THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE PACIFIC WAR
The Nimitz Education and Research Center
Fredericksburg, Texas
An interview with Walter Sy Arizona June 3, 2011
This is Ed Metzler (EM). Today is the third of June, 2011. I’m doing a telephone interview with Mr. Walt Sy (WS) who is located in Arizona. I’m located at the Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg, TX. This recording is in support of the Center of 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.
EM: I want to start by thanking you, Walt, by spending the time, early in the morning Arizona time, to share your experiences with us, and let’s get started by having you give us your full name and when and where you were born.
WS: Well my full name is Walter H. Sy. I was born in Sagano, Michigan.
EM: And what’s your date of birth?
WS: 10/31/21.
EM: A Halloween baby!
WS: Right.
EM: Okay, and so what did your dad do for a living?
WS: Well he was a farmer. Had a farm.
EM: Oh, ok, and what did you raise up there?
WS: Mostly beans and corn.
EM: So this must have been on the outskirts of Sagano?
WS: Well, actually when I was nine years old, my dad traded his house in Sagano for a farm.
EM: Okay, okay.
WS: So, the rest I was raised out there on a farm after that.
EM: Now did you have brothers and sisters?
WS: Yes, I had one brother and four sisters.
EM: And you went to school where? In a little country school house or what?
WS: In a little country school house called Maxwelltown School.
EM: Was this the proverbial one room schoolhouse?
WS: A one room schoolhouse.
EM: Yeah, we’ve got some of them down here in rural Texas, too. There mostly museums now, but anyhow, that’s the way people were schooled back then. And so did you go to high school somewhere else or was that high school as well?
WS: I went one year to high school in Sagano.
EM: And then what happened?
WS: Well my dad said he needed me on the farm and I couldn’t go no more.
EM: Is that right? Well those were extremely tough times for anybody, but particularly people on the farm. So you worked on the farm?
WS: I did, until I was sixteen.
EM: Yeah okay, so that’s 1936/1937?
WS: Right, I was on the farm those years.
EM: Yeah, and then what did you do?
WS: Well I got in kind of an argument with my dad and I had a job with another farmer, and at the end of the month I asked for my pay and he said, “your dad picked it up last night”. So I went home and packed up my clothes and said, “Well, goodbye”.
EM: Sianara.
WS: And then I hitchhiked to Detroit and I got a job with a nursery building swimming pools in backyards of rich people.
EM:
WS: Yeah, there was, yes.
EM: Yes, those were boom times for Detroit. Well no, not during the Depression. Nothing was booming during the Depression.
WS: No, nothing was booming.
EM: Yeah. So let’s see, how old were you then when you went to Detroit?
WS: I was 17 I think.
EM: Boy. Well you obviously made it on your own!
WS: I did!
EM: So how long did you do swimming pools?
WS: Well till it got cold in the winter time.
EM:
WS: That’s right.
EM: So what did you do?
WS: Well I had a sister that lived in Detroit and I went and stayed with her and did babysitting for her and I’d go to Ford Motor Company and stand in a line five miles long waiting for them to hire about six people out of that line.
EM: Oh boy.
WS: I messed around in Detroit not long after that and decided that that was enough, I needed to do something so I joined the Navy.
EM: And so how old were you when you joined the Navy?
WS: Eighteen I think.
EM: Yeah, cause I think you had to be that old to do it without a signature of a parent or a guardian I think.
WS: I still had to have a signature.
EM: You still had to have a signature?
WS: I still had to.
EM: So who signed for you?
WS: Well, I took it to my dad and he didn’t want to sign because he wouldn’t get that money, you know, that I was going to earn. Which was so much, $26 a month.
EM:
WS: But I told him, “You won’t sign this then I’m going to hitchhike to San Francisco and join the Merchant Marines.” And my mother decided to talk him into signing.
EM: So in you went, into the Navy. Why did you pick the Navy?
WS: Well because I didn’t want to sleep in the wild country.
EM: You didn’t want to sleep in a tent or a foxhole?
WS:
EM: Well that’s good reasoning!
WS: Yeah.
EM: You wanted to be on a luxurious boat!
WS: Right.
EM: So where did you do your basic training?
WS: Chicago, what’s the name of the place?
EM: Well you probably went to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center up there north of Chicago. That’s where they send most of the guys.
WS: Yeah, that’s where I went, yeah.
EM: Yeah. So you got to see Chicago while you were there, huh?
WS: Yeah, I got to see Chicago while I was there.
EM: So what time of year was it that you were in basic?
WS: It was early January sometime in ’41.
EM: Oh great, so you hit it when it was absolutely totally ice cold, but you’re used to it, you’re from Michigan.
WS: Yeah.
EM: So how was basic training? Was it easy for you or hard or what?
WS: Well to begin with it was pretty hard, but I made it. They had a lot of different things then than they have now. Basic training was really a rough deal. You know, and you had to roll all your clothes up and put square knots in ‘em when you tied ‘em together. When you were out marching, if you got out of step or anything, couldn’t stay in step, boy they’d give you that gun, put it over your head to run around the track five times.
EM: Man, sounds like hazing to me!
WS: Yeah, well they really were rough on you.
EM: Well I mean it’s better to be rough on you in basic training than it is to learn later that you’re not up to things.
WS: Yeah.
EM: So what was it that you wanted to do in the Navy? Did you have a special objective in mind or you just wanted to get out and see the world?
WS: Well after boot camp, I went to St Louis, MO to Hadley Tech and took a course in electricity to be an electrician. And that was just a two month course or something like that, it may have been more, but I came out of there as a third class electrician out of that school. And then I was sent from St Louis to San Diego Naval Air Station and I stayed there till November of ’41. And then I got orders to go to Pearl Harbor. And I was supposed to go on the West Virginia and there was about five or six of us I guess that went on an oil tanker from San Diego to Pearl Harbor. And we got to Pearl Harbor the day before the bombing started.
EM: Is that right? Your timing was something, wasn’t it?
WS: Yeah.
EM: Well let me ask you about your trip on that luxurious oil tanker. Did you get seasick?
WS: I did! The smell was awful!
EM:
WS:
EM: How long did it take you to get over it?
WS: Oh, it didn’t take too long.
EM: You know, some guys never get over it and I think they almost have to give ‘em shore duty.
WS: Yeah, I got over it really quick.
EM: So you were with, what, several other buddies that you’d kind of been together with?
WS: Yeah. Five of us.
EM: And you were all headed to the same ship?
WS: Right, right. Though, we never really got on the ship.
EM: Well that’s right. She got blown out, blown up before you literally got there.
WS: Yeah.
EM: Well so give me some details about when you arrived at Pearl Harbor and where you spent the night and that kind of stuff. Kinda give me some background before we get into the actual attack.
WS: Well we stayed in the barracks there when we got there. We got off the oil tanker and went into a barracks and were supposed to be processed out of there to the ship, ya know? Which it never happened. So the next day after the 7th, why me and one other, one of my buddies, we were both sent to the USS Gridley. A destroyer.
EM: Well then, let me ask you this. Tell me about that morning when you first heard about the attack. I mean, did you hear the explosions yourself? You must have, right?
WS: Oh yeah.
EM: So describe to me what happened.
WS: Well as far as I can remember, they took us out and gave us guns and if we could we’d shoot at the airplanes. Not that it did any good, but…
EM: So they just give you a rifle?
WS: Well the BAR they called them.
EM: Okay. Yeah. So how far were you from battleship row where you were staying that night?
WS: Oh I’d say probably it’s a quarter of a mile.
EM: That close?
WS: Yeah.
EM: So you literally had a ring-side seat on that, didn’t you?
WS: Right.
EM: So had you already visually picked out the West Virginia?
WS: Oh yeah.
EM: So you knew that was going to be your ship, or at least you thought?
WS: Yeah. If there was some way I could send to you, I would send the pictures.
EM: Oh! Okay.
WS: But I don’t know how I could send ‘em. I got ‘em all in a picture frame with glass and all, so I don’t know how I’d ship them.
EM: Well, we’ll worry about that later. So when you went out, so you started shooting at Japanese aircraft, is that right?
WS: Right, right. They were pretty low, some of them were pretty low. I think some of them were the kamikazes or whatever you call ‘em. I saw a lot of them in the Pacific.
EM: Right, so you got a good look at those aircraft. Had you had any training on spotting enemy aircraft or any of that kind of stuff?
WS: No. No, didn’t have any.
EM: So I guess you saw the Arizona go up?
WS: Yep.
EM: Was it as horrific in person as it looks like on the news reels?
WS: Um, pretty much. I got a pretty good picture of it.
EM: Really?
WS: Yeah.
EM: So did you have a camera with you?
WS: Well one of the guys did and took a lot of pictures.
EM: And let’s see, I guess the Oklahoma, she rolled over, didn’t she?
WS: It rolled over, right.
EM: And what did the West Virginia do?
WS: It just sunk.
EM: She just kinda settled in, huh?
WS: Yeah. Took a couple bombs and moved to the bottom.
EM: So what’s going through your mind here when all of this his happening? This isn’t going exactly according to plan, is it?
WS: Well I wasn’t exactly not scared. I was. I was a pretty young guy. I was about 18 when I went over or something like that, I don’t know. It was scary.
EM: Yeah, and you’d been there for twelve hours!
WS: Yeah, it was scary.
EM: So was there a lot of panic or did everybody seem pretty well organized or what?
WS: Well there was some panic, but what I heard, I don’t know if it was true or not, but I heard sailors that were on shore in Hawaii tried to get back, you know, and taxi drivers would pick ‘em up and bring up back. I heard that but I don’t know if it was true or not but I heard a lot of it.
EM: So after the attack was over, then what did they do with you guys? I mean tell me what happened.
WS: Well after the attack was over, we went back into the processing center ‘cause you couldn’t go on the ship. And they were looking around at how many ships there was left they could put the men on that was, you know, not on the ships when they went down. And they sent us to the destroyer, USS Gridley.
EM: And so you went on to her. What did they have you do there?
WS: Well I was a third class electrician at that time. And what we did was more or less check all the electrical systems of everything on the destroyer. I think it was like a day after the attack we left Pearl Harbor.
EM: On the destroyer?
WS: On the destroyer.
EM: Do you remember her DD Number?
WS: 380.
EM: You guys amaze me. You remember these things after 60 and 70 years.
WS: Yeah. Yeah I still remember my serial number!
EM: Isn’t that incredible? Well I guess they’d say it’s burned into your brain isn’t it? So where did you go on this destroyer?
WS: Well we left Pearl Harbor, there was thirteen destroyers, two cruisers, and one carrier which was the Enterprise. That’s all the ships that was in the West Coast. That was the total fleet. We were headed for the Marshall and Gilbert Islands to bombard ‘em.
EM: So was there going to be a landing? This wasn’t working up to Guadalcanal was it?
WS: No.
EM: That came later.
WS: This was just a shelling of the beaches, you know, the start of it. And before we got there, why, another ship run into us.
EM: Oh no! Tell me how that happened.
WS: Well it was in the dark of night, I guess, and somebody zigged when they should have zagged I think. It was pretty bad. We almost had to leave the ship but they finally got all the bullheads closed. And we went into Samoa. And they put a cement bow on the ship.
EM: They did what?
WS: It was a cement bow on the ship.
EM: Well you know, I’ve heard about that but what is it, kind of a patch? How did they do that?
WS: Yeah, pretty much of a big patch.
EM: Yeah, I was going to say, and a heavy one, too I would think!
WS: Yeah. Yeah, the captain called us back on the ship and before we left he said, “well, we’re headed back for Pearl Harbor and we can make about five, six, seven knots an hour that’s how we can go. But if we contact any destroyers or any submarines or anything, we can turn around and go forty knots backwards.”
EM:
WS: Yeah, we went back to Pearl Harbor without any incidents whatsoever.
EM: I’ll be darned. But it took a long time, right?
WS: It took quite a few days, yeah. And everybody thought, when we get there we’re going to get a little liberty. But we got there and pulled in to dry dock, and that new deck was sitting on the docks.
EM: Oh, they were waiting to weld it on, huh?
WS: They were, and they got them guys on there and they cut that thing off and set that other thing in there, welded it in there. We was in there three days.
EM: So much for the extended liberty on Waikiki beach.
WS: Right.
EM: Doggone it. Man. So when you’re on the destroyer, now what was your station? I mean you were an electrician’s mate, right?
WS: I was an electrician’s mate first.
EM: Okay, you’re up first. And you know, in combat time, what was your station?
WS: At first I was loading five inch shells into the guns. And after that I was in the repair crew. In case anything happened that had to be repaired right away, I was in the repair crew. And when we went back out and joined ones we had and they sent us to Alaska!
EM: My word!
WS: Out there on, well, come out of Kiska, Alaska. And we were supposed bombard that Island that the Japs took at end of the atolls out there? And that’s what we did.
EM: So did you join the other ships that were in your fleet?
WS: Yes.
EM: And you didn’t go all the way down to the South Pacific to join up with them.
WS: Yeah [we did join the rest of the fleet in the South Pacific], and then we come back to Alaska.
EM: My gosh.
WS: And then got orders in Alaska to take a merchant ship and take it down to New Zealand.
EM:
WS: We was, one ship with that merchant ship to take to New Zealand.
EM: Do we have any idea what was so important on that merchant ship?
WS: Well I guess supplies and stuff. But they only give us that, we only had that USS Italy that was supposed to protect us to go down there, but we made it.
EM: So you never had any skirmishes with submarines or anything?
WS: No, no.
EM: That sounds kinda boring.
WS: And after New Zealand, why we went back and joined the same outfit that we was in before. And then we continued on down the South Pacific, bombarding islands one after the other. Made into a couple of ports down there. First we was down beyond Guam in that area down there was Saipan, Chihuahua and all those islands were down in there.
EM: So what were you doing in most of those? Just shelling anti-aircraft or what?
WS: Shelling and well, at that time I’d already changed positions in the Navy. I don’t know if I should tell you about that or not.
EM: Yeah, tell me everything.
WS: Well on the ship I went up to the galley and talked to the [person] in charge of the galley and says, “I’d like to come up here some night and bake some bread. ‘Cause I know how to do it, I’ve seen my mother do it so much. I know exactly how to do it.” So he says, “Go ahead! Come on up tonight and make some bread.” So I went up there and I baked seven loaves of bread. And the captain got ahold of one of those. He called me up the next day and he says, “How’d you like to be the baker on this ship? I’ll make you first class baker right now.” So I says, “Well, why not?”
EM: Yeah, why not?
WS: So that’s how I became a baker on that ship!
EM: I’ll be darned.
WS: And I made bread and cakes and pies and everything. But I never had any schooling in it or not, I just remembered what my mother taught me. I watched her do it.
EM: So about how many are on a crew of a destroyer like that?
WS: At that time we had about 280.
EM: So you must have had some pretty good kitchen facilities on board then. The galley must have been a pretty good size.
WS: Oh yeah, it had big ovens in it. Everything was right there. It wasn’t no problem putting baking in there with whoever at night.
EM: So what kind of shift, if you will, did you pull? I mean, did you work at night or during the day? Were you four on, four off? How did that work?
WS: Well as long as we weren’t on general quarters, I worked every night. If you were on general quarters, that’s when you were on four on and four off. Like when you’re going into battle, gotta bombard and now that way you’re on four on and four off.
EM: Yeah, otherwise you do what? Pull an eight hour?
WS: Yeah. Well as long as it took me too bake whatever I was baking at night.
EM: And there was somebody that told you what to bake?
WS: No, I did it all on my own.
EM: So you just were freelancing the whole time, huh?
WS: Yeah.
EM: So did you get good feedback from the crew and the officers about how well you were doing?
WS: Oh yeah, you better believe I did.
EM: Really?
WS: Yeah.
EM: Well, I’ll tell you what, it’s important to feed people right if they’re going to be effective.
WS: Yeah.
EM: So what were you reporting to what? A Sargent or something? How did that work?
WS: No, Chief Commissary Officer.
EM: Oh, so there was an Officer of the Commissary?
WS: Yeah, there was.
EM: So was he a good guy?
WS: Yeah, he was a good guy. I liked him.
EM: And did you bake different things for the Officers than you did for, you know, just the seamen?
WS: No.
EM: Everybody ate the same?
WS: Everybody ate the same. Except the Officers did have their own mess crew that made their dinner and stuff for them. At that time early in the war, you know, there was no colored people on the ships. And after that, only colored people on the ship were the Officer Stewards.
EM: Okay. And was the captain a good guy?
WS: Yeah.
EM: Hmm. So tell me about the various campaigns, then. Well first, let me ask you about New Zealand. Did you just stop there just very briefly or did you get some shore time?
WS: One night.
EM: How many?
WS: One night.
EM: Darn. They didn’t let you do any sightseeing?
WS: No.
EM: Or let you meet any New Zealand girls or anything?
WS: No, not at all.
EM: Darn it! So then you were back on the seas again?
WS: Back on the seas again.
EM: I’ll tell you, that destroyer put a lot of miles on her.
WS: Oh yeah. It was on for quite a while. After that we bombarded the New Hebrides, all those islands down there.
EM: Now, were you assigned to kind of a fleet? I mean did you have a fleet assignment? You stayed with the same group of ships, right?
WS: Actually by that time they already had a fleet, 54.2 I believe it was. It was the number of the fleet.
EM: Okay. Let me get that down. And so you got aircraft carriers and battleships and cruisers and supply ships.
WS: Yeah it was a sight to see and all when we were just the thirteen destroyers and that. Why you could see ‘em all but you know when 54.2 was - as far as you could see in the horizon you could see ships.
EM: Man that must have been an impressive sight. So which of the campaigns do you think were the toughest, the hottest, you know, the most going on?
WS: Well I think the island of Chihuahua.
EM: Yeah, that was a tough one there.
WS: I had a great experience there. I had a great experience at Chihuahua.
EM: Tell me.
WS: I got sick. And the doctor on the destroyer, there’s just one doctor, and he says, “I can’t do anything for you”. So the captain says, “We’ll transfer him to another ship, a bigger ship”.
EM: What kind of sickness was it?
WS: Well I had appendicitis.
EM: Oh yeah, that means you have to be operated on.
WS: Right. So they put in a stretcher, tied me in there, put a block and line across to a ship, the Baltimore.
EM: Yeah, that’s a heavy cruiser.
WS: So they pulled me across. And I could hear the Captain holler, he says, “Don’t you let my baker fall in the water!”
EM:
WS: So I got on the Baltimore.
EM: Yeah, and then what?
WS: Well they operated on me. And then they put me in the bed. At that time you had to be in bed after an operation. Nowadays they do it and then you’re up and along.
EM: Oh yeah, they do it all, you know, just punch a little hole in you. But back then they filleted you.
WS: Yeah. And they put me in the bed in the barracks on the Baltimore. The Baltimore was the flagship of that 854.2. It had Admiral Halsey on there.
EM: Oh really?
WS: Yeah.
EM: So the Baltimore was Halsey’s flagship at that point?
WS: Right.
EM: I’ll be darned. So did Bull come down and shake your hand and say, “hope you get better”?
WS: Well not really. But they did assign a sailor to me and said [to him], “whatever happens to this ship, if it gets hit and we have to leave, you’re responsible for getting him off”.
EM: Really? You really were important to your Captain, weren’t you?
WS: Yeah. So I guess a couple weeks I was on that before I got up and around, but I was on there for six months all together.
EM: Six months on the Baltimore?
WS: Yeah. So then the Captain wanted me back. So I think we pulled in to, I remember the port was New Caledonia I think. And they transferred me back to my ship.
EM: So what did you do with all that spare time while you were on the Baltimore? You just kinda convalesced?
WS: Yeah. I worked in the bakery too, though.
EM: Oh you did? You worked down there?
WS: Yeah.
EM: Well it’s a wonder they let you go back to the destroyer.
WS:
EM: Well did you ever get a chance to actually see Halsey?
WS: No, I never did. I don’t think I did, I don’t know.
EM: Well if you did, you didn’t know it, huh?
WS: Yeah. But I know that when I was on the Baltimore there was a kamikaze coming to hit it, and I could hear the Captain hollering up on the board, “Get that son of a bitch! Get that son of a bitch!” And they got him maybe twenty-five, thirty feet before it hit the ship. And it blew up parts of the ship. Parts of the plane landed on the ship.
EM: So which campaign was this? This wasn’t Tarawa.
WS: No this was after Tarawa. I think maybe Saipan? One of them. I don’t remember which and how they went in order anymore.
EM: So that was a close call with a kamikaze then, right?
WS: Yeah.
EM: So was it good to get back on the old destroyer? Your old home ship?
WS: Yeah. Yeah, it was good.
EM: And you were fully recovered at this point?
WS: Yeah. Fully recovered. And I don’t remember what year that was but we did quite a few campaigns out there.
EM: Yeah, sounds to me like you hit most of them.
WS: Yeah. And then, well all that time we were out there, there was another deal. They took a boat on the ship. Whether we wanted to go back to the United States or wanted to go to Australia for a week. So they all voted to go to Australia for a week.
EM: They actually put it to a vote? Man that is democracy in action!
WS: Yeah. Yeah, we all voted to go to Australia for a week. We went to the harbor in Australia and we were there for a week.
EM: Yeah, so where in Australia?
WS: Sydney.
EM: Mm-hmm, that’s supposed to be a good town.
WS: It was.
EM: So tell me about Sydney.
WS: Well I can tell you that we got off the ship and got a taxi to take us into town. Five of us in the taxi. And we got in to town and we all got out money to pay him, we each give him a dollar, so that was five dollars, and that trip was only supposed to be $0.50.
EM:
WS: Yeah.
EM: Oh my gosh.
WS: So we had five days in Sydney.
EM: So what was it like? Was it totally different than America?
WS: I couldn’t tell the difference.
EM: Really?
WS: Yeah, just like being in America.
EM: Well that’s not all bad.
WS: Only difference was the price of stuff. They had trolleys that went down the middle of the street and for a half a penny you could ride the trolleys.
EM: My gosh.
WS: They had halfpennies and all that stuff. Different money then we have.
EM: Yeah, well they had ha’pennies and pennies and I guess schillings and all that kind of stuff.
WS: But they liked our money. It got so that people kinda got perturbed about it. Taxi drivers would see a sailor standing on the corner waiting for a taxi and he’d go right by all the Australians waiting a taxi to pick up the sailor.
EM: ‘Cause I guess they had money and they were probably good tippers.
WS: Yeah, that’s right.
EM: So how did they Australian people treat you Yanks?
WS: Oh they treated us pretty good. In fact I met a girl while I was there. She was a nice girl. She didn’t want me to go back to the ship.
EM: She what now?
WS: She didn’t want me to go back to the ship!
EM: Well.
WS: She said, “My dad has a big sheep ranch up in Northern Australia and we can go up there and they’ll never know where you are”.
EM:
WS: Yeah, I couldn’t see that. I did write her a couple letters and she wrote back a couple times, too, but then it died away.
EM: I’ll be darned. That’s an interesting story. You know I’ve heard stories that in both New Zealand and in Australia the men who were still there and weren’t overseas fighting really didn’t like having all the sailors and GIs around because, you know, all the Australian women just thought they were great and so they got jealous.
WS: Yeah, that’s a possibility I guess.
EM: Yeah, some pretty good bar fights I’ve heard about as a result.
WS: Yeah. I didn’t see any of it when I was there, but I guess that’s okay.
EM: Yeah, that sounds like a good thing not to see. So what about the food? What did the food taste like?
WS: Oh they had just about the same kind of food as we have here.
EM: They feed you a lot of mutton?
WS: They had lamb. Not mutton, but lamb. Lamb chops and stuff.
EM: So after your time in Australia, you felt refreshed and relaxed, huh?
WS: Yeah. So then we went back out and I guess it was in ’44, I’d been there for what, three years out in the Pacific. And they said I was eligible to go back to the United States and get a new ship.
EM: Oh really?
WS: So they transferred me to the Battleship USS Maryland.
EM: Boy, you’ve been on a lot of ships.
WS: Yeah. I took the Maryland all the way back to San Diego.
EM: Ok, where did you board the Maryland?
WS: Guam.
EM: Okay on Guam. And let me guess, you were the baker on the Maryland?
WS: Well not exactly.
EM: How’d that work out?
WS: Well every day out of the loud speaker my name come on it says, “Report to the bakery. Report to the bakery.” And I just ignored it.
EM: So you found a place to hide out, huh?
WS:
EM: Yeah, didn’t hear a thing.
WS: So I got back to San Diego and got a thirty day leave. And I went back home to Michigan to my folks. And then I came back to San Diego and I went on the USS Columbus.
EM: Golie! Another cruiser.
WS: Yup, another cruiser, USS Columbus. But I wasn’t on there very long. In fact it was in port all the time I was on it, in Long Beach. And then they brought me back to the barracks in San Diego and said, “We’ve decided you don’t need to go back out to sea anymore. You have shore duty now.” And I didn’t know where we were to have shore duty. I said, “maybe San Pedro”. I knew San Pedro was a base, you know. And they said, “No, we got one in Santa Ana.” So that’s closer to where I wanted to be. And the Santa Ana was a blimp base. Lighter air base where they flew the blimps out of. So that’s where I went. And I was, let’s see, about six months in that place and they sent me to Delmar, California.
EM: Where’s that?
WS: That’s right by Bing Crosby’s racetrack down there. It used to be Bing Crosby’s racetrack.
EM: Oh really?
WS: Yeah. And we had barracks there and I was in charge of twenty six guys. They were all emergency landing crew, that you know, when a blimp comes in. You know how they are? They drop the ropes and you grab ‘em pull ‘em down, tie ‘em up to things. And I did everything there at that base. I ordered all, well, I had a Navy credit card and a station wagon and a couple of trucks and stuff. So I went and bought all the supplies for the base and everything.
EM: Well that sounds like pretty good duty after being on a destroyer.
WS: Yeah. A funny thing happened. We was right by the racetrack and one of the barns caught on fire. They didn’t have any equipment so I took our fire engine over and put the fire out.
EM:
WS: Bing Crosby wrote us all a check for ten bucks.
EM: Ten bucks. Man, the last of the big spenders.
WS: Yeah. Well ten bucks was pretty much back in them days.
EM: Well yeah, that’s right, that was probably a couple of hundred bucks today.
WS: Yeah.
EM: Did any of the horses get burned?
WS: Nope! None of them got burned, saved them all.
EM: I’ll be darned. Well I gotta say you’re the only sailor veteran that I’ve ever talked to that put out a fire in a horse barn while on duty.
WS: I can tell you they made a movie at that base.
EM: Really?
WS: Yeah, This Man’s Navy was the name of the movie. And Wallace Beery played in it.
EM: And were you in the movie?
WS: Yeah.
EM: Were you just an extra or what?
WS: Yeah, just an extra. Like all the guys were extras when pulling the blimps down and stuff, you know. But Beery was a card. And while we were down there in Delmar, celebrities from the racetrack, they’d come down for the races, you know? They’d come over to the base at night and put on little shows for us and stuff.
EM: Really?
WS: Yeah, it was really nice. So then I ended at, I think the war was over in ’46?
EM: ’45.
WS: ’45. One of them days, I don’t remember anymore. But then they decided they didn’t need this base anymore. So they kinda closed it down. So they send orders down to get rid of everything down there. We don’t want inventory. Just get rid of it. Give it to anybody that wants it. Well that’s the way the government does work today, too.
EM: Yup, that’s exactly right! Yeah, taxpayer’s money buy it, and then they give it away.
WS: Give it away, yup. That’s right, we closed that base down. And that was in ’44. And I went back to Santa Ana. And I met my wife. Well, I met a girl that become my wife.
EM:
WS: Yeah.
EM: I’ll be darned. Well now, so did you stay in the Navy after the war was over?
WS: Well until 1947.
EM: Okay. So tell me, do you remember when, I’m sure you do, the party they had when the war was over? Was there a lot of celebration going on?
WS: Yeah, my wife was in it. She was in San Diego. Her aunt and come out from Indiana and her mother and the three of them went to San Diego, and they were in the celebration.
EM: Was that was something worth celebrating.
WS: But I was on the ship. So we didn’t get to celebrate anything out there.
EM: So was that when you were assigned to the Columbus?
WS: Right, when I was assigned to the Columbus.
EM: Yeah. So, what made you stay in until ’47? You could have gotten out earlier, right?
WS: No, I enlisted for six years.
EM: Oh, that’s right.
WS: Yeah, so ’41 to ’47 was six years. I got out February 6, 1947. The day my daughter was born.
EM: Isn’t that something.
WS: Yeah.
EM: Well that’s more good timing.
WS: Yeah.
EM: Well let me ask you this, Walt. When you were out in the South Pacific, I guess mostly on the destroyer, did you communicate back home by letters? Did you get letters from home? Did you stay in contact with the family?
WS: Well, it was pretty hard to get mail.
EM: I was gonna say.
WS: Yeah. I kept in contact off and on, but not really too much. In fact my mother got the Red Cross looking into find out where I was ‘cause I wasn’t answering her letters.
EM: Oh really?
WS: The reason I wasn’t answering her letters was because I couldn’t really read ‘em.
EM: Ok, well I was wondering what the nationality of your family name was. It’s an unusual name.
WS: It’s German. They call it “SEE” in German.
EM: Okay, but you pronounce it “SIGH”, right?
WS: We pronounce it “SIGH”.
EM: Yeah, you Americanized it. I’ll be darned. So she would write partially in German and partially in English, huh?
WS: Yeah.
EM: Well were your parents first generation Americans? Or were they born in America? Your parents?
WS: Yeah, they were born in America. Both my grandparents were German, came from, they were in the United States, they came to the United States, too.
EM: So they immigrated, huh?
WS: Right. My one Grampa, I talked to him a lot. The reason he came to the United States was that’s when Hitler was starting to take everybody out to fight some wars. He didn’t believe in what Hitler was doing, so he got outta there, luckily.
EM: Well that was good thinking on his part.
WS: Yeah.
EM: So when you think back on your experiences in the Pacific, what was the closest call that you remember? I mean when you felt the most vulnerable or in danger?
WS: Well I guess it was when they transferred me from one ship to another. Because at the beginning of it, they said to transfer him to the aircraft carrier. And it was getting going alongside the aircraft carrier when the Admiral says, “No! Bring him over to the Baltimore!” So they brought me over to the Baltimore and the aircraft carrier was sunk and only two hundred people got off.
EM: No kidding.
WS: Yeah.
EM: Which aircraft carrier was it?
WS: It was one of the, one of the rebuilt ones, you know, they built during the war. I can’t remember what the name of it was anymore.
EM: Was it one of the smaller aircraft carriers?
WS: Yeah.
EM: Yeah, some of those, what they called “Jeep Carriers”?
WS: Yeah.
EM: Or “Escort Carriers”? Yeah, there was a bunch of them that got sunk at Lady Gulf.
WS: Yeah. Though this one got sunk at Chihuahua. If I’d have been on there I wouldn’t have been here.
EM: Yeah, it’s kinda hard to swim when you’ve just had an appendectomy.
WS: Yeah.
EM: Isn’t it funny how fate plays a role in what happens to you?
WS: Yeah.
EM: If you’d have been on board the West Virginia one day earlier, might be a different story, huh.
WS: Might have been, yeah. Might have been quite a different story.
EM: Yeah, and then this aircraft carrier that they were going to put you on.
WS: Yeah.
EM: Boy. So how does that make you feel? Are you kinda feeling lucky or what?
WS: Yeah, well I had faith all the time I was in the service. I had faith that the Lord would watch over me.
EM: And that helped you through the whole ordeal, huh?
WS: Right. And I can tell you that when we come back to the States, I come back with a couple of guys that was on the ship, the destroyer with me when we come back. And the one guy, he just couldn’t take it. He couldn’t understand that he was back in the United States and he just went off.
EM: What happened to him?
WS: Well they put him in the hospital, but he couldn’t recognize anybody or anything. It was just too much of a shock to him that he ever got back to the United States for good. In his mind he was never going to make it back.
EM: And so his mind never did make it back, did it?
WS: No, no his mind never did.
EM: My goodness. So I guess what that’s what they called “shell shock”, right?
WS: That’s shell shock.
EM: Or “combat fatigue”.
WS: Something like that.
EM: What about your other buddy, did he make it alright?
WS: Yeah, he made it alright.
EM: So did this guy that just lost it, did he stay hospitalized or what?
WS: Yeah, he stayed hospitalized and I think they sent him back home.
EM: Did you stay in contact with any of your buddies after the war was over?
WS: For a while. Then they split up here and there and everywhere. Why, they had a couple of whatchamacallits?
EM: Reunions?
WS: Reunions, down in Arkansas I think it was.
EM: Of all places.
WS: And I never made it down there.
EM: So this would be a reunion for the destroyer or for one of the other ships?
WS: For the destroyer.
EM: Yeah. So you’ve really not stayed in contact with any of those guys?
WS: Yeah.
EM: Well probably, you know, sometimes those things you kind of lose contact. There’s not much you can do about it. You’ve gotta get on with your own life.
WS: Yeah. There’s not much. All I did, was, well, I had a cousin was in there too and I did contact him a while after we got out. He got married and I went over to his house, or he’d come to my house for a while, but then all at once it dropped down and now they’re all gone, I guess, I don’t know. But I’m still here.
EM: Boy, you’re hanging in there.
WS: Yeah.
EM: Do you feel like, this is kind of a silly question, but let me ask it anyhow. Do you feel like your experience in the war and in the Pacific changed you significantly as a person?
WS: Oh yes.
EM: How did it change you?
WS: Made me from a kid into a man.
EM: No kidding. ‘Cause you were 17 when you went in or 18.
WS: Yeah, right. Everything was nothing going on when your 17. You’re not worried about anything like that. Well I wasn’t worried it either when I went in because the war hadn’t started yet.
EM: Well that’s right, there wasn’t anything to worry about! Join the Navy! See the world!
WS: Yeah. That’s it.
EM: And when you came out you were married and getting ready to have a child!
WS: Yup.
EM: Well that’s what I’d call a real transition in your life.
WS: It was. And we were married 59 years!
EM: Man that’s wonderful.
WS: My wife had cancer and that was what she died with, cancer.
EM: You know it seems like sooner or later most of us do.
WS: Yeah, I’m supposed to have it too, so they tell me. I don’t know. I went through a couple of C Scans or whatever the heck they call ‘em and I got a whatchamacallits on my lungs and they wanted to do a biopsy and I said, “nah, I’ve been cut on too much in my life and don’t need to be cut on again”.
EM: Did you smoke while you were in the Navy?
WS: Pardon?
EM: Did you smoke when you were in the Navy?
WS: Oh yeah.
EM: I guess everybody did, didn’t they?
WS: Everybody did.
EM: Yeah.
WS: Because what the heck, cigarettes were only $0.03 a pack.
EM: Well a lot of times they gave them to you, didn’t they?
WS: Yeah.
EM: Yeah, it looks strange to see these old movies now and everybody is just smoking up a storm. You know, the women, the men, everybody.
WS: I didn’t smoke when I went in.
EM: Did you continue smoking after you got out?
WS: Right, I did.
EM: Yeah.
WS: I smoked, I think I was in my forties and I went to a doctor and the doctor says, “I’ll tell you what. If you don’t quit smoking”, he says, “Your TVs on the other side of the room and you better set a chair in the middle to go over to change stations. You’ll need to rest before you get that far”.
EM: Well you knew what he was talking about.
WS: That’s it. I said, “Well I’ll be darned.” I went out to the car and threw the cigarettes up on the dash and said, “That’s it.” That’s how I quit.
EM: So you quit cold turkey.
WS: Yup.
EM: Boy, I’ll tell you what, that takes real strength.
WS: And my wife was still smoking, too. I didn’t think she’d ever quit, but she did.
EM: Yeah. Man.
WS: Well I think if you have the will, there’s a way.
EM: If you really put your mind to it, if you really want to do it.
WS: Yeah. I’ve always told people that wanted to quit smoking that you didn’t need help. You can do it yourself.
EM: Well what else can we talk about from the war years? I’m sure we’re missing several things but I don’t know what we’re missing, so you have to tell me.
WS:
EM: Well let me ask you this one. Did you ever, can you think of any comical or humorous events or pranks or anything like that, that you guys used to play, you know when you’re on board ship or any of that kind of stuff?
WS: Oh yeah.
EM: Anything come to mind?
WS: We used to have little boxing matches.
EM: Oh really?
WS: Yeah. Whoever wanted to partake, I did a couple of ‘em.
EM: Yeah, did you win?
WS: No, not necessarily
EM:
WS: Well, I was 6 foot tall.
EM: That’s pretty good size.
WS: I weighed 175 pounds.
EM: That was pretty good size.
WS: Yeah. You know after all these years, I still weigh about the same.
EM: Isn’t that something? I wish I could say that.
WS: Yeah, I sometimes put on ten pounds and then sometimes I lose ten pounds. I don’t know.
EM: What did you think about the doctors that took care of you when they did that operation? Were you pretty impressed or what?
WS: Oh yeah. Doctor Green, from Chicago.
EM: Oh really?
WS: Yeah. He was a nice guy. The best part about it – they let me watch them do the operation.
EM: Really?
WS: Yup. They give me a spinal, you know, and then just lowers your bottom part.
EM: Really?
WS: And then they put me on the table and they jacked up my head so I could watch!
EM: My goodness! I thought they would have given you a general anesthetic.
WS: Nah, they just gave me the spinal.
EM: I’ll be darned. I’m not sure I could do that.
WS: Yeah.
EM: My word. Well alright we’ve been talking for over an hour.
WS: Have we?
EM: Yes sir.
WS: I didn’t know it was that long.
EM: And I gotta say, I haven’t talked to a sailor that put more nautical miles on themselves than you did. Cause you have literally been everywhere in the Pacific.
WS: Yup.
EM: From Alaska, to New Zealand, to Australia, to the States. I mean everywhere.
WS: Yup. Everyplace down the South Pacific, that was all the islands. Eniwetok and all of them, you know. Eniwetok was a beautiful island before they…
EM: Blew it up.
WS: Blew it up, yeah.
EM: Man. Did you ever make it to Japan after the war?
WS: No, I never did.
EM: Did you ever make it back to any of the islands in the Pacific? Did you ever go back to Australia or any of that?
WS: No, I didn’t.
EM: You didn’t look up the girl whose dad had a ranch, huh?
WS: No
EM: Yeah, maybe she has a ranch?
WS:
EM: Aw, darn it. Well…oh gosh.
WS: She didn’t have any shoes. I bought her first pair of shoes.
EM: Is that right? You’re pulling my leg on that.
WS: Nope. No, no, I’m serious. Yeah, people come out of that sand storm in Oklahoma back in those days, you know?
EM: Yeah, the dust bowl.
WS: Yeah, the dust bowl. That’s when her folks came to California. They didn’t have nothing, you know, at all.
EM: Is that right?
WS: Yeah, and she had what, six sisters and seven brothers or something like that. I can’t remember how many anymore.
EM: How interesting.
WS: Yeah.
EM: That is really fascinating. So you got, between the two of you, you all had seen quite a few historical things.
WS: Yeah, and we knew each other two weeks before we got married. And everybody says, “That ain’t gonna last, that ain’t gonna last”. It lasted fifty nine years.
EM: Yeah, that was one of those love-at-first-sight deals.
WS: Yeah. Actually it was kind of a silly deal. You know, I was on liberty in San Diego, or in Santa Ana and I had a bowling ball in my hand, I was going down to the bowling alley to bowl, and there was another sailor, well I knew ‘em all anyway, and he hollered, “Oh, hey, come on over here.” So I went over there and he says, “Hey, you can come with us. We got one more girl than we got a guy”. So they talked me into it. And wound up with the girl that wasn’t supposed to be the girl I was supposed to go with.
EM: Oh, it wasn’t quite that simple, huh?
WS: Yeah.
EM: I’ll be darned. That’s a neat story. Well I’ll tell you what, Walt. I want to go ahead and end the recording here unless you’ve got some other things you want to share with me.
WS: Well, I can say that when we was in Samoa getting the bow fixed to go back to Hawaii and get a new one, why, we went ashore, they give us liberty to go ashore in Samoa, and it was kinda interesting. Them little guys go up them coconut trees, dropped down them coconuts for you. They’d shimmy up them trees just like nothing.
EM: Yeah and the women running around half naked I’m told.
WS: Yeah, I got invited to dinner in one of the places, you go in and you sit on the ground, there ain’t no floor, the building’s just a shack is what it is. But that’s all changed now.
EM: I guess it has, I haven’t been to Samoa lately!
WS: Yeah, but you hear about it.
EM: Yeah, I guess all the cruise ships go in there and it’s probably all commercialized now.
WS: Yeah. Oh, I forgot one thing I should tell you.
EM: Okay.
WS: That the Helena got sunk. The cruiser Helena.
EM: I’m sorry I didn’t hear that last thing.
WS: The cruiser Helena got sunk.
EM: Oh yeah! Yeah?
WS: It got sunk. And there was a bunch of ‘em got off. And were ashore, but these islands were all surrounded by Japs. And they had part of a radio, and the radioed where they were. And we went in to that harbor in the dead of night. Lowered a boat and went and picked up those survivors of the Helena.
EM: How many of them?
WS: I think there was twenty-one of them I think. If I remember right.
EM: I’ll be darned.
WS: We went in there in the dead of night, and got back out, and they never seen anything.
EM: So they were what, on a small island of some sort?
WS: Yeah, they were on one of the shores of one of the islands. In the harbor.
EM: That’s an interesting story.
WS: The harbor is where they were in where they got sunk. There out there in that harbor.
EM: So what do you think about the Japanese after all these years?
WS: Well I think they learned their lesson.
EM: Yup. I’ve heard a lot of atrocities that were committed during the war. I guess, that’s the war is to an extent.
WS: Oh yeah. Well there’s two things I remember now that I didn’t remember before. But we contacted the Japanese fleet out there, out there in the Pacific. On the 54.2.
EM: Yeah?
WS: And the planes off the aircraft carrier took off. And they knew when they took off they didn’t have enough gas to get back after they made their run.
EM: I have heard that story.
WS: And we picked up some of the survivors. Pilots.
EM: Yeah.
WS: After they ditched their planes.
EM: Now was that, which battle was that? Was that the Battle of Philippine Seas?
WS: That was the Battle that knocked the Japanese out of the ocean out there! They really just about obliterated the Japanese fleet.
EM: Well I guess they were glad to get picked up, huh?
WS: Yeah. The pilots were glad to get picked up.
EM: Yeah, did you talk to any of them?
WS: I, no, they kept them by their own.
EM: Yeah. And what about the guys from the Helena. Did you talk to any of them?
WS: No. We didn’t get to, well, we did talk to a couple of them, yeah. But you know, they were so happy to get out of there, you know.
EM: Oh, man, they were lucky.
WS: Yeah.
EM: I bet they ate your bread and pies!
WS: Yeah. And another thing, why, we found Japs floating out in the water. And went along side to pick them up. They wouldn’t get in the ship.
EM: Is that right?
WS: So the captain says, “Okay, shoot ‘em”. They did.
EM: Well. I mean.
WS: Yeah, when they knocked the fleet out, there was a lot of Japanese floating around in the water but they wouldn’t come aboard the ship to be prisoners.
EM: Isn’t that strange.
WS: Yeah.
EM: Well they’re a different breed, that’s for sure.
WS: At that time they sure were.
EM: Very interesting. Well let me end it here unless you’ve got some more little secrets that you want to roll out.
WS: Well sometimes they come back after a while, you’re talking about it. And some things do come back.
EM: Oh sure! Well let me express our gratitude once again to you guys from your generation that saved our country with what you did for us during the war. Just want to go on the tape and thank you again for what you did.
WS: Well thank you.
EM: And I think we’ve probably just about covered everything.
WS: I think so.