TRANSCRIBER: Penny Smith - January 12, 2011, JUDITH HOUPERT: We're here with Donald Moss
in his studio as part of the Veteran's History Project. My
name is Judy Houpert and I will be having the opportunity to talk
with Mr. Moss about his experience. We've chosen to be in his
studio because it's a large part of who he is nowadays. The-what I'd like to start with, sir, if you
could, is-if you could talk about the branch-tell us the
branch of the service that you were in, your rank, when
you, when you left the service. DONALD MOSS: Well, in, in, in 1942, shortly
after we were attacked by the Japanese, I was very upset
about everything, as a lot of the young people were at that time.
In 1942 I was 22 years old, and I went into the Post Office
in Boston, and volunteered in the Marine Corps. Shortly after
that, I went to Parris Island where everyone was trained,
and then we were sent overseas. Not knowing where we were going,
we wound up on the island of Guadalcanal. And I served there
for-until we secured, meaning we had captured and, and the Japanese
were defeated on Guadalcanal. HOUPERT: Okay. MOSS: The Japanese called it the "Island of
Death," because they had-we had taken over their-the airfield
there, which was very, very, important to us. And our, our
Air Force at that time needed a base, and they took over Henderson
Field, and attacked the Japanese from there. So I, I,
I was a Corporal on Guadalcanal, and I remained for the four years
during the Marine Corps. After Guadalcanal I came back to the
U.S. and went to New Britain-Cape Gloucester, New Britain,
for a second campaign. And after the four years, I served a hitch,
which is- HOUPERT: Mm-hmm. MOSS: -four years in the Marine Corps. And
after that I came down to New York, mainly because the-my
Captain at the time was the former head of, of Hearst-he's the
head Art Director of Hearst Corporation. And I did some illustrations
for Good Housekeeping magazine and, and various agencies
in New York. HOUPERT: Okay. Can we-tell me some more, when
you enlisted at 22, had you been to college or had you-what
were you doing at the time when you enlisted? MOSS: No, I had just-I had just finished school
in Boston, Vesper George School of Art. I went there
on a scholarship. My mother found out about this statewide women's
scholarship to go to art school, and, so I, I tried out and,
and won the scholarship. So that set my future and career.
And it was a little school called Vesper George, Saint
Botolph Street in Back Bay, Boston. And I did quite well there and
decided to make a career out of it. HOUPERT: Okay. So were you-had you graduated
when you enlisted in the Marine's or had you-had you started
working yet? MOSS: No, I only went there for a few years. HOUPERT: Okay. MOSS: So I had worked, I worked in a company,
a printing company in Boston, called Spaulding Moss,
and- HOUPERT: Any relation to you? MOSS: I'm sorry? HOUPERT: Was the Moss any relation to your
family or just a coincidence? MOSS: No, it was a big printing company in
Boston. But I, I, I really love to paint, and, but my-as
a career, really didn't start until after the war- HOUPERT: Okay. MOSS: -when I started painting spreads for
Collier's magazine. HOUPERT: Okay. When you first went to the
Post Office in Boston to enlist, how did you-did you know
going in there that you were going to join the Marines? MOSS: Oh, yes. HOUPERT: Now, why the Marines and not the
Air Force or the Army or-? MOSS: My best friend and I tried to get in
the Air Force, and he washed out because of a bad back playing
hockey, and my eyes weren't correct. I didn't have 20/20
vision, I didn't know that. HOUPERT: Huh. MOSS: And later on they relaxed it- HOUPERT: Mm-hmm. MOSS: -the requirements. But, no, we first
tried out for the Air Force. And then I decided that the
best thing anyway was to join the Marine Corps. HOUPERT: When you mentioned that you went
to Parris Island after you had enlisted, now, was your family
supportive of you enlisting or-? MOSS: Oh, they were very fearful about the
whole thing. HOUPERT: What did your mom say- MOSS: And you can't blame them- HOUPERT: -what did your mom say, do you remember,
when you told her? MOSS: My, my girlfriend's father at the time
said, "Are you sure you want to join the Marine Corps, do
you know what the Marine's are like?" And I said, "I used to
say, 'yes, sir' to everything you said anyway." And so I said,
"yes, sir," and, and that's what I want, and that's what I
did. HOUPERT: Great. Did your-what about your,
your parents were they-how did they-did you have sib-brothers
or sisters? MOSS: I had three sisters. HOUPERT: So you were the only boy? MOSS: And they were all so, they were younger,
but they were all a little bit terrified of what might happen.
My, my folks were very, very supportive of anything I did. HOUPERT: Okay. Excellent. Do you remember
your first days when you went to Parris Island, what that was like?
Could you paint a picture in my mind of what that experience
was like? MOSS: In, in-I'm sorry- HOUPERT: When you first went to-when-your
first few days in the service, when you first started? MOSS: In Parris Island? HOUPERT: Yea, what was that like? MOSS: It was a little, you know, if you, if
you think about young 20-year old, 18, some of them I think
were 17, 16-year olds, particularly from down south who joined
the Marine Corps. And you think about this, sort of raggedy
bunch of kids jumping off the troop train that came into Parris
Island-I saw this plenty of times-and the drill instructor standing
there looking at this motley crew of kids that wanted to
become Marine's, and what they had to do to make us into Marine's.
Drilling us from morning until night and-until we were terribly
exhausted. HOUPERT: What did they do- MOSS: And I always had this theory that if
somebody else can do it, I can do it. And that, that, that kept
me through a lot of drills, and long forced marches, and, but
they started right in. HOUPERT: Okay. MOSS: First of all they shaved our hair. And-so
they, they changed us very quickly. HOUPERT: So they turned you into a jarhead? MOSS: Oh, yea. HOUPERT: Yea? MOSS: Oh, yea. HOUPERT: Did they call them that then, or
is that a relatively newer term for Marines? HOUPERT: No. They called them jarheads, and
I-frankly, I read why and I totally forgot. MOSS: Yea, I don't know either. Somebody smarter
than me probably does. Do you remember any of your
instructors from boot camp? MOSS: No. HOUPERT: No? MOSS: No, they were, there was, actually there
was a tall ranger, he-Marine, from Maine, who we liked
a little better than this southern who we had at first. And he
seemed a little bit, a little, a little bit more human. We still
had to work hard. HOUPERT: Mm-hmm MOSS: We, we-they never let up. HOUPERT: Were they training you to do something
specific or was it just general? MOSS: Oh, you did-I think the, the, the training
was similarly to the Rangers. Any of the military
where you, you jump over, you go up over walls, you scale
walls, you crawl under live machine gunfire, under barb wire,
and with your rifle crooked in your arms. HOUPERT: Mm-hmm. MOSS: You, you, you do all these, these same,
same things. Marches of-I've forgotten-twenty, anywhere
from twenty to twenty-five miles, all night long. And we
did that in Australia, in Melbourne. After Guadalcanal,
we came down to Melbourne and were-again, while we had 30
days of sheer bliss in Melbourne, Australia, which is like being
home-a beautiful country and city. We, nevertheless, had to
go out in the boondocks and train out there. HOUPERT: Now, your best friend that you mentioned
enlisted with you, did he go to Parris Island with
you, or did he go somewhere- MOSS: They didn't let him in for another- HOUPERT: Because of his back? MOSS: -year or two. He still had to wait,
and I think-I didn't here much from him after that because
he went, I can't remember where he went-I think it-at one point
he was on Okinawa, but- HOUPERT: Now- MOSS: Guadalcanal was the first. HOUPERT: Mm-hmm. Did he-did, did any of the-so
when you went there did you know-were you just 22, by yourself,
didn't know anyone, got off the train, and- MOSS: No. HOUPERT: -so you didn't have anybody from
home that were with you? MOSS: We were put on a, on a sort-of a railway
__ train, and it seem to be-it didn't seem to go on track.
It seem to go over a rough road all the way down to Parris Island.
And after Parris Island we were sent to New River, where they
were forming the First Marine Division, so I was in the First.
And I, I, actually because of-later on I went back out
to Guam, after coming home from Guadalcanal, I kept my rank
of Corporal just to be in this one outfit. And there I was doing,
I was working on battle maps for the invasion of Japan. HOUPERT: Wow. MOSS: And because I had some odd training
and, so I-that was-when the war ended, I was sitting in Guam
working on the battle maps for the invasion. When the word
came out that they had surrendered, the Japanese had surrendered
in Guam, the streets, it was like New Years Eve. And they
relaxed all kinds of rules-the officers-and there were parades,
and, I don't know, all kinds of shenanigan's going on. But- HOUPERT: When you, when you got to Guadalcanal
the first time, what was your job, like, what, what did you
do specifically within your unit? MOSS: Well, I was, I was in regimental intelligence.
We would go out on, on, sometimes very dangerous
patrols, out in the, the boondocks, out in the enemy, out
in the enemy territory. And sometimes we would come across
Japanese positions and we would detail all this. Occasionally
we had a firefight with the Japanese, but, we survived
obviously. HOUPERT: Yea. Did you ever get wounded on
any of them? MOSS: No. I, I had, I had a concussion from,
oh, I don't know where it came from, different-there was
so many near misses, and so many close escapes that I was
caught in the middle of Henderson Field once by a Japanese
bombing raid. And the concussion knocked me off my feet, and
maybe I was off my feet already, but the concussion was very
close, shrapnel. HOUPERT: Do you remember when that was, what
year it was? MOSS: No. It was probably sometime in the,
in the fall of 1942. HOUPERT: Were there any casualties within
your unit? MOSS: Oh, there were a lot, a lot of casualties.
We were- our first battle was the Battle of the Tenaru,
which is pretty well documented. It was around a beach we
call Red Beach Road, where we landed. HOUPERT: And this is in the First Marine Division? MOSS: I'm sorry? HOUPERT: You were in the First Marine Division
with this- MOSS: I was in the First Marine Division,
and I was in a line company, and we were in the front line.
The Japanese attacked us about two o'clock in the morning,
and at all-we were on one side of the Tenaru River, and there
was a sand spit between that and the ocean. And the Japanese
came across in force, across the shallow river at the time,
and attacked us and we were, we, we were quite, well victorious,
but we-the casualties, it's almost-feels funny to mention
it, but we were, I think that we were 900 Japanese killed in
that battle, and, as opposed to less than a hundred for the Marine's.
And that just lasted for about-from two o'clock in the morning
until ten o'clock in the morning. HOUPERT: Wow, that's a lot of people to die
in a short period of time- MOSS: -But, friends of mine were killed on
either side of me. But it's, it's just sheer, you know, luck
that your-you survive. There were, there were mortar-the
mortar fire is deadly no matter where you are. You can-people
behind me were killed, and- HOUPERT: What happens when-obviously I've
never been in battle-what happens when a mortar shell goes
off? Does it-is it the shrapnel that, the pieces of it that get
people or how does- MOSS: Oh, I didn't, I didn't get your question,
Judith. HOUPERT: When the, when the mortar shell explodes,
how does it-does it- MOSS: It fans out everywhere. HOUPERT: It just-all little pieces, and that's- MOSS: -and they, they, they have different
kinds of, of mortar, mortars, but mostly it's anti-personnel.
In other words, when, when it explodes, it explodes
close to the ground, breaks up as shrapnel going, you know, whatever,
low to the ground. So in other words, it doesn't make
any difference whether your up front on the line itself or
back, because you can-mortar fire is indiscriminate, our own
and theirs. And rifle fire, you can see the traces going through
the air, and all that. It's-firefighting is, well what's it all about,
what the Marine's, what they're noted for. And we had
two colonels going back and forth, and, almost like-I thought
about it later, even a few days later-like coaches in a football
game. And, they, they were, they were just as subject to being
killed as, as we were. But when you're, when you're in a firefight,
you are, your adrenaline is going so much that you don't
even-someone asked me once if I were afraid; you don't have, you're
not really, you're not afraid. I think fear comes mostly when
you're, when you're bombed from the air. Naval shelling is the
worse because you never know where the, where the shells are
going to land. Bombing, when they make bombing runs, the
sticks of bombs will come down. And, if they miss you, and they
go that way, then you're, you're safe until the next day. HOUPERT: Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I think knowing,
I don't know if it would be worse knowing that it was coming,
or being hit by surprise? MOSS: Well, I think- HOUPERT: You know, like, knowing an attack
was coming verses having them sneak up on you, and- MOSS: Oh, right, right. It, it-well, we were
young, you know. I guess the average age was pretty close
to 21 or 22. And this is something we trained for, and
they, they trained us hard. They drove us unmercifully. And I think
when we finished Marine Corps training, you, you feel that
you can do anything. You can survive anything. You hope it's not
as bad as- HOUPERT: -as what they put you through. MOSS: -whatever you went through in Parris
Island or, or New River. But we were, we were ready, and, if
you think of it, just a bunch of kids. HOUPERT: Yea. Was-in terms of, like a typical
day, I mean, what, were you in battle everyday or were- MOSS: No. HOUPERT: -there days, I mean, how, how did
that work? MOSS: Oh, no. There were, there were reprieves. There-the-we, landed on seventh, the seventh
of August, 1942. And we hit some scrimmages, there were some
Japanese in the jungle. HOUPERT: How many people were in- MOSS: We, when we landed we surrounded them.
We had a perimeter around the airfield. Which was really
the, the, the target, that's what we wanted. And we weren't
there very long before the engineers had the airfield, all
the bomb holes and everything ready, so that we could fly our
Gremlin aircraft, our fighters. And, and then finally one day we all stood
there and cheered. The first B-17, which is a relic
now, came in. And we just- HOUPERT: They're massive, aren't they? MOSS: -I think, I think I cried. I mean it
was, it was, it was very, very emotional to see that. To us,
that huge B-17 plane, that first bomber, the "Flying Fort,"
the "Flying Fortress," come in. But by that time we had
several Gremlin fighters and Wildcats. And they, they regularly
took off to bomb Japanese bases, and go up the line to
Bougainville and the other island's around. HOUPERT: You were-were you mainly on the ground
though, or did you go in the planes too? MOSS: No, no. I was always on the ground. HOUPERT: Okay. So on the day when you-on a
reprieve day, what was that like? What was-walk me through a
typical day. MOSS: Oh, it was beautiful there. I mean the
sunsets, the, the scenery, it, it was very pretty. We were
in a coconut grove which got chewed up a little bit, but we were
right there on the shore, on the beach. HOUPERT: Did you have tents or were you just-? MOSS: Oh, we had- HOUPERT: Where did you sleep there? MOSS: -there were a few tents, a lot of us
had sleeping bags. But for the most part, when we landed
we just slept on the mats that the Japanese had, because they
raced for the hills when-after the bombardment when the first
Marine's landed. HOUPERT: So you had to chase them out of the
territory that you then took over? MOSS: I'm sorry? HOUPERT: You chased them out of that territory? MOSS: Yeah. HOUPERT: Okay. MOSS: We-they were, they were really-hadn't-it
was a total surprise from anything I know or have read.
We moved in and, it was quite impressive, as your going in on
Higgins boats, to watch some of the cruisers rock back with
every salvo that they sent in. And it was unlike-Guadalcanal was unlike later
campaigns where the Japanese on Iwo and Okinawa would
dug in the caves, because they would unmercifully bomb them
and strike them and everything else. And, and yet it seemed like
they hadn't done anything when they landed. This was a totally
different thing. There are no caves on Guadalcanal. HOUPERT: Okay. MOSS: So we were-we, actually when we landed
on the beach we were unopposed. HOUPERT: Now they-what would you say was the-so
you were on Guadalcanal from August of '42- MOSS: -until December. HOUPERT: -until December. And then what hap-then
where did you go? MOSS: Then we were sent back to the States.
And we had our 30-day furlough. HOUPERT: Okay. And you left Guadalcanal because
you had-the Marine's had secured the island, or the base
that you wanted, or-? MOSS: That was the base that we wanted. HOUPERT: Okay. MOSS: The airfield Henderson, we named it
Henderson Airfield after an aviator, Loftus Henderson, a Marine
Aviator who was killed earlier. But we-that was our, our primary
objective. And I came back with the First Marine's, and
then we were in training in New River, and then they, they
formed the Third Marine Division. And I was put in that in
Intelligence work. And we went out to Guam, the Island of Guam,
which had already been secured. HOUPERT: And when did you-was that '43 then
by that point? MOSS: That was-I'm sorry? HOUPERT: Was it '43 when you went to Guam
then? MOSS: Guam was, yes, '43. HOUPERT: Okay. MOSS: And I stayed there for, really, the
duration of the war. It-and, I, I did, sort of planning and
mapping, and again, we working on battle maps for the invasion
of Japan. HOUPERT: I saw some battle maps from the New
England Air Museum. They were on silk, drawing on silk,
like, that they would put in the lining of their jackets and
whatnot. Were you just using paper or were you using materials
like that for the maps, or-? MOSS: Oh, I-we used paper. I don't know where
we got it, but we had, we had plenty of material. In
fact, I-at one point, the captain of the company, Gene Davis, was
the head Art Director for Hearst that I mentioned, Gene
was the one on Guam who is responsible for my coming back to New
York City, and did some work for him, and that start-Gene really
started my career. HOUPERT: Okay. MOSS: So, in fact, we-the two of us used to
go around in Guam painting watercolors for, for ourselves
or- HOUPERT: Did you send them home to family
members at all? MOSS: I'm sorry? HOUPERT: Did you send any of them home or-? MOSS: Oh, I sent some home and I-they had-in
fact, I did a map of, it was of Guadalcanal, the Battle
of the Tenaru, and it was a line drawing, about this big, like a
poster. And then I did another one called "Hitten Britain," about
our battle in Cape Gloucester. This was when we were-I think
I did one in Australia, and one-no I didn't do in the,
in the battle areas-but, those two drawings I printed, and
I had a man in the company, a Marine, who said he'd go and-he,
he thought they were great, a couple of the guys did, and, and,
so they, they, they sold them for, I've forgotten, $10 a piece
or something like that. Well, it turned out that we sold hundreds
of them. And they would be sent to their home, they would
give my-me an address, and, and, or my friends' money, or
something like that, and we, we sent the addresses to my home,
and my mother sent these out to all these-she had them printed
and boxed, and sent them out to all the, all the people. And she-it,
it, it was something for her, because she-all this correspondence
from people who loved these drawings. And so- HOUPERT: Do you still have any of them? MOSS: Yes, I do. I'll show you some. HOUPERT: Yea, I'd like to see that, that would
be great. MOSS: Yea. And, so anyway there wasn't any-I
can't remember exactly where I-I guess I had the opportunity
and everything on Guam because we were not in action at all. HOUPERT: And then when did-you mentioned Australia,
was Australia in- MOSS: We were into Melbourne, Australia. HOUPERT: When was that? After Guam or-? MOSS: That was in December of '42. HOUPERT: Okay. MOSS: Right after, right after Guadalcanal. HOUPERT: Oh, before you came back to the states,
I guess. MOSS: We went down the coast to, to Melbourne.
And so we were given a long 30-day, I guess, liberty
to do whatever, and we got to know Melbourne, and the, and the
girls' at Melbourne. HOUPERT: Oh, oh, so, what, what about the
girlfriend at home there? MOSS: My girlfriend-oh, I didn't have a girlfriend
at home. HOUPERT: Oh, okay. MOSS: No, I didn't meet my wife until after
the war. But, __, the, the girl that I did meet and go with
over there was-they had a beauty contest in Melbourne,
and I told her that she should enter it. Well, she didn't want
to, she didn't, you know, very modest about it. Well, anyway to
make a long story short, she won the contest and she was Miss
Melbourne. And a lot of notoriety and her picture in the front
page of the paper. And, and I-we went together for, oh, I guess,
about six months or so when I was in Melbourne. And then things started to get kind of wild.
And we got-we were put back into training, and we were out,
outside of Melbourne in the hills getting ready for the
next campaign, which turned out to be Cape Gloucester, New
Britain. So we had to leave all that fun in the sun, and get
into the the ship and go back north. And Cape Gloucester was an
island that was quite crucial to us. HOUPERT: How so? MOSS: Well, Rabaul-Cape Gloucester was like
a large banana with-rather New Britain island was like a
tremendously big banana and at the northern end of it was Rabaul.
And Rabaul was the big base in the Pacific for the Japanese.
So we were able to take Cape Gloucester. And that, that was-we
took that in January of '43. And we were able to secure
very quickly, and then our, our planes could fly from our airfield
right up the island and bomb Rabaul, and, and it was just
inoperable when we got through. HOUPERT: Okay. MOSS: So we stayed, we stayed there for quite
awhile. I was wondering, in telling you this story, where-what
happened in 1943? Well, we were on Guam for-no, we were
in, in Cape Gloucester for quite awhile. HOUPERT: Okay. And then you got to Guam after
that? MOSS: Then I-we came back to the states again
and then went back out again to Guam. HOUPERT: Now when you came back to the states,
did you get to see your family members, and, and go home? MOSS: Oh, yes. HOUPERT: Okay. MOSS: Yea. HOUPERT: How often did you get to come home,
or just those few times it sounds like? MOSS: Again, it's standard. They, they give
you 30 days for furlough or liberty or whatever you want to
call it. HOUPERT: So are your sisters all impressed
with their big brother? MOSS: Oh, yeah. And one of my-I guess a few
of us were-we came to New York City and we stayed up all
night and just had a great time. And all of sudden someone woke
us, I guess they woke us at the desk, and said, you know, we
had a call, we wanted to get a train to go up to Boston.
And so we were-I don't think, I don't think any of us shaved. And
we arrived in Boston, and I remember my folks thinking,
what a, you know, look what the war did. HOUPERT: My nice clean cut son, where did
he go? MOSS: Yeah, yeah, we arrived home, anyway. HOUPERT: Did you earn any awards or citations
during the war? MOSS: I got the, I got the Presidential, along
with the others; the Unit Citation for Guadalcanal,
and, oh, several other things. I, I never, fortunately, I didn't
get a Purple Heart. And so I got the usual ribbons that
most of us wore; a couple of, a couple of deck __, but, no, there
was no, nothing else. HOUPERT: Nothing like that. Did you feel like
when you were in the service, do you feel that you had adequate
resources and supplies when you were in the various campaigns? MOSS: Oh, yes. You know there-except for,
when we first landed in Guadalcanal, our-I forgot to mention-our,
our ship the Elliot, the George F. Elliot, we, from the
shore, we looked out and watched that kamikaze sunk with all our,
with all our stuff on it, all our sea bags, and everything. Momentous
that we carried for good luck and everything went
down to the bottom. HOUPERT: Oh, no. MOSS: And they call that, that Sound the Iron
Bottom Sound, because so many ships were sunk there. HOUPERT: Oh, dear. MOSS: The Japanese roamed freely for awhile.
We, we thought, we really thought that we'd been
forgotten. Or they just written us off, because we just didn't
have any equipment hardly. We used Jap-we ate Japanese rice,
and, it seems for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was all we
had. And then gradually more supplies came in. HOUPERT: What did you lose in your sea bag? MOSS: Oh, I can't remember. All the, all the
equipment, all the, all the, the- HOUPERT: Anything that you had for luck or-? MOSS: Oh, I, I lost a, a beautiful watch,
and, I've forgotten what else. Mostly clothing, so- HOUPERT: Well, it sounds like if you had a
good luck charm you didn't need it, because you came through pretty
good. MOSS: No, no, no. HOUPERT: Did, did any of the men in your unit,
or did you have any rituals that you would do for good luck
before you'd go into a battle, or, you know, put one sock on at
a certain time, or? MOSS: No. You know,
you get, you get certain instructions but they don't last very long, because once
you're in battle, it's, it's a, it's a whole different story.
The officers are right alongside you. And the-Major Rockmore,
who was the head of our outfit, was a real great guy, and I
was-he became a lifelong friend. He died several years ago.
But, Rocky was a real great Marine and friend. Very concerned
about this company, and so we, we had a great relationship.
He was my Company Commander then. And then later on George Hunt was the head
of Marine Corps Intelligence in the First Marine Regiment.
And George later became Managing Editor of Life Magazine. And
we were, again, we were friends for a long time. Life and Sports
Illustrated were published in the same building, so I was in
on a regular basis to Sports Illustrated for paintings and covers
and one thing or another. And George Hunt and I, who went through
a lot of the really tough times, got together for lunch,
and it was nice to have that, you
know, relationship. HOUPERT: It sounds like you made some good
friendships. Did you-when you were working together, were there-I
hear stories about some of the pranks that soldiers and,
and marines and sailors would play on one another. Was that
part of your units tradition, or were you too serious? MOSS: No, I can't remember very much of that.
We had a lot of fun together in Melbourne and, and back
in the States. But, no, we, we just, all I can say is we just
had a good time. HOUPERT: Yea, okay. Did any of the USO entertainers
come through to where you were, either when you
were in Melbourne or-? MOSS: Oh, in Melbourne they had a USO in a
Red Cross building. And that was, that was great. It
was-I went over, and in fact I had done a painting. I've forgotten
how, how it came about, but the Company Commander of the
First Marine Division, whatever, whoever it was that I
was with-oh, I know, I guess, George Hunt, because I was in, in Regimental
Intelligence then-gave me the time to do a, a full color,
sort of, a mural of the, the painting, I'd done the print, the
prints of, of the Battle of the Tenaru. HOUPERT: Yeah. MOSS: So I did that for the Red Cross. HOUPERT: Oh, awesome. Did you see any famous
performers, or did they not come through to where you were? MOSS: Yea. Somebody you, you only heard of,
it was Joey Brown, the comedian, he came out. And we-when
we were in Melbourne, we stayed in the Melbourne Cricket
Grounds, which at that time was the largest stadium in the world,
it accommodated a hundred thousand. HOUPERT: Wow. MOSS: And we were up in the stands, the covered
stands in, in double bunks. That was our home. When Melbourne,
itself, was a mile at the most. We were in the, in
the heart of Melbourne. So when we wanted to get steak
and eggs, or __+, we called them, in Melbourne, we'd just walk
a half a mile, a mile down, into downtown Melbourne. And we had
a great time there. And somehow or other Regimental Intelligence
got-we got the choice place in, in, in Melbourne. HOUPERT: That's great, that's great. Now,
you mentioned that you-when I talked with you on the phone before
we, we came here today, or I came here today, that you had
a book that you had written about your experience; is that right?
Did you- MOSS: Right. HOUPERT: Yea, and then, did you keep a diary
or a journal during the time you were there? MOSS: No, that wasn't allowed. HOUPERT: Oh, it wasn't, why not? MOSS: But I scribbled down, I scribbled down-I
have a, have a little book, I don't know where, I used
to keep it somewhere around here, but I have a little green book
with all kinds of stuff in it. Oh, I'll find it later. So, no, they, they, I guess they, what they
didn't want is if we were captured to have the Japanese find
out any secrets about where we were or what we were doing
and all that. I think that was it. We captured Japanese diaries
though. And we had one of our, one of our men in our company,
intelligence group, was named Johansson, and he, he had gone to
Japanese language school, and he, he was the one who looked
through the diaries and could interpret the whole thing. And we
also had some captured Japanese prisoners who did the same
thing. HOUPERT: Wow. The-you mentioned when the war
ended that you were on Guam and everybody was quite excited.
What happened after that, you came back to the states? MOSS: Oh, I came back- HOUPERT: Or did you go somewhere else after
that. MOSS: No, actually, I, I had to stay there
because I had joined for four years. Something about my
mentality when I joined the Marine Corps told me that, well,
if the war is over in six years, and if you join for four, you'll
get out in four. But I joined for four years for a hitch. And so when the war was over I was stuck on
Guam for about three or four months. So I didn't come home
until later on, and I finally-they needed Marines to stay in if
they could. And everyone was getting out. And I was put in
the South Boston Navy Yard. I was in charge of the guard at
the, at the gate. HOUPERT: So that was back where you were from
originally, is the Boston area, right? MOSS: Right, so I was close to home, and I
went home on weekends and things like that. But they just
kept me in. I joined in February of '42 and got out of the
Marine Corps in, in March of '46. HOUPERT: Okay. And then what, you went to
New York then, did you say? MOSS: And then I went to work doing paintings
for Gene Davis, the-who I'd met on Guam. And went to
New York and was quite successful, and worked for Collier's
magazine and did illustrations for them, and advertising for
Madison Avenue accounts. And then in 1954, I walked into
Sport's Illustrated with my paintings and, and for 30 years I
was a major contributor for Sport's Illustrated, from
'54 to '84. When the Art Director retired, I semi-retired. And- HOUPERT: Based on what I'm seeing in the studio
here you're not-you haven't retired yet. MOSS: No. HOUPERT: There's still pretty prolific. MOSS: Artist, artist don't-you'll very seldom
find an artist who retires. HOUPERT: How did you, and maybe I have a false
impression of an, of an artist, and a sensitivity, and an
appreciation of things of beauty, and, and you've mentioned
that, you know, Guam was a beautiful island, or Guadalcanal was
a beautiful island. How do you-how did you manage the juxtaposition
of that part of yourself with the horror from the realty of
war? Was that, was that hard for you or-? MOSS: No, not really. And, I, you know, I,
it, I guess it depends on your temperament and a lot of other
things. But you hear about people, and maybe, you know, really
justifiably who can't sleep, and wake up in the middle of
the night and think of bombs coming down and all that. And, I don't
recall ever, ever doing that. I, I can't say I haven't hadn't,
had a sleepless night for some reason or another, but that
wasn't one of them. So I, I didn't, I didn't carry the war with
me when it was all over. I was very, I just felt very lucky to
be alive really. So I, I-just let it go at that, that I'm quite
grateful to be around. And I really, I think, was very fortunate
in the work that I, I did. And, and I've always loved sports,
I played hockey as a, as a young boy in Melrose, and, and played
a lot of tennis, and my great love in sports was skiing. And
when Sport's Illustrated and the Art Director would say,
you know, why don't you paint the best ski runs in America, and
go and ski them; it was a dream. So I really had a dream job,
freelancing for Sport's Illustrated. Go to Sun Valley, why
don't you go out to Pebble Beach, or go down to Augusta, and,
you know, do a painting of Amen Corner, or the 18th of Pebble,
or why don't you go ski Sun Valley, you know- HOUPERT: Wow. MOSS: -or the Olympics. So I-the painting
behind you, I painted when I went out to the Olympic- HOUPERT: In Lake Placid? MOSS: -__+, and so it, it was a-Sport's Illustrated
was a wonderful experience. HOUPERT: Did you meet your-you're married,
did you meet your wife then, or-? MOSS: Sally, I met Sally at Pratt Institute.
Again, my friend Gene Davis-big time, great Art Director-told
me I should get out and go to Pratt. I'd never even heard
of Pratt Institute, Brooklyn. And, at that time, it
was one of the finest art schools in the country. So I went
over there and looked across the cafeteria one day, and I
saw this pretty girl in glasses-and I'd never dated a girl in glasses
before, but, I, she's-anyway to make a long story short, Sally
and I started dating. And then she-I've forgotten my dates
here-but shortly after that she entered a contest. Oh, she
was also a, she was a Package Designer for Designer Associates in
New York. And Sally entered a contest called "10 Girls of Taste"
for Glamour magazine, it was a national contest. And they
publicized it in Glamour, and Sally won it. So which meant
that she went to Europe for a month, to Paris, London. HOUPERT: Wow. MOSS: Gilbert Orcel gave her hats or, and
Schiaparelli gave her a beautiful blouse. She was, here she
is in Paris living it, living it up and I went to-what was then
"Idlewild"-you know, Kennedy Airport-to see her plane off.
And in those days she flew over in a triple-tail constellation.
But lot of us were there to see her off, so it was quite
a big thing. And when Sally came home-her name is Virginia,
but nickname is Sally-when she came home I asked her to marry
me, and so- HOUPERT: And when was that? MOSS: So we got married in, in, in June the
following year. HOUPERT: So what, what year was it that you
were married? MOSS: We were married in, in New York City
in "The Little Church Around the Corner"-the Church of the
Transfiguration. HOUPERT: Yep. MOSS: And I don't know how she picked that
out, but I thought it was cool. HOUPERT: It's a great church. MOSS: As we were coming out of the, out of
the, out of the church-I'll have to show you that photograph-as
we were coming out of the church, a bus, a bus, tour bus
came by, and on a megaphone, "Ladies and Gent-"-guys had yelled,
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we had a real live Bride and Groom,"
well, the two of us broke up. And so anyway we were-that was
1949, and 56 years later, well- HOUPERT: Still. That's awesome. MOSS: So, anyway- HOUPERT: That's great. Have you been in touch
with any of the, the men that you served with, are they still-? MOSS: Judy, it's-that's a tough one. One of
my, my closest friends died, oh, I guess it was about ten
years ago. But a few of us still correspond, __+ in, in Arizona,
still, you know, we talk a lot and e-mail back and forth. In fact,
I owe another one an e-mail, want to know why I hadn't heard
from him. And one of my, actually one of my best, my best
friends moved down to North Carolina, I, I don't know why. He
adores children. But he and his wife moved down there. He likes
horseback. Of course they've got some horses down there.
But Stan __, was also in the First Marine's later on when he's
younger, and he was a great tennis buddy. We-Stan and I played
tennis a lot. And I'd come home and Sally would always ask,
you know, how we did. We always won, and we had a lot of fun. HOUPERT: That's great. MOSS: So, yea, I had, I had some, some old
friends. Anyway, it's, it's always fun to get together with
these guys. HOUPERT: Do they have reunions for your group?
Do they, do they, do they hold reunions? MOSS: Oh, they have reunions, in fact I just
got a letter from another friend who was in a reunion.
The trouble is, well, I think when you join-I call it the 88-plus
club, I'm 85-and when you, you get up there, your, your friends,
either go some place or they, they don't make it. So the,
the, the number's are diminishing. And you go to these reunions,
and your lucky if you know one person in the whole group.
So I don't, I don't go anymore. I, I went to a few of them and
we had a great time and all that, this was 10, 20 years ago. We
had one in Nashville, and, and another one in Richland,
and they were great. But as you get older there just aren't
that many people that you know anymore. HOUPERT: Yea, that's the hard part. MOSS: But the, the old, the old saying, "Once
a Marine always a Marine" is, is, is very true. HOUPERT: Yea, how so? MOSS: Pardon? HOUPERT: How so? MOSS: Oh, I don't know. The, the things that
you-I think it changes, it changes you when you go through
the Marine Corps experience, when you go through the training,
and you survive all the, the battles and all that. It just
gives you a different outlook on life. And, and I guess
sometimes you, you feel a head taller than somebody else. It's
kind of a dumb statement. Anyway you, you-there's a, there's
an esprit de corps, which is- HOUPERT: Semper Fi? MOSS: -Semper Fi. And, in fact, a couple of the guys-no, I,
a couple of, all of my friends', George Schafer's out in Michigan-you
always sign off your letters with Semper Fi. So it's something that, something that you
get. And I think it changes the way-and I can't tell
you why-but it changes the way you think about things. And, and,
I, there's a, there's a wonderful satisfaction of just being alive
because you've been through this sort of, at times, a hell. So
whatever they say about it, it's, it's true. HOUPERT: Now, 56 years of, of marriage, do
you have children or-? MOSS: Yes. HOUPERT: I don't remember if you had told
me about that part? MOSS: Our, our son, Don, who's 54, is a-has
his own firm, MossWarner Communications. And they-their
in graphic arts and Don's a designer. As a hobby, he, he creates
a, he has a wonderful knack with Adirondack furniture,
only it's, it's more contemporary. We have a beautiful piece that
he gave us for our 50th anniversary in our, in our living room,
a round table that he made. And he shows around, he goes up to
the Adirondack, the Adirondack's every September; they have a
show up there. And Don sells some of his things up there and
he's becoming known at that. But that's his hobby. During the day
his office is in Trumbull, and, and they do all kinds of industrial
graphic designs. So that's what Don does. Elizabeth, who is going to be 50-I can't believe
it, next month-is, is a painter. And-but she has a
massage therapy business in Collinsville and she does very,
very well at it. Her paintings sell and she has-she gets commissions
for them. They're totally unlike her father's; they're
very fanciful. And people absolutely love them, or they look
at them, and, you know, it's-that's the way with, I think any
of us. But Liz does very well with that. She's single. And anyway, Margaret, is our youngest daughter,
and she has three children: a daughter, Kate, and two
boys. They're about-I've forgotten their ages-16 and 14,
something like that. And, so, Margaret is, is a writer. She's,
she graduated from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. And
so Marg is currently with the New Britain Hospital and
doing all their write. So we have Margaret and Elizabeth and, and
Don. And they're all-the reason we moved up here was-to
Farmington was to be close to all of them. We formally lived
in Richview. So we love it up here. We like the neighborhood,
we like the houses, we like, you know, everything. Most of the
people in this community have kind of all been there, done
that sort of thing. And we have a men's lunch group and we have
a book club, and- HOUPERT: What did you read recently for book
club? MOSS: I'm sorry? HOUPERT: What's the best book you've read
recently from your book club? MOSS: Oh, Oh, you, Oh, you nailed me there. HOUPERT: Oh, oh. MOSS: I've forgotten-oh, what was the last
one. I don't know, I, I like, I like biography's; mainly,
as far as my own taste is concerned. I like nonfiction. My
favorite book is about Lewis and Clark. That really intrigued
me. The-I could read that again tomorrow. So that's my favorite.
But I-for instance, I saw this Winslow Homer show at
the Clark Gallery in Williamstown, and, and I have a couple of
books on Homer. But I couldn't wait to come back and, and, you know,
find out more about him, because he's a, he was not only
a great artist, but he was a genius. The, the prolific part is
to turned out an incredible amount of work. HOUPERT: Not unlike yourself? MOSS: Well, at first glance, yes. But, he-I,
I guess, yea, but he was-his paintings-he just floored-I
told my brother-in-law, we were looking at a couple
in a gallery up there. There must have been, oh, I don't know,
maybe four by six feet, that wasn't the size, it was just
the painting itself, the oil. But they're just magnificent. I looked
at my brother-in-law, I said, and said, you know,
not even hardly even kidding, What have I've been doing all my
life. I'm not Winslow Homer. HOUPERT: Well, you know, actually since we're
here in your studio, was it-before we-I want to show some
of the pictures that you've take-that you've made- MOSS: Okay. HOUPERT: -some of your paintings. Is there
anything else about your experience with being a Marine, or in
your experience in World War II that we haven't talked about
that you want to share? MOSS: No. It's just that I feel fortunate
that I've been very lucky to-the way things have worked out.
To have met Dick Engles(sp?), Sport's Illustrated, and just
do the wonderful things that-wonderful assignments that he
assigned me. We'd go out for lunch and Dick would say, How would
you like to go to Sun Valley, or how would you like to go, you
know, to Idaho, or why don't you, what would you think of going
down to Florida and doing such-and-such. So- HOUPERT: Do you think he accorded you a respect
as a disciplined person because of your Marine
experience? MOSS: No. The Marine's had nothing to do with
it. HOUPERT: It didn't? Okay. MOSS: He was-we used to talk about our experiences
because Dick flew P-38's in Europe, and I, I had my
experiences in the Pacific. So yea, we, we, we talked about them
once in a while at lunch. But it was more that-I, of all his
artist-most illustrators lock into one technique or one
style, and you can tell it immediately. If Dick needed something
a little bit out of the ordinary, or he wanted me to go down
to-where, Saint Louis, like say where GE had a big plant and
do a, a painting of a turbine engine. I'd get the engineers
down there all together, and we'd-they'd discuss it and tell
me what it was like, and I'd-the next thing you know there's
a double spread of this big turbo shaft engine. So golf courses, I did an awful lot of them
around the country. The PGA and the USGA courses and-Dick-I
think, I think anything, no matter what, what your profession
is, if you, if you can, if somebody can give you an assignment
for anything and you don't have to worry about it. [Interview interrupted by a telephone call.] HOUPERT: Okay. So you were saying about your
experience with being a professional and working person and
how that led to where your career with, with the work that
you were able to do, that there was that trust. MOSS: Oh, yes, yes. I, I just, I, I was going
to say I can't say enough about Sport's Illustrated
and the work that I did there. But also the-I don't know, the
chance to get around the country and, and visit some great places.
And the only thing I, I didn't mention in all this was
that I was Chairman of the Air Force Art Program for the Society
of Illustrators. I'm a Life Member of the Society. And we have a
great five-story brownstone on East 63rd right near Lexington
Avenue in New York. And I, I was the vice president there for
quite awhile, and I turned down the job of president because of
commuting from, from Ridgefield to New York, was, was, wow, and
time to have a responsible job where you have to be on deck
for formals and everything. So I, I didn't do that, but I
was very involved in the Society, and I was the chairman of different
programs. But when the Air Force Art Program came up,
I went around the world to-the Air Force has about 24 of
may paintings, in the Pentagon, in different places-and they would
give us, whatever, a month in Europe or a month in the Orient.
And the idea was when you came back you would do a painting
of that experience. So some of us had some wonderful experiences
just traveling. HOUPERT: That's awesome. MOSS: And so there's, there's quite a bit
there. And I did, oh, they say probably about two-dozen paintings
over a period of several years. HOUPERT: Excellent. So some of the paintings
that are, are in here- MOSS: I'm sorry? HOUPERT: Some of the paintings that are in
here, are they recent works, or-? MOSS: They-mostly, well- HOUPERT: _ some, I'm going to scan up on some
of the them. MOSS: The, the painting over on the left of
the barn, in almost mauve colors, was done fairly recently. HOUPERT: That one right there, yep. MOSS: And it's a, it's a barn down in Ridgefield.
The one below it is, is winter at, at Beaver Dam and
Avon, near the Avon old farm school. The one in the bottom center
is, is the guest house, sort of-at Weir Farm in Ridgefield.
J. Alden Weir was a famous painter, and he had, must be 30 acres
there. I used to wander around and __+ at night, and I taught
an art class there for a while. And the one above it is-if you look very hard,
there's a little white dot or something in the background.
It's our summer house on Fire Island. And I did a whole series
of watercolors out there and, and sold them. I designed our,
our Fire Island summer house, it was very contemporary. And
Alcoa put up, gave us all the aluminum in the house for it. The pointillilsm paintings of two of, of a
group of about eight or ten Sport's Illustrated commissioned
of the Champion's Course out in, in Dallas-Houston, pardon me. And the one above it, with the plane, was
the Cape Gloucester, New Britain. I was asked to do
a first-aid cover, U.S. Postal. And so I-of World War II, and
I selected from a little pencil sketch I had done, the scene
of a Japanese __+. So that's the, the, the, the one with the,
that's a Par 3 at Cyprus Point. And it's one of the, one
of the trickiest Par 3's and it's very short, but you cut the head
over this gulch. Actually, I, I took a few balls and got up
early there- HOUPERT: Do you still golf? MOSS: I don't- HOUPERT: -not anymore? MOSS: And this one is the famous 18th of Pebble
Beach. HOUPERT: Yep. MOSS: That's a Par 5, pardon me, par 4. Your
tee is right in the lower left foreground and the, and
the green is up in the top left. HOUPERT: Yep. MOSS: That's, that's probably, that and the
12th of Augusta, which I don't have up on the wall here, that
painting, are two of the most famous golf holes in the country.
So I- HOUPERT: You've done quite a bit. MOSS: Oh, that little, little one there is
the 7th of Pebble which is a short Par 3. HOUPERT: I'm going to swing this around. The,
the bot- the pointillism one, right? MOSS: The pointillism painting down below
is the 4th of __. That's a very tricky hole because the green
is so narrow, And you've got to hit over that, sort of a moat
of water. HOUPERT: And then the, the landscape with
the- MOSS: That's, that's a beach in the back of
a-I just forgot-__+ forget take up __+ HOUPERT: I don't know, it happens to me a
lot more than it happens to you, so- MOSS: No, that's, that's a little beach in
the back of Windsor Harbor in Maine. HOUPERT: And then this one here was the Lake
Placid, right? MOSS: That- HOUPERT: The snow scene, Lake Placid? MOSS: That's Lake Placid. HOUPERT: Excellent. MOSS: Whiteface Mt., the downhill, the Olympic
downhill run. And what happens is skiers go down through
there going 70 miles an hour. And then turn left and then you go
back down the trails beyond that. It's a great run. It was
a lot of fun. I didn't do quite 70 miles an hour, but- HOUPERT: Maybe 60? MOSS: 50 , maybe . HOUPERT: Thank you so much for taking the
time to do this, to record this with us, we really appreciate
it. And I think I got all of the information that-the
only thing I just remembered I didn't ask you was
when were you born? MOSS: Oh, I was born in Somerville, Mass,
in 1920. HOUPERT: Excellent. So you have a birthday
not to far away than. Excellent. Well thank you again so much,
I really appreciate it. MOSS: Your welcome.
