David Berman's interview for the Veterans History Project at Atlanta History Center

on camera good afternoon I almost said good morning mr. Berman we're here today with David Berman this is Kerry King I'm the interviewer and we are at Lynbrook in Atlanta Georgia on Peachtree Street that's a very beautiful retirement home and mr. Berman is a world war two veteran it is August the 20th 2018 and approximately I don't say 1340 hours but somebody might get it's 1:40 in the afternoon mr. Berman has agreed to allow us to interview us and to share his experiences in World War two mr. Berman again I'm Kerry King I want to let you know that the vidiians are doing today is going to the Library of Congress in Washington DC and will be online at the Atlanta History Center within a year we want to start off by thanking you for allowing us to do this today and thank you for your service and maybe I'm 75 years late but welcome home thank you all right so why don't you start off by you know telling us your name and where you grew up and your a little bit about your background okay I was born in Detroit Michigan 1926 which may and in fact I'll be 72 in two weeks 392 in three weeks 92 happy birthday thank you so I hope my memory is good enough for this interview and I'll try to recapture actually my life story part of my life story is the life story of millions of boys like me call meself a boy and what we went through during the world war two years if memory serves me correctly which hopefully there were sixty million people killed in World War two worldwide of course it's their approximation but imagine sixty million people killed in World War two that's just the reason I throw that out to you is to give you a feel of what World War two was the words World War two were world war i mean it encompassed the entire world so if sixty million were killed you can imagine how many people in the world were affected by it everybody everybody so did you graduate high school did you grow up in detroit and graduate yes I was born there I was born in Detroit and I'm Jewish and I lived the Jewish life we lived sort of a close knit family life my aunt lived across the street from me another aunt lived four blocks away and we went about my business my father was in the grocery business we had us he worked with his brothers in the supermarket business but they weren't called supermarkets at that time there were little stores you know but that's a whole nother book is the grocery business and I'm not here to tell you about that but it's interesting anyway I grew up and I went to kindergarten in grade school high school and when I was in high school I was thinking I would like to be a doctor that was sort of my ambition and I'd the classes I took in high school were science classes that were available and when I graduated in 1900 or broke out while I was in high school and when Germany invaded Poland and then the Allies declared the declared war the Allies were not the United States France and England basically and I recall going into a science class and in high school and the teacher said to me you know you boys are gonna be in this war and I thought what's he talking about you know I'm West metal and she says this is going to be a long war and a hard war and you guys will be in it that was just something that's always stuck in my mind that he had the ability at least think ahead so I graduated No now before I graduated we had a register for the draft I was probably 16 or 17 and you had a register for the draft and I was classified at that time won a lucky me but but anyway I did try it when I graduated I did try and volunteer for the Air Force I thought listen I can learn how to fly an airplane and Uncle Sam's gonna pay for it I had no idea what war meant or anything of that sort other than the name by Air Force at that point there was no real separate branch it was the Army Air Corps Air Corps yes yeah and I they said something that my eyes weren't good so I couldn't go okay that's where they felt about they didn't take me but then I had that was the exam that I took then I went to I was waiting to be called up and I went to registered at the universe when University and I I did take some courses at Wayne University and then I that got a call or a notice that Uncle Sam wants you or some some languages or the fruit 9 it was the friend your friends and neighbors something like that watch in the effort we're a service so as far as we prior to that my life was not you know growing up as you know go back I said I my bicycle I played football I played baseball and I did I guess what millions of other boys girls whatever I did growing up but the clouds war clouds were gathering fast now Rosa President Rose was president at the time President Roosevelt he tried to keep us out of war initially but then I don't think he did he kept giving supplies to Britain because by then Britain had been kicked out of the continent and had evacuated month at Dunkirk and went back to England now Hitler at that time wandered England to surrender and Churchill who was the Prime Minister of Prime Minister of Britain England refused so Hitler started bombing heavily bombing England and and during that time so Roosevelt kept sending supplies to England troops true that troops supplies yeah ten twenty thirty freighters at a time half of them were sunk by German u-boats he said he supplied England with 50 destroyers and was called lend-lease that idea was was lend-lease I'm gonna lend you these destroyers and you'll pay me back but you know it was kind of silly but anyway that was the whole thing there were different programs now there were a lot of people in this country that are were very much against our getting into this war into that war different senators van and burn a few others they were they were I we used to call him isolationist in fact you find a lot of that type of person now but but it wasn't all Oh everybody was gung ho to get into war not at all not at all there was a lot of lash back against it and then the he who put through the draft well this is just protection and in the draft you know the early draft these these wooden sticks as rifles that's how prepared we were we weren't prepared at all but we started to gear up for war little by little factories started to close and reconvert from making refrigerators to making guns now to enough the equipment was old equipment old buying today's and Earth's for sure but they started to manufacture airplanes now your planes weren't the big deal if you saw World War 1 pictures I mean they were just nothing but these planes started to get better and better and better we had a jump ahead a little bit but we had a factory will want run plant nearest airport it was from Ford yeah and he started to produce b-24s when the war ended he was putting out one plane every five months something like that and it was amazing we I don't know why I'm getting so much history but anyway this country at the time the war broke out was in a depression I mean I don't know there was 25% or whatever it was unemployment now when the war started and his factory started to convert they started to call these people to come to work and actually the war I hate to say it but the war pulled us out of the depression all right now let's get back to David Berman that was great history by the way but I want to hear what happened after you got the letter that your friends and neighbors well yeah okay so now I said goodbye and I at 12 o'clock at night my father took me in his car and drove me to Fort Wayne Michigan which was downtown Detroit was that your induction Center that was the induction Center and I said goodbye my father and I walked through the door and that started the next two years about being away from my family when was that mr. okay I've got it it was January 26 1945 is when I was sworn into the service and I guess from there I went on a bus to Battle Creek Michigan I forgot name with a camp it was the local Michigan camp the National Guard was stationed there didn't stay long there and they shipped me to Fort Sheridan Illinois right on the right on the Lake Michigan and I'm and if you've ever been to Lake Michigan in the winter it's not a pretty sight Oh God the windchill factor was below zero now that's where they issued us uniforms and I put this coat on overcoat that came down to my ankles and the itched and everything itched and the trousers it's yeah and I looked at myself in the mirror and I says who is that so when they assigned us to barracks no barracks we're tired paper checks there weren't the brick barracks you know like you might have mention they were throw up there were emergency structures now how did they heat them they had a little pot-bellied stove in the corner in each corner probably and everybody rather than be in their bed that they were assigned would huddle around this pot-bellied stove to get a little bit of heat I mean it was cold okay now they fed us thick Italy calls and we get blind now here get in line for food and everything you know what I'd sit at a table and eat Oh No you've gotten line and it's cold I'm standing there now the food they gave you oh it was terrible there's nothing I was used to I mean it was just bad but anyway so we went from there now when they served you I remember they didn't serve you you know this is over here here they just swapped everything in this lame let's get you in the peaches on top of the meat and so on and so forth hey I wasn't used to that life I tell you I wanted to go home now not only that I remember I must say I admit the first night that went to bed there I cried I literally cried I just was miserable I wasn't used to that kind of life okay so now we stayed there a few days not that long and let's see is that where you had your basic training or did you go somewhere no no no that's why I say okay we got on the train and at Fort Sheridan now by then most of the trains that you we went by had army personnel on them Navy or army this one's going this way and going all directions all over the country and they put us on a you know like instead of two people they put three or four people in a row it's okay met new people and we kept going they didn't tell us where we were going at first then they came back and they told us we were going to Alabama now who wants to go to Alabama Fort Sheridan Alabama now the thing I remember about Fort Sheridan Alabama initially on the train was red clay now I had never seen red clay it's only down south I guess I don't know where I'll say every red clay and that clay sticks to you like glue but anyway that redness everything turns red so then we like slept on it I remember on the train we slept the three and four the because was overnight hi one on the bottom one in the middle on top sort of makes a makeshift arrangement I took a couple of three days to get there I remember we got off the train and there was an Army sergeant cameras name was the gruff a slice I'll carry you whatever yeah line up for Nam and I looked at I was eating nuts now I'm gonna give you a little aside for one minute if I may about Fort McClellan then I'll again tell you what McClellan I was gonna ask yes Fort McClellan Ellen Ellen yeah okay not long ago about a year ago two years ago I happened there I was going to Montgomery Alabama for an art show and we were driving with my son and it said Fort McClellan so I made him turn off we went down this dirt road and there was a fire station and we asked him I asked him where Fort McClellan was and he says you're on it because of most of the barracks had been torn down yeah and but in the background it's a little about two miles down were these barracks that I had taken my basic training in now not only that there was a Main Street they're called Berman Avenue so I told my sent all through the camp I told my son I said see I was such a good soldier that they named the street after me as it turned out it was named after so one of them see with a museum his name was Berman okay let's get back to where I was all these things keep jumping into my head you have to excuse me okay now [Music] basic training at Fort McClellan was difficult and yet I was really proud to be able to do it because a lot of the people beside me that came down with me didn't quite make it they felt by the wayside and as I went through the training I began to build myself up actually they knew what they were doing and you know that I learned how to use a bayonet and they kept telling me that you want to you're gonna want to kill people and that didn't go too good but and they always in my mind was how you're gonna really be able to do that you know it's one thing to talk about but can you really stick a bayonet into somebody or shoot at them maybe if you can't see them okay but if you're looking in the face and shoot them that's that's not how I grew up so I was taking this this training you know learning how to shoot a machine gun a lightweight machine gun 50 caliber machine gun and send every bullets crawling under barbed wire having tanks were all over you in marching March and March March with backpacks on you and I never thought I could do it but you know I could do it and they did it now came 13 week 12 weeks 13 weeks and we graduated and I remember on our graduating night we had a thirty mile hike with with backpacks and then camped overnight and then luckily they took us back in trucks I remember I remember thinking I can't walk back but they remember thinking but they did take us back in trucks and I was sort of proud in the the soles of my feet I remember had calluses on them from the training and I thought boy it's kind of neat you know I felt as sick as I was I thought I was sick when I went in the army oh I have no nose trouble sinus trouble isn't that when I left that that basic training I felt good I did wouldn't admit it but I really did yeah so your basic training was all infantry basic training yes yes your MOS yes okay yeah inducted into the army obviously my MOS was an infantry I had no real specialty training prior to going in and you know that they might like need or use so they gave me a furlough and they says go home for six days or eight days and then they gave me tickets to go to camp maxie Texas which is right on the border of Arkansas and Texas in the city of Texarkana so I get home and I get home at 4:00 in the morning and my father is going to work and he comes back in the house we sit down and have a cup of coffee while we're sitting having coffee I take out a cigarette and my father looks at me and he says what are you doing I'm gonna smoke a cigarette he says that's what the army taught you how to smoke yeah and I hadn't realized that before I went into service I really didn't smoke so but once I got in there I smoked yeah that was a mistake but anyway so so I spent a few days with my parents of my mice Oh my siblings I had two sisters and twin brothers the two sisters were older than me and that my twin brothers were younger than me were you first-generation American a word of would your parents Eastern Europeans or Eastern European they came from Russia yes so we're so were my grandparents oh so my father was the first generation of America as well yeah no my father was born in restroom yeah actually yeah so take it back my father was born in Cape Town South Africa yeah grandfather okay not about me yeah son so at the end of your furlough I got back on the train and went to camp maxi Texas now we didn't do much there we didn't do any training I remember and I remember having a furlough into town there was another camp in Arkansas that wasn't close by I mean that was close by and the two camps the soldiers from the two camps sorta didn't get along together and I've ever been in camp AXI to me Texarkana is where the furlough was everything overnight do we get past and there were fights going on all night between the two channels anyway in in Texarkana I had my don't look my first encounter with a girl when I was in service I'll go on from there you're not gonna understand do we need to clear the room we're gonna hold off on that one right now it's okay Oh gets better later what what you got to camp Maxie Texas did you join a unit on active duty no or was it a training no training replacement okay yeah was a replacement I wasn't there long and I hear again he put us on a train again at the army train and shipped us to Fort Ord California which is right on the ocean and the Pacific Ocean so I assumed I was going to Pacific but you never could tell with the with the army they could send you to the west coast and ship you out to the East Coast but anyway I assumed I was going out the West Coast somewhere in the Pacific years later I'm content I Vestal but I was in California driving down the coast with my wife and I says I have such a strange feeling I said to her Diana right around the bend is fort ord and she's his white ottoman I says I just feel it and sure enough we got around the corner you know you know the curve in the road and there was Fort Ord and it was really strange I tell it because it was it sort of gave me the chills I hadn't been there back there near the area for years who knows those kinds of things you don't forget pen you don't forget those kind of things yeah just yeah okay anyway back to Fort Ord now and Fort Ord what did we do we did a lot of training with ships how did how to get on a ship how to get off a ship they you know with the not netting but the ropes you know where you climb ladders yeah yeah yeah you climbed down okay the other thing I remember is they had a big pool it was a swimming pool and what do they do they strapped a bunch of bricks on tear back I don't know 20 bricks whatever I don't remember humming I mean it were heavy and they said now the object is to swim with these bricks to the other end of the pool and they says you're not going to be able to swim so we're gonna tell you how to get there and they went through the process of going to the bottom and kicking your feet pushing yourself up taking a breath of air and going down and they're continually doing that until you got to the other side now what was it this is when they dropped you off on an island if they didn't drop you off close enough to the beach and you got off of the landing craft and into 10 feet of water or whatever you sort of chance of don't fight it don't try to because you had your backpacks you know when you hit an island you had a lot of your backpacks with you which were heavy 50 pounds or whatever and you wouldn't be able to swim with it you would goes down so they said don't panic this is what you do just push yourself come up go Don what they neglected to tell you sounded wonderful is that people were gonna be shooting at you at the time and your chances there anyway okay so here it was at Fort Ord and I took this training and I liked the area I really did they kind of told us a little bit of what to expect because some of the instructors at this point had come back from from from the war and so we began to get a sort of a feeling of what we might find then all of a sudden the issue us winter clothing well we couldn't be going to South Pacific with winter clothing good my sister and her husband were stationed and Northern California yeah exactly we're so I used to be in touch with her I mean I kind of says you know we got winter clothing I think I'm going to Alaska I'm gonna be stationed in Alaska and at that time the Japanese had invaded the Kiska Island and a couple of Aleutian Islands and I thought that's the direction I was gonna be head of yeah so we were at Fort Ord for a while and we were alerted that we were shipping out we were gonna get on a train they wouldn't tell us where we were going just get on the train and he did and we didn't I mean now the train goes up from Porter into San Francisco and I sort of recognized that it was San Francisco although they may keep the shades down he really anytime we weren't in the with the Train see how to keep the shades down the Shane still and the training the train kept going and going and then they notice it's going down toward the wharf and sure enough that's where I went right to the wharf and the engine stopped at the train backed in and the cars I don't know how many cars were that and it went on to the dock out and you know go to the water next to the dock was a ship this one I can't remember general something and they told us when you get off the ship don't stay on the deck go below will sign you you know where you go and as we got off the train the Red Cross God Muslim handed us a cup of coffee hot chocolate was and away you go and they would check you off your name and so on and we went up the gangplank cheering whether our pickup bags and they direct us and then this is a sort of a big ship as a troop ship and and down down now he kept going down and we were in down and so I got assigned a bunk now the bunk was five deep I mean five guys were lined up like this or six when I'm five it's like he barely got in and you're stuffed your duffel bag and then you kind of crunched in he didn't just climb in he got in sideways I remember and this guy's butt is in your face you know from the next so it didn't take long and out we went and we did manage this sneak out and get and see the Golden Gate Bridge as we went under it and this is well we're not going to Alaska I don't think from here but maybe so day two days passed and we kept heading south so then I knew we weren't going to Alaska on the ship was terrible terrible terrible the menu went you you were constantly at a line to go to the mess hall the line you go up the stair down the stair hop to staring down the stair and they put it on a tray and there were no no no benches to sit for lunch there's just a long table like ten of them in the room and you stood there eating out of this tray and when the ship would turn your tray would go sliding down and slide back we took saltwater showers I remember there was no fresh water for showers we ran into a I guess it was Mustang like a typhoon because the ship would leave the water and you'd hear their propellers spin you know put them back and then and I went up and the waves were you didn't look down on the way she looked up so we were in some kind of a storm I wanted to especially scared those stupid well you did you get seasick no I never got seasick and other guys were up chucking all around me but I never got I went through that whole trip now from there we went to Ulithi now what is Ulithi Ulithi is nothing but shallow water shallow enough for afraid is to drop anchor so it was like a collection point for a sea for freighters earth or naval duffel just one you know how you spelled you look thee you ll i TI i think thi okay I forgot what group of violence is is a mum I remember is hot there and we sat there for a few days now in retrospect I realized they put us there not knowing exactly where to ship us that was part of the logistics part of logistics you know they they couldn't wait until we were in the United States to decide where they're gonna send us exactly so they it was a collection point they got a group here went there and group there and that's the way they ran the war not just with that but the everything that went to Europe that went wherever it went that was part of the way they did that what may I ask you one question what the ship load of troops that were on there well they individual replacements for units that were already there now were you with a unit no no units no we were not no one had assigned an assignment as to an individual unit actually on that ship so they were gonna take you there and put you with whatever you need needed when we got there we were gonna move into a replacement Depot and from there they would pull cannon fodder so he left you lathy and they still didn't tell us where we were going the reason the reason is I realized that sort of years later and T so ship was sunk and we were rescued and my a Japanese or the Germans they didn't want us to be able to tell him where we were where we were headed lecture so from a military point yeah yeah do you know about how many troops were on the ship I think yeah I've been thinking about that I think there were between 1,500 and 2,000 we landed we pulled into Manila Bay there was can't think of the name in Manila was a was was was known as before the war the pearl of the Orient it was a modern city the apartments and hotels were much more modern than anything you saw here in the States at that time a lot of them were bombed are we still in 1945 at this point yeah okay so well-well no 46 urine during 1946 now well no 45 okay yeah yeah 45 sorry seems like ten years what it feels like sometimes okay now so now we drop anchor and Manila Bay the night before I just a bark somebody stole my bracelet I remember I woke up in the morning was gone or I dropped it I don't know I looked around I couldn't find it anyway they took us by small boat to the shore to the wharf we were on the wharf and that that had been bombed everything was busted up the thing that caught my eye when we landed was the rats there were rats all over the place big ones because it was the wharf and they you know run up with these ships and down and with the wreckage that you're they have a fielding oh okay now we land and it's hot and we've got winter clothing so we stayed on the wharf over night or two nights and eight K rations or whatever they were called at that time and got on trucks and went to a replacement depo just outside of Manila not fire outside and there were other troops there besides our troop ship they were I don't know maybe another two or three four thousand I have no idea how many other soldiers are there and here again so now there's we sleep pumped our butt down now I'm trying to think did we put up tents in or they had tents they must have had some kind of sleeping arrangements there I would assume they were tents now in the Army there were all kind of tents there was little tents big tents medium sized tents and I sort of slept the nelem but so I don't really don't remember at this point the sleeping arrangements now I remember like maybe their next day two days later a guy comes with a bullhorn does anybody here know how to work a battalion switchboard now I must say that before that I saw these ambulances coming back from someplace and unload on a hospital ship or like a hospital ship wounded soldiers you know all bandaged up some directly from the front and so on and that was my first sights of really what can happen to you a war that you can get hurt and so I thought about it do you know the guy says could anybody work a switchboard and I thought well if it's a battalion switchboard it's not right up front its back aways so if you're back aways your little ways from getting hurt so I says though I can run one now I knew a little bit about it that's not to say that I didn't know anything about so he says ok come on it was some sergeant some sergeant major and he takes me and his Jeep the first time I got in a Jeep boyo and by the way speaking of jeeps that vehicle was unbelievable in the war both in the in Europe and the Pacific and all over really did every other war we've ever ran still expect ok it's just unbelievable versatile vehicle no course okay so now he takes me into whatever little building or something then here's this switch word Battalion switch smart and he says okay here it is and here's the and he gave me the numbers Battalion 16 or something and connect them Talia okay when the light goes on or whatever anyway that was my first blunder because I didn't know what I was doing the light was gone I put a plug in like we go on I put a plug in I take a plug out within ten minutes fifteen I remember that sergeant comes running back and he says [Music] he says you never ran a switchboard I said this is just I said I didn't exactly run one but I had a girlfriend there work than a hotel and she needs a search for a evaporator for the old kills and I used to watch her you just get away from her I thought well so I'm gonna be court-martialed but I'm still alive anyway now he takes me back to that same area and he says here you go to the mail room to sort mail and what where was the mail the mail was in two trailers like big trailers and inside were like coming home soon you know and where you put a slot you put APO so-and-so and okay now mail was piled up bags of mail I remember that sent you money and you would take a handful and start to run around the trailer finding which hole to put them in and so I did that whatever I could if I got it wrong it was wrong you know what you tell me I put it in the wrong slot I mean I tried to do it right but there was so many a mountain and then I got tired of running swinging but that's another story but they didn't know what I was doing so then while I remember I was sorting the mail and then they're calling out names and I hear my name called so I'm in trouble I'm in trouble for the that's switchboard business and they kept calling names so this and they said they are useful yeah we'll get over there and then we got to got together a group of about a hundred people and they said after a while after they got all the names it's on now you you folks are going into a special unit you have been selected to go into this unit so the name of the unit is recovered personnel detachment and we'll explain to you later what it is that you're gonna be doing now oh I forgot before I left Monday they exchanged their clothes they took all our winter clothing and gave us southern sub summer clothes okay now I'm been assigned a unit so I talked to somebody about a frat who need to take a break at any time you just let me know okay water went down the wrong pipe we were assigned to this unit called recovered personnel detachment and we were assigned to F Westpac Armed Forces western Pacific there's a book called ghost story ghost soldiers and that's what we were a division of now I'll explain to you the mission was to retrieve prisoners of war at the time they were getting ready for the invasion of Japan and down the roads you could see that they were this was in Luzon by the way that I was in absolutely moved you from Manila to Lausanne know that Manila is on the island of you are on the island yeah I was Army so I don't know about your bathtub yeah yeah the Navy and Pacific stations okay so all right so I mean there he had tanks lined up airplanes lined up they were really very close to invading Japan no when I got them trying to think of the chronology that they dropped first drop the bomb atomic bomb on Hiroshima Nagasaki Nagasaki was first yeah I was on the troop ship when they put through this that they had dropped a bomb out that and explained a little bit that it was a powerful bomb they didn't really know what it was I mean we didn't know not sure they knew how powerful it was so now they dropped no no so now what we were going to do when the during the invasion of Japan whoever it was we were going to be used as if the Japanese had seized some American troops and taken them to the back or if we had come across a prisoner of war camp because there were prisoners in Japan we were to go ahead of the main fighting parachute in and try to rescue the soldiers and our job so I was assigned to go to the office of the prison camp or wherever it was and seize all the documents I could and leave with the documents were you airborne no now we were going to think training unit be qualified to throw you out of an airplane so I remember so we get to this training area for a covered personnel detachment and here's these big towers you talk about airborne and they got these you know parachutes coming down like ropes and so we started training to parachute jump actually we didn't parachute we didn't actually jump with with exception from being pushed off these towers I remember and floating down that was my parachute training [Music] okay now they drop the second bomb Nagasaki the war ends we get word to get ready to go to Japan and they fly us to Okinawa this hundred man unit W now we were divided up into teams six man teams or five man teams and they flew us to Naha Okinawa now they had just gotten had a tornado there one of the cam there tornadoes no yeah like a few days prior and there's airplanes Skinner I remember all over the place you know just throw them around all right now so how are we gonna get to Japan so now they load us on to an aircraft carrier now the name of the aircraft carrier was the Chenango I remember now it was a baby flattop what they call baby flattop what they did is they had several them what they did is they took oil tankers took the superstructure off of them put a flight deck on and put 15 16 18 aircraft on them so they put us on it I remember there was one airplane left on us than the ship one's a fighter wildcat or whatever it was and at the time I remember saying well I'm glad I'm a pilot I mean they were small and they're just sitting on a bomb whenever they went and so - aircraft carrier and why an aircraft carrier they were going to use it as a hospital ship because so you know the wide open space so we take our we go and we land in Nagasaki right after the bomb you're landing he was not yeah it was like two weeks later maybe three weeks later I've got the dates and as a matter of fact that qualified me after the war for the VA because I had been possibly exposed to radiation didn't tell me that but anyway I found out later all right so now we're in Nagasaki I remember being we landed low it's about Miss free bounce and what we landed was down here the city was up here up would you were airborne dropped in there you came in on a flat top on the flat top yeah yeah and I remember we're sitting at this what do you call house Customs House down low and they had a bunch of boxes we open one box and they were full of foreigner graphic pictures that they had guys was skated off of other ships you know I mean like denim tented boxes but anyway so now we're we stayed there overnight the next morning we climb up into the city and the sight was WOW because that's where they had dropped the bomb now instead of you come up you would expect houses and so on there's nothing there it was just almost like coming into an open field he would see I mean there were streets all right but you would see like railroad tracks the you know torn up pointing up bent around there'd be an occasional half wall somewhere and looking out into the distance because it's it's like with Hills around the mountains around and you would see like fingers up into burned like burned fingers right into the hills where the just burned Rancho and I was amazed I mean I was there were a few people walking around but it was it was nothing yeah and they got stolen from me yeah later it's another story but anyway because I had a camera with me and but I didn't expect because you know right they dropped a bomb you know I I still didn't know now Hiroshima Nagasaki but when you saw it you realized the enormity of it that in an instant thirty or forty thousand people just disappeared so now in this day and age with the amount of bombs hydrogen bombs much more powerful there are around every country as 10 this one as of 15 under the world did my estimation will not survive somewhere along the line it's gonna set off this Holocaust in the world will destroy the world I believe it and myself I don't believe they can keep it under wraps that long I think they've done a good job so far when I really I just don't know and having seen the destructive power of it and the one they dropped was nothing compared to the ones they have now so it's frightening okay now what were you doing in Japan we went to Japan to send back to take out Allied soldiers that were prisoners in Japan is that my phone we've had no idea Ken on my desk my desk now the soldiers were not only American but they were British New Zealand Canadian these were soldiers that were captured right after Pearl Harbor when the Japanese expanded and went all they would the Philippines they went to Borneo they went all around the Pacific and invaded all these islands countries Singapore and so they captured quite a few soldiers and they took them back to Japan unfortunately a lot of the soldiers never got there they were put on transports and they were sunk buyers our submarines and quite a few prisoners never never made it back off of those transports they're also a good number of them that were in camps in places other than in Japan itself Yeah right am I correct yes there were yeah because if you think of the in Burma and so on there were yeah now we had no idea how many prisoners there were in Japan part of the priority and getting them out was General MacArthur you know he was in charge when the war broke out and the Philippines he also was a good friend of the Philippine people he had a lot of real estate holdings there and so things around that area in that area the Pacific was a great interest to him and a lot of things even when they retook Manila they were very careful not to do too much to try to avoid damage you know there's in Manila an old city it's called the old city and it was surrounded by a wall you know thick heavy wall and he said he ordered them not to use artillery on that wall to get to the old city but they disobeyed him missus anecdote whether it's true or not I don't really know I happen to think it was so now I'm in Japan I get on a train a few miles away from the city of Nagasaki a Japanese train they took us there by from the city by bus I guess because there were no trains that could go right into the city of that thing I don't remember the exact logistical how we got on the train and we're on a train moving inland on the island of Kyushu is where Nagasaki was it's the southern most island of Japan proper so now we're moving or going to this prison camp they shoes carbines and a little bit of ammunition just in case somebody hadn't heard the warning that because this was a Japanese strain there were no occupation troops shipped there we were the only troops there the occupation troops came later after we had been there a while in fact I watched I watched them land I remember but anyway so now we hit this the train stops drops us off I don't have my book with although the numbers of the business camp but let's say it's camp number six just I'm just guessing and at the entrance to the camp I see a American or whoever they were wandering around just walk around smoking cigarettes I think that kind of prison is this anyway why did it happen was the when the war ended like few days later the Japanese guards all took off disappeared and so and then on this you know all the camps freezes by the way had P o W Witten on the roof know what while I was there I saw these planes would come in I forgot what kind they were transport something and they would drop supplies parachutes of little they'd open their tailgate and push them out and I only come 10 or 15 3 containers with food clothing different things and cigarettes and cigarette cigarette they call them soldier tax mostly cigarette and they'd come crashing down and they would send the Japanese kids how to bring him in they weren't gonna go get him anymore anyway so we described most of the camps that I visited they were a building in the center of the building down the hallway like I mean his open open there was big tubs where they cooked food when they could get it and bathed and everything else and on the sides each side is where they slept the prisoners on the floor I was in Ottawa a few years later when I got back and they had a replica of one of these prison or war barracks and it was very identical to what I had seen I was surprised at the museum they didn't eat good at all the now certain camps they were right they were not meld they were maltreated but not maltreated they didn't necessarily make them at certain camps make them bow whenever they saw Japanese sub camps they did and they would get slapped around by the guards and if they didn't like it they could even get their arm whacked off with a sword I had an incident and when I went in this place and the guy called me over and they took me over to he was dying Hey he said he wanted to see if a free American before he died I walked away I was at the time I I mean I appreciated it and I felt terrible but not not terrible like I felt years later later about it those people in those camps even for a month was very hurt very rare that's why when our president says that Senator McCain was not a hero I cannot buy that he spent five years in a prison camp how he did that I don't know hmm I don't either I don't know you could say that they broke both of his arms yep they beat him if that man and he survived he's not a hero I don't know what for hills yeah why anyway so okay so now it took about three days to process we went in with papers bla bla bla names and so on you know and then we would start them on their way back to the coast by now they had accumulated one or two hospital ships different all different kinds of transportation oh god I got almost pictures where I think Oh Thea I didn't give them away no well give me them my picture when I show here we want you to hold it up so with them hold it up so we can get it okay camera here which one are you here yes people there yeah this is the this is our team here and these are the POWs as we were processing them oh yeah yeah let me tell you how I got that picture I got that picture off my computer I was rummaging through one day and I came across that picture and that's something yeah 135 pounds so who is the guy standing behind you with his foot on your looks like his foots on your bench they're in uniform oh yeah that was a lieutenant baranski he was he was the head of our team now if you look down if I took the picture out you would see the date there's a date on it it was on my birthday what date was September 15th 1945 September 15 1945 yeah now you see this is not a jeep that looks like it it's a bus there were no Jeep sir there were no Americans other than us may I ask you a question about just as an estimate what percentage of the personal war camps that you've liberated what percentage of the POWs were so bad off that they didn't make it small percent most of them those who survived oh I shouldn't say that that's not what I meant once I came across through a life yeah but okay I went in the first field w camp I went into they had a room in the room was ashes now these ashes were in boxes like this while some would I remember okay and they were stacked up broken up with a name on it written violence but a lot of them maybe 10% of them were broken maybe more and the ashes had spilled out now my lieutenant told me go put them back in the bag because I came out and told him he says put them in the boxes as best you can which I did so I was shoveling ashes from who knows who into to send home could have been anybody it could have been four people's ashes yeah so they would cremate the bodies they cremate oh they didn't put it there was no graves they cremated them and each prison camp that we went to had difference amounts some had a lot of them some not so many now they naturally slept on the floor of the prisoners on mats full of lice and everything else and the food they ate they were given potatoes and they ate insects you know if they caught a grasshopper they threw it in the pot or whatever it was you know when you're hungry you're hungry okay fine it's protein yeah it's protein yeah so that's what they eat now on Kyushu they had them they didn't just have them sitting around they had him working and they had him the coal mines in Japan are on the island of Kyushu and they had him working in these coal mines so I thought you know some of the comments say I'm talking to them they weren't that angry at the population as they were at the military yeah because they said that when he would come out of the mines some of the peasants would smuggle rice to them you know standing side alongside so and they were really mostly mad at the military how they told us a lot of stories about the beatings and they just didn't treat them well and for no reason think you know they'll give somebody a smack on the head or something you know it's a masochistic okay now so how long did you stay in Japan okay you know about two months or longer but anyway in Japan I had an opportunity to to go into towns different towns one time we walked down the street into a bank and they bow to us I went with somebody else and they were frightened boy didn't know what we were gonna do and they opened the vault and here's all these yen backed up essentially worthless I would think at that pool no we didn't know we didn't know that they were gonna print occupation money oh okay yeah at that point we had no we didn't even think about it later when they landed and they I sighs saw them when the occupation troops were shooting dice and I see them with some paper this is what are you kind of people using aren't using money this is the papers the occupation money so that was the first thing thing I had about it now we processed oh here I've got it here so this was from I wrote this before my birthday was camp 22 that's where this picture is camp 22 anyway one once we went to a party one night I remember I sort of notable for me it's in my mind up on the hill beautiful home and it belonged to the owner or whatever he was of one of the coal mines so he threw a party for a group like fifteen of us and the party consisted of sitting and talking and then sitting on the floor or whatever and chopsticks and sake and more sake and served by people in kimonos and whatever you very elegant now it's time for bed and now they would take mosquito netting and put it hang it up for no room was in the sky raining because of the mosquitoes and other insects so now we'll get into bed no we we hear a laughing E and then crawl 15 or 10 or 15 girls under the mosquito but I don't think you have to write oh my god we'll talk privately yeah but I still I'm still yep you were so near knock a sake where all this radiation was exposed did you not suffer any concert did you not get sick or vomiting or no no no by then dissipated you know don't forget the bomb that they dropped that bomb is not like the bombs now they didn't have the radiation yet the firepower all right you know but not the radiation so to kilotonnes ah I believe it was a - yeah kiloton bomb yeah but I yeah well you were lucky yeah how many POWs did you your unit process now individually I don't know I mean as far as you know there were 39 thousand prisoners that we released from Japan and we've got the Presidential Unit Citation and you said the book ghost soldiers was about your unit or units like yours yeah I've got the books over here so after Japan did you they redeploy you somewhere militarily yeah we're just dis Georgia yeah oh no no no I spent most of my career actually after Japan went back to the Philippines now when we left the Philippines any when we left Japan after all this processing how these POWs they made us they didn't want us to take anything out of there they made us leave like pistols and stuff that we had acquired oh yeah okay so somebody yeah I got a beautiful pistol so they we went they put us on airplane and we flew back to the Philippines to Manila now they didn't disband the unit now what we now what we were gonna do we get to the Philippines and we're doing clerical work we're doing like you can tell filling work I have to tell you an anecdote that's sorry when I get back to the Philippines and I'm assigned somebody tells me you go to the motor pool oh one of the things that troubled me but all the time I was in is you while you were on temporary duty you couldn't get promoted in the army when you weren't with temporary duty any place you cannot get like a promotion but anyway so they say you're gonna drive general Willoughby to this party general Willoughby was the author was the primary author of the taking back of the Philippines he was a one that offer the island taking island by Island by Island he was in Australia which their own MacArthur now so now the embassy whatever it was throat was throwing a party we had really almost just gotten back from Japan and I go to this motor pool and they give me a car and they told me where to pick up this general willoughby oh I didn't know him from Adam so there's a Chevrolet I remember was it Altair you know pre-war but anyway so I get in this car I pick him up and he says all right he gives me another address to pick up his girlfriend I missed Isla you know and in the Philippines they had the Spanish were there prior you know so there's a lot of mix and they call him Miss TSYS Spanish and Philip you know so they picks up this lady beautiful lady and he gives me the address where to take me so I pull out and there's a convoy going by me and I stopped and he says what are you stopping for I says there's a convoy in front of me he says I don't want you to stop you go ahead I said sir there's a convoy here and then he's so fine and so I turned around I mean that they don't I thought let's see crazy or what so he's a general he said yeah we get to this house on Manila Bay beautiful and it's up up off the bay and I drop them off and they say the parking lot is down below and take your car in park and we'll call you so I go down there and I Park and I'm parked and I guess I fell asleep suddenly I hear a knocking on the window and the guy says are you general Willoughby's car and I said yeah he says well I wouldn't want to be you and at that point I really wanted to run away I mean it was far away how was I give you here so alright fine they pick him up and he's mad you know but his girlfriend is kind of calming him down she says all right okay so I take her home take him home wherever I go back to the motor pool and this is okay they took him this is okay you're saying the general will it be for tomorrow and I said yeah yeah okay so went back to my poor we were bericht I never went back I don't know what happened he was I never went back you didn't go back no I'm just crazy if Charlie's you I wouldn't get oh my god what am I chief general would be so how long were you in man but do I wait quite a while now oh you keep going back in Philippines we're back in Manila I'm back in Manila now our new assignment is to process Filipino soldiers that had been in the Philippines during the war up in the mountains you know the Japanese never totally took the islands there there were the the guerrillas what was another name for guerrillas be I don't know we called him something different in Vietnam we call them Mountain yards or mountain tribesmen or whatever because my son asked me what a guerrilla counterinsurgency yeah they hadn't surrendered anyway they had not surrendered to the Japanese they had run into the mountains and form little units it was these units by the way that general Willoughby was in touch with when went and when they landed in Leyte when they took the Philippines back they came and helped them take it back by hitting the Japanese from behind and during the war they they did that they were ambushed a convoy of Japanese and run back and so on so like a long as well yeah but they were in the open and they couldn't but they see how they could they'd put on civilian clothes maybe and go into town you know there was an American was there where there American civilians were held captive during the war Kathy oh man there's actually a very famous movie called him power of the Sun that was a Spielberg movie where there was a prisoner of war camp a Japanese prisoner of war camp it was liberated and most of the prisoners were British some Americans came from either Shanghai our Singapore that is everything you just yeah yeah so anyway so now we're going to this also a fairly large island and the Philippines called Pan a a PA ma Y and the capital of Panay is e - e leu e IL o e no no soon I just I think hi yellow not sure okay so we we fly in there they have a couple of houses like for us to stay in with an office and these Filipinos would come in and we'd process them whether they were due for back pay back pay for being in service all during the war and so and that's what we do there were quite a few hundred of them now there was no way we could actually verify those that were too full those were accept you could basically tell him you know you'd ask him certain questions and things so we did that the time we spent that penny was very interesting we go into e Lulu at night it wasn't a modern city it was a some ranch shackled bars and so on and they'd be cooking in the streets I remember eating snake in the streets they chop a little steak and roast it what else pop in a we went out we went out hunting I remember and the streams with with 45 you ever anyone duck hunting with a 40 foot and I'll tell you a little Alliance attempting penny I was in as a buyer and I got drunk really drunk and I sort of didn't know where I was and this girl says to me come on you'll spend the night at my house because you don't even know where you're at so I follow she takes me by the hand and remember you know I don't remember too much about it but really I follow her to her house not her house it was like a it was a house I guess no fool no wooden floor or anything and I can't go in the door it's a big room and in the middle of the room he decided the room was an army bed army cot the I get undressed I get in the bed we got the mosquito netting out of bed I woke up the next morning I'm still drunk I wake up next to whirring she's next to me I lift up the mosquito netting and they're over here's some old woman cooking on the floor she's squatting and cooking and over here's somebody else and here's some kids playing I get dressed and I don't know if I paid her yes I did Dumbo out of that then they tumble outside and I'm really drunk I don't know where yeah nice so I figure well I'll go back tour you know built there were a few buildings toward where there's buildings at least I'll maybe get my bearings I mean I find obviously I got my bearings and I got back to my camp the reason I'm telling this it's such a funny story to me I miss trunk all the time my time I went with her till I walked home to my barracks I don't know what happened during the night okay now okay now all right I'll tell you my other love story while I was in the Philippines I guess it was limp and penny could have been or could have been in Manila proper and we slept on this in this particular place we slept on army cuts with we always had mosquito netting and a supply ship small supply ship anchored on the river near me near it near Rose Pamela and think of myself myself those guys must have mattresses I sneak up on that ship I guess it was an ammunition ship I don't know I remember and sure enough they had bad roses so I stole the mattress and I used that mattress I put it on my bed oh man I remember was I in heaven and then they'd this girl the girl was a different girl her name was Joseph II anyway enough with the girls now another thing in the in the Philippines I'm just telling you little anecdotes now I remember saying PepsiCo IRA coca-cola it's here but you have to get in line look out the line my god it's a half a mile long but if they hadn't had a coke and three years so okay I get line with my cup and there's the Machine he gives me after an hour he gives me coke I look as where'd the coke that's it he gave me this let's cook and it was hot you know I haven't machine oh my god oh my god and oh so yeah I'm today in the where we kept our jeeps and trucks and so on there was a monkey now the monkey was always tied up so one day I'm sitting there hurling down I guess I laid down I open my eyes and this monkey is sitting on me and what is he doing he's tearing open my cigarettes jump you know and when I jumped I scared him I guess and he bit me right here got scared so I went through the doctor and he says well keep the monkey alive and might be rare you know rabies so I tie up the monkey and the next morning I go out and the monkey is dead he had choked himself on the rope that I normally I mean that's that let's see what other stories getting to get the right word deliberately I we had a bunkie - in viña and I would put chewing gum in my fatigue pockets and then you know they had triple buttons on him and he knew that they were in there he would come over my shoulder start ripping on anything and I would start laughing and then he would go he finally got the chewing gum out after about you get furious that I but oh my god all right now I'm going to go home yeah now let you out of here ask you what you did after the war no no I'm Alaska you got back to the States where did you go when you got back for Detroit depowered we landed out no no San Francisco San Francisco yep now we stopped off in Hawaii for a day I'd not get off the ship we were on the ship and we went to San Francisco and we got a pass so I checked into the forgot what hotel and I got under the shower and then just so been soaked and so good so had I get that's you know there's a smell any time in the Orient yeah that you don't you know sorting out of where of it until you're out of it takes weeks yeah it just gets in your pores and everything and so that's so that's what I did okay now they send me home now now you're out of the army or you still in the army I'm still in the air okay but I'm going back to the Detroit to get mustered out so I'm in this trunks train station in San Francisco you know here come the MPS and they pick me up now why did they pick me up I was out of uniform I didn't have old Odie's I had summer uniform I was in the bathroom they picked me up in the bathroom remember and I call a few my friends they saw al beer and we explained them we just got in and they dropped us off finally they let us go so you had your khakis and they had already gone to winter uniforms yeah exactly she's gonna yeah so you've mustered out in Detroit yeah all right now if you will tell us what did you do have to got out of the show okay god the service went to school even you know you know uh tried to get rid of my drinking habit is that go drink beer every night at the bowling alley I met my friends would just come back from here and from there and all over the world and I went back to school and I went to pharmacy school and became a pharmacist and were your pharmacist in Detroit yeah but just for a short time I really wanted to go to med school but I gotta take additional classes and I didn't have the right people to tell me what to do so I practiced for a mercy a little in Detroit but then my father had this supermarket business which had expanded by that time and so I went to work with him and I spent oh then I met my wife at that point I went to a party she was there she asked me to dance so I danced with her and I was beginning of how many years Diana Diana Diana yeah 60 now when we talked him up 1950 we were married in 50 I met her in 46 so we have two boy and a girl at the present great-great-grandson and so how many grandchildren four grandchildren okay the camera may not be picking you up because you're a long way three grandchildren three grandchildren for Gregor and four great-grandchildren well Mazel Tov that's great that's true so do they all live here do not none of them live here my son is the only one that lives here yeah my son can and the other people live in Michigan my son-in-law is an attorney in Michigan oh yes yeah and I sell my and my daughter and that some ones are gonna come and visit me so now my grandson is there an attorney my two grandsons are attorneys so we got a lot of attorneys my deepest empathy having practiced law for 37 years they have my sympathy and my empathy yeah well my son-in-law has Grant has practiced law for at least 450 years yeah he's he's very successful attorney so let me ask you what I like to ask everybody looking back over your years in the military and years in World War two are there any regrets oh they do you have an overall view of what we did in World War two and what you get in the Pacific and if so what is one of the things that is stuck with me is that people don't know it worse they have no idea unless you've been on and something you have to have lived even me I didn't have somebody actually point a gun at me I was fortunate you know and that respect but I remember getting when I first got there and I put my garbage in the thing and the children will run after my garbage that's when I first got there now wow I couldn't stand that could not stand that so to answer your question I'm glad I went I wouldn't have missed it for the world it's been with me all my life it's done a lot of things for me against me nothing nothing pretty about war you know blood guts everything else that's not pretty and but it's that's part of life I guess and it's going to go on and on when I read in the paper you know the refugees from Syria and 400,000 have been killed from Syria's and they write numbers it's a number 400,000 and each one is a person each one that I had a life each one so to put four hundred thousand Wow and the same thing with the Holocaust you know when they say six million that's it's a number six million but it's individuals six million individuals what they went through so how fortunate we are to live in this country my god I count my blessings I must tell you I really do as bad as things are as bad as they're gonna get they're not gonna be or as good as they're gonna get I'm so fortunate that my father got on that boat and game here Oh country oh my god anything you'd like to add before we No thank you very much thank you very for this interview do you want to tell us that story your wife is talking about a story yeah okay my parents told me this I mean they've told me many stories like my father was in the Russian army and his mother went and dragged him out you know when you went into the service in Russia that time of is there yeah it was for five years the draft and now okay now came World War one and then the desire was deposed and anyway my father got out and he had married my mother in Russia they had that's one child my sister was born on the way to the United States but they went to Romania now how do they yeah you couldn't just leave Russia you had a really escape now some guide took them over the depe yepper River in the winter and as they were walking the ice was breaking they tell the story you know and they just they got their guides never could go back because by then the water had swept the ice away so they went from there to Romania Romania they got a passage to the United States and the rest is history I've just you know you have to just say it's a wonderful country that they came to write oh yeah make the livings and families do you have more pictures that you would like to show us you want to end with reading at Poland now when I was known when I when I was dropped when I was in the Army in the Philippines I wrote poetry and it's got it got published in Detroit and then he's take me there but I don't know where they well I got the newspapers but not the original poems so my son has them in ourselves all right well on that note then I think we'll conclude the interview at this point it was socially I'm gonna end at this point I want to again thank you very much want to thank your wife and your son for being here and allowing this to usually thank you and thank both of you for thank you for your service and thank you

Channel: Atlanta History Center

Views: 1,663

Rating: 4.7894735 out of 5

Keywords: Veteran (Profession), Atlanta History Center (Museum), Library of Congress Veterans History Project

Id: 31uaFb6ZRVE

Length: 123min 0sec (7380 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 06 2019