National Museum of the Pacific War Center for Pacific War Studies Oral History Program Fredericksburg, Texas an Interview with M
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National Museum of the Pacific War Center for Pacific War Studies Oral History Program Fredericksburg, Texas An Interview with Mr. Howard L. Snell United States Navy Date of Interview: December 7, 2003 National Museum of the Pacific War Fredericksburg, Texas Interview with Mr. Howard L. Snell Mr. Metzler: This is Ed Metzler. Today is December 7, 2003. I am interviewing Mr. Howard Snell. This interview is taking place in Fredericksburg, Texas. This interview is in support of the Center for Pacific War Studies, archives for the National Museum of the Pacific War, Texas Historical Commission for the preservation of historical information related to this site. Mr. Snell, let me thank you first for spending the time with us today to share your experiences with us. Would you start by telling us when and where you were born and a little bit about your family life before you went into the service. Then we will want to hear your experiences. Mr. Snell: I was born in the little town of Wilimar, Minnesota. That town is so small that they are lucky to have a gas station there. I understand it has grown though. I was born 20th the of January, 1923, so therefore today it makes me 80 years old and I’ll be touching 81 very shortly. My father left me when I was three years old. Our family left and my mother brought us up. She was a schoolteacher and she brought us three children up. So I didn’t have the benefit of a father, but I didn’t let that bother me. Finally though, after a number of years of being taught by my mother, which sometimes isn’t the easiest thing to do, my mother remarried in 1935 and I moved to the little town of Belle Plaine, Iowa. That was the biggest town I had ever seen. They had a railroad running through there. That was a town of about thirty-five hundred people. I thought that was great. I fmally got a little city life 1 after living out there, way up in northern Minnesota where all they had was pine trees and sand, it seemed to me and a lot of lakes, of course. I went to school there in Belle Plaine. In 1940 I was a senior in high school and of course we had aspirations. I was going to graduate. I was looking forward to graduation and I was sort of a small man, so even though I had played football, I was a wrestler. I had had a little feeling about wrestling from the University of Iowa, which is a great wrestling school, and I imagine I could have maybe got a scholarship from there. I don’t know, but there was a feeling. They had sent a person for an interview. Well, it was later in the last part of November 1940. We had a young history professor. When I look back on it now, he was just a young kid. It was his first year out of school. He started telling me and the class I was in how great Hitler was and what a great job he was doing in Germany. So I just said, “Well, why don’t you go back to Germany then if you like him so doggone much?” Well, you know what he did with me. He said “You’re gone. You’re out!” The only way I was going to get back in his class was to go to the principal. I made the statement as I left “I’m going to join the Navy.” He said “They wouldn’t have you anyway.” That was enough. I asked my mother. My stepfather and I got along great. We got along all right but there was always friction when you... so she signed for me to go into the Navy. I was seventeen. So I got the call to go into the Navy, had to report to Des Moines, Iowa and they in turn sent me to be sworn in in Great Lakes, Illinois. So I went to boot camp in Great Lakes, Illinois and I joined 1th the Navy on the 1 of February 1941. Boot camp to me was great. I had been fanned out all my life, It didn’t bother me at all. I thought that was great. Mr. Metzler: You didn’t have to plow or anything! 2 ___________________ __________________. ______ Mr. Snell: No! Three meals a day. I always kid a little bit. I said “I lived on a farm in Iowa and I know when you say ‘rough as a cob’ I know what you’re talking about.” Well anyway, here I am in boot camp and I was standing in the right place. third class, square knot, petty officer. I was just standing in the right place one night. He said I was greater than any of the other boys. So I was a platoon leader. I’ll give you a few little I went on to boot camp and I graduated from boot camp. The day I got back from boot camp leave in Belle Plaine, my stepfather died and it was a lowlight for my mother. I went back at the end of my boot leave and I was assigned to the ENTERPRISE. I said “Enterprise, what’s the Enterprise?” “Oh, that’s a carrier.” I really didn’t even know what a carrier does. So I had been in Minnesota, I had been in Iowa, been in South Dakota, North Dakota. I had worked summers up there in the wheat fields and so forth, as a kid. Here all of a sudden, I am going... and I had always dreamt... I said “Boy, when I get out to California, I’m going to pick those oranges and eat oranges.” (laughter) So I got on a train en route out to San Pedro. San Pedro. I was going to catch a ship in San Pedro to take me out to Pearl. “Where’s Pearl Harbor? What’s Pearl Harbor?” I really didn’t know. Then I find out that it’s a base for our ships in Hawaii. Dreaming of Hawaii was way beyond my dreams. So I got into San Pedro and we spent two or three weeks there and I caught the KASKASKA, it was an oiler, to go to Hawaii. Mr. Metzler: How do you spell that? Mr. Snell: K-A-S-K-A-S-K-A. It’s an oiler, a very big one. We had guys getting seasick on there. I didn’t get seasick. It wasn’t rolling or anything. A lot of it is up in your mind. Looking back over my Navy career, I never did get seasick, including the 3 ______________________.“ typhoon I was in in 1944. Anyway, we pulled into Pearl and the ENTERPRISE was not in at the time. I had about a three-day wait for it to come in. Matter of fact, I stayed right on the oiler. The ENTERPRISE came in. Time for me to go aboard. I know that when I looked at that ship, when that motor launch came up alongside that ship, that was the biggest thing I had ever seen. That was big! I went up and reported aboard. I’ll backtrack a little bit. The first thing they ask in the Navy, when you come into the Navy, they want to know where you’re going to fit in. They said “What did you do when you were going to school?” “I used to get up at 5 o’clock in the morning and go down to the pooi hail and clean all the pooi tables because I got “No, what else did you do?” “Well, I worked in a movie theater, taking tickets and what have you.” “No.” “I worked in a butcher shop.” “A butcher shop! Oh my gosh. You’re going to be a butcher!” Well all I did in the butcher shop was sell meat. I worked back of the meat counter. I didn’t have to worry about cutting or anything. I knew the owner of the butcher shop. We’d always take on one article a day and see who could see the most, he or I. I’d sell to the ladies that came in there. Of course, pork was only 70 cents, 80 cents, 90 cents a pound. I’d make sure they had some of that just to beat my boss. Here I walk aboard the ENTERPRISE and they assign me to the butcher shop. We had a first-class by the name of Hinkle that was the butcher. Of course, when you first come in, you don’t really do anything, but I’d only been there two days and the head of materiel inspected. Now that was on a Saturday morning. “Materiel.” I didn’t know what it was to start with. “Materiel” didn’t mean anything to me. Well, “materiel” means that they’re going to check all the spaces and this was going to be by ComAir of Air Corps XVI, Admiral Halsey. So 4 here I am in the butcher shop, unbeknown to me, although I had heard about it, the first-class had been on the beach the night before and he was in no shape to stand there. I understand he was up in one of the boat pockets. Here I am. Of course, I’m a big sailor now. Oh man, I tell you what, all of apprentice seaman.