This is Ed Metzler and today is the 17th of
September 2009. I'm interviewing William Bill
Edwards at his home in Dayton, Ohio. This is a
telephone interview. I'm located in 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.
Well, let me start out, Bill, by thanking you
for spending the time to share your experiences
with us.
So let's get started by having you introduce
yourself, give us your date of birth, where
you were born, and we'll kind of take it from there.
My name is William Emmett Edwards III, and I
was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in April
the 4th 1924 I came to my parents moved to
Dayton Ohio in 1927 and my younger
brother was an infant I was three years old I
had no choice I headed to leave my
grandma's because they were so good to me but
Dayton has been my home since
Since then, even though when I was a child in
school, I went to my grandma's every year
as soon as school was out until my grandpa died
in 1936 and my grandma died in 1938.
Was this your father's or your mother's parents?
This was my father's parents and he had four
sisters and one brother.
I was named after the brother, William Emmet
Edwards, and he was named after his father,
William Emmet Edwards, and I ended up, they
called me the third every time they wrote
me, sent me a Christmas card, or a birthday
card rather, they put William Emmet Edwards
the third on that, and it was nice.
Yeah, it makes you feel important right now.
What did your father do for a living?
My father
Well, well he came to Dayton he went went to
work for General Motors and He
during the war he
made machine guns Oh
okay service and
And he got through with that while he went for
the city railway and he drove a city bus,
a transit bus.
So, where did you go, so you went to grade
school and high school there in Dayton, correct?
Yes, yes.
So, when did you graduate from high school?
What year was that?
I skipped my senior year and joined the Navy in
August of 1942, August the 8th.
My brother quit school at age 45 and he went
into the Navy Seabees and he went to Guam
and spent all his time there and when he got
out he was lucky.
He went back to school and got in with the same
group that he was going to school with
before that and he graduated from high school.
Did you ever go back to high school?
No, no.
I went to work.
So you had, I guess, eleven years of schooling
under your belt.
Yes, and I ended up going to Guam.
Why did you skip your senior year to volunteer?
I didn't like school and I didn't want to go back.
I went up and talked to the principal and he
came up to me and another fellow that was
going to go back to school, a friend of mine,
and he talked us out of it.
He said, ìYou guys are veterans, you're going
to come back to school and the girls are going
to be looking up to you and it's not going to
be a good situation for them or you, so
we decided not to talk to the principal any longer.
Well, what did your parents think about you
quitting school and going into the Navy?
Well, my parents were not really educated.
My father quit school and went to Catholic school.
My folks were all Catholics down there, and the
principal at the school called him.
My father was dark-complected, he was well over
six foot, and he had the nickname of
mule because he was stubborn, and this priest
called him a nigger one day, and my father
walked out of school and never went back, and
he was in a grade school then.
I was coming out of the theater downtown Dayton,
I was with my younger brother and we were
coming out of the theater and the kids were
out there selling extras and they were talking
about Pearl Harbor.
I didn't know what Pearl Harbor was.
I've talked to a lot of veterans and they say
they didn't even know where Pearl Harbor was.
Me either, me either.
I never heard of it, but I spent a lot of time there.
I went to the South Pacific.
I went, yes, my parents took me down to the
train station when I lived here in Dayton,
and they took me down to the train station and
the rest of the people there got on the
the train and we went to Cincinnati for a
physical examination and the same day we went
up there, towards the end of the day, we were
on our way to Great Lakes, Illinois.
So you went into the Navy, right?
Now why did you choose the Navy?
Well, I don't know, that's a tough question.
I didn't want to get in the Army or anything,
and I figured, well, the Navy would be the best.
Yeah, sounds like a good way to go anyhow. Yes.
I enjoyed my tour in the Navy, I was every
place you could think of.
In the European theater, I was in Scotland,
England, France, Africa, Italy, and Sicily.
We have got a lot to talk about today, don't we?
And after Europe was cleaned up, we went to the
Asia theater operations, and I was in
Hawaiian Islands, I was in Aniwetok, Palau
Islands, Philippine Islands, and I got a star
there for the Philippines for the liberation,
and I was in Samar, Luzon, Leyte, New Guinea,
Solomon Islands, Guadalcanal, New Caledonia,
Okinawa, Japan, New Herbertes, Ulithica, and
Russell Island.
That was in the Asian.
You did get around.
Okay, so you went up to the Great Lakes, what
is it, Naval Base?
It's a huge, yeah, Great Lakes, Illinois.
Right, it's right down there on the waterfront
in Chicago, huh? Right.
I took the train to come to Dayton out of
Chicago, but it might be in Wisconsin up there,
part of it anyway.
Itís right on the lakes up there. Erdman.
So you went up there and what did they do, put
you through the standard twelve-week? week?
Yes, and after that I got a leave and I came
home for I don't know how long, maybe a week
or two weeks and then I had to go back to Great
Lakes and I was up there about another
week and then they shipped me off to Norfolk, Virginia.
So what did you do in Norfolk?
I took amphibious force training and small
boats, landing craft, and I did that on the
Chesapeake Bay.
We did our training on the Chesapeake Bay.
So tell me about the training.
What would they do?
Practice landings on shore or what?
Oh yes, yes.
We had what they call ramp boats and we could
lower the ramp in the front of a LCVP and
if we had any troops or any equipment on there
we could run right up at the beach and just
drop the ramp and take things off.
Now, did you have a particular station where
you were getting qualified on the ship, like
steering or-?
Eberts No, no, no, I did my-every night at dusk
when we was overseas, we'd have general
quarters, and in the morning at sunrise, we'd
have general quarters.
We had to man our guns and be prepared.
So, how long were you there in Norfolk?
Ebert- Well, it was Little Creek, Virginia, but
it was right off of Norfolk.
Clendenin- Yeah, it was right in the area.
Ebert- Yes, and I was there three or four
weeks, and then I went on a big ship called
It wasn't the Oberon, it was the USS Monrovia,
and they took us up to Boston, and there's
where we got aboard the Oberon, the USS Oberon,
and it made the invasion of North Africa.
I wasn't over there then, but I spent a lot of
time in Africa after I got aboard that
ship because we made our way to Algeria, across
the Mediterranean from the Rock of Gibraltar.
You went by the Rock of Gibraltar as you went
into the Mediterranean then, and so you went
on to Algeria.
Now the North African invasion had already been done.
It was done, but you know, they had a general,
and his name was Edwin Rommel, and he was
a respected man from all the allies, and he was
a great general.
Yeah, that was the German general.
Yes, yes, and he had the respect of all, but
you know, towards the end, all the allies
cut his supplies off and he had no way of
getting anything and he was helpless and that's
why I understand.
I was told this that his own troops killed him.
They didn't want to be taken prisoner or be killed.
I don't know if that's a factual thing or not
but that's what I've been told by two
or three different people that his own troops
shot him.
My recollection was that Rommel ended up being
flown back to Germany, and he continued to
work in northern Europe for the Nazis, so I
don't think they killed him.
But they may have wished they could have.
Well, they had nothing to lose.
Well that's right, they were basically cut off.
So you went into what, Algiers, when you went
into Algeria?
No, we went to Oran.
That was our home base, but we did go up to
Algiers and Bizerte, and we used to call women
up there dirty-girdy from Bizerte.
Tell me a little bit about the Oberon.
Well, okay, it was commissioned June 15, 1942
at the Robbins Dry Dock here in Erie Basin,
Brooklyn, New York under Commander Ion Purcell, U.S.N.
A. Now this is O-B-E-R-O-N, correct?
A. Yes, Oberon, O-B-E-R-O-N.
A. Now what designation does she have?
Is she an A-K-A?
A. Yes, A-K-A-14.
That wasnt her original number, but her
original when she was commissioned was A-K-56
on June 15, 1942, but it was changed later to A-K-A-14.
Weren't you telling me she was originally with
the Army, I think, but then switched
over to the Navy or something?
Well, it was like, well, those types of ships,
yeah, it was used for transportation, soldiers
and equipment, things of that sort.
We had most of them aboard our ship when I went
back to Iran and the fight in this army
I ever seen was the United States Army First Division.
These guys were all battle shocked and
everything and they didn't want to come home.
They wanted to continue to fight in Europe and
they did.
If I imagine, they were all probably killed.
Yeah, now were these the guys that had done the
North African campaign?
They were under Patton there, I think.
Yes, they fought through all of North Africa.
Yeah, and they got beat up pretty good early on.
Yes, yes.
So these guys looked like they'd been beat up, huh?
Well, yeah, some of them were shell-shocked and
everything, but they didn't want to come
back to the U.S.A..
They wanted to go back and get the Germans.
And now tell me about the passage across the
North Atlantic there in 1940, I guess this
is late 1942 we're talking about when you went
over to North Africa? Yes.
I mean there was a lot of concern about German
U-boats and everything at that time.
They were there and they sent four ships in a convoy.
Did they really?
It was a big convoy and they sent four ships.
I got the list of them someplace here.
Well fortunately it wasn't the Oberon.
No, no, no.
The only damage we ever really got was in the
North Atlantic, and you know they had
terrific storms up there, 60 foot waves and
everything in the North Atlantic, and we got
But above our forward mask, the deck cracked,
and water came into some of the compartments
of the sleeping crews, and we had to come back
to New York.
We were escorted back by a destroyer all the
way to keep it.
Now that was later on, right? Yes.
Now, when you were in Oran, what were you
doing, getting ready for the Sicily invasion
or what? Right.
Well, we had a lot of time on our hands before
that was prepared, but that was this nation
and we had no problem there in Sicily.
It was very easy.
It didn't take us very long to clean up.
It was a pretty good convoy, but then a few
months later, we made the attack on Italy,
and Italy surrendered before we got there.
No, no, but Italy quit fighting, and the
Germans had to fight the rest of the way in Italy
and Salerno.
uh... now uh... let's go back to the sicily
invasions so you've got a whole
fleet of uh...
landing craft and what have you here now
uh... how big a fleet was I mean was it really
big in
no no solicit uh...
certainly wouldn't have been given an island offer
it was uh... uh...
italian island but uh...
it was off the
well it's a big island
lot lot of mafia come from there
yeah that's right that's absolutely right
and uh... but there wasn't much resistance is
that right
that's true
well that's good but no
the big battle of salerno yeah I know salerno
was a mess but now when you went
into sicily
uh... what would you do you would have uh...
boats uh... drop down off the side
of the over on all yet full of troops to
describe to me how the landing goes you
know kind of what happens
It was no problem.
We had no resistance on the beach, but we made
back and forth from our ship.
We took supplies and soldiers and brought them
in and let them off.
Now, the Oberon, it's not actually a landing
craft itself, is it?
No, no.
It would bring supplies and troops and armor,
and then they would get on to smaller landing
craft and go in.
And so what kind of landing craft would they
use to go in?
There are so many of those that I can never
keep them straight.
I was a coxswain on LVCP, mostly troops, but
they had tank lighters and things like that,
The big LCMs, they could take tanks or jeeps
and everything else, but we couldn't do that
on the ramp boat.
So you're a coxswain, now what do you do when
that landing ship-
I drove the boat.
Okay, you're in the steering area.
And how well armored are those LCBTs?
Well, just machine guns.
We put machine gun mounted on each side of the rear.
Right, and so roughly how big are these?
I'm just trying to get a mental picture here.
They're about the size of a, well I'd say about
the size of an automobile, a sedan.
But we could put quite a few troops in there
together and they were no problem.
Now are these different than what they called a
Higgins boat?
Most of them were Higgins.
So now I understand what we're talking about.
So some of these are wood then?
Yes, but they got armor on the side.
I see.
You know, they got metal cladding over the wood.
So how many times did you run, so you're
running infantry and guys like that in, huh?
So you can take what, 12, 15 at a time,
something like that?
Oh, we could take 30.
You could take 30? Right.
Man, you must really...
They'd get down in the boat and get real low
because there was a lot of machine gun fire
at us when we was coming in. Yeah.
So Sicily went pretty smoothly, but Salerno didn't.
So tell me about...
Salerno was the worst one I've ever seen.
Now when you prepared for Salerno, where were you?
Back in North Africa?
Or were you on Sicily?
No, no.
We were in, we were, we went back, after Sicily
we went back to Oran, North Africa and we
stayed there about two weeks and they, they
attacked on Italy, Salerno we landed.
So tell me, so tell me about Salerno.
That was, so did you have a bigger fleet going in?
Yes, and we had ships sunk there, especially
Liberty ships, and they stayed ablaze all
the time we were there out on the sea.
I don't know whether most of the crew got off
or not, but they stayed ablaze.
The Germans, Luftwaffe was really bad there,
they scraped us, bombed us, they did everything,
And I didn't see no American planes there.
So the Germans seemed to still have control of
the air at that point.
Now was this invasion joint with the British or
were these all Americans going in?
No, no.
It was with the British because we went in with
four boats, two Americans and two British ships.
And now the Canadians were there too, and they
had American, Japanese-Americans.
They didn't put them in Asia, but they were
fighting in Europe.
So some of the troops that you took in on your
LCVP were Japanese-Americans?
No, I never seen any.
I just knew they were there.
You just heard about them? Yes.
So was your landing craft fired on?
Oh yes, yes.
And stooped to me, I was eighteen years old and
we was going into the beach and I looked
over to the side and I seen these little
bubbles come up in the water.
And finally I realized, hey those are machine
gun bullets coming in here in the water.
And boy I dropped down behind that wheel, I was
staring and I got out of sight.
So this was the real thing? Yes.
You know, I didn't know what they were.
I seen these bubbles in the water right
alongside of our boat and I realized, hey,
that's not natural.
That's something coming in the water.
But they didn't hit us, but they were just
short of hitting us.
So how many trips would you guess you made in
with men and equipment?
Well there were quite a few because we were
there for a couple of weeks taking equipment
and supplies and we got the men in and everything.
One trip we came through there and the Germans
were laying in ambush and they killed so many
soldiers hitting the beach after they got
inland a little bit, and the Americans brought
them back and they lined them up on the beach
side to side.
They were all dead in their uniforms, and as
far as you could see down the waterfront
the Americans were laying side to side all dead.
Well, here you are an eighteen year old, what's
going through your mind when you see that?
Well, I don't know.
I know at night time when I went aboard the
ship we couldn't do anything, I know I got
on my knees and prayed, hearing the bombs
coming down and everything.
It's funny, you don't read much about the
Salerno landing, but it was one of the toughest.
It was the toughest one I was ever in.
I was at Normandy, I was at Okinawa, and I got
four stars out of Europe.
So what was your closest call then on Salerno?
You said you had the machine gun bullets in the
water around you.
Yeah, that's all.
Well, scraping was bad too.
I didn't like that.
You know, you see these German fighter planes
coming into the beach and they would just
go up and down the beach spraying it with those
tracer bullets.
Man, that must be knocking a lot of soldiers off.
Well, soldiers were, they hit the beach and
they ran in, but we were helpless out there
on the water, on the edge of the water, and
they, I had shrapnel come in my boat, pieces
of shrapnel.
But it never hit you? No.
Isn't that something?
Well, it was a pretty good sized piece of
shrapnel, and that's all big heavy metal.
And I don't know what it came off of, but it
landed inside our boat.
So you were there for several weeks, huh?
Oh, yes. Yeah.
We stayed in Italy for a while, and then we
went back and worked out of North Africa.
We got a break, we went to Scotland, Ireland,
and England.
Well, what else did you do in the Mediterranean
after Salerno?
Was there another landing that you did in the Med?
No, well, at Normandy.
Okay, well, in other words, after Salerno, then
you, where were you transferred to?
Where did your group go?
We went back to Oran, North Africa.
Okay, and then you stayed there for a while.
Yes, and then we went, we got a break and went
up to England, Scotland, Ireland.
Okay, so that's when they took you up to the
North Atlantic and over to the UK. Yes.
So where were you in the U.K.?
Well, I really wasn't in England.
I was in Wales.
Wales, and that's part of England.
Yep, that's right next to it.
It's part of the U.K., but different from England.
So you went there directly from Iran. Is that right?
Yes, and we went to Scotland and Ireland. So
what were you doing there training or what? No,
just a break
Okay from the battle. Okay. So was your ship up
there as well? Yes. All right
and we
took our
We run what they call the Liberty party, we
take them in and go get them and bring them
back after it was over, but one thing about it,
the tide goes out.
Now I was driving one of our boats, not a
battle boat, just a ship, a boat off a ship,
And I docked it, and all the people on the boat
ran into town to see what was going on there.
And I come back to the boat and it was sitting
high and dry, the tide went out, couldn't
get it until the next day.
Yeah, the tides up there are huge.
The difference in level between low and high tide.
Now what town was this in Wales, do you remember?
Well, did you get to go on shore and have any liberty?
Oh yes, I went to Belfast too.
Oh you did?
Oh yes, Belfast Island.
Yeah, now tell me about those towns.
What was it like?
It must be different from Iran.
Well, I tell you, I had liberty at Belfast and
they told me I'd have to be back the next morning.
So I went into a tavern and I met some girl
there and we had a couple beers together and
I told her, I said, I don't have to go back to
the ship tomorrow.
And she said, would you like to spend the night
with me?
I said, I sure would.
She said, well, she said, there's a beautiful
hotel right down the street here, and this
was in Belfast.
And she says, I'll tell you what, we'll go down there.
We'll go down there and you give me the money
and I'll go in and register and I'll come
back and get you and then I'll take you in."
I said, okay.
Well, I give her the money to get the hotel
room and I must have stood out there for forty-five
minutes waiting.
It finally dawned on me, this gal ain't coming back.
She got my money, she went right through there,
not the back door.
But I wasn't mad at her or nothing, she just
conned me, that's all.
That's right, and she probably did this all day
long to other guys, but I thought it was
kind of, I said, why give her credit for it?
She put it on me.
so she was a uh... a british girl irish
because I think this is in Belfast
tape one
slide to bill Edwards
so let's uh... so anyhow she uh... bamboozled
you there and uh... Belfast
your credit for treatment
yeah I'd say that's pretty she pretty sharp
now uh...
you've got this is all just kind of a rest
period on our in our period here
what was the weather like they're offered
terrible things about the weather
apparently it well
they get a lot of fault
I ran into the I ran into it with a
uh... Liberty boat
I ran into the shadow of a big cruiser out there
with that thing because I couldn't say it
or that's all the terrible London
uh... there
now did you spend any time down in London as well
no okay so
this is all I think that the irish seat it's in between
whales and Ireland so that was the area where
you guys were doing your r&r
now did several ships go up there along with
the over on the other thing channel
runoff uh... well that's true that's on the
other side of the island right now
So after your R&R and your Cardiff and Belfast
experiences, where did they take you guys?
Well, we stayed back in Africa a couple of
months, and we made the invasion of Normandy,
And that place that we landed was, I can't
think of the name of the place now, I know
it but I can't think of it, but I found out
that somebody went over there on vacation
and it's all a resort area now where we made
the landing.
So, on the Normandy invasion they staged out of
southern England like Portsmouth and places
like that.
Do you remember getting ready to go to the
Normandy invasion?
Oh yes, we went all the way from North Africa
to support the Normandy invasion.
And so, tell me what you did in the Normandy
invasion, just tell me what happened.
We got attacked by suicide bombers, planes
rather, not bombers, planes, and they hit
a couple of ships.
That convoy of German airplanes flew over us.
We didn't even recognize them.
We just took it for granted they were American
planes, and they got off against the sun,
And then they all started peeling off and
diving for the ship.
Some of them were finally shot down after they
realized that it wasn't our plane.
But they did some destruction.
Now this was at the Normandy invasion? Yes.
Okay, and did you actually land troops and
stuff at the Normandy invasion?
Oh yes, oh yeah.
So this was, I guess since youre American, this
was either Utah Beach or Omaha Beach?
No, it was, I cant think of the name of that
island, but it was a resort area afterwards
because I know people say it was really a
popular place for tourists to go out of Europe.
What was the weather like during that?
Was it rough or what?
No, no the weather was good other than the fog,
but there was no problem with the weather.
Now you had mentioned earlier that the Oberon
took some pretty tough storms when it was
up there.
Oh yes, North Atlantic, yes.
Tell me what you remember about that.
Well, I know that it cracked the deck on our
ship and we had to come back.
We ended up back at Norfolk, Virginia.
We were escorted back by a destroyer and we had
to get that repaired.
We had to get the dry dock and everything.
I'm sorry, were you the only ship that was
escorted by the destroyer?
Now, where did that storm happen?
Was that in the Atlantic or in the North Sea or
English Channel or where?
No, it was in the North Atlantic, and the waves
were 60 feet high.
My gosh.
So it's terrible up there, you can get way up
north on it.
Well, that must be kind of scary for an 18 or a
19 year old to look out and see a 60
foot wave.
You bet.
You dont want to get out of a place you cant
hang on to.
You want something to hang on to.
Did any guys get washed over? No.
Thats good.
Not there.
No, but we lost a couple of guys and fell off
the ship getting in the boats, and I think
we lost two guys off of our crew, and we found
them, I guess.
Yeah, where did that happen?
That was on maneuvers.
So after the Normandy invasion, you went back
for some repairs in the U.S. on the East coast,
and then what did they do with you?
Well, we stayed there for a while and we went
up to Boston, Philadelphia, and that area.
And I loved Boston, I used to love to go to
Scully Square.
And then we finally headed for the Guadalcanal,
I mean, Panama Canal, went through that on Christmas.
Well now wait, let's go back to Scully Square.
What did you like about Scully Square?
The taverns.
The taverns! Yes.
I went to a movie there with a friend of mine
and we were in the movie and something kept
hitting me behind the head and I turned around
to look and there were girls back there, two
girls sitting back there behind us a couple
rows and they were throwing popcorn at us.
Well, I think they wanted to meet you.
Yeah, well, I've met a few of them, that's for sure.
Well I guess it helps to have that sailor's
uniform on, doesn't it?
And being young.
I like that old story, that song that Burl Ives
sang, I'm too old for girls and too young
for women.
They call me Mr. Inbetween.
I'm not sure I've heard that song before.
Oh yeah.
You've heard Burl Ives?
I've heard of Burl Ives and I've heard his
songs, but I didn't know that one. Yeah.
I'll be darned.
Mr. Inbetween.
They call me Mr. Inbetween.
Well let's see.
So you headed out after the repairs on the East
coast, you headed down to the Panama Canal.
And so is it you and some other ships or is the
Oberon alone?
Well, we was by ourselves, but there was other
ships going through, but you know, there's
only a certain time of day that you can go
through the Panama Canal, because they have
to, they close the docks and your ship will go
to the bottom, you know, sit on the bed
of the sea, but then you have to wait until the
next day, until the tide comes in, then
rise in the water and then you can go the rest
of the way through the Panama.
So you had to wait.
Yes, it's big.
So how long, let's see, so you got through the
Panama Canal all right.
Yeah, well I've been through there two or three times.
Back and forth, yes Sir.
So but this was your first time, huh?
Yes, and I went, when I went to Guam to work,
we went through the Panama Canal too.
I had my experience out of it, but it was built
by the American contractors and there
was a lot of people who lost their lives there
building that Panama Canal.
A huge undertaking.
So you got through all right, that puts you in
the Pacific.
So where did the Oberon go then?
we headed for Hawaii. Oh, that was beautiful
there. So you went into Pearl Harbor? Yes.
So let's see, are we talking about 1945 now,
huh? Because you went through the Panama Canal
around Christmas you said well we well we went
through there one on Christmas
but we've come back we were in there in the
Panama Canal on Christmas and back
the next year on New Year's. So I went through
their New Year's and Thanksgiving.
Okay. So anyhow, you're in Pearl Harbor, so
what's going on there for the Oberon?
Well, nothing particularly.
Bill, I'm having a hard time hearing you there.
Okay. I...
Oh, that's better.
Well, we just visited a lot of islands out there.
We didn't actually go on to them, but we went
to the Philippines and we got a good liberty
there in Manila.
Now had Manila been taken?
No, but we got a star for the liberation.
So you were involved in the liberation of the Philippines?
Where did you land your landing craft when you
were there in the Philippines?
Ebert- Manila.
Clendenin- Okay, right into Manila.
Ebert- Yes.
There were sunken ships in the harbor, but they
weren't American ships, they must have
been Philippine.
Clendenin- Now, was there much resistance when
you did that?
Ebert- No, no, no, it was just liberation.
Clendenin- Okay.
And did you actually go ashore then?
Ebert- Oh, yes, yeah.
There was a lot of American ex-sailors that
stayed there, lived there, and they ran taverns
in the Philippines.
After the war? Yeah.
I'll be darned.
Well, the war was still going on in Asia, but
Europe was cleaned up.
So after Manila, then, where did the Oberon go?
So we went to the Solomon Islands, Guadalcanal,
but there was no action over those places
at that time.
Guam was still pretty active.
And so what did you do at Guam?
Well we didn't do nothing.
We just went there and, well we had to sleep in
Quonset huts but I understand where I worked
some lady visited Guam and she came back with a
bunch of photographs and she showed me how
it was built up to a real, it's a real vacation
spot for all the people in all those islands
out through there.
So uh...
Yeah, all of that happened after the war, huh? Yes.
Well, there were still chaps on there, though,
but they didn't know the war was over, and
they lived in the jungle.
But they didn't bother nobody.
They'd come in at night and go through the
trash can and see what they could find.
They didn't even know the war was over until 1977.
yeah I know some of them hot uh... held out for
years and years and years
uh... goodness
well um... so
the war is still going on and you've liberated
uh... you've you've
that a part of the liberation of the
philippines is
and then she and then the overrun car bounce
back and forth uh... to Guam and
guadalcanal and going around
uh... we would
and and when they
When Okinawa was taken, we were going to get a
vacation and we were on our way to Australia,
and Okinawa surrendered when Truman dropped the
atomic bombs on Okinawa and Japan, he
dropped them on two cities there.
They changed our orders and we had to turn
around and come back.
Now, were you up at Okinawa during the Okinawa campaign?
Oh yes, we made it.
Well, tell me about that.
Well, it was a bloody mess.
It wasn't as bad as Salerno.
That's the one that got to me, but Okinawa was
just a big rock.
There wasn't nothing on there.
And that's where Ernie Powell got killed.
the reporter, Ernie Powell, and a good friend
of mine from Kentucky that I used to run around
with when I was a kid, he was in the Marines
and he got killed the same day that Ernie
Powell got killed.
That was about the end of the war there.
Right, right, so were you still coxswain on
these landing ships and taking guys in?
Yes, they gave me a coxswain, I was a seaman
first class when we went into Salerno and
I got a citation there with a medal and they
gave me a coxswain rating and then later on
When I went back aboard the ship, I took a test
and I made boats and made second class.
Not for us.
We were in the boats, small boats.
We didn't go in the shore.
We just landed, but we could prowl around on
the beach and things like that.
We were each issued in the amphibious force.
I was issued, when I first went in there in
amphibious, I was issued a .45 with a holster
and everything, a Colt .45, and they were good
guns up close, but boy they would kick
you when you fired them, and they were hard to
hit a target at a distance.
Yeah, they're just almost too powerful to be accurate.
So how many times would you guess you ran your
landing boats into shore at Okinawa?
Many times?
Well, three or four times we unloaded, but it
wasn't like Salerno.
Salerno took a couple days to clear the ships out.
As I remember in Okinawa, there wasn't much
resistance on landing.
It was when they tried to take the island that
they really ran into problems.
The beaches was okay. It was inlands where it
was bad, but no.
Now what about Kamikaze? I've heard a lot about
the Japanese suicide planes at Okinawa.
Did you run into those? Yes.
Tell me.
Well, they attacked us and they caught us by surprise.
Well, it wasn't a surprise. They just wasn't
paying any attention.
There was a big fleet of ships going in,
battleships, cruisers, everything you could
think of, and
they just flew over the top of us real high in
the sky, and nobody thought anything of it.
They thought they were American planes until
they got over against the sun, and they started
peeling out and diving for the ships, and they
just crashed into them.
Did you see any of the kamikaze hits?
No, but I tell you what, I've seen a lot of
dogfights, and Americans were pretty slick
with the way they did it.
We've seen this from board ship, this American
plane was cruising along the water top with
a Jap right on his tail, and he banked his
airplane up in the air and the Jap followed
him right up in the air to get a shot at him,
but he didn't realize that there was another
American behind him, and he blasted that Jap
right out of the sky.
I've seen that.
I bet that was worth a cheer or two.
Yes, it was.
Screaming and hollering.
Is that right? (applause)
Yeah, he blasted him right out of the sky.
He just blew up when this American fighter
plane got him from behind.
But for you and the landing, it really wasn't
all that bad at Okinawa. No.
No, no.
Well, that's good.
Now did you ever take any wounded soldiers back
to the ship?
No, we didn't do that.
We had a couple of German prisoners on board
the ship, we took those.
I don't know where we got them, but they said
we had two German prisoners on there.
I know we had this one guy in the 1st Army that
I was telling you about earlier that
fought all through North Africa and didn't want
to come home and we was at Salerno and
he come over a little ridge with four German
prisoners, I know he was a Gardner Women's Right.
And we called him Brooklyn, because that was
where he was from, Brooklyn, New York.
And he said, you taking any prisoners?
We said, no, we're not taking any prisoners
back to our ship.
He said, somebody in one of the other boats
said, why don't you shoot him?
He said, well, I got no other choice.
And he took him over, back over that little
mouth, and we heard that machine gun go off.
And here's some brookins back over the hill
waving his arms. It's the last time we ever
seen he was waving by to us
And he went back into
Into battle my gosh and don't know what
happened to him. Yeah
Okay, so, uh
After Okinawa, you said you were sailing south
to did you say Australia?
Yes, when you heard that the bombs had been
dropped and the war was over
And, you know, Truman, he dropped pamphlets
over there for about a week, over those two cities.
I can't think of the name of the two states,
there were two big cities in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Right, that's it. Right.
And he dropped pamphlets over there, but people
didn't evacuate, most of them, they stayed
right there.
They paid for that.
They sure did.
The first atomic bomb.
So was there a pretty big party on board when
you heard about the dropping the bombs and
the Japanese surrender? No.
It was a big commotion when they turned us away
from Australia and they just come back.
Now did you make it all the way to Australia?
No, no.
They turned you around?
They said the war is over and things are scheduled.
So where did you go?
Well, we stayed in the islands out there in the
Pacific someplace, but we come back home.
So did you come into the West Coast or back
through the canal?
When I got my discharge, we came into Seattle,
Washington, and they put us on a two-train
and sent us to Great Lakes, and that's where we
got our discharge.
We came through Puget Sound up there, at
Seattle, and then went to Great Lakes and got
the discharge
and came back to Davis.
So at that point you went back to Dayton.
So was it good to be home?
Oh yeah, well, I had a younger sister and the
first thing I did was buy her a bicycle.
She was about eight years younger than me.
Well I imagine she appreciated that.
Yes, he had a bicycle, and my brother, he was,
he didn't get out, he got out, I guess
he got out of the service in about 19, well I
got out in 45 and he must have been in about
three years or more of me.
I was three years, three and a half years older
than him. Right.
all gone. My mother, my father, my brother, and
my sister. So I'm the only one left.
So you're the last of the Mohicans, huh? Yes.
Well, so how did the war change you? Did it
make you grow up, or did it... What did it do
to you?
Well, I started a job. I was on the Dayton
Police Department. I went on the Dayton Police
Department when I came back from Guam.
Then I went to the National Day Service for
company, and my wife cried when I did that
because she liked me being a policeman.
But when I brought those big chicks home from
NCR, she didn't cry no more.
I have three daughters.
Yeah, well that's good.
Well I know I've been in contact with Debra, I
know that.
She went to Ohio University, she was the senior
vice president of Elder Mill and Company in Dayton.
But a factory in York, Pennsylvania bought it
out called Bon Bon.
And they wanted her to come up there, but she
had two young children in grade school.
he was young and uh he wouldn't he wouldn't
leave yeah he was a senior vice president he
made senior
vice president but that's something to be proud
of yes I'm proud of her well now let's go back
and talk about the war a little bit now you
fought the Germans and you fought the japanese
how do you feel about them today do you harbor
any grudges or well
Well, I don't know much about the Russians, but
I know the Japanese.
I just don't like them.
I didn't even like them when I was in Hawaii.
I just didn't like them.
They would eat with chopsticks and everything else.
I went to a restaurant in Hawaii and some
Japanese and they're eating with them chopsticks.
I couldn't handle them things.
I needed a knife and fork.
Yeah, it's definitely different.
I think I know why they're all so slim.
It's hard to eat with those chopsticks.
Yeah, well they put that mold right up to their
mouth and then they just kind of shovel
that stuff in.
Kind of shovel it in? Yeah.
Not did you mention that you were in Japan
after the war
Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. Now was that
Were you still in the navy when you were in
Japan? Yeah, well tell me about that
So you were you were there right after the war then?
That's true, right? Yeah. Well, yeah
Where where were you in Japan? Well
I don't know. I was in Japan. I was in Tokyo. I
know that.
Did Tokyo look pretty beat up after the war? No.
It wasn't bad. Really?
They got in on more than that. Tokyo was, I
guess, pretty full of water.
No, I didn't have no problem there.
Just like any other sailor, you know, you run
for a tavern when you get ashore.
But did it look like it had been bombed out?
No, not for a while.
What I've seen doesn't.
Well, okay.
Well all right, I must say, you've been to
enough different places that it's almost hard
to keep a list here.
Yeah, well I'm not like old Hank Snow, I've
been everywhere.
That's right.
Well what else can we talk about while I've got
you on the phone?
This has been really interesting.
Anything else about the war?
Well, if I could stop and think a little bit, I
enjoyed the United States, the East Coast,
New York City.
know I there's a lot of calm people in New York
too I was I was by myself one
day in New York City and in the Navy and some
guy come up to me say hey buddy can
take your picture and he was in front of a new
place there and he said come on
give me I will take your picture I said I don't
need no picture taken he said
well we'll send it home for you. He said it
won't cost you a dime and we'll send it to your home.
I said well that's that's that's okay so I went
and took him and had him take my picture. He said
you want it in a frame? I said yeah put it in a
frame and I gave him my address and he sent it
home and my mother my mother got that picture
and she wrote me that was a beautiful picture
in a beautiful frame, but it sure cost a lot.
Oh no, so they got her C.O.D., huh? Yeah.
Oh no.
Said it won't cost you a thing, well it didn't.
Well it didn't cost you a thing, but it cost
your mother a pretty penny. Yes.
Oh dear.
Well that's the way they operate in New York.
Yeah, you're right, they're pretty tricky.
Even the service man.
Yep, that's right.
I couldn't have done that to a man in the service.
Well, it can be more interesting, I guess.
I mean, you just about did the whole war.
I got my ribbons, I got a bed in one of my
rooms and I got about seven or eight campaign
ribbons and most of them got stars in them for
battles and I got a medal in there also
for accommodation, for action under fire at
Wabaton, uh, Salerno.
Salerno, yeah. Salerno was the rough one,
wasn't it? Yes.
And I made, they gave me a coxswain, uh, a moat
for me braiding there.
I took a test for coxswain and made that.
And then they gave me, after the invasion, they
gave me the, and I got a real good citation
here on the wall, I don't know if you want me
to read it to you.
Yeah, go ahead and read that citation.
Let me get it all, I got it hanging in the
frame on the wall.
And I had it framed and everything and I'm kind
of proud of it.
You should be.
If I can get over here to it, let's see.
This is a U.S.S. Oberon Fleet Post Office, New York,
October the 20th, 1943.
the commanding officer
William Emmett edwards
they will bring their accommodation delivered with
okay take two side one bill edwards go ahead
bill okay
the commander transport eight amphibious force
Edwards William Emmett uh...
Naval Reserve
via the commanding officer, USS Oberon,
in the secret dispatch 21-21-21 of June, 1943.
The Commander Transport's Eighth Amphibious Force
has been informed by the commanding officer,
USS Oberon,
that your performance of duty during the recent amphibious
operations were very condimental-commandable,
the report specifies that.
During amphibious operations near Agropoli,
Salerno Bay, Italy, September 9, 1943, William
M. Edwards, U.S. Naval Reserve, displayed
outstanding courage as a member of his boat
crew in landing with the first assault waves,
and later during the trips to the beachhead
carried vital needed equipment, combat equipment.
He also aided in unloading this vital
equipment, which was not part of his regular duties,
thereby greatly assisting Army combat teams.
He displayed the utmost coolness and courage
under enemy fire to which he was exposed most
of the time.
Commander Transport's 8th Amphibious Force
considers your conduct and performance of
duty and set forth in the foregoing to have
been most praiseworthy, and hereby takes great
great pleasure in commending your highly-one
copy of this letter is being forwarded to
the commander of the 8th Antibiotic Force for
his information, one copy is being forwarded
to the chief of naval personnel with a request
that it be filed with your official record."
Okay, now that's where I got my commendation
medal and star in it for it, so I got that for-
Well, that sounds great.
Well, congratulations on that.
Did you copy that okay?
Yes, Sir.
And that gives me a chance to thank you for
what you did for our country during the war.
Well, I appreciate the interview.
My daughter will be calling me later on.
She called me this morning, Debra, and I told
her I was all set for it.
Yeah, well, I think, I mean, we've been going
for over an hour, so that was a good interview.
And I bet you're kind of worn out on it now. No.
I don't mind talking about it, but I can't
remember, you know, that's a long, long time ago.
You bet.
And it's hard to remember things.
Especially when you did as many different things.
Because, I mean, you were everywhere.
Well I got my, they, the boat that I was on,
the Oberon, they gave us all a war diary of it.
So I could read a lot about it out of that.