February the 18th, 2005, I'm interviewing Mr.
Bud Nardekia, if that's correct.
The interview is taking place in Fergusburg, Texas.
This interview is in support of the Center for
Pacific War Studies Archives,
the National Museum of the Pacific War, Texas
Parks and Wildlife,
for the preservation of historical information
related to this site.
Bud, this is basically your interview.
interview, we can start along, of when you got
in the service or what got you into the
service, where and when you even started your career.
Schmottlach, Jr.
Oh, okay, Steve.
I think I probably should start from the very
beginning, which is actually before the beginning.
I was, at eighteen, I was told a report, and I
did, and I took my physical and flunked it.
was declared 4F, of course I was devastated, I
went back home and I tried very hard to
have them re-examine me because the purpose of
my being 4F was I had fallen arches or
flat feet and I knew that was not a very good
reason because I delivered papers and I worked
on hardwood floors and concrete and so forth,
but I did think that was an impediment.
So I finally did get in touch with a high level
officer in Austin, back in the Norway
building, 14th floor, and he listened to my
case and he said, well, yeah, I think we can
get you the Navy.
And I said, yes, Sir, why don't I report, he
said, we'll let you know.
Well, before I knew it, I was on my way to San
Antonio with a buddy of mine who was going
into the Marine Corps, and when he got there,
his papers were out of order.
they sent him home and they asked for a
volunteer and, gosh, I proudly and foolishly raised
my right arm and that's how I got into the
Marine Corps.
That's the beginning of my...
It wasn't hard to get in at that point.
No, actually they didn't know that I was a
physical misfit, I don't think.
They didn't care too much at that point.
Probably not, no, they needed bodies.
Did you report your first flight to San Antonio?
San Antonio was where I was inducted into the
Marine Corps.
Of course, you know the Marine Corps is part of
the Navy, so that's how they accepted me.
And then how quick after you were accepted did
you go to boot camp from there? Right.
I went to San Diego boot camp, then line camp
also there in Los Angeles, Southern California,
And then to Guam.
About what year, what time was all that kind of
going on?
This started in June of 1944, and about the end
of the year I was on my way to Guam.
We didn't actually invade Guam, but we did come
in on the cleanup operation, the tail
end of it, and we trained there for our next
venture, which happened to be Iwo Jima, from
from there, after spending a good deal of time
from the 22nd of February until sometime
late in April, we went back to Guam to train
for the invasion of the Southernmost island
of Japan, which was Kyushu, and I hate to say
it, but if it hadn't been for B-29s and
a couple of A-bombs and probably would still be there.
I think so too.
Just backing up to cover one thing is when you
were in boot camp, is there anything particularly
when you were doing your training that was
unique or you remembered or training that
was really interesting or scary?
What were your thoughts going into boot camp?
Very scary.
The first thing you heard when you were coming
in on a pickup truck, everybody's yelling
at you, you'll be sorry, and of course I was
sorry, there was no question about it.
I was eighteen years old and like most of us we
were scared, but we soon got over that.
As soon as they started to give us shots and
train us, we forgot our problems.
Well, we were still kind of apprehensive, but
we went on and to the next step, the next
order, if you will.
What did your family think about you?
Basically you volunteering or enlisting or?
Actually, it turned out that I did volunteer.
You did volunteer.
And my parents were very supportive, very
appreciative, and they never objected to it.
What was kind of your rank, were you a
rifleman, were you a...
I was, I was, I ended up in weapons company via
the training I got in line camp, I don't
know, I think the only reason I ended up in
weapons company is because I qualified as
an expert rifleman and of course they say,
well, you know, the guy can aim, you know,
So that's where I ended up as a gunner on a
37mm, which is an anti-tank type weapon. Right.
And that was one of the main weapons you
trained on at line camp?
Well this was actually on Guam, that part of it
was on Guam.
But that got me into a weapons company, which
didn't exist until I actually got to Guam.
When you shipped out from San Diego, about what
time or what year did you ship out from
San Diego once you finished your training?
It was near the end of 1954, let's see, about
nine months in boot camp, a couple months
in line camp.
That would have put me into about October, November.
And you shipped out of San Diego to Guam on
what kind of ship, little ship, big ship?
It was a big ship.
It was a converted, I remember this very well.
It was a converted French liner and the name of
it was the Rochambeau.
They had about 6,000 Marines on this ship,
actually too many for us to do any real good training.
But it took 54 days to get there and only
because of the security route that we took,
you know, we went below the equator and we were
trying to stay away from enemy submarines
and whatever, you know, they were trying to avoid.
really took that long to get there. So I was on
water and to this day I'm not a water person.
Vander Hill Have you ever been on a ship before that
Schmottlach Never.
Vander Hill What was it like?
Schmottlach A boat, a rowboat. It was pleasant.
All I remember seeing was all those big white
caps and fish, huge fish jumping out of the
water. I mean that's about all we could
see because there was nothing else there.
Once you got over the seasickness.
Did some training on the ship and then you got
to Guam from there, correct?
Got to Guam, that was our destination.
In Guam you did more training and you were
there for how long a period kind of, estimate wise?
We were there until we left for Iwo, which was,
well let's see, we landed on Iwo, our
third Marine division landed there on D-plus-3,
which would have been about the 22nd of February.
So from that training in Guam, it took about
two or three months.
Vander Hill And anything unique or
Adventuresome happened
to you while you were on Guam that you can
remember or want to relate to?
No, I rather enjoyed Guam, Guam was very much
like, I've never been to the Hawaiian Islands
but from what I've heard it's very much like
that, very romantic, a lot of palm trees and
gentle breezes. P.A.
Food was pretty good? L.A.
No, it was typical marine food and the only
time we really got any good food is when we
We went to the naval base there near, well,
Agonio was the capital, but where the ships
come in.
The Navy on Sunday morning would serve the best
breakfast I've ever eaten.
So we would look forward to that.
That was the good food.
Did they serve Spam?
Only the Marines.
My dad hates Spam.
Only the Marines. Ph.D..
My dad hates Spam. Ph.D..
Oh yeah, we got it every which way. Ph.D..
When you left Guam, then you went to Iwo from there?
We left for Iwo, yes. Ph.D..
Go ahead. Ph.D..
Well, we weren't sure where we were going.
In fact, we were told later on that we were
going to, we were in convoy with the other
two divisions, I think it was Division 2-3,
well we were three and then it was four, I
think those were the three, I know we were the
third. We were told later that we were
going to Okinawa, but because of the resistance
that was encountered on Iwo, they sent us
And we were actually considered a replacement unit.
PENROSE When your convoy was sailing out of Guam,
was it a huge convoy, a little convoy, and a
lot of escort ships?
Did you...
WILSON Huge.
Just huge.
It looked that way from the beginning, but it
was certainly that when we got to, I couldn't
imagine an island that had that many ships
around it.
It was just, this island didn't have a chance,
I thought.
So once you got to the edge of the island, how
did you disembark and get to the island?
We were put on LST, which had the front end
that would drop down and it would, once you
got close enough to the shore, you just ran off
and onto the shore and that's where things
got real slow because you must know that it's a
volcanic ash type terrain and it was almost
impossible to run on.
You would run and take two steps forward and
one back.
We didn't do much running.
We did more crawling than anything else.
Did you set off the island a while or did you
all go directly into the island when you
got there?
We went directly into it.
We were destined to cover the middle part of
Iwo, which is the airport.
This is where we landed.
Somewhere in here. P.A.
Along the South Coast area? E.L.
Yeah, that's where the ships.
I don't believe there were too many over here
because this is a very hilly cliff-like type
of the north side, so most of it had to land on
the south side, and we were to go up this way.
Toward the northeast.
Take the airports.
When y'all, when you landed, were y'all
immediately under fire?
Oh yes, oh yes, and of course you didn't see
anybody, I don't think I ever saw a Japanese
because they were entrenched.
They spotted us, I suppose, but to this day I
don't recall ever firing my M-1 because
I saw nothing different.
Well, I threw a lot of hand grenades into holes
and things like that, but never saw one.
Like I say, once y'all came in and went to the
airport, when you advanced, did you
have troops with you, tanks with you, what was
with you, can you kind of describe that?
No tanks that I could see because that was the
kind of terrain that just was not conducive
to progress, you just couldn't maneuver.
It was pounded for a couple of months by all
the B-29s that were coming back from Japan
and probably going there too.
So it was torn up pretty badly and hard for
anything to roll over, only to crawl.
And that was kind of your day one?
You came in on the coast here?
Well, we were here for several days.
Very slow.
It's hard for me to remember a lot of this
because I put so much of it behind me.
So I don't know where we were, we didn't get
that kind of news reporting there.
And then from that, can you kind of describe
what went on from there on?
It was a lot of, I can't say close in fighting
because I saw no Japanese, but we know they
were there.
At night we would set up a flash, well you trip
a line and they would come and they would
trip it and lights would go off, some flash or
some signal that somebody shouldn't be there.
We knew they were there.
But it was slow and hard to say what progress
we were making.
Just the most scared people you can imagine.
Well, we saw bodies all over.
That was the scary part.
And as far as supplies, did you feel like you
had plenty of supplies?
I had no problems that I know of where we were lacking.
And like I say, how many days were you actually
on the island and you might kind of narrate
your from then on if you can.
The 22nd of February is when we landed as the
3rd Division, I remember Easter Sunday
was April the 1st, it was mass at, I'm not
sure, down at the base here.
We didn't see it, we didn't go to the mass, but
we knew it was going on, so we were praying
somewhere on the island, and that was April the
1st, Easter Sunday.
I remember that, that's a memorable day.
We were probably further north, that would be
like, my goodness, two weeks into it.
And we were there until the latter part of
April before we left.
You were there a while.
about six weeks. Long enough. Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Did, when you left, was the island
pretty well taken or was there still activity
going on when you were pulled out?
It was pretty well taken. It was secured,
seemed like maybe in the second week in
April, so it was still a month. We were
fighting on that island for a good month
Not that we landed after the first group went in.
Anything in particular that you would like to
recall or record as far as aircraft flying
overhead or other services?
No, the ships were still bombing from the
shore, of course they were lobbing them ahead
of us.
What was that like?
Was that just scary?
It was very scary, very loud, and you didn't
know where they were going to land.
Of course, we were always in a foxhole it
seemed, we were always entrenched deep into
to that volcanic, well, not so much up there,
mostly cave-like, but we weren't in caves
either, we were in foxholes that were, which
you could dig, dig a hole into.
Vander Hill Was it hard digging in that ash or?
Schmottlach It wasn't much hard digging at all, they
were there, the holes were there already.
We just go from one to the other.
Vander Hill They were pre-dug.
Schmottlach Pre-dug for us, yes.
As I recall, I know we moved along at times and
at times we didn't, but it seemed like
we were always going from one hole to another.
How many men were in your group or that you
landed with?
You know, it's hard to say because we didn't
get the full picture.
We were put on a little LST and we were
unloaded and away we went.
You had like a team of eight or ten or twelve
that kind of worked together?
Well, as far as my immediate group, I was an
ammunition carrier.
We'd carry these metal boxes with belts of 50
caliber shells.
I was just the ammunition person and as the
gunner, which usually got hit first, as they
fell the ammunition carriers moved up and I was
within one person of being a gunner
and that was scary and of course they could
tell we were not in the right place and get
out of there and you know I don't know who made
those decisions because we
weren't talking directly to us but we got
signal somehow. You weren't in the
right spot. No we were not, no. How much those
ammunition deals weigh? They were
very heavy. And you were having to pack them? I
would say, you know, we would carry, we'd carry
two, one
in each, with each hand, each arm, below you,
to your side. Of course you were
We were moving very slow, probably drugged most
of them.
Probably 70, £80 at least each or...
About 50, I would say.
And then you had all your other gear too, so
you were...
Oh, we were fully equipped, yes.
We had to carry everything. There was no place
to check it in.
But you were carrying a lot of weight, doing a
lot of work.
Oh, yes. Of course, we were in good shape.
Like I say, you were there.
When did you find out you were going to be
pulled out?
Did you just suddenly get pulled back to rest
or did they back you out or how did they get
ready to pull you out?
Schmottlacheck As we moved up several times, we
would see
that we weren't going to go anywheres.
You would kind of get into a fallback situation.
We don't know.
I don't know how long we were there.
We just seemed like most of the scary part was
at night.
During the day, things were quiet for some reason.
We could actually sleep during the day.
And I say this because when I was in the
foxhole, I was in with one or two other
Marines, and
they wouldn't let me sleep because I had a
tendency to snore.
And so I did their guard duty, not, you know,
well, what I'm trying to say is I slept during
the day when I could. Right.
And at that time, was it just total fear or
just you had your tripwires in place and everybody
was pretty awake all night? Yeah.
Yeah, you know, it's hard to say how everybody felt,
but for myself, I guess I probably were like so many
and we were so tired, we didn't,
we just hoped we'd get out of there someday.
You'd been so many days with so little sleep,
you were just exhausted basically.
You were living outside of your body.
And dirty and tired and sometimes hungry.
Very dirty and of course,
Hungry, I don't know if I ever lost my
appetite, yeah I lost my appetite
but I never felt that I was, I never thought of
being hungry there.
SHORT And once you got ready to, once they got ready
to pull you out, did they just move you back to
a rest area, I mean before you came back
off the island or, at what point did they
finally say?
There was no rest area, it was just, we were
always moving towards this end.
Right, toward the northeast.
And I think once we got as far that way as we
could go, the island was secured enough.
And about what day or roughly, do you have any
idea when they finally pulled you back
off the island?
Yeah, it had to be sometime in the latter part
of April.
And how did they, you go back on the LST back out?
Yes, we went back on a, I guess that was the
way we went again, you see, we were beside ourselves.
We were so happy to get out of there and on our
way that I don't remember too much about
getting back on a ship.
I couldn't tell you if it was a liner or a
small boat, not a small, not a boat, but a
small ship.
And once you got off the island, where did you
go to from there?
Back to Guam?
I went back to Guam to, as I mentioned earlier,
to train for the invasion of Japan, Southern Island.
And how long were you at Guam while you were training?
We went back to Guam in April, the latter part
of April.
If I'm not mistaken, the atomic bomb was
dropped sometime in August.
So we were training just for that short period
of time.
When that happened, of course, there was no
more need to worry about, well, they may worry
but we didn't seem to think too much more of it.
When we found out that we weren't training for
that anymore, even actually teaching some
Japanese. Then we were told we were going to go
somewheres. Well, that somewheres was North
China, so that's where we went
from Guam to North China to disarm the
Japanese, thinking we would have more
trouble with them, but no, it was more the
Chinese we had trouble with.
Did you actually end up going to China? We went
to North China near the
Siberian border where the Great Wall is, for
nine months we were there for a long, long
period of time.
You shipped from Guam directly to northern China?
Where did you kind of go inland there?
I don't know if you're familiar with Tencent,
well they don't call it Tencent anymore, it
was a huge city, they called it Tencent at the time.
And they had been taken over, I shouldn't say
taken over, occupied by many nations.
And we stayed there over a couple days at the
university, I don't know the name, but
it was a Chinese university.
We slept on the floor and then they loaded us
on a train that had windows broken out
of it, no heat.
And we had to travel from there to a place
along the Yellow Sea and the little town was
called Chin-Wan-Tau.
And they don't call that anymore either, but
there's another name for it.
Very interesting area.
It was actually a resort area for, I believe,
the Belgian nation, country.
cottages and beautiful trees that would bloom
in the spring. I remember that.
What was, what was it like for a Texan to, of
course you've seen a lot,
you've been across the Pacific Ocean, then
suddenly now you're in China. What
was that like? It's got to be an adventure. Oh
it was, it was. I, I thoroughly and I
think I can, I consider China to be a very
educational, productive stay there.
except for those few times when we were warned
do not travel alone, always
travel in groups of three or more. It was
scary, that part of it, but the rest of it
was we were actually guarding ammunition dumps,
bridges, railroad depots,
things like this, but it was outside of the
severe cold weather. weather.
They had winds coming out of the Siberian
North, wind chill factor
about 40 below, and we had to stand guard in
little huts that were
fired with coal, and you didn't dare let the
things, the coals die
out, or you'd freeze to death.
SHORT It was that cold?
CAMPBELL Oh, it was tremendously cold.
SHORT You were right at Siberia. Yeah.
Four hours was, those guard duty, four hours
was about as severe as anything you'll ever experience.
Well, we all stood guard to you while you were
in China, and how long did you say you
were in China?
Nine months.
Nine months, and from there, how did you get
back to, discharge or get back to home?
Okay, we were loaded onto an Army transport.
I think we went back to Tencent, that's where
the big port was, and I had one terrible experience
coming back because I was going over, we were
able to, on the Rochambeau, this French liner,
they let us sleep on top deck, which is where I
prefer to sleep, on the steel, except when
we got near dangerous waters, then we had to go below.
But coming back from China, they allowed us to
sleep on top deck without any worry, except
there was a typhoon that we had to negotiate.
And for us who didn't have bunks below, we had
to go there, and of course everybody was sick.
And that was the most unpleasant experience
I've ever gone through, because I had no place
to lay my head, everybody was sick, I was
getting sick.
And that, the joy of coming home was partly
diminished by that experience.
Where did you sail back into, San Diego or San Francisco?
San Diego.
And is that where you were discharged from there?
We kind of got ahead of ourselves, but we
didn't include one thing, and we'll put this
on the end even though it's out of places.
You might just state where you were born,
raised and went to school, kind of your, before
you got in the service.
You don't mind.
They may fire us both because we didn't get in
order, but this is your interview. Right.
Well, I was born in Del Valle, Texas, which is
now Austin.
So I always tell people I was born in Austin.
I went to school.
When were you born?
March 30, 1925.
So I will be 80 years old this year.
And I went to Austin High there in Austin and
enrolled at UT for four years, was in
engineering with a five-year program.
My GI Bill ran out and I had to go to work and
I ended up getting a degree in accounting
of all places in Illinois, in Chicago,
Illinois, where I had a job, Illinois Institute
of Technology.
So I went from engineering at a school in
Texas, which is basically an accounting school,
and ended up getting a degree in accounting,
which is basically an engineering school.
One thing, too, a lot of people like to ask or
like to know is, how did you find out about
Pearl Harbor, or when the war started, and
where were you, and the effect of that?
Yes, I remember that very well.
We were-my father, mother, and two of Us kids
were going south on South Austin Boulevard,
and we had a car radio on, and we heard that
Pearl Harbor had been bombed.
And this was my first-we didn't-we knew that
things weren't going well in Europe,
But we didn't know anything about the Pacific,
the Pacific area.
And that was, was that pretty scary to your
whole family?
Oh yeah, we certainly talked about it, of
course I was still, I wasn't draft age, but
we knew as the war went on that it was getting
closer and closer to our, well a lot of them,
a lot of my friends and relatives were being
drafted already, because they were a little older.
when it was coming and parents were worried.
Is there anything else you'd like to relate,
anything in your service or time that you'd
like to include on the island, anything extra?
Well, there are so many things, but I don't
know that there's any that would take precedence
over another.
I probably would have to say that from my boot
camp experience, the people who I got
to know there, most of us went separate ways,
but there was one individual, his name was
Jerry Mitchell, who went from boot camp, to
line camp, to Guam, and to Eagle, and I lost
touch with him in Iwo or somewhere, but I did
hear from him sometime later.
He had written, and he was injured on Iwo, and
of course he went home, and that was one
pleasant experience with so many others who
didn't make it.
We did communicate, however, I just never did
get to see him again.
I thought that was kind of an interesting point
in my life.
One thing I should mention, it's really in
gratitude to my mother.
She was married quite young, she had five of us
before she was nineteen years of age,
but I was in the Marine Corps, the first one to go.
Then my younger brother, Sam, went into the
Korean War, that war came along shortly thereafter,
and then my third brother, who was really the
baby of the family, ended up in Vietnam.
So my mother had three of us in the service
over what, a 20-year period, and I think it's
credit to her.
That was a lot for a mom to endure.
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
And had we all been in service at the same
time, she would have gotten out of it.
We could have avoided all of us being in at the
same time.