David Curry Oral History Interview
ED METZLER: This is Ed Metzler. Today is the 13th of July,
2012. I’m in Fredericksburg, Texas at the Nimitz Museum.
And I am interviewing Mr. Dave Curry. This interview is in
support of the Nimitz Education and Research Center
Archives for the National Museum of the Pacific War, Texas
Historical Commission for the preservation of historical
information related to this site. So let me start out,
Dave, by thanking you for coming up here and sharing your
experiences during the war with us. And so let’s get it
started by having you introduce yourself. Give us your
full name and where and when you were born.
DAVID CURRY: I’m David Alvin Curry. I was born in Travis
County, September the 30th, 1921.
EM: My golly -- 91 years old. Well, you’re coming up on 91,
aren’t you here?
DC: September.
EM: Well, congratulations.
DC: Yeah. First time in my life I ever had a broken bone.
EM: Is that right?
DC: My hip, yeah.
EM: Oh my goodness. Now, so you were born in Travis County but
not in Austin.
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DC: Austin.
EM: You were in Austin?
DC: Austin.
EM: Okay. What did your father do for a living?
DC: My father was a roofer and sheet metal contractor.
EM: Really? That’s hot work in Texas. And did you have
brothers and sisters?
DC: Yeah. I’ve got three brothers. There were five boys in
the family. Two of them are deceased. Right now there’s
only two brothers. I have two brothers left.
EM: And were you the eldest?
DC: I was second, number two.
EM: You’re second oldest?
DC: And all boys.
EM: All boys?
DC: My dad started numbering them. The youngest was named Tom,
but he said had the life of Riley. He named him wrong
because he had the life of Riley.
EM: So where did you go to school then?
DC: I went to a country school, at St. Elmo, for six years, had
the same teacher for six years.
EM: My goodness.
DC: Two-room schoolhouse.
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EM: Yeah, a little country schoolhouse, I guess. How far out
of town were you living? I mean, were you way out in the
country?
DC: Oh no, we were just about a half mile in the city limits.
EM: Oh, okay. So you’re close by.
DC: Yeah, but I had to walk three miles to school.
EM: My goodness. You had to walk out into the country to go to
school?
DC: Yeah.
EM: That seems backward, doesn’t it?
DC: That’s right.
EM: So you went there for six years. And then, what else?
What other schooling did you have?
DC: Well, I went to (inaudible) Junior High. Then I went to
Austin High. Then that’s where I graduated. Well, when I
got out of the service, I mean out of school, I didn’t know
what I wanted to do. So I wrote Lyndon Johnson a letter.
I got a job at the post office the next day. But I didn’t
like working at the post office.
EM: That wasn’t any fun, huh?
DC: So anyway, they were hiring people back over in San Antonio
at Duncan Field. My brother was over there. He said,
“Come over here. They’ll hire you.” So I went over there
and got on day shift. And then, I was in the metal wing
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and fuselage department. Well, they wanted sheet metal
work to go to Puerto Rico. Well, I turned it down.
EM: Why?
DC: I didn’t want to go down there by myself. I was young.
EM: Yeah, that’s right. You were.
DC: So the next job coming up was Louisiana. I still didn’t
want to go. So the foreman kept telling me the next job.
He says, “The draft is El Paso. We’re sending three out
there.” I said, “I’ll take that.” So I went to El Paso,
started at Biggs Field out there. I wasn’t but 21, 22
years old, had 54 employees under me.
EM: My goodness.
DC: I made three civil service jumps in one year. And you know
the FBI came and investigated me.
EM: Why?
DC: You want to know why? It’s those jumps.
EM: Oh, they thought maybe you’d gotten some sort of a
sweetheart deal. So anyway, I said, “it was offered to me.
Wouldn’t you take it?” So that’s the end of it. But I
know how it went because the shop superintendent, he was
from Austin. He lived right down the street. I knew him -
- good friend of mine. And every job that come up he said,
“You know you’re going to pass it out.” So anyway, the
navy planes land in there from East Coast and West Coast.
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And this commander ordered me to come to Ford Island to
work on their planes. I knew I was just going to get
drafted anyway. So me and the inspector, we go down and we
sign up. Well, we get to the navy.
DC: So where did you sign up?
EM: I signed up at El Paso.
DC: Mm-hmm. Now, had the war started?
EM: Oh, yeah, yeah. The war started, yeah.
DC: Where were you when Pearl Harbor was attacked.
EM: I was at Austin.
DC: You were in Austin. Do you remember that day?
EM: Oh yeah.
DC: Sunday morning, I was down at Robert Moore’s feed store
sitting on a feed sack. And anyway...
EM: So anyhow, you signed up and you went in the navy.
DC: Went in the navy.
EM: Why the navy?
DC: Well, I figured the navy -- I liked working on navy planes.
Well, when I got out of boot camp, I never did see that
commander no more. This big draft come up for all these
battle wagons. See, the Mississippi, New Mexico and Idaho
was three sister ships. Well, they needed a big draft.
They took 500, put them on the Mississippi. They sent me
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off to Camp Pleasanton, and I was lost up there. It’s
about 30 miles...
EM: Where is that?
DC: About 30 miles from San Francisco.
EM: Okay, so that’s -- okay.
DC: So anyway, we had an overnight liberty. So a bunch of us
got a highway coach ride. I didn’t even know where I was
going because my wife was there.
EM: Oh, you were married?
DC: Oh yeah, I was married then. I got married then.
EM: Oh, okay. When did you get married?
DC: I got married in ’41.
EM: Oh, okay. So you’d been married for a year or so.
DC: Yeah. She traveled up and down the West Coast with me.
When I was in San Diego she worked in California’s motor
vehicle department. Then, when she went to San Francisco
she stayed with my aunt there. Anyway, we had liberty.
About 12 of us got on a hay truck. We got to the city
limits. He said, “This is as far as I’m going. There’s a
bus stop. Y'all catch the bus.” So we all got on this bus
to go to town. Still knew where I was at -- San Francisco.
I knew where I was supposed to go -- 957 Fell Street. So I
asked the policeman down there. He said, “You catch that
trolley right there and tell the conductor where you want
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off.” I said okay. So I got on that trolley. I just
walked about a block and there she was, had a car and
everything. My aunt couldn’t drive. And then, the
overnight liberty ended, and we had to go back to Camp
Pleasanton. Then that’s when they started putting these
people on ships.
EM: So you didn’t know what ship you were going to be on. You
just knew you were going on a ship.
DC: Yeah.
EM: Were you excited about that?
DC: Not really. I was disheartened.
EM: Really, why?
DC: Well, I didn’t get what I was promised.
EM: Oh? What were you promised?
DC: I was promised to go to Ford Island from this commander.
He said, “You should get over there.” But the inspector
didn’t need me. So anyway, they put me on the Mississippi.
And you know, after I got on the Mississippi the old chief
come by. He said, “You don’t like it, do you?” I said, “I
don’t like being no deckhand, swabbing that deck.”
EM: Yeah, scrubbing it with a...
DC: He said, “How would you like to be a gunner’s mate?” I
said, “Anything.” So that’s what I wound up being, a
gunner mate.
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EM: Now, where did you first go on board the Mississippi?
DC: In San Francisco.
EM: In San Francisco?
DC: San Francisco.
EM: What did you think about it the first time you saw it?
DC: Big ship -- 2,800 on there.
EM: Wow. That’s a huge crew.
DC: We had everything. We had a laundry, cleaning person,
shop, everything.
EM: Barber shop?
DC: Barber shop.
EM: It was just like a city, isn’t it?
DC: Oh yeah, barbershop. Anyway, if I remember, we went out
for gunnery practice. Anyway, after I was on there three,
four months, Pete [Castelli?] was my chief ward officer.
EM: What was his name?
DC: Pete Castelli.
EM: [Giselli?] That sounds like a good Irish name.
DC: Italian, yeah. Anyway, his wife and my wife were real good
friends after they got acquainted. And my first battle was
at the Gilbert Islands.
EM: Now, so how long did you have for training and that kind of
thing before you set out into the South Pacific?
DC: Boy, it was three or four weeks.
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EM: And so, there was -- how many of you were new on the
Mississippi? There was a bunch of you guys.
DC: Oh yeah, I’d say 500.
EM: Out of 2,800, huh?
DC: Yeah.
EM: The rest of the guys were old hands, had already been out
and about?
DC: Yeah. Well, they come up right into Aleutian Islands, Fiji
Islands. But there wasn’t no battles yet.
EM: That’s right. So when you got on the Mississippi, she
headed out to the -- did you say the Gilberts?
DC: Gilbert Islands.
EM: Okay. So tell me about that first crew.
DC: The Marshall and Gilbert Islands, we bombarded it. See,
the Japs already hit it. And they shot torpedoes at us.
You could see the wake in those. We’d look at it. Those
captains just turned the ship, let them go on by.
EM: Now, where was this happening, all down in the Gilberts?
DC: Yeah.
EM: Were you with her ships, or was she...
DC: Oh, no.
EM: You were alone?
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DC: No, we had other ships with us, too. See, the New Mexico
and -- well, New Mexico, the east battleship and two
destroyers as escorts.
EM: So you were doing what, bombarding?
DC: Bombarding.
EM: So the Japanese were still holding the island?
DC: They had all that, yeah.
EM: And which island was it? Do you remember the specific
island in the Gilberts?
DC: It was Marshall.
EM: Marshalls, I’m sorry.
DC: Marshall and Gilbert Islands are there.
EM: They’re kind of right together, aren’t they?
DC: There’s two together, yeah, Marshall and Gilbert Islands.
After we got that island back, then we kept working our way
down towards Leyte to get back out there, back into
Philippines.
EM: Mm-hmm. Well now, this book that you’ve got there...
DC: See this, the first, there at the mark, one of our turrets
had a flareback, one of those (inaudible) guys. They just
draw all that -- that’s what they call a flareback. All
that poison from that powder killed all 70 of them.
EM: How did that happen now? Tell me about that. Was that
when you were aboard ship?
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DC: Oh yes. See, those slugs weighed about 500 pounds. And
once that bag powder about this, that guy, that (inaudible)
must not have looked at the barrels. There’s still some
sparks in there. Then when they throw that bag powder in
there, it sets that powder on fire. And it just flashed
back all the way down the turret, all the way down to the
conveyor belt, killed all 70 of them there.
EM: My word.
DC: See, these even have his Purple Heart. I got the Purple
Heart later on.
EM: Now, is that right? Yeah, I’m just reading here about what
it says about the Mississippi. It says on the 6th of
December, after participating in exercises off of Hawaii,
she steamed with troop transports to the Fiji Islands.
Were you on her when...
DC: Not on the Fiji. That was before my time.
EM: Invasion of the Gilbert Islands, here it is. While
bombarding Macon on the 20th of November, a turret
explosion almost identical to the earlier tragedy, it says
here, killed 43 men. So this must have happened once
before.
DC: Yeah, it did.
EM: Earlier, what, before the war?
DC: Oh yeah.
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EM: Oh my gosh.
DC: It’s the second time that turret blew up.
EM: Was it the same turret?
DC: Yeah, same turret.
EM: That’s an unlucky turret.
DC: Yes, I know it.
EM: Now where were you?
DC: I was on five-inch broadside. I was on the five-inch gun.
EM: These were the 14-inch turrets that they were...
DC: That’s 14-inch, yeah.
EM: So tell me what you heard and what you saw when that turret
exploded.
DC: We didn’t know what to do.
EM: Well, you didn’t know what it was, I guess, to begin with.
DC: No. We didn’t know what happened because we were busy on
our gun.
EM: Hmm. So did you just stay at your stations then?
DC: Oh yeah.
EM: And then you found out what happened later, huh?
DC: Oh yeah. They let us know. It came over the speaker.
There the old admiral.
EM: My golly. Yeah, you’re looking at this book for the USS
Mississippi. And it’s got Admiral Nimitz, a big full-page
picture of our man.
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DC: Yes, sir.
EM: Did you ever meet him, ever have a chance to meet him?
DC: Well, when we signed the independence in Tokyo, the
Mississippi was there with the Missouri. Nimitz and
MacArthur, I know they were on the Missouri to sign
independence.
EM: Right. Missouri is where they had the actual signing.
DC: Yeah. And these are all the...
EM: The captains?
DC: Yes. Kincaid come on there.
EM: Man, you’ve got some all-star names there, don’t you?
Halsey -- oh, these are commanders of the various fleets.
DC: Yeah.
EM: Who was the captain of the Mississippi when you went on?
Do you remember?
DC: I don’t know if it’s Crow, Hunter, all those.
EM: Yeah, Hunter was November ’42 to April ’44. And from June
’42 -- when did you go on her? What date? Do you remember
approximately when you went on?
DC: No.
EM: Was it says here Rear Admiral Cobb. Was he commander when
you...
DC: I’ve heard of Cobb.
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EM: Then later on you had Redfield, Captain Redfield. And
then, my goodness, he was only on there for, well, a little
bit over a year, and then Captain Crow.
DC: Crow. He was on it when I left, Crow was.
EM: Mm-hmm. So after the Marshall Islands Campaign, then where
did you and the Mississippi go? Where did she go at that
point?
DC: All those little islands, I don’t remember. I think it’s
in there later on where we all went. I don’t remember the
name of them islands.
EM: Ole Miss goes to war. Now here’s Kwajalein. That looks
like one of the islands. Now, did you go up to the
Aleutians on the Mississippi?
DC: No.
EM: She had already been there when you went aboard, huh?
DC: Yeah, she’s already there.
EM: Mm-hmm. So tell me about what it was like on the five-inch
gun during combat. You had a lot of combat on the
Mississippi, I think.
DC: Oh yeah. Well, see, you had a pointer, a trainer, gun
captain. You had a rammer man, the one that holds the
slug, the one that throws the powder in. Then you had all
these other people setting the fuses back there, high-
velocity fuses and timing.
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EM: Now, is this five-inch in a turret of its own?
DC: No, it wasn’t no turret.
EM: Mm-hmm. And so, what was your -- what were you doing?
What was your role on the group that was...
DC: Well, I was rammer man there for a long time. And then I
was rammer man. Then I started setting fuses. See, all
our orders come from the gun captains -- I mean, from the
gunnery officer up there. And all that gun captain had to
do down there was put that cap in there. And when he
closed that breech and he said, “Fire,” all he had to do
was push the little button. It’s gone.
EM: Okay. Was there a single gun there that you were working
with? Or was there more than one?
DC: There’s three on each side, three five-inch guns on each
side. And there was -- to maintain that gun, it was three
people to maintain one gun. We had to clean that gun every
day, fire and locks every day. And we used 190-proof grain
alcohol.
EM: To clean it out?
DC: To clean it out, to clean it, keep that salt water off of
it.
EM: So usually the five-inch guns, they were used for, what,
shore bombardment?
DC: Just bombardment.
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EM: Okay. You weren’t into anti-aircraft?
DC: Well, after we got a lot of them pilots back, after we took
Pearl Harbor back, we just shot all the linings out. They
were sticking out about that far. It wasn’t accurate no
more. So then we go up to Bremerton, Washington. And they
changed the five-inch 51s to 5/35, anti-aircraft. That’s
when we went back to Japanese territory.
EM: So you went -- after some combat, you went back to
Bremerton to be refitted.
DC: Yeah.
EM: And some of the guns were refitted.
DC: Yeah. We had a 90-day yard period there.
EM: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I’m just reading from some of the stuff that
I got off the computer about the Mississippi. It says on
31st of January she took part in the Marshall Islands
Campaign -- this is ’44 -- shelling the island of
Kwajalein. So that was one of them that you shelled. She
bombarded Taroa, T-A-R-O-A, on the 20th of February and
then another island I’ve never heard of, and New Ireland.
And then, due for an overhaul, she spent the summer months
at Puget Sound, which is Bremerton, up there in Washington
State. This overhaul increased the number of five-inch
guns from 8 to 14. So then she went back to Peleliu. So
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tell me what you remember about -- was that shore
bombardment again for you guys?
DC: Oh yeah. Well, no, they already took the 5/8ths. That was
Japanese territory down there. It’s mostly anti-aircraft
down there.
EM: Mm-hmm. So when you got the new guns, now you were able to
be anti-aircraft as well. Is that right?
DC: Yeah. And all I had to do there was set those charges, get
the ammunition to the guns. In other words, I was
communicating with the people in line at the conveyor belt.
EM: Mm-hmm. So did that system work a lot better than the...
DC: Oh yeah.
EM: A lot more modern, I bet.
DC: Oh yeah.
EM: Well, when you weren’t at your battle stations, where were
you stationed on the Mississippi? What was your post?
DC: We stayed at the gun shack.
EM: In the gun shack?
DC: They called it a gun shack.
EM: Now, where was it?
DC: It was right where all the guns are. It was right next to
where they sold the clothing. And you know they took 70
tons across and aboard ship one time. And when the control
people checked up they said they were 20 tons short. All
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those deckhands carried a can of peaches. If sailors
wanted -- give me that case -- they’d take that case of
peaches.
EM: And stick it down in a locker or something.
DC: A case of peaches would go nowhere.
EM: It’s amazing. 20 tons of supplies disappeared, huh?
DC: Yeah.
EM: It’s amazing how that works.
DC: And we was -- we had eggs down in our conveyor belt. And
the old skipper -- I forget which one it was -- he come
down to the storeroom to buy him some clothes. We’re
sitting there cooking breakfast. He ate breakfast with us.
EM: Now, who was this?
DC: One of those commanding officers.
EM: Really? You had a commanding officer came down and ate
breakfast with you?
DC: Yeah, didn’t say a word.
EM: And he knew those eggs weren’t legitimate eggs, right?
DC: I guess so. But he enjoyed it. And everyone says get
Pearl Harbor. Somebody says they’re getting sloppy drunk.
He said, “I don’t care how drunk they get just so you're on
the ship when we leave.”
EM: You can always sober up later.
DC: Yeah. We had good captains.
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EM: It sounded like he was. What was the food like aboard the
Mississippi?
DC: It was real good, I think. They’d make us canned hams. We
had a bakery there. They’d get that canned ham about that
big.
EM: About 18 inches?
DC: Oh yeah. You go down and get a fresh loaf of hot bread and
cut a slice about that thick.
EM: That sounds like a good ham sandwich.
DC: Yeah.
EM: Hmm. What about ice cream? I’ve heard that battleships
had ice cream aboard.
DC: I never did see much ice cream.
EM: You didn’t see much ice cream?
DC: Or fresh fruit. I know when we come through the Panama
Canal after the war, four or five of us went together and
bought a whole damn stalk of bananas.
EM: Been a long time since you’d seen a banana, I bet.
DC: Oh yeah, that’s right. You don’t get no fresh fruit.
EM: Did you ever get seasick?
DC: Never did but I was scared one time because we had a -- we
was in a typhoon, 118-mile-an-hour wind out there. Those
waves were so high you couldn’t even see the other ships.
We’d go down, they’d come up, just like that, no ship rock.
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EM: Well, I guess it’s good to be on a battleship if you’re
going to be in a typhoon.
DC: Oh yeah, topside, too. I was topside the whole time.
Well, like that support hole, everything was sealed off.
It lasted about six hours. We just rode it out. That’s
the only time I was really scared.
EM: Really? You weren’t scared when you were...
DC: And I never did get seasick, never did.
EM: Well, that’s good. You know, they lost a lot of
destroyers. They just broke up and sank or just rolled
right over in some of those typhoons.
DC: That’s right.
EM: But the battleships tended to be able to weather.
DC: Those tin cans, they’re just floating around out there.
EM: Yeah, bobbing around, huh?
DC: Yeah.
EM: Hmm. Okay, well I’m reading here about the Mississippi.
She supported the landings at Peleliu and then assisted in
the liberation of the Philippines, shelling the coast of
Leyte. So you must have gone up and been a part of the
Philippines.
DC: Yeah.
EM: So was that, what, more of the same, shelling, bombarding
shore?
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DC: Yeah, Leyte is.
EM: What about airplanes? Were you being attacked by Japanese?
DC: Oh yeah. See, we took two suicide planes.
EM: Kamikazes?
DC: In fact, I was standing watch out from 8:00 to 12:00 watch
-- I mean, 8:00 to 4:00 watch. I just got through eating
lunch. They got on this turret -- I was on the aft deck
right at noon when he hit the ship, cut them guns off just
like he was cutting a weed. And the impact blew me
backwards. It cut my head up here. I don't know what cut
it. I think that helmet I had when they hit that deck.
And all that fuel, hydraulic fuel and all that stuff is all
over you -- and, of course, they took me down to sick bay.
And there was people down there hollering, praying, legs,
arms cut off. And I had two rings on, a navy ring and a
high school ring. My chief come down and take care of me.
The sick people come by wanting to give me some blood
plasma. I said no, you have somebody worse than me. I
didn’t need it. And old chief got those rings off and put
them in his pocket. And that’s the only time we went with
K rations. They told chief, says, “You don’t eat the K
rations. I’ll bring you something to eat.” So he brought
me chief’s food that day.
EM: Really?
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DC: Yeah.
EM: Real food, huh?
DC: Real food.
EM: Now, so tell me about the cut on your forehead. I mean,
was it real deep, or you just -- right there at the brow
above your eye?
DC: Yeah, right through there, yeah.
EM: Mm-hmm. So you figure it was your helmet that just caught?
DC: I figure that’s what I figure it is.
EM: Now, did you see this airplane coming? Or did this catch
you by surprise?
DC: Oh no, it was a surprise.
EM: So you were on the aft deck. And all of a sudden, bang.
DC: Bang. It hit forward to aft.
EM: Kind of along the length of the ship.
DC: All on the starboard side. And then, they took another one
on later on in one of those operations. I forget which one
now. He would set right at dusk, which is the side of the
ship. And the only one killed was the chaplain.
EM: Really?
DC: Yeah, Floyd Woodrow, Woodrow Floyd. He was our chaplain.
EM: Killed the chaplain, and that’s the only person?
DC: That’s the only one.
EM: Now, this is all, what, during the Leyte Campaign?
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DC: It’s down at -- yeah.
EM: Mm-hmm. So the Mississippi is kind of drawing the
attention of the Kamikazes.
DC: Oh yeah. And then we got into that big sea battle down
there that night.
EM: That’s right. She was part of the big battleship battle.
DC: Yeah.
EM: Tell me about that.
DC: Well, we were bombarding Okinawa all day. They constantly
had three-foot walls. The Japs said we couldn’t tear it
down, but we tore it down. It’s in there. It shows you a
picture.
EM: Now, this is Okinawa now.
DC: Okinawa. The Japs said we couldn’t tear it down, but we
tore it down. We had 12 rounds of ammunition left. We
went back in Leyte -- that’s down in the gulf down there --
to take on some -- the ammunition ships was in there
waiting on us. We were going to take ammunition on that
next day. And the skipper come on and told us to be
prepared for a sea battle at midnight. So we didn’t know
what to do. We didn’t have but 12 rounds of ammunition
left.
EM: Twelve?
DC: Twelve rounds is all we had left.
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EM: That’s it?
DC: That’s it, 12 rounds, 14 ammunition.
EM: Boy, you’d better make each shot count.
DC: So anyway, back officer lit the bay up just like daylight.
The PT boats hit them first, and then the destroyers hit
them. And the cruisers hit them. The battle (inaudible)
finished them off.
EM: Now, this is the Battle of Surigao Strait, right, part of
the Battle of Leyte Gulf?
DC: Yeah.
EM: So the Mississippi, did she use up her last 14 rounds?
DC: Yeah. We shot off 12 at one time -- direct hit.
EM: On what, a battleship?
DC: On a battleship, yeah. And the next morning you’d see dead
Japs all the way down.
EM: Really?
DC: Yeah. They was right into the mouth of the opening of the
bay, coming in on us.
EM: Yeah. Now, did they use the five-inch guns against them?
DC: No, we didn’t use the five-inch. We couldn’t shoot that
far.
EM: Yeah, you were out of range, huh?
DC: Yeah, out of range.
EM: And there were other battleships there too, huh?
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DC: Oh, I’m sure, yeah. I forgot how many. They’d have blown
that place all to pieces if they got in there.
EM: Yeah, they would have.
DC: With all that ammunition.
EM: That’s right, that’s right. So if your five-inch gun was
primarily used for anti-aircraft activity, how many
aircraft would you say you guys were able to shoot?
DC: It’s in that book there.
EM: Oh, it’s in the book? It’s a bunch, huh?
DC: Well, it’s right at the end. It’s some of the last pages.
It shows how many -- no, that’s too far.
EM: Back at the end?
DC: Yes, right at the end, right there.
EM: And what about your gun turret? Did you guys feel like you
got some of them?
DC: You mean aircraft?
EM: Yes, sir.
DC: Oh yeah.
EM: How did it feel when you shot one down?
DC: You’d holler.
EM: You did?
DC: Yeah.
EM: What would you holler?
DC: Well, this emotional thing.
25
EM: Well, I guess it felt good to be on the winning side on
these battles, huh?
DC: Oh yeah.
EM: So how many guys worked with you on this gun? You guys had
a team, didn’t you?
DC: Oh, there’s about 10, 12.
EM: Were you pretty close to these guys?
DC: Oh yeah.
EM: Were you guys real brothers?
DC: Oh yeah.
EM: Did you stay in touch after the war?
DC: Yeah. That’s why we had this reunion, yeah.
EM: And where was the reunion?
DC: This year it was in Branson, Missouri.
EM: Okay. That was the last one, huh?
DC: You’d get a $39 room for a week.
EM: That’s a great deal.
DC: Yeah.
EM: So how many of you guys went to this?
DC: Oh, it started out pretty good. It was usually about 250.
And then I’d say the last one was about 75. They have a
big hot tamale deal one night and visitation. Do what you
want to.
26
EM: Mm-hmm. So you got a chance to see some of the old guys
again, huh?
DC: Oh yeah, all those ones you used to take liberty with.
EM: Really? You guys didn’t swap a bunch of stories, did you?
DC: No. But, you know, most of them drank beer then. They
don’t drink beer now. They drink coffee. Most of them all
quit drinking beer.
EM: Did you?
DC: I don’t drink beer no more. I haven’t had a drink since
five, six years.
EM: Really? Well, alcohol’s hard on you.
DC: Oh yeah.
EM: When you’re young you can take it. But when you get old
you can’t.
DC: Oh yeah. That’s when you get down there. It’s that old
(inaudible) beer down there for, I don’t know, 15 cents a
bottle, I guess.
EM: Really?
DC: Pearl Harbor.
EM: Yeah. Now, did you go back to Pearl Harbor at all during
the...
DC: Oh yeah. We’d go back and forth to Pearl Harbor.
EM: Mm-hmm. And so, you got liberty and were able to go into
Honolulu?
27
DC: Oh yeah.
EM: What was Honolulu like during the war?
DC: Well, it was -- of course, they had a blackout every night.
And my uncle, he was in charge of one of them tugboats. So
I’ve sat two or three stretches with him. Old skipper let
me go over there. If he was there for 30 days, I’d go over
and stay a couple of days with him. All they do is tell
them where he’s at.
EM: Well, I guess if it’s liberty you can do pretty much what
you want to do as long as it’s not illegal.
DC: That’s right.
EM: So riding on a tugboat with your uncle’s okay.
DC: That’s right. And the (inaudible), you know, when I got
out of the service with the money I made, the money that I
saved, sent my wife, and her working, I had enough money to
build me a house.
EM: Wow. That is something.
DC: I never owed a nickel in my life.
EM: That’s a good record.
DC: I never borrowed no money.
EM: Didn’t have to.
DC: Didn’t have to.
EM: That’s good. That’s good.
28
DC: Over there you’re not just -- you go fourteen months, and
seven months I didn’t even get off the ship, stayed right
on the ship for seven months.
EM: Well, there’s a whole city there, so you don’t really have
to get off.
DC: Anyway, I’d draw -- we got paid every two weeks. And I
withdrew maybe $5, just enough to buy soap, toothpaste,
that kind of stuff.
EM: Did you ever gamble with any of your money?
DC: No.
EM: Some of the boys did, didn’t they?
DC: Oh, you bet.
EM: Some of those poker games got pretty wild, I heard.
DC: The only gambling I done was anchor pool. That was a
dollar. It’s for the minute they drop the anchor. They
would come over. And I won it one time.
EM: So it’s people guessing on what the time is that they drop
anchor?
DC: They said only 60, 60 minutes.
EM: Yeah, okay. So you won? How much did you win, a bunch?
DC: Fifty-nine dollars.
EM: That’s a lot of money back then.
DC: Sure it was.
EM: That’s a real jackpot.
29
DC: Yeah. That’s the only thing I ever gambled on.
EM: Hmm. Now, the Mississippi, you were telling me earlier,
she was at Okinawa. And she shelled the Shuri Castle that
was -- I think you made reference to it.
DC: Yeah. What, have they got a picture in the book here?
EM: Yeah, somewhere in here. When did they give you this book?
This is the USS Mississippi.
DC: You know, I don’t remember.
EM: There’s some great photographs in there.
DC: That’s the castle right there.
EM: A German map of Shuri Castle. There’s not much left after
you guys got through with that castle. I’m just looking,
for the purposes of the recording, at some photographs from
the book USS Mississippi, ’41-’45, which David has here at
the interview. It has photographs of Shuri Castle. And
there is not much left after the bombardment by the great
naval ships, including the Mississippi. Man, that’s
something. So did you get close enough to Okinawa to see
the island?
DC: No.
EM: So you guys were...
DC: Well, we could see the island, but we couldn’t...
EM: See anything else?
DC: The only thing you could see is smoke.
30
EM: Can you -- is it true that you can actually see the shells
from those big 14-inch guns when they go in?
DC: You could see, but you couldn’t see where it hit because...
EM: It’s too far away.
DC: See that shoot 20 miles. On a ship, you could see 22 miles
from here to the horizon. That’s what they claim. I don't
know. They said you can see 22 miles. But that’s on a --
we never did see many ships on there that night. Most all
of it was anti-aircraft.
EM: So you did a lot of bombarding, what, at night or during
the day or both?
DC: During the daytime, daytime. See, we had a lot of
reconnaissance planes. They’d fly around, get our targets
for us.
EM: Now, you weren’t using the five-inches for these either.
You were using the 14-inch?
DC: Fourteen-inch, yeah.
EM: Yeah. So your primary role is looking for enemy aircraft.
DC: Yeah.
EM: Now, according to what I’m reading here, a Kamikaze hit the
Mississippi at Okinawa also.
DC: Yeah.
EM: Is this the one that killed the chaplain, you think?
DC: Killed the chaplain.
31
EM: My goodness. And where were you when that happened? Were
you at your battle station?
DC: No. We weren’t even at battle quarters.
EM: You were in the gun shack?
DC: No. I think I was eating dinner, I believe.
EM: Oh, really?
DC: Yeah.
EM: My goodness.
DC: He hit us right at dusk, about 6:00, I guess.
EM: Mm-hmm. Now, during the time you were in the South
Pacific, did you get letters from your wife? And did you
write letters? I mean, how was the communications going --
pretty good?
DC: Well, she could spot pretty close where I was everywhere
when I was in South Pacific. The simple reason was because
when I left I says the closest island I’m at, I’m going to
start with that letter. Like, if I’m at Okinawa I’m going
to start with an O. If I’m in the Philippines I’m going to
start with a P. She could spot me.
EM: So your little code let her know kind of where you were?
DC: Yeah.
EM: I’ll be darned.
DC: And see, we had a memorandum every day, visited old Tokyo
Rose every morning give all that propaganda.
32
EM: So did you actually listen to Tokyo Rose?
DC: Oh yeah, we listened to her.
EM: Really? What did you think about what you heard?
DC: Bunch of baloney.
EM: But how in the world she found out all that information...
DC: I don’t know either. All of it’s false.
EM: Well, sometimes she knew stuff that was right, though. It
was the spin she put on it that was the problem.
DC: And you know, when we was in Japanese territory, they paid
us in Jap money.
EM: What?
DC: Yes.
EM: Really?
DC: Yes. They paid us in Jap money when we was in Japanese
territory, yens and [cents?]. I’ve still got some of that
old stuff at home.
EM: Not worth much.
DC: It ain’t worth nothing.
EM: Well, I am surprised they wouldn’t pay you in American
money. Maybe that was so that if -- well, you weren’t
going to be going ashore to spend money then because the
war was still on. Now, when they dropped the atomic bombs,
that’s when I guess you knew the war was just about over,
huh?
33
DC: Yeah.
EM: How did you find out about that? I guess it came in over
the loudspeaker or what?
DC: Yes, one of the memorandums, I think.
EM: So these are, what, almost like a -- those memorandums, did
you get those every day?
DC: Oh yeah, every day.
EM: So it was kind of like the newspaper?
DC: Newspaper, yeah.
EM: Were you ever figure that you might have to be part of the
invasion of Japan itself?
DC: No, because we knew we were just -- well, we really didn’t
know because we were prepared to go to Tokyo, yeah. We
were prepared to get in there.
EM: And then the great day came when the Japanese surrendered.
DC: Uh-huh.
EM: Now, was there a party? Did you guys have a celebration
when that happened?
DC: Oh, yes. There’s a big picture show that night, movie
picture show. They opened the back deck, turned that big
camera up there and it all got back at you. We had a
picnic.
EM: They didn’t give you any beer, though, did they?
34
DC: No. You had to get it from them islands, and I never did.
They’d go to New Hebrides down there. All them sailors
would give you half a day. But they’d give you two stubs
for a beer, two beer tickets. And all them natives wanted
was cigarettes. I pulled shore patrol one time. Them
sailors tried to dig under the fence, climb the fence,
damnedest things you’d ever seen.
EM: People do silly things during the war, don’t they?
DC: Yeah. And them old sailors down there had sores all over
them. They didn’t (inaudible) me.
EM: Sores all over them?
DC: Yeah, they had sores. You’d see the big old sores on the
leg. They didn’t have no clothes on. Them sailors, they’d
get down on their hands and knees trying to dig underneath
that pit. Shore patrol walk up on them, make them get up.
And then, for the ship, we come through the Panama -- after
the war, we come through the Panama Canal up the
Mississippi River to New Orleans. That’s where I left the
ship -- New Orleans. Well, I had pulled -- I liked about
ten days getting out. So I pulled shore patrol every
fourth day. So me and my running buddy -- he was a half-
Indian out of Oklahoma -- we pulled shore patrol together.
And of course they pushed you as a (inaudible) patrol. And
all the sailors coming in from the submarines and all that,
35
they had a big fight up there. And they’d go get
(inaudible) paddy wagon. They’d go and put on in the paddy
wagon. We’d let him out. They’d go get another, put him -
- we couldn’t hold that guy. You’d be seeing all the time
where I put him in the jug. So anyway, they’re pretty nice
in New Orleans.
EM: Mm-hmm. Now, that was in, what, November when you actually
got off the ship and...
DC: See, my wife was there. I forgot -- it’s the St. Charles.
I believe it’s the St. Charles Hotel. They only let you
stay in a hotel three nights, then move you from this room
to one across the hall for three nights. It didn’t make
sense to me, but that’s what they’d done. She stayed there
a week, and then she come on back.
EM: So Okinawa, the biggest problem there was the Kamikaze that
sideswiped the ship and killed the chaplain.
DC: Yeah.
EM: And after Okinawa, the war was pretty soon over after that.
DC: It was pretty well over, yeah.
EM: So the Mississippi went on to Tokyo Bay to be part of the
exercises.
DC: Yeah.
EM: So tell me what you saw there in Tokyo Bay.
36
DC: We were scared we were going to hit one of them mines, is
what we were scared of.
EM: Well, hopefully they did send a minesweeper in.
DC: They had minesweepers there. But that’s what we was -- all
the sailors were scared of hitting one of them mines,
because we knew they was there.
EM: Now, did you ever go ashore on Japan mainland?
DC: No.
EM: Did you ever see any of the Japanese?
DC: Just very few.
EM: And I guess you didn’t really see any Japanese aboard the
ship because you weren’t taking prisoners of war.
DC: The Missouri was outside. It was 500, maybe 1,000 feet
beyond us at another pier.
EM: So was everybody on the Mississippi up on deck watching?
DC: Well, not everybody. Some of them were.
EM: Were you?
DC: No. Well, I could see them, but I never did stay up there.
EM: At this time you’re probably thinking, “Gee, I want to go
home.”
DC: Yeah. Of course, they had them bunks. When I first got on
the ship I slept in one of them hammocks. In the South
Pacific, at 4:00 in the morning you’re still sweating. So
then I got me a bed, one of them laid-out beds, bottom one.
37
I liked it. And then finally I moved up to gun sec, slept
on a workbench, but my mattress on that workbench, slept
better up there. Nobody’s bothered me up there.
EM: That’s a good idea. So how big was the gun shack, I mean,
physically?
DC: Oh, it was, let’s see, maybe twice as big as this room.
EM: Okay. So this room’s maybe 12x8. So it was maybe 12x16?
It’s a good-sized room then.
DC: Yeah. We kept all our earphones and everything up in
there, earphones. We had to keep them all operating all
the time.
EM: Mm-hmm. What do you think about the Japanese after having
fought them during World War II?
DC: Oh, I didn’t think much of them. In fact, I still don’t
buy much Japanese stuff.
EM: Yeah. So you’re not driving a Toyota, huh?
DC: No.
EM: Do you ever think about the war years after the war was
over?
DC: Well, not too much. Today I think everybody ought to go in
the service. Young people ought to go to the service just
to learn something. I mean, that’s my thinking.
EM: Mm-hmm. Well, what did you learn during the service?
38
DC: Well, I learned -- one thing, I learned how to take care of
myself.
EM: Mm-hmm -- self-sufficient.
DC: Yeah.
EM: So when you came out of the service you were a different
person?
DC: Oh yes. Well, I can say I was a little bit, I guess. See,
there everybody takes a crap at the same time. It
literally ought to be 50, and they’re sitting on that one
pot at one time.
EM: There’s not a lot of privacy, is there?
DC: Privacy? They dreaded all the -- I don't what to say. But
it’s all the different wording, you know? They talk about
the head and all that kind of stuff.
EM: Yeah, they have their own language, don’t they?
DC: Oh yeah.
EM: What was your classification when you left the Mississippi?
DC: 3rd class lieutenant, 3rd class gunner’s mate. I was
getting ready to go up for second class, but this Pete
Castelli was at Pete Orchard, Washington. When we went to
Seattle, we went to Bremerton. I come home for 30 days.
Seattle, you couldn’t find no place to stay. So one of my
buddies I went to school with at St. Elmo, he was in the
navy. And they had a house up there with three other
39
people. So my wife and I stayed with him two nights. And
I had to get up at 5:00 in the morning and ride that ferry
over to Bremerton. Well, they had that big navy project up
there at Port Orchard. So a bunch of us got into Port
Orchard, Washington at the Port Orchard Navy Project. And
they furnished linen seats and everything -- $28 a box.
EM: What was that big project? Was it a naval base they were
building?
DC: Oh yeah. Pete Castelli and his wife, they had a big USO
party up there one night. And Pete Castelli, dozens of
people from Idaho went. When they bring a beer up to you,
they bring you a whole case, take all the caps off at one
time.
EM: Good gracious.
DC: Yeah, all the caps. So we got ready to leave. Pete says,
“Dave, get that case there. We’re going to take it with
us,” because we had to go around the island in the car to
get to Port Orchard, which is about 50 miles. So I picked
it up, boy, and all that beer went all the way down there.
I said, “We ain’t got no beer, Pete.”
EM: Oh my gosh. You didn’t need any more beer anyhow, right?
DC: No. We had enough that night. That was young days.
40
EM: What was the funniest thing that ever happened to you
during the war that you think back on and you chuckle about
the most?
DC: Gosh, I guess the most happiest was when I seen my wife
when we come into Port Orchard.
EM: Now that was worth a smile, wasn’t it?
DC: Yeah, because I had a -- she was at Pearl, Panama. They
had a USO party down there. And I lost my liberty card
there. And I come back and I told the captain, and then I
told the chief. And they said, “Well, it’s too late to
make another. You don’t need it. You won’t get out.” So
anyway, I didn’t know if I was going to get back on the
ship or not if I got off. So anyway, I wrote my wife a
note -- wait for me. As soon as I change clothes, I’ll be
there. When I spotted her I threw it overboard. What did
you throw that note overboard for? That’s the only time
they ever got on me.
EM: Oh, really?
DC: You ain’t supposed to throw nothing over ships. I did. I
just told her to wait for me.
EM: Yeah, and she did.
DC: Yeah.
EM: And what was the scariest moment you had, the toughest
moment?
41
DC: The typhoon.
EM: The typhoon was worse than the Kamikaze, huh?
DC: Oh yeah.
EM: You thought it was curtains during the typhoon?
DC: Boy, I thought that was the end of it.
EM: Really?
DC: Fifty-foot, 60-foot waves. Sometimes that ocean was just
smooth. Next time, man, it could be rough.
EM: I guess that makes you respect the ocean, doesn’t it.
DC: And all those people that get killed in that flareback,
they buried them at sea, put a 40-pound slug in each leg,
but them in a sack, put them on a gangplank, call your
name, down they went. That’s the way they buried them at
sea.
EM: There goes a life right there. That’s sad.
DC: Yeah. I tried to grow a beard when I was in the navy.
About three or four days, it started itching. I couldn’t
take it. I had to cut mine off.
EM: But they would let you grow a beard if you want?
DC: Oh yeah. Yeah, you could grow a beard. A lot of them
tried to drink that 190-proof alcohol, too, in Coke. I
never did taste none of that stuff. It didn’t look right
to me.
EM: That sounds like a good way to get seriously ill.
42
DC: One of them got sick. We had to put him in the brig for --
he’d get bread and water for three days.
EM: Well, I guess he deserved it, didn’t he?
DC: Yeah. You’ll take a shower, there’ll be about 10 or 12
taking a shower at the same time.
EM: Hmm. Well, that was a long time ago, wasn’t it, David?
DC: Oh, yeah. I know it’s all different now. But, I was glad
I went in the -- I didn’t want to dig no foxhole or
nothing.
EM: So how did it feel when you got back to the States and got
out of the navy? Did it feel like a big weight lifted off
your shoulders?
DC: Well, I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. My job was
offered to me back in El Paso. So I go out there. See,
they paid me per diem at El Paso, but I come to Austin. I
said I’m not going back to El Paso to my draft board,
seeing what they paid me. So me and my wife go out to
Biggs Field. Of course, people had more seniority than I
did. It wasn’t the same. So I come back, went to work for
my dad, which had been one of the biggest contractors in
Austin. It was me and my oldest brother and him. My dad
said, “Don’t build a big forest. Get a little one and stay
with it.” So that’s what we did. Of course, in the
meantime, my dad, he worked in a lumberyard. That’s how
43
come I wound up getting that house so cheap. The inside
walls, he’d take a 2x6 and drip it, take a 2x3, had 2x3
walls. He says, “You don’t need a 2x4 inside. 2x4 on the
outside.” That’s what I’d done and done all the work
myself. He gave me the land, two acres of land. I had to
dig the well. That was a dollar a foot then. And then
when the land was high in ’84, I sold out. It was at Oak
Hill. That house cost me less than about $5,000. In ’84 I
sold that whole two acres and that house. I sold it for
$2.25 a square foot, $100,000 an acre. So I figured it was
a good deal. Then I come in and bought that place on
Buckskin -- cash deal all the way through. The man who
bought my place paid me cash. I paid him cash. The post
office bought his place, so he got cash money.
EM: Now, when you got wounded, got your cut on your head, that
qualified you for a Purple Heart, correct?
DC: Right.
EM: And so, you are a Purple Heart recipient. Tell me how you
got the Purple. I mean, what did they do, present it to
you in a ceremony, or did they just mail it to you? How
does that work?
DC: They mailed me -- the first thing they did, mailed my wife
-- my mother -- mailed my mother a letter that I was
wounded. Then they mailed her the letter where I was going
44
to get the Purple Heart. And they mailed it to her. It
never was presented to me. It was mailed to me. I’ve got
the Purple Heart at home.
EM: Did they tell her you weren’t seriously wounded?
DC: No. They didn’t say how bad or nothing. It just says
“wounded.”
EM: For all she knows you’ve got one leg left and no arms.
DC: That’s right.
EM: That must have worried her sick.
DC: Yeah. In letters I write, I couldn’t write with my right
hand at all. I had to write left-handed. And they
couldn’t read it, because all this was black, blue.
EM: So you were kind of bruised up on your right arm then.
DC: Oh yeah. So I wrote left-handed. And half that letter was
cut in half, in two where they censored it when I mailed
it. They cut half of it.
EM: Oh, just because of censorship?
DC: Censorship.
EM: So they made paper dolls out of it, huh?
DC: Yeah.
EM: Golly. Well, what else can we talk about -- about the war
years?
DC: There was four of us from Austin on there. I went in from
El Paso through Austin. There was Charles Henry Dahlstrom,
45
Charlie Delaney, Marvin Christopher and myself. Well,
Delaney, Dahlstrom and Curry, we were the same division,
same division. And Christopher was in the 6th Division, I
believe. Anyway, and then Charles Henry, they say he lives
here in Fredericksburg. Whether he does or not, I don't
know. (inaudible). So then, he was young. They’d take
him down to take a shower, and that old boy would get a
hard-on. They’d run him around there, and he’d holler
(inaudible) and all that kind of stuff.
EM: Ah, the navy.
DC: It was something.
EM: Well, what else comes to mind about your war years? We’ve
covered a lot of ground.
DC: Well, when I see them old boys now, when we took -- see, we
took everything on board ship at sea except ammunition and
some groceries. We took most of the fuel at sea. And then
we had to refuel the destroyers because they’d run out.
EM: That’s what I’ve heard, yeah.
DC: And then, we’d have to give -- they’d run out of food.
We’d have to send some food over to them. And then when
them destroyers are throwing TNT, you can feel it when you
hit the deck down there. It’s a little jar in the hip.
EM: Really?
DC: Yeah.
46
EM: My goodness.
DC: If you made a direct hit, though, you could see that black
oil come up.
EM: Hmm. Okay, what else?
DC: I guess that’s about it.
EM: Whatever happened to the Mississippi? Did she get -- she
got sold for scrap, didn’t she?
DC: Well, it went to Gulfport after, and once it’s in Gulfport
I don’t know. I know when I left it there, the Mississippi
River went down, and the propellers got stuck in that mud.
And I forgot how many tugs it took to pull it out. It
weighed 32,000 tons.
EM: Well, she’s a big ship, big ship.
DC: Yeah, 32,000 tons. And it’s about 12 stories down.
EM: That’s a big ship.
DC: I had to pull a shore patrol -- not shore patrol -- yeah,
shore patrol when I was in Bremerton, Washington one time,
carry a pistol, watch the people working on it. I went all
over that ship, down...
EM: You could see the whole thing while she was in -- was she
in dry dock?
DC: Yeah.
EM: That’s when you realize how big they are, how much of it is
under the water.
47
DC: That’s right. But I never did go overboard. They say the
deckhand has to go overboard, get all the little scales off
so they can repaint it. But I never did go overboard.
EM: They never made you scrape barnacles, huh?
DC: No. And that was that holy stone. It’s a brick with a
hole in it.
EM: I’ve heard stories about the holy stone. Not your favorite
tool, huh?
DC: No. I crossed the equator five times.
EM: Did they do the whole shell-back thing with you the first
time?
DC: Oh yeah.
EM: And then you did to the guys the next time, huh?
DC: Yeah.
EM: Have you ever been back to the Pacific after the war? Did
you ever go back?
DC: Yeah, my wife and I, we went down to Pearl Harbor in 40 --
no, ’72. I believe it was 1972 we went back there.
EM: That was before they put the Missouri there.
DC: Oh yeah.
EM: Yeah, that’s where she is now. Okay, well I’m going to go
ahead and end recording here. And I want to thank you for
spending the time with us, David. Like I told you before,
I don’t think we’ve got very many interviews of guys that
48
were on the BB-41. And so, it’s really interesting to hear
your stories. And I want to thank you for what you did for
us during the war.
DC: Well, I enjoyed it. After I got in I was happy. Gunner’s
mate, I was happy that I could be that, because when I
first got on I was sick -- disappointed, really,
disappointed.
EM: Yeah, that kind of sick, yeah.
DC: But anyway, after I got on I enjoyed it. I’ll still say
it. Every young person ought to be in some kind of
service.
EM: I agree with you. I think it would make all of us better
people.
DC: That’s right.
EM: Okay. Well, thank you again.
DC: Okay.
END OF AUDIO FILE
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