This is Larry Rabelais, and this is the 28th of
August, 2009.
I'm interviewing Mr. Buddy Porter, who is in Massachusetts.
And this interview is taking place here by telephone
from Fredericksburg, Texas.
This interview is in support of the Center of
Pacific War
Studies, Archives for the National
Museum of the Pacific War, Texas Historical Commission,
for the preservation of historical information related
to this site, and with that statement, Mr.
Porter, I'll go ahead and turn it off to
you as to when you were born and where and all
that, and go ahead and take it away.
Mr. Porter
Before you start, I would just like to say
August 28th, 1948, so this is our 61st year
of marriage. P.A.
Oh, my goodness.
Is your wife still there, I assume?
Mr. Porter
Yes, she is. P.A.
Well, wonderful, wonderful.
I think I talked to her briefly when she
answered the phone.
Mr. Porter Right.
I was born in Woburn, Massachusetts, but I grew
up on my father's farm in Lexington, Massachusetts.
And I went to high school, graduated from high
school, and worked on my father's farm.
And then about how bad things were in the
Depression area there.
So then in 1940, hello, yeah, things of some,
you could join the, Roosevelt said
you could join the Army for one year.
So I said, what the heck, I'm not going to,
nothing will happen here.
I'll go in the Army for a year.
So this is about 1940? Yeah.
So we went down to Camp Edwards in Massachusetts.
We trained there.
So then we went on maneuvers down in North Carolina.
And that was like from maybe August till December.
Was this part of a National Guard unit, or?
This was then the Yankee Division that I was in.
And then, they say we were in the maneuvers.
And I can remember the dust and be so dusty
there in the maneuvers.
I think we were training.
I believe we were training to go to Europe and
not the Pacific, where we
wound up.
Anyways, we stayed on Carolina night maneuvers
and a lot of things.
We didn't have enough guns.
We had orange flags for 50 calibers and different.
Oh, really?
No guns.
Did y'all train with tanks or with imitation tanks
of some sort?
Yes, that was it.
But mostly night maneuvers.
We seemed to be always moving at night, motor convoys.
And so then about the 1st of December, that
would be 41,
we headed back to Camp Edwards, Massachusetts.
So it took us, on my convoy, five or six days
to get back.
In trucks, you mean?
In trucks.
Let me ask you this, in your basic training and
all, how long did that last?
Because later in the war they shortened it a
little bit.
I'm trying to find out how long, about six
weeks or eight weeks?
I think the basic training was like fifteen
weeks then.
Yeah, it was longer then.
Yeah, I think it was fifteen weeks.
Did you find it very hard?
Of course coming from a farm it probably was
not too bad for you. No.
I don't know, training was out okay, didn't
bother me that much, but as I was saying,
we were headed back to Camp Edwards, and the
next day was December 7th, I remember I was
on KP, and over the radio came in the news that
the Japs had bombed Pearl Harbor, and
My year was almost up, I would have a year in
January I would be getting out, but naturally
that was changed with the plumbing of Pearl Harbor.
I think I realized that the implications were
read off, that I was going to go someplace.
I thought that we were going to go to Europe,
so after that we were, went into some training
for, you know, well we had trucks with mounted
machine guns on them, made a few trips to
the shores of Maine and thought there'd be an
invasion or something, but anyways that
didn't happen but we left the we left for
overseas we left camp Edwards on
January 16th to go overseas so y'all went to
all the way to California Camp
we left from Brooklyn New York down the East
coast to the Panama Canal and 28
Eight days later we landed in Australia.
Oh my goodness.
We ate two meals a day and it was so crowded that-
Was this on a transport ship, a troop ship, I guess?
Yes, it was a central laner.
We were zigzagging most of the time across the-
That's a long trip.
Two meals a day and I think by the time you get
through with your first one it was almost time
to line up.
It was so hot in the ship that I slept mostly,
my friend and my pal, we slept up on deck.
Did you make pretty good friends with some
people there, or were they mostly from the
Massachusetts area, the people in your unit?
They were mostly from Massachusetts, but that
changed quite a bit later on when we had Cassidy.
So, what unit was this? Was this the Merical at
that time?
No, we went overseas as a task force. It was
6814A, I think.
And it was made up from, you know, they took
us, the 182nd out of the YD,
and they took, like, the 132nd Infantry, I
think was out of Illinois,
The 164th Infantry, I think, was out of one of
the Dakotas.
And that formed up, and then it was different
artillery units
and everything.
So we went to Australia, and we landed in Melbourne.
I remember that night, and they got us off the ship
and out into the sleeper on the packs for that night.
They thought they would be bombed from the harbor,
but it didn't happen.
Now, which coast? Melbourne is on the south
coast of Australia?
Right down the bottom. Uh-huh.
While we were in Australia, we stayed in
private homes. Really?
For about a week.
They had it all figured out that if there was a
bombing or a parade,
that each house in this town could hold,
this house could hold five people, this one
could hold six,
or whatever.
So we went up to this town of Ballarat,
and we slept in private homes for four or five days.
Were the people pretty nice to you all?
Oh, they were great.
I remember when we were marching out that night,
there was a bivouac outside.
Some of the locals were, oh, you Yankee bastards.
But that was a friend of Endearment.
Oh, really?
Yeah, there you go.
I found it out later.
So, it was, but I have to tell you,
this house that I stayed in was Mrs. Gates.
Her two daughters.
Well, who fed y'all?
Did those people feed you, or?
No, we had a, we used to meet down.
Yeah, I guess they did, there was some meals,
but we had, we would meet down at what they call
the oval, what we call here a town green, a
farm and something of that size.
But we had a chance to bathe there, but when we
were on the ship, we didn't have any saltwater soap.
There was no way to shower with saltwater, but
that doesn't take off the grime.
When this house to be staying at that time they
had a bath tub
up at the head of the bath that was a little
box and
Go out and chips of wood put them in the box
and the water come down in a coil circle
through this box
Into the tub. That's how we get warm water
Well, we all there for just a short period of
time. Yes, that was only like five days
From there we went to New Caledonia, which is a
French island, and it's a large French island.
At New Caledonia, we were split up all over the island.
We were like outposts all around.
They figured that there'd probably
be an invasion of the island.
And that's a French-owned island at the time. Right.
Is the main town on that one, Noumea,
slave or something like that?
We stayed in a town.
I was split up when I went to headquarters,
the company headquarters.
And we used to make trips into Noumea
to get writing paper or stamps or whatever
you're writing with.
Well, what did you train with, just as an infantryman
with just a rifle?
Or did you have any machine gun training or
anything like that?
Well, my company, Company H, which
is I was a member of the Company H,
was what they call a heavy weapons company.
Oh, OK.
They had three platoons of .30 caliber
water-cooled machine guns.
And I was in the fourth platoon, which
was an 81-millimeter mortar platoon.
OK, and how long were you at New Caledonia's
for short time?
We were there for, let's see, we were there,
I guess we landed maybe, I think, in March sometime.
And we left the Guadalcanal in November.
You left far Guadalcanal?
Yes, we left far Guadalcanal.
Now, it had already been invaded,
Were we all part of the initial invasion of Guadalcanal?
No, we went there sort of relieving the marines. OK.
And at this time now, we were under the Navy battalion.
While we were, I must say, while we were in New Caledonia,
that's how we got the name Americal,
because America and Caledonia.
Oh, OK.
Well, that's enlightening.
That's how the division got its name.
So we went up to the Guadalcanal.
We were the Americal division.
Was there still some activity of the Japanese
at that time?
Or did it pretty much end it?
It was pretty hot right then.
I think when we landed, the 164th went before
us in October.
And then we came in November.
But the big naval battle was off the canal.
Yeah, Savo Island, Battle of Savo Island.
And that really saved us from, they told us,
like when we landed there, there was a big
invasion coming
and we'd have to fight on as best we could.
But the big invasion didn't come.
But I saw four ships just a ways up the beach
from us
that had beached themselves.
So I guess some of the Japs got ahead.
There were Japanese ships that had beached themselves?
At that time, we called them Japs, but now it's Japanese.
I understand.
A little more refined, I guess.
Well, did you all have contact with the
Japanese quite a bit
As a heavy weapons, y'all were set back a
little ways
just to provide fire support, I guess.
Well, the machine gunners right up with the
rifle companies.
But the 81, the Monomers, were behind the hill
in a place like that.
Did y'all get some artillery fire around y'all
back there?
Oh, yeah.
I'll tell you about when we landed there,
that Marnie, I don't know what to expect,
But they were shelling from the Japs,
and they were shelling the area there around.
We were trying to unload the boats and ships.
And then about a little while later in the morning,
the Japanese air force come up with a strafing. Strafing.
And now one of our machine gunners
got dreaded with shooting down one of the
Japanese airplanes.
That's not common.
No, that was Company H. They were pretty good
at it.
Did y'all take any casualties of any consequence,
or just a very few?
Well, when we moved out, it took us a day or two
after we landed to get organized.
But then we moved right up.
We leaved there on Marine Company.
And the first day there, there was one killed
and one injured,
as far as I know. Mm-Hmm.
And so then we didn't have too much territory
claimed then.
And it was mostly to guard and defend the
airport is what
they were trying to hold that against the Japanese.
Did you all get shelled at night by the
Japanese Navy while you were there?
The November 11th after we landed they shelled,
but every night there would be Japanese bomb
raids over the island.
Were you pretty scared, of course being young
and all?
You probably thought you were indestructible.
I was very scared going in.
But after a couple of days, it sort of goes away,
and you know, you get used to it.
You get to know that this is what it is,
and this is what it's going to be.
So we went up to the, actually took this line,
forward line,
and I guess that object was to hold this line
against any
infiltration of the Japanese and we stayed in
this line for 30 days without any relief
and was just surviving kind of.
I must say it was sure to rain every night just
before it got dark to make sure you'd
be good and wet.
Q. Pretty miserable conditions then, mud and
everything else.
and everything else.
And of course then we got some different
results, we got malaria casualties, so that was malaria.
So y'all were relieved from the line after
about 30 days or so and then...
We moved into another position.
So you stayed on Guadalcanal for a pretty good
while then.
We stayed on the final, I guess the final push
was like in February, we cleared the island, I
guess, along with the other divisions, and we
left there, I think in March.
Where'd y'all go from there?
Went to Fiji, Fiji Island.
That was sort of a rest area, a recuperation
area, I guess.
rest area in a regrouping, and from there I was
sent home from the Fiji.
Why was that? Illness?
Well, I had malaria, pretty bad, and I was kind
of initiated, but they had the point system.
at points. You could go home. I don't know how
they drive at the point system. Yeah.
But I went home on a hospital ship and I was in
Topeka, Kansas for a while with the Winter
General Hospital. Uh-huh.
So they're getting over the malaria and then
they had hepatitis, some kind of a liver disease.
You know, yellow in the eyes.
Yellow, white.
His eyes are yellow.
Well, those kind of horrible living conditions,
a lot of troops were hurt more by that than by
shell fire.
That's what I understand.
At one time, you had to have at least 102
degrees before you could go to the rear echelon,
so they kind of kept you in place.
And they used to take this alabrinth, and the yellow.
Is that pretty horrible stuff to take in water,
I guess?
It wasn't hard to take, but it turned pretty
yellow all over, so I don't know how much
it looked good.
The quinine was kind of scarce, I guess, or
they didn't have it, but it was better for
the fever.
No, I came back to Fort Devens here in
Massachusetts, and that's where I got my first
job, and I
here in Massachusetts.
And then I was signed down to Indian Gap, Pennsylvania,
with the guard and German prisoners there.
But our battalion, I must say, received a
presidential citation
for the stay in Guadalcanal.
And I got a bronze star myself.
But did they go on to other assignments, the
Marical Division,
after you left?
Yes, they did.
After Fiji, they went to Bougainville.
And a couple of my friends went up there with them.
And there was quite a few casualties there.
My friend got wounded.
He was shrapneled.
He was a Purple Heart and then from there they
went on to the Philippines and eventually
he was in the Army of Occupation.
I had a couple of friends that stayed the whole
thing right through. Wow.
All the way through.
So when you were discharged you were probably a
PFC I would imagine?
I was a corporal.
Oh, corporal at that time.
Just for the record.
And where were you discharged from?
You say you were guarding prisoners down there
further down there in Pennsylvania, is that
throughout the war or just for a while?
Just until I was finally discharged in 1944,
before the war ended.
I was guarding German prisoners and mixed in
with the Germans, there were quite a few Russians.
They were Russians that were captured and made
to fight for the Germans and they were mixed in
with the
German president, but the prisoners that we
were guarding really weren't the real Nazis.
They were
More like ourselves. They were just glad to be
there probably anyway and away from the war
And they worked we used to take them in the bus
To make them they were making tents for the army
So they were doing useful work then?
They were doing, yes.
They were.
And other than that, sometimes I went out with
them to the peach orchards and apple
orchards and they picked their apples and peaches.
Well, they were probably eating better than
they would have been if they would have been
at home, that's for sure.
I'm sure of that, yeah.
Okay, so you were discharged from there.
I went back up to Fort Devens, I was discharged
from, honorable discharge from Fort Devens, Massachusetts.
Were you ready to get out?
I was down to £112, £135 when I came back to
the country.
So it had really taken a toll on you then.
I was going to say, do you get that back later
also occasionally?
I haven't had it for years now, but right after
I get home a couple of times I'd have
attacks of malaria.
They don't take your blood for anything because
you have had malaria.
Wow, that's a horrible thing to get on, and a
lot of the troops did acquire that in the
in the Guadalcanal area.
Well after that did you go on into civilian
life then pretty readily, I guess.
That sounds like a very good attempt to serve
the nation there in the Marical Division.
I have not interviewed very many guys from the
Ameri-Cal, I think only two besides yourself
since I've been doing this.
Most of them have been Marines.
I don't know where they were from.
No, Sir, I don't remember.
I'd have to go look through my records.
I've done so many of them.
But all of them were from more in the northeast.
They were not from down here.
Most of the guys I interviewed from this
general area of the U.S. were Marines.
in the Pacific, people don't realize that the
regular army also fought in the Pacific.
They seem to think only the Marines did because
they got much of the publicity.
The Americal Division did get some publicity,
but a lot of the infantry units did not.
So they've got a better PR, the guy in the Marines.
Some are rightly deserved an honorable tool.
Yes, they did, especially at Tarawa and Iwo Jima.
That was horrible.
I've interviewed a number of guys from both
Tarawa and Iwo Jima, and Peleliu.
Peleliu is very little known from a public
understanding standpoint, but that was a terribly
bloody engagement for us, and I interviewed a
number of guys from Peleliu that retired
in this area around San Antonio and so forth.
Well, Buddy, I really do appreciate the museum,
appreciate your taking the time and effort
to share this with us.
One thing about when in New Caledonia, you
know, at that time they had the Free French
and the Vichy French.
Yes, Sir.
And they had a sort of a small revolution there
that we had.
The army troops, we had to step in and kind of
quiet the bat down.
Between the natives and the, oh, the Free
French and the Vichy
were both represented there.
I see. Yeah.
And I was pretty scared there for a few days.
I didn't know what was going to happen.
But for the most part, the French were pretty
good neighbors to us.
Did they have actual troops there that fought,
or they just
guarded the island, pretty much?
No, I think they were just there.
They had some sort of fancy uniforms.
I remember them strutting around.
But I must say that when we went into New Caledonia,
you would never, I thought I would die from
Mosquito bites.
Mosquitoes were so bad.
And the flies would stay on your spoon
to get up to your mouth, it was so.
Was it pretty wet there?
Did it rain quite a bit, or?
Oh yeah, it was. Tropical?
You know, tropical showers and all that.
But in that time in Caledonia,
I remember the sewage ran down the streets.
It didn't have any really septic systems going
at that time.
That could be very well where you picked up
your malaria bug possibly there.
No, Nocalia didn't have malaria.
Oh, they didn't?
Had lots of mosquitos, but no malaria there.
Malaria was in the Guadalcanal, in Bougainville. Yeah.
Well, thank you again, buddy, and I really
appreciate you taking the time to do this for us.
And you may not get down this way, but we sure
appreciate what you have done,
and we try to celebrate and to let people know
who have fought and the people that have
not who don't understand what all you guys did
for us during that period of time.