Oral History Program Blaine Hill Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 5 November 2011 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Blaine Hill Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 5 November 2011 Copyright © 2011 by Weber State University, Stewart Library 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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These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ 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. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Blaine Hill, an oral history by Lorrie Rands, 5 November 2011, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Blaine Hill circa 1944 Blaine Hill November 5, 2011 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Blaine Hill. It was conducted in his home, by his granddaughter, Lorrie Rands, on November 5, 2011. In this interview, Blaine discusses his recollections of World War II and working on the railroad. LR: Grandpa, I am thrilled to be with you here today. What was your life like before the war? BH: I got married when I was eighteen years old. My dad moved to Salt Lake about that time with his dairy cattle, so I took over the farm -- 100 acres of farm land which I ran for a couple of years. I was mad at that farm because of all the work I had to do on it, so I got everything out of it that I could, planted the whole thing in Atlas brewing bory and sold it to Becker’s Brewery in Ogden. I got a lot of money out of it. I did that for three years and then a guy that had his farm where they built Geneva Steel came over and bought my farm because Geneva Steel had bought his. Then I went to work on the rail road and I worked on the rail road until I went into the service. LR: So, where you drafted, or did you enlist? BH: I was drafted in the marines. They took us up to Fort Douglas and took all our clothes away from us. There were about eighty of us in this room and they came and marked four of us with a green chalk on our chest, ‘You’re going in the marines.’ “No we’re not going in the marines. We want to go into the navy.” But finally we were the only four left, and it was cold standing around naked. “We’ll go in the marines.” I’m glad I did now. 1 LR: Why did you want to be in the navy? BH: Well I wanted to be a fireman aboard ship, because I knew all about boilers and stuff. I wanted to be a fireman in the Navy. LR: So, standing there naked, finally you agreed to be a marine. What happened after that? BH: They took us and gave us our clothes back and we went, “What did we do?” We went home for about a week. I didn’t go back to work, and I took a leave of absence from the railroad. I went home and then we were supposed to go to Salt Lake in about a week, and we got aboard a train. We met at the Union Pacific depot, a whole bunch of us. They had a troop train there and we got on the train and it took us to San Diego -- Coronado, San Diego -- boot camp, a recruit depot. LR: So how was boot camp for you? BH: Oh rough. Hardest work I ever did. I worked hard on the farm and I worked hard shoveling coal in the steam locomotives, but never like that. LR: So your drill instructor just worked you hard? BH: Yes, keeping step. Right step, left step, double to the rear ha, right step, left step, double to the rear and then go on marching. LR: How often would you do that? BH: All the time during training while there were close order drills. There was ‘to the rear march’ and ‘oblique march.’ LR: Ok, what kind of things were they teaching you and preparing you for in boot camp? 2 BH: To take orders. Discipline. Then we had bayonet practice and combat judo, and then we went to the rifle range had to snap in with an old Springfield. Got all ready to fire for record, and they gave us the M1. We had to go back to our recruit depot and wash those guns. They were all covered with cosmolene, heavy grease, even in the barrel. We had to take them apart, learn to dismantle them and put them back together blindfolded, those M1 Rifles. Cleaned them up, snapped in, and went back out to the rifle range and fired for record. I didn’t get expert, but I got sharp shooter. And, well, I got mad at my instructor. We were laying prone position and we had to put our arm in the sling on the rifle like so, and shove it up till it snapped in our shoulder, and we were laying there like that, and shooting, and I said: “Oh, my guns hurting me.” I should have never called it my gun. I should have called it my rifle. And he The drill instructor shoved my face right down in the sand. I back handed him and he stomped me. So I was mad at him, and that is why I didn’t fire expert because I had shot deer rifles all the time on the farm. Then we went back to the recruit depot and out to the rifle range, and it was guard duty for a couple of weeks. Then we had ten days furlough in route to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina for demolition training, mine disposal and demolition. I went home to Spanish Fork and I got a bus ticket from Spanish Fork to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina -- a Greyhound bus. I couldn’t get on the train because they were reserved for troops and equipment. We got down in Endsville, Indiana and I was first on the bus every time so I could get a good seat. I got on the bus and was sitting there, and here come this colored little old 3 lady. She had a kid and he didn’t have any top lip and she couldn’t get on the bus in time. She was standing up so I had to get up and give her my seat. So the the next time we got off the bus to rest I said -- I had a big leather belt around my waist -- I said, “Give me that kid and you get a hold of my belt, and we’ll be the first ones on the bus.” We were and we got a nice seat. But that kid, she gave him a piece of chocolate and he slobbered and got it all over my uniform. She got off the bus somewhere. She was going to take that kid and get his lip operated on. I never saw her again. But she thanked me for helping her on and off the bus. Then I got to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and took demolition training. First we had basic engineering. We had to learn how to operate bulldozers and graders and drive trucks and all that stuff, and then we took demolition training. We studied for weeks on different kinds of explosives, how to handle them, what not to do and what to do. Then they sent us. A twelve men demolition platoon -they gave us a big rubber raft, a great big one, about twelve feet long and about three hundred pounds of demolition in TNT blocks, C2, blasting caps, and primer cord. We went out in the Camp Lejeune swamps on a ‘seek and destroy’ mission. On the way out there, we saw this old guy and he had this big straw stack, a straw stack out in the middle of the swamp. So we paddled over there and what the hell, he had a still in side of that straw stack, and we bought a gallon of moon shine. Needless to say we were having a ball, but we got sick and tired of this demolitions training so we put all the explosives on this raft, and shoved it out in the swamp and pulled the cord. We went out there about a hundred yards and it blew that raft all to pieces. We were stranded out there on 4 the island with a gallon of moon shine and a lot of grub. We were just partying and having a ball, and in about a week they came looking for us, madder than a hornet. I got ten days P and P for that. Bread and water. LR: What’s P and P? BH: Piss and Punk. And well we graduated, and they put us in the 49th overseas draft, and we went up to Norfolk, Virginia. We boarded an old garbage scow, the Florence Nightingale. We went out in the Gulf Stream and went down through the Panama Canal to Pearl Harbor. It was 30 days aboard ship. Every morning we had to do about an hour exercise so we wouldn’t get weak. We could have only a quart of fresh water a day besides what we got in the mess hall, and our hair was just like we had honey in it, so we cut it all off. We were filthy. Our clothes would get filthy, and we would tie a rope on them and throw over and let them dangle in the water. Half the time when we would pull them up they’d be all gone. We finally got to Pearl Harbor and went to camp, or to a marine casual platoon, where they’d send you out from this casual platoon to where ever they needed marines, and they put us all on mess duty. For about a week we had nothing to do but wash the tables down before and after the meals. Well me and another guy got sick and tired of this and we went to the chaplain. I told the chaplain, “I thought the marines were a combat outfit, and all I’ve ever seen is mess duty.” The next day we were out of there and we went to the Marianna’s to Guam, Saipan and Tinian and did combat conditioning. We learned how to run and if you stumbled you roll and come up with your rifle ready. 5 Then we got on an old coast guard LST, Landing Ship Tank, and went up and hit Okinawa. The landing on Okinawa was pretty bad for me. I don’t like to talk about it, but I swum ashore and there was four of us left out of a whole boat load of men. I swam ashore with these other guys, and we had to clean ourselves up. We went and found the first separate engineer battalion, that’s what we were going to join. The first separate engineer battalion. It was already on Okinawa. We went and found that. We went and found the island command and we told them who we were and where we wanted to go and he took us up there in his jeep. Our old master sergeant was Solomon He said, “You boys have just joined the finest outfit in the Pacific.” We thought we were really something. Two guys had gotten killed in this platoon, and there were about six platoons so I got in with this platoon and we went all over. They gave us a big truck and all the equipment we needed, and where ever they needed us we would just go and do it, all over the island. We were just a separate engineer battalion. We’d work for the army one day and go and then go over to the navy the next day, and then the marines the next day. We were doing work along the sea wall where they put rocks down so the waves don’t wash away the shore. They said there were mines along there, so we were with mine detectors trying to find the mines along there. A landing craft, the LCVP, had shoved up on that sea wall at high tide, and when the tide went out, he couldn’t get off. He had his prop in reverse trying to pull himself off. There was a great big bulldozer sitting over there, and he came over and said, “Any of you boys know how to drive that bulldozer?” I said, “Oh ya, I do, I do.” So 6 I got up and got on that old thing and backed it around and put it up against the nose of that landing craft. Well there’s drop off that went down in the ocean -about sixty feet of water there off that sea wall. I put that old bulldozer in low gear and opened the throttle wide open and pulled the clutch out. Those tracks were just grinding in the sand and he had that prop going. All the sudden I went off in sixty feet of water with that bull dozer. I swam to the surface and bubbles were just everywhere. You could see where that bulldozer was with the bubbles going -- where it went over. I guess it’s still coming towards the United States. But nobody knew where that bulldozer went when they come looking for it. Then what happened? Oh, we got a call to come up to Yan Tan Yen Chen Air Base. The Marine’s infantry had just captured the Yan Tan Air Base from the Japanese, so we went up there and were checking for mines and booby traps and stuff, and here came a Japanese Zero and landed. The pilot got out and was taking his gloves off. He had a white silk scarf around his neck and he got about half way over to the building from his plane and he realized he was in bad, so he started running back for his plane but he didn’t make it. We had a brand new Japanese Zero fighter plane for them. Island command came and got it and put it on a big truck and took it out of there. Oh and then the Japanese soldiers would take all these civilian people and they’d go down into these big caves. Okinawa is just littered with big caves. I guess from the water or something. But they’d go down into these caves and hide so we wouldn’t get them -- the Japanese soldiers -- and they wouldn’t let the people come out either. We couldn’t pass them by so we’d take a flame thrower 7 and put that napalm down in there and light it and kill everybody down in there. They gave us an interpreter that could speak Japanese and we went up to this one cave and he shouted down in there and pleaded with them to come out. Finally they came out. There was an old, old Okinawan man and over there if you’re old, they really respect you. They even give you a special hat, because you’re old and he came out and he was just crying. He had four daughters and the Japanese soldiers told him if us guys got them that we would rape them and kill them, so he cut their throats rather than let them come out. When he saw that we wouldn’t hurt them, boy, then he wanted to cut his own throat. And then, what happened? Oh, Shuri Castle was a big mansion where the king of the island lived. It was all full of nice things so the Japanese had booby trapped everything in there. We were in there dismantling all those booby traps and things and there were about five Japanese soldiers in there. They opened fires on us. I had my Thompson sub machine gun slung over my soldier and I didn’t have time to do anything, so I just hit the deck, and the other guys killed those Japanese soldiers. But when I went to get up my leg was just bleeding. I’d got shot right through the leg, right through there. It didn’t hit any bone or nothing, it just went through the flesh, so I went to the hospital. Incidentally when, coming, you know when the landing craft blew up and when we landed? I couldn’t hear anything. I could barely hear anything out of this ear, so I thought I might as well get my ears fixed too. So they evacuated me off Okinawa and took me to back to Guam, to the hospital. My ears just kept getting worse and worse and I couldn’t hear anything. So they were examining me every 8 day. I had to -- because there was nothing wrong with me, my leg had healed up -- me and another big colored guy had to go down to the mess hall and sweep it out after every meal. Oh, the hospital ward, not the mess hall. We had to come back from the mess hall and sweep out the hospital ward. Well I’d hurry back and sweep out the hospital ward and I’d just be putting the brooms away and this big guy that was supposed to help me would come and sit down on his bed and start reading a comic book. So I put up with it about two days. On the third day when he did that I walked up to him and said, “Hey you’re supposed to help me.” He said, “Get away from me you white trash, I’m a sergeant.” I hit him just as hard as I could right on the point of his chin. He just shook his head and I said, “Boy I’m in trouble now.” We was rolling around and fighting around and the MP’s come and got us before he killed me. They threw me in the brig, ten days P and P. They brought me back down to -- oh, I’d made corporeal -- brought me back down to PFC. So I got ten days P and P. When I got out one of my ears had come back. I could hear in this ear. They put me in a marine casual platoon. They give me a big new truck. I’d go down to the dock and haul stuff all over Guam. Incidentally I was in Fleet Hospital 115 on Guam. The guys that were unloading the ships were all colored guys. I had a little ball ping hammer with a long handle on it, and you’d hit your tires with it to see if they were inflated good. It was laying there at the side of my seat. These trucks didn’t have any tops on them. They were just 6 bys, or 4 by. This guy said, “Back up a little,” and I’d back up. “Go ahead a little,” I’d go ahead. Then they’d laugh because they were so funny. So I said, “You load the truck you 9 black Son of a B.” That was a bad thing, and he came over and he grabbed me. I hit him right between the eyes with that ball ping hammer. Ten days P and P. Then they wouldn’t let me drive a truck anymore and I had enough points to come home, so I got on the Baxter, the USS Baxter and came to San Diego. Four of us hired a taxi to take us up to Los Angeles. In Los Angeles we got a train home. When I got home all my money was gone. I had a brand new 1941 Chev, and the tires were worn out. You wanted to know about the Marines? LR: Yes, reading your history, there was a lot of boxing going on. I’d love to hear about the boxing. BH: While we were at Pearl Harbor, before I went to the chaplain, while I was training, I was in pretty good shape. We’d go over to Ford Island and fight the navy. They had a bunch of names in a big helmet and you’d just reach in and get a name and that’s the guy that you fought. I always picked some great big colored guy. Oh, but they were good. I couldn’t hurt them. I’d just hit them and beat them as hard as I could before they knocked me out. Then the marines were a rag tag bunch of -- they’d fight like cat and dog over a comic book or a pack of cigarettes, but they’d join together and fight the navy and the army. We had awhile we were on Okinawa and we had an expediter. He had a truck and he’d go all over the islands getting things for the marines. When those boots came up there they were about this high and they’d lace up here and then they had two straps around here. Combat boots were in demand. All of us had a brand new pair of them. An Army Officer said,“Where’d you get those boots?” I said, “The marines give them to us.” But our expeditor stole them from 10 somewhere. We were all eating sea rations, and we’d have ten in one rations. Ten guys eating out of this big box. Good chow. We had that all the time. They were a bunch of rag tag rough neck good old guys. Well I can’t remember much of anything else, off hand. LR: That’s ok. So when you got back, you went back to the railroad? BH: Yes LR: You just started working on that? BH: I got home December 25, 1945. I got to Salt Lake on the train. I had a sea bag just with my personal stuff in but I had four sea bags coming. I went out to my dad’s and he wasn’t home there in Sandy. Sterling was there. I’d bought dad a new wallet for Christmas, and I gave it to him Sterling. I was hitch hiking to Spanish Fork. I went out with the sea bag over my shoulder and a guy came and picked me up just like that and took me to Spanish Fork. I bought a little home in back of a big home in Spanish Fork -- Helen’s great grandfather’s place. He had a big place in front and then a little place out back for his second wife. I bought that second home for her to live in while I was gone. She was living there. I stayed around until the first. After New Year’s I went out and went to work on the railroad. I took the Helper Pool shoving trains up the top of Soldier Summit with big old mally’s. And then I worked that until the business slowed down and they couldn’t hold the pool anymore. I had to hostle, take engines when they come in, put them on the cinder pit and they’d clean the fires. We’d take them around up 11 to the coal shoot and fill them full of coal and water and sand and put them around the Y. Then we’d put them in the round house. That’s what we did. The two main lines here, the east bound and the west bound. West bound was the one that comes to Salt Lake. Four o’clock in the morning the passenger train would come in with a desert engine 1800 or a 1700. We’d put the 1700 over on the other main line and take this 1800 and put it on the train. Then we’d take this 1700 and go up through the crossover and take it back to the coal shoot. Well we were in a hurry to get out of the way of the passenger train see, because it wanted to leave, so I was helping a guy named Henry Breist. We had to come clear up here and there was a train coming in of coal mine empties. It was coming down into or rather going in the yard. This track from the main line with this passenger engine went right out in to that train that was coming in with the empties. He didn’t see it and he went charging up there and hit the side of that train and knocked two or three cars off the ground. It tore up the front of the engine. I had a lot of accidents on the railroad -- hit people on the tracks. I was coming from Grand Junction on a 3700 and coming into Price. I saw this box car and it had come rolling down the yard. It came out to foul the main line. I told the engineer, “Big hole.” He says, “Why,” and I said “Big hole.” But it was too late. We hit the box car. It was full of barley and grain. Barley went all over the front of that engine and that barley just popped like popcorn from the heat of the engine. Another time we were coming into Price and there were two ladies in a new nice car. She got her front wheels right between the tracks and stalled. I told 12 the engineer and he big holed, but we hit her and the car just went spinning down the road. It didn’t tip over it just went and tore the whole side of it up. I went running down there and tried to get them to get out of the car to see if they were all right but they wouldn’t. So finally the police came and they got out of the car and they’d both wet their pants. That’s why they wouldn’t get out of the car. I was working out of Salt Lake coming out of Provo, the wing, first crossing this side of Provo. We were coming in and the train didn’t have any fireman, it just had a break man. He said “whistle, whistle there’s a truck coming, big cattle truck full of cattle.” I whistled and rang the bell but he crossed right in front of us. I went into emergency but the coupling on the front of the engine went right between the cab and the bed of that truck. They had about eight or ten big fat steers in there, and it the train and just wrapped that truck right around the engine. We took it on down the track, and ground those cattle all to pieces. It sprung the car and the guy went flying through the air, landed right to the side of the highway. The break man he jumped out and ran back there and said this guy that was driving the truck was laying there. A doctor was sitting there in a car waiting for the train to go and he had sense enough to stop. He was working on that man trying to revive him. He’d push on him and blood would come out of him. Of course he died. One other time I was going into Richfield. I had three units. We didn’t have and fireman. They had an old head break man. We were just going into first crossing into Richfield. He was over and I was telling him how to go back and put the other units on. All we had was the train and caboose, or the engine and the 13 caboose on holds because we stayed there all night then came back the next morning. He looked up and saw this big cement truck coming. I saw the look on his face, and I looked and here comes this cement truck. It hit right under the cab on our locomotive. It knocked the engine off the track and of course I went into emergency. The barrel of that cement truck came up and hit the gas tank on our locomotive and spilled about three thousand gallons of diesel fuel all over. Well I was afraid it would start on fire so I killed the units. You pushed a button on the end of the throttle and shoved it forward and it killed all the units. I killed all the units. Oh this truck driver -- I seen him put his hands up like this but he’d come right up and it took the top of his head off, the top of the windshield. He went back in his seat and I got off the engine. Me and the old break man were standing there and the police came. The caboose was right on the highway and the engine had run on across on the ground when I went into emergency. So they uncoupled the caboose and shoved it back off the road so the cars could go. Here comes the guy that owned the truck. He said, “If that son of a bitch ever gets ready I’m gonna kill him. He’s fired.” I said, “He’s fired all right.” But you know they got that engine back on the track and we came home with it the next morning. LR: So was it hard to go back into civilian life after you came home from the war? BH: Oh no, no. I fought the Marines tooth and nail. Every time I’d get a chance I’d flatten a second lieutenant or something and I’d get thrown in the, busted. Needless to say I got a 704 discharge. It is a discharge under honorable conditions, it wasn’t an honorable discharge. But I got all the benefits and 14 everything. It wasn’t a dishonorable discharge either; it was under honorable conditions, because I’d been such a goofy guy. I was only in there for about eighteen months but I had more experiences than most guys that do if they’ve been in there for twenty years. I was talking to a Brian’s wife’s dad, telling him things like this. “My gosh,” he said. “You’ve had more experience in the eighteen months than I did in twenty years.” But I couldn’t just sit around. I’d go and complain to the chaplain or the old man and he’d send us out of there. I couldn’t see being in the marine corp and not doing anything. I wouldn’t ever want to do it again but I’m glad I did what I did. I’d do anything for this nation even now, if I was seventy-five years younger I’d be back in the Marines. LR: Is there anything else Grandpa that you would like to talk about? BH: Not that I can think of any. LR: I really appreciate you sharing what you have so and taking the time to talk about this. BH: Oh it’s been a pleasure. Note: After the camera was turned off, Mr. Hill shared this story. It did not fit anywhere in the interview, but needs to be documented. BH: For one thing, we were working on Okinawa mine disposal. Lars Bowinckle was a great big Finlander, blond headed, big husky guy. They blew a land mine. It was a personnel mine and underneath it was a big naval shell. It was all booby trapped so when you took the land mine off it would go off. They blew it and a piece of shrapnel, 15 about that long and about that -- you know how shrapnel is -- came through there and tore him open. His insides just flopped out and he grabbed them and went screaming down until he dropped. That’s one of the things that I’ll tell you. 16