: Well, I would personally say that if it wouldn't have been for the atomic bomb, Japan would've kept on fighting for years after. WM: Oh yes, that war would've been gone on a lot longer. RT: So we say then, that the Japanese (_____) will last suit? WM: That's right. I was reading... You know, I often thought, after the war, well, just up until last week, I never did find out just how many people were killed during World War II, 21 and I read in the papers the other night, and it was giving some...What did they say...? Oh yeah, It said that there were 55… What it was talking about, it there was an automobile accident, and how many claimed and how many were lost over there in Vietnam, and then it said that there were 55 million people killed during WWII, that's all over the world, fifty-five million. You just can't, you can like that can't you? And for the ten years that we've been in Vietnam, you know, they've killed... in the last report here, I think 50,000 Americans who've been killed. Yet, last year, the cars killed 53 thousand. RT: By comparison? WM: By comparison. Ten years of war has killed fifty thousand, and in one year, automobiles claimed 53,000. RT: You mentioned that...you said you saw an attack for the (_____) can you please describe what you saw? WM: Well, have you ever been up in the mountains where they had the forest power? RT: Yes. WM: That's what it was like. RT: Did you ever see any of the Japanese surrender...? WM: No, not really. We got on a train and we rode over there, and they'd let you off, you know, as far as you could go, and you could look down through there, and there would just be holes, and there would be half a building, or maybe a wall, or something, and gravel, that's all it was. This kid went with me, and he took two or three pictures, if I can think where they are, I'll get them and I'll show them to you. 22 RT: I was thinking...Why don't we just go back over, you mentioned that you took a lot of marines over to the people that were flying the planes B-29s, the long distance bomber that America developed. WM: Yeah. RT: Well, big of a turning point did this actually have at the end of the war? WM: Oh, I think it had a big turning point. RT: Cause I know, lots of times, they went over to Tokyo. WM: Yeah, you could never realize how many that old small bombers should take off, when they were off of the aircraft, and fly, you know, they'd make a strike and come back, and a strike and come back. But when these B-29s took off from Saipan, how many was, I couldn't say, but the first squad that went off, we were laying out on the bay I guess, about half a mile from shore, and they'd take off from Shirko (?). And finally they got the amount there that they wanted to leave over there, shooked I guess, it shooked that ship. That's how much vibration there was, that it shooked the ship, laying out there in the bay. When they started to pound real heavy with those B-29s, I think the Japanese were thinking about us. I think that could've been a little turning point right there, in fact, if they hadn't dropped the atomic bomb, they probably would've gone right through Tokyo, they'd just bomb everything to pieces, because they had the ships there and they had the ammunition there, and nothing could've gotten to us. Well, when I say nothing, they could've... probably put an aircraft carrier out there and basis they might've gotten a few ships over to the basis there, but I don't think they would've done any good. 23 RT: There were so many things that soon led to the downfall of Japan, I think one was the fact that America stretched itself out quite a ways, it cut off their supply lines so that...You know, being in Okinawa, you have lots of islands on the other side of Okinawa, you had to by-pass that a lot of times America cutting off their supply lines... WM: Yeah, that...If they didn’t have anything to fight with, they had to give up. And their main stay was ammunition, they could feed them rice, you know, food wasn't their big problem, I don't think, I think it was their ammunition, and clothing and stuff like that. RT: Towards the end of the war, did you ever have a chance to bring back any of these POWs, on your ship bringing back to, say, San Diego or Frisco...? WM: When we left Saipan to come back to Pearl Harbor, we always came back to Pearl Harbor first, in any island that we were at, we always came back to Pearl Harbor. We picked up a bunch of prisoners at Saipan, and we...like I said, we picked up all that was left of the Second Division Marine, and brought them back to Pearl Harbor. Now, that's the only time I've seen any Prisoners of War. RT: Could you describe the conditioning? WM: Well, there were women into this too, there were some women and kids and we had to go down and hazzle with them, and they had the marines guard them - you know. But they... To look a t them, you'd think they were happy, but they were prisoners, that they didn't have to fight, they didn't have to worry about the war any more, you know, that's the way I see it, my thoughts, of what they were going… of where they were going to, you know, what they were thinking about. 24 RT: Yes, I wonder, did they ever say anything to the guards, or the people that were in the ship? WM: No, they were kept...They were never allowed topside. They were kept right down in the hatch, from the time we left Saipan and went to Pearl Harbor. And we also brought back a lot of civilians that had been in Tanian (?) and Saipan. When the Japs started the war, see, we had a lot of American civilians over there working, well, they were taking prisoners, since the Japs started the war we had prisoners over there, and they stayed there until the end of the war, a lot of them stayed, they didn't even come back with us, we had...Oh, maybe a hundred or two hundred civilians that went back to Pearl Harbor with us. RT: Men, women and children? WM: Men women, and children. And that was one funny thing about the war and these marines, some of these marines had never been paid for six months, you know, and they knew they were going back to Pearl, so they'd drew some of their money. Maybe some of them hadn't been paid for a couple of years, I don't know. Then they drew some money, and these civilians had money, all the way back from Saipan to Pearl Harbor, they were gambling, there was nothing do and see the crowd, with a thousand dollars laying on the deck. Then them guys'd play cards, and it just seemed like the marines were trying to take the civilians money and the civilians trying to take the marines money, and it was really a conflict there. RT: Mhmm. 25 WM: Well, I don't know, the civilians had been tied up there for a long time, they were pretty good players, I guess. RT: Say, can you think of anything else of your experiences in the Pacific that you think might be interesting? WM: Well, if I can remember any names, one night about twelve o'clock, we'd get general... We all (mander?) guns, in fact, when I got up they all had them in... All I had was my (trunks or sharks?) on, but I was on the gun anyway, I was a porter on the gun. If it was black, you couldn't see the length of your nose, but after you'd been there for a while...see, when you're in the navy, you go on...say you go on watch at twelve o'clock, if you're in bed, they'll get you up at eleven o'clock, and you go and have yourself something to eat, and you always go top side a half an hour before you go on watch, and that accustoms your eyes to the darkness, see? Well, when you have general arm or general alarm, you don't have that privilege, you got to be right there, on your gun, set on your gun. And if it was dark, oh, I guess that for ten minutes you couldn’t see anything. And then this floating right off of our starter side, was this Tin Canyon, that was our tin can, it was the most decorative ship during World War Two. I can't think of the name it. When they christened it, they'd put a green crew on, a crew you'd never been to see before, but it was the most decorative ship during World War II, because it shot down, and sank more enemy aircraft and enemy surface ships than any other ship we'd ever had. The name is up here, but I just can't think of it, but... RT: Was that ship ever sank by the Japanese? WM: No, it came back to the States, but that kind of give you a thrill, you know, you're up there, you're on your guns, and the gunnery officers got you,... if you were sitting there 26 with two or three inches fifties, pointing to this thing, and you didn't know whether it was Japanese or whether it was ours, and s looting right off our starters pointing her old guns on right at us. And, how they communicated, I don't know, whether it was through radio, or, of course, they used this towards the end of the war, then they could use, a little more... a little (freedom?) with their radio. Well, I don't know, Well, If any of those guys were scared or not, I don't know, but I was, because you just don't know what's going to happen, you just... You could see the outline of the ship, you could tell whether it was a war ship, and she got her (bop?) pointing right at you, so you know if she had all of her guns and you just don't know what to do, but she turned tail, and went one way, and we went the other... Oh, (Bandon)? Or Obanden...that was the name. RT: That was it? Obanden? WM: I'm quite sure that was the name of the ship. It was the most decorative ship during WWII. RT: Can you think of any experiences where, for example Americans fought other® Americans? WM: No, I never had any experiences that way at all, well, except that I'd heard other stories you know, of fellows that...You know I was talking to a friend of mine one night, that was over in Europe, he q was in the Armored Division over there, and he said, "When they went into Italy, oh, they got their got their wires crossed a little over- there, and a lot of our ships shot down our own men." Of course, that's just one of those things, you know. RT: Yes, things like that can happen very easily when you guess... 27 WM: Yes, there's calculation, and there's so much territory, and so many things up there, I guess it is easily get mixed up. I know when we were going to... This is one incident, when we were going to gunnery school, down in San Diego, they took us out on the beach and they had these five inch 38s sitting up there, well, If it wasn't my gun and with this other kid, and the executive officer would come around and he'd say, "Are you tracking?" They had a big fire pulling on the big slee (?). And he'd say, "Yeah, I’m tracking." And then, of course, these guns are situated so that the gunnery officer can get up and look at the sides, too, see? Then he got up to look at the sides and this kid had the gun right on the ship, instead of on the target. He wouldn't've hit anyone, because he had no place to fire. But he says, “Are you tracking that ship?" And the kid says, "Yes, I'm tracking it." And he got up and looked into the sides, and he had the site and had it on the ship instead of on the target. RT: Well, yes, a lot of funny things happen, can happen, in service, concerning awareness. WM: Oh yes. RT: I guess...like one fellow told me, he said that, when you're in there it is really serious, but once you get out of it, there are things that you can laugh at, things that you think are or were funny. WM: Yes. See, we would be gone, the longest we were ever gone was three months, and I was always laying there waiting for that convoy to go to Okinawa, but we would take troops, and (_____) them over, then we'd pick up our loads and come back, we'd either come...Frisco was our port, our home port, so we usually came to Frisco, and unloaded, and we'd either go to Seattle, San Diego, or Port Hueneme, and load up again, see. So actually we didn't stay out too long, we'd be out then come back, and then we'd always 28 be here at least a week, and that would take the pressure off, you know, we'd go... we got liberty every other night, in the port you'd take liberty, so that gave you a lot of freedom, you know, and a lot of the kids would get a seventy-two hour, or a 48 hour pass, and go live a little bit. And like you say, when we get back aboard the ship, we were on duty again. RT: Yes, I imagine when you served... what you said was good for you if you enjoyed it, but you'd never do it again? WM: Oh, there's a lot of experiences that I can think about and say sometimes, that were actually funny, more interesting, but wouldn't want to go down and sign up again, unless I was single, if I had been single, I would've stayed in. Because I actually liked the navy, when I was a kid, when I was eighteen. I went down and took my physical exam, and the mental exam for the navy, and the fellow I was working for, I'd came back and he'd say, "Well, how did you do?" And I says, "Well, you see a (_____) walking around here." And he said "Well, I wish you all the luck in the world..." This was on a Friday or Saturday, and the following week he said to me, "You know, I got a call on mission, two year mission.” he said “now, if you stay here, I'll give you twenty cents an hour of raise." I was making fifteen cents an hour there, and he said, "If you stay here I'll give you twenty cents an hour of raise, and then at the end of the two years, if you want to go then, when I get back, OK." Well in 1933, 35 cents an hour was a lot of money, to have a job and to have money coming in, so I said, "OK. I'll stay." RT: This was in 1933? WM: It was back in 1933 when I was eighteen. So he went on his mission for the church, and I stayed and worked at the store, and when he came back at the end of the two years 29 there. And then, I don't know, I bought me a car, arid I got interested in girls, and so I said, "Well I'll stay and work, and I didn't go back to... go in the navy, which I often times, I wish I had, but I stayed at the store until World War II came along, and I was gone, and I went back and stayed until they closed the place up. RT: Well, all this things that you've told me have been very interesting, and can be very interesting, and it’s been very pleasant talking to you. I'm sure that the things that you have mentioned, other people will really be interested in listening. You've been very interesting, and so I want to thank you for spending your time with me. WM: Well, I'm glad if I was any help at all. Like I said, if I had been right in the front lines, of course, in a matter of speaking, we were all in the front line, because we went in within the initial assault at Okinawa, and we'd seen what was going on, and we knew what was going on, and actually, we were participating. We brought the people there, and we brought the ammunition and stuff like that there. But like you say, there's a lot of things that were real interesting, if you could sit...but after twenty five years, there's a lot of this stuff that you miss, see? Probably like...I said, after you get through, there's a lot of little things that returns to him and he did tell you, you know, but it was interesting, and like I said, If I had been single I'd probably would have stayed in there, because I liked the things that were going on, and you meet a lot of different types of people, you know, a lot of people, well youngsters, grown up, say, when they get around seventeen and eighteen years old, they never think of anybody else, they think just of themselves. But this war changed a lot of them, they knew that after they got in there, some of those kids would come aboard ship, and they thought they owned the world, you know, but after they'd been aboard ship for a while, they got to realize that there's other people in the 30 world besides them. And a lot of this talk, and cockiness was off. Well, I'm thinking of 19 and 20 year old kids, after he'd been aboard the ship for six months, he was three or four years older, mentally speaking. So, I think it's done a lot of kids good to go in the service. In fact , my two oldest boys have been in and I'm thinking of getting this younger in to go, but he don't want to go, he's 19 and he's got a job, has a car, and he wants to go to school. Well that's alright with me, if he wants to stay and go to school, that's alright, but if he don't, I want him in the service, I want him to get in there, and play his part. RT: I think, like you said, that was the concept of a lot of the people just before...that they just wanted to go and do their part. I would agree, that it helped a lot of those people that went in there to start thinking about other people more. WM: That's right. RT: And I think that it could work out in the end. WM: Now, one of my best friends, that I chased around with, I started chasing that kid in 1933 and this was in '44 when I went in, he didn't do it, he got deferred all the way through, because he was in the feed business. And right up to this day, he says, he wishes that he went. I don't know whether it was just to say that he'd been in, or if he actually wanted to go, or I don't know what it was, but he never did go in, and once in a while we'd get to talking, and he would say, "Boy, I wish I had gone to war with you.” RT: Yeah, I think it would've done him a lot of good, there was really a cause then, it was really a cause. You know, you really had to fight your heart out, you wouldn't have to believe that 31 WM: That we don't play golf in there. And there's two of those w that q were in, and two of those that weren't in. And then this kid's brother in law, in fact, two brothers in law, three brothers in law went in, but he wasn't in. And then several times he'd write me, and he says, "Boy, I wish I'd been there with you." And I wrote back to him and I said, "Well, you know where you live, you know where the city and county building is, all you have to do is to get down there, and get to the draft board, and tell them that you want to go." RT: Did he ever do it? WM: No, he never did it. And I tell him, you know, just kidding around, "you was afraid to leave your wife." RT: Well, Mr. McBride I'd like to say that I want to thank you for your time here, and I appreciate it. WM: Well, if I have been of any help, I'm sure glad. RT: Okay, thank you. WM: And I hope this thing works up for you, and I hope it works out for the college. RT: Yes, I'm sure it will, thank you very much. WM: You bet. {END TAPE} 32