November 3, 2002
For the Monmouth University Archives
DESA Oral History Project
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| Interview of James
R. Mitchell November 3, 2002 For the Monmouth University Archives |
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This oral history interview of Mr. James R. Mitchell, is taking place on November
3 of 2002, in the Student Center of Monmouth University, in West Long Branch
New Jersey. This Interview is for the DESA Oral History Project for Hs 298 01
at Monmouth University. I am Joseph Sicignano, a student at Monmouth University,
and I will be conducting this interview.
Q: Where did you grow up and what was it like?
A: I was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey. I lived there from 1926 until
1960, when we moved to the New Jersey shore. What was it like growing up in
Newark? It was mainly during the depression. My father had more or less abandoned
my mother my brother and myself, and we ended up on relief, or as today they
call it welfare. We were very lucky very lucky to obtain an apartment in a federal
housing project in Newark, known as the Seth-Boyden court. Before that we had
lived several places in Newark. Being at basically the poverty level we lived
in some very interesting situations, like shared bathrooms and things of that
nature. I can remember before moving into the project my brother and I would
spend several hours each week scouting around for wood, we had a wood stove.
We lived in down town Newark at the time, in the downtown area, we would scout
around the disposal areas, of the big department stores and the five and tens
and so forth for anything that could be burned in our wood stove. In addition
to that, during the depression, the city of Newark used unemployed men, who
really had no place to live of their own, these are basically had no families
or left their families, these men who live for example in Newark the old Washington
Street school, which was at the corner of Kinney and Washington. The point being
that the way things operated in those days they would deliver to these locations
big logs of wood. I have no idea where they came from and the only work these
men did was to cut and chop the wood and each family in our similar situation
was given a chip, which allowed us to go down and get one bushel of wood a week
to be used in the wood stove. In addition to that, being on relief we had, I
don't think they called them food stamps in those days, a check, I guess is
what it was, to be used only for food. There were checks given for shoes and
sometimes for clothing.
My mother during this time became rather ill. It's in my mind many times calling
for a doctor, to come to our little place, and she would have the flu or something.
She would almost die sometimes until the city would send the doctor, and these
doctors were very good men they were doing charitable work. In those days the
mid 30's there was little they could do. Antibiotics did not exist and so forth.
In any case we all survived until 1940, when we were able to obtain the apartment
in the Seth-Boyden Court. We thought it was just luxurious to have our own bathroom.
To have hot baths, hot water, a heat supply, electricity and so forth. The only
bad part about it, it was on the third floor and my mother had very hard times
getting up the stairs. But she was quite happy there. It was from there that
eventually in the June of 1944 that I join and entered the Navy. Actually I
joined in the December of 1943 under a program that the Navy had were a senior
in high school if he would enlist in the Navy, they would give you permission
to remain in high school until you graduated. That's what I did and in June
of 1944 I was activated and reported to the Navy on my 18th birthday.
Q: What high school and grade school did you attend?
A: Well the grammar school was St. Bridget's in Newark, on what was then Plain
Street a little tiny catholic school. I think that I had eight kids in my class
maybe ten at one time. I was taught by nuns, who were very strict with us but
were very good teachers. I think it was there that I began to appreciate the
need for discipline and study. Then I guess a year after I graduated there I
was attending St. James High School on Layfette Street in Newark. It does not
exist any more and neither does the St. James church. It was a four-year catholic
business school at St. James. At that time I had no idea of going to college.
I signed up for the business course. I say I signed up, the pastor at St. Bridget's
paid the tuition for all of the kids from St. Bridget's to go to Catholic high
schools at least to St. James. I graduated St James on a Friday evening and
two days later, on Monday, I was at the Samson Navel station up in Samson New
York, up in the Finger Lake district.
Q: What Kind of extracurricular activities were you involved in grammar school
and high school?
A: In grammar school there was no extracurricular activities other than working.
I had a couple newspaper delivery jobs. One was on the corner of Walnut and
Broad there was a news stand and a fellow and his wife, again this is during
the depression, operated the news stand. It was right outside of, I believe
it was a Whelan Drugstore, and the cars coming up Walnut Street to Broad would
have to stop at a traffic light. My job was to get out there and hustle up and
down the cars stopped at the traffic light and try to sell the papers. At the
time the Newark Evening News, which doesn't exist anymore, or the Star Eagle,
which eventually became the Star Ledger. This was a rain or shine type job and
it was an interesting job because the people instead of paying the three cents,
would frequently hustle me and take off without paying the three lousy cents
that was involved for these papers. I left that spot after a while, and went
to work for Sam Surinson who ran a little candy/news paper store on Court Street
just a few doors from Washington Street right across from the, what was than
and I guess it doesn't exist anymore, the first precinct police headquarters.
I had several paper routes, which took me a very long distances. I estimate
on the average route that I had was two miles, which isn't much to talk about
walking, but in addition to that I had to carry with a leather belt, I had to
carry a hundred or so papers, that were to be delivered. On Sunday's we started
at six o'clock in the morning there, and the load was lightened somewhat by
the use of little homemade wagons, because by this time the paper would be much
thicker of course on Sunday, because we many more customers. There were about
four of us, four paperboys, and Sam did a very nice job, he was a wonderful
guy he and his wife, a very easygoing Norwegian man. His son Russell would sometimes
accompany us, why I don't know I think he was coming along with us to see what
girls he could meet along the paper route. And by the way I would work everyday
after school from three to six, and maybe a little less on Saturday, and on
Sunday from six in the morning till nine. I was paid fifty cents a week for
this job, which even in those days I think was rather skimpy but it was a job.
My brother also worked there with me, my brother John Paul.
Q: What did you do in high school?
A: In high school, I think the only thing worth mentioning was I was on the
basketball team and on the track team. It makes it sound like we had a full-scale
sports curriculum, we did not it was a very small school, and if you went out
for the team you made it that was about it period. We had a good basketball
team though we played all over North
Jersey, including St. Benedicts in Newark, which was a real powerhouse in those
days. We also came down and played St. James in Red Bank every year and we played
a home and home series with them. I personally was not an outstanding player,
I was good at rebounding and that's how I was mainly used. It became my life,
I loved the game, and even after my Navy service I kept it up, my brother was
much better than I. We had a team going in the neighborhood and we would book
games all over the place. Basketball was basically my life in those days. Of
course it was a much different game than they play today but I loved it, I just
loved it. The track team I was only in about two meets. I was supposed to be
a half miler but I never ran the half mile when the day came for the meets my
coach would put me in the 100 yard dash which was not my game but I forget now
why it was done. I never won or even placed as far as I can remember. I was
never really a track star, or even a basketball star. I worked during high school
the jobs were a little different. I was a Western Union messenger and I also
worked after school in a defense plant. The Western Union job was just what
it sounds like. In those days the telegrams were delivered by uniformed messengers
on bicycles. We were given a little outfit, kaki colored as I remember, with
a little cap with a brim on it, a military style hat and putties leather coverings
over your lower legs. Kinda giving you a cavalry appearance. We were thoroughly
inspected every day before we were allowed to leave the office and deliver our
telegrams. The downside of the job, was the fact that the War Department, as
it was called in those days not the Defense Department, would use the Western
Union telegrams to advise families of the death of their loved ones in service.
It became a very disturbing part of the job. The fact was as you were given
a package of telegrams to deliver you could flip through the pack very quickly
and you would find a special mark on the envelope, which told you that it was
a death notice. This was in the early part of the war I would say 42-43 or something
like that. After the first one you delivered, you knew that this was the part
of the job that you were going to hate. You can't imagine a young sixteen year
old knocking on a door and handing a piece of paper to a mother that told her
that her son had been killed. It became very quickly known through out the country
that when you saw a Western Union boy coming down your street your main hope
was that he didn't stop here. I had occasion were people would not open their
doors, they would scream at me through the doors to go away. The interesting
sidelight to this was that most families that had a son in service would have
a little tiny flag in their window facing the street with a blue star. Each
a blue star pennant indicated a member of family in service and when you would
see that and would stop there you knew it would be just a dreadful time. Eventually,
after several months this requirement of the job caused me to give it up. It
was just too much, in fact there was one of my co-workers, another messenger,
who refused to deliver them, and would just through them away. I don't know
what that lead too but he just said he could not face it and it was a dreadful
moment. I can remember one summer evening, coming around the corner going down
the street were I had to deliver such a telegram. It was a hot summer evening,
everyone was sitting on their porches, this is before air-conditioning, and
they would see me coming down and they would all run in the house in the matter
of a few seconds, all the porches were cleared and all the doors were locked,
each of them praying that I lust didn't stop at their place. For a 16-year-old
kid it was just too emotional I gave it up after several months. It was an interesting
job I remember having some telegrams I had to deliver to some note worthy people.
Jack Benny, the famous comedian, was on the War-Bond drive and he and movie
stars with him Hedy La Mare and so forth. They stayed in Newark and delivered
telegrams to them. Jack Benny who had a comedy reputation of being a skinflint
gave me a whole dollar, so for the rest of my life I was great fan of this comedian.
There was another interesting place in Newark, a burlesque house, and the messengers,
including myself, would fight to get telegrams that had to go to the burlesque
house. We would tell the stage door guy that they had to be delivered personally,
and that he could not sign for them. We loved to be in back of the stage with
all of the pretty girls, waiting there patiently for the person to show up to
whom the telegram was addressed. But that rarely happened to be given that assignment.
My other job was later on in high school. Almost everybody had the opportunity
to work in a defense plant. The high school kids were very much involved in
this on an after school basis. They would just about set the hours to your schedule.
Most of these plants operated twenty-four a day. I applied, and was accepted
at a Daven Company, it was on Central Ave just above High Street. There work
consisted of supplying the Army Signal Core, with walkie-talkies. It was an
assembly line situation. The high school would be taught how too solder and
other minor assembly jobs. That paid one dollar an hour and that was unbelievable,
to think that if I worked twenty hours that week or thirty hours, I would have
thirty bucks, don't forget we're coming out of the depression. Everybody was
able to get jobs, were as before there were so many desolate people, including
the men I mentioned, who lived in abandoned schools and chopped wood for the
poor and so forth. Things were beginning to change and I hate to say it but
the war solved a lot of economic problems in the United States. The little interesting
aside about this defense job was the entrance for the employees was on Sussex
Ave, right adjacent to the entrance was a bar, I forget the name of it. It was
known that a bunch of US Navy Sailors hung out at that bar and the reason was
very simple. Many of the senior high school girls worked at the plant were found
to be very attractive by these sailors and there would be all kinds of attempts
made as the girls were entering or leaving the building to make their acquaintance
by these sailors. Which was ok the girls got a kick out of it, sometimes the
sailors got a date. Everybody seemed to be happy-go-lucky about it nobody seemed
upset. The ironic part of it was, I found out later on when I was in the Navy
talking to my shipmates. Several of them had been at that bar and been involved
with the flirtations. They considered it one of the hot spots of Newark. These
men were waiting for the ship that I eventually served on to be built in Port
Newark. They loved to hang out at that particular bar.
Q: What do you remember of the war in Europe prior to Pearl Harbor?
A: That's an interesting question. I think that the country was astounded at
the success that Hitler was having. I think that we were also rather upset at
the rather rapid surrender of France. We were astounded at the famous Dunkirk
Evacuation that the British were able to pull off were they were able to save
most of their army by meeting them at the town of Dunkirk. In I believe it was
either France or Belgium, with all kinds of private pleasure boats and ferries,
and just save their army and bring them back to England, which paid off tremendously
in the days to come. The interesting thing about that question is of course
that we ultimately knew about the concentration camps and the horrors that these
camps that these camps inflicted of the poor Jewish people and on others. But
that was not known early on in the war, that was not known in the early part
of the war, that was not known through most of the war. It was only known upon
the US Army saving some of these camps and finding out what was going on there.
In the United States early on in the war there were many pro-German activities,
especially among people of German background. There was some youth camps set
up in the United States which kind of supported the German ideas of their need
to dominate central Europe and they were quit proud of this. It was not until
the United States entered the war that these associations and groups kind of
dissipated. Most of these people became very patriotic Americans after the bombing
of Pearl Harbor. We all expected an invasion. We knew that our troops were being
delivered to England were they were training the United States Air Force used
English bases to very successful raids on Europe. I may be getting ahead of
myself on that question. The fact was I think we were always sympathetic to
England and really at the beginning of the war before we entered it wasn't quite
clear how bad Hitler was and what an evil situation had developed in Central
Europe.
Q: What about the Japanese theatre, was there any knowledge of what Japan was
doing prior to Pearl Harbor?
A: Yes, for several months before Pearl Harbor there was all kinds of high-level
political activity. There were all kinds of stories of Japans aggression. You
got to understand that in the early 30's Japan set out on a military expedition
to control their part of Asia. Now that involved China, Korea and they marched
into those countries and committed awful atrocities. The Rape Manking was unbelievable.
I will not repeat some of the stories that came out they're just awful. Japanese
were determined to control that part of the world, and as they grew stronger
and more territory. The United States got more and more alarmed. I'm just giving
you my version it is very possible that the US was involved in things that you
might say were anti-Japanese economically and perhaps in the area were influencing
people that the Japanese thought they should dominate. I only know our side
of the story and I think that it will be a long time before the full history
comes out of what was going on. There is a school of thought that says the Japanese
were bated into attacking Pearl Harbor I have no knowledge of that. The Japanese
people of whom I knew known, in my part of New Jersey were certainly mistreated
by the United States, eventually after war was declared. But before war was
declared I had the general impression that a lot was going on in what we think
of as the Pacific Rim today. But it is all political except for the military
action in Asia by Japan, and we'd just have to keep our eye on it. That was
my general impression as a thirteen or fourteen year old kid in those days.
Q: Describe your situation when you first heard about the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
A: Well that's a moment that is really impressed in my mind. On that particular
Sunday December 7, 1941, I was living in Seth Boyden, which still exists, and
we were at a friends house, the Goldstein's, lived across the street form us
in the projects. My brother ands I were over their playing cards with Heshy
(Harold) and his brother Saul also joining us was Jerry Petrico another guy
from the projects. We were playing 21 or black jack, what ever you want to call
it, for pennies. The radio was on and we were listening to the Giants game,
I don't even know who they were playing. During the game the words came through
that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. We were thirteen and fourteen year old kids.
To show our lack of knowledge of geography we did not know what that meant.
We didn't know who owned Pearl Harbor number one, because they didn't say the
United States Navel at Pearl Harbor, they just said that Pearl Harbor had been
bombed. I remembered that someone looked it up in the dictionary to find out
that it was in Hawaii. Mrs. Goldstein came into the room and was very upset,
her oldest son Saul was Sixteen-Seventeen at the time. She rightly prophesied
that he would probably go in unless the war ended very quickly. The point of
the story was that it was a stunning moment and the interesting sidelight to
it was that two of those guys, Jerry Petrico and Saul Goldstein were both killed
in the infantry in World War II. The moment has stuck with me up till now and
will probably always be with me. That two of my friends, so innocently that
day, were to die in that war we heard about that day over the radio.
Q: How did the attack make you feel?
A: Well, we went home after the card game and went across the street. The first
thing my mother said to us was "Thank God your both so young they'll never
get to you." I didn't think too much about it. At my age I had no knowledge
of the politics involved and what it would mean to the country, I was a freshman
in high school. To me it was just something that was happening in the country,
it wouldn't affect me I was just a high school kid. It wouldn't affect my brother
it wouldn't affect us period. Of course it didn't work out that way. The war
went on until 1945 and eventually me and my brother did get involved.
Q: Do you know if your friends felt along the same lines you felt?
A: Well, there were some differences, I remember there were a couple of guys
who said immediately that they were going to sign up. They were only sixteen
and couldn't. I think we were all in the same boat. You have to understand that
Pearl Harbor was nothing more than a couple of words on that famous day. It
took a while for that to sink in that the main part of the Navy had been destroyed
and that we were there for very vulnerable to subsequent activities. My friends
were always the guys who were going to go right down and sign up, and there
were those who were frightened to death about going to war. It was a mixed bag.
We had no experience to fall back on. The only people who had been to war that
we knew of were the World War I veterans, most of whom by the 40's were still
with us. Their stories about what happened in the trenches were just horrible.
Most people… don't forget that the draft was in effect by this time. The
draft had started slightly before Pearl Harbor, the older guys, 18 and up, had
to sign up for it, but my friends were a little lesser of age. Again it was
a mixed bag, some were going to go right down and see what they could do and
others were scared to death, I was somewhere in between, I think I was.
Q: Before you went you mentioned you enlisted in the Navy?
A: Yes
Q: Why did you choose the Navy ? Was there any particular reason?
A: Yes. Number one, if I allowed myself to be subject to the draft I had no
control over were I would end up. Some Navy people were drafted, but that was
just the luck of the draw. I always liked the Navy. (laughs) I can recall seeing
some movies about the Navy. Those guys were always dressed in nice white uniforms
everything was clean and sparkling and always exciting. I always liked the sea
a little bit, the ocean. Plus the fact that the movies at the time that were
starting to come out, made it pretty gory to be in the Marines or the Army and
you know I don't think anyone really thought about being a hero, you wanted
to do your part, but you wanted to have a little control over it. The only control
that I could come up with was to pick my branch of service. The Navy did have
this program of allowing you to graduate high school, which I found very attractive.
I did want to get my high school diploma. I was going to be one of the few people
in my family to have a high school education to tell you the truth. I was very
happy with the arrangement.
Q: where did you do your training?
A: My boot training was at Sampson Navel training station up in the Finger Lake
district of New York on Lake Geneva. It was an immense base that was built practically
over night. Hundreds of thousands of sailors trained there. As I say almost
immediately after high school ended up there. I was told to report to Grand
Central station in New York. When I got there, there were several hundred other
guys like myself, carrying their little bags. There was a Navy chief there we
all gathered around him while they checked off our names, they put us on the
train. We spent the whole night chugging away, going up to up state New York.
We arrived about dawn and we unloaded. They marched us into a mess hall and
gave us a bologna sandwich and an apple that was the traditional first breakfast.
You get the haircut, the uniforms, the shots, you get checked by this and checked
by that. Eventually you get formed into companies, about 120 men in a company,
as I recall. Than you march to your new barracks. The fact is I spent in, I
believe, 12 weeks in boot camp, which is rather lengthy. The way it worked,
I found out later, was as the Navy needs developed they needs so many men in
these spots, Samson Navy base and other bases would send the men out. Than there
was a period of time when they didn't have such heavy needs, so rather than
having you sitting around doing nothing, they would just extend your boot camp.
I should have been there about eight to ten weeks we were there twelve. It was
a wonderful, from a health viewpoint it was the best summer of my life. I spent
all of July, August, and a little bit of September there. 1944, I was just out
of high school and in great shape. It was very physically demanding. I can't
believe that the army had any tougher basic training than we had at boots. We
learned rifles and marched and marched, that's all we did it seemed. We got
all kinds of instructions, plane identification, nomenclature of ships, and
knots lots of knots, known of which I remember. Eventually our company was selected
as the roaster company of the division we were assigned to, which meant were
allowed to carry this big flag with a red roaster indicating that we were the
honor company. After twelve weeks we had to be the honor company, for God sakes
nobody had spent so much time in our division. One of the irksome things about
boot camp to me, believe it or not, was something called the MUSTS, you got
to go, you must go. These were mainly athletic events like the NY Giants came
up and played the Sampson team or something like that. This was a Sunday afternoon
it was the only day you had off, I wanted to do some laundry, I wanted to write
some letters, I wanted to take a little knap (says laughing). You had to march
to this boring game. And they had baseball games and all this stuff they were
the irritating things. From a physical health situation it was the best time
of my life. We ran a mile everyday before breakfast, when we first started no
one could finish but by the end of the twelve weeks we were racing each other.
Most of it was outdoor activity it was a hot summer but we were young and healthy.
From there we had a one-week leave after boot camp, then we reported back, after
the week, to what was called OGU, the out going unit. We are now ready for assignment
and during that week we were given many things to do, I had to work in the tailor
shop and sweep up. That was the problem, if you weren't ready to go they didn't
know what to do with you. I ended up in radar school, that's how the Navy worked
after all this stuff.
I had never been to Florida in my life. They put us on a train myself and a
dozen other guys were sent to this school and boarded in a very nice hotel.
At that time there were only two hotels on the beach, one was the Fort Lauderdale,
which is where I was assigned and I cannot think of the other at this time.
The Fort Lauderdale Hotel is still there. It's so small now compared to the
others but it was a great course. I was there for four months, we studied quite
long during the day and into the evening. We were to become radar operators.
We were not technicians. We were to be able to read what was on the radar and
make sense out of it and advise the officer of the watch. At the beginning I
had never heard of radar, this was 1944 and we were told this was all very highly
confidential stuff and we were not to discuss this with anybody. And we didn't
because mainly we couldn't explain it to anybody. All we knew how to do was
read it and take the information and plot it on a big table. A table lit from
underneath. Our training involved being at this big table and listening to the
radar man on the scope telling us what he was seeing and then plotting it on
this table and marking it, target 1, target2, or what ever. But having to write
it upside down so that the officer standing on the other side of the table could
make sense of it and that became quite a thing, practicing writing upside down.
But now, in today's Navy it is all highly mechanized, automated, and computers
and so forth. But in those days we were assigned to what was called the combat
information center. That's where the radar was, in a room probably about a third
the size of this room I would say it was maybe 10 x 10, it was a very small
room. The point was we finished there and were shipped out to Miami to await
assignment to ships.
Again, you were allowed to make your choice of ships and I selected a battleship
or a cruiser and of course I ended up on a destroyer escort, that's the way
the Navy works. We were sent to Miami to await our assignment. The Navy had
taken over several little hotels and many little rooming houses and it was quite
chaotic to try and live in this situation because we all meet at a mess hall
that was a former automobile agency that had a ramp that went up to a second
floor and both the first and second floor became this big mess hall where all
the sailors waiting would come everyday for breakfast and so forth. I was assigned
to work in the mess hall, which was a pain in the neck. We had to carry all
the tables, after each meal, we had to carry all these big heavy wooden tables
to the street and hose them down after each meal. And I would estimate were
talking 75-80 tables and they were not light picnic like tables (says laughing)
but that was the way the Navy was, super clean about everything. I was there
for a couple of weeks and I got word that I was to report to Brooklyn Navy Yard
to report aboard the USS Roche. When I left the Roche was still out at sea and
therefore instead of going into Brooklyn they sent me to Pier 92 in New York
City, which became a big receiving station. Finally, when the Roche appeared
I was taken over to the Brooklyn Navy Yard and reported aboard.
Q: Describe some of the sailors you were on ship with.
A: I sure could. The first moment on the ship was an interesting experience.
I came aboard with a draft of about five or six men of different ranks. I was
what you would call a radar striker, I was seaman first class with a radar striker
category, meaning I was to be trained more in radar than anything else onboard
the ship and eventually I was to stand my watch there. But coming onboard as
a seaman first class it took a while until I actually got to read a radar. The
day I reported onboard with these other guys, we were on what they call the
quarter deck, this is the deck where you come aboard a ship on a gangway. There's
a little desk there and there's an officer and a messenger and other people.
And that's where you sign in aboard the ship. So we came aboard and reported,
Mitchell reporting, radar man striker for duty. And he would get us all together
and eventually he would assign us to different parts of the ship for bunking
and so forth. The day we got there, now this was in the fall and we were all
wearing pea coats, they had painted the wire braided line that ran all around
the ship, the safety lines, so you couldn't fall off and they were painted with
white chromate they called it. We didn't know this of course we are standing
around in this very small area and this boatsen mate came over, I'll never forget
him, Andy Mandraky was his name, a New Jersey guy of all things and Andy comes
up to us and says in a very nasty tone, "Watch out for that safety line
there it has just been painted" and I looked around and I wasn't that far
away from it. I said to the guy next to me, "Thank God he said that I would
have ruined my pea coat". And Mandraky heard me and he said "You,
I don't give a blip blip about your blipin pea coat but if you screw up that
paint job you are never going to forget what I am going to do to you".
I was aboard the ship two minutes and here's Andy giving me the works. From
that moment on I was afraid of that man. He was the chief baotsen mate, he was
God, he was the guy that ran the ship as far as the seaman-like aspects of it.
And he could make your life hell if he wanted to so that was my welcome aboard.
The sonar men aboard were an interesting group. These are the guys, that the
radar you get visuals, the sonar its all sound. And most of them had some musical
talents. Apparently that went with the game. You could detect changes in pitch
very easily. On our ship accidentally, they were mostly Germans. They had names
like Nagel and Redick, and Nadrash, all these German names and some of them
could speak German. They had been involved in these youth groups, the Germany
Bunn and things like that. Sometimes when they got excited on the headset they
would begin to talk German back and forth to each other. This could be very
frightening at night at 2 o'clock in the morning out on the ocean suddenly you
hear German speaking and all you could think of was German submarines around
you. It took a while for the Captain to break them from doing that (says while
laughing). The radar men were a mixed bunch. We had a real old guy in the group,
he was 25 years old, we called him Pappy. Anybody 25 and up we called Pappy
on our ship. They were the old men, 25 years old. Many of the officers were
not 25 but we had guys from Ohio, Brooklyn, myself from New Jersey, a guy from
Georgia, you know, it was a mixed bag. The captain was a man who when I first
came aboard was Captain Parker I think his rank was actually lieutenant but
anybody in charge of a ship was called Captain no matter what his rank.. He
was an old conservative, very cautious guy. After one convoy crossing with him
he was transferred somewhere else and Captain Laidley took over. He had been
the executive officer #2 under the Captain. He was promoted and he was a fine
man. He is deceased now, but he was a really good man. The officers were outstanding,
very human but some seemed to be terrorists almost in the way they treated the
men. There were different ways of handling men and some had the trick and some
did not. But you learn to live with everyone.
Q: Did you have any contact with home while you were at sea?
A: Yea, I had a very interesting situation, my ship was home ported in New York
City and I only made about four convoy crossings but we'd always leave and come
back to New York City. Sometimes we'd go into Brooklyn Navy Yard if there were
repairs. So if I could get liberty I could be home in an hour. There were guys
who lived in Brooklyn and they were home very quickly too. There were a couple
New York City boys. Some of the men California, Georgia, Ohio, they had to wait
for leaves to go home. I was home rather regularly and my Mother could not believe
that I had been over to England and back again since the last time I saw her,
cause three weeks later I'm back, or what ever it was, a month later (says laughing)
it was interesting. I like getting home believe it or not, mainly because I
could sleep. I had a very tough time sleeping aboard the ship, very tough. I
would love to get a liberty say at four o'clock off the ship, get home have
a nice dinner, rack in and get up very early and get back to the ship.
One of the most disturbing things that happened, in part because of the liberty,
I was home and I came back rather early I got back to the ship at six in the
morning and we were in Brooklyn and they were working on something, all the
shipyard workers were. I got into the bunk fully clothed except I took a pair
of new Navy shoes off and left them at the foot of my bunk and I fell asleep.
When I woke up they were gone. I know the shipyard workers took them. It just
seemed such a low-life thing to do. They were all over the ship. They had all
kinds of stuff they were carrying in and out. It was very easy to get them off.
That hung on me a long time. I just couldn't stand those guys after a while.
I couldn't believe they would do something like that but other guys had reported
things missing too. In fact, they used to announce that when we were going into
the Brooklyn Navy Yard, "hide all your stuff, put it in your locker, keep
your eyes and ears open". These were the guys that were supposed to be
helping in the war effort, anyway, that bothered me.
Q: Did you have anything else you did while you had shore leave?
A: (says laughing) Yea, I used to go to libraries, museums. Well, yea, shore
leave of course being 18 year olds, we were always looking for the young ladies
and it was…interesting. Everybody was living in mad, mad times and all
the young men for the young ladies were off in service and life was frantic,
life was very frantic. It was not particularly hard to get a date. The main
way of doing that was not only going to dances but also roller skating rinks
which were big in those days. There were a couple in Newark that were very big
and that was a good way to pick up a young lady. I actually, in England, spent
more time just walking around. I was fascinated by it. We were in towns like
South Hampton and Plymouth and Portsmouth, which was a big English Navy base.
I remember going into a tobacco shop in England and buying English tobacco.
I was a pipe smoker in those days and after I bought it I felt bad because I
realized, My God, I could get tobacco onboard the ship of course and I am taking
this tobacco away from these poor English people who so little of anything.
But the guy sold it to me so. My first time in England was South Hampton, on
my first convoy. I came down the gangway in this Navy Yard and there's a British
sailor there and he said something to me. He had on a black raincoat type thing
and I said I didn't catch you. He said it again and he ended up being a cockney.
They speak a strange language (said laughing). They have a funny way of expressing
themselves. They have key words that they understand but nobody else understands.
Anyway, it ended up he pulled out a bottle of rum and he wanted to sell it to
me. In the British Navy the sailors are given a shot of rum, I think they call
it grog, everyday and you can accumulate it. When you get a bottle they give
you a bottle and he was trying to sell it to me. That was my first contact with
an Englishman and I couldn't understand him.
Q: Did you see any combat while you were at sea?
A: Well, the type of combat that our ship was designed especially for was anti-submarine
warfare. That's why we worked on convoys across the Atlantic. Yes we made several
runs on submarines. But I have to tell you truthfully that we were never credited
with a kill. It is the most exciting moment that you can imagine, when in the
middle of the night that gong goes off, and everybody has to get to their battle
stations. You sleep with your shoes on for example because you only have a couple
of seconds to get where you had to get. When I first got on the ship I took
my shoes off nobody had mentioned that to me. And when the gong went off, gong…gong...I
mean you know what it is, it's battle station. I put my shoes on the wrong feet
I dint know it till it was over, and I'm wondering why my feet where hurting
so much. My battle station was on a twenty-millimeter machinegun. I was a loader,
the ammunition comes in these canisters and you put on and when the ginner gets
through with it you take it out and put another one. We never had any combat
of that type, but I had to practice it all the time. I did so well at it that
promoted me to the three inch fifty cannon and I became known as a fuse setter.
The fire control man, who was in charge of firing the guns, would be maneuvering
his equipment to get the range of the plane for example. He would pump that
information automatically down to the gun and they would give me a shell and
I would put it into this device, which turned the fuse on the shell to go off
at a certain distance. I'd give it to the loader at it would go. While I was
aboard we never had any air combat. Eventually I was transferred to the radar
room and became a third class radar man, it was called a petty officer third
class. My job was the plot table. We would be listening in to the sonar men
who were giving ranges and maneuvers of the submarine. We would plot this thing
on the table and an officer would be reading this and talking to the captain.
The beauty of the destroyer escort is the main attraction of its design could
make a very sharp turn while going fast. A destroyer a larger more powerful
ship would have to make a much wider turn. We were the preferable anti-submarine
type vessel. And the depth charges would go off you knew that something big
had exploded (says with a laugh), but as I say though we made half a dozen runs
we never saw a sub on the surface and we never got credit for a kill. That was
the extent of what I would call my combat experience.
We had other things happen. In March of 1945 we where bringing a convoy over
to England, and in the convoys there would be lines of ships. There might be
ten lines with six to eight ships per line. The middle two lines up in the front
would be the protected ships in the convoys. That is where troop transports
would normally be located. The ammunition ships would be in the back, if they
went they went on their own rather than destroy the convoy. All around the convoy
would be the destroyer escorts and the lead combat ship would be a destroyer
he was our head if you will. There would also be a tail end Charlie he was back
there to help any ship that fell back. At nighttime the job of the radar men
we assigned certain ships to worry about, we where to keep these ships up with
the other ships. There were no lights except a red light the size of a silver
dollar on a mast sticking up on the back on the tail end of the ship. That's
all the guy behind you had to guide on. He had no radar he couldn't tell how
close he was he only had to keep in line with that red light. Our job was to
keep him in line and keep him up. Don't let him fall back if he falls back they
become a good target. And that was it all night long we're calling these ships
and telling them. This one night troop transport and an aircraft carrier from
France called The Free French aircraft carrier under De Gaul, at three in the
morning I'm watching the scope and all of sudden I notice that the carrier seemed
to be going off to the port. We had nothing to do with that, and I couldn't
understand it, so I asked the other radar man do you see what's happening. He
said "Yea he's off course". And the carrier had lost all power, which
happens once in a great while. It came along and scraped against the troop transport
and in doing so it ripped the steal plates of the troop transport. The ocean
poured in the sleeping compartments where these poor slobs where sleeping on
racks in their sleeping bags and washed them out to the ocean. Dozens of men
where in the ocean that night. We where tail end Charlie that night and were
told to watch for survivors. In the mean time the carrier got its power back
on, and the troop transport was able to continue. The plates were made water
tight for emergency activity, and the convoy kept going. So we're left with
dozens of guys in the water in their sleeping bags, they couldn't get out and
drowning. At the same time coming out of some compartment was a whole bunch
of mailbags, which made it very difficult. The mailbags looked like guys in
sleeping bags, this was night time no lights very heavy seas. Finally the convoy
disappeared over the horizon and the captain put the searchlights on. And here
are these poor slobs, most of them corpses by now. We where able to get, through
heroic action by some of our sailors who went over the side with life lines,
we where able to get eleven aboard. Another destroyer escort picked up two before
he left the scene. Over eighty men died that night and never had a chance. They
never got to Europe they were replacement troops. It was a scene from hell looking
down from on deck in to the water with these guys bobbing around an almost none
of them moving. You knew what was happening. That was on March 13, 1945.
The other thing that I would like to talk about was as the war in Europe ended
on May 8 1945, we where told to get back to the US a quick as possible. We where
escorting a bunch of ships that had all kinds of wounded on. They still concerned
about some of the German subs out there. So we escorted them back without problem.
We where than told that we where going to the Pacific, to get down to Cuba for
special training, which we did. They took our torpedo tubes off and put in and
put in more guns for anti-aircraft work. We trained down there for a different
kind of war less submarine and more surface activity. We eventually went through
the canal on July 1 1945. by that time most of the fighting in the Pacific was
over. We where sent to Ulyse, an Island in the Marshals islands. We where told
that we where that we where going to prepare for the invasion of Japan, which
was going to take place on October 1 1945. That was before the dropping of the
Atomic bomb. In the mean time they drop the atomic bomb and suddenly the war
was over. We where assigned to escort so marines back to Wake Island, which
had been the scene of a tremendous battle, around the days of Pearl Harbor.
We got the Marines back there and that was the first time I had seen a Japanese
soldier and they did not look so formidable. At that time they had been starved
and so forth. In the mean time we had been told to rendezvous with USS Florence
Nightingale, which sounds like a hospital but its not it's a troop ship, and
escort her to Tokyo Bay. This is late September29th we entered Tokyo Bay about
1500 feet ahead of this troop ship. At about eight thirty in the morning we
struck a mine a floating Japanese mine. 400pounds of TNT and it went off under
our fantail. I was up on the flying bridge at the time, and my impression of
our ship getting hit in the rear was that it was up like 45 degrees in the air
before it settled down again. The whole rear of the ship was gone, three men
disappeared we never found a piece of them, several men (15-20) where very badly
wounded from the movement of the explosives up through the deck. That was our
grand entrance into Japan. The ship had been very lucky all through the war
now the war was over actually and here we were blown to, well not blown to pieces
but, they towed us into Yokisuka Navel Base and eventually the ship was determined
to be non repairable and we where taken out, after I left and we where taken
out to be used for target practice by US Navy ships.
Q: What do you think about President Truman, and his decision with the bomb?
A: Well, you have to understand we where not politicians we didn't know what
the atomic bomb was, just like we didn't know what they where doing to the Jewish
people in the concentration camps. The knowledge was at a very high level it
was not at our level. All that we could think of was that these towns had been
obliterated and the Japanese where ready to negotiate. All we could think about
was we where ready to go home. You have to understand all the things on our
minds about all the atrocities that the Japanese committed. I mean God help
a Marine who was caught by the Japanese, I mean wholly hell! They where cut
to pieces alive, they were beheaded. We were dealing with a very tough customer.
We where glad that the war was over. All we knew was what ever this thing called
an atomic bomb did we where going home. Instead of waiting October 1, and the
big invasion of Japan where an estimated million people where going to die,
we where going home. That's all we knew. If you ask me know would I have dropped
the atomic bomb? I don't think so, but I think Harry did exactly the right thing.
The war had to end and the bombings in Europe. Thousands of people died in the
bombing of Dresden a fireball took place there. They just burned the town up.
People don't talk about that but they talk about Hiroshima and Nagasaki its
all relative. If you drop a bomb and one person dies that's horrible, if you
drop a bomb and a hundred thousand people dies that's horrible. Is it a hundred
thousand time worse, I don't think so, it's all relative. And don't look for
niceties in wartime, if you want to win you can't do it. But I would not drop
the atomic bomb today on anyone.
Q: Did your ship play nay part in the occupation of Japan?
A: Yea kind of a minor part. When we where tied up and they had sealed up the
rear of the ship, there was no fantail any more. We became known as what was
a station ship. It was a bad deal but it had to happen. A station ship is nothing
more than a ship where sailors wait for another ship. It's like a hotel. And
the result was a lot of coming and going. Strangers, guys you never saw, sleeping
in the same room with you eating at the table, you didn't know who the hell
these guys where. Eventually our crew began to dissipate because they had enough
points, you had to have so many points to go home. I would say that a lot of
men and officers stayed aboard our ship. That was a service that had to be somewhere.
I left Japan much earlier than I was supposed to because the Red Cross advised
me that my mother was very ill, and the skipper gave me an emergency leave to
get back to New Jersey. It took me ten days on a ship to get to Seattle and
than five days to cross-country by train to get home. They held me up at Seattle
for about four days I don't know why. I was not out on points on points. The
orders did not require me to go back to my ship. I was sent to Pier 92 in New
York City and stayed there for a couple of weeks. Then I was sent to Lido Beach
Long Island and discharged. All of this happened because of the illness of my
mother. In the mean time my brother had gone into the service also in the Navy.
Q: Where any of your crewmates discharged before you where?
A: Yes, you got points, you got a point for, my memory is kind of weak on this,
but lets say you got point for every month you where in service, for every combat
you where involved in, for any heroic metals you got, etc. And you add the points
lets say when the war ended you had a hundred points you could go home. A couple
of months later they would announce if you had ninety points you could go home
and so forth. So many of the men aboard my ship had enough points to leave.
And pretty soon with the coming and going of these strange guys and the removal
of the regular crewmembers, it became a ship you didn't even recognize you didn't
think about it. who are these guys? So I was kind of glad to get out of there.
One of my things is I got a trip to Tokyo. I ran into a friend of mine who was
on this Yokisuka Navel Base CB. He and I had joined the navy together at Newark
Post Office. He was able to get hold of a weapons carrier, vehicle, and I got
a liberty one day and we went up to Tokyo about twenty miles up the road. And
the road was bombed out I mean obliterated. It took us three hours to get through
all this debris and everything (says with a laugh). We went to the emperor's
palace, which was a stunning place. I'm a great lover of Japanese culture believe
it or not. Than we went to the Ditichy Building, in the heart of Tokyo, was
Macarthur' s headquarters. He was running the country. I had a camera with no
film so I bought some Japanese film and we waited for a couple of hours. And
finally he came out. He had a meeting with the Japanese delegation and they
had arrived by trolley car, which ran right in front of the Ditichy Building,
they where wearing their morning suites, formal suites with tails, and they
went into the building. They came out, got on their trolley car, and they went
away. Macarthur came out a limousine is waiting there, and he's surrounded by
these First Calvary Infantrymen wearing these shining helmets. They were stainless
steal helmets and carrying sub machineguns, and they're all six foot and bigger.
The first cavalry has the yellow badge with the horses head, they had been involved
in the Philippians, they where his personal body guard. There where several
of us there with cameras, and he posed and said "Take your time Gentlemen,
take your time" Macarthur! I took a lot of pictures and he finally got
into the car and left. He was very gracious about the pictures. The damn Japanese
film didn't come out (says with a gentle pound of the table). In those days
the Japanese products were not very good, today they're fantastic.
Q: How did you feel when you got discharged?
A: For a while I felt a little lost. My mother was ill and I was glad to be
home with her, but there was a cretin tension in your life in the Navy that
no longer existed. It kind of bothered me. Now I had to lay out what am I going
to do know. I got a very sick mother. My brother is still in the Navy. I got
to get a job. I got to work things out, I got a life ahead of me. I had know
steady girlfriend, I can say that. Before I went into Navy, I had a job for
a couple of months working at a grocery store outside the project. The guy came
to see me he heard I was home. And he offered my job back. He said "I could
really use help". Well, Marty I want to go to college, I want to get a
job, I'm waiting for the 52-20 club. Now the 52-20 club was run by the US government
through the US employment service, and a veteran could sign up, and you would
tell them what kind of a job you were looking for and they would look for that
job for you. I the mean time they would send you twenty bucks a week for fifty
two weeks, so it became known as the 52-20 club. That was it help veterans get
on there feet, now twenty bucks doesn't sound like much, but it helped. I said
to Marty I'm in the 52-20 club I can't work. He says "Come on I'll give
you a couple of bucks, I'll pay you by the day". And I did. A couple of
weeks, a month maybe. I come home one day and here is a letter from the employment
office. That because I haven't answered their mail I'm going to be kicked out
of the 52-20 club. So I ran down to the employment office, and they pulled my
folder and here where these post cards they where supposed to have sent me.
They never sent them. So I was very upset. The guy said look here take one post
card take one interview and we will set you right up to date. I said good. I
had not shaved, I had old beat up Navy jacket on, I was crumby looking. I walked
into this place, National Car Loading in Newark they where looking for a male
typist, and I walk in there and say sir my name is Mitchell. The guy said "oh
yes can you type"? Yes. "Oh good when can you start". Now I didn't
want the bloody job, I wanted to do my thing, but I couldn't get out of it.
He hired me. It was like forty-five bucks a week and plenty of over time. That's
where I meet my wife. So the whole damn thing became a strange little plan for
me to meet my wife, that's what it was. I had to get that 52-20 club letter.
I had to go down there and complain. They had to set me up at National Car Loading.
And there was the girl, I never knew her but eventually we married. I forget
what the question was. What was the question? (Laughing)
Interviewer: What did you feel when you where discharged? (Laughing)
I felt relieved, I felt there was something missing in my life and I was trying
to plan. While I was planning it my life was unfolding. It was interesting.
Q: How where you received upon you r return?
A: We were all coming home together. No parades or anything like that. Everybody
just came home. Of course I was so sorry about the Goldstein boy and the Petrico
boy. It seemed like a big chunk of your family was gone. They were the only
two kids in the projects to get killed. I was glad to be home. My brother got
out a couple months later and we where ok. The depression was over. We were
confident that we where going to make something of our lives. I think eventually
we both did.
Q: How do you feel about the way Vietnam Veterans where received when they got
home?
A: I feel very badly about that. I have always respected the Vietnam guys. I
just can't believe that people would say derogatory things about them, and actually
spit on them and that type of thing. These where men that where defending our
country. The leadership were wrong, but that had nothing to do with the men
who where on the frontline that gave so much. I've been to the Vietnam memorial,
it was so moving. I have friends who where in Vietnam. I don't see how any one
could hold against soldiers what the policy of the country is. If your in the
army you cant say "I'm not going". Just try it! I have a lot of respect
for them. I have a lot of love for them for what they did.
Q: After returning, did you continue your education?
A: Yes, they had a thing called the GI Bill. I didn't go immediately, but in
1949 I started college at night. I wanted go fulltime but I couldn't. Eventually
in 1956 I got a degree, a Bachelor of Arts in English from Seton Hall. I began
working for New Jersey Bell at the time, and was off on my career. Part of the
GI Bill paid for most of my Bachelors. Eventually, in about 1968, I decided
to go to law school, which was a little but I did it. I went to Seton Hall Law
School, again at night. I passed the bar in 1973. And I'm very grateful for
the fact that these schools where available to me. It has impacted on my whole
life. It's just been wonderful.
Q: What is your opinion of Hollywood's portrayal of WWII and other wars?
A: Until I saw Private Ryan, I didn't think much of their portrayal. Although
Private Ryan is about the army, I'm not at all experienced in it. It certainly
seemed realistic. The thing I liked most about it was you saw that there were
moments of intense agonizing activity, and days and hours with nothing in between.
Just patrolling. The opening scene of Private Ryan, as everyone who has seen
it comments, was certainly realistic and it was brutal. It was probably as close
to the actual moment as one could imagine. My all time favorite war movie, and
this probably predates your birth Joe, was All Quite on the Western Front. It
was a WWI movie, I remember it stared a fella named Lou Heirs, and it was about
the German Army during WWI. The same human elements where portrayed in that
movie as appears in any American movie. The fear, the loneliness, the panic,
the bravery, the whole thing and the futility of it all, the futility of it
all! You know war is nothing more than gaining control of real estate that's
really all it is. And to fight over some muddy swamp, or some stupid hill, which
is what our soldiers have to do, is so ridiculous when you think about it. The
bravery of men on both sides is always astounding. In WWII an Army Air Force
pilot named Colin Kelly, early on shortly after Pearl Harbor, crashed his United
States bomber into a Japanese battle ship. President Roosevelt said that that
was such an act of bravery that he was going to get the Congressional Medal
posthumously, and also Roosevelt was going to arrange for his son to get an
automatic appointment to West Point. All of that happened and the boy did go
to West Point. Graduated gave up the Army and became a minister, which is fine.
My point is though in WWII when the Japanese pilots crashed into our ships,
they where tagged as idiots, crazy and dumb, but when we do it it's heroic.
There are brave men in all armies, on both sides and we don't like to categorize
our enemies that way, but unfortunately in war time there are heroes all over
the place in my opinion.
Q: Describe your role in any veteran's organizations.
A: The only veteran's organization that I belong to the Destroyer Escort Sailors
Association, the Garden State chapter, I've been very active in it. I've avoided
holding office until very recently but I had been much involved in it. And then
last year they twisted my arm and made me a trustee, which is part of the planning
group that tries to keep the organization together. We are a last man organization,
which is unfortunate because there are no more destroyer escorts. For example
the destroyer men have an organization called the Tin Can Sailors, destroyers
are called tin cans, they go on and on so they can stretch all the way from
WWI until God knows when the last destroyer will be around. Destroyer escorts
went out of the Navy and the Coast Guard in the 1970's I believe the last one
was scratched. You should know that during WWII there where I believe thirty
DE's manned by the Coast Guard, the Coast Guard comes under the division of
the Navy during wartime. These men operated the same ships as we. The first
destroyer escort lost was a Coast Guard Destroyer Escort that was torpedoed
outside of Greenland in 1944 or 43. The USS Leopold was torpedoed by a Wolf
Pack. A German sub surfaced the Leopold spotted it came charging another sub
sitting there let go of the torpedo. It was icy day in March. The water was
freezing. Another destroyer escort couldn't stop because it was being torpedoed.
One hundred and ninety Coast Guardsmen were lost that day Coast Guardsman are
always welcome among DE men.
Q: How do you feel the events of September 11th relate to Pearl Harbor, if they
do at all? And what are your general feelings on September 11th?
A: Well the general feeling is one of horror, unbelief that it could have happened.
I don't think that the terrorists actually expected the buildings to come down
number one, and number two I don't think that they expected the subsequent reaction
to be such an economic one in this country. Since that time the stock market
has gone to hell, many jobs have been eliminated, the gross domestic product
and measurement of employment have all dropped dramatically and I think much
of it pivots around September 11th. I don't think the terrorists thought that
they were doing anything else other than performing an incidental act of terror.
But it has magnified beyond anyone's expectation in my opinion, which of course
is not good. What do I feel about? I feel dreadful that our country is viewed
in the eyes of so many people in such a skewed way that we are considered the
bad guys. I never felt that the United States is the bad guy in anything but
I am beginning to wonder now because your hearing about the complaints of some
of these other countries about the United States and its not all good. We really
have to change the face that we present in these third world countries and to
the Middle East. We have to solve the problems with Jerusalem very quickly or
these acts of terror are not going to cease. I cannot condone what's happened
but I also can't understand why the United States is looked down so dramatically
by so many people in so many parts of the world. Its very disturbing to me.
Q: How do you feel about the current situation in Afghanistan and the potential
situation in Iraq?
A: By the way, in your last question you asked me to compare it to Pearl Harbor,
I never did. I think its two different things. Pearl Harbor attack was a national
attack by the Empire of Japan. Whereas the terrorists acts were by individuals
who for what ever reason were so hateful of the United States. On that level
they cannot be compared. But on the level of the impact on the country, I hate
to say it but the terrorists attack, I think because of the communication that
exists today, with television and all of that, I think it had a much broader
detrimental impact on the people of the United States.
Now, getting back to the question of Afghanistan and Iraq, I don't really understand
why we're treating Iraq the way we are. I am not in favor of Iraq at all, don't
get me wrong, but I don't see why we are rattling swords when all of the diplomatic
activities have not been exhausted. I don't want anybody to go fight in Iraq
if we really don't have to. And the people of Iraq, as down-trodden as they
have been, they have not undertaken anything of their own volition to get rid
of this character, Sadam. And that's where it really should start from. And
then you could say, well they're not capable of it because it is such a police
state, a dictatorial state what have you. That may be but I find it hard to
believe there aren't some groups in that country that perhaps the Kurds who
are not capable of undertaking some kind of revolution. But short of that I
still say that we should exhaust and have not anywhere near exhausted the diplomatic
possibilities. Regarding Afghanistan, getting rid of the Taliban was an actual
wonderful act although I am not sure that were not going to pay for that in
the future. You have to take history in long drafts and long looks. Things that
look good today eventually end up looking awful tomorrow. And I think were going
to regret a lot of our activities in that area, Iraq and Afghanistan. I think
ten years from now we'll be involved in it someway, but my hope is we make some
accommodation and avoid the need of sending ground troops into Iraq.
Q: How do you feel your experience can help future generations?
A: Wow! That's a biggie. Well my experience is not complete, if you don't consider
the economic depression of the 30's in the context of my life. They where tough
days, they where unbelievably tough days for family such as mine. It was embarrassing
to be on relief or welfare. It set me off from other kids. To get shoes we had
to get a chip and go to a special shoe store that accepted these chips and buy
a pair of cheap shoes. My mother spent much of her time trying to shop and get
good deals. I remember once we weren't getting enough milk and she dragged me
over to the Department of Health in Newark and she persuaded the doctor to write
a chip that gave us one more quart of milk a week. So this is all part of my
experience. I think coming out of a depression into a war that solved all of
our problems was kind of a fairy tale ending. It's strange to say, the war solved
everything people could get jobs if they really wanted to. Money became a little
more available. The day everybody lived for was for the war would be over. What
does all of this mean to the future? It's hard to say except that we're a wonderful
country. We certainly don't back off from anyone. Education means an awful lot,
and everyone can get an education if they really want to. You might have to
struggle to do it but it can be done. In many other countries it is not possible
at all. I feel proud of having been in WWII. I feel proud of being in the Navy.
I believe that military service is good for everyone. I'm not sure that everyone
is cut out for it but it's a wonderful experience you mature very quickly. You
learn how to shift for your self. You learn to live with other people and work
with other people. And I think the best lesson to learn is that if you apply
yourself and keep your eye on the donut not the whole you'll do pretty well
in this country. And I really sincerely believe that.
Well thank you for your participation.
Conclusion of the Interview.