Remembering

I wish I had photos of Carrie's grandfathers, both of whom served in the Pacific Theater during WW2. Today is their day, too...

I do have these, though-

Lorene and I had been dating for several years, and I had bought her a ring sometime in the fall of 1940. So we knew we were going to get married, but no date was set yet.

Then the 150th infantry, 38th division, of the West Virginia National Guard was mobilized on January 17, 1941. We were sent to Camp Shelby, Mississippi, and I was there until December 1941. We were supposed to be discharged in January of 1942. It was supposed to be a 1 year activation, but then Pearl Harbor happened. When we got the news of Pearl Harbor, I was in Hattiesburg, Mississippi with friends for the weekend. The radios were saying that this and that outfit must report immediately back to their post. Incidentally, we waited hours in line at the bus station to get back to the post which was only 11 miles away. We had already been told we were not getting out in January but were going to go to the Philippines. The regiment was already packed to go there when Pearl Harbor happened. We had just been waiting our time to leave. Well everyone went back to the post. The next day (I remember it was pouring down rain) was Dec. 8, 1941 and FDR came on a live radio broadcast and declared war on the Axis ----and gave his famous line about “a date that will live in infamy”.

About a month or so before, October or early November, they sent most of the men who were older than 28 home. Now I was old enough to go home but I had sense enough to know, and I told a lot of my friends, that if we went home we would be drafted anyway, and it would be better to just stay here where we had friends, etc. A lot of people thought I was crazy, but it was the right decision.

Incidentally, the only phone call I ever made while activated I made then. I called Lorene and told her why I was not taking a release. She agreed and said ‘You know best’. Soon afterwards, Lorene decided to go into nurses training school as she had always wanted to be a nurse. She and a friend were working at Woolworth’s five and ten cent store, and they both decided they would go. Both went, but her friend left soon after they began.

That was the fall before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and then after Pearl Harbor happened, I knew for sure I would not be getting out. To show you how ready we were to leave for the Philippines, the attack on Pearl Harbor happened on December 7, and on December 12 we left to go to New Orleans to the port of demarcation. We knew then we were headed to the Panama Canal Zone. What a difference it would have been if we had indeed gone to the Philippines! (remember Mac Arthur's’ famous line--“I shall return”?) Anyway, we were in New Orleans for about 11 days. During that time the 1st battalion left on December 22, 1941, and we left on December 23 on a different ship---the U.S. Shawnee. It was a passenger liner, very fancy and it belonged to the Canal Zone.

As we went through the mouth of the Mississippi right outside New Orleans, there was an oil tanker burning that had been torpedoed right there in the mouth of the Mississippi by a German submarine! Most people have no idea something that dangerous happened so near the coast of the United States. Our trip to Panama took about 4 or 5 days because we zig- zagged all over the Caribbean Sea. We had garbage piled everywhere because we could not dump garbage overboard. We couldn’t smoke on deck at night. There was a ship blackout, and all of the port holes were even covered up. On Christmas Eve, we were having a party down in the hole of the ship, and all of a sudden there a voice came over the intercom, “all lights out” and immediately the whole ship went completely black. The blackout lasted all night, and we never were told the specific reason for that black out.

Incidentally, the dining room on board was not big enough to feed the troops so the mess kitchens were set up on the top deck. We ate twice a day, once in the am and then again about 4 pm. One morning I had my mess kit and I got in a long line to eat breakfast. I worked my way up to the top deck and there I found out that it was the line to wash the kit--not get breakfast. It was pretty dark down in that hole!

At that time I belonged to the Masons. There was a great big black cook that worked in the galley and I had to go through the galley to get to my guard post. At that time I wore a Mason ring and every time I went through the galley, this cook would throw Mason signs to me. I would respond by giving him the Mason signs back. Then one day about 11 a.m. when I was going down through the galley, this cook said “Wait a minute, bro,” and he opened up the oven and took out a whole roasted chicken, wrapped it in a towel and handed it to me to take with me to my post. From then on whenever I went through, he always gave me something, and another fellow caught on and gave me stuff too. I very nearly got fat on the way to Panama.

Well, we landed on Pier 18 on December 31, 1941 in the Canal Zone and it was after dark when we got to the barracks. We were not allowed to turn on the lights but just had to do the best we could. So we went on to bed, and all of us got eaten up by bed bugs.

The next morning we really got organized. We used a blow torch on the springs and burnt up the bed bugs. We put the legs of the beds in small cans with water and oil in them to keep the bed bugs out. Oil was used to keep the mosquitoes from getting into the water in the cans and breeding. Incidentally, I never got malaria, but my brother Jack, who was also in Panama, did.

The first assignment I had was on one of the locks for guard duty. We stayed on that for about five months and then they pulled the 2nd Battalion off that and split us up. My group went to the Galapagos Islands.

When we went to the islands, there was a building there with big dining rooms and oil stoves---but we had no oil. We had about 196 men in my company plus about 30 men from “D” Company and “H” Company (the machine gunners section and mortar section) but we had only three field kitchens. There were about 1200 men on the whole island but we were the only ones with any kitchens at all. We had three stoves about 4 ft long by 4 foot off of the ground. The pans were kept full of corned beef hash. We had 2 meals a day, both corned beef hash, mostly because it was the last thing loaded on the ship. That went on for about 3 weeks, maybe longer. Finally we got oil and got the kitchens organized and the food was good. There were lots of cooks, but they just hadn’t had anything to cook with. Those kitchens were supposed to have been ready !

Now this island was approximately three miles long and was wider at one end; at the widest point it was one and a half miles wide. There was a runway about a mile long that went diagonally across the island and you couldn’t see from one end to the other because there was a hump in the middle of it.

All of the fresh water was brought in from Ecuador on barges--about 650 miles. We were right on the equator but we could only have water occasionally because it had to be rationed. We could only have 1 quart of water, which you were given each morning, to use for drinking. We showered and such with salt water.

When we finally did get a barge with water, the barges had gotten mixed up. They had accidentally used an oil barge, so you could taste the oil. The seas had been rough, so there was also salt water in it as well---made great coffee!!! Sure not like McDonald’s.

The only English language radio station we could pick up was Tokyo Rose. She would play good music and then give Japanese propaganda--- “Your wives are dancing at home to this music.” The first news we heard was that the Philippines had fallen to the Japanese. The only thing we heard about the Battle of Midway (from Tokyo Rose) was all of the US ships that were sunk. We didn’t know that we had actually won the battle. We eventually found out that we had won, but it took a while for the news to come down.

Now all of those men that went home in December were replaced by young green recruits. They had been brain-washed to think that one squad of U.S. Army could lick a whole army of the enemy. So these recruits were getting pretty depressed, and some older guys too were dissatisfied. They would gripe and complain and get in groups and question everything. We began to have men committing suicide. So the brass got us older guys together (I was 33) and told us that whenever we saw a group of guys together, to get involved with them telling jokes or funny stories and so forth to try to perk up the atmosphere for these younger men. I sat through many long nights on the outpost and I would make up stories in my mind to tell to the men when I got back. I would also sit and read a novel by moon light--probably why I have glasses today. (Well, I am only 92!)

Well sir, one time out on the outpost, daylight came and I had gone in the tent to sleep as I had been on watch all night. The other two men were out on the post and they ran in, woke me up, and we all went running back out. Just as far as you could see the ocean was completely red. We looked in the field glasses, and there were fish swimming near the surface. It was red snapper--millions of them!

Another time, someone had called in that there was a light out in the ocean. The main post called my outpost, and I looked and I saw it too. It seemed to be moving. There were not supposed to be any ships out there. That went on for awhile, and then I saw it rising. I called in and said, “Forget about it, it’s the moon” !

On the island we had lots of iguanas and I was on the outpost most of the time. There were about 3 of us out there and we did all of our own cooking. They brought can goods, etc., to us; and we stayed about 4 days and then came back in and stayed 3 days and then went back out. One particular kind of iguana, the land type, was the ugliest thing to look at. One lived under a rock where our outpost was. At first we just threw out the potato peelings, but then we noticed that he came out and ate them, so we began saving them up to feed him. When we would go out, he would come right out and eat the peelings. They said he even knew when it was time to cook. But he loved those peelings.

While out there when I was not on duty, I would climb down to the water’s edge, and I would fish. There was one real nice place around a corner of a rock. You had to step around it, but there was a great clear pool that had good fishing. So one day I went down there and was going around this pool and I had to step around this real sharp curve to where there was a ledge of rock on the other side. I stepped around, and could have kissed the biggest sea lion--he was right in my face. I couldn’t get by. I was afraid to jump. But he went “woof, woof” and jumped off himself, thank goodness.

About three or four hundred yards from our island there was another island about a acre large that must have been the “birthing” island for the sea lions. It was odd at night especially, those sea lions sounded just like a bunch of women at a tea party. The babies sounded just like human babies when they cried. Several times I watched a mother sea lion, take her flipper and throw her baby about twenty feet out into the ocean. It would squeal and beat it for the shore and she would flip it out again. He was learning to swim.

Another night, though, about 15 or more miles out, there was a flash of light. What it was, we never knew. It was like throwing gas on a big bonfire. It was huge. but we never knew what it was.

Yet another time, I was off duty so I wasn’t at the outpost. About midnight, they suddenly put us on alert. We all ran to our battle stations and we could hear them---airplanes. But no one could find anything. Finally, somebody from headquarters contacted the little navel base on the other side of the island, and they said, “Oh yeah, we didn’t think about telling you, but there is a big squad of PT boats coming through.”

I had some problems, probably my hernia, so I went to the hospital, this night there was a fella' that was being released and going back to the states. He was a medic so they threw a party for him and they didn’t have any booze so they took grain alcohol, mixed it with water, and passed it out. I got a few. The pharmacy was across the road, and the road had been tarred so every time they went across to get more alcohol there were footprints coming straight to my bunk. The next day a doctor came to see me and said “must have had a hard night sergeant”; but nothing more was said, as the doctors were probably in on the party too.

A short time after that there was a food poisoning incident: Maybe 100 or more men had the “trots” real bad and they were all in the hospital. I just got up, and just started helping out. I was still a patient, but not that sick. I helped with water and so forth. The doctor that morning said when he checked me out, “Go on back to the company tomorrow, as I can’t help you, and you are not that sick”. Now after the food poisoning, I overheard the doctor and the base commander talking. The doctor was giving the commander a hard time about the kitchens. He said that he had been trying to get a man up to the Canal Zone to the hospital and couldn’t get transportation. Anyway the doctor came back out, and told me to go back and get packed up that he was sending me to Panama to the hospital. So I went to Panama. I went through every test, and they asked “What did they send you up here for?” I told them, and they said yes, but those are outpatient tests. The doctor couldn’t think of anybody to use for as an example in his little speech, so he had sent me to get the commander to jump through a hoop or two.

Incidentally, at the hospital in Panama, one of the fellows was sleeping over in a bed on the other side of the ward. On that side of the property the lawn went up about 150 feet or so up to the edge of the jungle. We looked, and there was a huge black panther walking around back and forth at the jungle’s edge.

I was there about 5 or 6 days and I was sent up to another company on the Canal Zone to wait for a way back to the Galapagos. They assigned me to duty but there was not much to do. The censoring officer would read all of the letters and my job was to seal them. I would write letters then and put them in with the letters before he would stamp them. So that is how I got word to the folks back home that I was ok.

One day, one of the majors came down, and I met him as I was picking up the mail for the service company, another of my duties. He looked at me and said “Are you still here? I thought I put in orders for you to go back about 3 weeks ago!” So the next day, I caught a plane back to the island.

I was on the island until May of 1943, and then I was sent back to the Canal Zone and went to C Company. Now my brother Jack was in the Canal Zone the whole time. He was in 1st Battalion and their assignment was to guard the Canal. We were able to be together some.

One day I was standing on the side of one of the lock walls and there was a troop transport that went through. It was a liner that was converted to a transport, and there were about ten thousand men on board. All the men were out on deck, and somebody on the deck hollered “Hello Coleman!” Now I don’t have any idea who it was, I couldn’t see, but made me feel pretty good.

I stayed at the canal for about six or seven months before I went to the States to get married. Now during this time I met a family by the name of Williams. They were from Virginia but they lived in the Canal Zone, and Mrs. Williams name was Mary Lou. I met the family and Mrs. Williams through a USO club house at one of the churches in Panama. She was one of the volunteer hostesses. Around this time furloughs were beginning to come out, and naturally I had been transferred into this ‘C’ Company and all of the “C” Company guys thought they had 1st priority. Some of us went to see the major who had been our commander. We told him we felt that we deserved furloughs as much as anybody else. So he went to the “higher ups” and we all got put on the same list. Then there were numbers drawn to see who would get the furlough. My number came up. During this time, I had become close friends with the Williams family. Incidentally, I had attended a lot of lodge meetings there in the Canal Zone, and met many civilians from the Canal Zone. When I found out I could get a furlough, I told my friends, and Mrs. Williams wrote a letter to Lorene for me to send a signal that I was coming home to get married. The letter said, “Your friend Emmy is planning to come home for your wedding. She is getting ready now.” Lorene then knew I was coming, but not when or where I would land or anything. I had everything ready so I could leave at any minute.

They came out suddenly to say there was a ship ready to go to the States. I was ready, so we got on the ship and while we were waiting for the shore line to go by I reached for a cigarette, and I didn’t have one. So I went back down in the hole to get them; my bunk was the 4th layer up so I got up there and was digging for my cigarettes. An old guy that had been drunk the night before was throwing up in the ash can. I got to laughing at him and there was an electric light bulb hanging by us on a wire. It was swinging back and forth, and back and forth. I don’t know what happened, but all of a sudden I was running for the rail and I was so sea sick for four days. Worst thing ever- It was awful. About everyone got sea sick, even the old timers with lots of rank. One old guy was sitting on the deck laughing at everyone at the rail, and then a wave came over the rail and hit him and next thing you knew, he was at the rail just like everyone else. Funny!

By this time I was a staff sergeant, and I had more privileges than most. One of those privileges was that I got to eat in the dining room, not the crew quarters. We were on the ship till we landed in Massachusetts, where we let off a bunch of Navy personal and then we sailed back to New York City. It was very foggy in the New York Bay and we could barely see the Statue of Liberty, but it sure looked good. We got off the ship and on the pier the Red Cross had doughnuts and coffee. Boy they tasted good.

Incidentally, one of the biggest snow storms to hit the East Coast came that week. They were hauling snow out and dumping it in the bay. They even loaded coal cars up with snow and hauled it south. There was up to four feet of snow on the streets of New York. We were on the pier there for several hours, and a bus came and took us up to Fort Slocomb, but we had to cross the bay on a small boat. Now most of us still had our summer uniforms on, and we had just come out of the tropics too, so believe you me, we were cold.

We then got some winter clothes, got our stripes sewed on, and we were waiting for furlough papers. The only ranking person with us was a warrant officer, and he went to try to get them to hurry up, as there were over 100 of us. He went to see what was going on, and the one in charge said there was only one clerk here. Well about half the men with me were company clerks, so they hauled out all of the extra typewriters and the clerks helped out and in about three hours we were on a train headed back into new York to get the train into Washington and points south.

We arrived into New York about 10 at night and we couldn’t get a train out until the next morning. We all took off and got hair cuts and shaves and massages, and about midnight my face felt just like a raw hamburger from the close shave and the cold. There were about four or five of us friends together and we took off and were sitting around at the Union Station when we noticed that there was a “down in the heel” girl sitting there. She came over and bummed a cigarette from one of us. Eventually, we decided to go out to eat, to look the town over, and we invited her to go with us, and she did. We hit about a dozen or so bars and finally it was in the wee hours of the morning and we went into a restaurant. While we were eating breakfast, this girl ate a big breakfast, like she had not eaten for a long time. I think some of the guys gave her some money as well. As we were getting ready to leave, she was getting ready to cry, and she said “I never seen anybody like you men, you bought me beer, and drinks and cigarettes and breakfast, and not a one of you even tried to feel my leg!”

We went back to Union Station. Of all things, we were in the wrong place– we needed to go to Penn Station. There were hundreds of people and cabs everywhere that people were crowding into, even taking away from the first guy in line. So we went to the end of the platform and lined up side by side, and when a taxi pulled up and someone tried to push through, we just locked arms and kept them out until we were in the cab. If you ever want a thrill just ride a cab across New York City during the morning rush hour. Traffic was bumper to bumper, but, some way the cabbie would squeeze in between the cars. Don’t know how he did it.

Finally, I got a train out into Washington DC, and we arrived at Union Station in DC after dark. Incidentally, we were in New York on Valentine’s Day, and I sent Lorene a telegram from there just saying I was on the East Coast. That was all I was allowed to say. Lorene then called Mary and my mother and gave them the information.

While in Washington I was standing by the information desk at the Union Station, and a man came over and said, “There is a person on the other side that wants to speak to you”. So I walked around, and there was a girl that had used to live in Oak Hill. She knew me when I had worked at the Hotel Hill there in Oak Hill.

Finally they called the train and I headed for West Virginia. My ticket said Thurmond West Virginia, and I was the only one that got off at Thurmond. There were no cabs or anything. A man walked up behind me and said, “Hello Coleman!”, and I looked and found it was a lawyer friend from Fayetteville. I told him there didn’t seem to be any cabs around, and he said that was all right, he had called his wife to come to pick him up and I could go along. So I rode with them to Oak Hill. Now Lorene had come up from Charleston on the bus and about 6 pm she had gotten in. She was waiting for me down at the home place on the old Minden road.

I walked on home, and everyone was waiting to see me. That was on Tuesday the 15th. On Wednesday, I went over to Fayetteville to get the marriage license. Lorene, for some reason said, “Let’s wait and get married on Friday the 18th.”

I got the license and we made the plans. I went up town early Friday morning and got a shave and hair trim, and stopped in the flower shop and got her a little red rose corsage. I had a cab to come get us, and take us to the Methodist parsonage; and the Reverend Tyler married us there. The Brethren Church was without a pastor at the time, so we couldn’t go there. We went back home after the ceremony and had a great dinner with the family, and Mom had even made a cake for us. We stayed there for about a month; as Lorene had a month off from training that she had to make up before she could graduate.

We stayed a week up in Nicholas County where Lorene’s dad and sister lived. I had a 30 day furlough, so my time was soon up and I had to go back. I got a train into New Orleans; I had bought a ticket straight from New York to New Orleans with a stop over in Thurmond, so I already had the ticket.

I was in New Orleans for about 3 weeks before I could get transportation back to the Canal Zone. I was in the barracks, and we were right on the Mississippi river and our quarters were upstairs over a big open pier that covered about an acre. While I was there, they built a large long building, with canvas over it, and pipes going into it. We didn’t know what it was. One day there was a ship that came in and stopped right beside it. I was put on guard duty, and I was on the land side of the pier. We could allow nobody, I mean nobody on that pier. And people started loading off the boat. We could see them, but who they were, where they were going, or where they were from we did not know. They were very ragged and looked like they had gone through the mud holes. They went through that big building and took showers, and were de-loused , and evidently they got clothes. When they came out they were dressed better, even though the clothes didn’t fit too well. They came out and marched across, and we were lined up about 10 ft apart by that time, guarding the pier. They marched out and got into a whole line of big busses, and they walked across just crying and hugging and having a time. They got on the busses and that is all I know about them. Never heard a word spoken by them, and we were never told a thing.

I finally got a ship back to the Canal Zone. We went on a convoy out to the end of Cuba. We went in port there and waited there for at least a week for another convoy to come down and head on into Panama. We joined it and went on back to Panama and “C” Company. It was about the 14th of April before I finally got back.