Oral History Interview with Arthur Bohus, May 12, 2001
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Oral History Interview with Arthur Bohus, May 12, 2001 (Sound)
Transcript of an oral interview with Arthur Bohus. Born in Philadelphia in 1917, he enlisted in the Navy (Communications Reserves) in 1939. He went through Recruit Training at Newport, Rhode Island followed by Radioman School and then was assigned to the Fourth Naval District, Philadelphia. His next assignment was at Cape May, New Jersey, where his duties involved recovering blimps which had been launched from Lakehurst, New Jersey. During this assignment he became proficient in Morse Code. His next assignment was at the Naval Gun Factory in Washington, DC, where the 16-inch guns were manufactured. He recounts several ancecdotes during his time in Washington, DC prior to receiving orders to Karachi, India under the Office of Naval Intelligence. He describes how repeated attempts at catching a flight from Anacostia Naval Station to San Francisco, where the troop ship was located, were aborted due to higher priority passengers. Eventually, he was provided with a train ticket to San Francisco. He describes some of the events during that rail ride to Chicago, enroute San Francisco. He describes the transit from San Francisco to Karachi where he received orders to Chungking, China. He recounts the landing in Chungking in late Spring 1942, where the pilot had to wait for the Yangtze River to subside prior to landing on a sandbar. Their first duty after arrival was to set up a radio station, only there was only one transmitter which had been flown in over the "hump" and the Chinese had dropped it in a rice paddy. He copied coded weather observations. After contracting malaria, he was sent to a location called Camp Three where he and other Radiomen set up a radio station. After "a couple of years" he was transferred back to Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington and given a choice of reporting to duty on Marine landing craft or returning to China. Enroute he landed in Bombay and crossed the Equator for the second time as a Shellback. After arriving in Chungking he eventually made it to Hankow where he met a Mr. Shock at the Swiss Consulate who was representing Swiss and American interests. He recounts his interactions with Europeans including a German doctor who asked him to take a letter to his daughter on his trip to Shanghai. He recalls that there seemed to be more Russians than Chinese in Shanghai. In December 1945 he returns to the United States and describes the trip on a troop ship with faulty propulsion which made a terrible noise, but eventually reached San Diego where he went into a bar and ordered a beer and a ham sandwich. Soon he was discharged and returned to New Jersey where he worked for RCA for 43 years until retirement.
Oral History Interview with Arthur Bohus, May 12, 2001 - ark:/67531/metapth1607440
Oral History Interview with Arthur Bohus, May 12, 2001, text, May 12, 2001; Fredericksburg, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1603472/: accessed May 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting National Museum of the Pacific War/Admiral Nimitz Foundation.