Today is Saturday the 24th of February, the
year 2001. I'm in Capitola, California.
I'm interviewing Mr. Abe Santos. The
interviewer is Bruce Petty.
Can you tell me what year you were born?
I was born in 1921, April 29, 1929.
1921, I'm sorry.
I usually say 4th, 1st, 29th, 21th.
Q And you were born where?
A In Santa Clara, California.
Q Your father was in agriculture or business?
A My father, no, he was an engineer at a lumber
company in Santa Clara, the Pacific Manufacturing
Lumber Company in the fire rooms and worked
there. And when I joined the Navy was in 1939,
I joined it in November, and I went in on
November 13, 1939, and
took my boot training in San Diego at the Naval
Station there in
San Diego. And then from there, after I got out
of boot camp, I
went aboard a ship and I was assigned to the
Astoria, the U.S.S.
Astoria, Harry Cruiser. year.
That was your first assignment.
My first assignment because I had a cousin
aboard there. He was a chief machinist mate
then, and he went up to full
commander, you know, as going up through the ranks.
A Mustanger, yeah. And so then when you're a
Mustanger, and when you
retire out of the service after about 30 some
odd years, then you revert
back to, like, he was a warrant officer when he
got his, going to
Ensign, stuff like that. Then when after, when
you retire, then you
get your retirement pay of the highest rank
held, whether you revert
back to a chief, a chief warrant officer,
that's what I understood.
And so then from there, well, you know, like, I
don't know if what we did after that, after
I went aboard the ship and stuff like that,
that's what you want to know.
VANDIVER Well, yeah. Did you go into the engineering
spaces right away?
MUNDY Yeah. No. First I went aboard and I was putting
a deck, the deck force up topside. You know how
that is. Everyone's there. And so then
he was in engineering, so I applied and went
down into the
fire rooms first and become a fireman, you
know, in there.
Then from there, after I got out of the - after
I was in
the fire rooms for some time, then I asked for other
assignments like in the auxiliaries, and I went into
auxiliaries, and that was, you know, the
maintenance of the
ship, the steam lines and different things,
take water
lines and then from the A-Division, it was
called the A-Division, mostly taking care
of some little pumps like steam lines
throughout the ship and things like that and repairing
those that were needed and from there I applied
to go down to the engine room. I was in two
years before the war started and so after I got
out of the A Division, I don't remember
if the war started then or not. I think it had
started, yes, and so then I applied and
went down to the engine room.
Okay, now where were you when the Japanese
bombed Pearl Harbor, do you remember that?
We left Pearl Harbor, I think it was Friday, I
say Saturday, but some guy said no, it was
Friday, before and we were on our way to Midway
when we left. All we had was TA aboard, target
ammunition, no armor piercing, no AP.
Were you with other ships, the carriers?
No, just ourselves and we had civilians aboard
because we were going to Midway and at that
time Midway had civilians working there and we
had some civilians that were taking them
over there and were going to bring the other
civilians back.
Were these American civilians?
Oh yeah, they were like maybe you'd consider
them a Navy Yard worker, but they worked as
a civilian like on Wake Island, different
islands, and we're taking these to replace
the ones and bring the ones back that did some
time on Midway.
Vandiver Were any of them Guamanians?
Miller Yeah, lots of them were Guamanians. Thinking
back, maybe some Hawaiians.
Vandiver Do you remember any of their names?
Miller No, I don't.
Vandiver Do you remember the captain of the
ship then?
Miller The captain of the ship then was P.B. Haynes.
He took over from Admiral Rollins Kelly Turner,
and Turner became full admiral with the amphibious
VANDADER DATTABASIRI Before Pearl Harbor.
VANDADER DATTABASIRI Before Pearl Harbor. And
this was when we
had our captain aboard. We were in the
Philippines. We had taken a trip and went to
the Philippines
because they were trying out those new what
they call degaussing cables.
Vander Hill Yes, if we keep things in
chronological order,
if we jump around to it, I'm going to have
trouble getting it.
McComish Before the war started we had taken
off and
went to the Philippines and then we were
testing out these degaussing cables and they were
were the ones that were supposed to, I think
the purpose of them was to round things all
the way around the ship and it was supposed to
ward off maybe mines I think, demagnetize
them. Our captain then was Rollins Kelly
Turner, he made a full admiral later.
A. So that was before you went to Midway. Do
you remember Kelly Turner?
M. Oh yeah, sure.
A. How do you remember him?
M. He was a hell of a nice little skipper.
Because later he had a reputation for a
terrible temper.
He was, you know, like, I was just a fireman
aboard ship, but I used to see him, but when
he came around and you had inspections, and
then we'd be, I was with the engineering
force, so I would be asked, so by the time he
got to us, well, we'd be standing out
there from maybe 8:00 in the morning or nine,
and we'd be, by the time he got
us in a fantail, well, he would, it would be
maybe 11:00,
close to noon. So then a couple of times he
pointed at me, I
needed a shave, and I shaved that morning. And
a couple of
times he'd be walking back, and I'd tap him on
the back, mean
I should get a haircut. You know, stuff like
that. And so
So anyway, then he took us to, then we went to,
you know, in the
Philippines, and then on the way, we were there
trying to, and we
were hit, and actually we were bringing back to
Henderson. It was
later made into a hospital trip. We were
bringing back to
Henderson with the families of the Asiatic
stations and the Philippines, they were bringing
back their families.
How long before the war was this, like October?
This was, let me see, I know like the last time
I was in the States was August of 1941
And then I went back, and the war started. Then
I went back, then we went to the Philippines.
This was before the war. And then, so I didn't
get back to the States until after World War
II. I spent the whole entire -
Okay, so Turner was relieved by Haynes before
Pearl Harbor? Yeah.
P.B. Haynes?
P.B. Haynes. Uh-huh.
Yeah, before Pearl Harbor, oh yes, uh-huh. And
I think Haynes, and I remember Haynes,
Our skipper, he had a son, you hear all this, a
son that just got out of the academy or
something and was put aboard the destroyer. So
from what we understand, he was so happy
because he was going to see his son at Pearl.
And we're out, let's say, on an operation
or something like that. His son was killed
during the deal and we never saw the captain
again. He went off the ship and everybody said
he sort of had a breakdown.
Then the next skipper we got aboard there, he
was the captain of the Colorado, the battle
wagon and it had to beach itself going off, you know.
That was in Nevada?
Or the Nevada. Yeah, he was on the Nevada. And
his name was Greenman, Captain Greenman,
but I don't know his first name.
Okay, Greenman. That's interesting because the
senior officer aboard the Nevada was Francis
Thomas, or Thomas Francis, and he won the Navy
Cross. He was a lieutenant commander,
won the Navy Cross for pulling the Nevada away
from the burning earth. And he's still
alive today and I interviewed him. He's in my
book. He's Admiral Francis Thomas, he's
95 years old. But the captain was Greenman,
he's the one I took over.
Vander Hill So he took over P.B. Haynes.
Schmottlach Can I ask you a question, P.B.
Haynes, his
son was killed on a destroyer in Pearl Harbor.
A. That's what I, you know, that's what I
heard, and I
V. And you don't know the name of the ship?
A. No. He was on a destroyer, and he was going
to come back, and they said he was real excited
because he could see his son, and that's when
we were on our way to Midland. And so, like
Like I say, then Greenman took over and
commanded the ship. And anyway, Captain
Greenman, he
was the last skipper we had. And see, we had
been on different things, so I remember him
saying one time when he took over command, he
said we had a good record, he said now
let's go out and get me some." And then when
the ship
went down, I don't know where the captain was.
I'd seen him
once when we got back to Pearl. He was at
Pearl, and I'd
seen him once. One of the kids was assigned to
him as a
driver from our ship, and so anyway, so he was
telling, and
I was walking somewhere in Pearl, at the
harbor, and he must have told the captain that
I was
on the ship so they pulled over and I went over
and spoke to him, just momentarily, he
didn't know me from Adam, we didn't know each other.
Let me get back now to, you were on your way to Midway?
Yeah, we were on our way to Midway when the war
broke out.
And how do you remember hearing about it?
Well, you know, it was I'd say maybe after 8 in
the morning or
something like that, and we're lining up for
chow, and they
says Pearl Harbor was under attack. We thought
it was a drill.
There's the captain who comes over in the last phase?
Yeah. And we thought it was a drill. We said,
what the hell
are they having a drill? It's Sunday. And
everybody thought
the same thing. They thought the plane's coming
over. At
Pearl, they were just planes, our planes, and
like they say, that one soldier, that
one Army base off the other side of the island,
and I can't think of the name of the base
right now, but it's a big Army base, the other
side, and it was actually at one time
they had the horses. He had spotted something
on the radar and they told him it was maybe
some of our own planes out of formation. You
hear all that stuff and they say it was true,
I guess it was. Finally, they made him an
officer, I think.
Oh, yeah, he retired as a colonel in the Army.
Yeah. And, anyway, so we're milling around, and
then they come out with the order to strip
ship. So we knew something was wrong.
What does that mean, strip ship?
Strip ship, you got, when they say Strip ship,
you're supposed to throw everything away that
would, in case there was something, that would
be flying objects around. You know what I
I mean, that's what they call it, like, strip
and ship for action.
VANDIVERSOEKEY. Okay. It doesn't mean strip the
paint or anything?
MUNROE. No, no, no. Say like if you had a bunch
of chairs or, you know, stuff like that,
just you'd get them out so they wouldn't be
flying around. And so then we were patrolling out.
VANDIVERSOEKEE. Have you been to Midway yet?
MUNROE. No, we didn't get to Midway.
VANDIVERSOEKEE. You turned around?
We turned around, yeah, because Midway was
under attack, and the civilians, I remember
them saying, they were civilians and they
wanted to be protected as civilians because
they weren't military. You know, you hear all
this stuff that goes on, so they were
put, I think, in a special place on the ship,
and from what I understand, it was said, because
like you say, you hear this was said, and they
said that our orders were
maybe from Makalapa, that's where the
headquarters were at Pearl, Makalapa, that's
where, when
I was with the flag there, that's where Nimitz
was, he went up there every morning for briefings
and stuff like that, and that was up in the
IAEA district, and they said that our orders
were that if we'd have seen anything afloat,
the biggest thing afloat, we were supposed
to ram it broadside at flank speed, whether it
be a carrier or not, because the only way
we could sink a ship with that target
ammunition, we'd have to shoot them way below
the water
line to make a hole in it because it wouldn't
explode and we didn't have any AP aboard.
So we patrolled and we stayed out and that
night just about dawn, I mean dusk, I didn't
see it because I was down in the engine room
perhaps or something like that, and they said
But they seen something on the horizon, and
they didn't see us, or maybe we saw them,
maybe they didn't see us, or maybe they didn't
want to do it, and then we found out later
on that those were the ships with the landing
force that was supposed to go and land at Pearl.
They had a landing force?
They were going to land?
They were.
And the reason they didn't land, they say,
because they had everything marked and they
knew where all the carriers were. And one of
the carriers wasn't at Pearl Harbor.
None of the carriers were there.
No. But anyway, this one carrier, they had sent
it over to Barber's Point, and they figured
that carrier was out looking for them. So they
say then their ships were turned around
and either went to truck or revolve, the
landing force, because they could have landed
on Pearl
if they wanted to. And that's, like I say, I'm
just telling you scuttlebutt was going
around the ship. I couldn't say, hey, I knew
this and I knew that because I was fireman
third because there was no fourth class. There
was the lowest you could get anyway. And so
We stayed out until the following Saturday. We
came back to Pearl. When we came back to
Pearl, Pearl Harbor was still afire, and bodies
were coming up in the harbor. I forget how
long we stayed there. We stayed at Pearl, and
from Pearl, we left there, and our first
battle was the Battle of the Coral Sea.
Okay, now, Pearl Harbor, did you have any
assignments in terms of cleaning up the mess?
Yes, they had working parties out.
What were your working parties?
I was just kept on a ship. We were aboard the
ship, but they used to have working parties,
and you'd go ashore, whether it was taking on
ammo, getting - I've even been before
war and on ships before while waiting to get on
my ship and trying to face Pearl. We'd
on a ship and we'd go and get some sand on the
beach to hold a stone in the decks. So
you have a working party and they assign you to
a working party.
But you were mostly in the engine room?
I was mostly in the engine room, yeah.
Then you were sent down to the Coral Sea?
Yeah, we went to the Coral Sea and we were,
like a cruiser, always flanked the carrier
Because if the fish was coming, we would take
the fish for the carriers.
She got hit.
Then we picked up a lot, many, many of the pilots.
Vander Hill Okay, well let's get back to it.
What do you remember leading up to the Battle
of the Coral Sea?
Any problems? No.
We were just, the Coral Sea, and I forget, but
there was one battle that wasn't,
Oh yeah, they say the Battle of Coral Sea
wasn't supposed to have been the Battle of
Coral Sea. We were supposed to go into Truk or
something like that. I forget, maybe we
might have had Black Jack Fletcher aboard. He
was the admiral and I know we had the flag
aboard so we had to have an admiral or
something like that.
But they say before we got in there, the
Aussies or somebody else bombed in there hours ahead
of time.
Bombed where?
A truck or a ball where we were supposed to go.
And so their ships left out and that's where we
caught them in the Coral Sea.
I think his truck is way up in the Carolinas.
One of those hours.
Maybe he was in the Solomons or something.
He could be around in there.
I can look it up. But what do you remember now
about everything leading up to the actual
fighting? Do you remember when the first planes
came over or where you were?
Well, I was down below and then we were all at
GQ Conditions Ed, so then we could hear
our guns firing, AA's and stuff like that, and
we had good guns because we never got
hit. We had good kids on the five-inch
batteries and stuff like that. And most of the Navy
batteries battles were between the first and
third or fourth of the month, if you remember
that. They were all like in June the first, and
the battle would last maybe about three days.
Vander Hill Yes, it was always around the first part
of the month, the first week or so of the month.
I remember the battle of Midway in early June
and Coral Sea was in May and then everybody
rushed off to Midway right after that at the
end of May or early June.
So they said, and after we come in, then at
that time, we were at sea for 103 days, but
I've come into port.
Before you actually had the Battle of Coral Sea?
No, after the Battle of Coral Sea, we stayed
out there. And you know what they did on our
ship, the carpenters, they mounted out of
two-by-fours and racks that we could roll
off depth charges in case of subs. And we never
had to, we'd have blown off our own
a fan jail perhaps. We couldn't have got away.
But they made a regular ramp that they'd
roll those up. You couldn't fire them off. We
didn't have any Y-guns like the destroyer.
Vander Hill Well, what do you remember about
the Battle
of the Coral Sea then?
Miller Battle of the Coral Sea, I'll tell you, it
was just - like I tell people, I never
panicked, but you're so busy, you don't
whether you're being hit, especially if they're
shooting your main battery and the ship vibrating
and banging around, and you don't know whether
you're being hit or anything like that, you
could be hit and not know it. You know what I
mean, you could take a fish up forward and
the ship would shudder and all that stuff, but
you didn't know if you were being hit
So when you heard all the noise and you felt
the vibration, you didn't know if it was
because your big gun was going off or you were
being hit?
Yeah, and then if you shoot your broadside,
your main battery, we had three turrets, and if
you're shooting into an island, and when you
let them all go, you're sliding back about a
half a mile through the water.
Yeah, the recoil seems bigger.
Yeah, uh-huh.
And there's a what, five, eight-inch gun?
We had nine-inch. Nine-inch?
Then the battle wagons had the bigger ones. We
had the second biggest because we were
just the other shipwreckers.
So basically you heard a lot of noise and stuff?
Oh yeah, and we didn't know whether we were
being hit or, you know, because you'd
be down in the engine room or something and you
weren't on topside.
Did you ever get topside?
Yeah, a lot of times. I've seen some dogfights.
You know, we used to have what they call like
A and B watch. Maybe like you were A watch. On
today, even day, you would be down the
engine room and you would be, so you'd be up in
the mess hall above the engine room
and when there was a lull, then you'd shift.
Now, why would you be up in the mess desk?
That's just sort of a reserve. They didn't
have enough people, they didn't need all of you down?
No, no. You have just your crews, you know, and
so when, like, you know, you go on a watch,
so you have so many men to the end room, so
many men to the fire room, so many men for
this and that, and so then you're in Watch one
or something like that, and so you might
be watch two. So then after the, like, when you
do four and eight off, so when you're
four hours over, the other four to eight would
come down, relieve you, and then you're
through with your watch because you went off
and fell off the boat. And you'd just
change watches.
But you were pretty much confined to the mess
room, is that it?
Well, no, during a battle, but this was during
a battle when you went to general
quarters. Well, if you weren't going to be down
in the engine room, if it wasn't
your day to be to the engine room, the crew
that was on there that day would go down,
or that four hours or whatever it is, they
would go down, and then if there was more
of a four hours, so when they'd be a break,
what they could undo Condition Z, Condition
Z is where everything is locked up. No air
coming in, nothing. That's called Condition
Zed in the Navy. So then when they would get to
the point where they could open up, you
would relieve that crew. But they wouldn't do
it while you were still at General
Corps. Maybe there would be a lull that they
could secure from Condition Zed, and
then you would change watches. Because I was on
watch many times, more than four
hours, like you say, every four hours, you're
on four or eight. And so then we stayed out
for 103 days after the Coral Sea, and we took
on provision of oil at sea.
Vander Hill But there's nothing else you can
tell me
about what happened at the Coral Sea?
Schmottlach Well, like I say, we had
Vander Hill You didn't say anything because you
were down
below, is that it?
Schmottlach Yeah, well, you know, we picked up
- and
And then some of the pilots, all the other, I
forget which other carriers were at the
Coral Sea.
New York Town and Saratoga was shown. Yeah.
The Saratoga, you know we'd say if you ever
wanted to come ashore, go back to the States,
get aboard the Sara.
The Sara took a hit every time, and she'd take
one hit back to the States.
So he said if you want to go to the States, I'd
see if you could get some.
Lexington was shown.
The Lexington, yeah.
The Lexington was shown. Uh-huh.
And Saratoga was hit there?
And she even took a hit one time going out
through Torpedo Junction out of Pearl.
I interviewed a guy who was on board as far as
the air wing, and he said yeah they took a torpedo.
And like I say, everybody would say hey let's
put in a transfer and get aboard the Sarah.
But, like I say, we picked up a lot of pilots,
a lot of the pilots of the Yorktown and the
other carriers that couldn't take on any more
planes, so those other planes came alongside
of us, and then we had rescue whale boats.
They'd just bring up their nose, cut their
engine and flop in the water, and then they'd
come out. And we picked them up. And then
Some of the planes that wouldn't go down, a lot
of them would hit the water and go down
like a wet sponge. Others would float, so you'd
have to use a 40mm and shoot them, you
know, so they'll sink. And we picked up many,
many survivors off of the Lexington.
Vander Hill Did you get to meet any of them?
Miller Oh, yes, sure. I talked to them, and
then there were burnt cases. Even some pilots
who picked up that were, the hands were burnt,
something like that, maybe their phones caught
on fire, something like that, and a lot of the
other men that we picked up. And so we
all pitched a hand in helping the corpsmen and
doing that and trying to make them feel
comfortable. And the pilots, when they were on
our ship, they were nervous as hell. They
said they wished they were back in their plane.
They felt safer in their planes than they
did on the cruiser. It's just like whatever
you're in, I've
talked to friends of mine that were in a tank
corps, and
they said, boy, they wouldn't be on something
like that if
they felt safer in their tank. You feel safe is
what you're doing.
Q. Well, you're familiar with that.
A. Yeah.
Q. Okay. So where did you go from the corps?
A. After we went back to Pearl, and I don't
know how long
were at Pearl, but then we headed for Midway.
In the meantime, the Japanese thought we'd
all run to Kiska. Remember they started some
operations there? And they said when we caught
them around Midway that they didn't even think
we were around. Some pilot said when he made
the first pass over them, some of the Japanese
were taking sunbaths, and they thought we'd
all run and go to Kiska, but through our
intelligence we knew where they were going to
be, and they
said we caught them off hand. And so one time
during the Battle of Midway, I was up on - you're
not going to use your shore batteries, I mean
your main guns. Well, you'd make some sort
of excuse if you're up there and go to General
Quarters so we'd pretend we didn't make it
down enough. If planes were going, we'd just
get under the turrets. And I've seen a lot
of dogfights and Harold Butch O'Hara, the name
the O'Hara airport for, he shot down
five Betty Bombers in one day, and he became an
ace at Midway.
I interviewed his wingman, who lives in
Danville, Alex Brasher. He was his wingman
before he
got killed.
I've seen these planes docked, but I couldn't
say that was Butch O'Hara doing that. Everything
in planes colliding with each other, just a
hell of a thing.
Now you're part of the fallback line, right?
You're back there with the Maryland, you had
Midway Island and you had the carriers and then
you had battleships and cruisers back
there in case they came through.
Yeah, but we were all, you could see all the
ships, if you saw the movie The Battle of
Midway, a lot of those were actual photos that
were taken because we saw the Battle
of Midway three days later on our ship, it was
all in color.
When I see that movie, I couldn't say, well,
there's my Astoria there, or the other ship,
but those were actual pictures of our ship.
But you were there close enough that you could
actually see the Japanese and American planes fighting?
Oh, yeah.
You could see the dogfights, sure.
Did you see the Yorktown or any of the other
carriers that hit? Yeah.
In fact, we were watching the Yorktown, and
they say the Japanese put another fish in it.
we heard that we sank, we put a fish in Yorktown
because she was just burning, you know what I
mean, and
they said, and this is what was scuttled, and
they said
there was two guys midship, but there was no
way they
could have got out, and they said they were
informed that
they were going to torpedo it, and they said,
one of them
We'll put one right midship because we've got a
hell of an AC-Ducey game going on.
Okay, now here's the Yorktown was hit and
started the list, they ordered Abandon ship.
Everybody got off, but the following morning it
was still afloat, the fires were out,
so they sent a salvage party back. And I
interviewed a man down in San Ramon,
who was part of the salvage party, they went
back and what he says was that there was a
Hammond I think was alongside and they fired
about three fish, one of them hit the Hammond
instead of the Yorktown and another one went
right under the Yorktown because he was having
once and he saw the torpedo come up under the
ship and go the other way and when he
got up to running across the hangar deck that's
when one of the fish hit and one of them hit
the hammer too and killed a lot of guys in the
hammer. But as far as he was concerned
it was the Japanese submarine that hit him.
And then see from what we understood that they
sent one of our cans. You know like I
Maybe the submarine didn't sink completely, but
it may have been unsalvaged and then one
of our cans.
I have to go look that up and see.
But you saw the Yorktown get hit?
Oh yeah, sure.
I saw it all afire and everything like that.
Did you pick up any of the pilots from that?
I'm not sure.
I don't know if we did or not.
Maybe not.
remember to read it. But we could have, you
know, and so.
Vander Hill Have any Japanese in the Japanese picture
Vander Hill You know, but during the battle, I understood
that they said a Betty bomber had crashed or
something like that, and they were standing
on the wing. And they says at, what our ship
did or another ship, they went to pick them
over and one of those little officers pulled
out a pistol and started shooting at them
and they racked them off with the .40s, .40 millimeters.
VF2 40s, not the .20s?
VF1 The .20s or .40s or something, you know.
And so anyway, and they said at, and then
they said another time one ship picked up some
crew and they said the navigator, I think
they assumed he was only about 16 years old.
They surrendered?
Yeah. Well, yeah, they picked up, but the one
that they, this one ship or, and it wasn't
our ship or something like that, but it could
have been ours or one of the ships, they racked
him off with the 20mm.
And then they say another incident, and here's
all the stories you hear from different guys
on different ships, you hear one of these guys
say this, that they captured one crew
and the young navigator, or whoever it was,
died of fright when they got him aboard ship
because he thought he was going to be like the
Japanese put out those deals, showed the
Americans biting kids in half, and they thought
we were a bunch of cannibals. I've seen
a Japanese poster like that, like Marines
holding a kid and biting him in half and that's
how all those people in that island were
jumping over the cliffs and they were trying to tell
them to don't do it. I was watching the History
Channel and they figured some of those islands
still some Japanese still on there.
They might still be, they're very old though.
Oh yeah, they'd be my age group or older.
Yeah, one surrendered on Anguam in 1970.
That's right. And I heard too, what they said,
in 1949 they found one of our pilots that was
on one of those islands. Really?
I've heard that from different people.
You mean stranded on an island?
Yeah, it was found in 1,949. And they've been
finding some on Guam, just until recent years,
and they figured there's still some on Guam.
I haven't heard any reports, I used to live out
there, but I haven't heard any reports
citing that. I think they found the body of one
who had been hiding out there.
And Willard showed it on the History Channel
the other night. I watched that quite a bit.
and I forget what year it was, but after World
War II, and there were speakers in there,
even some Japanese in there, leading with them,
come out of the jungle.
So what else do you remember about the Battle
of Midway, anything?
Well, the Battle of Midway is, you see, we, in
our ship, we, you know, did normal things.
We were doing a lot of firing at times,
anti-aircraft. And what we used to like, if it
was cloudy,
they weren't flying, we weren't flying. So all
you had to worry about was your surface deal.
Submarine and surface ships.
Yeah, submarine and surface ships. People say,
I say, well, the way they did it, if
Then they say at one time, I don't know whether
it was during the Battle of Midway, and they
say after they secured, two planes were coming
in and they were going to take them aboard
and there were a couple of Japanese pilots.
Oh, yeah, that was at Coral Sea.
Coral Sea? Yeah.
One of those.
And they shot one of them down, I think.
Yeah. And, you know, there was no place to
land, so hell, we'd go over there, you know.
So like I say, a lot of things that you try to
remember and then you'll hear some people
say this, some people say that, you know, and
so then you, you know, and I know, and
I forget how long we're at Midway, and so our
ship and our captain requested that we
The captain asked if we needed some repair and
he wanted at least a month or something
like that to stay in the harbor. He was told we
had 48 hours. That was after Midway and
that's when we headed for the Solomons.
So you were in Midway for just a few hours?
A few days until after battle, after things
were secured, then we came back. And we went
to try to relieve Wake Island and we were
turned away from Wake Island when Wake Island fell.
Oh, so you were part of the relief force that
turned around. I interviewed a guy who was
on Wake Island and spent the rest of the war as
a POW.
I think we had, I don't know if it was Fletcher
aboard, and they said when we got the order
to turn around and go back to Pearl, and we're
outnumbered there because they had landed
already on the way, and they said up on the
bridge, he threw his hat down and stepped
all over it.
Like you say, our messengers go up from the
engine rooms, take every quarterly, hourly
readings up there.
Then they hear rumors, they come back, tell us
this, and so then we went back to Pearl.
Our ship was in Task Force 58, and I think in
our task force we were with the Jimmy Doolittle
raid on Tokyo. We had a part in it.
Okay, that was in 1942. Yeah.
Can I use your flashlight?
Yeah, sure.
So this is after you did it.
Go ahead.
You know, like the Doolittle raid, we didn't
see it, and you hear what happened.
And they say that had the planes waited until
they could take off,
they'd have had enough fuel to take them to
like in the Russian area or China, I can say.
But from what we've heard and what we've said,
So many hours ahead of that time they spotted a
Japanese fishing boat.
Ahead of the planned launch time?
Yeah. They said they had one and so then later
on they saw another one.
Let me just get a second. Was Doolittle Raid
before Coral Sea and Midway?
No, that was after Coral Sea.
After Midway. I'll check the dates. I'm sorry.
And so they said, what happened, they decided,
well, maybe those
Japanese fishing ships or something like that
had radios aboard and
notified Tokyo. So they launched the planes,
and that's why some of
them didn't have enough fuel to continue on,
you know, so they
landed in enemy territory. And they said, but
then, and this is also
over here aboard ships because they're in
contact with the other ships. And they said
that when they went over Tokyo, they hadn't
even known we were there because they heard
music playing, stuff like that, you know, what
they picked up over the radio. But they
said had they not taken off at that time, they
would have had enough fuel left to take
them because some were supposed to go into
China and a few of them didn't make it.
Like in that Korean book, you know what they
did to one pilot? They tied both of his arms
the trucks and shot them away.
Vander Hill And the Korean War?
Earl Mueller Yeah, during the Korean War. It's
in that
book. But anyway, like I say, and after that,
then we did come back to Pearl. It's damn
hard to try to remember all that stuff.
Vander Hill So what do you remember though
about being
on the Nashville during the Doolittle raid?
Earl Mueller On the Astoria?
Vander Hill On the Astoria.
A. No, we just were maybe like plane guards. We
were there in case we were needed.
M. But you didn't?
A. No, we didn't do anything, no. We were in
the task force and you're like the backup.
M. So you were there with the Nashville then?
A. Huh?
M. The Nashville?
A. Yeah, and I was on the Astoria. And then
those other ships, there were tin
cans, and so we were just there in case
something would really happen. If
Japanese planes would have come over, our guns,
our anti-aircraft would have taken part
in that, and if there were any surface ships
come over, we would engage in battle with
them, but we didn't have nothing to do with
that, because nothing was ever hit, I don't think.
So what did you do after the Doolittle raid?
After the Doolittle raid, we probably went back
to Pearl.
You had to go to the Solomons pretty soon, I think.
We went to the Solomons after, the Doolittle
raid was before the Solomons, even before Midway.
Oh yeah, so I thought April.
And so then anyway, we come back and then we
went to, off to the Coral Sea, and we opened
up the campaign on August 9th of 1942, and we
were hit and sunk on August 7th. We were
sunk on the 9th.
Tell me about the details from the very
beginning, what you remember though. You opened
up the
campaign on the 7th? Yeah.
By doing what?
We were shooting broadside on the island, and
the Marines hadn't landed yet, and we
We had an officer aboard our ship, his name was
Isham, Lieutenant Isham, and he was a
married to some girl, her father was a governor
of some state or something like that, a hell
of a nice guy.
Nice guy? Isham.
Yeah, something like that, I-S-H-A-M-E. Just a
hell of a nice guy. So he went up and him
and somebody else, they parachuted on one of
the highest points at Salmon for fire control. Parachuting?
And they flew over in a plane?
I guess so. Because he left the ship, and they
said that's what he did, but he was killed.
He was killed parachuting?
No, no, he was killed after he was on there and
directing fire from the ships that were out there.
their radios and all that stuff like that, like
a commando type of deal, and a lot of
people didn't know, but they say actually the
first ones on the island are the Coast
Guard, they would land and fire control, and a
lot of people didn't know that, I didn't
know that either.
Well I talked to a guy who lives in New Zealand
now, but he was the beach master, he controlled
all these parties that run loading supplies and
directing them. He's 89 years old.
Okay, so you were firing on the islands.
Yeah, firing on the islands and then
anti-aircraft, whatever it is, you know what I
mean? Because
you're down below and you're used to damn busy
and stuff like that, but we're doing
that. And so then, anyway, when we were patrolling...
VANDIVERSAROONAN Okay, so after you're stopping
at the island,
you've got a 40-mil...
MUNROE Yeah, and we were doing it, and there was
a, like, I think, I forget which, who was the
lead ship, maybe the Vincent's Quincy
or the Australian cruiser Canberra and us, and
the Chicago. The Chicago was in that group,
And it got hit and McVeigh, the captain of it,
backed off. And he later committed suicide.
McVeigh, he committed suicide also. And that
Japanese sub that was after him, they said
well he should have been zagged. And he said
there was no way in the world he could have
gone out because the Japanese sub had two human
torpedoes aboard.
And the Chicago backed off and so whether that
left a big gap I don't know, but they
say that night and the battle started I guess
it was close to midnight maybe afternoon and
that was in that deal there because the Marines
their troops were in the harbor and they hadn't
landed yet. And they say someone aboard our
ship told O.D. that he got something up there
and it was saying, and they didn't want to wake
up the old man, you know, because you
wake up the old man and you better have a good
reason to wake up the old man. And they
didn't, it's probably some of our own ships out
of formation.
That was probably whoever was on the fridge. I
have his name at home.
Anyway, you mean on the Astoria?
Yeah, I think the gunner's officer's name was
Sheets or something like that. He went to fire,
he asked for permission to fire. The officer at
the watch, who I think was the executive
officer, hesitated and finally the executive
says he started firing on his own and the
captain came up and wanted to know what was
going on.
Anyway, because our navigator, what was his
name? Anyway, so that's what they said.
They ignored that and said, no, we don't want
to wake up the captain. They don't
want to take the responsibility of going and
waking up the captain. And then,
like I say, they dropped star shells on us. The
Japanese must have had a little
playing off a sub or something like that. And
then we were between them, and that's
when they opened fire on us. And we were
shooting probably on each other, you know,
night firing
like that. Because the Navy never did have any
night firing battles, and that was one
of the first, I believe. And so we lasted about
12 minutes before we lost power. We
We only got about nine valves, but we were hit,
Holy Christ, we were just hit up in Hell.
And he hits close to the spaces where you were working?
Yeah. I was in the engine room, and I was in
the after engine room. See, and when all
the engines stopped, you know, and then the
water, you know, road pipes, and coming in,
and that water gets hot, and the steel, you
couldn't even touch it.
So you had hot, superheated steam coming in here?
Oh yeah, you know, because your lines are
breaking and your water and when, you know,
like if, say if you're in an engine room and
you're coming in, you're going to either light
off or you've got what they call a securing
watch. And so then you and your fireman or
your oil man, the throttleman, which I was, and
my oil man, and the other turbine would
have the messenger. And you secure your
engines, and by the time you get it secured,
that temperature
is so hot you could hardly stand it. Your nose
is burning. So as soon as you lock it
down, you don't go down for about three days
because that's the cool-off normal.
And so then, like I say, the water was getting
goddamn hot, and it was coming up, and so
So we finally got out.
So hot water was coming in and rising inside you?
And you were securing the steam lines?
No, no.
Hell no. No.
You're just trying to get out.
Because the turbines stopped everything.
Your steam lines were broken so you have
nothing to turn in your fans, your turbines.
So we're laying dead in the water.
And how did you get out?
How did I get out?
you know, and you go up and like it was a
7-inch armor over the, around your midship
where your engines are.
VANDIVERS 7-inch, 7-inch of armor plating?
MUNROE Yeah, armor plating. And the hatch was sort
of Sprung, and so they thought they shorted us
down. You know, hey, you can't get out.
So anyway, and this is what stories you hear,
you know, from other guys. And they said that
some officer ran by and there was a guy with
the battle JV phones on and was dead. So they
said this officer, whoever it was, picked it up
and was our engine room trying to contact
our contact up there because, you know, you're
connected with either ones on your JV phones,
you know, your metal phone. And so then the
damage control party or something came out
and got the hatch open, and we come out.
VANDIVERSOEKEY. Otherwise you wouldn't have
made it.
MUNDY. Oh, no, hell no. And, Boyd, I'm telling
you, it was hot.
VANDIVERSOEKEE. Oh, Christ.
MUNDY. And so then we got up in the mess hall,
because we had two mess halls, one
forward and one aft. One and two engines were
in the front mess hall. The other
were below the reactor mess hall. So we got
out, and I don't know, I would say there
must have been about, and other people in
there, maybe 14 people, and we took a hell
of a hit, and myself and about three other guys
were the only ones that got out of there.
VANDADER DECKER Wait a minute, after you got up
to the mess
decks, you took another hit?
Oh hell, you couldn't realize, you know that
armor plate was that big and you know it was
laid open like if you got a knife on a piece of
fat and just sliced it and the fat would
just roll over.
So it actually hit the mess compartment or no?
There were holes all over it. You don't know
where in the hell you were being. And hell
was, our stacks were blasted. One of our
turrets, I don't know, it was
balls off, they say, a shell went in one side,
and it just hit inside
and exploded right through the, you know, turret.
And so, like you see, and then the after, there
was a
geetum stand, you know, and when I, you know,
and all I felt
when that explosion, I felt like if you're
standing by a fire
barbecuing and those, you know, cinders start
going, that's all I felt.
But when I cut, and I was laying up against the
steel sheet that goes across the GEDUC stand,
and I must have dented that in ten inches and
thrown up against it.
And when I cut through, all I had on was a pair
of Levi's. My shoes were blown off, my life
jacket was blown off, because I put my life
jacket on, and my wristwatch was blown off.
So you were in the MISDEC, and a shell actually
hit in the MISDEC?
Yeah, or hit somewhere in there, because all I
could see was a big flash, and I heard a guy screaming.
One guy was screaming, his arm was blown off or
something like that.
And somebody around kind of helped and gave him
a shot of morphine,
you know, that little cancer, you shoot him in
the butt and that's the biggest part.
And then you're supposed to mark him, and then
I never saw him after that.
after that and they put a big battle bandage on
it. I never saw the kid again.
VF- Now you say how many people were in that
mess deck approximately?
LL- I would say there must have been about 14
of us.
VF- And how many of you got out alive?
LL- Myself and about 3 others, I'm 4. And the
ship was black, when you get into something
black, it's black. But I knew where I was at
all times. When I finally come to and all
I could see was just flames and stuff like that.
But I knew where I was and I knew over
here was a tailor shop and I knew here and
there was a ladder going up to the trunk.
And when I got up in the trunk, they're little
compartments, and they call them trunks on
the ship.
They're escape trunks?
No, they're not escape trunks, they're just
decks, half decks maybe, and they take you
with different parts of the ship.
There's ladders that will take you up there?
Yeah, a ladder will take you up there.
And so when I got up there, and there was fire,
you could see it, and the water was
about better than waist high in there. And the
trunk was not much bigger than the kitchen here.
But was there water in the mess tanks by then
or no?
Oh yeah, the water was coming in and up there.
And you know, this is the honest to God truth,
I was pushing bodies and pieces of bodies away
from me. That was in my trunk. I mean
you know, and you reach down and you could,
because there was fire, you could see some
light, you know, coming in from the depths, and
you're in blood, because the water is
just real, real blood. Anyway, I finally made
my way, and I got on the fan cail, and so
people with you in the trunk trying to get out?
VANDIVERSARAYA. Oh, yeah. I don't know. You
know, you can't
tell because every, you know, like when you
swim for your life at sea, you could be two
feet away from somebody and don't see them for
the waves and jump like that, and you
think you're the only one there. And so, and I
remember this one kid, Phyllis, and
I'm telling you, when we got on topside, the
ready boxes were going off, you know,
the ready boxes on the ___
ammunition going off, guys were being blasted
with those, and they sounded like quail going
back and forth. And this kid, Phillips, and I
told him, I said, you know Phillips, I wish
I'd get it next. Because here and all that
stuff, and you should have seen our deck,
And so I got up there, and it was still dark,
and so we were standing around, and our
indication was our main battery for the 8-inch
shells, I mean the 9-inch battery, was
below us, but it indicated that it had been
flooded, that there was fire around it, and
it wasn't flooded. We'd have been the first
ones into orbit. That thing would have
were gone. And so some guy, we were standing
around and somebody lit a cigarette. And this
is just kind of comical, but some little young
ensign come up. Douse that light, you want
to disclose our position to the enemy? And
Christ, we're burned from the stem to stern,
you know? No place to go.
Now, Phelps was in the engine room with you?
Yeah, he was in the engine room, and he was the
one that got out. So we just, you know,
and then some officer, a lot of people were
abandoning the ship, and myself and another
couple of guys, I can't think of who of our,
what the name of our chaplain was, a nice
guy, but he was hurt pretty bad. And we told
him, and there were ships coming, you know,
were throwing guys over, boats in the water,
and he didn't want to go. And we put a life
jacket on him and we threw him over the side.
And I never seen him again either.
No, but how about Phelps, did you see him again
after that?
No, I didn't because we got picked up by
different ships. I had a cousin aboard a ship
and I
didn't see him again until we got back to Pearl
about three weeks later.
So what happened, you finally left the ship too?
No, so I was aboard, and an officer comes out,
and there was a few of us standing around
and, you know, I can't remember who some of the
guys, but they were shipmates. And
some officer comes out and told us for us to
abandon ship. And he says, Talagi is, you
know, walking out that way, and we told him to
get lost. He didn't even know where to
hell land was, and he wanted us to go, so we
just ignored him. And then, so finally,
they were, it started to get light, and they
were pumping water into us, but nothing was
Being pumped out?
You know, trying to put out some fires and
stuff. And nothing pumping it out. And then
This was at 11:15, up forward on the port side,
I heard there was a big explosion and
it was probably one of our five-inch magazines
went up. Exactly an hour later we sank.
Now you got off before you sank? No.
You stayed on until it went down?
And I was standing right next to Captain
Greenman. And I told him, and I says, and he
had track
all over. And I had, you know, stuff in my head
and all over, you know, and so anyway
You had shrapnel in your head?
Yeah. You know, it was wired, but I didn't turn
in because after we got off of there,
I was helping corpsmen. Peeling guys' skin off
that burnt so bad that you have to keep
them peeled, and that's how I used to work with
the corpsmen. Corpsmen, after we got
on the ship that picked us up, and we went to
Espirito Santo.
VANDIVERSARO Okay, let's get back. You were
there with
Greenman, and what happened?
MORRIS And then I told him, I says, Captain, I
says, I could give the word for a abandoned
ship? And he says, well, we're not down yet.
And I remember that. I could hear him still
saying that. And anyway, so me and a little
Jonesy, and Jonesy, a kid by the name of
Jonesy, and he was in there, and he says-
VANDIVERSARO Jonesy was in the engine room, too?
Yeah, and he says, I'm scared. I said, hey,
Jonesy, you've got a life jacket on. I said,
you either go over the low side of the ship,
and we had wounded laying on the ship, and the
ship went over, they all went down with the ship.
Oh, they did?
You always go over the high side, you know,
because if you go over, and anyway.
So you had wounded there that hadn't taken off?
Oh, no, yeah, we had wounded, hell, one of my
officers, he was split from his, up in
here down to his hip.
So his whole back was split open?
Open, and so, and then, and I go around, and he
was a guy from Texas, a handsome guy, Geez,
he was a handsome guy, when he, he was about
six foot two, and when he'd have his white
uniform on his sword, and I still say, I'm
telling you, he was a handsome, handsome man.
I mean, just a beautiful guy. And so he, I
checked, you know, to see what I got, and
never moaned, they did Moan, sure, but he asked
me if I wanted some water. And I don't
know, someplace, you know, used to put in like
garbage cans, they'd have water in it
with like cornmeal in it. So you drink that and
it would quench your thirst. So I found
some water. I can't tell you where in Hell I
found it, but I found some water and I gave
it to him and I'm holding him up this way and
he's trying to drink it. As he's drinking
it, I'm just covered in blood.
And he didn't make it?
He was still alive when the ship went over. And
all the other ones, the guys laying there.
They couldn't get them off?
No, because the ship had to leave because there
were Japanese subs in the area. So they left.
They left the ship?
Yeah. So anyway, like I told Greenman, so
actually I'm almost positive, I nudged Greenman
when we were going over and as the ship went over...
It rolled to one side?
The ship rolled this way. It rolled to port
because the hold must have been on that side.
And I walked over the ship and I jumped off the
screw, the shaft, into the water.
And I was trying to get away from the ship.
And every time I tried to swim, guys were
jumping in and those big Kapok guys were
driving me back.
So I grabbed onto one guy, and he almost went
Berserk. I could hear him hollering,
turn him loose. So I turned him loose so he'd
have drawn me, too, you know.
So this kid, his name was Smitty, from Chicago.
And he knew what I, so he gave me his
hand, and he swam me out. You know, this way
he's cool and he's got a life jacket.
And he swam me out about maybe seven, eight,
nine, ten feet. So I said,
okay. I could do it. And I never saw him anymore.
You didn't have a life jacket?
I didn't have a life jacket. And you know what
happened? This
officer, we had this officer, I don't even want
to name him. He
might still be alive. He made full admiral too.
He was our first
lieutenant. And he asked me, he says, where's
your life jacket? I
said, I don't have one. I said mine was blown
off. He said, find
another one. Him being an officer was his duty
to give me his. You
know that?
Because you're supposed to make sure your men
are as safe as you can get them.
And he was supposed to give me his. He told me
to get none of them. He took off.
And it was still sort of dark. So I found one.
I put it on. Got a big deal.
and I go this way and I found something really
odd. So I went by the fire and I look in there
and there was a jaw in there and part of teeth.
So I peeled that right off. So when we went
over and I was, you know, hit the water and did
oil and shit like that, you know, and
then my body started burning because I had like
wire, a little piece, not enough where
I had to be, I could say, hey, I'm wounded,
you've got to take care of me.
Nicks and cuts.
Nicks and cuts and for weeks afterwards, I comb
my hair and I feel something, a little
piece of wire come out.
Wire shrapnel?
Yeah, from shrapnel. And, you know, after, this
was an after war, I used to get a little fester
right up in here, and every now and then it
would fester up, and I'd squeeze a little
matter, come out, and then go away.
And so this was in about, maybe, 48 or 49. And
one time it really got bad, my wife said,
God, she said that was bad. So I kept going and
I kept pressing, I'd feel something in
there, and I kept working. And you know, a
piece of steel come out of me was about the
size of a match head. I don't know how long it
had been on my body, you know, traveled
around. And after I got that out, and I had it
and I don't know what ever happened to
to it, but then it never happened again. But
when we were, as the ship was going over and
I could still hear Captain Greenman with all
that commotion and going on and it was raining,
and every time after, you could be on a nice
day and you have a sea battle when you're
using a big gun, pretty soon it's going to rain.
The noise brings the clouds over and
rain. And Captain Greenman, I heard him say,
Dan, this is his exact words, he says,
turn around, men, and watch your ship go down.
And so, I don't know how far it was
from the ship, maybe to the street or something
like that. And the ships would
always roll over, you know, and the bow would
come up, and then you'd go down
go down stern because that's where you get all
the engineering. And as soon as it gets
underwater, a big geyser comes up where the
water goes down.
But you had walked off the stern, right? Yeah.
So the stern was sticking up and then it went
back down?
I walked off as the ship was rolling over, but
one day sink, they'll be laying this way
in the water, see? And then usually the
Fo'c'sle will come up a little bit, and then
for some
submarine and it'll start teeter-tottering a
little bit, and then the stern will go down,
and when the stern goes down, then the water
goes into your stacks and you'll get a big explosion.
Did that happen with the-
Oh yeah. Every ship will do it.
Did that cause more casualties than your ship?
No, it didn't cause more, but a lot of guys-I'm
almost Hollywood taken down by sharks. Excuse
me, I have to go.
Oh sure, sure.
A. In the water. You know.
V. You were in the water and you said the
sharks started coming?
A. Oh, yeah. Because when they picked us up,
there were machine gun sharks. You know what
we did? We knew there were sharks around. So
before the ship went down, we knew it was
going to go down, we started throwing over
bloody mattresses. And the sharks smelled
blood, miles away, I think. And because I've
heard what this one guy said that something
bit him, but we never seen him again.
Well, you're in the water, something bit him,
and he disappeared?
Yeah. And one guy come up, and they said,
because other ships picked him up, but
he says half of his foot was gone or a sharp
bit off half of his foot. I never saw the
guy anymore because we were all picked up by
different ships, you know.
How long were you in the water?
I was in the water for almost six hours. But I
never panicked. I see guys come out of places
on the ship like wild horses go right into a
fire, you know what I mean, just go bananas.
But I just back stroked and floated on my back,
but I was getting really, really tired,
really right, I was getting kind of dark, I
think almost dark. And I tell people this,
I even mentioned it to some doctors, you know
when you talk about it, they say, well, you're
hallucinating or something like that.
And you know, like on a rainy day and sometimes
the sun comes out and you see these, like, the
northern lights maybe come down?
And I've seen that, and I heard a choir
singing, and I could still hear it today.
If at certain times when you're in stress or
maybe, I could hear it, and every time I hear
it and I try to hum it, it's gone.
And so anyway, and I remember the last that I,
when I was hearing that, I was on my back and
I, I, I, I was so goddamn tired, y'all.
You're nothing to grab ahold of and throw down, huh?
No, but I'll tell you what, see, and I turned
over, maybe I was going to turn over to let
myself go down.
I spotted something about maybe from here to
that next building.
About 20 feet away?
Yeah. And I didn't know what it was, but I made
a lunge for it, and you know what it was? It
was a five-inch ammunition canister.
That was, you know, before you just, when they
were using it, throw them over the side after
you get through.
Otherwise, when you're in practice, you keep
them. But this way, you get them out of the way
for the guns.
You throw them over the side, and it combined,
and it had the lid on it, but the lid was sprung,
sprung, and only this much of it was floating.
And so, and I got that thing, and I held it
this way in this arm.
SHORT And under your left arm?
ENDEAVOR Yeah.
SHORT Right arm?
ENDEAVOR Right arm. I held it this way, and I
had to keep it out of the water because
I didn't want any more water to get into it.
And finally, way on the horizon, or like coming
over, I seen a mass coming, and I didn't know
if it was a bar ship or a Japanese ship, but
I started hollering and screaming, and pretty
soon I see a whale boat, a rescue whale boat
coming, and it was a boat off of that destroyer.
You remember the name of the destroyer?
No, I really don't. I was only aboard a boat,
took a hit and right off again. And so anyway,
And so this officer aboard this deal, and the
water was pretty choppy, and hell, I didn't
know, but there was guys maybe three or four
feet away from me, but you don't see them
in the water, and so noisy you can't hear
nothing. It was raining, and it wasn't cold.
You wouldn't last that long in the Atlantic. So
anyway, and so he tells me, he says, let
that go and swim over. And I couldn't. And he
says, I'll pick you up on the next run.
And I really cussed him. I cussed him. And I
heard him say this, honest to God. I heard
him say, kick it in the ass and go pick him up.
So they come and they had to pry my arm
away from that blousy thing.
VANDIVERS So there are other men that water
around you?
MUNROE You don't see them. You could be in choppy
water and you don't see them. Like the surfers,
one surfer is up here and the other guy, you
see him right on the beach. And they can't see
the sky right beside them.
VANDIVERS Because all your head is sticking out
of the water.
MUNROE Yeah, but the waves like that, you know. And
so anyway, then they took me alongside of this
tin can and they had a cargo net going
over. And so I made about three or four grabs,
and that's all I got. They used a
boat hook and hooked the back of my pants and
pulled me off that way because I
couldn't move anymore.
VANDIVERSAROONE Yeah, tired.
MUNROE I was, you know, my legs all stiffed up.
And so anyway, and then I'm
sitting between the two stacks, and I'm all
covered with oil, shit like that.
and they gave me a bowl of soup. I was sitting
up against one of the stacks between the stacks
and there was other guys around too, and I'm
drinking the soup. Then the boat shuddered
and someone said it got fished or something on
a fantail. I can't think of the name of
this big troop transport was there and they
come alongside and zig-zagging because there
was enemy stuff in the water and so they pull
over that big cargo net and we had to go aboard there.
So you weren't on that destroyer very long?
No, no. I wasn't on it, hey, I could say five
minutes or an hour. I'm not sure because your
mind is you don't know what the hell you're
doing. So then we went on there and had to
scale that. They would tell it in the paper
that it would happen, but guys were falling
between the ships.
You mean crushed?
Well, they'd get down and the screws you're
going, shit, they'd just turn like in a mix master.
So guys were falling between the ships and
getting caught in the screws? Right.
Did any of them get crushed between the ships?
I don't even think they put bumpers on. They're
not doing an exercise. So we went
aboard there and on that ship there was maybe
some men from the Canberra, the other
ships that were picked up, and it was just so
God damn horrible. And so you found a place
where you sat down and the decks were metal and
my feet were burning, just burning. And
so we got aboard there, and so we took off, and
we ended up dodging Japanese, and all
they didn't...
Vander Hill Destroyers or whatever was in the
area, and
they had to get us all off, and all the marine
gear was on there. So we went to Espirito
Santo, and they say we were some of the first
white people those people had seen there,
you know. So all of us on there had to go
ashore, and it took them three and a half
to four days to unload all that crap the
Marines had. You know, it takes them a week to unload
a ship.
SHORT But weren't they originally destined for Guadalcanal?
VILSCHER Yeah, but then we had to use that ship
as a hospital ship or something. And
the Marines, I think some of the Marines stayed
there on that Esperito and they unloaded tanks
and all kinds of stuff, all their gear. And
then we left there and they gave us a full piper.
Well, okay, so let me just back up. So, the
Marines offloaded their stuff there instead of
taking it to Guadalcanal?
Yeah, because we needed that ship.
Okay, so they needed it for hospital ship.
Yeah, we needed it to carry the wounded and the survivors.
So anyway, I think a lot of the Marines stayed
on Espirito.
And then we took off.
How long were you on Espirito Sanchez?
Well, we were there for about three or four
days. And then they put us back on board there
and we took off. And they gave us a light
cruiser, the Raleigh, and that was maybe from
World War I cruiser, three stacker I think it
was. Because like the old World War I,
tin can used to be four stackers. And so they
used that as a, you know, transportation.
So they jacked us off and we went to the
island, to the willow, we pulled into Pano Pano Samoa
to get away. We stayed in there, I forget, a
couple of days maybe. Then we took off again
and I forget how long it took us to get back to
Pearl. And from there, then we went to
New Caledonia.
They sent you to Hawaii and then brought you
all the way back?
No, no, no. We thought we were going back to Hawaii.
Oh, you thought you were?
Yeah, but we needed fuel, so after we left,
then we went to New Caledonia. And then Chicago
was in there. That was after it took a hit and
was in there. And this friend of mine
I went to school with, Anthony Ornelas is his
name, O-R-N-E-L-L-I-S, Portions Kid.
So, he gave me one of his toothbrushes and a
bar of soap, you know, and then we took
on our oil, and then they went out and the ship
was sunk, the Chicago was sunk.
VANDIVERS Later on, huh?
Yeah, later on. And so he survived that and he
was picked up by the light cruiser Helena.
Helena, yeah.
Yeah. And another kid that we went to school
with, Paul Biaggi, was aboard that thing.
And when the Helena was sunk, Paul survived it.
Anthony was a first-class gunner's mate.
He was killed aboard the Helena.
Ornelas was.
Ornelas was. He was picked up by the light
cruiser Helena and Biagi was aboard there.
Then he became a gunner on the Helena?
No, he was a gunner on the Chicago.
Oh, but as a survivor he was killed on the Helena?
Yeah, as a survivor he was killed on the Helena.
Maybe as a passenger or something like that or
just killed to get him off but he was killed
when the Helena went down.
A. Biaggi was a crew member on the Helena, Paul
Biaggi. I believe he was a first class
boatswain mate at the time, B-I-G-G-I-E,
B-I-A-G-G-I-E, B-I-G-G-I-E, B-I-G-G-I-
Yeah, he still is in Sapphire. I forget how
long it took us to get back to Pearl. It took
us quite a while for some reason.
Now how about some of the people that you left
on the ship? Anybody there that you know got
killed? Most of the people in the engine room
got killed?
A lot of the engineers, the whole crew of the
number one fire room or number two fire
room was killed. Like that, my cousin and I
were aboard a ship and there was maybe two
or three sets of brothers. And this one kid, he
was looking for his brother, but his brother
was in the fire room and nobody came out of it.
You remember his name?
Jeez, I really don't. I don't. Because, you
know, like on a ship, you were in the Navy.
Well, you know, you could be aboard a ship for
two or three years and never see someone
because, you know, and we had guys that would
transfer, come aboard. I was aft, they were
forward, so you had no reason to be a forward,
so you didn't know who they were.
Well, in the fire room where you were, engine
room, how many people got out?
Well all of us got out, but how many survived,
I don't know, because we all split up.
Some of them were killed in the mess hall?
Yeah, some of them were killed. There was
Jughead, and Draskovic, he was a first class
lieutenant, I mean first class electrician, and
you know, I was on a ship and the ship
had holes, so I looked down into the mess hall,
forward mess hall, and I seen Jughead
lay in there, I seen McDonnell lay in there, I
seen that little kid from Brooklyn be a
first-class electrician. He looked like
Daschkewitz. He looked like, just his head from concussion.
But you know like a ripe watermelon, you just
drop it and it cracks all over, that's the way
his head looked like.
And so this is the mess hall you had come out
of, you were able to look down through the
hole, and these guys you knew were laying in
there, and they're all dead, huh? Yeah.
My very good friend in the same engine room,
his name was Harry Lee McCann from Norfolk,
Virginia. I weighed £118, he weighed about 190.
When we took our first hit, he took a pretty
good hit in his leg, and he was telling me
to don't let him die. And so I was trying to
get him out, and then we took another hit.
So the next morning, I went down looking for
him, and he had one hand on the ladder, and
till this day, I don't know how I got him on topside.
VANDAD SHARIFI.
Oh, so he was still alive?
JOHN LEONARD.
No, he was dead.
VANDAD SHARIFI.
JOHN LEONARD.
I got him on topside, and till this day, and he
weighed about £185, and I only
weighed 118, and I had to bring him up two
flights of stairs, metal stairs. How I did
it, I really couldn't, I don't know, but I did
it, because I sewed him up in canvas,
and I was going to bury him at sea. I sewed him
up, and I put some iron, some scrap iron,
him up in canvas, I didn't get a chance, and he
had $60 in his Levi pocket. I left it right
in there. And he went down with the ship, but
he was dead, but I sewed him up in canvas.
Q But was he dead when you carried him up to
the deck?
A Yeah.
Q He was?
A He took another hit and he was split all the
way up here.
Q Up to the lower left, right?
A His intestines and all the tangles.
Q So, but you carried him up even though he was dead?
For some reason, I knew I had to get him up
there, and I picked him up and took him up.
And like I say, until this day, I can't tell
you how I did it.
VANDIVERS But you weighed 118 and he weighed 180?
MUNROE He weighed about 180, and he was about maybe
six foot ten and a half, five foot eleven, five
foot ten, almost six feet.
A. But he was still alive when you started
carrying him up?
M. No, no, he was already dead. See, when I
lost him, when our second hit, he was blown
away again. And that's when I got up above, see?
And I was on the well deck and on the
well deck I saw only this much of an arm and I
knew it belonged to H.E. Brown from Michigan.
No tattoos or nothing, but I knew it was his
arm. How do you know? But I knew it was Brown's arm.
He was from the engine room too?
Yeah. He was an electrician and he was on one
of the distribution boards. He might have been
some other place, but he was an electrician.
And I knew it was his arm.
And people say, I said, I don't know, I just
know it was his.
H.E. Brown?
It's amazing what you guys see in your mind, I
think. I don't know what it is. I told doctors
about it, and then I ended up having migraine
headaches, and they said I just have to live
with them, so I was from that concussion.
You still haven't from that?
Yeah, not as bad, but I still have it.
You had a concussion from the explosion?
Yeah, because it just tore off all the clothes
off of me. It just hit and pulled it away
because I was completely dressed. No shoes on
or nothing.
Just your pants was left?
It looked like the pants were dipped in acid.
After we got aboard that ship, I went around
and helped Corman.
Vander Hill On the Thorstacker or on the transport?
EF No, on the transport. Then we picked up another
ship in Caledonia. That's right. We got off of
that one. We got another ship in Caledonia.
The Warton it was called. I think it was the
Warton. That's the one that brought us back
to Pearl. It was a troop transport. Those guys
on the Warton never seen anything. They
only fed us once a day or twice a day. Even I
got one of those torpedoes, a little can
an opener, you know, he gave. I couldn't help
it, we had to pack it together. And a bunch
of us, and there were so many of us, you found
a place to sit down, you sat there. And they
even had some Red Cross people aboard. So, and
my feet were burning up, just burning
up because I didn't have any shoes. So I saw
this Red Cross worker and I asked him, I says,
you know, if they had a parachute. He says,
well the officers haven't been tended to yet.
I took off after him, and you know what they
passed the word? A sailor was going berserk
up on deck. If I'd have caught him, I'd have
threw him over the side. I would have. I'd
have killed him. And they sent a master-at-arms
up for me, and then my captain was aboard
that ship, and other crews were aboard it. We
were going to funerals all day long, bearing
guys, the cheap guys were dying.
The guys that survived were dying?
Oh, dying, yeah. The ones that were wounded
that got off were dying. And they'd say a
burial for the Astoria, a burial for the
Canberra, a burial for this, so you'd go up there.
And so my captain was aboard there. And so if
there's some of your men, you tend to that
because you're the captain of these men that
were on your ship.
So I told him this stuff, and he didn't get me
a pair of shoes, but he says he was pissed.
And then some guys are stealing from each other.
And he told us, he says,
if you find any of our men stealing from each
other, he says just kick the hell out of them,
but don't kill them, let that for me to do. You
know, when you're stealing from somebody else.
And so they gave us all this, like, soluble
coffee. So myself and about three other guys,
we found a deck winch, steam deck winch, had a
little cockpit. So we drained that and made our coffee.
That varies a lot.
Water, Huh? Couldn't you get enough water?
Not enough. And then like I say, if you sat
down, you had somebody sit down. And then when
we're, after we got picked up that night, that
day, well you, so the landing boats were all up
on the deck of the ship to pick us up, see.
So, and it was rain and rain and stuff like
that, you know. So I called them and they were
only about, on the skids, they were only about
this high off the deck, see.
See? Putting a half off the deck, two feet off
the deck.
You know, on those, on the divots.
Yeah. And so, and this must have, it was late
at night, and I woke up and I heard gunfire,
and I looked in the distance and I could see
flashes, so I went to get up, but when I hit
my head on that boat, I slept for another hour.
I knocked myself out, I think, because
Because I remember, you're only about this
high, and I went to get up to go, and I come
right up under that landing, that Higgins boat,
and I must have knocked myself out because
the next morning I had a hell of a lump here.
But there was a firing, a battle going on somewhere.
They were still in the Solomons someplace?
Oh yeah, still in the Solomons.
And you were still in the Henderson?
But then you got to New Caledonia and they put
you on a forest tracker you said?
No, no. That was a ship that they gave us as a...
Today is Saturday, the 24th of February, the
year 2000.
I'm interviewing Mr. Abe Santos in Capitola, California.
The interviewer is Bruce Petty.
We brought that back from the Philippines.
Okay, so then the transport took you to New
Caledonia, and then you transferred to a ship
called the Wharton, which was a transport also,
and we stayed aboard that until we got
back to Pearl.
Okay, and you said that you were having burial
parties all the way back to Pearl?
We were having quite a few, for a few days
after, because guys were dying and stuff like that.
While you were on the transport, did you hear
any more about other friends you might have
had the ship?
What happened to them?
Were they made or not?
Well, you'd ask about certain ones, and they
said that they didn't know, but some of them,
you know, they even had me down as missing in
action, or dead.
Somebody said they saw me dead, you know, and I
got that clarified.
Do you know how many people were killed?
Do you remember?
Well, what I understand, we lost about 300 some
odd men. And then there was ones that
died later. You know, like that battle, the
Hood, the English, it had almost 1,900 men
aboard and only three survived that. And they
figured they were on topside when the grass
got them. Like the Juno too? Yeah. Oh yeah. And
the Juno and yeah, that's where the Sullivan
brothers were killed. Yeah. My cousin Earl,
that we were on a ship together, he put that
ship in commission. So he was known as a plank
owner. He went aboard the Sullivans. And the
Sullivans, they named a tug for the biggest,
for a big tug. Then they named the destroyer
for them. And I was on the OCO that tugged the
129, and that was the biggest tug until
they made come out with the Sullivan, the Sullivans.
So what did you learn about fellow crewmen by
asking around? Anything?
Well, they would say that they, then we had a
30-year ship reunion, so we saw a lot of
them. You know, we went to Oregon, Astoria, and
had a 30-year ship reunion.
That was the 1980s?
Yeah, and we've seen a lot of the shipmates.
Now, a lot of them have died since then. I
see it in the newsletters, you know. But after
we got back to Pearl, I didn't see hardly
any of my ex-shipmates because they went to
different - they went maybe back to the
States for new construction or went to
different places, and I only ran maybe into one
or two
the time when I was at the crash boats in
Kaneohe and places like that.
VANDIVER Okay, so what did you do when you were put
on crash boats?
MUNROE Well, you know, then after I got back to Pearl,
I was kept at Pearl, the 12th Naval District,
and I was put on tugboat duty at the harbor.
And I was on that for, I don't know, maybe six
months. Then they transferred me to Johnston
Island. And I was on Johnston. I was a
second-class machinist mate at the time. Then
they sent
me to Johnston Island.
Okay. And what was going on at Johnston Island?
Johnston Island? That's a place that used to
be, we're only a few hundred miles from
the Gilwerton Marshals. And they're still
enemy, you know. So whenever we had a drill
on Johnston Island, it was no routine drill. It
was meant something. But we never got it
to. Once in a while, a tin can, or not a tin
can, a submarine going back to Gilbert Marshall
or something like that, they'd surface a little
bit and use our tower for target practice.
So you had an airstrip there.
Yeah, we put the airstrip in, and our hospital
was underground, and I was in the engineering
with the diesel engines for the generators, and
we had splinter shields all the way around
us, about 10 feet wide, all full of sand.
And so I was there for six months.
We had to do six months, but the Marines were
there for 18.
And there was like 280-something sailors, and
about 1,800 were Marines, so you could
see what we had to go through. And there was
Johnson Island, and then another little island
on the way from it called Sand Island. So I
used to take a little tug over there and
go drink some beer in their deal, and vice
versa. And us, our uniforms there were Marine
field shoes, shorts, Frank Buck hats, the
elephant hats, and dark glasses were issued
for the White Coral, and were issued aviation
glasses. And you could walk the width of it,
maybe a half an hour, and the length of it, and
a little bit more than that. It was just
a sand island.
You were never attacked by the Japanese? No.
And it's like an emergency airfield?
Yeah, well, see, that was a stopping off point
when planes were flying, like, maybe to the Orient.
And now, from what I understand, Johnston
Island has a skeleton crew there.
They have, like, atomic waste there now.
I think they're incinerating chemical and biological...
Yeah, on Johnston. But it was...
And we lived in Nishan huts, and they had
regular barracks.
lived, Us engineers, lived in these niche and
huts by our deal. And like I say, everything
was dark and chip at night, you know. And any
time something happened, you would, it
was something for real. And us petty officers,
we carried 45 sidearm, and we had 21 rounds
of ammunition, one deal in there, and one in
the chamber, and two clips. And if something
happened, all you had to do was back up and he
was ready to fire. And so if you were supposedly
caught out of your area, your workplace or
barracks or whatever, without your sidearms
and your glasses, they say you could be
court-martialed, because that was your
protection and protection
for your eyes. Nothing ever happened. And then
all the non-petty officers, they had
rifles, and you'd have them in tripods in your
barracks. And when something happened,
you just went out and grabbed your rifle and
take off to your, and they had a lot of machine
gun emplacements around, like they did on Wake,
you know. And so I was there, and then
I was, you know, we'd just have to do six
months then. So then from there, they sent
me to Kaneohe Naval Air Station on the windward
side of the island. So then I was there for
some time, and I was in crash boats. And we'd
have, you know, be ready in case there was
a crash at sea. And we had a hut, and we had
our boats in the slips by our crash boats.
And I was in number one boat, and the other two
and three would take off, go through Chinaman's
Hat, and I'd wait for the doctor and a corpsman
to come aboard because we had like a little
operating room. It was a 65-footer, Hall-Scott,
twin 12s, Hall-Scott engines in it. So then
after the doctor, the ambulance would bring the
doctor down to the corpsman, then I'd
take off, and I'd take over the other ships in
Chinaman's hat. And going through then,
then I'd be the first one out. And we'd go to
sea, and we used to, they'd beam us out
to where it was supposed to be, and if you lost
the beam, you crisscrossed, you picked
up the beam again and go out. And we'd head way
out into the ocean looking for the crash sites.
Did you find any?
found a few pieces. You find wheels and tires
and stuff like that, and find gloves and hands.
And so one time we're out, and this doctor
aboard, he wanted to cruise. We were looking
around to cruise, slow it down. I said, well,
and I was an engineer. If I said this boat's
not going to go out, it doesn't go out, because
I was the engineer on it. And I told him,
I said, I got to keep a certain RPM or our
battery's going to go dead on us. But he insisted.
So, and this is, I said, okay, you sign this
log. Because that would, like if something
happened to your ship before war and you were
on a throttleman, and if something happens
and the ship is going to go down, you pick up
your log because every time you get a bell,
you write down the time when you get your bell
to change your speed, so that leaves
you off the hook. So he signed the log, and we
did. We went dead in the water, and we're
out, I don't know, Christ, how many miles.
There could be Japanese subs in the area.
So then some other plane, I don't know,
something spotted us, radioed in, and they sent
a picket
boat out to tow us back in. And a picket boat
is like a pretty good sized boat. They call
them picket boats.
Vander Hill G.E.s or P.C.s?
Vander Hill Yeah, something about the size of a
P.T. maybe,
something like that. And so they towed us back
in, but I never saw that officer aboard
anymore either.
And did you pick up any survivors while you
were there?
Not that time, no. And then as far as I said,
they picked up some, and one guy on there,
he said that it was rough, so he threw out a
grappling hook for somebody, and he said
that he hooked, it happened to hook him in the
chin, and he said, the guy, the doctor
chewed me out. He said, you throw a grappling
hook, you don't know where that, you know.
But I
He was dead then?
And so, you know, us guys, we'd be in our ready
house when we'd be there, and we'd be
in there maybe playing poker. We could hear a
plane come over, and we knew if the plane
was in trouble or not just by the sound of it.
And it's to the point that I identified
every plane just by the sound of the engine,
not even looking up to see what they were.
I could tell you what kind of a plane it was
just by the sound.
And did you finish the war there during that?
No, after I got out of there, I went to Staff
Headquarters at Pearl, the flight for Admiral
Robert L. Gormley. And Gormley was in charge of
our group in the Solomons.
That's right, he was. Yeah.
He pulled out after that one.
I know. But I never did let him know that I was
on that, because you know, Robert L.
You know, they look for a scapegoat like that
guy on the sub now. They'll hang in. He's
not going to get above commander. He'll be on a
desk and he'll be like McPhays, an old
guy. They'll commit suicide because they know
they're not going to get anyplace else. They're
looking for a scapegoat.
Right now what Bush did, Bush pulled a Clinton
with that bomb in Iraq. You know when Clinton
that Lewinsky and all that stuff was going on?
So he put that raid over there to try
to get the pressure off of him.
Bush is trying to get attention back to him.
He's a one-time president, Bush. And so there
was something come up about this bad count, bad
count. People say, like, you know, I say
to hell, he's just in there by name to me. And
so to get the pressure. So he has this
raid and they're chewing his butt off now about
that raid they did just recently.
So you worked for Gromley doing what?
I was in charge of his boathouse, the drivers,
the cars, I had a gig and a barge, I had his
barge and gigs and I would have to assign men
to drive this, do this, whenever they
they need a car, a certain one, and if they
didn't ask for a certain driver, some officer,
I would send one guy and say, go there, be
there at this time to pick up this officer,
do what you have to do.
So what was Gormley's responsibility?
Gormley, he was the head of the 14th Naval District.
So he was in charge of everything?
Everything in the Pacific.
The 14th Naval District was from San Francisco.
San Francisco was the 12th, I think, and the
South Pacific.
I thought there was an Admiral Richardson or
somebody there.
Richardson? No, but Admiral Gormley, he had the
flag right at Pearl.
So was he demoted or promoted after that?
He was a vice admiral, three-star admiral. When
he got there, he might have been a vice
admiral, two-star, and they gave him another star.
So he wasn't really held responsible for what happened?
I don't think so. But all he answered to was to
Admiral Nimitz. And then lots of times
I would have to sign a car, I'd take some
officer, and in the morning, you went up to
Makalapa, to NEMETS' headquarters, and
sometimes I'd take Commodore Robertson or somebody
else up there with some messages or whatever it
might be. If I didn't have enough drivers,
I'd do that. And then when they'd say, well, I
want the gig, or the Admiral's barge,
you go and pick up this, that, like that, well,
I'd have to make sure the barge gets
over there.
What was your rank by then?
I was first class, first class and getting
ready for chief, acting chief.
Did you make chief? No.
I could have, when I got out, if I'd extended
for another couple of years, I'd have got
my chief's.
So then when I got recalled for Korea...
Well, let's don't get to Korea for now.
No, no.
So you ended the war in Hawaii?
I ended the war in Hawaii.
I ended the war.
I went from there. Then Admiral Gormley went to
take over the Toulon Naval Base, I think,
in France.
A. Toulon.
M. Toulon, or you might know it. So I had a
chance. I could have went with him, but
I only had, not to, and I didn't know why I
wanted to stay. I wish I had stayed. So
So then they transferred me over to Iroquois
Point and some other crash boats out by Hickam Field.
A. Iroquois?
M. Iroquois Point it was called.
A. Iroquois.
M. Iroquois Point. It was just a name. It was
by Hickam Field, and we had some crash
boats there, and I was over there. So then I
was there for a while, and the war was coming
to an end. So they put me in Navy Yard Supply
at the building in Pearl, and that's where
I ended up. Then I took my discharge, and I was
still making up my mind about three
days before my time was up. So I got my
discharge at Navy 128. Then I had to waiver transportation
and then get back by myself. I met this kid,
and him and I were going to get a tramp steamer
and go to China. And then he meets a gal, and
that was the end of that. But we were
going to go to China on a tramp steamer, like a merchant.
And then when I got discharged, they had reps
from the Academy for Merchant Marines. And
And us guys, first class and stuff like that,
we could have went in as, say, third engineers
and go to that school where it was in Alameda someplace.
Yeah, something in there. But I said, well, I
didn't know. And this was when I got discharged
in November, December, 1945, somewhere around
there. So then I came back to the States,
and then I was home. Then I got married, and I
was home from - and I wasn't in the
reserve, but then some kid, a friend of mine,
was a first sergeant in the Army, but he wanted
to get into the Navy, and he thought maybe he
could get a text rating or a chief's rating
or something like that in the deal, but then
they went low, so he didn't want to, and this
officer was there, and he said that he had one
billet open, and he said, well, why don't
you join me? He said, fill up my billet for me,
you know, and I said, hey, I don't want
on that. So he talked me into it. And in June,
that's when the Korean
crack started. And this was a couple of months
before that. So then I was over there, and
I became an instructor at the Naval Army in San
Jose. And I was,
God damn it, that thing didn't come up. And so
then I got two girls at home under three
years old, and December 26th, I got my orders
to return to Korea. I had to go to Treasure
Island first. And so this was in, Jesus Christ,
and within a few, not too long, I was in Inchon,
put another year over there, then I got out.
But anyway, I was on an LSD, I took some training
at Coronado, like underwater demolition, and
then I was on an LSD, a landing ship dry
dock, and we would, you know, bows go down, our
big gate would open up and we'd
take on army gunboats or whatever it was, and
our ship was, we went up into the
Han River when it was still under enemy
territory to pick up a Russian MiG, and
We went 40 miles up on the Hum River under our
air cover, British or Australian air cover,
and picked up this MiG. They thought that there
might have been a body in it. There
were rumors that there were Russians in it or
flying MiGs, but there was no body. We
covered the plane with canvas and they took it
off and shipped it to Ohio where they have
that experimental place for the Army Air Force
or something like that.
So, as a civilian, what kind of work did you do?
Oh, when I came out, I was a painter by trade.
So I went back into the painting, you know.
And then after that, we built the Lockheeds and
the IBMs and stuff like that.
So you retired as a painter?
Yeah, well, I retired from the Cupertino School
District in the painting of the maintenance.
But then I had my own business too for a while.
I had a laundromat and I had some property
there in Aptos and stuff like that.
Basically, you retired from the Cupertino
School District.
I didn't want to get too much into that.
You know, during the time, I'm tired and
hungry, and so they were broken to stores.
You're broken to stores?
Well, stores is what you take your food aboard,
your own crates, this and that, and they call
that stores. You're loading your ship up with
your provisions. And so then I'm sitting
by the turret, that was before the ship went
down. So I looked in there and it was cans,
and it was pineapple. You know, like a
catastrophe if you see five people killed,
that's a catastrophe.
You'd bother if you see one person, but if you
see a bunch of them, it doesn't bother
you as much. I don't know, it was just
something. But I was there, and there was
pieces of body
and guys dead, and I'm sitting on a box and
eating pineapples.
This is after the ship has been hit? Yeah.
And you're still on the Asteroid?
Oh, we're still on the Asteroid. I actually got
that hit up forward, that explosion. But
But I was just thinking, I could still see our
warrant officer, Carpenter, laying on
that side of the turret with a piece of canvas
over him and only one leg showing. The other
leg was completely gone. And our guy with the
barber, and we're kidding, he was from
Texas, blond guy, and he looked really red. And
we were just kidding, hey Bo, what a Tan
you got. And you know about an hour later, he's
sitting in his car by the hangar deck
and you know, like this, and somebody went over
and touched him and the doctor says that
he probably inhaled a bunch of flames and just
burned him up inside.
So he's looking already at us from the flash burn.
Because a flash can be like that and you're
crisp. I don't know if you've seen the cruisers
but they have that hangar deck and you've got
your silos where your planes are on and this
The launchers you mean?
Yeah the launchers and like on this side and
there was a body laying from maybe his hip
blind, laying this way on the deck where you
kept your boats, laying about this much like
you think it would fall over. He was burnt to a
crisp, but I could tell he was a colored
guy. His arms were like that and all he had was
little stubs here and his face and his
teeth were exposed and stuff like that. I could
tell he was colored.
How could you tell?
Just the structure of his face, his bones.
And then we had this, when I was helping the
corpsman, and this one kid on our ship,
I can't even think of his name, but he didn't
have hardly any ears left, lips, nose,
burnt off, and this corpsman, I'd help him, and
he'd have to peel them, and I'd help the
corpsman, I'd hold pans for him, on the
transport that brought us in, and so he
couldn't talk,
And so one time I had to hold his penis so he
could pee, and he was just burnt.
And like I say, and after we went to Caledonia,
and a guy got off another ship, I'd never
seen him again.
I doubt if he'd survived, I doubt it.
His fingers, half his fingers were burnt off.
What about some of the other people?
You said you were helping the corpsmen, what
else do you remember from that?
Well, guys with wounds and stuff like that, and
helping the car, holding the bandage for
them. Because a lot of guys would sit around. I
walk at least 10, 15 miles every day here.
I'm not a sitter. I have to keep active.
Whenever somebody needed some help, I'd go and help.
to feed some guys, you know, and help them turn
over in a
bunk or everything.
And like this one guy, a kid, he lost his leg
and they had him
sitting out on the deck, you know, like a
promenade. And he
had to sit, and somebody said that he was going
to try to
commit suicide. And I don't know which officer
it was, some
off her. And he told him, he says, you're just
a chicken. He says, you're lucky you're
going home. The rest of us have to keep on with
this stuff.
And then another, we had a guy aboard our ship
and he was a first class water tender.
And he was running and he thought he was
stepping in holes, but his foot was blown off
and he
He was stomping on his ankle as he was going.
We were on a promenade. They'd take him out
if they could. Our captain was always around
the ship looking after the guys. He went over
the side and when they picked him up he still
had his hat on. I could still see him.
The guy who lost both feet?
No, our captain. But the guy that lost both of
his feet, he's up there and sad, and the
captain comes by. I was standing right there,
and the captain comes by and asks him, he
says, you know, Captain, I've always wanted to
be a chief in the Navy, but now I've never
become a chief. But then after the war, they
took in guys that were handicapped, they could
only go to Pearl as far, or guys with a wooden
leg. And I seen the captain, this chief was
going by, he called the chief, come here. And
the chief comes over, the captain reached
over and grabbed that chief's hat and put it on
this guy's head. This is your chief
Petty Officer. He just gave like a feel-right,
but I got points of tears.
Now they did keep some of the amputees in, but
the guy I just interviewed before you
in Vallejo, he was a Chief Petty Officer, he
was on DMS-22, Destroyer Convert 2, he
was hit by 5 kamikazes within 40 minutes off
Okinawa. He lost one of his legs and he had
multiple other ones, and he went to the
hospital in Mare Island. He got a prosthetic
leg, and
he requested to stay in the Navy. And he did.
He retired in 1958.
There was a lot of them they wouldn't let,
because we had guys, when I was with the Navy
Art Supply, we had guys that were in there, and
all they could go is as far as Hawaii.
Like the waves at one time, they could only go
there and wax only as far as from wide.
That was after the war or during the war?
That was during the war. We had a few. But
otherwise, they didn't take them. You got
hurt, you got hurt. We had one guy in training
when we were going through San Diego, and
he says, like on a ship or station or wherever
you are, and he says, somebody gets hurt,
shot. He says, attend to the ones that you can
get them back on the firing line. And
he says, and the ones that are really bad,
forget them. And he says, the dead ones, kick
them over the side. I mean, that's what he's
telling them.
So who told you that?
This was an instructor at San Diego.
A Marine instructor?
No, a Navy instructor. But you know, hey, be
realistic about it. Some guy that's
it's got an arm blown off, well he can't get a
man his gun anymore. If a guy's only got
a little shrapnel, we'll tend to him so he can
get him back on the line, which just makes
a lot of sense.
Anything else you want to add to that?
No, because like I say, I've heard guys, some
of the guys were saying, I just think to myself,
to a guy, you know, one lie you'll have to do
another. I worked with a guy at San Jose
Unified School District and he had a big scar
behind his leg, on his calf's leg. And so
somebody says, oh, he said, I got that in
Europe. Found out later, you know what, he
was never in the service. He was riding a train.