Today is October the 7th, year 2005. My name is
Floyd Cox. I'm a volunteer at the
National Museum of the Pacific War. We're in
Katy, Texas today to interview Matthew Constantino
regarding his experiences during World War II.
I'd like to start out, Matthew, asking you a little
bit about your background, where you were born,
when you were born, a little bit about your family,
where you went to school, and we'll just take
it from there.
I was born in Rochester, New York, July 7th,
no, July 15th, 1921. My dad was
a shoemaker, and he repaired shoes and sold
shoes, and my mother was a homemaker, and
I had one brother and two sisters. My brother
joined the
Army Air Signal Corps in 1939, and my two
sisters just
graduated from high school, and I graduated in
1940 from
high school, from Washington High School in Rochester.
Q. What did you do following high school, Matthew?
I graduated in June of 1940. I went to the
recruiting station to join the Marine Corps,
and it took me eight months to get into the
Marine Corps. They were only taking three
recruits out of Rochester, Buffalo, and Erie,
three a month. So I had to wait eight months
to get into the Marine Corps. My brother was
telling me I was pretty stupid. I could get
in the Army. He could get me in the Signal
Corps in Fort
Monmouth the next day. But I wanted to be a Marine.
Q. Why did you want to be a Marine?
A. I got the slightest idea.
Q. So you were inducted right there in Rochester?
A. Well, Buffalo, New York is where you had to
go to get
inducted. And then from there I went to Paris Island.
Q. To boot in Paris?
And we got out in June of 1941, and then I was
sent to the
3rd Marine Brigade, still on Parris Island,
which was the
7th Marines at that time. And from there we
were sent to
Camp Lejeune, which didn't exist at the time.
It was
called Tent Camp, and that's where the 1st
Marine Division
stayed, and the winter of 1941, we were in tent camp.
Q. So you were in the 1st Marine Division at
that time?
A. Yes, Sir. And there in June, that's when our
-- September
1941, that's when we changed battalion
commanders, and
Chesty Puller was a major, and he became our battalion
commander in September of 1941.
Now, tell me, relate to me again a little story about
when Chesty Puller would talk to you a certain
way, you
knew what was happening.
Every time Chesty talked to you, he talked to
you and
called you old man. And then when he was a
little unhappy
what you did, he'd call you son. And you better
rectify the
mistake or whatever to get back to old man again.
VILLEGASA. That's a great story. Well, you're
in camp there,
and what was your duties right then? Were you,
you'd already
went through basic, right?
GILBERTSON. I was with the 60 mortars.
VILLEGASA. Oh, okay.
GILBERTSON. And I was a PFC, but I was a squad,
a squad
leader of one of the 60 mortar squads. And I
was damn good with 60 mortars. And then we-
Were you in camp when Pearl Harbor occurred?
Yeah, we-we were in camp-we were in tent camp
when-December 7. We were packed up,
ready to leave, and we unpacked and had
intensive training.
And on Easter Sunday of 1942, the 7th Marines
pulled out of
Norfolk to go to British Samoa. The British
were building an
airfield in British Samoa, and we were there to
protect the
airfield because Pango Pango in American Samoa
was a big
submarine base. So and then an outfit from the
Pacific, from California, went to Pango, and we went
to Samoa.
Q. Now, what was your specific outfit at this point?
A. Seventh Marines.
Q. Seventh Marines. Were you ----
A. I was one. I was in 1A7. In fact, we still
have reunions. And after that, we were on Samoa
for, oh, I
don't know, four, five, six months, then
Guadalcanal came
out. And what they were thinking, that the Samoan
Islands were about to be the next islands hit,
so that's
why we were there. And then when they hit
Guadalcanal, they
put the, brought the 22nd Regiment in to
relieve us, and we
went and joined the 1st Division on the canal.
Got there a
little late, but we made up for it.
Q. Did you saw action on Guadalcanal?
A. We landed in September, I think, September
16th, and the
The first night we were there, we were shelled.
The second day out, I think we went on patrol.
And the first patrol we were on, we got ambushed.
And half the company, my A company, was the point.
And we got hit.
And we lost some men, a lot of casualties.
And this is when Chesty came up to me, and he
said, oh, man,
I want you to set a barrage out there." Now,
you realize a
mortar has to have clearance. You got to have mass
clearance. So we were set up behind the machine guns,
which isn't where we belong. But that's the
only place we
had mass clearance. So he said it had to be. So
I said,
Well, Colonel, the gun doesn't fire anything
less than
200 yards, and you want me to fire at 125. He
said, son, did
you hear what I said? So we cranked that baby
up. And I
don't know, we estimated that we fired that gun
less than
100 yards, and we knocked out three machine
guns that night.
So the tractor, well, anyway, when it goes up, it
almost goes up straight up, almost.
A85, 90 yards. And we set the gun up behind a log.
And every time we'd set up the shoot, we'd get
behind a log, and they would pepper the top of that
log off. And we were laying parallel to that
log. And
if that log wasn't there, I'd be dead today. day.
Q. So the machine guns really were zeroing in
on you?
A. I think the estimate was that they were a hundred
Japs on the trail with 30 automatic weapons.
And so we
had to retreat. We backed up, and then the next
day we
went in and saw the damage. So that was the
first, our
baptismal fire.
It's quite an experience, your first one
around, isn't it, Matthew?
Yeah. It's, you know, you see guys getting
wounded and carried out in stretchers.
But I don't know. I never thought I was going
to get hit for some unknown reason.
I just never felt it was my turn.
And I came out of it without a Purple Heart or anything
else. And we were constantly on patrol, three-, four-day
patrols, five-day patrols, constantly. We'd
come back in,
someone would relieve us, and then we'd go out again.
Q. Were you going out in platoon strength or squad?
A. Company strength, battalion strength. It all
depends on
what they thought was out there. And then we
put up a barbed
wire fence. And barbed wire, when they landed,
they didn't
have much barbed wire. But when we came in, we
put this
barbed wire fence up. And, you know, about a
fence, you
keep the enemy out, but you can't get on the
other side.
You know, it keeps you in and it keeps them out.
So you
have to make a break inside the fence so you
could get on
the other side. So we had to always go through
the opening
of the barbed wire fence to get on patrol. And
you go
through the swamps. Then you hit the open field.
Then you
go into some more jungle and you get all wet.
And you keep
your shoes on for two, three, four days at a
time because
never wanted to be barefooted in case anything
happened. And
that was routine. If you had a 103 fever, then
they would
pull you off the line, send you back to
battalion, and give
you quinine, break your fever, and send you
back because we
were short, short troops, and I had a fever of
102.8. I did all the chores that everybody
else did because I had 102.8. Finally got it up
to 103, 103.2, I think. They sent me
back, took my quinine, and I'm right back, you
know. It's, you
know, we were covering something like a
battalion and a half
front with a half a company or something. I
mean, every two
second and third foxhole was empty. And so the
idea was to
keep the Japanese from congregating to attack,
keep them.
And so we were constantly on patrol.
Q. What was your rank at this time, Matthew?
A. I was a PFC. And then the other big
experience was the Fifth Marines was out on the Montana
Cow River, and they needed reinforcements. So
they put us in Higgins boats, and they
to go around, and Chesney was with the 5th, so
our executive officer, Major Rogers, brought
us around, and he landed in the wrong place.
Anyway, we landed in the wrong place, and
we got surrounded, completely surrounded. And
the Japanese
were just waiting for nightfall, and then they
were going to
start attacking us. And we were out of company, company
strength at most. And here we have a division
CP that we're
in. And when Chesty came in with the 5th
Marines, he found
out what was happening. He got on this
destroyer, 436, DD-436, and he brought the
Higgins boats
and the destroyer up there. And the destroyer
kept flashing their lights, where do you want
the barrage, and this one signal man is
crawling on his
stomach, waving the two signal flags, getting
the destroyer's
attention, and the Japanese are shooting the
hell out of
his flags. And they keep getting that, where do
you want
the barrage? And this one signal man from our
company, he
was a blond, blue-eyed guy, took his helmet
off, stood up
and start signaling, and not a shot's fired at
him. And the Navy's still saying, I can't
see your lower flag, and he's there stomping on
the grass, not a shot's fired at him. And
the Navy, got the barrage in there, they
brought in the
boats, and meanwhile, Major Rogers called a
staff meeting,
and while he had a staff meeting with his
officers there,
a mortar shell came in and killed them.
Q. Took a snap right out?
A. Yeah, a snap. And so then Gunny Farrell, I remember
Gunny Farrell took us down one path, and some
others came
down different ways, and the other group were
getting shot
at and all, and then we hit the beaches, sat up
a front,
and waiting for everybody to come.
Then we just got on the Higgins boats and we
took off.
So we left, I don't know how many people were
left there,
and that was quite an experience.
Q. Did you ever find these fellows that you had
left there later on?
A. No. I don't know what we -- Goddammit. Point
Cruz. And then I get another good experience.
A. Yeah. On October 24th, this is the big
attack, and they
sent 46 of us on an outpost, one mortar squad,
one machine
gun squad and platoons. And this was, Sergeant
Briggs was in
charge of it because we didn't have any second lieutenants.
So this was because, well, they say the life
expectancy of a
second lieutenant in World War II was 30
seconds. And so
Sergeant Briggs, this is known as the Briggs
Patrol. And we
went up, it was 1,600 yards in front of our
barbed wire, our
front lines. And we're on the south post. And
it was raining like cats and dogs. Then
it stopped raining, and Sergeant Briggs got all
the squad leaders together. He said, keep
your men on the alert. We expect at least 5,000
Japs to come through the gap tonight.
And sure enough, they did. And so they finally
gave us word to get off the outpost. Meanwhile,
the Japanese main body was on the trail, so we
couldn't go forward. And somewhere along
the line, some people got the word, incline to
the left and we'll try and get you in through
the opening of the barbed wire. Well, we never
got that word. And they just, Japanese were
in front of us, the Japanese were behind us, so
we hit the
jungle. And across the path was a tree. So I
stayed inside
the tree there with my Tommy gun facing the
trail, and I
figured, well, if I'm going to go, I'm going to
take a few
bodies with me. And there was a limb on the
trail, and every
Jap soldier that went across there stepped on
that limb, and
the tree would rock, every one of them. And
you're standing there. And then in the distance,
you hear some commotion. And it's, you know,
you're nearly dead. You're just about going
to be killed. And you're laughing because
you're saying, the Japanese Army is just like
any other army. This guy was mad. He did
something, and he's getting cussed at. And here
he comes dragging the ammunition box. And you
know it's the guy that's screwing.
Q. Screwed up.
A. That's right. But even with it, you're that
close. Well, the next
morning, we got up, and I had one of my ammo
men went the other way,
and he got killed. And so there was me and my
gunner, my
assistant gunner, and Richards, who was the
ammo man, and
the medic was there. And then we picked up a
guy from the
rifle platoon. So there were six of us.
Q. Did you have a mortar at this time?
A. Yeah. And the mortar wasn't going to do us
any good.
And now you got a problem. You got the Japanese
in front
believe you. And then even if you get past the
Japanese, you got the Marines behind the
wire. So I just remembered how we set up the
mortar, and I just subtracted 180 degrees
from it and figured if I just keep the sun over
my left shoulder, I'll hit the beach.
Sooner or later, I'm going to hit the beach.
And so I was the squad leader, and we roamed
around the jungle for five days, and we never
went on the
other side of the hill. We always patrolled on
one side. We
never went on the other. And when we went back
to the
outpost, there was a Japanese patrol coming, so
we shot at
it, and we went on the other side of the
mountain, which
was all new territory. And we got caught in a
lily patch, and we,
between the six of us, we had half a canteen of
water. So I controlled the water, and then
we'd stop and take one sip off the cup of the
canteen, and then we got the bright idea,
well, there's water in the lily patch leaves,
and we'll just, and the medic cut his piece
of rubber hose that he puts for blood pressure.
He cut that up, and we sucked the juice out
of that. And then we were getting bugs and
everything else, so he put some gauze on the
end of it, and the stuff was milky and lousy,
but at least it was liquid. And so we finally
He got out of the jungle and I out of the lily
patch. So there was an old dead tree
up there, and I said, safely go up that tree
and see where in the hell we're at. He goes
all the way to that tree. He says, I can't see
a darn thing. I said, oh, God, we're on
the wrong side of the mountain.
Q. It wasn't a laughing matter then, was it?
A. No, but all during this time, Barry's taking
out a
picture of his girlfriend. He's going to see his
girlfriend. Richard just wants to get back to
eat a
dozen hot cakes, you know. It's, it was, and, I mean,
we really never felt that we were in danger
because every
time we'd see a patrol, we would avoid them.
And so they
didn't know we were there. So we had to get on
the other
side of it. So we just slung arms, started
going up the
hill, getting on the other side of it. And all
of a sudden
there's we hear all this Japanese talking. And
there's a Japanese bivouac area there.
And all of a sudden, knowing they quit talking,
and I told the guys, just keep moving. Just,
just, just walk, just. And, man, when we got on
the other side of that hill, man, we ran
like rabbits.
And sure enough, they sent out a patrol after
us, but we were
covered with brush and all. We could see the
patrol, and they
have a habit of they'd send five guys out, and
then they'd
send four guys out. Then the five guys would
come out, and
the other four would circle around. Well, we
got on to that,
so we were out of the Marines. But we, as far
as shooting
back at them, it was something that was stupid because
you're in their territory, you know. And
finally, we hit
the river, and we knew the river had to go to
the ocean.
And now we're in, here's the Japanese bivouac
area, and
We filled our canteens up. We can't go across
the river. It's too wide. We can't go forward.
There's that bivouac area. So we said, ah,
hell, let's go in there, shoot them up and
die shooting. And we went in there, and the
thing was deserted. The area was a deserted
area. So we said, now we got the river. And so
we kept going, and then we lose the river.
God damn, now we're in the jungles again. And
we were in an
opening space and saw our planes coming by, so
we took a
bamboo sleeve, put a white sheet, you know, a
T-shirt on it,
waved it, and that SOB strafed us. And, boy,
I'd like to find
out who in the hell that guy was. So we had to
run into the
jungles. And then we finally hit the river
again the next day. And I says...
You remember the name of the river?
No. And I just told him, we're going down the
middle of this goddamn river because I
know it's going to hit the ocean and we're not
going to lose it again. So we went down,
down the middle of the river.
So you waited. You were waiting.
And then at night we slept on side the river
and we heard some noises, and there was fish
jumping up and down and a pig running around,
but there was no Japanese in there.
And so the next day we finally see the ocean,
and man, we're happy as hell.
And all of a sudden, uh-oh, here's an army patrol.
got brand-new fatigues on, brand-new helmets,
shining like egg, and they're in a skirmish line.
Q. They were U.S. armed?
A. Yeah. And we're saying shit. So we're
crunched down in this Richard's. He was a big, tall
Polish guy, blond hair, blue eyes. He says,
I'll take my helmet out and I'll get your
attention. So he's got his helmet in one hand,
his O3 in the
other hand. He's saying, Don't shoot, we're
Marines. The
password was yellow five days ago. And all the weapons
pointing at us and not a shot's fired. And I
mean, so the
lieutenant, you know, came up, talked to us.
They gave us some
C-rations. And he said, We're going on patrol
back in here.
why don't you join us?" Hell, no.
Q. Been there.
A. Been there. We are going. So we hit the
beach and finally hit NOB, and they took us
to the base hospital. And the doctor said,
well, you can have all the fruit juice and
tomato juice you want, but you can't have any
solid food because you hadn't had any
food for six days. So we're laying in there,
and they're cooking spaghetti and meatballs.
And we're just staying, you know. And they're
all looking at me. And I finally said, I don't
know what the hell you guys are going to do.
I'm going to get some of that spaghetti. So
we ate, and we got sick as hell. Man, we were
sick. And the doctor said, if you guys are
so goddamn stupid, blah, blah, blah, I'm
sending you back to the front lines." Here
we had it made.
So I got interviewed, Chesley Puller
interviewed us, and Colonel Frisbee interviewed
me. He
wanted to know all about where all this
territory we were in because we never patrolled it.
And so we were talking about the bivouac areas
and all that.
And he said, you know, old man, I could put you
up for the
Bronze Star, or I could make you corporal.
I said, Sir, make me corporal.
So November 1st, 1942, I became a corporal in
the field.
So, that's some of the experiences, and we got
another one. We were going on a patrol
when the Japanese got out of the trap, and
coming back, we spotted a bunch of Marines
in a valley. And so Chesty calls up, hey, old
man, bring your guns up here. And I'm
the only guy that sets up the guns. We got two
guns. And I mortared.
Q. You mean mortared?
A. Yeah. So I'm throwing my mortar shells on
the other side of the ridge. And then they'd
run up the ridge and the riflemen would shoot
them. They'd go down the valley and we'd shoot
him. And this went on, and he finally turns to
me and says,
hey, old man, how many more rounds we got? I
said, well, we
fired A company's mortars, we covered B
company's ammo, and
we're on C company's ammo, only my two guns. I
said, I think
we got six rounds left, Colonel. He said, ah,
let's save
those. We might need those going back home. And
so we, I
don't know how many Japanese we eliminated that
night or
that day. And there was other patrols that we
bumped into
them. And one night we marched all night long
and dug up
by the river, and they had just landed a bunch
of new
Japanese. And they were down, you know, they
didn't even
know we were there. When it got close there, we
mowed them down and then just
always back to the water, you know, you always
and it's just just an air
everyday job. And so I got to be corporal out
of that.
Let me ask you this, Matthew. At nighttime, you
see in movies and you hear that
there are a lot of jungle noises, like on
Guadalcanal at night. Is this true, or?
Yeah, they had birds that sounded like humans.
There was chatter there. Sometimes it wasn't.
Sometimes they'd call across the, but yeah, it
was trivial. I mean, at least where I was.
You know, with the mortars, you're not exactly
to the front, you're back. So we wouldn't
get too much of that. Now, whether I know we
used to get the
sea ration cans and put rocks in them and hang
them on the
barbed wire. Then the wind sometimes would blow
or a stupid
bird or pig or something would hit it, you know.
But other
than that, they but when they broke through the
lines, that
night on the patrol, that 5,000, they broke
through the
lines, and but they and the 164th was a reserve
outfit, and they came in that night or the
night before, and they got shelled while they
were landing, and the only person who knew
how to get there was the Padre, and the Padre
led them up to the front lines, and he was
a full colonel, and Chesty was a lieutenant
colonel. And from what I understand, he turned
to Chesty and said, you know more what's going
on than I do. You take command. At least this
is what you read in the book. And I, there's no
doubt in my mind that happened because
Chesty was, and they plugged up the whole, and
that was the last big basic battle that
at, it was the big turning point. November we
had another attack, but it, if you, it
was, by that time we had, our airplanes were
bombing their ships and everything
else, so they couldn't, it was, but it was
constantly patrolling and you see a stray,
stray, you get them, you know, to be a prisoner
and, but other than that, why?
Q. Did you happen to get malaria while you were there?
A. Yeah. I got malaria one time. That one time
I got
malaria. And then when we went to Australia,
then I
Q. That's where you left Guadalcanal and went to Arizona?
A. Yeah. And then they said we needed so many
NCOs to go back to the States to train troops,
and I
was one of them. I didn't want to go. And if I
stayed with
Chester, I'd have been all right. But then when
we got to
the States, it was a they resented us being
there, but, you
know, we were veterans, and they weren't, and,
you know, and
all, and a lot of problems came up. But then I started
getting malaria in the States. I we actually
they couldn't
cure us. I'd be in the hospital something like
85 days, finally get us out of there
and a week later, two weeks, we'd be right back
in. And so finally the doctor says, well,
I'm going to freeze it out of you guys. So they
shipped us north of the Mason-Dixon
Line, and I ended up in Maine, Portsmouth,
Maine, in the naval prison up there. And it
was 27 below zero. Now you're coming from the Pacific,
from the South,-27 below zero. Man, it was.
Q. Did you do guard duty up there?
A. Yeah. Being a corporal, you know, I corporal
at the
guard, and I'd sit behind a prison desk and all
that. I
never had to do outside duty. So but any time I posted
my men, they turned, they were turning purple.
And, heck, I'd pull them out and put the
other guys on there. And, boy, they were all
griping. I said, hey, they're turning purple.
What's wrong with you people, you know? And so
the colonel and I had a little discussion,
and he says, you're right, Corporal. None of
you guys are going to do outside duty until
now. I'm going to feed you pork chops and
butter and thicken up your blood. He was an
old, old timer. So my guys never had to pull
the outside
duty again. And I stayed there 14 months. And
on my
health record book, they stamped, unfit for
combat duty
for another six months, because malaria and all. And
next month, I'm on Okinawa, fighting on Okinawa.
Q. That didn't last very long, did it?
A. Yeah, that's six months. I mean, it was a month
later. I was on Okinawa fighting.
Q. You went to Okinawa. You left Maine, and
then did
you go right to Okinawa?
A. No, we had a little staging area in Hawaii,
and then
we went to Ñ then I joined L-35. And then from
there, from
Okinawa, then we went to China, spent Ñ and I
was in China and
got out of China in January of ë47. And then I
decided to get
out of the Marine Corps.
I reenlisted in the ñ while the war was going
on. And I was
supposed to stay in until March of 49, but then
they came
out with the all-marine letter 8, which said if
you had an
enlistment and you had a current blitz on your current
enlistment, then you had 30 days to decide
whether you
wanted to stay in or out. And, man, I said I
want out.
Well, let's go back to Okinawa. I'd like to
hear a little bit about your experiences there.
What day did you go in? Did you go in on the
initial day?
No, no, no. I was a replacement.
This was after Naha. They just got going
through Naha, and then I joined L-35 then.
And I'm no longer a mortar man now. I'm a rifle man.
And I'm unhappy.
This is the end of side one.
This is side two.
Matthew, you mentioned that you were in L-35.
Can you tell me what that means?
That's Love Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines.
So you're a rifleman now.
Yeah, I'm a rifleman.
I'm a team leader.
I didn't know anything about team leading. I'm
a rifleman, I mean, a mortar man. But
we were up in the front, and there was a gap.
There was about a 600-yard gap that we couldn't
close. So at night, we'd go up there and close
it up. Then in the morning, we'd withdraw
on the other side of the hill and so there's
all coral up there and old
Dozier was another corporal and Dozier and I
were foxhole buddies and he'd be
sitting there and he'd say I smell a goddamn
Jap, I smell a Jap around here so
I'd get the hand grenades out and throw them
out sure enough we'd get a couple
jabs in front of them. So Dozier, I protected
Dozier. I was always in trouble, but I protected
him because as long as he was my foxhole buddy,
I had nothing to worry about. And, yeah, there
was a lot of incidents in China where I got
Dozier out of trouble.
Do you remember any, talking about your combat
experiences, Okinawa and Guadalcanal, are
there any humorous incidents that you recall?
No, but our outfit, our battalion was the
outfit that split Okinawa in half, and we
had to go through three villages, and there was
Japanese in each village, and they just
said, move out. We got to, you know, you're on
time schedule here.
And we finally split the island in half, and we
had to form a circular defense. And in
our circular defense, we had more Japanese in
the circle than we had on the outside.
And every day we'd send out a patrol, six guys
on the outside, six guys on the inside,
And we'd catch Japanese in both ways.
One would run into the other one.
Yeah, and I remember one incident where my
dozer was in my foxhole boy this time,
and I heard the guy say, get him!
And he's supposed to be awake, and he's asleep.
And I look up there, and there's a Jap standing
in the foxhole,
the foxhole right next to us that was empty,
and, you know, you could get out of your sleep.
So I grabbed the M1 and pumped a couple shots
at him, and then the darn thing wouldn't extract,
so I started throwing hand grenades at him. And
he went over a little hill there, and
there were two of them there. They put a hand
grenade between the two of them. They blew
themselves up and but I was lucky he was
looking in that one hole and not the
other and and but that was and I in the end a
good Lord took you was looking
after me I because I came out of there without
a scratch and and I had chances
of getting shot at and all, but.
Now you were on Guadalcanal.
Yeah, about four months.
And saw action there, and you saw Okinawa.
In your opinion, I know there are two different type
of islands, which was the worst for you
as an individual, combat-wise?
Well, on the canal, you didn't have supplies.
And you had the Japanese Navy out there,
You had the Japanese Air Force out there.
They had superiority out there at the beginning.
And Okinawa was a different ball game.
We had the power.
They had very little Air Force.
The Kamikazes were about the only things that
were doing
damage to the Navy, and they did a hell of a
lot of it.
But as far as an Air Force, they didn't.
and their Navy, their Navy was, is this
Japanese Army General said that you could walk
on the
periscopes of the submarines all the way to
Tokyo. I mean, it was, as far as air and Navy,
it was entirely, you didn't have to worry about
getting shelled or bombed, like, you
know, on the canal, 5:00, I mean, 11:00 in the
morning, there were the bombers.
And we were eating captured Japanese rice with
nice maggots in it or whatever, and,
you know, and then eat it to give you the
protein. That was the joke, you know. And
we had one time we had captured Japanese roots.
That's all we had.
That was on Guadalcanal.
Yeah, whereas on Okinawa, the supplies were
always there.
It's two different battles entirely.
Did you stay on Okinawa until it was secure? Yeah.
And then after the day the Japanese
surrendered, I had attack malaria.
And I'm in there, and everybody's jumping
around, and there I am, hooking the door.
And yeah, I went through the typhoon in
Okinawa, and ended up, and then we went to
China, the whole.
Well, when you left Okinawa, did you come back
to the States?
No, no, I went to China.
Oh, you went right, directly to China?
Yeah, we went right. They shipped us to China.
where you now, what outfit were you in there? L-35.
Still a L-35. Yeah.
So this was, the surrender had already been
taken effect, so then that is when you went
to China. Now, what were your duties in China?
Well, the American version was that because we
did such a great job in World War II, we
were guests of Chiang Kai-Shek's. Now, we were
up in North China. We protected all railheads,
all roads, and we had the same amount of
ammunition under our sacks as we did in combat.
And it
was technically, I think, we were there to stop
the communistic flow.
Q. You were working for nationalists. A. Yeah. We
Q. And did you have any combat there? At any
time did
A. We, there was one patrol that got hit, and
you never
read about it. They caught, they caught there was,
The communists had a roadblock, a blockade, and
so as far as the Americans, they didn't,
they wouldn't bother us.
And so we'd send out a patrol from Peking, and
then they'd send out a patrol
out of Tientsin, the distance is something like
60, 68 miles, and then we would meet.
And then when we would meet, we'd turn around
and go back.
So what you're saying, the Communist forces
would meet the U.S. forces?
No. And the Japanese, the Chinese merchants
would follow the Peking patrol, and the merchants
would follow the Tencent patrol. Then when we
turned, they crossed. So this was breaking
the blockade.
Ah, okay, I understand.
And so they caught, they caught one of the
patrols in the dead spot where the radio jeeps
couldn't work. They weren't working. And a few
Marines got killed on that deal. And
you never read about it in the paper. So then
they brought in a big old transmitter that
would transmit something like 1,500 miles. It
had its own trailer, its own generator.
That was no longer a dead spot. But that one
time we did get hit, and when we got hit,
it was a bunch of recruits. We were getting in
a bunch of recruits, and the story goes
that they had a second lieutenant that fired
one shot out
of the 50, and then he was adjusting the head
space, and
they shot him. So there was nobody there that
knew anything
about it. So the next patrol, the veterans had
to go on
patrol. And I was now I went to demolition
school, so being
a demo man in a bazooka and flamethrower, I got
to go on this stupid patrol. It gets
you up two, 3:00 in the morning, freezing, you
know. And I'm the police sergeant.
And I go up to the sergeant major and I said,
Sir, I'm the police sergeant. We got an inspection
tomorrow. He says, I don't give a goddamn,
you're going on patrol. Well, fine. I'm
not gonna argue with the sergeant major. So I'm
on this patrol. Come back, I got to
see the colonel. And I'm getting my ass chewed
out because the inspection, right?
So after I get it all straight with the
colonel, he said, Sergeant, if I get you
off those patrols, will you give me a good
inspection? Yes, Sir.
And the next week, the sergeant major, the top
sergeant, couldn't find one thing wrong
with the barracks or anything else. And he
turns to the sergeant major and says, this
is the kind of inspection I like. Well, that
didn't give me points. It didn't give me points
with the sergeant major, but at least I got off
the patrols. Yeah, China was quite a place.
How long did you spend there?
16 months and
Then I had a
Brother a captain on the Chinese police force
Was my brother and when your brothers
You when you visit one another you got to bring gifts
And you you don't say hey, Bro. How you doing?
So every time he would visit me
we'd go out to a restaurant and eat. And I ate
in all the best restaurants in Peking
you could. And I turned to him one time and
says, Brother Bob, what would happen if they
gave you the bill to pay for all this stuff? He
says, I'd close them up. This is under Atencio.
Q. Do you remember his name, Chiang Kai-Shek?
A. No, no, I don't. And then I had another
brother. He was a dentist. He graduated from
Marquette University in the States. And he
says, you know, brother, I'm going to lose
face, but the only thing you could bring me as
a gift is petrol. And petrol was selling
something like 250 a gallon or something. I
mean, and that was there. So I'd go get
me a can and go and get me, get some gasoline.
And he had this little Fiat. And man, we drove
all over with that little Fiat.
Well, this brother thing, what was that, a
tradition or how did that work?
No, you become friends.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, your friends, then your brothers, you
know, and another incident, I was just, we
had a house boy, and he was asking me if I had
a .45. I said, yeah, I sell you a .45
any time you want. And the next day, I'm called
out, down to the intelligence in the
the division headquarters. And here they're
telling me, I understand you can sell .45s.
Hey, I was only joking.
And they said, no, we want you to sell .45s. He
said, what we're doing is we're trying
to find out where the communist caches were of
weapons and who were buying them. He said,
you get in contact, what they want to sell, and
let us know.
We'll give you the .45s.
We'll give you the ammunitions.
And then as soon as you do it, you turn
yourself into the
brig, and we'll fly you back to the States,
because your
life's not going to be worth $0.02.
And so I figured, hey, I'm going to get out of China.
The next day, the company commander says, we
are not
going to have any more houseboys. I looked for
that guy. I never did find him. I never
did so many 45s. I left there in January of
1947 and I got out on May 2, 1947.
Well, how did you like, what did you think of
the Chinese people as a whole?
Under Chiang Kai-Shek, it was, the people were,
you know, great, but I mean, the conditions
were, and I just, it was appalling. I mean, you
know, one thing the Communists did, they
got rid of those rickshaws, you know, getting
the guy running, you know, and they got rid
of those. And the VD rate was horrendous. When
we hit 18% VD rate, then we, I
was on the MP force and at that time we started
trying to get every cat house we could find
and put red signs up out of bounds. They could,
you put one up here and they go over there
and you go over there, they go over there. Man,
those guys were, you could, but then
they start restricting, you know, you, because,
and I understand they, they, they got rid
of the VD rate under the new regime, because it
was, and, yeah, they had pro stations in
middle of the town.
Stopped by, huh?
Yeah, the V.D. rate was bad.
And they would sell these girls to these madams,
12-, 13-year-old girls working cat houses.
You know, that was...
But one incident, I don't know whether we
to record this. No, I better not say it, no.
Well, is there anything else you'd like to add,
Matthew, before we complete our conversation
here today?
No, except on the Marine Corps birthday,
November 10th, I'm going to be the oldest
Marine there,
and I'm going to get my piece of cake cut with
the saber.
Well, let me shake your hand, Matthew, and
thank you for what you did for our country.
And thank you for taking the time to visit with me.