Oral History Program George Hanson Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 11 July 2017 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah George Hanson Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 11 July 2017 Copyright © 2018 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii 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. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The World War II "All Out for Uncle Sam" oral history project contains interviews from veterans of the war, wives of soldiers, as well as individuals who were present during the war years. The interviews became the compelling background stories for the "All Out for Uncle Sam" exhibit. The project received funding from Utah Division of State History, Utah Humanities Council and Weber County RAMP. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Hanson, George, an oral history by Lorrie Rands, 11 July 2017, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. George Hanson WWII circa 1940s George Hanson on the left circa 1940s George in Bougainville circa 1940s George Hanson 11 July 2017 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with George Hanson, conducted on July 11, 2017 in the Fairfield Village in Layton, Utah, by Lorrie Rands. George discusses his life and his memories involving World War II. Michael Baliff, the video technician, is also present during this interview. LR: It is July 11, 2017. We are in the Fairfield Village in Layton, talking with George Hanson about World War II for the World War II in Northern Utah project at Weber State University. I am Lorrie Rands, Michael Baliff is with me. Thank you so much, George, for sitting and talking with us. Can you tell me when and where you were born? GH: I was born on Grant and 26th Street in Ogden, Utah, in my mother’s bed, at three in the morning. LR: Wow, and when was that? GH: February 8, 1924. LR: Wow. So you were born in your mother’s bed. GH: Yes. Very common in those days. LR: How many siblings did you have? GH: None, I’m an only child. LR: That must have been interesting, being an only child growing up. Did you have a lot of friends? GH: No, I don’t believe I can say that I did. LR: Why do you think that is? 2 GH: I really can’t tell you at this time anymore. I’m looking backwards, and that’s just the way it was. LR: Alright. So you were born on 26th Street and Grant, you’re almost downtown Ogden. Where did you go to elementary school? GH: I can’t tell you right now. LR: Okay, did you go to Ogden High School? GH: Just one year. LR: Was that in the new Ogden High School? GH: Yes. LR: Were you the first graduating class from the new high school? GH: No, I didn’t graduate from Ogden High. My father got a job in Boise, Idaho, and that took me away that first year, and I graduated from Boise, Idaho. LR: What do you remember about the Depression? GH: I think that as I look back and talk about it, I can remember that I was never hungry. Anybody that was in the Depression didn’t have much of anything. My father had a job, and he was making fifteen cents an hour. I think that’s fifteen dollars a week, if I recall right. It was an era when most people didn’t have a job, didn’t have any money, everywhere you went they didn’t have any money, even to the national government, so that was about the size of it. But I was never hungry. My mother always had something that would take care of a meal, skim as it might be. MB: What did your father do for work? 3 GH: My father worked in a laundry. Back then people sent their laundry, clothes to the laundry, just like you send your clothes to get dry cleaned today. All your clothes were marked with marks, so that the clothes could go through the laundry, you finally got to the end of the line, and all of the marks in your clothes were wrapped up in a sack, and delivered back to your house again. He did almost everything in the laundry. LR: Okay. Now, did your mother just stay at home? GH: Mother stayed basically at home. She could do everything that was done in the laundry, and consequently when Dad found out that he was missing somebody for the day, he could just go and get his wife and she could come down and fill it out. LR: That’s nice. Do you have any memories of growing up in Ogden? GH: I haven’t any specific memory of such a thing, no. LR: That’s fine. MB: Sorry, we’re asking you to remember really far back, but do you remember anything you liked to do for fun growing up? GH: We played out in the street. Kick the can, that’s one I can remember. We played out in the street, and at the end of the day when Mother finally found out it was time to call us in, she’d step out to the front of the house and holler at you. Then we’d go back in and that was the end of the day. LR: Interesting. I like that. So, I’m, I’m going to move a little forward into more of the World War II time. What are your memories of Pearl Harbor Day? 4 GH: This is a Sunday, my mother, my father and myself were sitting in the living room listening to the radio, as that was a very normal thing for people. Like they’d go and watch the TV now, you could listen to the radio. All of a sudden, the radio was broken in to, and we began to hear something about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. That was just an honest sounding thing to happen at that time. We didn’t know anything about such a thing. LR: So that day was almost crazy, in a way? Shocking, is a better word? GH: I think shocking is a much better word, yes. LR: You were seventeen when Pearl Harbor happened, so you’re still in high school? GH: Yes, the last year. LR: Were you worried that you were going to be drafted, or did you plan on enlisting. GH: I don’t know what I planned on, but I knew where I was going. I was going to be in the war. LR: Alright. Were you drafted? GH: Yes. LR: What branch were you drafted into? GH: Into the army. LR: The Army, and that was in Boise? 5 GH: No, I graduated in May of that year, and we had to register to be drafted. All of us, every young man at that time registered to be in the draft. Finally it got to be December of 1942, and they simply drafted us and that is about all you can say for it. That’s the way I got into the service. LR: Were you drafted from Boise, or had you come back to Ogden? GH: I had come back to Ogden. LR: Okay, were you sent down to Fort Douglas? GH: No, no. LR: Where did they send you, after you were drafted? GH: They sent me to Salt Lake City, order to report for induction. We all got one of those. LR: Okay, according to this document you had to report at 12:15 PM on the 22nd day of December, do you know where you’re going at this point? GH: Oh no. LR: Where do they send you for basic training? GH: Camp Wolters, Texas was basic training. That means we’re getting acquainted with, well none of us had ever known anything about machine guns or anything pertaining to being an infantryman. We also weren’t capable of being an infantryman at this time. A soft city kid just isn’t the same as a hardened infantryman. LR: Right, I can appreciate that. So you had to learn how to work with the new M1 Rifle. 6 GH: Yes. LR: What was that like? Did you have to clean them? GH: Work with them means that you can not only shoot them, you can take them apart, and you can clean them up and put them back together again. LR: Okay. So did you get to the point where you could do that blindfolded? GH: Well I don’t know blindfolded. But we could do that. LR: Okay, and it also looks like you learned to operate the Browning .30 caliber automatic gun. GH: Alright, yes. There’s a special name for that, but I can’t tell you. LR: Was that the BAR? Browning Automatic Rifle? MB: I think the .30 caliber was the belt fed, because the BAR wasn’t .30 cal. LR: Okay, you spent time in Camp Walters, and it doesn’t look like you went anywhere else. You just stayed at Camp Walters until you went overseas, is that correct? GH: We graduated, we had a parade, and that was our graduation day, to go out and have a parade. They put us on a train and the train had a sandbox in the middle of each of the cars. The cars were open, so you could just sit anyplace you wanted, and we did that for three days, until we finally get to California, to the place where we go overseas. MB: Was there a sandbox in the middle of the car? GH: Well, I think that it was so that you could cook some things, but we never did. 7 LR: Okay, so it sounds to me like you were going to go into the Pacific. GH: Yes. LR: Okay. And you were loaded onto a Dutch troop ship. The MS Kota? GH: Agoeng. LR: The MS Kota Agoeng. This was in May of 1943? GH: We finally got where we were going overseas in May of that year. LR: Where was your first duty station overseas? GH: Duty station? New Hebrides. LR: New Hebrides. I’ve never heard of New Hebrides. GH: Espiritu Santo. LR: Where is that? GH: Well it’s out in the middle of the Pacific. LR: I’ll have to Google that, I’ve never heard of New Hebrides. GH: You won’t hear about it now. LR: It looks like it was a large coconut plantation. GH: Yes. Oh…Vanuatu. LR: Oh, it’s now called Vanuatu. GH: That’s why you won’t hear of the New Hebrides. LR: So its 500 miles Northwest of Fiji, and they’re Melanesians? MB: Yep. LR: Okay. That is really interesting. So, you get to New Hebrides, how long did you stay on New Hebrides? Do you remember? 8 GH: In terms of months. Now I’ll explain. The Japanese submarines actually were sufficiently out in the Pacific around us that they didn’t want to make us have to cope with them, so we just didn’t go anywhere for quite some time, but it was still just months. LR: Okay. So, sounds to me like you were on New Hebrides for quite some time. Then it looks like you were getting ready to go to a place I can’t even pronounce. Kujukurihama? I can’t pronounce it. You were being put in Divisions to go to this place? GH: That’s the end of the story. LR: Alright, what are some of your memories of being on New Hebrides? GH: Well this is a mountainous island. They’re made out of volcanoes, and we’re still soft city kids. We started taking large hikes over the mountains, and I became appreciative of having hardened. We were just becoming infantrymen, a little as they kept working with us. LR: Were you on New Hebrides for the majority of your stay in the Pacific? GH: Oh no, we still had the war. LR: Where did you go after New Hebrides? GH: They put us on a boat, and we got in to the Solomon Islands. Now, Guadalcanal was the first island back, and then New Georgia is the second island back. For the group I was in, we went to Bougainville, and that was quite a jump, to this place. They needed a place for fighter aircraft, and as it was, to this point, the bombers could get to one place or 9 another, but they were unprotected. So we went to Bougainville and they just about were starting to make fighter strips on Bougainville before we could get settled as infantry. That was very important at that time. MB: Were you part of the first group to land on Bougainville? GH: Yes, yes, very beginnings. LR: So you helped make it possible for them to make those airstrips. GH: Yes, that’s why we were there. LR: Okay, do you remember any stories from Bougainville you’d like to share? GH: Oh, I wish I could fill your request. LR: No, it’s fine. You talked about how important it was for those airstrips. Do you feel like you had a purpose on Bougainville, did you feel like you actually accomplished something? GH: Oh yes, I’ll say. It was quite a while after, but finally we found out there was about 20,000 Japanese wanted to come over and say hello to us. Bougainville is a long island, with a mountainous range for a backbone. There’s one little spot where you can walk through from one side to the next, and so they came over and they were going to drive us into the sea. We were actually prepared for them, even at those numbers. General MacArthur knew he would not have a lot of infantry, infantry would be going to Europe. The Joint Chiefs of Staff made the decision that Europe was number one in the world war, and when they got through with that, then we could have all the infantry that we could, and that’s another story. 10 LR: You said there was 20,000 Japanese who wanted to get you off the island. How many American infantry were on the island? GH: I think divisions, and that would be 36,000. So we’re pretty well balanced. The one thing they weren’t balanced for was we had gathered up every artillery piece that existed in the Pacific at that time. General MacArthur let the Japanese alone for quite a bit, until they had amassed themselves someplace. Now, MacArthur did not try to destroy men with men, that’s a lost cause when you can’t replace the people that you lose. We did the best we could for quite a while, and finally they recognized that the Japanese had finally amassed their 20,000 people. One day, as you will find in there, they turned that artillery on the Japanese infantry. They destroyed six to seven thousand Japanese in a four hour barrage, and that changed everything on Bougainville. They went back over to their side of the island, and that’s the last time we were actually at war with the Japanese. LR: On Bougainville? GH: On Bougainville. LR: Did the Japanese ever come back? GH: No, and we never went over. Now, the air force would spray their gardens with used oil making it very difficult for them, but the Japanese couldn’t resupply their people on Bougainville, because of the air force. LR: Did the Japanese ever finally surrender on Bougainville? 11 GH: Oh they never surrendered. That’s something Japanese don’t do. LR: So, you were on Bougainville for quite some time, then. GH: Most of the year. LR: From Bougainville, looks like you went to the Philippines. GH: Luzon. LR: Were you there when General MacArthur went back? GH: Oh… I was close to being there. Now if you want secrets, this is one. There was no advertisement of anything to do with General MacArthur, we didn’t want to lose him. LR: That makes sense. So, no one actually knew that he was coming back, just kind of happened? GH: Coming or going, where is he now, or sometime later. There was nothing relative to this man. LR: That’s interesting. It looks like you got to Luzonville right after the first of the year in 1945. GH: Yes. I think it was the ninth of January. LR: You were in the 37th Division? GH: No, there are regiments of people, and you put three regiments together, then you have a Division, and the Division belonged to Ohio. They took one regiment out of Ohio’s 37th Infantry Division, and they replaced it with the Illinois 129th Infantry Regiment. LR: Okay, and that’s where you were? 12 GH: Yes. LR: How did you get in the Illinois Regiment? GH: Just assignment. If the units were short of people, we filled in those places where they were short. LR: Okay, that is just fascinating. GH: Now you got to remember, that the National Guard is where all of these people actually were as the war started. It is a marvelous program, where you have trained people all ready to go. It has a bad aspect to it, where if you lose quite a few National Guard people in the war, the hurt comes right back home. So what they were wanting to do, particularly at this point, is get everybody mixed up. At the end of the war you could say, “Well, this is the Illinois unit,” and there might not be anybody from Illinois in the whole unit. It just protected people back at home. LR: That actually makes sense. How long were you on Luzon? GH: Now we got there on the ninth of January. The atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on the sixth of August, and then the second bomb was dropped on the ninth in Nagasaki. Now everybody but the Japanese knew that was the end of the war. They didn’t respond until the twenty-eighth day of August. Yes. We wanted unconditional surrender. They did not want to give that to us, and so we made the one concession to them when we allowed Hirohito to remain the Emperor. LR: We did make that one concession. 13 GH: We did, and that was wise. He was so ingrained in everybody in Japan, you’d have had trouble forever. Giving them him, letting him remain, MacArthur could govern without the interference of the Emperor. LR: Okay. GH: Japan is much the better today for that single decision. LR: Why do you think that is? GH: They came to live a different life. They used to just go and take what they wanted, and now they couldn’t, and it helped. We taught them how to live a life that was worth living. LR: Okay, you were on Luzon when the Japanese surrendered, so you were there for almost a year? GH: Very close. LR: Did your regiment help liberate Luzon? Free that island? GH: We killed a lot of Japanese is about the size of it. MB: Did you go home from the Philippines, or did you take part in the occupation of Japan? GH: I have never been in Japan. LR: So you went home from Luzon? GH: Yes, we waited around there wondering when our boat was coming. Then one day our boat did come. LR: You went back to San Francisco? 14 GH: Back to San Francisco, and there’s a story in there. After three years, and we haven’t seen anything concerning home, we’re all standing on the right side of the ship, trying to see as much as we could see. Finally the captain got on the horn and he said, now half of you guys get over on the other side, so we don’t flop over. LR: So you get into California and you hadn’t had fresh milk it sounds like for almost two years. GH: Once we left the States, there was no such thing as fresh milk. LR: It looks to me like you were just handed a quart. GH: Yes. Then you had to sit there and wait for the darn stuff to melt. LR: It was frozen? GH: It was frozen. LR: You didn’t wait for it to melt, did you? GH: We tried not to. LR: How did that milk taste? GH: Oh, it was delicious. Absolutely delicious. I can still remember that. LR: Oh, that is wonderful. When did you actually come home to Ogden? GH: I went to the state of Washington. Mom and Dad lived in Renton, Washington, up by Boeing. LR: Okay. So they had moved to Washington after you went into the service? GH: Yes, that was where my Dad was working. LR: Was he working for Boeing? 15 GH: No, he was still in the laundry business. LR: Was he working on the railroad for the laundry? GH: Nope, just a business. LR: So you go back to Washington and you're discharged. What did you do after you were discharged? GH: You mean directly? LR: Sure. GH: Alright. I got my barracks bag and I got over and got on a bus. This is the middle of the night now, and I finally got to Renton, and it was like Washington Terrace, where all the houses are built in that same manner. I finally found out where Mom and Dad lived. I knocked on the door, and these two old people came in their night clothes, and they both had their teeth out, and I didn’t even know them! But we got acquainted. LR: Wow. So your parents had no idea you were coming home. You truly surprised your parents. GH: Yes, I told them I was coming home, but they didn't know when. LR: So you’re home now with your parents, what did you decide to do? Did you go to school, or did you find a job? GH: I went and found a job. They were making railroad cars, and these were cars to keep frozen foods, and I was putting the insulation on the doors. It was the job I had. Finally one day a man came to me and he said, “Now, you’ve got to belong to our union.” I said, “Let me tell you that while you 16 were over here on strike for more money, I was in the Pacific carrying a rifle.” Never heard from him again. LR: It’s one way to get someone to leave you alone. I like that. GH: I had to go home. That wasn’t home. I’d been gone for three years, and I simply made arrangements and I went home. Left Mom and Dad right where they were. LR: In Washington. So home was Ogden? GH: Home was Ogden, yes. My mother’s sister lived on Jackson and 23rd Street, and I went and lived with them. MB: When did you meet your wife? GH: About six months after I got overseas, this lady who’s my mother’s sister, worked in one of those five and dime stores downtown, and they had the lunch counter. The very next counter over was taken care of by a young lady that my aunt really liked, and her name was Blanche. She gave Blanche my address and Blanche wrote me a nice letter. I answered her letter, and that was the beginning of everything. LR: Wow, you met through writing, that’s really fun. GH: But you know, back during the beginnings of these years, you had nothing. My dad didn’t have a car, and I certainly didn’t. I didn’t have any money, I didn’t have anything. If we got together as people, it was a group, none of us ever had a date, and two of us go somewhere and enjoy an evening together. 17 LR: So it was as a group. GH: You didn’t have any money. What are you going to do? That was the only way we could go and enjoy each other, and it worked out very well. LR: So when you got back to Ogden, did you go and start dating Blanche? GH: I didn’t even know where she lived, or anything, but we did have a phone, and I did call her. That was the beginning. LR: When did you finally meet her? GH: It wasn’t too long after that. LR: When did you guys get married? GH: May 2, 1947. MB: I know when you and I were talking just before Lorrie came, you said you went to Weber State just for a little bit, but that you ended up becoming a glazier? GH: I got a job as a glazier. Yes. LR: What is a glazier? GH: Most people can’t tell me, but a glazier is somebody who puts the shine on glass. A glazier deals with glass. Brigham Young was a glazier, which was a surprise for me to find out. LR: Interesting. So did that become your career? GH: Yes, it did. LR: Where did you work? 18 GH: In the middle of the block, from 24th to 25th on the east side of the street, Bennett’s Glass and Paint. LR: How long did you work there? GH: It was a little more than twenty years. LR: Then you and your wife had three kids? GH: We did. MB: I know you also said that you took care of your parents during this time as well, after you came home and got a job. GH: Yes, yes. LR: So your parents came back to Ogden? GH: Yes they did. Once I got back it wasn’t long and they were back. LR: Let me ask you this as a final question. How do you think your experiences and time during World War II affected and shaped the rest of your life? GH: Well I’m not the same as if I hadn’t been in it, that much I’m sure of. I am what I am because of it. LR: Very profound. George, thank you so much for sitting and talking with us. I know this was a lot, but I’m grateful that you took the time, thank you. I appreciate it.