This is Eddie Graham. This is June 12, 2006.
I'm interviewing Mr. Ali Cheddar,
and it's been interviewed is in his office here
in Fredericksburg, and this interview is being
in support of the National Museum of the
Pacific Wars Center for War Studies and for the Preservation
of historical information related to World War II.
Okay, Mr. Shatter, first of all, we want to
thank you for taking the time to relate your
experiences with us, but let's start out with
asking you, when and where were you born?
Okay, to start off with, I appreciate that you
respect my age and call me Mr. Shatter,
but that's fine.
You can just call me Ollie.
On that Shatter, you got to put a little
saurkraut on that.
Where was I born?
I was born here in Fredericksburg, Texas, on
the third day of February, 1924, on a little
house right behind the Hill Country Memorial
Hospital Wellness Center and of
course my father at that time had a little bit
dairy back there and worked
in a saddle shop as a saddle maker, cabinet
maker and of course then he
started and got his funeral right there on a
bomber's license in 1920 when he
was 20 years old and of course he's been in the
funeral business ever since. Okay.
And, of course, we grew up in the funeral
business from scratch.
And, of course, our duties were also concerned
in the funeral home.
We'd have to come down to the funeral home
and dust the chairs before we went to school.
A lot of times, when we were a little bit older,
we'd be going to the cemetery and putting up
the cemetery equipment
and tent and everything else, polishing the hearse
and everything else before we went to school.
Well, then where did you go to school at that time?
We went to St. Mary's School, St. Mary's
Grammar School and, of course, then later
high school, which was about five blocks from us.
Most of the time, a lot of times we came home
for lunch and, of course, ran back so we could play.
And of course graduated at the St. Mary's
School in 1942. Okay, let's talk
about that a little bit. You graduated in 1942,
so what were you doing, or where
were you, and what were you doing December 7th, 1941?
That I don't exactly remember.
Of course, if I remember right, we got the word
when we were in school, since the word
came to the United States in the mornings.
We got the word, might have even gotten it home
on the radio.
I'm not real sure about that, one or the other.
it was early in the morning. Well then tell us
next then, how did you end up
joining the United States Navy? Well I finished
high school in 1942. The next
week I went to Houston, Texas and went to
mortuary school, and at that time it was
six-month course. So I took my state board
exams in November of 1942, and then
on the third day of February, which was my
birthday in 1943, I was supposed to go
in the service. The draft board sent me this
nice greetings that I was supposed
to go in the service. Two days before I was
supposed to leave, they called and
said, Ollie, you're deferred. They were
deferring all embalmers in the United
States because they knew something bad was
going to happen in the United States.
Of course, it was sad and then again, as far as
my life is concerned, the next day
I went to, started mortuary school, took my
apprenticeship in 1943, took my state
board exams in November of 1943, and then I was
supposed to go into service in
December. So we were sworn in on the 23rd day
of December, and a chief said,
he said, if you all give me your permission,
we'll go ahead and put on the record that
it was on the 24th day of December.
If we put it down on the 23rd day of December,
you got to be here on the first day of January,
and after New Year's Eve, you won't be worth a
darn, so we'll put it on the 24th day of
December, and you have to be here on the 2nd of January.
was my first break in the service. Okay then
where did you end up doing your
taking your basic training? Okay of course we
caught the train to San Diego
and took our boot camp in San Diego. Okay and
after you finished boot camp where
did you go? What was your assignment? I went to
of course I was a medic I was a
a pharmacist made.
And of course, we went to Balboa Naval
Hospital, which was a very nice hospital.
And most of that time, of course, we had a
refresher course because we had some education
in first aid and so on before.
And of course, being an interbalmer, I had
anatomy courses and all that goodies.
And of course, I worked in an isolation ward.
And next to our isolation ward, we had a
building there that had a lot of the guys that were
shell-shocked from the war in the Philippines
and wherever.
And I had a good friend that I've known in
Fredericksburg for many years that was shell-shocked.
And of course, I visited with him several times.
And one night, they had fireworks close by, and
those poor guys in that building, they
just all went berserk.
And my good friend, he did the same thing.
And of course, they asked us to come over and
help them.
So of course, I went over there, and I found my
friend, and he was under his bunk.
all I could do was crawl under the bunk with
him and we just hung on to each
other hugged each other until everything was
over with and he was all right then
we could go on with our chores. After you go
ahead. But in the isolation ward we
had everything in there and of course except
the mumps. And what do I get? The
month. I was in the in the Mump Ward and then
three of the sailors came and they
said hey you got your orders to go to Corona
California and you got to go
there you got to go we'll talk to the doctor so
he they let you go that's good
duty up there so they packed my bag and carried
my sea bag to the train and
everything else. So I went to Corona,
California, which was very, very nice.
This used to be a country club. The building
was absolutely beautiful. The
food was good. We even had innerspring
mattresses in our bunks. And, of course, I
I got a good job in the sick bay, and I still
thank my good nurse and a young
man that worked with me. Every time they got a
blanket draft for medics, if you
ever messed up or if you didn't do your job or
whatever, if you got crossed with
the officers or whatever, you went in the fleet marines.
And of course, 85% of the medics that were in
the fleet marines at that time, they never
came home.
And I've always thought of those people so many
times, how thankful I can be that they
never put me on that draft.
was pretty sad when some of the guys came back
that did come back. I've seen
too many of them that came back and they were
in bad shape. We had a lot of them
there at the hospital, in the orthopedic ward.
They'd broken bones and everything
else. It was unreal.
After you completed your first, I mean your
assignment there, where did you go?
Went to Treasure Island in San Francisco, right
across from San Quin, Alcatraz.
That was a waiting period from then until our
ship was commissioned.
And of course, we gathered all the materials
and everything else for the ship.
And of course our ship was commissioned on the
13th, on Friday the 13th of December.
Good luck.
And of course we had a good crew, we had a good ship.
What year was this then?
This was in 44.
Of course our Christmas, we anchored next to
the Golden Gate Bridge.
We could see the lights in San Francisco, and
that's as far as we got.
Nobody raided Liberty.
The next day, of course, we picked up crews
from three different ships, and, of course,
we all learned together.
We were all-two-thirds of the guys had never
been to sea.
We were all youngsters, and, of course, in that
area, the sea was rough.
was rough and you talk about a bunch of sick
guys there was a bunch of sick
sailors I'll guarantee you it was rough we had
one of our good medics every time
the screw turned on that ship he was in bed in
fact when we got to Hawaii he got
off the ship all the way over there we had him
in bed and in sick bay in the
hospital and he was getting IVs all the way.
The poor guy, he was sick. He had
chronic sills. Yes, Sir. He was sick. Okay,
after you got to Pearl Harbor, what
happened? Well, of course, after Pearl Harbor,
we picked up a bunch of Army. We
We had a lot of-of course, they did all their
exercises and everything else.
We had a lot of target practices on, you know,
the targets that the planes
carried and so on, pulled.
We had an awful lot of that, and the aircraft shots.
minute. Okay. We went down to Long Beach and of
course there too on my birthday
we left Long Beach and we started to Pearl
Harbor and of course over at Pearl
Harbor we were at Liberty but we had to be back
before dark depending on your
rate, and some of the officers, they could stay
a couple or three hours later.
And of course, at that time, the song came out,
Rum and Coca-Cola.
And that's all they played everywhere we went,
and that's all we drank.
But it was a good time.
Pearl Harbor is a nice place.
Of course, the next stop was over at Eniwetok,
A-T-O-L-L, in
the Marshall Islands, and of course there, too,
we picked up
soldiers that had been there for training and
went on to
Okinawa and got rid of, or we left a whole
bunch of soldiers at
Okinawa at that time. Let's ask you this right
now, aboard your ship then you
you carried not only personnel but you carried
supplies and such too? We were
considered a third-class hospital ship. We had
three medical doctors, we had a
dentist, and we had 26 medics. We had the type
of ships that you see that when
When they hit the beach, the front end flops
out and lets you on the beach.
We had 29 of those boats.
Our classic of ships was probably the largest
of the APAs that they built because we carried
29 of the landing barges and, of course, we
carried 1,500, 1,800 troops plus 500 ships
company and the boat crew.
There was a lot of manpower on the ship at that time.
Like I said, we had a third-class hospital ship.
We were equipped to carry 500 ambulatory patients.
The patients that we picked up were never
really in serious condition.
Okay, that's a good picture of the situation.
Go ahead.
Of course, we hit Okinawa twice. Went down as
far as Guadalcanal. Of
course, it gets pretty warm down there. And we
picked up a group of U.S.O.
people. They were colored, but they were good.
They did all kinds of songs and dances from
Oklahoma, Victor, and those people were really,
really good entertainers. It was good. We
had good entertaining.
Came back to San Francisco, dropped off a whole
lot of troops that we had picked up
on the way, and of course picked up all our
supplies, went up to Seattle, and of
course picked up a bunch of soldiers up in Seattle.
Did you ever get to go ashore when you were
there in San Francisco or Seattle?
Yes, Sir. Yes. Yeah, we usually had three or
four days of liberty, two days at the
most at one time. Unless there was somebody
relative further off, they would
allow you three or four days, a lot of that.
Of course we came back over to Okinawa, and of
course everything was getting
pretty warm at that time. The war was really
going over to Japan. Did you get
in any much into the war itself, I mean, or war
attacks or anything like that?
We were never fired on.
We saw submarines and some of their ships and
turned around
and went the other way and got away from them.
And, of course, we had other ships, the
cruisers and so on,
that protected the guys like us.
And we also, a lot of the storms and the
tornadoes, we were lucky there.
Some of those we turned around and went to
different directions and got away from that.
We just had one man that fell overboard.
He was never found.
And of course, when we hit Okinawa, the last
time especially, we had a lot of general quarters.
We had even way before we got there.
Like in Okinawa, our ship made smoke.
We had smoke pots.
And of course, there was so much smoke around
our ship that they couldn't see us.
And some of those suicide planes, if they came
over us, you could almost reach them.
But they didn't see us, so they didn't hit us.
And I'll never forget, one night there was a
merchant marine ship next to us, anchored
also with supplies.
And of course, as soon as General Quarters was
sounded, our lights went out and the smoke
pots started.
And they kept their lights on.
And I'm not going to tell you exactly what our
captain told them, but he told them to
get those lantern lights out.
He used some other words.
We don't want to say that.
But then finally they turned their lights out.
The next morning we left, and we picked up
survivors on two different ships that went
down. And that next night, the merchant marine
ship, they didn't turn their lights on and
of course they got torpedoed. They got
torpedoed. We went on and of course, nice thing that
happened when we left Okinawa. We had picked up
a whole bunch of casualties
and troops and of course two days at sea one of
the casualties died. A young man
21 years old and of course there were a lot of
ships around us there must have
than Galia, seemed like a hundred around us.
Everybody was burying him at sea, and
me being raised in the funeral business, being
a square-headed Dutchman, I didn't
want to see this youngster be buried at sea. So
I buried, I begged our doctors, our
captain, everybody else that had any kind of
authority that I embalmed this
youngster. I had been embalming and helping my
dad since I was 15 years old
and of course finally they agreed. The doctors
didn't autopsy on this
youngster. Why? I don't know because we had
enough to do otherwise. But anyway
that was their choice. I had no instruments of
any kind. I had a
a makeshift of everything, which was fine.
I worked around it, worked on him all night on
a little narrow examining table.
The ship fitters made a nice wood casket for him.
We draped it with a flag, and six days later we
dropped him off at Saipan.
And of course found out later that he was
buried there in Saipan, at the cemetery there,
National Cemetery in Saipan.
And of course after I came back home and
everything else, I tried to find relatives for
this youngster.
And of course I would try to call this
particular family.
I would tell the operator this is a shattered
funeral home.
I didn't tell him any lies, but they thought I
was trying to deliver a death message so
they would always help me.
They were very helpful.
And of course I tried this for many, many hours.
Then I would forget about it for a while and
then they would eat on me again and I would
start calling again. And then in June of 1948,
I found a brother and a nephew and
told them that their brother was buried 10
miles from where he lived. They had
picked him up in Saipan in June of 1948 and
shipped him to Fort Smith, Arkansas,
and buried him there at the National Cemetery.
And of course, like I said, my
phone called to the brother. He was told that
his brother was buried ten miles
from where he lived. That's the first notice
that he had that his brother was
buried there.
Later on, our ship went on to China and, of
course, picked up the Marines that rose the
flag on Iwo and brought them to the States.
And at San Diego, that was quite a celebration
when we came in there with 1,800 troops.
There was lots of hoo-ing and ah-ing and the
bands were playing and everybody was hollering
and goose bumps.
And it was quite a celebration.
It was nice.
And what was the celebration for what then?
Well, that the boys finally came home.
That the boys finally came home and there were
a lot of parents that were waiting for
their youngsters to come home.
And they were there, and their girlfriends and
wives were there.
And even us guys that nobody was waiting for,
but we got a hug from all the girls that were there.
But then I was transferred to Subic Bay in the Philippines.
And of course, when I got there, they asked me,
well, what did you do on the ship?
I told him, well. He said, well, we don't have
any openings for that.
He said, well, what did you do in civilian life?
I said, well, I was a mortician.
He said, oh, that's good. We need somebody.
So they thought I said OR technician, operating
room technician.
So they sent me to surgery, which was fine.
I worked in surgery for some time,
We helped a lot of Filipinos. They had a nice hospital.
We helped not only sailors from their army.
Of course, the submarine base was not far from there.
We took care of all of them.
Of course, a lot of the Filipinos were fishing,
fishing with dynamite.
They would come in with hands blown off, arms
blown off.
And we had a doctor, Dr. Hinchey, who was
number one orthopedic out of San Antonio.
He used to be in Mayo Clinic.
And he was just great.
He was a wonderful doctor.
He treated us enlisted men just like ordinary people.
He would come and play pinochle with us or
everything else.
Just a wonderful person.
Then, of course, after a while, they had a
change in their schedule, and there was an
opening for an ambulance driver.
And of course, since I grew up in the funeral
business and the ambulance service, they put
me on the ambulance service, to drive the ambulance.
And of course, the first thing I asked for is
that I take a mechanic along, because I
not mechanically minded, which was a good thing
because we got to go all over the
Philippine Islands. A lot of the Filipinos that
died in the hospital there,
we would transport them all over the islands,
and of course Navy too. So we got
to see all the country over there, where the
death March was and everything else.
We had another sad case on our Christmas. One
of the soldiers stole a
rifle out of the security post there at the
guard, at the gate, and he
always wanted to beg for, he always wanted to
see somebody beg for their
lives and he had these two American soldiers
down on their knees begging for
their lives and they finally whispered to each
other that you run that way and
I'll run this way this they're gonna kill one
or two of us. Now once again who
was the soldier that was an American American
American soldier and he was had
kit, two Americans down on their knees. That's
correct. Okay. So finally the boys
ran. He missed one and the other one he shot
him right to the stomach. And of
course that was our Christmas that time in
surgery. We worked on this youngster
all night long and of course he survived. But
the guy that did the shooting, you
You can imagine when he was examined, the
stories that he told, what he wanted to do
and some of the things that he did.
I'm not going to tell it because it's too sad
for anybody to hear what he did to people
and dogs and cats and kids.
It was absolutely terrible.
And we never believed him.
So one of the doctors hypnotized him and told
the same stories.
And then we used sodium pentothal, which is a
truth serum and an antiseptic, and he told
the same stories.
Like I said, it's too sad to even repeat.
I don't even want to repeat it.
I hate to think about it, but that was our Christmas.
And this was December 19 what?
44. Okay, go ahead. Because shortly after that
I came to back to the States and of
course got my discharge at Camp Wallace, which
is close to Galveston, between
Galveston and Houston. Okay, let's go ahead now.
After December you had this
unpleasant Christmas, then what happened? What
did you do? Well, not too long after
that is when I headed back for the States.
Oh okay.
Yeah, I stayed there for a while and then of
course came back and I was discharged in
April of 45.
Okay if we could, let me go back now and let's
talk about when you first, your ship first
came overseas and you started picking up
casualties from the different battles and such.
Do you remember any particular battle or
situation where it was much more worse than the others?
Well, Okinawa, that's the only place that we
really picked up a whole bunch of casualties.
That was probably the worst.
Of course, we had a bunch of casualties that
were transported to us from the other hospital ships.
you know, that did a lot of surgeries and so
forth, that transported them to us by
our our landing boats and so we could carry
them from one island to the
other and back to the States. Did you, a lot of
the people, let's say the people
that you brought aboard ship, and after you
treated them and such, did you take
them to some other hospitals or did you carry
take them all the way back to the
states or what was the procedure? Well some of
those most of those came back to the
states. Did your ship take them or did someone
else? Well it was both, both.
Some of the ships that were going to the states
we weren't scheduled to go to the
states yet so we transferred and of course some
of them we kept and just
kept them on. Because the food was good and
they liked to stay on us. The food was good.
Of all the different experiences you had during
the World War when you were there, is there
any things that still you think about or that
were more different than any other experiences
that you had or can you think of anything? I
mean you talked about the
young man that you embalmed but I mean other
than that one are there any other
experiences such as that? Well some of those
were and probably the worst
injuries and so on were some of the Filipinos
that were fishing with
dynamite and had their legs, arms blown off.
Some of the soldiers we picked up, of
course, they had bullet wounds and so on, but
of course they had been treated on
the island before we picked, they came to us.
Of course, all my lifetime, doing
ambulance service and everything else. I've
picked up people that even today
when you drive down the highway you think about
this one or that one or this
youngster that fell through the windshield and
had his throat cut or
some of those experiences that, I don't know if
you want to hear that.
Just tell me what experiences you think from
that happened during the war if
you want to tell it talk about those okay if
you don't that's alright. I mean
if there any experiences you know that you that
stand out in your mind that
something that you think was one of the more
important things. Something funny
that happened to me when I was in Camp Wallace
ready for my discharge. I went
through all the process for those three days
and the last thing that they were
that you had to fill out was paperwork. He said
well where in the world have
you been we've been looking for you. I said
well I was with such company such
and such. When I got there they put me in a car
and took me to this barracks so I
So I was with that group through all of the process.
But the last thing, they didn't find my
records, they couldn't find me because they thought
I was with somebody else.
Funny thing was, of course some of the stuff
wasn't even put on my discharge.
But anyway he said, come on back with me.
So we walked up to the desk.
To begin with, when I first got there, they
said, you're from Fredericksburg.
Oh, do you know Schmidt?
He's the head man here.
He's our head officer.
I said, yeah, he lived right next to us.
He lived right in the house right over here,
right above my house.
That's where he was raised.
And I said, yeah, I know him real well.
And of course then they treated me, and it was
kind of funny, they got me a chair and
got me a drink of water and everything else.
Everybody was trying to be nice and polite and funny.
So getting back to this paperwork, the last
thing that they were going to do, and of course
where have you been?
They said, well come back with me.
So we went to the main office and on the desk
they were just writing on my name, A-W-O-L.
They couldn't find me, so they thought I was on
maternity leave.
And of course then Schmidt walked in, our neighbor.
It was funny then, but for a while it was very
embarrassing to him to know that, hey,
Ollie Shetter, A-W-O-L, my good neighbor years
ago when I was a youngster.
Well let me ask you this, of all the different
people that you met in the
service, does any of them still, do you think
about them or you remember more
than some of the others or there was something
unusual about their character
Well, we had a couple of characters. We had a
couple of characters. But the nicest thing that
ever happened to me regarding the seamen that
were on the Goshen, like I told you all ago,
20, 22 years ago, before all the internet and
the computers and all of that goodies, we had a
very nice book written about the ship.
the ship. Very nice. Nice hard cover, just
couldn't have been any nicer. And of
course, where are they today? And of course at
night, in the evenings when I
finished my duties, I would call the operator
and I'd tell him this, I'd start
on the East Coast and work West as the time
changed. And I'd tell the operator
this is a shatter funeral home and of course
they thought I was trying to
deliver a death message and they were very
helpful and I had to work at night
and not work my wife at first she was a little
bit disappointed working that
late and then of course later on she got as
interested and as happy as I was that
found one and I found like 249 alive and I
found a hundred and two deceased and I
had like 1,200 long-distance calls in that
thing and of course it was
interesting to know what happened to the guys
after they when they left. Well in
our group on the medics I know one was a lawyer
I know one he end up in the Air
Force and he retired as a lieutenant colonel
and I'm sorry to say but right
now he's in California and he's got cancer very
bad very bad nice guy
another one of course he turned to be a dentist.
Several of the other guys did
very good. The one that really tickled me was
an Italian boy from New York from
the Bronx. He was a little bit older than we
were and he kind of helped us along
and took care of us. And of course when he went
in the service, he threw the
garbage on the trucks. And of course later in
life, whose picture was on the
front page in the Brooklyn News, there was old
Frank. He had all the spaghetti
on his cap and on his collar and everything
else. He was superintendent of
Sanitation department in Brooklyn, New York,
and in finding these it was
sad that some of them were home just for a
little while, fell off of a roof, had a
wreck with a motorcycle and a car, and it's
unreal, all kinds. Well, I can't think
of anything else to ask you. Is there something
else that you would like to
Yeah, one guy that I'll never forget and I was
proud of, he was a steward maid.
He was colored. Nice guy. A lot of times down
at Sick bay, Us medics, he'd bring
us Leftover steaks, cake, pie, whatever from
the office's quarters. And of course
she always expected a little alky, a little
shot of alky.
And of course later on the guy was in the
postal department, he had a cafe and he became
a minister and in his ministry he did good.
I know his history.
We kept in touch with those people for years
and years and years and his wife was a school
teacher, a wonderful person. She called, she
said, Ollie, she said, you know Fred is
very sick, he's not gonna make it very long. If
something happens, would you come
up and have a few words? And I felt honored. I
drove many, many, many miles to
go to his hometown, and of course his church
was absolutely beautiful.
Where was his hometown? It was in Dallas. Okay. I
Was the only white person at the funeral
And the funeral was absolutely packed. I
Mean it was packed and it was nice
And I bet that 80% of the people that came and
shook hands with me. I felt honored
That was that's very very honored. I could see that
Well, that's great
Well, is there anything else that you'd like to add?
Well, while in the service, of course, I always
had good duties.
I did my duty.
It kept me from going up to the front lines.
I always had a nice place, we always had good
quarters, had good food, even on the ship
or while I was waiting for the ship at Treasure
Island, we always had good food.
And of course I felt honored that I could serve.
We were lucky to survive and we thanked the
good Lord that we made it and came home and
had a nice family.
then you have a very interesting story and I
know that we're gonna really be
glad to have you with help us because you're
giving a lot of stories that and
a lot of things about the war that we we feel
like it's very good for us but on
behalf of the Nimitz Museum I want to thank you
and really once again thank
you for being here and giving us your story.
Very good. Thank you.