CENTER for PACIFIC WAR STUDIES Fredericksburg, Texas
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THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE PACIFIC WAR (Nimitz Museum) CENTER FOR PACIFIC WAR STUDIES Fredericksburg, Texas Interview with w JOSEPh F. YAKLOVICH, UNITED STATES NAVY PEARL HARBOR SURVIVOR USS PENNSYLVANIA SUB. USS DENTUDA ORAL HiSTORY JOSEPH F. YAKLOVICH U. S. NAVY My name is Richard Pratt and today is December the 8th, 2001, and I am interviewing Joseph F. Yakiovich and this interview is taking place in Bethany Lutheran Church in Fredericksburg, Texas. The interview is in support of the National Museum of the Pacific War Center for war studies for the preservation ofhistorical information related to World War II. Mr. Yakiovich, thank you very much for taking the time to relate your experiences during World War 11. To start with. I’d Like to ask you when and where you born? MR. YAKLOVICH: I was born in Redding, Pennsylvania, March 27, 1921. MR. PRATT: And your parents, what were their names and where were they from? MR. YAKLOV1CH: My father’s name was Bartholemew YakLovich. and my mother’s name was Katherina Tezak(sp?), and they were both from Slovenia which was a northern republic of Yugoslavia. However, they were married and became husband and wife in a town called MetLeika, St. Nicholas church in Metlieka, Yugoslavia. MR. PRATT: When did they come over to the United States? living anymore. I am the MR. YAKLOVICH: As far as I know, I am the only Yaklovich youngest one, all the others are deceased. And from what I remember it must have been ship. let right after World War I broke out or right bethre. They came over on a German me think of the name. I can’t remember that. They came over to Ellis Island and landed there in New York. MR. PRATT: And how about siblings? Did you have any brothers and sisters? MR. YAKLOVJQH: Yes, I had four brothers and two sisters who are all deceased. Now, my oldest brother, Anthony. was born here in this country and I don’t know exactly what year. And then the next was a brother, James, born in this country and then a sister, Catherine, and then a brother, John, arid then a brother, Martin, and then a sister, Mary, and, of course, I was the last one born in this country from those parents. MR. PRATT: Where did you go to school’? MR. YAKLOVICH: I went to school at Scoqiawn and West Elm in Redding, Pennsylvania. I went to grade school there, and then, of course. mother died when I was six years old, and I went to live with an older sister, Catherine, who was already married at that time and moved on out to Laureldale, Pennsylvania. It’s a little town just north of Redding and I went to a school called N. C. Schafer. Prior to that I did go to school, oh, I don’t want to get ahead of myself. After my mother died, there was quite a number of years after that, my father wanted to re-marry. And this lady had a family of kids and, of course, my father had a family. I could see to this day why he wanted to marry so that we would have a home life with a mother and a father. But my oldest sister, Catherine, got up in arms about this and she didn’t want this to happen. However, my father did get married, and Mary, my younger sister, and myself, we were taken under her wings and moved on out to Laureldale to live with her. And the only way she would give the two of us up to my father was if he would have that marriage annulled. But after we grew older we realized what my father was trying to do, make a home liui for the rest of the children, hers (my stepmother) and my father’s children. But at that time, I’d gone to what they call a portable school, a two room wooden schoolhouse that was in Laureldale. And later on they tore that down. After my mother died and then I came out to live with her in Laureldale, I went to a school called N. C. Shafer Grade School. From there I went to a junior and senior high school combined in what they call Mullenberg Township High School, which was in Laureldale, also. MR. PRATT: And what did you do then? MR. YAKLOVICH: Well, I actually completed ninth grade. I was sixteen years old about that time and my brother, Jim, who lived in California worked on that Parker Dam aquaduct, the water supply dam for California. He would send monies for my support to my oldest sister who I was living with. And, of course, Jim was at the age he wanted to get married. He wrote back to Redding that the neighbor lady who he kinda loved way back when, and he sent for her to come out to California and they got married. And, of course, building their own little nest egg took some money away from my support. So those monies were no longer coming to my oldest sister, and she got teed off. When I finished ninth grade and I turned 16 years old, she said you’re old enough to work. Go up 7 that and pack your a bag and hit the road. So I was fortunate enough to, a buddy of mine said go along with me. Go and talk 1 went to school with, they were German people, he to my mother and father, and then we did that, and then his mother and father said, “Joe, you stay right here with us.” So I stayed with them several months until I found my brother’s address. I got my brother’s address in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, my brother Anthony, who was the oldest one in the family. He sent a bus ticket for me to come out there and live with him in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And then I knocked around there, there was no work to be had. There was no work to be had back in Redding. MR. PRATT: What year was this? MR. YAKLOVICH: It was about 1936. So I went out to Wisconsin. [walked all over Milwaukee trying to get a job and there just wasn’t any work to be had. And then another gentleman who I met, he and I put in for a salesman job with the Electrolux Vacuum Cleaners, and that was quite an experience because the people, the ladies that we used to go around and put on demonstrations, they were sold on the product but they never had the money to buy it. So we got the message when we’d go out like on a Thursday or Friday when the ladies would normally be cleaning house. They would invite you in, you know, to demonstrate this thing. You’d wind up cleaning the whole room and did their sold work for them. Of course, it was experience, and 1 never sold any. The people were in their minds but they weren’t sold in their pocketbooks. But, like I say, we got pretty good experience. The next thing I applied for experienced farm hand. I never milked a cow in my life. The night my brother took me out to the farmer I was going to work with, the farmer handed me a stool and a pail. I knew when you milked a cow you had to pull but what I didn’t know, you had to squeeze at the same time. And, of course, after 1 was pulling any length of time there, the milk would build up in the end ofthe teat and with my left hand it would squirt and miss the pail and fill my right shoe, and with my right hand I would scrape and fill my left shoe. I didn’t get much in the pail believe me. That same night I learned to milk. The farmer came around and said, “flow are you doing?” I said, “Well, I can’t seem to hit the pail.” But he showed me. And another thing, the cow was whipping me with her tail, and I didn’t realize it until he said, “l’his is the way.” I watched him when he sat down on that stool, he wasn’t sitting squarely on that stool, he was kinda 3 leaning forward and he had his head right forward of the hind leg with some pressure against the cow. Every time she picked her leg up to kick or whatever, she had to put it down real quick because she got off balance, you know. But I learned to milk cows the hard way, and it was quite an experience. Then I went from there, after I was a resident, you had to be a resident of Wisconsin one year before you could go on relief. And after I was a resident one year, I went on relief and one week I drew one batch of groceries and the following week I got a notification to report to a certain office in Milwaukee where they sign you up for the Civilian Conservation Corps. There wasn’t anyway you could get and stay on relief any length of time. All the young guys in the families were signed up to go to the Civilian Conservation Corps, which I was so pleased to get a good start. That’s where I really got my start in life, and they sent me to a CCC camp, Blue Lake, Menasha, Wisconsin, Company 654.