This is Charlie Simmons. Today is November the
26th, 2012. I am interviewing Bill Furrer.
This interview is taking place in
Fredericksburg, Texas, in support of the Nimitz
Education and
Research Center, Archives for the National
Museum of the Pacific War, Texas Historical Commission
for the Preservation of Historical Information
Related to this Site. Now, Bill, if you would,
please state your name, your place of birth,
and your date of birth, and we'll take it
from there.
A. My name is William H. Bill Furrer. I was
born in Lincoln, Nebraska, March 8, 1922.
E. Did you have brothers and sisters?
A. I had two brothers and two sisters.
E. Older or younger?
Oh, Clyde Moe, the oldest brother, was ten
years older than I was. I had one sister about
eighteen months older than I am. And I had one
sister that was younger and then another
brother that was younger.
Okay. And what sort of life did you have
growing up? Did you live on the farm in the city,
a small town?
We lived on a farm about 10 miles east of
Lincoln, close to a little town called Walson.
And my dad was a farmer. He was a farmer up
until he was 60 years old. He was born and
raised on a farm. And that's until he was 60
years old. That's when we had to move away.
Okay. And what about schooling? What sort of
schooling did you have?
I went to school in Nebraska, and then in 1937, we
moved out to Washington, Centralia, Washington,
where we
live now, and I went to Centralia High School and
graduated from Centralia High School in 1940.
So you would have been about 15 when you moved?
I was 15 when I moved from Nebraska to Washington.
And then you finished high school.
A. I finished high school in Centralia, Washington.
Q. Were you living on a farm there?
A. No. We just had a little acreage. And so we
all just go to town. And I did do work outside. And
during school time or summertime, I did work on a
farm just out of Centralia, a dairy farm.
Q. And what year did you finish high school then?
A. 1940. Graduated in 1940.
Q. Okay. And what did you do after high school?
A. That's what I did after high school. The
first four
months or so until I went in the Navy, I worked
on the
same dairy farm that I had worked before.
Q. Okay.
A. And I was getting $30 a month. The farmer said,
Bill, I want you to stay for the winter, but I
can only
you pay you $20 a month. And I figured, well,
he said,
you don't have to stay. So I said, well, I'll
look for
something else. And then I in November of 1940,
I joined
the Navy.
Especially just for money? Or did you want to go
did you join the Navy for to see the world? Or
what was
your reason for deciding on the Navy?
Mainly the reason I joined the Navy because it
was just
the winding down of the Depression, and I was
18 years old, and there just wasn't any
job for 18-year-old kids. I mean, the jobs that
were opening up went to the older people.
So I figured that was it. One of my friends
says, well, Bill, why don't you go in the
Navy? I decided, well, that sounded pretty good
to me.
Well, you know, there were a lot of people in
your situation. I wonder why more of them
didn't try to volunteer for the armed services?
Well, I don't know. But all my buddies were in
the same
situation I was in. I met in the Navy. And we
had a lot
of people from Texas and Oklahoma that, man,
they never had
it so good.
Okay. So after you signed up for the Navy,
where did you
go to boot camp?
I went to boot camp in San Diego.
And then from boot camp, I was selected to go to
aviation structural mechanics school in Jacksonville,
Florida, and that took about was about six
months. And
then from there, we were told when we got out
of school
in Jacksonville by one of the leading officers
there that
most of you guys are going to the Pacific Fleet because
we are going to be at war with Japan. And which
happened, which we were in six months. We were
at war
with Japan.
So you graduated. By the time you got out of your
aviation structure school in Jacksonville, it
was 1941.
Is that right?
That's right, yes, 1941.
In May of 1941.
And then I got transferred to Utility Squadron
1 on Naval
Air Station, Fort Island, which is right in the
middle of
Pearl Harbor.
Q Right. Okay. And what sort of job did you
have? Aviation instructor or did you work on
A Worked on aircraft, the structural part of
it, the landing gear, the wings, the body
of the aircraft. Mainly that's what we worked on.
Okay. And you had all sorts of aircraft there?
You had all the way from the PBY squadrons,
for example?
There was PBYs on the base. In fact, yeah, PBYs.
And the squadron I was in had Sikorsky
amphibians designation JRS. A.J.
I'm not familiar with that. A.J.
Well, there wasn't very many of them.
The Navy had very few of them. A.J.
And that so they had seaplanes so they could take
Did they take off from the harbor or did they
always have
to take off from the runway there at Fort? A.J.
was an amphibian, the GRS-1. And we never took
off in the
water. We always took off on the runway.
Q Okay. So what month was it that you got to
Ford? Do you remember?
A Yes, I do. I remember exactly the date. It
was July
7, 1941.
Okay. And what was life like in Pearl Harbor in those
Oh, we went to work at 7:00 in the morning and
got off at noon five days a week. That's what
it was like.
And, of course, we had the duty, you know, in between
times every so often. But basically that was
what it was.
It was just real nice. It was, you know, we
could spend
our days off going to the swimming pool and
going to the
beach and things like that.
A And what sort of accommodations? Did you have
barracks, permanent barracks?
E Oh, yes. Well, we had a three-story barracks
on Fort Island. And, well, they were big dormitories,
40 or 50 people to a dormitory. And in the same building,
I say, we were on the top floor, and the bottom
floor was
our mess hall. We had a large mess hall. So we
were treated good.
We had.
Okay. So your typical work day would be 7 a.m.
to noon
work, and then you're off the rest of the day?
Yes, Sir. That was unless you had the duty,
which was
had to stay and have a watch or something like
that. But other than that, you were free
to go.
Okay. That's pretty good. That's a really good
deal. So, okay. Well, I guess we're getting
pretty close to the big day here. We kind of
know what's coming. So what happened on
December 7th? Can you talk about your specific case?
the morning of December 7th, I got up, oh,
probably 630 or
7:00, and I went down to the mess hall for breakfast.
And I believe that I had fried eggs and bacon for
breakfast. It seems to me like that's what it was.
And I went up after breakfast. I went up to see
one of
my buddies. We used to go tennis, play tennis.
But he was
still in bed. So I thought, well, I'll go
outside of our
dormitory. It was a pretty large lanai,
patio-type area
that we'd go out and lounge around suntan or
whatever you
wanted to do. And we had a in those days, we
had to
wash our own clothes. We didn't have a laundry. We
washed our own clothes. We had a wash rack out there.
And you'd do your own laundry and hang them out on
the line to dry. And that was what I was doing.
Actually, I was washing my clothes out there. And
there was half a dozen other guys out there, something
like that.
And then we heard planes, planes flying. This
was on
Sunday morning, which was unusual. And we
looked up and
said, oh, well, they must be Army planes making a
practice run on Fort Island.
Well, we stood there and watched them. They got
closer and closer. And all at once we seen a
bomb come
off of one of them. And we thought, well, they
must be
dropping water bombs or smoke bombs. And then
about that
time, it exploded. And we seen one peel off,
and one of
the guys said, they're Japanese.
And so then we stood there and watched them for a
little bit. In fact, I looked up over the walls,
retaining walls to keep it from falling off. I looked
over the retaining wall, and the airplane was coming,
flying down the harbor, a Japanese plane. I
looked right
into the cockpit of the Japanese plane. I could
see the
bonnet, you know. And by that time, well, we,
you know,
things began to get pretty wild, and they made
us all go
down below to the to the vessel for protection.
And right
across the street from us was our dispensary,
the sick bay.
It was a rectangular building with all the
offices around
the outside, outer edge up in the center. It
was an open
center, just wide open. And they got a direct
hit on the
sick bay, an armor-piercing bomb went down into
the ground,
blew straight up, and did very little damage
except to the
foundation of the sick bay.
And there were some people that got some
shrapnel wounds,
but there were no casualties or, you know.
After that, then after we had a second raid,
after the
first raid was over, there was a lull. So they told
everybody, go to your assigned areas. So that's
what we
did. We went down. I went to the hangar, which
was just
only 100 yards away or something like that.
Now, did you practice? Had you ever practiced
having an
air raid warnings or
Oh, no, sir. No.
That was the first
You had no battle station to go to
No, no. All we did was went to our own, you know,
and then whatever they wanted you to do, that's
what you had to do.
And there were no anti-aircraft equipment there?
Not on Fort Island. I don't know of any other
than machine guns.
machine guns.
And they did have machine guns. But that's the
only thing that I know of as far as protection.
And was there ñ from the first attack, was there
any ñ were there any other bombs dropped or machine
gun fire that went in or around your barracks?
Well, no. I think the closest one was the sick
bay right across.
So that was the closest one.
Yeah. That was the closest I got to an actual bomb
But the battleships that were sunk were all tied
up to Fort Island, probably from our barracks
to the battleships was 50 yards or something
like that.
So you got the concussion from the explosions
of the torpedoes and the bombs were pretty dramatic.
Yeah. But we had my squadron, we didn't have
any casualties, nothing. Nothing happened
to anybody in our squadron.
But a lot of planes were hit on Fort Island, though.
Oh, yes.
planes were wiped out.
A. The PBYs were down. There were three
hangars in a row. And we were in the end one
down here
next to the control tower. And the far one was
right next
to the harbor where they could bring the PBYs
up out of
the water. And they were hit right in the
middle. I mean,
they just devastated that area. But they didn't
have too
too many casualties. I mean, somehow or
another, I don't know what to say. I think
maybe only
one person was killed on Fort Island.
Well, being Sunday morning, they probably
didn't have any people out doing maintenance
of the planes.
Well, no, there wasn't. No. There was just the
people on duty in the hangars, you know.
So that may have been the reason for it. But
then later, we kind of, well, between raids
And then the next raid came. We stayed in the hangar.
And then they said, well, get out of this hangar.
It's too dangerous to be here. So they sent us
to the
control tower, which was right next to the hangar.
And we set in the ---- which I think was kind
of a target.
But we stayed in the control tower. And they
say that
there was bullet holes in the control tower,
but I don't
know because we were down below. And then after
the raid
was over, and we kind of began to get
regrouped, we had
our duty officer was a man. I don't know what
his first
name was, but he was a lieutenant. His name was Robb.
And he got three planes of the Sikorskys, JRS Sikorsky.
he got three planes and crews for the three
planes to go
out and search for the Japanese. And kind of a funny
part about that was the chief radio man in
charge of
the radio division said, I need three
volunteers to go
on these planes. One on each plane. You three
guys go.
He just grabbed three guys. You guys go. So
they went
out in search of the Japanese, and their
armament was
1903 model Springfield rifles. That was the armament
they had.
Well, the JRS-1s, was that just a
reconnaissance plane then?
It was a transport plane.
Transport plane.
Strictly a transport. It was not a war plane.
It was
strictly a transport. It had seats in it. It
could carry,
I don't know, a dozen people or something.
Two engines?
two-engine and single wing. And that's what
they did.
But they went out and they flew for about six hours
but didn't see anything. But a Japanese plane got
some of them. One plane, he made a dive on
them, but
they thought probably he was on ammunition or
something and flew off. So they got back okay. But
they were expendable. That crew, the crews that went
out were expendable that day.
A Well, yeah, that was they had some PBYs that
were flying.
A Yeah. There wasn't too many PBYs that
survived. I mean, actually, my squadron
survived better than any squadron out there.
Q Lieutenant Rob's name was R.O.B.B.
A Okay.
A And he received the Navy Cross.
A Oh, really?
A Yeah. He received the Navy Cross.
Q Well, I hope those guys that went out in
those planes got something out of it, too.
A If I remember right, I think they all got
advanced in rate.
Q Oh, okay.
A Because I know we had a couple of real young
first-class petty officers that were advanced
in chief,
which was unusual in those days. And my first
flight on
the patrol plane in Sikorsky. It was on
December the 9th,
two days after the war started.
Q Okay. And what was that like? You were sitting
in as an observer. Is that correct?
A Well, no. We went as gunners.
Q Okay.
A They sent us to the Ordos Department to get
our rifles to go on the flight. We got the
rifles and said,
well, how do you use these things? And the guy
says, don't
worry about it. Somebody is going to show you.
Next man.
I mean, that's the way it was.
I mean, we
Did they give you any ammunition?
Oh, yes, Sir. Uh-uh.
Yeah, we had them. They were clips of whatever.
Sounds like you were maybe more dangerous to yourselves
than you were to the Japanese.
And Sikorsky has an entrance hatch on each side.
And we
had the gunners. We were gunners supposedly.
And we sat
at the open hatches, sat on the deck of the
plane with a
gun across our lap.
That is a remarkable story. I have never heard this
story before. That's amazing.
I mean, that is a gospel truth. I mean, that's
what we did.
Do you have any idea of the route that you took on
your scouting expedition out there looking for the
Japanese? How far out from the islands did you get,
for example?
I think probably around Oahu. We probably pretty
well flew all around there, you know, in and
out too
many miles. Actually, the main thing we were probably
looking for was submarines because the Japanese
fleet had
already high-tailed it back towards Japan.
But one thing that we always remarked about was the
Japanese bombed, they did not bomb any runways
or they
never bombed any fuel stations, any fuel tanks.
It looked
like, are they ready for a landing, you know.
But we flew over the island, except for Hickam Field,
which is right next to Pearl Harbor, the gate
of the
fence line of Hickam Field at Pearl Harbor.
This is a
dividing place between the two bases. And it
looked like
a junkyard. It just they just mutilated that place.
same way on the end of Fort Island where the P.B
.Y.s were.
They just got put in every airplane.
A.B. Spellman Yeah. Well, luckily, they didn't get
everything that they could have.
EILEEN HURST No. No, they didn't. No.
A.B. Spellman So how long were you in this going
out on patrol mode for?
About six months. I probably flew probably 35-40
missions every fourth day.
And that was all in the JRS-1s?
Yes. Yes, sir. Yeah. We never had we finally
got two
machine guns mounted on the aircraft in the
open hatches
where they built a mount for the machine gun so
we could
use it as that worked, but we never did see
anything to
fire at. Yeah.
Were they carrying any bombs or death charges? No.
There's no kinds of weaponry at all? No.
That was it.
No, we didn't have any.
If you saw a submarine, what were you going to do?
Crash into them? No.
Well, radio back and say there's a submarine in a
certain location.
And I think that was the only thing.
Actually that was all we could have done.
later on, I understand that I was there six
months and
later on, I understand that they did put depth
charges on
the airplanes. But I don't know if that's what
I just heard.
Q Yeah. Because I know the PBYs carried
A Oh, yeah. They carried, yeah. They were the
warplane. And as a reward for this flying, the flight
cruise got to stay at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel
for 25
cents a night.
LARSON On our day off, we got to stay there.
GILBERT You're making war sound like a really nice
way to make a living from so far, anyhow.
LARSON To start off with, in November of 1941,
I made
third-class petty officer, which raised my pay
up to $60 a
month. The war started on the 7th. I
immediately started
drawing 50% flight pay, so my pay went to $90 a
month, and I was probably the wealthiest sailor
in the
the Pacific Fleet. I had more money I could spend.
Q Well, that was pretty good duty then.
A It was. It was, yeah.
Q Well, what sort of impact did the gearing up
after the battle was over and the harbor had
been cleaned up a little bit, did any other
parts of your lifestyle change there on the
island? Did they
start bringing in more people to your base, for
example, and
start getting more crowded?
A It was pretty well routine. Oh, one other
thing I
want to tell you. The night, evening of
December 7th, one of
our carriers was coming in to Pearl Harbor, and
for some
reason or another, they sent the airplanes off
the carrier into
Pearl Harbor, ahead of the ship. And it was
dark. I was
out on the ramp doing maintenance to one of the airplanes.
And somebody it was quiet. You could have heard a
pin drop. And somebody fired the shot. And
every gun on
that island went off. I laid flat on the ramp
and could
see tracers going right through an airplane
landing on a
runway. And they killed some people out of that.
I don't know how many, but it was maybe two or
three or
something like that.
I think it was a squadron of SBDs that was
coming in
from the Enterprise.
Yeah, the carrier planes that came in. But I
did. I
just ---- I'd actually seen treasures going
into the airplane. And I just laid flat on
the concrete.
Q. Yeah. That was really tragic.
A. It was. That was one of the real tragic
things of it.
Q. They had some B-17s that came in.
A. Yes, Sir. I've seen one of them.
Q. And some of them got shot up, too.
A. Yeah. They got shot up. I don't think they
shot any of them down. But they were shot
that. And I know during the bombing, when I was
in the
control tower, I looked out, and I seen a B-17
coming in
because it kind of flew towards the end of
Florida into
Hickam Field. But they made it all right. I
don't think
any of them got shot down.
We have an audiovisual exhibit in the museum
that you'll
see when you go through there about Pearl
Harbor, the
attack, and especially about the air battle. Pretty
incredible story going out with a Springfield
O3 rifle
and protection.
Yeah. We did that.
One other thing. That was two other things. One thing
was they cut the main water line from the Pearl Harbor
Harbor Station, made Pearl Harbor Station over
to Fort
Island. And we had a swimming pool on Fort
Island. And
the cooks, you had to use water out of the
swimming pool
to cook with.
Q That's right. One of the ships settled up
on the water.
A Yeah. I think so. I think that's what they said.
Q I think it was Arizona.
A It settled on the water line and probably the
Oklahoma or Port of California.
A And so there wasn't a whole lot of hardship,
it doesn't sound like, in your particular
portion of
Fort Oliver.
A No. In our squadron, no, it was there, so it
just kind of turned to be routine operation,
except our
workday got longer.
A Yeah. Did they send out any of the people from
your squadron to help out with the wounded, the survivors?
No. Not that I know of.
No. Everybody pretty well stayed at their own assigned
station. On that day, we didn't get anything to
eat except
sandwiches because they had turned the mess
hall into a
casualty area. And that's where I learned to
eat peanut
butter and jelly sandwiches because that was
our meal on
of flights. We had peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches, all
because we had no refrigeration or anything
like that, you
know, in those days.
So I still like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Q Okay. So for six months, you're basically
doing a lot
of aircraft maintenance and then going out on patrols.
A Every fourth day, just as regular as could
be, we'd go
on patrol every fourth day. We slept in the
hangar at night and took off right at daybreak
for about a six-hour flight.
Was there any change when Admiral Nimitz took
over the base there?
Not as far as ordinary people could.
It really didn't impact your life? You didn't
have a meeting?
No, no, no, nothing like that. No. He just took
command. And as far as the ordinary sailor
when he knew the difference who was in command.
Okay. Did they start bringing a lot more ships
into Pearl Harbor?
Oh, yes, yes. Yeah, that was probably about the
main operating area, you know, for the
And, of course, the Battle of Midway started, I
think it was May, and it was all operated
out of, well, Nimitz was in Pearl Harbor then.
And the
story I heard, and I think I read it even in a history
book, that the United States had broken the Japanese
They did, yeah.
And they knew that the people at Pearl Harbor had
almost 100% idea that the Japanese were going
to hit
Midway. But Washington, D.C. wouldn't believe them.
And I guess the Admiral Lemmit just defied them.
Yeah. Well, I don't know about them not
believing, but
they had broken the Japanese code, and they
knew that the
target that the Japanese were going to attack
was the code
name for it in the Japanese code was AF, but
they didn't know what island that was. And
they suspected it might be Midway because that
was a key point. And so they had the
radio operator on Midway send a message in the
clear in plain English, it wasn't encrypted,
saying that their water tower, their water
purification system had broken down. And they
running short on water. And a day or so later,
they intercepted a message in the Japanese
Naval code that said the AF is having problems
with their water supply. So they knew that
Midway was AF, and that's why they were able to
ambush the Japanese fleet there.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
So, well, it's just what were you doing then
later after
this initial period was over? And were you
still did they
keep the JRSs in service for a long time?
Oh, yes. Yes, they did. I think probably the
greater part
of 1941. And I know when I got transferred
about six
later, they were looking at B-25s or something
like that.
They finally wound up with a more ñ with a warplane.
I think they ñ well, in fact, later on, I seen
one of
the guys when I was down in the South Pacific
landed on
the island there. And they had a twin-engine
Mitchell or
one of those aircraft, twin-engine motor.
So you were only stationed at Ford for, what,
six months or so after the war started?
After the war, yes. I got transferred along
about, well, right after the Battle of Bedway.
In fact, during the Battle of Bedway, I worked
in the ammunition dump on Oahu to load ammunition
for the Battle of Bedway.
Q And what did you do after that, then? What
was your
next assignment?
A My next assignment, excuse me, my next assignment
was a they called them jeep carriers, the ones
that had
been converted from merchant ships or whatever
they were.
They were real small carriers. And I think we carried
probably, I don't know, 25 or 30 aircraft, and
we went
on down to the South Pacific.
A.B. Spellman Now, were you assigned to the
ship at
Pearl Harbor?
A.B. Spellman No. No, Sir. We came back to Seattle.
A.B. Spellman You went back to Seattle.
A.B. Spellman Yeah. We was in Seattle for three
months for training.
A.B. Spellman What was the name of the ship? it?
A. Altamaha. CVE.
Q. Okay.
A. The ship was A-L-T-A-M-A-H-A, Altamaha.
CVE, number 18, I believe.
Q. Okay. Well, that was in 1942.
A. 1942.
Q. I didn't realize they had those small carriers
in operation.
A. Well, yeah. They had these types.
Q. Okay.
A. They had them.
Q. Okay.
A. They had them.
Q. Okay.
A. Yeah.
Q. Okay.
A. Yeah.
Q. Okay.
A. Yeah.
Q. Okay.
A. Yeah.
Q. Okay.
A. Yeah.
Q. Okay.
A. Yeah.
Q. Okay.
A. Yeah.
In fact, we were scheduled to go on one
earlier, the USS
Bogue, but we weren't ready when the ship was
ready, so we
had to wait for the ----
Q Okay.
A It went aboard the Alabama. And from San Diego,
we went down to New Caledonia, just off the
coast of New
Zealand. And I spent Christmas Day in the
harbor at
New Caledonia. And we kind of hung around down there
and went out on patrol, you know, things like that,
around New Cal and the New Hebrides Island.
A And this is Christmas 42?
A 1942, yes.
A Okay. And what was your assignment on
board the ----
my assignment on there was on the flight deck.
And it was a
barrier operator. In those days, the barriers,
the plane
would hit to stop it if it couldn't stop and
hit the
barrier. Or my job was to lay the barrier down
so they
make a taxi to a park area. They were man-operated
barriers. A guy on each side of the ship, one
on the
side, he'd lay that cable down, set it back up
for the
next plane to land.
And, in fact, on Thanksgiving Day, our planes were
in the air, and we were having Thanksgiving dinner,
I can remember a really normal, bodacious Thanksgiving
dinner. And right in the middle of it, flight quarters
sounded. And I had to run up and get on my flight
station. And I never did get any dinner.
Q Okay. Now, this was a barrier, not the arresting
cables, is that right?
A No, no. No, no. Well, they had the arresting
cable. But also this was a barrier in case they
missed a
resting cable, they would hit the barrier.
Q Right. Did they have more than one or was there
just one barrier cable on your ship?
A I can't remember.
Q Because the fleet carriers used to have two or
three barriers.
A Yeah. They could, yeah. But these were -- I
really don't remember.
Q Those were such smaller boats.
A Yeah.
And then later on, I got they broke the
squadron up and sent
part of the squadron to Guadalcanal. Our
squadron number
was VGS11. They sent part of them to
Guadalcanal, and then
And he took two chief petty officers and 23
White Hats,
25 of us, to the Isle of the Funafuti to a Marine
squadron and Air Squadron. And we stayed there
for, I
guess, about six months. But I spent my 21st
birthday on
the Isle of the Funafuti.
A With a Marine squadron?
With a Marine squadron, yes, Sir. We went to
the Marine
colonel in command. It was actually a Marine-occupied
island. And there was a Marine colonel in
command of the
island. And all it had on it was an airstrip
and a few
barracks that the Seabees had built, quarters,
you know.
know. But mostly we lived in tents.
A. What sort of squadron was it? What sort of place?
E. It was a fighter and a bombing squadron. The
only SPDs are the F4Fs. I think that's what they were.
A. Okay.
E. We stayed there until they got a Marine crew
in there, a maintenance crew.
A. Well, now, they don't have barriers on
islands. So what were you doing there?
E. On the islands?
A. Yes, Sir.
MR. DONOFRIO Well, after the we kind of
maintained the
runway and took care of like refueling aircraft
and things
like that. And we got our gasoline in 50-gallon
drums, and
we had a pump station that I had to work in
that pump
station pulling out of the 50-gallon barrels
into a large fuel tank. That's mainly the
thing we did.
So just general ground crew duties.
Yeah, just ground crew.
Okay. Well, what was life like on a tropical
island in the South Pacific?
Well, at first, it was nice. I mean, once the
Marines got there, the squadron Marines
we had a movie and everything. And we were just
we didn't
do an awful lot of anything. You know, just
like I say,
it was just kind of routine, a nice warm day.
We were
just below the equator, the Ellis Island Group.
It was a
British island. And our what they somebody said
the other
day that the island was about, well, it was a
mile long and
maybe three-quarters or something, a half-mile
wide or
something. It was just part of the community
that was used
for an airstrip.
And, in fact, the Air Force, Army Air Force
came down
there and used our island with B-24 bombers to
bomb the
Japanese. Well, the Japanese retaliated.
And I got to tell you about a Marine
corporal. One night after they stirred up the Japanese,
We had been bothered at all by Japanese. And
after they
bombed the Japanese, we had an air raid go. Air raid
Siren went off in the middle of the night. So
the colonel
had told everybody to have foxholes.
Well, we had a little kid named Jimmy Carter
and I
lived in a tent together, and we dug a shallow
foxhole. We
heard the planes come in, the Japanese planes
coming, and
we both dove in that foxhole, and I know we
were both
below ground.
And we had a church on the island that was a missionary
church. And it really stood out. You could see
it. And
there was a Marine corporal named Ladd.
Corporal Ladd.
Everybody knew Corporal Ladd on that island.
The ladies
on the island gathered in the church for protection.
Corporal Ladd went in there and got them all
out and
got them into a safer place where he put them.
I don't
But, anyway, they got a direct hit on the
church. It would have killed.
And nobody got hurt?
Nobody got hurt.
Oh, okay.
Nobody got hurt, no. No.
We had casualties, but as far as I know, none
of the
ladies got, you know, from the church episodes.
They all survived.
Well, did you have more than one bombing by the Japanese?
Oh, yes, Sir. Yes, Sir.
So they bombed pretty regularly.
Yeah. Well, in fact, in 1942, in July, I think
it was in
July of 1942, there was an article in the Life magazine
about one of the bombing raids and how the
general in
charge of the Air Force said it was every man
for himself.
He didn't like it any better than we did.
Q So were your planes, were these all night raids?
A Pardon?
Q Were these Japanese air raids, were they all
night raids?
Were they at night?
A Yes, Sir. Yes, Sir.
Q Okay.
A Like, Carter and I, we heard the airplanes
coming. We said, oh, that's our torpedo boats.
We had some
torpedo boats. They said, oh, that's the
torpedo boats out
there running around at night. And then we
heard them. We
could hear the bombs coming off the airplane.
It just went
like that. And then that's when we dove into
the fossil,
you know, because we knew that was the real thing.
But they killed the -- I think there was
probably our
were killed was probably around a dozen people were
killed at the first raid we had.
Because we had no protection, really. And it was
just a the island was just a coral reef is what it
amounted to.
Q. Yeah. Pretty hard to dig a foxhole.
A. It was. Yes, Sir, it was.
Q. Was that when they came from Nauru? When the
Japanese came from Nauru?
A. Yeah. I think so. At least that's where they
bombed, they bombed this big chemical plant or something
on the island of Nauru. And that they said
after they
bombed that the Japanese could never use that
whatever it
was that they were using on that island. So...
A Well, how long were you on Futafuti?
About, I think, around six months.
And then we got transferred to a Navy maintenance
outfit on Wallace Island, another island down there.
And Tommy Carter, the man I used to work with,
he was from Portland, Oregon. And we were
out on the runway, along the parking strip on
the runway one day working, doing some
maintenance on one of our aircraft. A Marine
bomber parked right alongside of it, and Eleanor
Roosevelt got off of it. And she waved to us.
She was on
some kind of a mission for the United States,
you know.
I'll be darned.
Yeah. Well, I got to see her.
Yeah. Well, did you have any other celebrities visit
you while you were there?
No, no. Well, we had a couple of U.S.O. shows, but
nothing like Bob Hope or that kind of thing. We
were kind
the lower grade people this time.
Yeah. So you were there for six months, and then
you were transferred to a Navy maintenance?
Yes. It was a maintenance squadron. The planes flew
patrol, and we were just the maintenance people.
And I can
tell you kind of a funny story about that.
were we'd have to fly on test hops or something
after the
maintenance. And I was on one of these flights
one day. We
had a twin-engine Lockheed bomber. I forget the designation
of it, but it was built by Lockheed. It was twin-engine.
And we had a crew of about four or five on a six-sub
like that. Anyway, we were flying along. I
believe it was
somewhere in that area. And the pilot got on
the Intercom
and he said, hang on, guys, and watch this. He
had seen a
native canoe, outrigger canoe on the water, and
he dove
that plane towards the canoe. And those poor
natives just
all went over the side of the water. And he
peeled off and
flew away.
But then the pilots were all just young people
anyway, like the refineries.
Q Yeah, sure. And they just get pretty bored just
flying along.
A Yeah, just flying along. Yeah, it was fun.
Q Yeah. So what was life like with the maintenance
group, with the Navy maintenance group? How
long were you there?
A Oh, let's see. Probably about six or eight
months or something like that. And then I got transferred
back up to Hawaii again for another three
months. And then
back to the Continental Limits of the United
States to
Seattle. And I was a ---- it was just kind of receiving
stages of what I wanted to do.
Anyway, they gave me orders to Jacksonville,
Florida, and
I had 30 days' leave, and this was in June of 1944.
And that's when Elaine and I got married, and we
left one day and left for Jacksonville,
Florida, the same day.
Now, were you ñ you were in communication? Were
you writing letters pretty regular?
Oh, yeah.
All the time. Yeah.
In fact, this friend, Jimmy Carter, or Tommy
Carter, I got a letter from her one day,
and he didn't have any mail. And he said, Bill,
do you care if I read your letter? And
I let him read the letter.
Well, mail call was pretty important.
back in those times. Those islands got pretty lonesome.
So you got married on your 30-day leave, and
then you left
the next day from home.
The same day.
Yeah. Well, we left the same day for
Jacksonville, Florida.
We got married on the 4th of July and told her mother
about a week before that we were going to get married.
And then we left. And then we stayed at Jacksonville
for the duration of the war then.
In fact, our daughter, oldest daughter, was
born on
the day the treaty was signed in Japan.
No kidding. Yes.
In the newspaper, it said, war's end set
tonight, the
day she was born. That was September 2nd. Or
was it
September 2nd or 1st?
A Well, I think it was 1st here, but 2nd out there.
Q Yeah. September 1st, 1945.
A Well, what was your job in Jacksonville?
Q The same thing.
A Same thing.
He had a training squadron. Pilots were mostly just
training. I mean, advanced training. And it's just
maintenance in the squadron. And we stayed
there two and
a half years, then went to Pensacola for
another six
months, and then I elected to stay in the Navy.
And we
had various stations on the East Coast and then
went to
out to California. And we had about two or
three years
in California. Then the Korean War started, and
I got
transferred to Japan to another maintenance squadron.
that's what mine was always in the maintenance.
And our
airplanes flew from Japan to Korea, patrol
planes, PBM,
Doug, yeah, Martin PBM seaplanes.
Q Were you ñ now, what air station were you at in
A It was at Ñ well, it was a town, a little
town called Obama, Obama, which was right on
Yokosuka Harbor.
It was an old World War II Japanese station. In
fact, our hangars were Japanese hangars
that we stayed in.
So it was sort of in the Tokyo Bay area.
Yeah. Well, yeah, only about, yeah, well, Tokyo
itself was about 30 miles. Yeah.
between Tokyo and Yokosuka. Yokosuka is a big,
our Navy
operating base. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, so you stayed in how many years did
you get
in the Navy then?
Twenty years, six months, and five days or something
like that. So I got retirement pay for 21 years.
And you got to go with him to Japan?
I didn't get to go with him, but 14 months
after he got there, the girls and I, we had
had another daughter by then.
We got on a troop ship in Seattle, and 16 days
later we landed in Yokohama Harbor, and
we went by way of ADAC.
ADAC. Yeah, I couldn't think. ADAC and let some
other people off up there whose husbands
were stationed there. So we had 16 days aboard
the troop ship from Seattle to ADAC to Yokohama
Harbor. Then we lived in Tokyo for a little
while, and then we moved to Yokohama. And
We lived there until he was transferred back to the
Well, it's great to get to be able to take your
family with you. Yeah.
Well, what we did, we lived in government housing.
United States government housing. Yeah.
And we just had to wait for a vacancy.
A lot of people did live in Japanese housing, though.
And as far as getting along with the Japanese,
it was fine.
We had no problem. We went anyplace we wanted.
And nobody
ever, you know, bothered you or anything like
that. I mean,
in fact, she had a maid, Japanese girl, all the
time we
were out there.
Q. Uh-huh.
A. Our youngest daughter was three when we got there.
And our maid just loved Lori. And when we left, she
came to see us off, our maid, and she just cried,
Lori, Lori.
Well, that was, I said, what year was this that she
went over?
1953 and 54. Fifty-four.
Well, yeah, that was a pretty, pretty, pretty nice
living there than I would imagine with the Americans.
The American dollar was very strong and it was pretty
It was very different, too. Look at pictures of
downtown Tokyo now. And I even drove on the Ginza.
I wouldn't do that now.
A Well, this was seven years after the war
ended. And they had just begun to rebuild
because it
was just a lot of vacant spots out there, a lot
of the
cities that had been destroyed.
But as far as the Japanese people, we had
Japanese men working in our squadron.
We had aircraft painters and people like that, you
know. So it was just like we'd been friends for years.
Q Yeah. It's amazing how rapidly all the animosity
and the hatred and the blood hatred went away
for a lot of people.
I know some people that were in combat that
never did forgive the Japanese for what they
did, but that was, you know, a very personal
thing for them.
Well, yeah, they were pretty brutal people, I
mean, as far as our Army went, especially
in the prison camps.
prisoners were just, you know, they never knew whether
they were going to live the next day or not. Yeah.
They were pretty bad.
Well, so after you got back from Japan, you
finished out your career and ----
Well, I came to Corpus Christi, Texas.
Went down there and then various stations after that.
was there for a couple of years, and we went to Hawaii,
was stationed in Hawaii, and then back to
California where
I finally got on the Navy.
Did you ever have any more shipboard duty or were
you all ----
The last year, I was in ---- I was aboard
assigned to
the Bon Havre frigate, and I was in the Carrier squadron.
And we only went out for two weeks at a time or
something like that for training. And so I
never made a
long cruise on a carrier.
So I went from 1942 on a little jeep carrier to 1961
when I got out before I got aboard another carrier.
Q Yeah.
A He was never a seagoing sailor.
Q Yeah, it doesn't sound like it. And you were
always in the air wing.
A Yes.
Q That was aviation.
Yeah, well, it sounds like an exciting way of
life for both of you.
Well, it was.
We had a good life.
It was.
Had a good life since, you know, bought a farm.
Sixty-nine years, that sounds pretty good.
Yeah, we still get along pretty good.
Well, it looks like it.
Well, bless your heart.
Well, it sounds like we're, I'm running out of
questions here, and so if you've got any
more anecdotes, we can be glad to put them in
the record here, but I think we've got
a pretty good set of information about you, so.
Well I want to wrap it up then and tell you how
much we appreciate you coming over and
spending this time with us today.
Well, I'm real happy, and like I said, this was awesome.
Yeah. Well, I think you're awesome, and I thank
both of you for what you've done for the country.
You know, I don't think we say it enough, but I
want to thank you on behalf of the museum and
all the people.
Can I add one more thing?
Yes, Sir.
about three weeks ago, our other daughter up in Washington
had made arrangements for her and I to take one
of these
honor flights to Washington, D.C. And we spent
one day
touring Washington, D.C., and it was all paid for.
And we spent three we left when we were gone
three days,
traveling and stayed in a Baltimore Hilton Hotel.
Well, that's marvelous.
It was for World War II veterans.
And you went to the World War II memorials.
Yes. And I got a picture of him. He asked me to come
and get his picture. He asked me to come and
get a
picture of him. It was Bob Gohl. Really?
And they met us at the memorial. And he
motioned to me
to come over and let me. And I got a picture
with Bob Dole.
Q. And Elizabeth.
A. Well, that's pretty special.
Q. Yes.
A. Boy, I'll tell you. Yeah.
And my daughter, Margaret, Mrs. Dole took a picture
of her with her sunglasses on. And then she said,
Honey, come back over here. I want a picture
without your sunglasses.
Bob is not well, you know.
Oh no, Bob Dole is in bad shape.
Yeah, well yeah, that's what I heard.
Yeah, it took two people to get him out of the car,
two people to hold him to get him onto a chair.
Yeah, well.
Well, I'll close this off now then without
further ado.
And again, Don, I want to thank you and you
too, Elaine, very much for both of you, for
the service you've done for the country because
you served just as well as he did, you know.
He didn't wear the uniform, but you were doing
all the heavy lifting in a lot of cases.
So thank you very much.
It's been a pleasure for us to be here.
Thank you very much, Sir.