Nimitz Education and Research Center

National Museum of the Pacific War

Fredericksburg, Texas

Interview with

Mr. Clyde Day Date of Interview: February 8, 2017

National Museum of the Pacific War

Fredericksburg, Texas

Interview with Mr. Clyde Day

Interview in progress.

Ed Metzler: This is Ed Metzler. Today is the 8th of February, 2017. I am interviewing Mr. Clyde Day at his home in Kerrville, Texas. 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, Clyde, by thanking you for spending the time with me today to describe what happened ... seventy, seventy-five plus years ago, and I’d like to start by having you introduce yourself with your full name, date and place of birth, and then we’ll take it from there. Mr. Day: Uh, my name is Clyde Wickliffe Day, W-i-c-k-l-i-f-f-e. Uh, I’m ... I was born in Texas on a farm in Hunt County up near Farmersville, and on ... August the 11th, 1920. This ... the time that we spent on the farm was good; it ... kind of gave me perspective in life that I’ve always appreciated since that particular time. Ed Metzler: That’s a good culture to get ... to get exposed to early in your life. Mr. Day: Yeah. Ed Metzler: Now, what ... your father was ... a farmer? Was he all of his life or ... Mr. Day: My father ... Father was a farmer ... all of his life; he died when I was ... two years old. I never knew him; I was raised by my mother. She had eight ... she gave birth to eight children, two of which died at or near birth, and one was killed on a farm accident when he was thirteen years old. Ed Metzler: Uhm!

Mr. Day: So, I ... I was raised on a farm and eventually moved to a small town, Floyd, when I got to high school years. And I got ... got my ... this is back in the days when the education system in Texas consisted of eleven grades. Ed Metzler: Now, were you the youngest of the siblings? Mr. Day: I was the ... yeah, I was the youngest, yes. I was ... well, as I say, I was two years older than ... Ed Metzler: Uh hum. Mr. Day: ... when ... when he died. Ed Metzler: So, you were the baby of the family? Mr. Day: Oh yeah! Ed Metzler: How did your mother make ends meet after your father passed? Mr. Day: We had a small farm, and ... the boy, the old ... older boys are big enough to run ... to drive the mules, and we farmed. Uh, we had ... Ed Metzler: Cotton? Mr. Day: Uh, cotton, oats; that’s not a wheat country ... oats and corn. And cotton was the staple, the ... the others were to feed the mules and the ... Ed Metzler: So, you went to high school in ... (bird sounds in the background) ... in Floyd? Mr. Day: Yes. Ed Metzler: And graduated after ... the eleventh grade? Mr. Day: Yeah. My family ... was ... an institution up there because all of the children, except for one, were salut ... for ... valedictorians of their classes. I was valedictorian, uh, my ... brother just older than me was the black sheep of the family; he was salutatorian. Ed Metzler: Oh, he was ... he was the laggard, huh? (laughter) Mr. Day: But he ... but when he went to college, he’s the one that made the good grades (laughter). Ed Metzler: Well, that ... I bet there’s a story behind that, too, but we’ll get to that. Uhm, so let’s see, if you were born in ’20, you probably got out of high school when ... in like ’37 or ’38. Mr. Day: ’37. Ed Metzler: Uh huh.

Mr. Day: And I went to ... Wesley Junior College in Greenville, Texas which was a Methodist supported school the last year of it’s existence, and from there I went to the University of Texas, enrolled in uh, chemical engineering and graduated and on June of 1942 ... which was aft ... I was in a Navy program which was a kind of a correspondence thing; it had nothing to do with the University of Texas. I was ... I ranked in the Navy from June 30, 1941 ... that’s when I got ... for ... first ... I got ... got ... that’s when I got my Ensign. And we ... we had ... we went through college, and ... I went into the service, officially, I went on active duty, and on June 30 of 1942, I went to Cornell for some ... indoctrination and training followed by schools in Washington D.C. at the Naval Gun Factory as so called at that time, later called the Navy ... Washington Navy Yard. And ... after graduating from those schools, I was assigned to the USS Boston on the 1st of January of 1943. Ed Metzler: Well let me ask you a few questions as we pass through. Uhm, where did you do basic training or did you? Mr. Day: Uh, Cornell. Ed Metzler: And that was the Cornell stop? Mr. Day: Yes, that was the Cornell spot. Ed Metzler: It’s cold up there! Mr. Day: Uhm, I was up there in ... the summertime. Ed Metzler: Okay (chuckles), you lucked out on that! Mr. Day: But I went to Washington D.C. in the ... Ed Metzler: In the winter. Mr. Day: ... immediately ... immediately after that, and it was pretty cold and lots of snow. Ed Metzler: So, why did you chose the Navy or did the Navy chose you? Mr. Day: I had the opportunity to get into a Navy program which looked interesting, and I ... I did it. Ed Metzler: Uh hum, uh hum. Mr. Day: Don’t know any other reason. Ed Metzler: Yeah. Where were you on December the 7th, 1941?

Mr. Day: I was studying ... uh, for examinations at the University of Texas in my room. Ed Metzler: (Laughter), I know that feeling. And ... so, what ... you heard somebody run in and say, “Pearl Harbor’s been attacked,” or were you listening to the radio or what? Mr. Day: Uh, we probably had a radio on somewhere around there. Ed Metzler: Uh hum. Mr. Day: And ... several chemical engineering students ... had rented a house, and we had ... the lady lived there, but we had most of the house, and it was a good situation. And ... but it ... we didn’t get much studying done. I had visions of being immediately called up for service, and so on and ... they said, “Look fellows, just settle down, get your degree, we’ll call you when we need you.” (laughter). And that’s what they did! Ed Metzler: Because ... when you have the degree, then ... you’re an officer when you go in or can be. Mr. Day: Well, I was ... I was an officer at ... Ed Metzler: Already?! Mr. Day: ... at that particular time. Ed Metzler: Yeah, you were already an Ensign, man! Mr. Day: (Unintelligible). Ed Metzler: Man, that was ... Mr. Day: My ... my serial number is a hundred and ten, four thirty-one. Ed Metzler: (Laughter). Mr. Day: And that is an old ... serial number (laughter). That goes back ... that goes back to 1941. Ed Metzler: Uhm. Now, you talked about ... school, uh, at the Washington Naval Yard or the ... I guess the Naval Gunnery ... location. What kind of training was that, describe that to me. Mr. Day: We ... we had ... training on armament; we learned how to ... disassemble, uh, guns up through the one point one, and we had access to the Navy Yard where they were manufacturing weapons; we were shown the details of ... how the big guns were manufactured; we’re ... we watched ... the ... the liner being put in a

sixteen inch ... uh, Navy ... rifle, and it ... it’s a wonderful things because it was a vertical furnace, and they put that ... big block of exterior in it or, no, the ... uh, the bridge block of a sixteen inch is probably at least six feet tall; I mean, it’s big! Ed Metzler: (Chuckles) Mr. Day: And ... they heated it for ... days until it got to an exact temperature; they rated ... they chilled ... the ... liner in a ... in a vertical thing over here, and they got it chilled and that was ... the other one hot and they ... and they’d pick it up with cranes, and I watch them do it! And it ... slow, it was steps ... in other words, the exterior wasn’t ... one ... diameter; it was ... uh, big here and got a little ... like so. Ed Metzler: So, it was tapered, huh? Mr. Day: It was ... it’s ... a little section, tapered sections. And when it dropped in there, it went ... clunk, and that was it! It was ... it was in. Ed Metzler: It was in! Mr. Day: It was ... it was solid. And ... Ed Metzler: And you let ... the temperature ... handle the rest of it? Mr. Day: Yeah, right. Ed Metzler: So, that was a ... a ... Mr. Day: So anyway, we had all sorts of ... we had classroom work in which we talked about ... uh, I went to a Nav ... uh, Gunnery Fire Control School in association with that, and that’s where I ended up onboard ship; I was a ... at the end of the war, I was the ... Gunnery Fire Control Officer ... of the ... of the Boston. And ... it was a ... Gunnery Fire Control does not mean that we fired the guns. Ed Metzler: Oh, I understand that! Mr. Day: I means that I have ... uh, my battle station was the five-inch battery ... uh, plotting room which was right next door to the eight-inch battery ... plotting ... plotting room. And we had the instrumentation that controlled the guns. We had the ... gyroscope, what we called the stable elements, and we ... uh, we had all of the ... this is back before electronic ... we had a mechanical computer that controlled the ... uh, the gun aiming points.

Ed Metzler: Altitude and ... Mr. Day: And ... all of that was ... was mechanical, and that was in my battle station. We had a big switchboard over there with the rotary switches; we had ... uh, five inch, we had six, five inch ... guns, twin ... twin guns onboard ship, and they could be switched, and ... and we had a two ... up in the superstructure, we had ... two ... uh, directors, what was called directors ... which controlled the ... manually, visually, they trained, and that signal was sent down the ... down through ... went through the computer, and went back to the guns and pointed them, and made them ready to fire. Ed Metzler: So, where they pointed, the gun pointed? Mr. Day: Yeah. We did not ... pull a trigger, but ... we had it ... the ... the ... order was given ... that the ... be set up in a certain manner, and this was done, and we reported it, and when they were ready, well, they fired it from up in the superstructure ... up in the ... forward bridge. We had two places – forward superstructure or ... uh, aft superstructure; it could be handled from either one. Ed Metzler: So, this is well above the bridge then? Mr. Day: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this was in the very, very early stage of ... uh, radar. And if ... after superstructure and forward superstructure ... up on the mast was a thing that ... rolled around and it was the ... they visually tracked a target, and that signal went down and ... started the action. And we had ... we had radar in those things, but we really didn’t trust it, so we also had the old ... Navy ... uh, range finders, optical range finders. And one of my job, early on, was the training of range finder operators. And on tracking a plane coming in, they were getting a ... radar signal and also an obstacle range signal. And depending upon which they thought was the best, they ... that’s the one they used to fire from. Ed Metzler: Uhm. Now, how long were you at the Washington location? Mr. Day: I went there in ... uh, I want to ... let’s see, June, July, August, that’s ... probably October; I went there probably in October and stayed there through, uh, until the first of the year. Ed Metzler: Okay, so it’s ... a few months, and it’s late ’43 then ... or is it late ’42?

Mr. Day: Late ’40 ... late ’42. Ed Metzler: Okay, so we’re still back in ’42. Mr. Day: Yeah, yeah. Ed Metzler: So, how did you end up on the Boston then? Mr. Day: Well, for some reason, somebody picked my name and ... uh, it ... Bureau of Navy Personnel and ... assigned me to the Boston, and they assigned me to ... and ... I was to report on the 1st of ... of January of ... 1940 ... uh. [194]3. Ed Metzler: New Years Day. Mr. Day: Yeah, I was there. Ed Metzler: (Chuckles) Mr. Day: And ... she was being built in Bethlehem, well, she had been launched, she had been ... uh, she was being built basically in the yard, and ... and June 30 of 19 ... uh, what ... ’43, uh, she was ... towed to South Boston Navy Yard, and I ... I officially went onboard her on June the 30th of 1943. And ... we went into the Boston Navy Yard, they ... they com ... completed construction, installed the guns, and ... uh, loaded supplies and provisions, and we went on a shakedown cruise to Trinidad of ... the ... and eventually left, I think it was the 14th of November to ... to go to Pearl Harbor via the Panama Canal. Ed Metzler: Now, what did you do between the 1st of January and ... June the 30th or whatever it was when she was ... Mr. Day: I was in the ... Ed Metzler: ... she was under construction still? Mr. Day: ... I was in ... I was in the shipyard every day; I had to dodge the people who were being ... construction, so my ... my ... my orders were to familiarize yourself with the ship. And I roamed everywhere; I went to the ... machinery area, the fire ... fire area, uh, everything! And ... I just had to stay out of the way of the folks that were working. Ed Metzler: Uh hum. Mr. Day: And ... when we ... when ... when they moved her to the ... Navy yard, she was commissioned. Ed Metzler: Uh hum.

Mr. Day: And at that point, she was a ... well, she was a commissioned ship in the U.S. Navy and ... Ed Metzler: Because they hadn’t put the armament, the guns on her yet? Mr. Day: ... and the ... and the ... no! Ed Metzler: Okay. Mr. Day: And ... and the ... the crew that was assigned at that particular point ... all moved onboard. They ... Ed Metzler: Including you. Mr. Day: they ... I have ... I have a common interesting thing; I ... I have ... a wardroom, a stateroom 208 ... that is where I lived. Ed Metzler: Okay, so this is the ... this was the tag on the door, huh? Mr. Day: That’s the tag that ... assigned me to this door. Ed Metzler: It’s ... yeah, we’re looking at it; he’s ... got it on his keychain now, and it’s ... WRSR208, Wardroom ... what’s SR? Mr. Day: Uh, Wardroom, Stateroom. Ed Metzler: Stateroom 208 (laughter). Mr. Day: Actually, it was the ... the room was built for ... uh, two ... occupancy by two people, and there were three of us in there. And ... my original bunk was a ... basket that hinged up ... over the desk (laughter). Ed Metzler: I’m having a hard time picturing that (laughter). A basket that hinged up over the deck? Mr. Day: Well, they ... uh, the bunks ... some of the bunks were ... a basket; they had a ... mattress about this deep on it, and it was a ... it was ... and it was hinged at one side, and it ... the ... the ... the stateroom had ... we had a ... a desk, a closet and a ... wash basin with ... with water, and ... the bunks ... for the two people that were ... this was an area where you had the curve; you were in a curvature of the ... hull. Ed Metzler: Okay, of the hull. Mr. Day: Yeah. And the bottom bunk ... there was a bottom bunk and there was an upper bunk, and then over the desk, they had this hinged thing, and they ... that’s ... that’s where the junior officer was.

Ed Metzler: Now, what was your rating at this time? You were an Ensign? Mr. Day: I was an Ensign. Ed Metzler: Okay. Mr. Day: And ... it wasn’t terribly long until ... I got promotion to where I got the ... one of the bunks, but ... which I kept ... uh, what I used for the ... rest of the war. But that’s ... I ... I found that in some of my stuff one time ... Ed Metzler: I’ll be darned! Mr. Day: ... and I ... carrying it ever since. Ed Metzler: So, she went to Trinidad on a shakedown cruise, came back, and I guess they, you know, did a little ... tweaking of this and that, and so then she took of to the Pacific. So, tell me about that or is there something else in there? Mr. Day: Well, let’s ... let’s talk about the shakedown. Ed Metzler: Alright. Mr. Day: We had ... all the guns were active. The shakedown was to ... see if she’d float and ... and run the speed. She had ... we did the speed trial which is thirty-three knots and ... we had the ... we had all of the ... all of the guns ... and all the ammunition was onboard. And we spent ... uh, about a month on shakedown, and every day, we ... we were ... we would ... we were in a safe harbor at night, but we went out in the daytime, and we ... and we fired practice. We ... airplanes towed targets and the aerial boys fired at the targets, and ... the tugs ... towed sleds and ... and the big guns fired at the sleds. I mean, we ... we exercised those things every day ... during that particular period. Everybody learned their job, and ... by the end of that, we were a proficient fighting force. Ed Metzler: How many ... crew members were assigned to you as their off ... you were their officer? Mr. Day: Uh, we had, I think it was about seventy-five. Ed Metzler: Okay. Mr. Day: Now, I was ... at that particular time, I was not the ... in charge of personnel. Uh, later on, yes, but ... it was a ... well, they ... onboard ship, the ship had a complement of ... approximately seventeen hundred people, and there were some ... somewhere around seventy-five in the Gunnery Fire Control Division,

F Division, and we ... we learned our jobs, and we ... and little incid ... a little interesting thing was ... one of the men, one of the officers, who had a ... a five inch battery got deathly sea sick every time we got underway. Ed Metzler: (Chuckles) Mr. Day: Well, in the Navy ... that is ... if you’re really ... and ... and can’t get over it, you don’t ... you can ... you can get ... released from ... from the ... sea duty. Ed Metzler: Get shore duty of some sort. Mr. Day: Yeah. But he wouldn’t do it. And when we were doing firing during the day, he carried his bucket with him. Ed Metzler: Oh my word! Mr. Day: Carried his bucket with him, and he was directing the fire of some five-inch guns. And ... periodically he’d heave in his bucket (laughter). Ed Metzler: (Laughter), he’d use the bucket and then back to the job, huh? Mr. Day: (Chuckles) Ed Metzler: Isn’t that something?! Mr. Day: But he eventually got to where he ... after months, he always got a little bit sick, but he ... he managed it, and ... and he never ... he never ... opted out. Yeah, he was a good one. Ed Metzler: What was your ... impression of the ship ... overall, after you’d been ... with her for six to nine months? I mean, was this ... cutting edge technology and ... you were in love or was it ... just ... tell me about it. Mr. Day: It was ... it was ... the ship was the latest that was known in the shipbuilding industry, and she was ... she was a marvel. I mean, they ... it was ... a beautiful thing; it was ... you literally learned to love the ship. There’s no question about it. Ed Metzler: It was home, huh? Mr. Day: That was home! Ed Metzler: So, it was a lot of emotion between a crew and a ship ... Mr. Day: Yeah, yes. Ed Metzler: ... I think ... if things are going ... Mr. Day: Yeah.

Ed Metzler: ... they way they should. Mr. Day: Oh yeah. That ... Ed Metzler: What about the Captain, who was the Captain? Mr. Day: He was a four striper. Uh, we had ... through the course of the year, I think, four Captains. Uh, they, of course, you have to real ... recognize that in World War II the Navy was segregated ... segregated into ... was segregated in two ways. Number one – the officers and the enlisted man ... was a large gulf between them. The officers ate in ... in the wardroom, and the enlisted men ate on ... on a stainless steel things ... Ed Metzler: Operating table (laughter)! Mr. Day: Yeah, and they ... that ... uh, the officers ate in the wardroom on ... linen tablecloths, and the ... there were ... uh, black ... stewards who served us individually ... with a towel over his arm, and potatoes ... whatever. Oh, I ... that frustrated me greatly because ... there’s more than one ... many times, I don’t many that would be, but a bunch ... I was sitting there ... patiently waiting to get my plate ... loaded, and uh, general quarters sounded. Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: Well, I grabbed anything that looked edible on the plate in my hands and took off running (laughter). Ed Metzler: You ... took off running, huh? Mr. Day: (Laughter) Ed Metzler: A piece of bread and a couple of potatoes ... and ... Mr. Day: Oh, whatever, I mean ... Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: ... because they ... we had no idea when we would be back. I ... I had them ... I would have ... dearly loved a ... stood in line and got things and got it over with, but that was not the way the Navy did it. Ed Metzler: Yeah. Mr. Day: So, the Navy was segregated, and the officers and enlisted men ... and they were segregated and the black ... white area, yeah. That ... as I said in the speech, uh, and ... in battle everyone had their battle station, and when it was over, and we

were fighting for our lives, and when the war was over, we went back to our segregated ways. Ed Metzler: Uhm, went back to the old ways. Mr. Day: Went back to the old ways, yep. Ed Metzler: So, what was it like going through the Panama Canal? Mr. Day: It was a ... as an engineer, it was fascinating! We went through in daylight, and of course, you go through the locks and I was not on duty at that particular time, and I was up ... topside watching everything that happened. You go through some lakes, and then you locks and so on, and we got over to the Pacific side, as ... as the lights were coming on. So, we had ... the benefit of the canal ... Ed Metzler: During daylight, yeah. Mr. Day: ... during daylight, and it ... it was ... it was ... an absolute marvel. Uh, you take a ... this ship was six hundred and seventy-four feet ... long, and it was ... uh, seventy-one feet ... at the beam, and I think ... I think she had a draft of twenty- one feet or something like that, and that’s a big, big ... thing! And you’ve got a lock that this thing goes into, and they pump the water in and you ... raise you up, and ... when they get it up to the proper level, they open the gates and you go on. Oh, that was a wonderful experience! We ... of course, when we went ... we ... we went to the ... Pacific side, I don’t know why they did it this way, but we went to San Francisco, and we went up the coast. Ed Metzler: Were you alone, the ship, or were there ... escorts or what? Mr. Day: Oh, there were probably escorts; they don’t register in my mind. Ed Metzler: Okay. Mr. Day: But ... there were probably some destroyers along. But the ... we ... we didn’t have any big ship ... bigger ships ... Ed Metzler: You were the ... Mr. Day: ... than we were. Ed Metzler: Yeah. Mr. Day: But ... and the ... that ... the coastal waters going up ... the west coast ... are rollers, I mean, (rolling sounds), and if you were going to get sea sick, you got sea sick.

Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: And ... I was fortunate, I never really ever got sea sick; I’ve to feeling bad, but I didn’t get sea sick. Ed Metzler: Uh hum, that’s blessing! Mr. Day: And we spent a few days in San Francisco, and then from there we went to Pearl, and we got into Pearl on the ... late in the afternoon of December ... the 6th ... uh, 1943. Ed Metzler: The two-year anniversary almost. Mr. Day: Second year anniversary, yeah. Ed Metzler: Did you zig zag when you went over to ... Honolulu or the Hawaiian Islands? Mr. Day: Oh yeah, I mean, you never went anywhere unless you zig zagged. Ed Metzler: Uh hum. Mr. Day: They ... we came back for overhaul in 1945 in March and it was estimated that we had ... to travel somewhere over two hundred thousand nautical miles at that point. And ... we were in need of some ... Ed Metzler: It was time for a ring job! (laughter) Mr. Day: We had already been through a ... down in Manus, we had been through, uh, dry docks down there and had ... uh, that was about the midway point, but anyway, that was ... that was a good ... that was a ... uh, wonderful trip back to the States. Ed Metzler: What ... what did ... Pearl Harbor look like two years after? Mr. Day: You had to look close to find anything wrong. As I ... think I mentioned, we tied up to ... we moored to the hulk of the [USS] Arizona. Ed Metzler: Uhm! Mr. Day: And, of course, from that particular point ... point, it was very vivid ... that ... there had been problems there, but all there ... Ed Metzler: There were still pieces, I mean, still superstructure above the waterline? Mr. Day: Uh, there was a little bit. Ed Metzler: Uh hum. Mr. Day: Not much. Ed Metzler: Uh hum. Mr. Day: They’d taken down most of the superstructure.

Ed Metzler: Uh hum. Mr. Day: But there was enough sticking out of the water that ... that ... we moored to it. Ed Metzler: Coming out of Pearl, is that when you joined a task force, what was it ... 38 I think or ... can’t remember the number. Mr. Day: It’s ... it’s either the Fifth Fleet or the Third Fleet depending upon who was in charge and ... usually we were in ... it was in the Fifth Fleet, and Halsey had ... Halsey was in charge of the Fifth Fleet. Our ... our ... Ed Metzler: Did you ever see ... did you ever see Bull? Mr. Day: ... the ... I’ve seen him on the beach. Ed Metzler: (Chuckle) Mr. Day: Of course, the Navy tradition, this that when you ... when you open up an advance base, the first place ... the first thing built is the officers club. Ed Metzler: Yeah (laughter). Well, that’s the old Navy! Mr. Day: (Laughter), that’s the old Navy. Ed Metzler: That sucks! Mr. Day: Yeah. So, that was ... I was not the drinking crowd, and ... when I got on the beach, I headed off down the beach looking for sea shells and that sort of stuff and ... the ones who were ... alcoholically inclined went in and got plastered. Ed Metzler: (Laughter), and where was this now? Mr. Day: Any of the advanced bases. Ed Metzler: Yeah, on any of them (chuckle). Mr. Day: Ulithi was one of the ones that ... we used for many years, and it was ... it was an uninhabited ... coral atoll which had been converted to a major ship repair center. Ed Metzler: So, how long were you in ... the Hawaiian Islands before, you know, the Boston shipped out with ... Mr. Day: We went out in ... uh, January, early January. We got in there late ... just before ... uh, well early December and left early ... January; we went into the Marshall Islands, Eniwetok, uh, is one of the names that come to ... mind immediately. But ... and we did some shore bombardment and we ... you have to realize that early on in the ... in the war, the Japanese were entrenched and down in the

Guadalcanal and that’s ... area down there, and there was some very bloody work both Navy and Marines and Army ... and down there until that was kind of cleared out. But the ... it was ... Ed Metzler: That was ... most of that was in ’43 at Guadalcanal, I ... as I remember. Mr. Day: Yeah, oh yeah, that was early on. Ed Metzler: So, its pretty much behind us at that ... Mr. Day: Yeah. Ed Metzler: ... about the time the Boston arrived. Mr. Day: I think, uh, we had survivors from ships that were sunk in ... Guadalcanal area ... on ... onboard our ship. In fact, my division officer ... uh, swam off of a heavy cruiser that was sunk down there. Ed Metzler: Was that the [USS] Houston? Mr. Day: No, he was on, I’ve forgot and all of a sudden right now, I don’t remember, but ... there were several ... there were ... Ed Metzler: Uh hum. Mr. Day: ... well, there was a place down there they ... where ... Iron Bottom ... uh ... Ed Metzler: Iron Bottom Sound they called it, yeah (laughter). Mr. Day: ... Iron Bottom Sound. Ed Metzler: Exactly ... right (laughter). Mr. Day: Oh yeah, that ... I have ... so I have nothing of that. But from that time on, there was practically no ... surface ship confrontations; it was all aircraft. And ... the ... job of the cruisers and the destroyers and the battleships were to protect the carriers. And the carriers, I mean, we ... we very seldom, well I don’t remember ... well, of course, my battle station was below decks and I wouldn’t see it anyway, but ... they ... they would ... uh, they would launch ... several hundred miles from the target. Well, you don’t ... you don’t see them. So, the ... there was some action up around Guam, uh, and that was the last of the ... surface ship things, everything else was aerial. Ed Metzler: So, was the Bos ... all of the Boston’s work was not direct confrontation with Japanese equivalents?

Mr. Day: No, no. No, we were ... our aircraft were ... uh, from our carriers that we were protecting were doing the fighting, and we were ... trying to protect ... protect their landing field. Ed Metzler: Uh hum. There’s an air ... there’s a scout aircraft on the Boston, right; don’t they have a ... Mr. Day: Yes. We had two, well actually, I guess we had four. We had two catapults, uh, it’s a square-stern ship and the catapults are right at the back and the aircraft cranes are on the corners, and they were ... they were primarily for ... rescue work and that sort of thing. Ed Metzler: So, shore bombardment at Eniwetok, you’re using your ... gunnery skills to ... Mr. Day: We ... we were ... we were pounding the beach with our ... with our shells, both five inch and eight inch. Eight inch fired about thirty miles, and the ... and the five inch about ... uhm, four thousand yards, something like that. Ed Metzler: So, that’s ... seventeen ... that’s only about three or four miles then. Mr. Day: Yeah. Ed Metzler: Yeah. So, after ... Eniwetok, where did ... where did ... the Boston and the task force go? Mr. Day: Well, we were ... we were called the ... Fast Task Force, and we ... we were the ... Navy’s fighting arm until the end of the war. Now, those people that were associated with the landings like in the Philippines, uh, and the ... the lower Philippines ... all of a sudden, I can’t think of the name ... down there, but anyway, those were ... (unintelligible). Ed Metzler: Well, I guess in the Philippines you got Mindoro and ... Mr. Day: Yeah, that ... on the lower part, yeah. Ed Metzler: ... and ... Mr. Day: They ... we ... Ed Metzler: And I guess Leyte, too. I think ... Mr. Day: Yeah. Ed Metzler: ... the Boston ... was involved in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, correct? Mr. Day: Well, we were involved in the ... the shore bombardment of Iwo Jima, two times, a year apart. We were there, we bombarded them and a year later we

were back there when they did the landing, and we were part of the shore bombardment to support the troops going ... on ... the ... going ashore. What I was fixin’ to say was ... that the fleet was set ... uh, was split, and the so called fast fleet ... uh, we’re out in the open water. The ones who supported landings and that sort of things were the old slow ships. They ... the big old battleships from World War I and so on ... Ed Metzler: And the old [USS] Pennsylvania and the ... that kind of stuff. Mr. Day: ... they were ... uh, they couldn’t keep up with the fast fleet, so ... they hand ... they handled the ... it was actually a different fleet number; I think the Seventh Fleet was the one that come ... that comes to mind that was doing ... down in the lower Philippines. Ed Metzler: What about Tar ... Tarawa? Mr. Day: We did some bombardment on Tara ... on that island as I remember; I’d have to check to be sure on the ... on the log, but ... that was a learning point as far as the Navy was concerned. And ... they had the idea, at that particular time, that they had to ... take every island ... completely. And at that particular one, they discovered that ... that was too costly and it was not ... necessary. All you had to do was ... uh, disable them and then go on about your business. And that’s what they did from that ... roughly from that point on. Ed Metzler: Yeah, they just skipped some of the islands. Mr. Day: Oh yeah. You just hop over them. Ed Metzler: Yeah. Mr. Day: I mean, you could go by and blast them ... to where they were completely ineffective to where they couldn’t serve. We ... we ... you could go in and destroy your ... anything that had to do with ... other ships, and then ... if you’ve neutralized them to where they ... they are no longer effective as far as ... just got people on them, uh, go ... don’t worry about them ... go ... do something else. So, that ... that was what happened. Ed Metzler: Were you ever attacked by any Japanese aircraft (unintelligible)? Mr. Day: God yes! Reg ... regularly! Ed Metzler: On a regular basis.

Mr. Day: We shot down several. Ed Metzler: So, we’re talking fire control for anti-aircraft. Mr. Day: Anti-aircraft, yes! Ed Metzler: And ... Mr. Day: Oh, we fired a lot of sh ... lot of stuff up in the air. You had ... we were firing ... uh, the ammunition that we used was a mixture, but we had what was called a proximity fuse ... that ... if it got in the neighborhood of metal, it would explode. Ed Metzler: That was a fairly new thing, wasn’t it, the proximity fuse? Mr. Day: Yes, at that particular point, yeah. Ed Metzler: Yeah. Mr. Day: And so we ... we ... oh yes, we ... well, they were after the carriers, they weren’t after us. Well, you got to ... got to remember, the ... uh, how ... roughly, you had a circular disposition, you had, we’ll say, we had ... three carriers; you might have had ... uh, but they were in a circle. Ed Metzler: Uh hum. Mr. Day: Then you had another circle, and then you had another circle. The outside circle was destroyers, the inner circle is ... cruisers, uh, and battleships protecting the carriers. And all of these things is moving as a unit. So, that’s what ... and you have to visualize this to understand what’s going on. Ed Metzler: What about submarines? Mr. Day: Of course, I don’t everything that happened on ... onboard a ship ‘cause they don’t ... they don’t broadcast what’s going on. Ed Metzler: (Laughter), you mean it’s not on the radio or the TV (laughter). Mr. Day: It’s not on the radio, no. Uh, of course, our submarines ... uh, were ... extremely important. You look at the number of tons of ... they killed the ... Japanese merchant fleet. Ed Metzler: They broke the back of it. Mr. Day: They broke the back. And ... uh, that ... but, as far as ... their submarines, I’m sure that we were ... that we had submarine attacks. I don’t recall ... anybody getting plugged from a submarine. Ed Metzler: So, you had sonar onboard I assume?

Mr. Day: Yes. Ed Metzler: But, of course, that’s really a destroyer’s job is ... Mr. Day: Yeah. Ed Metzler: ... anti-submarine. Mr. Day: Yeah. Well, you see, the submarine had to get through the des ... destroyers, and they were equipped to ... to stop them, and apparently, they did a pretty good job of it. Ed Metzler: Battle of Leyte Gulf; what ... what happened there with regard to the Boston? ‘Cause this is the famous one where ... Bull took his ... Mr. Day: Bull ... that was one of Bull’s blunders. Ed Metzler: (Laughter), yeah, that’s right. I mean, its famous or infamous depending on how you look at it. Mr. Day: Yes, see ... what he ... what he did ... he allowed ... the Japanese just snookered him out of his pants on that particular one. They acted like they were coming out on home islands, and he was going to go up there and we ... we went up at ... uh, they set a speed, I think, of ... thirty knots and some of the ships couldn’t keep up, and they dropped it back to ... we doing twenty-eight knots going up there, and we were going to go in behind them and ... and cut them off. And ... they just went back in. And about that time all hell broke lose down ... on ... southern Philippines. Ed Metzler: Southern ... yeah. Mr. Day: And all I know was that, all of a sudden, I realized that we had changed course, a hundred and eighty degrees and that our speed was up to ... to maximum. Ed Metzler: (Chuckle), peddle to the metal. Mr. Day: And ... and we ... we got down ... this is ... this is ... this is kind of an interesting story. Uh, but the ... he had to get back down, he was out of air range, his carriers were ineffective, he could not launch, so he ... he raced back down till he got into maximum range as far as his aircraft and he launched everything he had. And then the next ... that night, uh, these folks ... how did they find us in the dark? We were in blackout. The ... the order went out from the Admiral, “Turn on all searchlights!” And we turned every light on the ship ... came on

and ... these air ... these flyboys ... they’d see some lights and they’d go over and land on that carrier regardless of whether it was home base or not. Ed Metzler: Whether it was theirs or not (laughter). Mr. Day: And the next morning, they got up and they sorted them out (laughter). Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: They went back home so to speak. But I saw that, I mean, there we were with searchlights, all of the deck lights were on, everything was lighted up! But ... Ed Metzler: By the time you got back to where the action was, it was pretty much over; they turned and run if I remember correctly. Mr. Day: Well they, no, the ... the aircraft ... the ... the back was almost broken, but when that ... when that ... big ... big bunch of Halsey’s ... Halsey’s planes came in, well that was the end of the action, I mean, they ... they couldn’t handle that. One of the pictures in the book shows a ... ship alongside of the Boston ... with a five inch battery gun mount, turret mount, with great holes in the side ... on that, and they had been ... uh, they were trying to rescue something, and ... the ... the ship blew up. Ed Metzler: Uhm! Mr. Day: And it just ... we ... we took survivors onboard ... after it was all over, and ... Ed Metzler: This like a cruiser? Mr. Day: Yeah, cruiser. Ed Metzler: U.S. cruiser? Mr. Day: Yeah, yeah. Uh, and then we ... it ... it was ... that was a ... that was a ... oh, we went through typhoons out there that ... oh, one of the interesting things ... we went through a typhoon in which ... well, the Boston was back in the States, and off of Taiwan, uh, there was a big typhoon, and it ... the Bost ... the [USS] Baltimore was out there at that time, and ... Ed Metzler: Now, the Baltimore is ... CA-68. Mr. Day: 68. Ed Metzler: Right. Mr. Day: And ... she lost ... it ... it was such a bad thing that she lost a hundred ... and ten feet of her bow, it broke off (tearing sound). They had set ... they had

abandoned it because it was wiggling around, and they ... they ... had watertight and (unintelligible) set, and they took her in tow after everything got through, took her back to Pearl ... Pearl, tacked it back on, took her back to the States, and ... did a complete job and she went back to work. But she broke within a few feet of my stateroom. Ed Metzler: Oh, my goodness! Mr. Day: (Chuckles) Ed Metzler: So, if you’d been on the Baltimore, you’d a had waterfront property! Mr. Day: Well, well ... we would ... they abandoned ... they abandoned that ... the front part of the ship. They knew ... they ... they knew they were in trouble, so they ... they just abandoned it. Ed Metzler: And this happened while the ... Boston was ... back in ... what ... Washington, I guess? Mr. Day: No, no ... the ... we were back in ... uh, west coast ... all of a sudden I can’t think of the name of the ... it’s around ... it’s south of the ... Los Angeles area. Ed Metzler: Well, San Diego. Mr. Day: San Diego. Ed Metzler: Yeah. Mr. Day: No, no, it’s in between. Ed Metzler: Long Beach. Mr. Day: Long Beach. Ed Metzler: Yeah. Mr. Day: Long Beach. Ed Metzler: Yeah. Mr. Day: They were ... we were in Long Beach being ... uh, repaired; I was probably on ... leave. When we pulled in there, half of the ship went on ... leave, shore leave, and I was ... and the other half stayed with the ship. Uh, and were gone for a month; we came back and we relieved the others and they went on ... Ed Metzler: A month?! Mr. Day: Yeah. Ed Metzler: Boy! So, what’d you do, go back home?

Mr. Day: No, we were there for two months! Ed Metzler: Back home for ... to the farm? Mr. Day: Oh yeah! Well, they had major, major work that they did on that ship. Oh yeah, that was a ... that was a ... that was a wonderful time. Ed Metzler: Did you ... write letters home frequently, get letters from home? Mr. Day: Oh yes. Uh, mail call was one of the most delightful ... sounds on ... at sea. Ed Metzler: (Chuckles) Mr. Day: And ... you only got it every month or so. And I’d get my mail and I had twenty letters from my wife. Ed Metzler: (Laughter), all stacked up! Mr. Day: All stacked ... Ed Metzler: Now, when did ... when did you get married? Mr. Day: (Chuckles), that’s a ... that’s a story in itself! Uh, I got married October the 6th of 1943. We had been on shakedown, we came back into Boston, they were doing a few ... fiddled around and changes and ... uh, loading to leave for the Pacific, and ... I wrangled five days leave. And flew to ... to Dallas on a DC-3. Ed Metzler: Flew?! That was unusual back then, yeah. Most people it was trains (chuckles)! Mr. Day: Well, uh, this was impossible without that, but I ... I could be bumped at any time, but I ... I ... Ed Metzler: You were on standby (laughter). Mr. Day: I ... I went through ... uh, these were military planes, and ... we got into ... Dallas, we drive the next day to ... that was day one ... we had ... we ... uh, the next morning we got to Dallas and then we drove to Austin and my ... my sister took me up there, my sister in law drove me up there ... with her two children, and we got ... I got married about four o’clock in the afternoon. Uh, Adam’s extract people, you’ve probably heard about ... well, the Adams’ were good friends of my wife, and her family at First ... at University, a Presbyterian church, there ... and they gave us ... their ... rock ... mansion, we felt, out on Lake Austin for our honeymoon. And Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Warner who was a wife of a professor, my wife, uh, lived with them and worked and helped her for

room and board. And they ... drove us out there and dumped us, and ... uh, we didn’t have a car out there, and ... they came out the next day to see if we were still ... alive and ... Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: (Laughter), but we spent ... a couple of days out there, came back in to Austin, spent the night, I got back on the plane and went ... to Boston and she went back to class. Ed Metzler: And that wasn’t long before you shipped out on the ... on the Boston. Mr. Day: Well, we went out on the 14th of ... November. Ed Metzler: Yeah (chuckles). Mr. Day: (Chuckles), oh yeah, that ... but ... five days ... was my ... was ... Ed Metzler: So, you got the month there in early ’45 and ... linked back up ... with your wife? Mr. Day: Yeah. Ed Metzler: And ... Mr. Day: Well, she was staying in upper North Carolina with ... relatives and ... her mother and father were missionaries in Mexico, and they were back in the States on leave. My wife spoke Spanish as a ... as a first language, English was the second language for her, so it ... but she was kind of a unique person. But that was a ... that ... that was ... that was a good period. Ed Metzler: Uhm. Okay, I’m got to ... I’m going to put this thing on hold for a minute. (Recording momentarily stopped.) So, we’re back together, Clyde, and I’d like ... to talk about several subjects that we didn’t get a chance to cover yesterday, and ... plus any other subjects you want to talk about, but my list first. Let’s talk about the Boston and ... the ... night bombardment of the main island of Japan towards the end of the war. The war was still on, correct? Mr. Day: Yes. Ed Metzler: Okay, give me ... tell me what’s ... going on here. Mr. Day: Uh, to ... to realize ... point in history, it was ... just prior to the dropping of the atomic bombs. Uh, for a special ... uh, events they would ... drop out from the task force a certain number of ships. There were, I think, four des ... four

cruisers and some destroyers that were ... that were ... in this particular operation, and we had a new Captain onboard at that particular time, and ... there is ... a little pre ... prelude to the operation that is interesting. In the middle of the night, probably ... midnight or later, the signal was given for ... the ... designated ships to drop out of formation and regroup. Alright, the Skipper ... came, he’d been asleep and he ... he came to the bridge, took command of the bridge which meant that he had charge of the ship, getting the sleep out of his eyes and ... Ed Metzler: (Chuckles) Mr. Day: ... was looking at the radar. You know what a PPI scope is? Ed Metzler: Well, I can imagine. Mr. Day: Well, it’s a benical (sp?) type of ... deck-mounted radar equipment. It had a ... a selector on it which it could ... it could show either a real bearing, a compass bearing, or relative compass bearing. And ... he was looking at it, and he relieved the ... the ... officer in ... of ... of the deck at that particular time, and ... they were waiting for the signal to drop out of the formation. And ... the signal came, he turned to the ... to the ... uh, seaman who was ... had the wheel and told him to come to a certain ... bearing ... certain degree ... so and so. And ... the ... the ... the man ... the man started ... what was necessary to do that, and uh, everybody on the bridge just knew that something was wrong, but they didn’t know what ... because ... the ... combat information center which is the radar control in the middle of the ship, uh, kept giving the bridge bearings on a ... carrier, and we were closing on a carrier ... at about ... probably eighteen, twenty knots, something like this, I mean, pretty good speed. And it ... as we ... and they kept giving that to the bridge, and everybody on the bridge was ... more and more uncomfortable, and ... but he was in charge; they couldn’t ... they couldn’t ... hey! Ed Metzler: He’s the man! Mr. Day: What’s ... what’s going on here?! Ed Metzler: Yeah.

Mr. Day: And all the CIC could do was to give them ... bearings. And one of my friends in the CIC said they kept doing that and kept doing that ... and ... until the ... sea [or see?] return blocked radar which means you’re within two thousand yards, and we kept closing on that ... on that ship. The Captain knew something was wrong, but he didn’t know what was wrong. As the ... the ... well, that ... we kept closing on that ship ... on the ... carrier, eight hundred and thirty feet long ... ship, I mean, a monster thing! And we ... uh, the Captain knew he had to do something because here was this big ship, and they ... and we were on collision course with them. The rule of the sea is that ... the ... the other ship had the right of way; it was up to us to get out of the way. Well, he ... he finally ... uh, gave the ... command to the ... to the Helmsman ... to ... or to the engine room, “Full speed ... full speed ... astern.” There was a ... a friend of mine ... was a ... officer, a mustang which is a guy who grew up as an enlisted man and eventually was ... Ed Metzler: Officer. Mr. Day: ... what they called a Warrant Officer. Ed Metzler: Uh hum. Mr. Day: Uh, he said he had ... been on ships all of his life, and he’d never heard the command given, and he said he felt he probably meant it. The proper procedure is to stop your screws and reverse them. He reversed ... in one movement. Ed Metzler: One fell swoop! Mr. Day: One fell swoop, and the ... and the ... I was just coming on watch and I ... I came on watch and ... the guys’ eyes were this big around, and ... Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: ... and I couldn’t figure out what in the world was going on! And they said ... the vibration was so great ... admiships near the screws that ... it ... uh, knocked ... enlisted men out of their bunks ... literally. The people on topside knew that ... things were bad. The Gunnery Officer abandoned his forward ... uh, hundred foot of the ship because he was afraid of collision. And that ... well, long story short, we cleared, according to the people on topside who saw it, said we cleared that carrier by about ... fifty feet.

Ed Metzler: My word! Mr. Day: (Laughter) Ed Metzler: You don’t get any closer than that! Mr. Day: No! I mean, they were looking down at us as we went by. Oh my goodness! And ... that was what happened. He made an assumption that, and gave the wrong ... a wrong ... uh, bearing to come to, and that’s ... that’s what happened! And we eventually got out of the ... uh, thing and ... formed up with the other ... other cruisers and went on up to ... to Honshu. And that night, later that night, uh, we bombarded the coast of ... Honshu near Kamaishi, and this was ... uh, in the dark. And the ... the four cruisers and the ... here’s ... here’s the ... uh, this is the ... this is land over here (showing map) and you tend to ... oh, yeah, you don’t ... Ed Metzler: (Chuckles) Mr. Day: ... you don’t want to ... uh, come in straight because that’s not ... and you can’t get your maximum number of guns ... to bear. Ed Metzler: You want broadside. Mr. Day: So, you come ... you come in ... to where you kind of sweep like this, and ... then as you get too close, well, then you ... then you come back out. Ed Metzler: Uh hum. Mr. Day: And ... but in the meantime, all your guns are tr ... on that side, are trained and are firing – eight inch, five inch, uh, we weren’t close enough for forty millimeters. They may have been firing because we were at the ... at the ... limit of their ... normal range. And as we ... as our guns, big guns, came ... close ... ship, you had ... you had safety devices ... cams that would keep you from shooting your own bridge off. Ed Metzler: That’s good! (laughter) Mr. Day: But ... as we ... you come into that, your guns are almost ... uh, ninety degrees, not quite! But the ... the ... concussion is horrible. And the concussion ... knocked the ... radio communication from our bridge ... to the Admiral at just the moment that he gave the order to change course, and we were going at twenty-eight knots ... and angling toward the beach within two thousand yards

of it ... and they were going that way. Well, they got the word to us rather quickly, but ... but ... and we were able to turn and nothing ... nothing happened, but that was the ... that was the night ... affair. Ed Metzler: Do you ever get return fire during those bombarding runs? Mr. Day: We did not at that particular time. Unless we were attacking a major ... uh, facility that’s got big guns, well, it’s kind of like shooting peanuts ... you don’t ... you don’t accomplish much. But anyway, that’s what happened. We steamed around the coast there for ... uh, for the rest of the night. And ... the ... the next ... night ... we ... well, the next day, daylight, we repeated the ... uh, the bombardment. And then we had a little bit of ... weather problems, and we were laying off, and in that period they dropped the first atomic bomb. It was ... (unintelligible) as far as the ... war was concerned. Ed Metzler: What was the reaction onboard? Mr. Day: Of course, we didn’t have any idea what ... what they had dropped. We didn’t understand it. Uh, they didn’t tell us much ... that there had been a ... a big, special bomb dropped on the mainland. And ... what it was ... it was two days between the first and the second one, something like that. Ed Metzler: It was two or three, I don’t remember. Mr. Day: But ... it was very close. Ed Metzler: Yeah, they were a few days apart. Mr. Day: Yeah. And we were having heavy weather and we were ... we were weather bound at that particular point. But that’s ... that’s the sequence of it. Uh, the ... okay well that ... kind of gives you the picture of it. But it’s ... there was ... there was an interesting side light ... of this thing of our ... of our trying to run over a carrier that ... that ... thot doesn’t ... that doesn’t appear in the script. Anyway, okay, uh, what’s the next ... any questions on that one? Ed Metzler: No. Uh, now you ... had an encounter with the second USS Houston; tell me about that experience. Mr. Day: We were in a ... an advanced base, probably Ulithi which is a coral atoll that’s been converted to a Navy ... major Navy base, and we happened to be anchored and the [USS] Baltimore ... came into the ... from another assignment; they

weren’t with our group; they were with somebody else and they came in. And ... they were assigned to ... a moor to us; we were already anchored; they were to come in and they were to moor to us, and uh, they did. And it was late in the afternoon, and as it began to get dark, there were taunts across ... and taunts led to ... spuds and ... Ed Metzler: Now, why ... why were there taunts, okay? You guys get all spazzed before? Mr. Day: No, we had crossed paths before. Ed Metzler: Tell me about that. Mr. Day: I don’t know; I don’t remember. Ed Metzler: You just ... you just ... Mr. Day: I just ... I just know that there was ... Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: ... well, (chuckle) ... I think one of things we had ... they ... uh, well, I don’t ... I don’t ... this ... this is hearsay; I don’t want to say. Ed Metzler: You ... You don’t want to go there, okay (chuckles). So anyhow ... Mr. Day: I ... I ... I just ... Ed Metzler: ... this is the heavy cruiser, Baltimore; she was the first in her class. Mr. Day: Yes. Ed Metzler: And the Boston was the second in the ... Mr. Day: Yes. Ed Metzler: ... Baltimore class, and so she tied up ... Mr. Day: Back ... Ed Metzler: ... side by side and you guys started shouting at each other; is that the story? Mr. Day: Yes. Ed Metzler: Well, tell me more. Mr. Day: And ... as it began to get dark, well, they were throwing spuds across, and then here come a few spanner wrenches. And ... Ed Metzler: Really?! They’re throwing wrenches as well as potatoes? Mr. Day: You know a spanner wrench? Ed Metzler: Yeah, it’s a big one!

Mr. Day: Okay, and a big one. And ... they ... uh, the ... the Skipper realized the ... the Admiral, we had an Admiral onboard. Ed Metzler: Who was it, do you remember? Mr. Day: Uhm, Tebow (sp?), I think. Ed Metzler: Okay. Mr. Day: But anyway, uh, somebody ... realized, “Hey, this won’t do.” And ... they ... they ... the Admiral ... the chief, chief officer, in the area ... in other words, the whole thing, there was one Admiral in charge of the whole operation. Ed Metzler: Uh hum. And he was aboard? Mr. Day: And ... no, no, he was on some other ship. Ed Metzler: I got it. Mr. Day: Uh, and ... he ... our people recognized the problems and they were communicating with him and he said, “Hey, we got to do something; you guys ... cast off and move to another location.” And ... they ... uh, they did it rather hurriedly and they stripped off some lifelines on one side, and I think knocked off a ... Captain’s gig off of it ... that sort of stuff. I mean, they ... they took off in a hurry! The ... the Skipper that we had on at that time had just come into the ... he hadn’t been on the Boston ... very long, I’m talking about days or ... or weeks at most, and he came from destroyers. He’d been on destroyers. Well, you don’t handle a cruiser like you do a destroyer, and he was taking off in too big of ... a hurry, and uh, it just didn’t work. But anyway, that ... that took place. Ed Metzler: So, you guys never crossed paths again, huh? Mr. Day: Not as far as I know. Ed Metzler: (Laughter), that is an interesting story. Now, what about the USS Houston? Mr. Day: Alright. The ... the ... fleet, Halsey’s Fleet, was ... bombarding ... what is now Taiwan; it was Formosa at the time. Ed Metzler: Uh hum. Mr. Day: And ... late in the afternoon ... air ... the aircraft had been pounding them over there, and late in the afternoon, they retaliated by sending their ... everything that they could fly ... into ... uh, to try to ... punish us, and they ... (pop sound) ...

uh, the aircraft, our aircraft, knocked down ... most of them, but there were a few ... one to three or something like that, that made it into ... the ... into the fleet. And ... backing up just a minute, they ... as ... in the late afternoon as the ... our attack ... took place. The USS Boston came from somewhere, I don’t know where, I mean, the USS Houston came from ... somewhere and joined our task group. I assume that she came fresh from the States because she was newly built and she was just coming in and ... and interestingly enough, she took the Boston’s place in formation for some reason. Ed Metzler: Was she the same class as the Boston or the Baltimore? Mr. Day: Uh ... Ed Metzler: Do you happen to know? Mr. Day: Well, yes. Uh, she was the ... uh, more or less equivalent; I don’t know. Ed Metzler: Yeah, I can look it up. Mr. Day: She was a ... she was a different ... uh, hull and that sort of stuff, but anyway, uh, and ... the ... the airplanes that came in ... one of them put a fish in the engine room of the Houston. Ed Metzler: Uhm. Mr. Day: Completely disabled her, uh, and ... they ... they took her personnel off to other ships, except for, oh, say thirty ... uh, caretakers ... whatever you call it. Ed Metzler: Kind of an emergency crew, yeah. Mr. Day: Yeah. Ed Metzler: Yeah. Mr. Day: They were kind of ... they were left with the ship; the ship could not ... move on it’s own power, and when she was ... torpedoed, like dark ... or thereabout and long about midnight ... uh, the Boston took the Houston in tow. We rigged a line across and ... picked her up and started towing her, and towing speeds are two to three knots. And ... we towed her the rest of that night and the following day, and I think probably the following night and then turned her over to tugs. They have seagoing tugs that are laying back, and if they come in for ... uh, cart off the problems, and uh, they ... they had come in and taken our ... taken her and by that time ... by that time, well, Halsey couldn’t ... keep a fleet at ...

enormous crews that ... oh, eighteen to twenty knots; he couldn’t keep them there with a group that’s going two knots. Ed Metzler: (Laughter) ... (unintelligible). Mr. Day: Well, you don’t do that! So, he ... decided on ... that ... he was going to use us for bait; he abandoned us. He took off and went ... across northern Luzon and on out ... on ... on across there and hoping that the fleet from Japan would come out and try to ... kill off the remainder; they didn’t do it. And ... uh, he left a carrier, the Boston and ... and the ... and the Houston and ... uh, we probably had just ... it may have been another cruiser, but probably mostly destroyers from that particular point. Well, we were going right across ... northern Luzon, and we took a seventy-plane, land-based bomber attack off of northern Luzon. The ... aircraft from our carrier ... got most of them, but ... they didn’t get quite all of them, and ... Ed Metzler: So, this is before we pushed the Japanese off of Luzon? Mr. Day: Oh yeah! Ed Metzler: Okay. Mr. Day: Oh yeah, yeah. We had the ... the first thing came off ... the first attacks came off of Luz ... uh, off of Taiwan, the second attacks came off of northern, uh, of Philippines, and they ... they had ... there was a seventy-plane ... uh, attack on us, and they put another fish in the [USS] Houston. Ed Metzler: So, you’re one busy guy as ... Mr. Day: Yeah. Ed Metzler: ... Gunnery Fire Control Officer when you got that ... much to shoot at, huh? Mr. Day: Yeah. Well, we were ... well, you have to remember that ... most of that shooting was ... out of our range. That was ... that was ... Ed Metzler: It was aircraft to aircraft. Mr. Day: It was ... it was only the ones that got through them that ... that we could shoot at. So, that’s ... that’s the difference. But anyway, that was the ... way of it, and ... Ed Metzler: So, she took a second fish? Mr. Day: She took a ... take ... a second fish.

Ed Metzler: What happened? Mr. Day: Oh, uhm, she was already disabled. Uh, as I remember, the ... the crew that was left onboard were in the hangar deck which is at the stern, and they took a fish in the hangar deck ... and killed a lot of the ... Ed Metzler: Oh! Mr. Day: ... there were like ... thirty, forty people that were there and they killed quite a few of them. So, that was a ... kind of a tragedy, but that’s what happened. So, we were limping along with the ... at two ... two knots and you don’t do much defending at two knots; you don’t do much offense at two knots. Ed Metzler: No, no. Mr. Day: Anyway, so that’s what happened. And ... Ed Metzler: So, uhm, in a way ... streamline (unintelligible) worked! Mr. Day: Well, in a way. Ed Metzler: Because that ... you know? Mr. Day: But it ... but it ... Ed Metzler: You guys were crippled and just cruising along at just two knots and thety showed up and you nailed them! Mr. Day: Yeah. Ed Metzler: Or (unintelligible). Mr. Day: Well, they ... Ed Metzler: And their fly boys came ... Mr. Day: ... aircraft in, but ... oh yeah, that was a ... it was a ... it was not a pleasant night (laughter). Ed Metzler: You were busy, huh? Mr. Day: (Laughter), we were busy. But ... Ed Metzler: But it’s sure fortunate that ... that the Boston ... never ... took a fish. Mr. Day: Yeah. Well, we were ... we were a fortunate ship all through the war. As I said, we lost only, uh, three people. And the first one ... uh, as we were leaving Boston Harbor, a Seaman, enlisted man, got ... behind a crane on, one of the airplane cranes, where he shouldn’t have been, and they exercised the crane and crushed him.

Ed Metzler: Uhm! Mr. Day: And that was it. And the thing that ... I’ve always felt bad about that was ... that that boy ... see, one of the things about the Boston, since he was from Boston, uh, they had a ... we had a lot of people on there from the Boston area. And because that was one of the enlistment tools, “Be on the USS Boston! Ed Metzler: Join the Navy, be on the Boston! Mr. Day: Be on the Boston, and that ... we ... we had that going on, and ... uh, so we had boys from the Boston area and it was like McCarthy or something of that nature. We were still in the Boston Harbor, there were fire boats and civilians boats and they were hooting and hollering and ... spraying water and all that sort of stuff escorting us out to go to the war, and this kid got killed. Well, they could have transferred his body ... without anybody really knowing it, but they didn’t. The next day they buried him at sea. Well, they ... and I was a ... I volunteered to ... witness the ... the burial ... for some unknown reason at the time, and ... uh, we ... we ... and the other thing that bothered me ... the senior Chaplain onboard the ship was a Roman Catholic; the boy was a Roman Catholic. Uh, I think the ... I think the ... the priest didn’t do his job; he should have gone to the ... to the Captain and said, “I want that boy to go ashore.” And he could have got him ashore if he wanted to. But anyway, that was my introduction to burial at sea. Ed Metzler: What other accidents do you remember? Mr. Day: Oh, one ... that I remember was ... he was electrocuted; he was using a ... portable drill on a water pipe and it shorted out and killed him. Uh, I think the other one ... we were in dry dock in Manus way down on ... in the New Hebrides or somewhere down in there, and we had ... we were scraping the hull, and the crew was scraping the hull. You had a platform and ... uh, up and down and ... uh, we were scraping ... they were scraping the hull and a guy fell off. Ed Metzler: That was that. Mr. Day: That was it! I mean, he probably fell at least twenty feet, and ... and he was killed. That ... that’s ... that’s my recollection of it. Ed Metzler: How long was she in ... dry dock down there in Manus ... Manus?

Mr. Day: Oh, I would guess at ... between a week and two weeks. Uhm, number one, it is a ... it’s something that you ... that’s not ... speedily done, and we had some major repairs. And one of the repairs that we wanted to see was ... what was the damage done by the ... over-speeding when we took off on that emergency basis. Ed Metzler: (Unintelligible) stern after going ... Mr. Day: The cone ... the cone off of one of the screws, you know, you have the screw and then you’ve got a ... cone back behind it? Well ... well, that was gone; we lost it! Ed Metzler: (Laughter), it fell off! (laughter) Mr. Day: Alright, so they had another one in dry dock which they put on, and ... and we took advantage of being there to do a lot of maintenance and all that sort of stuff, and ... so that’s ... that was ... that was the ... basically what that was. Ed Metzler: So, when you’re in dry dock like that, do you and the crew stay aboard ship in quarters? Mr. Day: Oh sure! Oh yeah. Ed Metzler: You don’t go ashore and ... Mr. Day: Well, you got seventeen hundred men! Ed Metzler: I know! Mr. Day: I mean, they don’t ... they can’t go ... there’s no place to put them (chuckle); there’s no hotels over there. Ed Metzler: No hotel, no high-rise! Mr. Day: No high-rises! Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: And that ... oh yeah, that was ... going into a dry dock is an amazing event! There’s some pictures of it locally here; a dry dock is a big barge with two walls on it, and they ... they sink it. Well, the ... uh, the people set up the keel box to where ... it’ll rest on it’s keel and its not going to tip over and that sort of stuff, and as the ... when they get that done, they sink it, the ship is carefully ... it’s not under power, its ... its ... it’s been towed in by ... Ed Metzler: Positioned.

Mr. Day: ... either tugs or ... uh, hand lines to the ... to the ... sides, and they do ... they do that, very carefully come in, the divers are down below and ... and they communicate with the folks up above and get it just exactly right to where the keel blocks are just where they’re supposed to be, and then they say, “Pump the water.” They pump the waters and she comes up and ... and the divers are getting everything ... uh, seated just exactly right, and it comes right on up, and that’s it! And they’re ... it is a ... of course, I was onboard ship and I was on topside, I didn’t have duty at that particular point, and I was watching what was going on. Ed Metzler: That’s an amazing process! Mr. Day: That is an amazing process! Ed Metzler: And this is on a ... what I’d call a medium-sized ship. Just imagine on a carrier or a battle wagon what it’s like. Mr. Day: They can’t ... can’t ... that ... that particular ... uh, dry dock could take carriers; it was a big rascal! Well, it was so big that it took our ship plus two destroyers! Ed Metzler: (Laughter), all at the same time?! Mr. Day: Our ship was going this way and the two destroyers were coming ... that way in the narrow part of the ship, oh yeah, that was ... Ed Metzler: So, when we’re scraping the hull, we’re taking the barnacles off? Mr. Day: Yeah! Ed Metzler: Because that slows you down ... Mr. Day: That slows you down. Ed Metzler: (Unintelligible). Mr. Day: That slows you down, right! Oh yeah, that ... you take advantage of that type of thing any time you get an opportunity; that was an opportunity and they were taking advantage of it. Well, I guess the boy got careless; I don’t know what he did. Ed Metzler: Uhm! Tell me about your ... experiences in Japan at ... the very end of the war and post-war. Mr. Day: At the end of the war, we would go ... we ... lay off the coast and went up ... kind of steaming back and forth, and we sent ... shore parties ashore in small

boats, and small boats from the shore came out and got them and took them in ... and everything. And ... we ... accepted the ... uh, rifles, swords, etcetera from the ... population. We ... we destroyed ... uh, big stuff. Uh well, I’ll give you ... Ed Metzler: Big armament, huh? Your ... shells and stuff you mean? Mr. Day: Well, one of the places that we worked in some ... was a ... a navy yard; it was a navy ... station, and this has ... this is a story that is ... its got a little bit of humor to it, but ... uh, the chief gunner which is a ... Warrant Officer who came up through the ranks was in my division, and I talking ... I was talking with him about ... what did he do when he was over there destroying armaments, and he was telling me. I said ... and I said, “Well, how about me going along with you one day?” Ed Metzler: I was going to ask you if you’d been ashore yet, and you hadn’t at that point, yeah. Mr. Day: He, no I hadn’t been ashore, and he ... he says, “Sure!” I said, “Let’s go tomorrow!” He had a jeep from the ... from the navy yard and we ... we went ashore and ... got his jeep and ... he had a ... wooden box of plastic explosives. I mean a box ... this long, this long, this deep. Ed Metzler: So, three feet by ... eighteen inches. Mr. Day: I mean, a pretty ... pretty good sized box, wooden box, and he tossed it in the back ... back seat of the jeep and he took of ... wonkety, wonkety, wonkety, wonk! I mean, the roads weren’t very good. And I couldn’t stand it anymore, and that ... explosives box was jumping up and down. Ed Metzler: Bouncing around (laughter). Mr. Day: So, I ... I went back there and picked it up and held it in my lap ... while he was driving (laughter). I don’t know what I was ... Ed Metzler: And you’re here to tell the story! Mr. Day: ... and I’m here to tell the story! Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: Well, that was getting over there, and uhm, this had ... this ... had ... I don’t know what they were but they were comparable to sixteen inch ... rifles, and there was spare barrels, and of course, the break of a ... of a ... gun that size is

like six feet, and square ... roughly. And ... he would ... uh, this barrel was laying there and he’d go to the ... muzzle end and he’s build a little pyramid of ... explosive, and then he’d reach in his ... coat ... coat pock ... in his shirt pocket here and pull out a little thing that he was very careful of because those were fuses. And he’d pull a fuse out and poke it back in here and ... and very carefully put it into that ... little pyramid of explosive. And ... there was an electric ... uh, fuse attached to it, and it was rolled up on a ball and we ... we would go back behind the building or a hill or something and ... and he’d ... detonate it. Ed Metzler: Hit the plunger and ... Mr. Day: Hit the plunger. Ed Metzler: ... get the electric signal and (unintelligible). Mr. Day: And ... what it would do ... it would blow a chunk out of the interior. He’d do the ... the barrel and he’d do the ... to the ... the breach. And ... uh, we got a ... a little bit of a problem ... was that there was a marine barracks pretty close to where we were ... working and ... the explosion broke windows out of their barracks; they was not very happy about it (laughter). Ed Metzler: That’s a fairly serious explosion! Mr. Day: Yeah. So anyway, I mean, it was, from their viewpoint, the maximum thing was it broke some windows out. But anyway, that was ... that was one of the things that we did. And some of our parties, well, there’s pictures of them in the book here that ... where they show the local population ... uh, surrendering their armament. Ed Metzler: Did they do any of that when you were there, the surrendering of the ... Mr. Day: Oh yeah, yeah. Ed Metzler: What was that like? Mr. Day: And ... and every ... ev ... well, I was not in the group; I didn’t go ... I was not with that ... group. They ... uh, they would ... stack all the stuff in a sling in an open boat and bring it back to the ship, airplane crane drop a hook down and ... this sling goes around it and ... they ... grabbed a hold and brought it up and dropped it down on the hangar deck. And ... the gunner selected me a couple of

rifles out of the group. I mean, they ... people get them for souvenirs and so on, and that’s what they did. And some of them were ... rather badly messed up due to the fact that the ... compression of the sling. But anyway, that type of ... that was the ... one of the things that they did, and I ... I just observed that because I was not working with that particular group (chimes ringing in background). They’d do that today and tomorrow they’d do it again and so on. And ... there were other groups that were ... welders and ... who were cutting up ... (unintelligible) submarines. They were also ... had wooden pleasure craft that had been converted to suicide boats; they were just wood ... wooden, pleasure craft ... that had ... been rigged to where ... in case of ... they were to be used, they were packed full of explosive. And the idea was ... they would run them out and run them into a ship. That ... they ... that never did happen. Ed Metzler: They want to show you what ... the in ... an invasion would have been like. Mr. Day: Yes, yes! And then so, that was ... that particular situation. So, we would ... just going ... kind of up and down the coast ... uh, during that particular period. And they would allow us to ... go ash ... to go ashore. And I have walked the streets of Tokyo; I have been in their stores. These are days after ... the surrender, I mean, a week ... maybe. And we would ... I’ve bough ... I bought my wife some ... kimo ... my family some kimonos. Well, I bought it in the Japanese store. They were very kind, the were very gracious, I never had a hard word ... said to me. I didn’t ... I didn’t understand their language. Ed Metzler: Were they deferential or ... just ... Mr. Day: Uh ... Ed Metzler: ... you know ... Mr. Day: They were ... Ed Metzler: ... sullen or ... Mr. Day: No, they were ... they are a people that are very courteous, and they would bow and they would ... they would try to understand what we wanted, what I wanted, and ... I know, I mean, there were other guys with me at various and sundry times, and we ... and I bought some stuff in there. And in walking the streets, I

mean, there wasn’t any ... you didn’t eat ... uh, ‘cause there wasn’t any public places open to us, but yes, we ... Ed Metzler: What kind of war damage did you see on the streets of Tokyo? Mr. Day: Uh ... Ed Metzler: If any? Mr. Day: Well, one of the ... uh, things that I remember ... I went into a department store which was, I think, it was more than one store. Yeah, I think it was just ... a ... a two-story thing, and it was a big building. Uh, and one end of it was blown out. And I was up there looking around and I could look out ... where the thing had been blown off. There was ... there was obvious advan ... of ... damage ... of various types like that. Ed Metzler: Did you actually visit the sites where ... the ... A-bombs were dropped at either Hiroshima or ... Nagasaki. Mr. Day: I did not. Uh, the Boston ... the ... after doing de-militarization up in the Yokohama ... uh, Tokyo area ... went to Kyushu and I left the ship at that time ... in ... about the 1st of December. And I ... the ... as ... well, that was ... that’s a story in itself. Uh, I got down there and the Admiral is there that could sign my ... papers to sent me back to the States. I had ... I had early ... entry date and I was ... the minute that they said ... people could go back ... they got a program out that said with so many points you can go back to the States. And so ... and ... and I qualified! And we pulled into Kyushu and ... they couldn’t wait to ... they had a Captain’s gig in the water before we ever anchored ... Ed Metzler: (Chuckles) Mr. Day: ... with my ... papers. And there were four officers and, I don’t know, twelve or so enlisted men who qualified and papers were sent over and the Admiral signed them. And then all we had to do was ... get transportation. Ed Metzler: All you needed was a ride at that point. Mr. Day: All we needed was a ride. Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: Well, we discovered that the Sixth Marines were there, and they were ... uh, they had priorities on everything and it looked like it’d be about six months

before I could get back to the States. Well, my Skipper ... bless his pointed head ... Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: ... uh, transferred; he worked a deal with the [USS] Wichita which was another cruiser of an older vintage ... that was coming back to the States ... scheduled! Uh, the ... I couldn’t ... they couldn’t get me a passage on there, but the Skipper transferred this group to the staff on the Wichita ... and they were ship’s staff. Ed Metzler: And made ... made them crew members! (laughter) Mr. Day: We were crew members. And ... I went onboard and they assigned me a bunk in the ... in Chief’s quarters. Of all things, I had a bunk! But then ... later the same day, the Sixth Marines started coming onboard; there were Colonels and Light Colonels and ... all sorts of ... I was a Lieutenant, and the end result ... I slept on a wooden ... Army cot, you know, the wood framed canvas cots ... Ed Metzler: Canvas and wood. Mr. Day: ... in a passageway ... all the way back to the States (chuckles). Ed Metzler: And didn’t complain once I bet (laughter)! Mr. Day: No, and ... Ed Metzler: Because you were going home. Mr. Day: Uh, but ... as ... part of the crew, I was given ... custody of a bunch of Marines. I don’t know what they ... how many there were, but I mean, there were ... oh, probably fifty or something Marines that ... that I was in ... my duty was ... to muster them every morning and see that everybody is there and nobody jumped overboard or anything of that nature, and that was ... so we ... so the first day I went up there and I ... I ... questioned to see who was the ... chief ... who was ... who was the highest ranking Sergeant, and identified him, and I said, “Okay, it’s your duty ... to ... muster these men and report to me ... every morning,” and that was the end of it! I never had any contact; this guy did all of it; he’d ... he’d ... I was standing in the back and he’d come over and ... and everybody ... accounted for, and I ... I’d dismiss him and dismiss the Marines and ... Ed Metzler: That was that! Mr. Day: ... that was it! But that was ... that was ... that was an interesting ...

Ed Metzler: Well, were you ... were you still eating with the officers and everything on the Wichita? Mr. Day: Yes. Ed Metzler: So, you were ... an officer? Mr. Day: Yeah, I was an officer, yeah. Ed Metzler: Even though you slept in a passageway (laughter). Mr. Day: Yeah, I was ... I ate with the offi ... I ate ... I ate in the wardroom mess. And ... so, that was a ... that was how I got back to the States. Ed Metzler: Where’d you put in in the States? San Francisco or ... Mr. Day: San Francisco. Ed Metzler: What’d the Golden Gate Bridge look like to you? Mr. Day: Oh, it looked great! That looked great! (Chimes ringing in background), and ... oh, there’s a story going back though. Uh, the water ... in the harbor at Kyushu ... was ... polluted with ... dysentery, and there was a dysentery epidemic in the harbor. And there were ships in the harbor that could not get underway because ... so many of their crew ... had dysentery. Well, we managed to get past all of that. Then ... onboard the Wichita, uh, the only ... only antibiotics you had were the ... sulfa drugs, at that particular time. Well, everybody was ... had to take their sulfa drugs. The ... enlisted folks went through a line and there was some ... Chief Petty Officer there in charge of it and probably was an officer in charge also, but anyway, every one of those thing ... guys came up, they were given the pill, and they were ... almost forced them down their throat. I mean, they looked ... they liked to tuck them in their cheeks and that sort of stuff and not swallow them. Ed Metzler: What?! Mr. Day: They were big pills! Ed Metzler: Why? Mr. Day: Uh, idiots (laughter). Ed Metzler: Okay (laughter). Mr. Day: ... uh, close to. But anyway that’s ... and in a wardroom it was an honor system. You passed the plate of pills around and you selected one and you took

it. Well, you know, about half way back to the States, we discovered we had ... dysentery onboard; there were ... a couple ... maybe more ... but a few ... enlisted men who ... someway didn’t take their pills, and so help me, there was one or two officers. And there were ... we ... we were coming into ... San Francisco with the dysentery onboard and ... Ed Metzler: And it’s ... very, very contagious. Mr. Day: ... and they were going to slap us ... a quarantine and it wasn’t anybody going to get off of that ship! I mean, that was it, that was it! If they knew it. Well, they ... boy, they got rough onboard ship ... those last ... see, it takes about, I don’t know, seemed like fourteen days or something like that ... coming from over there and you do a great circle route and you come in. And they had ... they had ... they really, really clamped down on them, and the guys who had dysentery ... they were ... they were in quarantine and the ship ... and the uh, and the uh, well, the medical folks and ... they were pri ... they were prisoners for all purposes, and as ... as we approached the ... San Francisco, there were lots of conferences onboard I know. Well, I wasn’t involved in them, but I know they had to be; the Admiral’s involved, the ... the Captain was involved, and all of ... all of the chief brass were involved, and ... what do we do? We don’t want to get ... we don’t want to get (unintelligible) quarantined, we want to go home! We wanted to see our wife, she’s going to be on the ... on the ... dock waiting when we come in! Ed Metzler: Yeah, right! Mr. Day: So, what they ... what they did ... there were still I think two people in the ... in sick bay that ... still had this ... still had the ... Ed Metzler: Symptoms, huh? Mr. Day: ... symptoms. Ed Metzler: Yeah. Mr. Day: Well, the day before we got to San Francisco, they released them, under guard, from sick bay. So, the Captain ... in reporting in ... of course, they asked him, “Is there any ... anybody in sick bay?” Ed Metzler: (Laughter)

Mr. Day: And the Captain could ... would ... with a clear conscience said, “No.” Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: We went in and ... and docked and we had all sorts of merriment and bands were playing and all that sort of stuff all ... everything was ... joyous and ... lot of noise and so on. But very quietly ... a ... an ambulance came up to the after- gangway, and they whisked those two ... people into that ambulance and they ... they hightailed it to a hospital. Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: (Laughter) Ed Metzler: And you got to go home! Mr. Day: And ... why I got to go home, that’s right! Ed Metzler: Now, did you ever get dysentery? Mr. Day: No. Ed Metzler: Okay, you took your pill! Mr. Day: I took my pill. Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: No, that ... but ... it ... you think ... no ... nobody’s stupid enough to do that! Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: But they did it. Ed Metzler: Big assumption! (laughter) Mr. Day: Yeah. But the ... but the thing about it was ... that the ... the officers were trying to protect their people, and they were trying to get their people ... where they could go home. Ed Metzler: I mean, it could have taken weeks ... Mr. Day: Oh! Ed Metzler: ... to work all that dysentery out of the ... Mr. Day: Yeah. Ed Metzler: ... ship. Mr. Day: If, one ... once ... but all they had to do was to say that there was no one in sick bay. Ed Metzler: (Laughter)

Mr. Day: (Chuckle) Ed Metzler: Didn’t say we shut it down so there wouldn’t be any more. Mr. Day: (Laughter) Ed Metzler: What do you think about ... the Japanese after all those ... all these years? What did you think about them then, and how do you feel about them now? Mr. Day: I don’t think I feared them particularly; I respected them. I was amazed at the way that they acted toward us, and I think ... I must say I had ... I had respect for them. Uh, in 1966 when I was there on business, I got a little bit different viewpoint because I was staying in one of their finest hotels a few blocks from the emperor and ... oh, I was a guest and they ... they just laid the carpet out. And I ... uh, I ... it was a business trip; they ... the Japanese contingent that we were trying to do business with ... they took ... they wined us and dined us, they took us to ... to various types of eating places and ... everything was just ... uh, friendship, respect, no problems whatsoever. I ... I must say that I have a ... I have respect ... I had respect for them at the time, I have respect for them now. Ed Metzler: No harbored grudges now? Mr. Day: I have a son who has lived in ... Tokyo for about eleven years. Ed Metzler: So, it’s in the family now. Mr. Day: And he’s in business over there. I think he runs a ... a travel agency or something like (laughter). And ... when he first went over there, he went over on one of the university ... programs. I think it was Michigan State or something like that, somewhere up in the Midwest, and when he went over there ... he had studied Japanese in college; he knew something about it, but he went over there and he ... he, initially, taught ... English in the schools. But ... he lived with a Japanese family that did not speak English; he learned ... Japanese pretty fast under those circumstances. Ed Metzler: He knew how to use it. Mr. Day: Yeah. Ed Metzler: Well, what ... juicy stories have we forgotten to cover at this point ... about World War II?

Mr. Day: The ... well, of course, the two big events that we talked about – the bomb, shore bombardment, and then the ... uh, streamline ... (unintelligible) thing; those are the spectacular ones. There were other things, uh, certainly, that took place that were significant at the time, but nothing to compare with those. Uh ... Ed Metzler: So, have you stayed ... did you stay in touch with any of your, you know, close associates that you were ... involved with during the War? I mean, in the reunions or follow up (unintelligible)? Mr. Day: I went to, I think, two reunions and ... there ... there weren’t but about ... uh, two at those reunions that were from my division. In other words, yeah, there were USS Boston folks, but they’re from the black gang or from the ... some other division and ... I ... I ... Ed Metzler: Uh hum. Mr. Day: ... I didn’t know them personally under ... under any circumstance. Ed Metzler: Well, there were seventeen hundred of you, you know? Mr. Day: Yeah. They were rip-roaring ... events, and ... they were held up in ... uh, the Boston area, both of them that I attended. The second one ... was the one that ... that shirt I wore ... wear on ... jacket I wear in summertime which was a multi ... ship reunion in which the ... uh, the first five ships ... that carried the name Boston were sailing ships, the sixth ship was the Boston CA-69. Uh, the CA-69 was converted in the Korean area to ... guided missile ship number one, so there’s two of them. Ed Metzler: It’s like CAG-1 or something like ... Mr. Day: CAG-1 ... Ed Metzler: ... yeah. Mr. Day: ... I think is what it was. And then ... the ... uh, next along the way, came the nuclear submarine, and ... Ed Metzler: And that was the Boston. Mr. Day: ... and that was the Boston, so ... all of those folks were represented there. So, it was ... it was a ... it was a ... bit of a different thing, but ... Ed Metzler: Do you ever have dreams about ... the World War II experience or ... does it live with you ... at all?

Mr. Day: No. Ed Metzler: And stay with you? Mr. Day: I don’t think ... honestly, I ... I have no remembrance of ever having a dream about World War II. Why? I don’t know. Ed Metzler: Well, I guess, for one thing, you weren’t in ... hand to hand combat (laughter) and getting your arm shot off and all this kind of stuff. Mr. Day: Yeah. Well, let’s be frank. I had an easy time in the Navy. Ed Metzler: Well, the Boston ... was a lucky ship. Mr. Day: We were a lucky ship! Ed Metzler: And you were an officer, too, ... Mr. Day: Yeah. Ed Metzler: ... and that made life ... more (unintelligible). Mr. Day: Oh yeah, made life ... a whole lot easier. This ... this picture right here is in 1945, we were at anchor in Tokyo Bay, in Sagami Wan. Ed Metzler: In Sagami ... uh ... Mr. Day: Sagami Wan. Ed Metzler: Wan, okay, yeah. That’s ... Mr. Day: Sagami Wan is the ... outer part of the ... Tokyo Bay. Ed Metzler: Yeah, the ... almost the entrance to Tokyo Bay. Mr. Day: Yeah. Ed Metzler: Big ole bay, yeah. Mr. Day: Back up in here is Tokyo Bay (unintelligible). Ed Metzler: And that’s where the Missouri was ... Mr. Day: Yeah, they were back over here, yeah. Ed Metzler: ... and the signing and all that kind of stuff. Mr. Day: So that ... oh yeah, that was ... but we were within two thousand yards of that beach right there. Ed Metzler: Uhm. Okay! Mr. Day: Sunbathing on deck (laughter). Ed Metzler: Well, let’s see, and you were there in ... uh, September and October, so it wasn’t wintertime yet ‘cause it can get cold!

Mr. Day: No, we ... we were ... we were there ... well, September of what ... 2nd was it ... the signing? Ed Metzler: Uh hum, uh huh. Mr. Day: We were in there ... in late August. Ed Metzler: That’s right! ‘Cause you said that ... you were the first capital ship that was actually ... Mr. Day: We were the first ... major ship in there. Ed Metzler: Yeah. Mr. Day: Yeah, that’s ... its ... it was a ... it was a, as a I say, I had it easy, I was an officer, I ate well, I ... uh, had officers privileges, all that sort of stuff, and ... but at the same time ... but at the same time, uh, there were hard spots hither and yonder but there’s not ... not anything of any particular significance. It really made ... uh, when you were sitting down in the wardroom waiting to be served by the black steward with a ... had a towel over the hand and ... putting your potatoes on the ... on your plate, uh, and ... when ... it’s called ... the ... there’s a term I haven’t used before, but the air defense ... general quarters ... everybody goes to their battle station. Air defense, only those who ... have battle stations that ... concerning the ... aircraft batteries and all that sort of stuff, only they go. And you’re sitting there and air defense ... long in the afternoon ... long about ... dusk ... is when ... we usually had attacks, and we’d be sitting there twiddling our thumbs trying to wait for a potato and something ... Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: ... and air defense and ... you don’t ... you don’t ... (unintelligible); you grab a potato and ... or a piece of bread and ... take off! Ed Metzler: You’re out the door. Mr. Day: You’re ... you don’t go back to your ... quarters to get something; you go to your battle station. And from where I was in the mess ... in the ... see, onboard ship, you ... you have ... uh, traffic has certain rules. You go forward ... on the ... starboard side and you go aft ... on the port side; that’s to keep ... people from running into (laughter) ... Ed Metzler: (Laughter), it’s like traffic rules.

Mr. Day: And one of the other interesting things was that ... every time we got ... some ... somebody new from the States who wasn’t ... wasn’t accustomed to the ships, and we get a tall guy in ... the first time that ... general quarters went, he reported to sick bay because he got hit right here. Ed Metzler: Right in the forehead! Mr. Day: He didn’t ... he didn’t duck! Ed Metzler: Forgot to duck! Mr. Day: He didn’t duck! And ... that is a ... you learn pretty fast, and ... but ... from where I sat in the wardroom, I ... darted out ... the door going aft, and about ... fifty feet, cut across and went down a ... what the ... what the Navy calls a ladder, uh, I went down and ... to the lowest ... compartment, habituated compartment, and that was my battle station. Ed Metzler: You were down in the bowels! Mr. Day: I was just above the bilges. Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: Fuel tanks and that sort of stuff. Ed Metzler: Uhm! Mr. Day: There was ... some advantages to being ... small onboard ship. It was much easier to get around (laughter). Ed Metzler: I’d say much easier to sleep, too. Mr. Day: Yeah. Yeah, they didn’t ... they didn’t have any ... king size ... mattresses. Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: Like I told you, that ... my bunk was a ... its a basket like you would support a ... you would transport a body in; its about so deep and it’s got a rail around the top and it’s got ... kind of springs across the bottom, and its got a ... a mattress pad in it, and that’s your bunk! Wonk! You learn to ... you put your shoes by your door, and they were mysteriously polished overnight. Ed Metzler: Isn’t that amazing?! Mr. Day: Yeah. Ed Metzler: The little knowns came in and polished your shoes (laughter). Mr. Day: And they polished my shoes every night.

Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: And, of course, we had complete laundry systems, we had ... we even had a ... what was called a gee-dunk stand which is an ice cream stand. We ... we even had desserts and ... onboard. One of the guys in my division, he wouldn’t admit it to the folks that ... was around the kitchen and so on, but he was a ... pastry chef in a ... upscale ... hotel (laughter) ... before he came in the ... Ed Metzler: You know, I have interviewed ... a few ... British sailors from British ships that were ... and Australian guys who were onboard Australian ships, not many, but ... to a man they said, “Oh, we used to look forward to ... pulling up alongside of ... or tying up alongside a U.S. Navy ship because they had ... ice cream! Mr. Day: And they had bread! Ed Metzler: And ... and bread and ... something besides mutton to eat ... Mr. Day: Yeah. Ed Metzler: ... for meat. Mr. Day: Yeah. Ed Metzler: And so, you guys ... had it made compared to ... them. Mr. Day: Well, let me ... let me describe ... uh, the ... you steaming about about ... fifteen knots and their ship ... comes alongside; we’re ... we’re going to fuel and we’re going to re-provision and we’re going to do all sorts of stuff, all at once. And ... they’re ... say seventy feet between them, and ... they ... as the ... and ... and the sea is ... is giving it this, and ... so, they ... they throw the line across and they get the bigger lines across, and then they ... they got lines that ... that they can ... tow back and forth. Ed Metzler: Uh hum. Mr. Day: And the ... the first thing that went across to the ... to the ship was mail; that’s the first thing. Second thing was bread, and it was ... it ... it was ... not funny, but I mean, its ... you have to see this to appreciate it, but here went a ... what do you call a flat thing, the ... anyway, the ... a load of bread, etcetera went over to the ... to the destroyer or the ship there and ... the sailors would conveniently drop some of it and they’d grab that and chomp, chomp, chomp! Ed Metzler: (Laughter)

Mr. Day: (Laughter), I mean, it was like ... and yes, they had ice cream, but that bread was a ... Ed Metzler: The bread was ... the focal point, huh? Mr. Day: ... because the ... the destroyers didn’t have a bakery, and we were fortunate that we had ... we had a bakery. Ed Metzler: Well, I think I’ll end it here, Clyde. Mr. Day: Alright. Ed Metzler: Unless you’ve got some more juicy stories. Mr. Day: Oh, the ... I don’t think of anything that stands out. The ... there’s a ... we’ve talked about a combination of things ... uh, the ... some of the good things and some of the not so good things. Uh, but you took them all and you did the best you could and ... that black boy that was serving me in the wardroom was handling powder at general quarters. And I learned ... I was ... I was from a family that was not ... uh, we didn’t look down on the blacks. My mother was a farm ... lady and there was never ... anybody came to her house that she didn’t feed ... whatever the color was. If they were hungry, she had something for them to eat. Well, that’s ... that was the philosophy that I was raised with, and as a result, I didn’t have to overcome that ... severe prejudice. The thing that ... my battle ... my stateroom was ... forward of the number one turret, and if general quarters went, and I was in my room, I ... I leaped out ... I ... I never ... I ... I got my shoes on; I didn’t ... I didn’t go barefooted through there. I got my shoes on, and ... that ... got my pants on and my shoes on and I was on my way. It was ... I had to dodge the ... I had to go around the ... what’s the barbets (sp?) which are the big things upon which the ... the turrets are mounted and I went around a couple of them, went through the wardroom, and ... and then I was ... almost to my battle station, but it ... it was ... you learned to live with the situation ... always ... always remember that the ... approximately my stateroom was where the ... uh, I guess, it was the Baltimore or the 68 ... where ... where the ... her bow broke of, and that’s a pretty good hunk of ... of metal. Ed Metzler: You losing a significant piece there! Mr. Day: Yeah. Yeah, so ... well ...

Ed Metzler: Well, thank you for spending the time with me; I appreciate it. Mr. Day: Well, I ... I have certainly ... enjoyed the conversation. I’ve ... I ... I’m proud of the ... my contributions in World War II, and ... it’s good to know that ... attempt is being made to ... preserve some of this for the other folks. Ed Metzler: Yeah, and it ... of course, I need also to ... thank you for what you did for our country. I think subsequent generations ... we may say that a lot, but we still don’t say it enough. Mr. Day: Yeah. Ed Metzler: So, I want to thank you personally for what you did.... Mr. Day: Well I have been fortunate. At the last Armed Forces Day ... last year, uh, I really got a work out. Ed Metzler: (Laughter) Mr. Day: Ingram High School (unintelligible) invited me over. The speech that I gave ... I couldn’t read at that particular time because I had eye problems, but ... one of the ... other men read my speech. I answered questions; it was a ... uh, it was a wonderful experience. They ... that was the ... most attentive group of ... kids I have ever seen. They’re choice, when it was all over, was to go back to the classroom and they didn’t ... they came by and everyone in that room came by and shook my hand. Ed Metzler: That’s great! Mr. Day: And that ... uh, there were ... there were things that ... well, I don’t think ... it’s probably out here somewhere; I don’t know where it is right now, but ... I ... that same period of time I was the grand marshal to the ... on the parade. I was riding in a ... modern jeep and ... and I was the grand marshal of the parade. Ed Metzler: (Laughter), that’s cool!

FINAL copy CD – #OH04691 – Mr. Clyde Day Transcribed by: K. Matras Houston, TX May 22, 2020