National Museum of the Pacific War
Nimitz Education and Research Center
Fredericksburg, Texas
Interview with
Mr. C. T. “Ted” Cummings Date of Interview: July 10, 2007 National Museum of the Pacific War
Fredericksburg, Texas
Interview with Mr. C. T. “Ted” Cummings
Interview in progress.
Ed Metzler: …I’m…I’ll take you where we’re going to go; don’t worry about it.
This is Ed Metzler and today is the 10th of July, 2007. I’m located in
Fredericksburg, Texas at the Nimitz Museum and I am interviewing Mr. C. T.
[Ted] Cummings. This interview is in support of the Center for Pacific War
Studies, archives for the National Museum of the Pacific War, Texas
Historical Commission for the preservation of historical information related to
this site. C.T., let me start out by thanking you for spending the time today to
share your experiences with us and let’s get you started by having you just
introduce yourself; tell us when and where you were born.
Mr. Cummings: Well, my…he called my name. I’m C.T. Cummings; that means Clyde
Theophilus Cummings. So when I came back out of the Navy on leave one
time I met my wife there in Pampa, Texas. She was a legal secretary for
a…for a building company. I didn’t want to tell her what my name was
‘cause in the Navy they called me Tex or C.T. So she said, “You’re a Ted.”
So I’ve been Ted for a lot of years. And that…and that’s…finally got used to
that but when I joined the Navy my brother was a recruiter in San Diego
before Pearl Harbor. Well I had signed up prior to that for regular navy, six
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years, for Seaman. Well all they had…in the CC Camp before that and I had a
structural machinist training for Cabot Shops; Cabot…Cabot is a well known
company…you name it. So he said, “Listen,”…said, “you’ve got a…you’ve
got some good qualification to go in the Navy as a Petty Officer. So I went
back to the Chief there in Enola (sp?), Texas from Pampa, Texas and they
said, “Yeah,” said, “you qualify.” So I had to get six recommendations,
and…and so I came in…in the Navy as a Second Class Metal Smith.
Ed Metzler: Well let’s go back to when you were born; what’s your birth date?
Mr. Cummings: Oh, oh, I was born November 7th, 1920.
Ed Metzler: Now where were you born?
Mr. Cummings: And I was born in Mineral Wells, Texas, but I was raised up in a place called
Hall County right next to Turkey, Texas…Bob Wills country. And I
saw…now I…
Ed Metzler: Did you…did you go to school there?
Mr. Cummings: I went to school there at Lakeview, Texas to the seventh grade; then I went to
Pampa, Texas…is an oilfield town. Our…our cotton back during the
Depression days couldn’t make a living so we sold our cotton farm and went
to Pampa, Texas there at Pampa, Texas and then went through high school.
When I got occupational training I got to go to work for Cabot Shops there
training to be a structural machinist. So my brother joined the Navy and when
he come…come back from the Navy then…well…
Ed Metzler: He joined before the war?
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Mr. Cummings: Yeah, he joined before the war, and…and that was in October, ’41. So in the
meantime…meantime I went to the recruiter there in Amarillo and…and
joined October of ’41 myself. But on the job…construction work…I had
(unintelligible) run through my left foot and it crippled me up. So I had to
wait till I could pass my physicals so I didn’t get my…I wasn’t sworn in until
22nd of November. So I was in…middle of boat camp in San Diego when
Pearl Harbor was hit.
Ed Metzler: Now you went into the Navy?
Mr. Cummings: Uh-hum.
Ed Metzler: Okay, why the Navy?
Mr. Cummings: Well I…my brother come back and…talking to me and that recruiter I talked
to found out my dad had a blacksmith shop. And in the CCCs well I had
mechanical training and…and construction and that type thing…and through
Cabot Shops there I had to have five thousand hours of ma…machine study
and work; blueprint layout; structural steel and mechanical drawing. So the
Chief that signed me up (unintelligible) said, “We need…need you in the
Navy…in the reserves…four years or the duration of the war and that’s how I
got stuck in…in San Diego then as a Second Class Petty Officer. Along with
our special group; there’s thirty-five of us…a Reserve Chief right on down to
a Petty Officer Third Class.
Ed Metzler: Now this was all still before the war?
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, this was all before Pearl Harbor. So we made a big mistake one time
there…the…the old Chief said, “Well,” said, “you guys don’t need much
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military grilling and…because all you guys know how to shot
rifles…stuff…say if you do, raise your hand.” Well we all raised our hand
and…and…we…next thing I knew then Pearl Harbor was hit and they didn’t
have any police action in San Diego. Then it was raining…as I say, cats and
dogs, you know, (unintelligible) so they put a…give us a rifle and a bandolier
of ammunition and trench gear and what not and I slept in that stuff for two
weeks standing by for a police action in San Diego…which we didn’t have to
do that. And…
Ed Metzler: A police action; what do you mean?
Mr. Cummings: Well they didn’t have…they…everybody was sent overseas…the Marines and
everybody and the police were all involved some way. And so we were
standing by to help the police in San Diego because they had a lot…of
collaborators; they had…they had collaborators galore!
Ed Metzler: Ah!
Mr. Cummings: And nobody was aware of that. So we found out later then…from the
(unintelligible) well they found these farmers there had…had machine…had
mowed their grass and crop down; had the ammunition pointing to the
ammunition dumps; fuel dumps and everything else, and it was a mad house
out there which the public never was aware of that.
Ed Metzler: Really?!
Mr. Cummings: That’s right. Then they put me in a destroyer base down there then. So we
had…one hundred…old Navy destroyers there we called rusty buckets and
then we had a skeleton crew to put ashore and some of them couldn’t even get
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out of the harbor…they were…they were sitting ducks. And they had…had
the enemy…known that, we would have had a lot of…more trouble than we
did! The next thing I knew then…they was going to send us to…to New York
and the Chief there at the San Diego destroyer base wanted to keep me there
because I was fitting in real well and helping get those old tin cans ready
for…going to sea.
Ed Metzler: So you…so you were working on re…fixing those up to go back to war, then?
Mr. Cummings: That’s right. Well they…
Ed Metzler: What kind of condition were they in?
Mr. Cummings: They were…they were in moth balls; just your rusty buckets…and they was
really on bad shape, and they…
Ed Metzler: Did you work on the engines or what?
Mr. Cummings: No, just…surface preparations. And they had…I had a reserve crew come
aboard; now they were engine room men, and boatswain’s mates…what
not…to…to maintain lines and…and that type thing. But our duty there was
to help get the surface and maintain…what…to clean…to clean them up
because they was in…some kind of spray or…or…we call them moth balls
type thing (unintelligible). Really I can’t…I don’t…I don’t know how to
explain it, but that…we call them tin buckets and rust…rusty buckets really.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Cummings: They been sitting there for years.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, they were left over from World War I, I guess.
Mr. Cummings: I guess so, yeah.
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Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Cummings: And so they sent me to New York City and my first ship there was the [USS]
Lafayette, the Normandie; she was a French liner to the Queen Elizabeth and
the…and the Queen…Queen Mary…and the Normandie were the three top
line surface ships, and the Lafayette was a French liner when they caught the
Normandie. Well they caught fire and burned there in the harbor when I was
aboard that thing.
Ed Metzler: Now did they rename the Normandie the Lafayette?
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, they…they was laying…they named it from the Lafayette to the…to the
Normandie [s/b renamed the SS Normandie the USS Lafayette].
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, and we were getting ready to carry twenty-five thousand troops to…to
Sicily, Italy, and we were…(unintelligible)…it…it was fast.
Ed Metzler: Now what…now what time are we talking about now? Is this
(unintelligible)?
Mr. Cummings: Well it was a liner and…and they… it was gutted out and to make room for
carrying troops.
Ed Metzler: So this is ’42 something…1942.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, that…that was early…January of ’42.
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah and they…they…we caught the train…three hundred of us to New York
and we got there just after New Years.
Ed Metzler: That’s a long ride!
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Mr. Cummings: Yeah, long ride! And…and I had…I had…before I got…before I go further
on the Normandie there…my name’s Ben Cummings…I was on the list for
standing watch duty. Well I had summer uniforms from San Diego and snow
there in New York that was a foot deep! And I had to pull short patrol duty in
front of that building there and that policeman was all wrapped up there and
said, “Man, don’t you have some winter clothes?!” I said, “No, I just came
from San Diego.” And I got a bad cold over the deal. Then they put me
aboard the…the Normandie to get it ship shape for going through Sicily, Italy
and it caught fire. Well I hate to say this but the Navy brass would not admit
it was a sabotage!
Ed Metzler: You think it was?
Mr. Cummings: I know…I’d bet my life it was sabotage!
Ed Metzler: Tell me about that.
Mr. Cummings: Because they had French hose on that thing there, and when you turn the
water on it would…it would sieve…it would leak water. We had…we had all
the water hose disconnected; put Navy hose on that and all the employees
were that thing there couldn’t speak English. You had to have a pass to be
aboard for workers; I don’t know why and they had paint and sawdust, wood,
everything scattered all through the promenade deck. And then that…all of a
sudden that thing caught fire.
Ed Metzler: Do you know how?
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Mr. Cummings: I…I know it…I don’t know how, but it was set, I’m sure. But the big brass
claimed they had an explosion in engine room and it blew the bottom out, but
that’s a durned lie and I’ll) stand on the Bible and swear to it!
Ed Metzler: Well who do you think did it? Who do you think…?
Mr. Cummings: That these workers aboard that ship; they had to.
Ed Metzler: Why would they do that?
Mr. Cummings: Well, they…I have no idea; but all I know…it…we…we were scheduled to
take twenty…the ship was a gutted out and rigged up to carry twenty-five
thousand troops to Sicily, Italy and we was supposed to make a run the next
day.
Ed Metzler: I was supposed to leave the next day?!
Mr. Cummings: Right, it was supposed to leave because we were going to travel by ourselves
because it had…it was…it was faster than the other…it…for speed…that was
submarine safety. So I got smoke pardon out of the deal and went…I went…
Ed Metzler: Where were you when you heard or knew that it…she was on fire? Were you
on board?
Mr. Cummings: I was aboard.
Ed Metzler: Tell me about it…(unintelligible).
Mr. Cummings: Well I…I was aboard three days and three nights…aboard the…aboard the
Normandie, and we were getting our shop gear and stuff. Being a metal
smith…there, we had a regular big shop there for doing the heavy…heavy
work; sheet metal work and that type thing. Then…and I came off that…I
was the last one off the gangway as…it was…that…Navy had…water…water
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hoses and what not flooding the ship and it rolled to the port side into the
harbor into the Hudson River there. And as I came off the gangway…a
snap…just as I came off and I was the last one off that…off the ship!
Ed Metzler: You were the last one off?!
Mr. Cummings: Last one off the gangway. Had I been…
Ed Metzler: …as she rolled?!
Mr. Cummings: Had I been another ten second slower, I would have went with it.
Ed Metzler: My goodness!
Mr. Cummings: So I…I lucked out there!
Ed Metzler: You are a lucky man!
Mr. Cummings: No kidding, I…I feel like that. So then went to sick bay then they doped me
up there; then said, “Well we’re going to put you aboard the USS
Jamestown;” said, “that’s an aircraft carrier.” Well they carried me over to
the Navy yard there; we couldn’t find an aircraft carrier. I says, “Hey,
where’s the Jamestown?” Said, “its sitting right there.” I says, “Oh, no!”
Well it turned out to be…it was one of the largest yachts in the
world…float…it was…it was longer than a destroyer! And Navy took it over
for a dollar!
Ed Metzler: Now it was…it was in private use?
Mr. Cummings: Private…private yacht, yes.
Ed Metzler: Somebody owned it?
Mr. Cummings: Uh-huh, Cad Waliter (sp?), I believe, and (unintelligible).
Ed Metzler: Who?
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Mr. Cummings: Cad Waliter…(unintelligible)…Johnson line café.
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Cummings: I believe…I believe Cad Waliter; I may be wrong, but anyway it was owned
by rich…a rich family.
Ed Metzler: Right.
Mr. Cummings: And they would gut it out to make our crew…a mess hall, and it had…it had
gold-plated door knobs.
Ed Metzler: Now was it donated do you think or did the government just take it over?
Mr. Cummings: Well now I don’t know what it…was donated or what or not, but anyway the
Navy took a lot of ships over during that time and it was a heavy yacht.
Ed Metzler: What did she look like?
Mr. Cummings: Well, it was…actually I think that might have saved us all that time from
being attacked by the enemy because we looked like we might have been
ocean geo…ocean geographic type ship…the way it was designed there.
Ed Metzler: Right!
Mr. Cummings: And it…and it was just a big fancy…
Ed Metzler: Now what were her call letters? You…AG…?
Mr. Cummings: AGP-3.
Ed Metzler: AGP-3.
Mr. Cummings: USS Jamestown, AGP-3.
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, and so anyway I went aboard that thing there; I said, “Man, what am I
getting into here?!”
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Ed Metzler: Gold door knobs!
Mr. Cummings: And…and that thing was built in Savaronia (sp?)…Savaronia, Germany or
Savarone…anyway it was built in 1928 and I…and top…
Ed Metzler: (Unintelligible).
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, well I think so; I may be wrong there…
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Cummings: …because the old…the old crew aboard that was old Navy salts and World
War II caught them. But only one of the first crew…aboard since…when
World War II was declared. And so anyway, they…had sonar sound gear for
submarines. Our…our Captain was Captain Beasley; he was anti-…he was
anti-submarine warfare man. And man that old boy…Captain, I’d follow him
through hell; he was…he was a mustang! He came from a white
hat…sailor…up and made…and made Lieutenant JG, I believe, and he was a
submarine warfare man and he used to take submarine warfare at the Naval
War College in…in Greenville, Rhode Island. Well he was our skipper and
then what then…well we had to have some training. Well the group, the PT
boat’s crew that rescued MacArthur in the Philippines came stateside and they
trained us in Newport, Rhode Island. I called it playing Indian and Cowboy.
Ed Metzler: So this is Newport?
Mr. Cummings: Newport, Rhode Island, yes.
Ed Metzler: Rhode Island?
Mr. Cummings: We left the Navy yard in New York and went up to Newport, Rhode Island
there and we had to make runs out there and the PT boat would fire dummy
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torpedoes at us…for practice, and I called it playing Indian and Cowboy.
(laughter)
Ed Metzler: Yeah, well who’s the Indian and who’s the Cowboy?!
Mr. Cummings: Well we were the Indians and that PT boat were the Cowboys, I guess.
They’d make a run, throw their torpedoes at us and we’d have to retrieve
them; take them back aboard ship and we’d charge them. And then we had
about…oh, from about…February of ’42 until about June I believe, we came
back down to New York then and they put sonar sound gear…and that type
aboard ship.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Cummings: Okay, then we heading for…
Ed Metzler: Yeah, well let me go back here…before we leap ahead. When you were on
the Jamestown, what was your duty station?
Mr. Cummings: I…I was a C&R…construct and repair. I was a met…we had painters; ship
fitters; let’s see…carpenter’s mates and that’s a C&R…see, met…no ship
fitters; carpenters; painters was…was our main group. We had twelve in
a…in a group…and that counts.
Ed Metzler: So when you’re out at sea during the war, your job is to keep or repair
(unintelligible).
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, my job was…I went to the Navy Firefighting School…damage control
and we had…my main job was to keep the ship afloat during action or…or
whatever. So anyway…
Ed Metzler: Now what kind of armament does the Jamestown have?
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Mr. Cummings: Well that’s something else. She was a steel hull; a wood interior…didn’t have
a bit of water-tight integrity. But in the Navy yard there they put a steel
plate…part of the engine room and part aft…and that was the only water-tight
integrity we had. Then they had the starboard side cut out…
Ed Metzler: So when you say water integrity, you mean…(unintelligible)?
Mr. Cummings: I mean water…yeah in case…blocked off…
Ed Metzler: Blocked off and sealed?
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, in case…blocked off…
Ed Metzler: Seal all sections?
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, that’s all. Then…then before that though I think I might have saved the
ship being blown up. I was taking on fuel and the fumes…fumes…from that
fuel house… spark would set it off. Well as I grabbed the intake of the…of
the fuel in…intake and the fuel hose…I…I got…I was shocked. Well I held it
that way because had I…had I removed my hand, it would cause explosion, so
I had to run a ground wire from me to the intake to the fuel discharge for I
could get lose from it.
Ed Metzler: So you were the ground…for awhile?!
Mr. Cummings: I was the ground there until they got that damned…pardon…
Ed Metzler: That’s alright.
Mr. Cummings: …till they got that damned thing rigged up.
Ed Metzler: Well it’s good you didn’t let go! Again, you wouldn’t be here!
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, that’s right. The fumes from that thing would have sparked
(unintelligible).
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Ed Metzler: Was it gasoline or diesel?
Mr. Cummings: Diesel fuel.
Ed Metzler: So tell me about the engine on this.
Mr. Cummings: Well now the engine…you got me there. The were old engines; I believe the
pistons was…it was huge…twenty-four inch diameter and they had an I-beam
that run across the top of the engine room there. But one piston went haywire
and you could…you could isolate the others and take a round…inspection
plate off of it and a chain for it and hoist and move it out then; the engine crew
did that.
Ed Metzler: Well what kind of guns do we have on this ship?
Mr. Cummings: Our top gun was a…was a three inch forward and a three inch aft. Then later
on then we end up with some twenty millimeters and some forty millimeters
(unintelligible).
Ed Metzler: Anti-aircraft.
Mr. Cummings: Well actually we was waiting for submarine warfare and we was…we had two
or three jumped ship. They may be looking for our ship because we had
ammunition, torpedoes, depth charges all throughout the ship there and
one…one bad shot and that would have been it. Well some of these old boys
found out we were…we were expendable…they said; PTs boats as
expendable. So we had two or three jumped ship, but…and they put on board
other ship that tried to run…catch us. What…what it was though, we were
assigned…we had to go to sea and our captain opened sealed orders…said,
“We’re going to South Pacific, Tulagi and Guadalcanal.” Well on the way…
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Ed Metzler: Guadalcanal and where?
Mr. Cummings: Tulagi was…
Ed Metzler: Tulagi, okay.
Mr. Cummings: It…it was a main base for the Japanese there and then that was a base for us to
build a torpedo boat base there.
Ed Metzler: Yeah. Before we go into action here, tell me again what it is you do for the
PT boats. Do you (unintelligible)…?
Mr. Cummings: Well the PT boats…I was in charge of the fueling. They had…a hundred
octane gasoline.
Ed Metzler: Okay, so you fueled them and did you rearm them?
Mr. Cummings: No, we had to do repair work like they…shot up, and hit…hit a log at
night…knock a hole in the bow and that type of thing. We had to take
our…our heavy canvas…white lead and…and tin or one inch gauge copper
and…and screws to…to mold over that and shape it to keep…keep the boat
from…lot of…lot of that happened because at night there they…they got a lot
of damage once in awhile…but the main thing about that fuel
though…we…we only had a thirty thousand gallon tank.
Ed Metzler: Only?!
Mr. Cummings: And…only.
Ed Metzler: That seems like a lot to me!
Mr. Cummings: And…and those PT boats…at…at five hour battle speed would burn three
thousand gallons. When you take a squad of PT boats…eight or ten out there
in…in…they had a lot of action, well we didn’t…we didn’t have any fuel base
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set up. Our…our ship was a tender for the PT boats and so we had to cut
them down to one thousand gallons of fuel and they’d get enough to make
a…they were assigned certain…certain duty to…to go into a bay and lay there
for enemy ship to come by. And to my…to my hearsay now, eighteen months
we were undercover out there…out…just out of Guadalcanal and Tulagi and
they fired a hundred and eighty torpedoes during that hundred…that
eighteen…that year and a half we was there. And what the deal was…they
couldn’t figure out what was wrong; well they run one of those Jap ships up
on the beach and it was a…a flat-bottom job.
Ed Metzler: Now this is in Guadalcanal now?
Mr. Cummings: Yeah. And they only do a…four foot of water, so our torpedoes would
normally was set about eight feet, see? So they was shooting under them.
And they…come to find out, that…those…they were called Eagle Boats
during World War I…they claimed by Henry Ford and…and Kaiser I
believe…built those flat-bottomed boats…
Ed Metzler: They called them Eagle Boats?
Mr. Cummings: …and they called them Eagle Boats.
Ed Metzler: I’ll be darned!
Mr. Cummings: Why, I don’t know! So…so they begun too shallow then…the torpedo then
when they got twenty-two sinkings in…later…a little later on. But had they
known that early on, man they…they could really done some real good
damage!
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Ed Metzler: Well now they had some technical problems with the Amer…with the U.S.
torpedoes early in the war as well.
Mr. Cummings: Well yeah, and…and another thing, too, that hundred octane gasoline created
a moisture…those Packard (sp?) engines were, I forgot what the horsepower
was, but they was…
Ed Metzler: They were huge!
Mr. Cummings: …huge horsepower. And least bit of moisture there…those engines would
fail. Now when they failed, well they were sitting ducks until the mechanics
got them going, but that was mostly night time.
Ed Metzler: Now how did the moisture get in?
Mr. Cummings: I don’t know but hundred octane gasoline was bad to create conversation
or…or moisture some way; it was hot…(unintelligible) right there too. It was
(unintelligible) degrees right there…hundred ten, hundred twenty
was…(unintelligible).
Ed Metzler: Well now describe to me the trip over to Guadalcanal from New York City
now.
Mr. Cummings: Well we got…we ended up in…in Key West, Florida and on the w ay out a
sub…you know a sub…that’s shallow water there…that sub was laying on
numbers…bottom there and they sunk a ship right in the channel there and we
had to wait a half a day till they got that all cleared out in there.
Ed Metzler: That’s a German U-boat?
Mr. Cummings: German U-boat. So on the way to…carry more (unintelligible) round down
around Cuba…some where there…foreign ship was supposed to get flags;
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they’re supposed to pass on your starboard side or left and this ship
wouldn’t…wouldn’t honor that. It was foreign and then what…they kept to
our…to the port…the starboard side. And Captain Beasley was up on the
bridge there and so he let it go by and as we got further on down, he radioed
in that this ship didn’t…didn’t honor and turned out to be it was a
government…government submarine tender and they were fueling the sub on
the opposite side that we couldn’t see it. And the Captain, he was…he was
(unintelligible)…he knew that this had…all we had was a police gun on the
bow and the stern and we were no match for…for the five inch guns on a…on
a…it was rigged up like a freighter…a freighter, but it was a submarine
tender. ‘Cause during that time there was supposed to have been a hundred
and some off ships sunk from Newfoundland all the way down to Key West.
And that...tender was getting by with some kind of neutral foreign flag. Well
that was reported and sure enough they…they captured that thing in the Gulf
of Mexico and…and sunk a sub during the same time, and we…and we got
credit for reporting that.
Then we…then we went on down to Panama Canal Zone then and…and laid
through there for some more high…high-powered submarine warfare…anti-
submarine gear to…to be put aboard. Well we had a…we had a squadron of
PT boats; had to try to pull them through the South Pacific and that was hard
to do ‘cause…
Ed Metzler: How many?
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Mr. Cummings: I think we had four at the…at the…I think four to a squad…I forget what they
go by…they go by Squad One, Squad Two, Squad Three, but I don’t know
what squad it was. And we’d tried to tow them and…in rough sea…well
those lines would break and snap and we’d have to re-rig. Then they tried to
run the engines there, but we couldn’t afford that because our
fuel…wouldn’t…wouldn’t last. So…about out there? (tape recording is being
checked)
Ed Metzler: Keep going.
Mr. Cummings: Anyway, we…so we finally got out and we…when we…when we right out
there…(unintelligible) we got in on the tail end of the Coral Sea Battle.
Ed Metzler: Oh really?!
Mr. Cummings: We had…we had two cargo ships, the Altiva (sp?), and…and the Bellatrix.
Ed Metzler: Spell…yeah, give me those names again.
Mr. Cummings: The Bellatrix and the…and the Altiva.
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Cummings: They were two…they were two…names of the…of the cargo ships.
Ed Metzler: Okay, U.S. cargo ships?
Mr. Cummings: Well they wasn’t Navy; they were just…
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Cummings: Is…all I know is they were cargo ships.
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Cummings: Then they had a Navy sea tug; it was sunk. And our…and our ship…twelve
knots and our engine would burn down; we…we couldn’t travel in a convoys
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because we…our ship couldn’t maintain twelve knots, so we was on our own
most the time at eight knots. Eight knots we could steam all day and all night.
So we had to turn back into (unintelligible) New Caledonia…for the engine
room crew to…get the engine room in shape. And…and the Japanese had a
saying there that said, “You go…you might get in, but you won’t get out.” So
we made…I…I think we made three attempts before we got in to…to Tulagi,
and originally that was a Japanese…or should say enemy, I guess,
headquarters.
Ed Metzler: (Unintelligible).
Mr. Cummings: And we were just outside the limits of Guadalcanal. Now when we arrived
there, well we had to…had to maintain a…we had to load and unload depth
charges and…and torpedoes I believe it was, yeah. And we had a dock there
where we’d roll these depth charges…these depth charges was called Ash
Can, you know? They weigh about three hundred and fifty pounds apiece.
Well we was rolling them kind of down grade onto a dock and some joker let
one get lose and fell…fell into the drink…in…the ocean there! Well we
didn’t know whether it was…depth charges is rigged up; whether its spring
loaded with water pressure sets it in and…and makes it…makes it explode.
Well we didn’t know whether that thing was timed for…for…what depth it
was, so we all had to run. Our island wasn’t about a quarter of a mile around
and it wasn’t nothing but ammu…ammunition depot.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Page 20 of 76
Mr. Cummings: Everybody said, “Hit…hit the dirt; fire in the hole!” We all laid there for a
few minutes and nothing happened, so they fished…fished it out and
happened to be it…the fuse had never been set in that thing, see?
Ed Metzler: Well, that’s good!
Mr. Cummings: And had…had it been, well had it been for shallow water…it would…it
would have blew up that whole durned island!
Ed Metzler: Well you’d of been gone again!
Mr. Cummings: Been gone, right!
Ed Metzler: My goodness!
Mr. Cummings: So…
Ed Metzler: Well now you said you came in on the tail end of the Battle of the Coral Sea.
Mr. Cummings: Well we…we…at the end of the battle…at the end of the Coral Sea there the
Japanese were at Bougainville and they…and they were still having air strikes
and…and bombing going on. Well, we had a gun crew there; they were pretty
good on that…on that three inch gun astern. We seen this plane coming in
there…
Ed Metzler: Now this is while you were in…docked in Tulagi or you’re still out?
Mr. Cummings: This is where…this is where we were on the way to Tulagi…
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Cummings: …after…after the Coral Sea…at the tail end of the Coral Sea.
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Cummings: And this plane was coming in…coming in on the stern and the bridge
(unintelligible) down there said, “That…that’s an enemy plane,” said…said,
Page 21 of 76
“you…you three inch gun crew start firing!” Well the plane was so close that
the fuse was set…was set for long distance and shortly that plane was
right…right in the middle of a big burst. Well they came over…come over
our bow and they dropped one bomb and it missed us by about fifty feet, and I
sat there like a dumb fool; I said, “Dad gum, this is real stuff!”
I…(laughter)…I couldn’t realize it was that real!
Ed Metzler: The real thing!
Mr. Cummings: But anyway we finally…I think we were turned back, by the way, to
Caledonia on that deal and we…we lost an engine is what it was. We finally
got back into New Caledonia…okay.
Ed Metzler: You lost the engines?
Mr. Cummings: Well the engine…the engine room got too hot and they…we lost…it burned
and…well I saw it burning down. Anyway the engine room went haywire
somewhere there.
Ed Metzler: Oh you didn’t…?
Mr. Cummings: So on the way back through…to Tulagi then about four o’clock one morning
there…I was a helmsman then…you know, I had…had the wheel…we had a
wing walk there and all of sudden all hell broke loose. And it was…quiet…
eeriest…eeriest…(unintelligible)…and what it was…some big bird had flew
aboard ship and hit this wing walk in the back and knocked him down; he
thought we’d been attacked, and I imagine he had to go down below below
deck and change his uniform…I don’t know! (laughter)
Ed Metzler: You heard that anyhow, huh?!
Page 22 of 76
Mr. Cummings: Yeah. (laughter) But…
Ed Metzler: Some…some big sea bird or something.
Mr. Cummings: Some kind of sea bird hit that rascal in the back; he had binoculars, you know,
observing and it was quiet and eerie because we was…we were…we were
(unintelligible). Then we finally got into Tulagi then…was…well we
had…we had to move the ship up…upstream there and anchor it…stern in
forward. And we had to go in there for…for the tide to go down. Then we
had; then we anchored the ship in…keel…two foot from mangrove roots to
the starboard side then we had a port forward anchor and a port aft anchor and
when…that’s when we went aboard the ship and we was…we there eighteen
months undercover. Well the Marines…we was on…we was on the 1st
Marine Division, by the way…
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Cummings: …and the Marines had anti-aircraft set up there and we…we called them
Washer Machine Charlies.
Ed Metzler: So…so you were attached to the 3rd Marines then in support…?
Mr. Cummings: 1st Marines.
Ed Metzler: 1st?
Mr. Cummings: 1st Marines. We was under…
Ed Metzler: Sorry, I misunderstood you.
Mr. Cummings: That’s our…(unintelligible) citation, it was a blue star because we was the
unit with the 1st Marine Division.
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Page 23 of 76
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, so anyway if it wasn’t for them, well…but I think what the…the enemy
couldn’t find out where these PT boats was coming from. They called them
the Dragons of the Deep and Sea Monsters ‘cause under full speed they’d
throw a twenty foot wake a hundred yards…a hundred…a hundred feet out.
And anyway we laid there for…we were there for eighteen months. Finally
they got…
Ed Metzler: Now did you lay there for eighteen months and then the PT boats operated out
of there as well?
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, they was…we was the mother ship…PT boats till they got a base set up
there on…on Tulagi for fuel and that type thing. Then that relieved us then
and then from our duty and then we…we acted as a cargo ship to transport
different squadrons of PT boats to…from different islands. So they went from
Guadalcanal, Tulagi and Bougainville, New Guinea and the Philippines up
until we…our last trip was June of ’43; we pulled two weeks of leave in…in
New Zealand then came back. Then we act as…car…carrying cargo for the
torpedo boat bases.
Ed Metzler: Okay. So…so that was after you came back from New Zealand that you were
acting as a cargo ship?
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, yeah. We hadn’t any more got back from New Zealand there and the
last air strike…the…the enemy had there…our ship was in there and…
Ed Metzler: Now where were you located?
Mr. Cummings: that was…and that was…that was in between…the action happened
between…it was about a twelve mile strip there between Tulagi and
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Bougainville. One hundred and twenty Japanese planes were shot down…that
afternoon there.
Ed Metzler: Well that was…
Mr. Cummings: Ack, ack, that whole sky was black like a thunderstorm!
Ed Metzler: Yeah, you got a good look at that (unintelligible).
Mr. Cummings: And…and that was…yes, a ringside seat!
Ed Metzler: So…
Mr. Cummings: And that’s where the Japanese lost their…lost their air power and
(unintelligible)…I can’t think of it…the general’s name, the Merchant
Marines there, but anyway…that’s…that’s where the…that’s where the end of
the…that was the major end of the fighting was that June…was about June
of…May or June of ’43. Then, by the way, I got to thinking that President
Kennedy was one of our PT skippers there.
Ed Metzler: Yeah…was he; I was going to ask you that.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, and had I known he was going to be President…we’d of been a lot nicer
to him what we were. (laughter)
Ed Metzler: You…you weren’t nice to him?
Mr. Cummings: Well, out there we were short handed. We supposed to have had a…twelve
guys around the clock, and we had about six active…twenty-four hours on;
twenty-four hours off or four hours on and four hours off. They’d come in
there for fuel and…and whatever and so I…really I don’t personally
remember who he was exactly but I do we…we took care of his PT boat.
And…
Page 25 of 76
Ed Metzler: So how many different PT boats then did you service?
Mr. Cummings: Well, back then we had about, oh I imagine we had about three or four
squadrons. There was about four boats to the squadron to my knowledge and
we had about three or four squadrons there which would be about twelve to
sixteen…PT boats.
Ed Metzler: Oh! So PT-109 was…
Mr. Cummings: There was a lot of them though was…was inoperable because if they had
damage or…that time at night we had to work by flashlights and battle station
because we couldn’t have light at night there because the enemy knew where
we was at. Well one afternoon there the…the Marines failed to shoot down
one plane; it was ob…observation plane…we called them Washer Machine
Charlie.
Ed Metzler: Washing Machine Charlie?
Mr. Cummings: We called them Washer Machine Charlie…it was at night…
Ed Metzler: I heard that.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: They come at night, right?
Mr. Cummings: Night, and then for…for observation, I guess. Well what
happened…this…this plane flew in off our bow. I imagine it was a few
hundred yards off and we had a camouflage net over…over our forward gun;
we couldn’t get…get the net off in time to do some firing…and I’m pretty
sure it got our bearing because later on they…they figured out that…that they
had to have…the Japanese, I think, finally figured out…they had to have a
Page 26 of 76
source of operations on PT boats. And they finally located
that…that…without the netting they couldn’t really tell but they knew we
was…probably a tender to the PT boats.
Ed Metzler: Uh-huh, now you were in kind of a little inlet…weren’t you?
Mr. Cummings: Uh-huh…inlet…just a little…river that run into the bay there at Tulagi and we
were about a half a mile around bend there and we had a mound of trees all
around us, and…
Ed Metzler: What did you do for food during this period?
Mr. Cummings: Well we…we lived on powered eggs; powered milk…everything was
dehydrated, ‘cause our skipper…we had…we…we went in with six months
supply and our skipper said anybody that needs help, help him. So we…we
was without supply in one month’s time. Then we went through dehydrated
and powered…powered…
Ed Metzler: You were giving your supplies to other PT boats, or what?
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, everybody...the Marine…a few Marines and the PTs; well we had
to…we…we were it! And then…
Ed Metzler: Now how did you get supplies? How did…?
Mr. Cummings: Well that was it! We…the…it was scarce really…fact…we didn’t
even…even have water. They had just enough water for the…galley to cook
and we had rationed water…gallon half pails. I had to build…I had to build
some containers to lock up all our…our water system so the crew couldn’t get
it. And sixteen hundred or four o’clock in the afternoon the Boatswain’s mate
would blow…blow his whistle; we’d line up and get our…and get our pail of
Page 27 of 76
water. And we would…we would shampoo; soap up and what not in a pail of
water and then rinse off with salt water. We had to…we had to take salt water
baths there for all that time. So finally the Boatswain’s mate…let’s
see…yeah, no…well he was a Warrant Officer…I forgot what his…what his
rank was, (unintelligible) but he…there’s a waterfall about…well,
across…across a lagoon there and tide and all that there was six thousand
seven feet...was a waterfall. And we had…we had to accumulate enemy pipe;
English pipe and American pipe and…and that was my…my job…if the
couplings wouldn’t…the threads would vary, so we had to weld English
coupling to…to a Japanese coupling or…or American coupling to this and
connect…three inch…we started out with…with…we had…had this
mountain…had a waterfall three hundred yards up a mountainside there. We
had to climb like mountain goats and (unintelligible) fifty pound tin…fifty
pound cans and a whole crew. We only had about a hundred some odd to a
crew; everybody had to carry a cement up there and we built a cofferdam
across this little narrow strip of water; it was about eight, ten foot deep where
the water collected and run down this mountainside like a waterfall. Well we
built a cof…a cofferdam there on one side…then the other side there and we
started out then with an elbow four feet down into the water there and it came
off the top of that mountaintop with three inch pipe…we used water hose; any
kind of hose and we came aboard ship with…with an inch…with an inch and
a half hose…fifty-five gallons a minute.
Ed Metzler: I was going to say, you got that gravity on your side.
Page 28 of 76
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, and so then…we had fresh water baths…man, we…we’s living like
kings then!
Ed Metzler: That’s a heck of a shower!
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, man! That…that…we had salt water soap; hell it wasn’t even cutting
nothing off, you know? So anyway we had fresh water there. First we got
a…we got a dry water spring there and the natives there was trained by the
British missionaries. He’d speak pretty good English and he was over the
natives there and it was around the first of the year there and they had Dingy
Fever and Jungle Rot, you know…a person like that and some of our guys got
down with the fever there and they was giving them these aspirin
or…what…aspirin…you know they…they turn your skin yellow and your
eyes?
Ed Metzler: Oh yeah, I know what you’re talking about.
Mr. Cummings: Ah dad gum it!
Ed Metzler: Yeah. It…was it quinine?
Mr. Cummings: Quinine!
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Cummings: I never would take it. I said, “If I’m going to get the fever, I’ll take it.” Well
the native said…he said…he…he broke…broken English…he said, “This
time you’re a native…him get sick…white man…him die!” (laughter) So
that’s the way it was! Anyway we had rifle barrels all…we would eat in.
That was before the Seabee was organized. And they…they, I guess, so we
had to do work on the base like Seabees now would do. And by me being
Page 29 of 76
a…I was trained as structural machinist for Cabot, you know, you have to use
structural work and machine work…and so I was…not bragging but an expert
welder, so we had…so we made that water line across there and we had…we
cut down trees and used them for a base to lay our…lay our water line across.
Then we had, I guess, in two weeks time there our boots and shoes rotted off
of us ‘cause I had these sand…sand…crabs. They had holes about a foot in
diameter and a foot deep; you’d step on those and…we had to take machetes
and cut a lot of the weeds down and that left little old sharp barbs. When the
tide come in…see, you couldn’t tell where…where they…and that would
puncture the leg and cause sores and this and that.
Ed Metzler: These are sand crabs?
Mr. Cummings: Well some kind of sand crab. Anyway they had a hole…you…big enough
when you stepped into it, you’d go up to your knee…or almost to your waist
and you couldn’t tell where you’re stepping. And, too, while we had to cut a
lot of these limbs and stuff with machetes, they left sharp points on there.
And so that…we also we had rifle guys standing by in case alligators
was…was around.
Ed Metzler: Oh, did you ever see an alligator?
Mr. Cummings: Not really; you could…you could hear them bellow once in awhile.
Ed Metzler: Is that right?!
Mr. Cummings: But we didn’t…we didn’t have any…have any trouble. The only thing that
was kind of funny…these big long…what are these big long lizards, six and
eight foot long?
Page 30 of 76
Ed Metzler: Oh those timon colon (sp?)…?
Mr. Cummings: Whatever it was.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Cummings: Well they…they had the crew…
Ed Metzler: …lizards or something like that.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, the crew had to carry this pipe on their shoulders on…on kind of
around…around this bay. And there was…a lizard would run across the trail
and they would drop the pipe and…and run ‘cause they…there wasn’t any
danger there, but they…but they were scared of that big long…I don’t know
the name, but they’re big…they’re about six, eight foot long.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, now did you ever see one?
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, there’s…there’s plenty of them out there, yeah.
Ed Metzler: And were they poisonous or what?
Mr. Cummings: Well, we never did find out! (laughter)
Ed Metzler: You never got close enough! (laughter)
Mr. Cummings: We never did find out!
Ed Metzler: Now how often did…did the Jamestown go out into the ocean?
Mr. Cummings: We didn’t.
Ed Metzler: You stayed there…(unintelligible)
Mr. Cummings: They were…we were anchored permanently there.
Ed Metzler: My gosh and the PT boats came to you (unintelligible)?
Mr. Cummings: They came to us, uh-huh.
Ed Metzler: So you were literally a port!
Page 31 of 76
Mr. Cummings: Uh, the only thing that would have helped us…they…they couldn’t get fuel
ships in there for fuel, so they…and the Marines had decided the Marines
would…had to walk…had the canvas tanks…they’d hand…they’d hand…bail
water and put in this canvas tanks aboard a barge and haul it to us then…then
we’d pump it aboard from the…from the barge to our ship. That’s where we
had water for the galley to cook. And then also the Marines had to eat chow
aboard ship with us, too…some of them. Then the PT guys would come in
there and…and eat with us before they got the base built on Tulagi. So that
hundred octane gasoline…they’d bring it up…those…in fifty gallon barrels.
Well we had no where to put it, so we cut down palm trees and made a
surface…surface barrier and dumped those fifty gallon barrels off in the water
there and they’d float bung up. Well we had no way to get that fuel pumped
aboard ship, so we had an air drill and we’d hook up an air hose to the engine
room…this air drill there and…well it whipped out and something’s got to be
done. Well a handy billy is a firefighting equipment; it will pump fifty-five
gallons a minute, and…and the keel in the water is…is a cooling system for
the handy billy.
Ed Metzler: Now what’d you call it?
Mr. Cummings: It…it’s a firefighting machine; it’s a handy billy. It’s a little…it’s a little
engine that you…
Ed Metzler: Spell that for me.
Mr. Cummings: H-a-n-d-i-b-i-l-l-e; handibille [s/b handy billy].
Ed Metzler: Alright.
Page 32 of 76
Mr. Cummings: It…but it…it weighs about a hundred pounds, and it’s about like a, oh, it
was…it was…it had a…a…I believe, about twenty foot down it…it had
(unintelligible) there, but mostly it was the…it was the…well local
water…like aboard ship…if you knocked a hole in the side there and it was
running…it would…for fighting fires…and it…had a…had a hole there for
fighting fires. Well I rigged up a…I bi…I bisected the…the water system and
put a water pump on there for the water system would cool the engine off, but
the crew didn’t know that, ‘cause (unintelligible) octane gasoline and one
spark would ignite fifty foot away. So we had an inch and half hose; fifty foot
lengths and I had…I had…I had two rig…I had two…inch…I had two inch
and a half hose; fifty foot lengths coupled together and that would give it a
hundred foot. And we built a barge out of barrels and plywood to float
out…out from the ship there aways, but then…then…but the…but the air drill
would freeze up. It wouldn’t…we couldn’t…it took about five minutes to
empty one barrel. Well handy billy it will handle at fifty-five gallons a
minute, fifty-five…yeah.
Ed Metzler: So…
Mr. Cummings: So I…so I rigged up a handy billy and made a little float for it to rig it up
there.
Ed Metzler: So that was a fueling station?
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, and…and the Captain was up on the bridge there and…inhaling that
fumes there…you got…nine sheets in sail…when…we got happy, boy! We
were (unintelligible) going up...
Page 33 of 76
Ed Metzler: Feeling real good!
Mr. Cummings: At night time, we couldn’t have lights. Well he knew what was going on, but
the crew didn’t know that. (Unintelligible) kept waiting for an explosion all
the time because (laughter) (unintelligible) octane gas, you
know…(unintelligible). Our fire fighting crew had to put out a lot of fires
because that…that octane gas would ignite just…just by snapping your
finger…if it was a spark, see?
Ed Metzler: They must have had some pretty good restrictions on smoking.
Mr. Cummings: They did, that’s right! Smoking…that was always out. But another thing,
too…so we rigged that up there and we had a wire connection on…on a fifty
foot hose and we could empty two barrels every half…every half minute.
That way we’d take hundred octane gas off on…on one side and run it
through a filter and give…pick the gas off on the other side to the PT boats.
But if those PT boats overfilled the tank…and when they start…had a backfire
there, it was…it was a fire.
Ed Metzler: Wow!
Mr. Cummings: So the fire fighting crew had foam they would turn down the side and that
foam would…would run…would float the gas out until it burned out.
Ed Metzler: I see.
Mr. Cummings: So anyway that was…main…main thing there was…was furnishing gasoline
for the PT boats. But we had to cut them down to one thousand gallons I
believe I said later on, because five thousand…five hours at battle speed it
would burn three thousand gallons of fuel, so…
Page 34 of 76
Ed Metzler: They were real gas hogs, weren’t they?
Mr. Cummings: Oh man! But we had our hands full. But anyway the crew finally found out
then that the handy rig…handy billy was rigged with a water pump to keep the
engine cool because if it had to pump the gas through that thing…well it…it
wouldn’t work, so but…and the crew said, “We couldn’t sleep at night…you
and that handy billy; I kept waiting for that thing to explode.” (laughter)
Well that…I mentioned awhile ago about this one plane got by…they got our
bearings. About a week after that one night about midnight there I was
sleeping…top…our shop was topside…open air and we had six explosions,
about, oh, fifty foot up. They started…stern…just boom, boom, boom! Full
length of the ship was three hundred, seven feet long. Well what they was
doing…they got our bearing…they was firing over…over the mountain ridge
there. Had that been about fifty feet over, they’d ripped us right in the middle,
and no one was really aware of that.
Ed Metzler: Now this is aircraft?
Mr. Cummings: Well, I’m pretty sure a navy ship at sea…
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Cummings: An enemy ship at sea, I think, from this airplane that got…got our bearings.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Cummings: …and so they was pretty accurate there. And they had…they had us right
down the middle there but they was fifty feet off to the port side, and had it
been over a little bit…I’m just guessing…
Ed Metzler: Okay, keep going.
Page 35 of 76
Mr. Cummings: And I don’t know, I may be wrong, I’m not…not been the (unintelligible) one,
but I think they had air to surface when this ammunition…the…the
shells…when they got down to the surface they would explode. And that’s
what was happening was…just big…big (unintelligible)…boom, boom, boom!
Ed Metzler: So that was a close call.
Mr. Cummings: Close call!
Ed Metzler: ‘Cause with all that gasoline around there (unintelligible)…up the mountain.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, but they guessed…finally found out what we were. I think that a lot of
time we got by…I think we…we were the ocean geographic looking…looking
thing.
(end of tape1, side 1)
Mr. Cummings: …keel was just high enough they shot under us.
Ed Metzler: Now…now you were out in the ocean…(unintelligible)?
Mr. Cummings: We was…we was out at sea underway then going to another island there, and
got in a submarine attack.
Ed Metzler: So you went from one island to the other?
Mr. Cummings: Differently, yeah.
Ed Metzler: This was after your eighteen months of just…staying there?
Mr. Cummings: Yeah. Yeah.
Ed Metzler: Whoa! That was another close call!
Mr. Cummings: Well we was out there…early on and then we was there…we was there in the
Philippines at the end of the…our ship burned down…I mean the engine room
Page 36 of 76
was haywire and we didn’t get to make Okinawa…(unintelligible) in the wind
there. Anyway…
Ed Metzler: Anyhow, I want to stay at Tulagi here for a moment and then we’re going on
to the Philippines and…I…I want to ask you a question about your
relationship on your ship with the PT boat crews, now were these guys cocky
or friendly or what?
Mr. Cummings: Well, no we had a good crew. The only thing about our crew though…when
they went ashore, they’d fight a buzz saw and…and a lot…lot of ports we
went into…they…they would double short patrol because half our guys would
be brought back and throwed in the brig!
Ed Metzler: I see!
Mr. Cummings: They were old salts; they got caught.
Ed Metzler: Right.
Mr. Cummings: And…and (unintelligible).
Ed Metzler: Now where…where did you go…(unintelligible)?
Mr. Cummings: Well from…from Tulagi to New Caledonia, New Guinea then…then Borneo
and Zamboanga, (unintelligible) Philippines up through Tacloban. And
(unintelligible sentence). Well a lot of the islands out there…I forgot where
they were but we made the major islands from Gualal…from Boug…from the
Solomon Islands up through…through New Guinea and we were there in New
Guinea, by the way, when that ammunition ship blew up there, you know.
Ed Metzler: I’ve heard about that.
Page 37 of 76
Mr. Cummings: Well we were…our birth was anchoring just right by that, but we had to go
out to sea for a day and come back; that’s what saved us there! Because I
understand that whole ship and crew was lost but the…but the mail boat.
They had…the mail boat had gone ashore to get mail and that…I think the
Coxswain and a motor…and a valve (sp?) hook man and a motor man and
the…and the mail clerk…they was the only ones that survived that big
ammunitions ship that blew up there, and our birth…where we anchored was
right next to that ammunition ship.
Ed Metzler: So what did it look like when you came back in?
Mr. Cummings: Well it was a…well, we didn’t know what…we didn’t know what was
happening until we got back in; they told us then. And…and me being a
metal smith, I hated…I hated it, ‘cause every port we went into they’d radio,
“You got a metal smith aboard?” I had to report to dry dock to help repair
ships, and, oh…and I…I was over thirty welders at night shift on…they…they
had heavy cruiser from Australia, the…let’s see, dad gum it!...darn I can’t
think of it!...but anyway the kamikazes had dive bombed in…had dive
bombed into this ship and…and stern blown off there, and we had to cut off
the port side…
Ed Metzler: Now where…where was this you were doing this?
Mr. Cummings: This was in New…New Guinea, I believe.
Ed Metzler: In New Guinea, okay.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, New Guinea there…that ship got…crippled in there and by the time we
got through…well I was…I was aboard about a week aboard that thing… and
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I had thirty…thirty welders…well I had made…I was…was Chief…I made
Chief Metal Smith then. And anybody could weld, well we had…I had
(unintelligible) them out…like flat welding; (unintelligible)
welding…(unintelligible) welding…that type of thing…to weld a plate on
there and we had to cut out a hole to trim off the…the fragments of
metal…we had a hole in…both engine rooms was knocked out on the port
side…of the [USS] Canberra.
Ed Metzler: Canberra.
Mr. Cummings: USS Canberra was there…was Australian cruiser. And time we…then we had
a crane that set in a one inch plate. We did…(unintelligible) hot shot…oh,
they had this what do you…I can’t think of the name; it’s a…a big blow torch
type thing. You could heat…you could heat one inch metal in a few
minutes…red hot and it had…had (unintelligible)…chain pulls and what not
and we’d put…and we’d weld horizontal beams…horizontal and ribs and
we’d pull that plate in there and the welding plate and cut the stern off. Well
then the USS Houston…I was in (unintelligible) it’s the Philippines I believe,
“You got a metal smith aboard?” Whole company I was the only one see?
Here I went aboard the USS Houston…supposed to have been sunk. Well
they called the crew aboard that…that damn…they had a certificate called
The Damned Fools certificate because the Captain gave word to abandon ship.
Well the Captain and part of the crew abandoned ship but the rest of them
stayed aboard the USS Houston and they…they began to throw all loose items
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overboard to…to make less weight and they saved the ship. And they came in
there and dry docked and I helped patch it up.
Ed Metzler: Now where…where was this?
Mr. Cummings: That was in…(unintelligible) that was in the lower part of the Philippines or
New Guinea; I’m…I’m lost on that one.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, okay.
Mr. Cummings: But anyway the…the enemy couldn’t figure out what was going on ‘cause
we’d radio ahead to the dry dock in Honolulu that the bow had blown off or
the stern blown off…well they’d get another stern read…uh, bow ready and
stern…when the ship would come there then they’d trim it off and…and
attach it back on and get back out there.
Ed Metzler: Put a new one on!
Mr. Cummings: And (unintelligible)…two weeks ago and it’s back out here again! That went
on! So, but I hated that because the heat out there was a hundred and ten, a
hundred and twenty…and wearing shoulder pads…your shoulder would break
out just solid heat rash and sores and that type of thing.
Ed Metzler: Now the shoulder pads are…?
Mr. Cummings: They…they was welder protection…is a…it’s a shoulder pad that went over
your shoulders…
Ed Metzler: Yeah, from sparks…?
Mr. Cummings: …to keep the spark stuff from…from burning you.
Ed Metzler: My! Now when you dealt with the PT boat crews…what were they like?
Were they friendly?
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Mr. Cummings: Oh yeah, they…they were a nice bunch of fellows. Yeah.
Ed Metzler: I’ve heard a bunch of stories about the captains being, you know, kind of…
Mr. Cummings: Well we called them ninety day wonders.
Ed Metzler: Right.
Mr. Cummings: Their…that…where they had a college education…we’d train them for ninety
days then turn them loose to whatever the Navy…made skippers on PT boats
or whatever, and so they were called…fact is…our time we had six aboard
and we’d train them and the Captain would say, “Listen, our Seamen can tell
you what’s…what’s right and what’s wrong.” Well some of those guys had a
chip on their shoulder; they didn’t like being told, but…but the Captain would
bring them up there and…well I can’t say what I’m fixing to say right
now…but he’d go up one side and down the other and chew them out
(unintelligible), (laughter) And he’d say, “Listen, you’re aboard here to
learn!” And then when they got…when they got through their training then,
why we’d…that was later on doing that…that was about the middle of the war
there…they did that, yeah.
Ed Metzler: So after the eighteen months you were in Tulagi…
Mr. Cummings: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: …then you went…?
Mr. Cummings: Different islands.
Ed Metzler: Okay, so tell me which islands again that you went to.
Mr. Cummings: Well we went…we went to several islands there. At home I’ve got a list of
them, but…
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Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Cummings: …but we…our main islands was from the…the Solomons to New Guinea
then Borneo and then… then the…then the Philippines.
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, that…that’s the main islands.
Ed Metzler: So, yeah, now you…you mentioned that you were serving as a…kind of
almost a cargo ship…(unintelligible).
Mr. Cummings: Well later…later on there then we didn’t have to worry about fuel for PT
boats, but they had…as…as they secured one island…we…we would carry
their gear aboard like a cargo ship. We couldn’t carry very much, but we…we
would help them move from one island to another. And so we kind of…well I
called it a cargo…we…
Ed Metzler: Yeah, I see what you’re (unintelligible)…
Mr. Cummings: …move from base to base…and…and we…we carried…(unintelligible). We
had a lot of funny things that…that happened. We had two hundred and fifty
cases of beer that came aboard one time there.
Ed Metzler: Tell me about that.
Mr. Cummings: We had to take it from one island to another for the officers club, and we had
one guy there, bless his heart, he was on a ship that sunk out there and we got
him aboard ship as a…as a Second Class Carpenter’s Mate; his…his name
was Elwanger (sp?). I said, “Elwanger,” I said, “go up there and put a lock on
that stateroom where that beer is stored there.” Well I knew what was going
on, but I wouldn’t embarrass him. He put…he put the hasp on backwards. At
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midnight they could take those screws out and steal a case a beer and take it
down to the engine room there and man, they’d have a ball, see!
Ed Metzler: Have a real party!
Mr. Cummings: So the…the Supply Officer next day…there…he’d count that; he’d swore that
he had so many cases but there’d be one missing. That this went on about a
month there, so we fin…so when we got to the island there where we was
supposed to…we had about fifteen cases of the beer missing and that poor
officer never could figure out…what…what was happening! (laughter)
Ed Metzler: ‘Cause it was locked!
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, it was locked, so…so what the hell?! He…(laughter)
Ed Metzler: They never did figure it out, huh?
Mr. Cummings: No, no.
Ed Metzler: Well did you get any of that beer?
Mr. Cummings: Oh, I didn’t turn it down! (laughter) I didn’t turn it down.
Ed Metzler: I’ll bet that tasted good after being out there (unintelligible).
Mr. Cummings: Oh, yeah. We had one beer there…it…I never heard of it…I don’t
know…it…it was some wild company put it out; A Tape Would Kill A
Mule…an old Texas saying…the tape would kill a mule. Well when we got
to our safe island where we had…we had a baseball team…we’d play baseball
and they’d…they’d issue us three…three kind of beer. Well, we didn’t like it,
so one guy in the engine room there he…he was you might say he was an
alcoholic; we’d give him our beer and he’d get drunk. We had to carry
him…what he did he’d get an onion out of the engine room…out of..out of the
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galley…well he’d eat that onion…that onion would kill the taste of that beer,
see?
Ed Metzler: It was that bad?!
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, and that way he could…
Ed Metzler: All he wants.
Mr. Cummings: He could skoll that…you know what skolling is?
Ed Metzler: Uh…tell me.
Mr. Cummings: The British over there, they don’t drink the beer; they skoll it…they…they
open their mouth and just pour it down.
Ed Metzler: Oh okay, you don’t swallow.
Mr. Cummings: That’s what it’s called…called skolling.
Ed Metzler: S-k-o-a-l, I guess?
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, whatever.
Ed Metzler: Whatever.
Mr. Cummings: But anyway we carried him back aboard; he sat there and just have a
ball…under a palm tree…whatever, you know. That beer was so awful that
he’d use onion to…he…he…like you’d eat an apple; he’d eat an onion like an
apple to…
Ed Metzler: Break the taste.
Mr. Cummings: …break the taste.
Ed Metzler: Tell me about these baseball games.
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Mr. Cummings: Well that baseball game there…very seldom we had a chance to play, but
when we did we’d put our bathing suits on and get out there and that was a big
mistake too! ‘Cause out there when you got sunburned…
Ed Metzler: It was serious!
Mr. Cummings: …oh my aching back! And actually…the Navy…disorderly…that…that’s a
bad conduct…if you…if you get hurt from something you’re not supposed
to…that…that’s breaking…well…there’s a name for it, but as long as
you…they were…to perform your duties you were okay. And we’d get the
sunburn so bad there, man, we’d peel off you like…a snake shedding its
skin...’cause we’d play in bathing suits there. And some place there it was…it
was a prison for women…they…they had…not leprosy, but…what’s this…?
Ed Metzler: Was it a leprosy colony?
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, a leprosy colony.
Ed Metzler: Where was this?
Mr. Cummings: That was out of…New Caledonia, I believe…an island there, and we…we
would play baseball there, but they dumped the cinders and the ashes from a
furnace there…out on these fields, and when these guys were running you had
to dive into a base…something like that…those cinders there would work you
over…just like you…you going through…sandpaper or something.
And…but…it was…and those leprosies…would come on ship there and we
would…we’d pick supplies stuff, you know, goodies stuff to them but we
wasn’t allowed to get too close, but I believe it was…believe it was in
Hollandia or (unintelligible) New Caledonia one of those places there was…it
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was…it was a lep…it was leprosy colony…it wasn’t, you
know…(unintelligible)…they was on an island out there isolated from…
Ed Metzler: From the rest of the world, right.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: Right.
Mr. Cummings: And that’s where we played baseball when we could there. Very seldom we
ever…
Ed Metzler: Now tell me more about…then your assignment in the Philippines. You
mentioned the Philippines was an area; anything there that you can talk about?
Mr. Cummings: Well, I got in real bad…I came down…I had a buddy…was in the Army in
the Panama Canal Zone for three years before World War II, and when he was
discharged from the Army there he was in Florida and when war…when Pearl
Harbor hit, the Army sent him a letter to come back into the Navy, and he
went through son…Sonar Sound School…Submarine School.
Ed Metzler: Submarine School.
Mr. Cummings: So he was aboard ship there and I came topside there and he and two or three
more was in a PT boat with their gear. I said, “What’s going on here?” He
said, “Well we,”…after the end of the war…we had point system…we had
enough points there and…and word got out we was going to go to Honolulu.
I said, “Well I want to go to Honolulu, too.” Said, “You’ve got fifteen
minutes to…to get your gear together.” Well I had all kind of collectibles I
had to leave aboard ship, so I got my…I mean I built a real fancy sea chest for
my gear, so they got me ready then…then when I was about forty miles…
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Ed Metzler: Now this the end of the war?
Mr. Cummings: At the end of the war…over to Zamboanga…did you ever hear that song
about the… Zamboanga …the monkeys have no tails? In Zamboanga the
monkeys have no tails…and goes on.
Ed Metzler: No, sing that song for me.
Mr. Cummings: Well, that’s all I know! (laughter) Anyway there was an airport there, see,
and we were supposed to have been picked up and flown to Honolulu.
Ed Metzler: Uh-huh.
Mr. Cummings: Then when we got over there it’d been…it’d been bombed out. And
they…and they kicked us off on the dock there and dad gum, the dock was
about to fall in! There’s five of us altogether there! And I said, “Man, what
are we going to do now,” I said. The monkeys out there is running around and
that boat left us there, and there wasn’t…wasn’t nothing around…hot…about
mid…mid-morning. Finally a little old…some kind of a…some little old
cargo ship come by there; it was a Navy run, it was…it was a mail…mail
barge…barge…(unintelligible) on the islands there, and then they’d go back
to (unintelligible). Well they picked us up; said, “We got word to pick you
guys up.” I said, “What happened to that plane…supposed to…?” “Well,
they couldn’t land…it…it was bombed out…had…had big craters; they
couldn’t land.” So that’s why we didn’t get to Honolulu. Well we got to our
base there in…some little island there. The…the Filipinos were…hadn’t been
really (unintelligible) by the Japs, and we put ashore there two or three days
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and nights there. And then one guy had a camera and so there was…there was
three of us…so we played up with him…we were newspaper correspondents.
Ed Metzler: You played like you were newspaper correspondents?
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, so I was Life magazine…
Ed Metzler: You were?
Mr. Cummings: …and another guy was this and that and…and we got…we got in all kind of
bars for saké, and (unintelligible), and this and that drinks…stuff you know…
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Cummings: …and they’d pose; we’d make pictures…all that kind of bit. Well finally we
got there to…Tacloban…the…the south part of the Philippines there. And
come to find out then we had to report there and…and had to be there two
weeks. And they…and they took you alphabetical order; ten percent. Well I
didn’t…it was a mud hole! Mosquitoes and insects and bugs…you name
it…and in tents. I said, “Man, what have I got into here?!” After two weeks
then I caught a cargo ship there and that big typhoon that hit the islands out
there…we got caught in the middle of that dude! That dad gum liberty ship
there…
Ed Metzler: Tell me about that!
Mr. Cummings: Man, we…I was like a cork…in the ocean! We made it okay. So we got
word then that there was…some Navy ships were missing and…and
some…some big aircraft was carrying a…a crew…a crew… I don’t whether
they were Marines or what…was missing…to be on the lookout. Well if I’m
not mistaken, but I think the Navy lost six more crafts…ships in that…in that
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typhoon. And that aircraft there…all we found was a…was a big life
raft…had a broken…oar and a helmet in it and that was it. By the time we got
into San Francisco…
Ed Metzler: Don’t know what aircraft carrier that was?
Mr. Cummings: No, no I have no idea.
Ed Metzler: Hmm!
Mr. Cummings: But anyway that was…that…that was…and we almost had…
Ed Metzler: Now what year was this?
Mr. Cummings: That was in…that was about October of ’40…what was that…the war
ended…what was it October or August of ’40…’40 something?
Ed Metzler: It ended in August, yeah.
Mr. Cummings: …’45?
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Cummings: Well that…well that was…it was about then, yeah.
Ed Metzler: Okay, now you mentioned earlier that…because you had what…mechanical
problems that you didn’t make it to Okinawa or something like that? You
mentioned something in passing earlier about not making it to Okinawa.
Mr. Cummings: Oh we…our…our engine room…we…we couldn’t travel in convoys because
they travelled twelve knots mostly…and eight knots…we…was really by
ourselves. And when we got into Tacloban in the lower part of the
Philippines, they was fixing to make a…a beachhead on Okinawa…there and
our engine room was down; we couldn’t make it, but our squadron of PT
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boats did go in there. But I don’t know what…I don’t know what squadron
they were.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Cummings: So that…that saved us. In the meantime then, well this deal come through
there where you get your parts system through…that…yeah, no I’m wrong
there…that was after…that was after…let’s see Zamboanga…well there’s
about a week period there…dad gum it!...I…I’ve got my dates mixed up
there! Oh, anyway…
Ed Metzler: Well Okinawa was…
Mr. Cummings: Okinawa was…was the last…
Ed Metzler: …was in April, May, June of ’45.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, well we…we missed that.
Ed Metzler: And the war was over right at the end of August.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think later was…we ended up back down southern
part of the Philippines…that’s where I got the…yeah that’s right.
Ed Metzler: Okay.
Mr. Cummings: And went from there down to Zamboanga.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Cummings: And supposed to catch that plane. If it hadn’t been for my buddies on that…to
catch that PT boat…the…catch that plane…they got…they got a message to
do that, and…and I…I was on the wire there till the last few minutes there,
so…
Ed Metzler: Yeah, so you didn’t get back with a lot of your stuff then, huh?
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Mr. Cummings: I lost everything. I got back with the one uniform and…and them blues, that’s
all, yeah…San Francisco. Oh, one funny thing there…the Captain was always
picking on me good!
Ed Metzler: Picking on you?
Mr. Cummings: Well, what I mean…anything special, I was the one that had to…so he told
me to take a boat crew and go on the island there and the natives give him a
dog; he wanted a dog aboard ship for a mascot. (laughter) He said, “Now
listen, you can’t…you can’t wear a weapon and don’t wear rings anything
flash at night because them natives,”…they were (unintelligible) natives over
there, but the British missionary had kindly worked with them…said, “the
native chief over there now,” said, “you get with him and he’s supposed
to,”…they had worked with him to get a dog. Well I got a boat crew and went
over there and we couldn’t anchor anywhere; we had to anchor out where the
boat was clear then we had to wade ashore about waist…about chest deep.
And I’m telling you what…natives came from all over the island there; we
were…we were just ganged!
Ed Metzler: Really?!
Mr. Cummings: So…but we carried cigarettes; gum and candy.
Ed Metzler: Well that’s why they…they ganged you!
Mr. Cummings: Well…and we passed it out there and so…all of a sudden they just parted.
Here come this…here…old chief…all he had was just a string and on…
Ed Metzler: A little G-string?
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Mr. Cummings: …G-string around there, and…and we, you know, I got
(unintelligible)…(laughter)
Ed Metzler: You could say a few words.
Mr. Cummings: Well I could…I said…I said, “We…we come for dog.” And…and so, “I…I
have gum, candy and this…”…and…and gum…he thought…he thought I
meant gun! So…I…I said, “No, no gun! Gum…chew gum!” He said, “No,
no, no, no! I want gun!” So he drew a…a gun in the sand, said, “Gun!” I
said, “No gun!” So I broke out a pack of gum, I said, “Gum.” “Oh, okay,
okay.”
Ed Metzler: That was good enough.
Mr. Cummings: And he give a high signal then and they brought that little ole dog up there and
I told my crew, “Let’s get the hell out of here!” (laughter) So we got that dog
and…went out there and put it in the boat there…
Ed Metzler: Now this was a fine, pure-bred dog or…?
Mr. Cummings: Well the native dog, he couldn’t understand (unintelligible)…he’d get aboard
ship there and he’d talk, we’d talk....a head one way and this way. Well
before that we had a monkey aboard; we called him Tojo. (laughter)
Ed Metzler: I wonder why?! (laughter)
Mr. Cummings: What happened…one of our carp…one of our…
Ed Metzler: Did this monkey have a tail or not?
Mr. Cummings: …it was…it was a spider monkey…big long tail, but it…it was crippled.
What happened…went on the beach there and there was this colored guy had
this monkey there and...I had an old boy and he was…he was our painter…our
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painter aboard ship and he was a scrounger. Anything you wanted; he could
get it, see? So he went ashore there to get some supplies and this colored guy
had this monkey there and…and the monkey…he was afraid of him because
he was afraid he would bite him…why…that monkey bit him, and…and
he…and he grabbed his (unintelligible) by the tail…
Ed Metzler: Just hold on just a second. Okay, we’re starting the tape again after a brief
interruption, sorry, go ahead (unintelligible).
Mr. Cummings: So what happened…this…this colored fellow…I think the Seabees set up
there, I believe, later on…he grabbed this monkey by his tail and slung him
against the side of a brick building and hurt that monkey and made him mad.
So old…old Kimbell (sp?) was a Carpenter’s Mate from Dennison, Texas, I
believe; he said, “What would you take for that monkey?” He said, “I’ll take
a carton of cigarettes.” So Kimbell traded him a carton of cigarettes for the
monkey and he brought him back aboard ship and they had to quarantine him,
you know, for a few days.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, to see if he didn’t have rabies or anything.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, that was…we had that native dog and that monkey there. But…then
the Filipinos and your…and your colored people were stewards for officers;
that’s before they made rates out of them.
Ed Metzler: Now…say that again now.
Mr. Cummings: They…early on…well your…your Filipinos people and your native people
were…were stewards for officers.
Ed Metzler: Stewards, right, right, right.
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Mr. Cummings: They didn’t…now they got rates for all nationalities, see. Well they always
come back there in the shop there…was…was aggravating and…and one of
our guys didn’t…didn’t like that. Well one guy’s from New York, you know,
they were kind of lovey dovey, and he…it got where anything dark
complected (unintelligible) would take after him. Either he didn’t…simple
got hurt, see…colored and…and brown.
Ed Metzler: So any dark colored person…(unintelligible) chase them?
Mr. Cummings: You not a kidding! We had to keep him chained! Well, when we was in safe
waters there, we had…had movies at night. And that dog and monkey
would…would cut up! That monkey would jump on that dog’s back and ride
him like a…like a horse! (laughter) And he’d get…that dog getting mad and
try to bite the monkey and that monkey would turn…turn sideways and flip
that dog…it was really comical really!
Ed Metzler: A real show then?!
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, so one night there we had a big fan in…in the overhead of the shop
there…like you was welding to suck out the smoke…that monkey was up on
a…had a long lead…we didn’t…he…he’d crawl up in there and get down in
some of that fan and keep cool. Well as we walked in the door it had a switch
there; we’d turn that switch on and we had the damnedest commotion you’ve
ever seen! That monkey was sitting on that fan up there,
see…(laughter)…you talk about…you talk the squealing (unintelligible)!
Ed Metzler: Did he live through it?
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Mr. Cummings: Well…barely. We turned it off there and you know they’ve got a big
(unintelligible) on the rump…that fan had chopped off both his rear…his rear
(unintelligible) that he sets on. Well the sick bay was next door so our doctor
patched him up!
Ed Metzler: Patched up the monkey!
Mr. Cummings: Well he…he doctored him up and this and that and he…he survived, but from
then on that monkey walk in that shop…he’d look up there (laughter), you
couldn’t even get him near that fan! Boy (laughter). Well then the…then the
guys got a hawk; they called it Throck Martin.
Ed Metzler: Throck Morton, the hawk?
Mr. Cummings: Throck Morton, and by the way…there’s an officer down here now at San
Antone, Captain Prescott; he one…he’s one of your big boys on this…on
this…
Ed Metzler: On the Board, yeah.
Mr. Cummings: …Board here. Well he was…he was a what…taxidermist, what you call it?
Ed Metzler: Taxidermist, yeah.
Mr. Cummings: Well…for Ann Arbor…for Ann Arbor, Michigan…he sent species there all
the time. So that…the guy that got…the Captain said, “Now if you keep…if
you put a big canvas out and…and a limb,” and the main thing…I don’t know
how long I can keep the decks clean, okay they got caught doing that so the
Captain Prescott then took care of the hawk. And then so…then…what they
do…they have a way of preserving them and mail it to Ann Arbor,
Michigan…as a donation from the Jamestown. Well on some islands
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out…Borneo out there…you…we was safe there; he’d go…he’d go ashore
with the…with the…he had a shotgun there and it had cylinders for different
size shot…like…small bird shot and what not…I’d go with him hunting for
different species…and when I…when he shot into some kind of rare
bird…something like that, well I kept my eye there…where we’d pick them
up. One time there we (unintelligible) bunch of bees…and little birds. He
shot into them there and I think we got two dozen little birds…wasn’t any
bigger than the end of your joint on the end of your finger nails.
Ed Metzler: Tiny little things!
Mr. Cummings: Little…tiny rascals! Well he preserved those and sent to Ann Arbor,
Michigan, so some time back we had our Navy reunion in…in Newport,
Rhode Island and I hadn’t seen him since way back there, and I said,
“Captain,” I said, “whatever happened to those little ole birds that…that
they…was they ever…get a name?” He said, “No,” he says, “You know
what? They don’t know to this date what species those things are,” but they
are at the museum there in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Ed Metzler: My gosh!
Mr. Cummings: And they’re little…tiny…had feathers and everything on them! Looked like
bees!
Ed Metzler: Almost like tiny hummingbirds or something.
Mr. Cummings: Well no, they were small.
Ed Metzler: Really small!
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, just like the end of your little finger.
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Ed Metzler: (Unintelligible).
Mr. Cummings: They…we thought they were bees. But anyway, that’s what he did…every
place he went there, why…he’d…he’d send it...the species to the…and
(unintelligible) I think he tried…he’d been to South America…but anyway
he’s a retired professor from University of Austin; he lives in San Antone here
now.
Ed Metzler: I see. I’m going to go back a little bit to something you said…
Mr. Cummings: I’ve been jumping around (unintelligible)…
Ed Metzler: That’s fine! It’s good to jump. You mentioned that you did have one leave in
New Zealand…somewhere during the war.
Mr. Cummings: Oh yeah, boy, we…
Ed Metzler: Tell me all about how you got there and what it was like when you got there.
Mr. Cummings: Well we went there for two weeks recreation, and we were lucky there.
Ed Metzler: I see.
Mr. Cummings: ‘Cause about a month before that the New England…the New Englanders
were…were sent to Europe I believe and all the men was gone and women
galore there, and the…and the Marines and the Navy just took over the
women there, see? In the meantime then, well they…they released all
the…the army; they come back to New Zealand…it…it made history!
Ed Metzler: (Unintelligible) big fight, didn’t they?!
Mr. Cummings: Oh, aching back! I mean they had a knock down drag out there!
Ed Metzler: Right on the streets!
Mr. Cummings: And we missed that by a week.
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Ed Metzler: You were a week late!
Mr. Cummings: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: Too bad!
Mr. Cummings: Not too bad…but other than that, well we all…we all had a ball there.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, but I guess you had to be a little careful after that big fight?!
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, that’s right!
Ed Metzler: So tell me about what…what kind of (unintelligible) you had.
Mr. Cummings: Well one of our Carpenter’s Mate there was a…was a…real…I forgot his
name there, they…they didn’t know what hamburgers were, so one of our
men told him well it was…it was a bun and meat and vegetables stuff, and
every time somebody went to shore there, they’d always bring back
extra…goodies for somebody to eat. Well we had our short patrol out there
on duty; it was about ten o’clock…ten o’clock one…one afternoon there
so…let’s see…I can’t think of his name…and this ole boy was…cool…it’s
cool at night…he says, “I’m cold; I’d like to go aboard ship and get my pea
coat…put on.” So…I keep wanting to say his name was Zibaldi (sp?), but
anyway he said, “Well, I will leave you long enough for you to get aboard
ship and…,”…and in the meantime a high ranking officer came by…he…he
said, “Who…who are you?” He said, “You’re not the person that’s doing
duty here.” Said, “No, I’m…I’m leaving.” So they put him on the port and
put him in the brig ‘cause he…he wasn’t authorized to do that. But in the
meantime, we had to leave; we left him there, and…and so…
Ed Metzler: Left him in the brig!
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Mr. Cummings: Yeah, we left him…well they locked him up there…they kept him there in
New Zealand…(unintelligible) had a brig there. And so we had to get
underway and we left him there.
Ed Metzler: Now you went there in…in the Jamestown or…?
Mr. Cummings: (Unintelligible), we…we was aboard the Jamestown in there, and our…one of
our (unintelligible) our short patrol was…was from the Jamestown and…and
so anyway we left him there. And to tell you how small the world is I went
aboard the Midway in ’57 after World War II…was qualifying pilots…that’s a
big story, too. And…and I went aboard this James…the…the Midway, yeah
Midway, and old boy walked up there and…
Ed Metzler: Now this is the USS Midway?
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, out of…out of Frisco, yeah, and old boy touched me on the back…he
said, “Cummings, how you doing?!” Looked around…I’ll be damned it was
that old boy; he was a Third Class Carpenter’s Mate then and he’d made
Chief. And I said, “Whatever happened to you?!” “Man,” he said, “they kept
me in that brig there in New Zealand there for awhile and I got on another
ship and…and everything’s okay!” But he was there…and his home was in
San Francisco, by the way. Talk about the Midway…you know they
had…they…a lot of these airline pilots…they’re ex-Navy pilots. But they got
to go aboard some of the aircraft carrier and…and re-qualify for…for the
Navy…reserve…reserve outfit. And a week before I went aboard they lost
six pilots; they overshot the…the flight deck. And those jet engines, see,
they’re red…they’re hot and they hit the water…it’s just spontaneous
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combustion! They lost six airline…airline pilots…one week for…of course
nobody ever knew that…news-wise, but they’re…those jet engines hit
that…hit that drink why, it was a spontaneous com…explosion!
Ed Metzler: So when you were in New Zealand, I mean, did you go into some civilians’
homes?
Mr. Cummings: Oh, they…they was nice over there.
Ed Metzler: Yeah, tell me how they were nice.
Mr. Cummings: There was one ole gal there, she wanted to get married to me!
Ed Metzler: Is that right?!
Mr. Cummings: She was… Māori…
Ed Metzler: Māori.
Mr. Cummings: Māori.
Ed Metzler: (Unintelligible)…a local (unintelligible)…
Mr. Cummings: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Cummings: And real nice looking and her sister was kindly…husky built, and she met me
there…and invited me to the home. In the meantime here come her sister, and
well she took over! I wondered, “What’s going on here?” (laughter)
Ed Metzler: So the big husky sister (unintelligible)…
Mr. Cummings: Well she was real nice…happened to be that they had a fur…fur company
there in New Zealand, and she was over the fur company…the New
Zealand…her sister was, but the next day we got underway there, but anyway
she sent me a...well she more or less said that she would like to get married to
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an American to come to the United States. Well that was (unintelligible).
And then one time there we was in…we anchored out there…and the natives
would come…come there…
Ed Metzler: This is in New Zealand?
Mr. Cummings: No, this was in the Philippines, I believe.
Ed Metzler: In the Philippines.
Mr. Cummings: And everyone’s state you’re from…they got a name. Like if you’re
from…from Pennsylvania, you’re a Coalminer…and if you’re from Texas,
you’re a Cowboy. So…then they had two sisters, Big Rosie and Little Rosie.
Well Big Rosie invited me to a dance that they had at the village there…
Ed Metzler: Yeah?!
Mr. Cummings: Well my…my commanding officer was Lieutenant Davis and his dad was a
ship building in…in Newport…in…in…(unintelligible) Massachusetts…that
dad gum…anyway, I…I had him go with me. And you know what the dance
was? It was a big…Quonset…grass hut…about ten foot on stilts.
(Unintelligible) you had a…you had a ladder you had to limb up in there
and…and it was…it was woven or bamboo floor hut, and when you walked it
weighed up and down…had a…had a wind up phonograph there…an old
record there; I forgot what tune it was and they wound that thing up there and
there was about three or four of us that made that and we danced and we had
some (unintelligible) and sake drinks and that type of thing, see? Well about
midnight there, Lieutenant Davis said, “We better get back aboard ship.” So
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we got back down on the beach there and Big Rosie said, “I like you meet my
dad.” Happened to be he was Chief of the (unintelligible)!
Ed Metzler: Oh!
Mr. Cummings: Just like I’d marry her, you know? And Lieutenant Davis said, “Now
Cummings, you want to watch it here now,” said, “she…wants you to
get…get used to her dad there and the first thing you know…they
want…things run…get…get out of hand!” I said, “Sir, I know what I’m
doing…I think!” Said, “How you going to get back aboard ship?” I said, “I’ll
get back aboard ship if I have to swim!” He said, “Now…now listen;
now…I’m sticking my neck out to let you stay here!” So, she came…said,
“You come meet…you come meet me daddy.” Well they had two sisters, Big
Rosie and Little Rosie, see, and she was Big Rosie…she was pretty nice.
And…and sixth grade out there was high school education for them. She
could really write, print, write. So I met her dad there and that was just a
week before the atomic bomb was hit there. And he…he knew some ways
about that; he was asking me…he said, “What’s this atomic bomb thing?”
Ed Metzler: Oh he knew (unintelligible)?!”
Mr. Cummings: “What…what is this?” And then, well everybody was making bets where we
placing money that the war would be over at the…that was a week there in
(unintelligible) before they dropped it. And they had all kind of…he…he had
stewed octopus and stewed fish…all the big plants there you used your fingers
and he had (unintelligible) and sake there and he just kept giving me drinks.
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Said now, “Dad gum!...man, I don’t know what I’m going to,” I began to…
feared I was getting drunk, you know.
Ed Metzler: Right, right.
Mr. Cummings: Really I never was a guy that get drunk there, so about two o’clock that
morning (unintelligible) I said…finally let it be known he…he was asking
questions about…but he knew that something was going to happen a week
before they dropped that bomb there, and they sure did!
Ed Metzler: How do you think he knew?!
Mr. Cummings: Ah, he knew and I don’t know…I never did…I never would know. But it’s
kindly weird!
Ed Metzler: That is weird!
Mr. Cummings: But he was asking me if I knew what it was all about and…and I finally got
through to him… no, that we…knew something was going to happen that we
had made bets on…on what day it was to happen; that’s all we knew.
Anyway…anyway…he said, “Well I have Bunbo (sp?) out there to take you
back to ship.” But he said, “I want a pair of boondock (sp?) boots.” I says,
“Okay.” And we didn’t have any boondock boots like the Marines do, but I
said I wanted to get him a pair…just high top…I mean…boots. Well I didn’t
know but I had to…I had the officer or junior officer gangway watch that
morning but I didn’t know it. So when I reported aboard ship that morning it
was about, oh, I got real sick; I fed the fish three or four times, you
know…urping. Those natives there were…with outriggers there and…I went
aboard ship there and laid down in my bunk there…uniform and all. Next
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thing I knew I had to (unintelligible) the watch at eight o’clock…I said,
“What?!” But we…we had special sea detail rigged up; we had to get
underway, so I didn’t…I didn’t get the boots ashore to him and little
later…after World War II I got a letter from…from his daughter; it was real
nice. She said, “How glad I knew,” said…broken English, said, “I glad I
knew you, I glad I met you, I glad,” said, “my dad, he like you.” That’s the
way it kind of went, see? I still have that letter right there.
Ed Metzler: Is that right?!
Mr. Cummings: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: Well, did you send him some boots?
Mr. Cummings: No, I…I…so he’s probably…he’s probably still waiting for…
Ed Metzler: He’s still waiting for those boots!
Mr. Cummings: I don’t dare show up over there no more! (laughter)
Ed Metzler: Did you ever go back over there after the war?
Mr. Cummings: No, uh-uh. No, I went back in…no, about three months I was over there in
the islands…Hawaiian Islands. Had one of those ship…ship cruises; well
made all the islands; all eight of them. We’d go ashore in the day time; at
night time we’d cruise to the next island.
Ed Metzler: Right, right!
Mr. Cummings: Then that’s…that’s about…
Ed Metzler: Well now you had some really close buddies there during the war…
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, I did.
Ed Metzler: And did you lose any of them during the war?
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Mr. Cummings: Well I’m not bragging, but most of them were east coast, Boston, New…
Connecticut, Brooklyn, New York, Philadelphia and that type thing, and that
was the first crew bunch. And I guess I was the only one of about five or six
that was from Texas…I was the only one from the Panhandle; rest of
them…down around Houston and…and San Antone…down in there. But
most of them were all…as I say…Yankees, and I had to learn to live with
them. And I got along with them okay, and so…
Ed Metzler: Did you stay in touch with them after the war?
Mr. Cummings: No, not really because we wasn’t a (unintelligible)…our C&R gang was just
a…did…had a…had a flag…the…the bridge…the bridge group; the engine
room group and you had your navigation group…
Ed Metzler: These guys were in separate groups?
Mr. Cummings: Well yeah, we was just separate…yeah, we was C&R gang.
Ed Metzler: Yeah. Now did you stay in touch with the home front and your family during
the war? I mean…letters and that kind of thing.
Mr. Cummings: Uh, well that’s something else; we was in the enemy water all the time and
they’d come by there and said…if you had any kind of address…picture…at
all, get rid of it…in case we was captured…they’d of used it against us. I lost
a camera and some good film and everything on a deal like that. And there
one time there…(unintelligible) old boy from going to…going to San Quentin
…up the river. We was building that pipeline on the island out there at
Tulagi; well I had two hundred and fifty…two hundred forty dollars in new
bills stacked in my uniform in my locker. Well this old boy was a…was
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a…he was a…he was a policeman early on in Florida and a reserve while he
came back aboard the Jamestown, and he was a Carpenter’s Mate I
believe…his name Jones. And I said…I said, “Just in case anything happens
to me out there…in my locker there, and I have address and this…this money
there.” So happened…when I took all these serial numbers down on a piece
of paper and had it in my locker. Well during that two weeks we was building
that pipeline there; I came back and I…my…that money was missing! Well
we reported it, so everybody…there was a few poker games…and the night
went on…none of those boys showed up, and none in the ship’s store nobody
showed up. In the meantime he got transferred to another ship. The captain
sent word to me…would I like for those numbers to be checked on that…on
the ship that (unintelligible) went to, and I…I refused it. And come to find
out then later on he did take that money. Well had I…had I…
Ed Metzler: How did you find that out?
Mr. Cummings: Well some of the…a guy…when we got back to stateside, he…he met an
officer and they met him on the beach there and just roundabout…well, we
had no proof, but in roundabout talking there it…it kind of work…he
did…well everybody told me the same thing that he was the only one that
knew about it; he had to take it, see? I mean we had no proof, but…
Ed Metzler: Yeah, sure.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah. And…but anyway…
Ed Metzler: But you didn’t get very many letters from home and didn’t write very
many…?
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Mr. Cummings: Well what letters we got…they were two or three months old and…
Ed Metzler: Old news…and had been censored and…all that.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, censored…some of them had been wet and some Christmas package
was all squashed and couldn’t make out an address.
Ed Metzler: Right.
Mr. Cummings: I had one card one time there; that thing was three months old…Pampa, Texas
where I was originally from…where I had…Tampa, Florida…two or three
more towns like Pampa…Tampa and it’d all been scratched out and…and you
couldn’t hardly even read the darned thing.
Ed Metzler: Still (unintelligible)…yeah.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Cummings: No.
Ed Metzler: So tell me about your trip home then when you were…the war was over
and…and you didn’t make the airplane…and so…
Mr. Cummings: Well I went aboard the…Treasure Island there in Frisco and I…I
went…(laughter)…went ashore…and the one guy there with me said,
“Cummings,” said “in uniform there,” said, “you’re…you’re a pretty good
looking guy,” said, “let’s go to the motel there and let’s…let’s get a room
and…and a gal.” He said, “You do all the…all the arranging.” I says,
“Okay.” So I went to the…I believe it was Top of the Mark or somewhere
there in Frisco, I believe. And I went to a bellhop there and told him what the
deal was and about an hour then…so this lady, well, nice looking lady had to
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catch a cab in Oakland and…and come across the bay to the deal there and so
he said, “You go up and talk to her.” “Okay.” So I went up there and we
talked and visited there, and so she give us a deal there. I said, “Well,” I said,
“I’m not interested here because I got some people I’m supposed to contact
here.” I said, “It’s my friend down below there.” She said, “Go…go tell him
and bring him up here.” Well it was about a half hour, I guess, we talked and
visited. I asked all about her and all about me. I went down there and he got
mad because he wanted me to be with him, see, both of us? I said, “No way!”
Then he accused me then of being…I was gone long enough there that we
went ahead and…and…done our…relationship there…and he got mad and he
walked out. Well (unintelligible) got my suitcase; went down there and…and
got me a cab; went to a station there and…and met my friends that
were…lived there. They lived on the, oh, out southwest of San Francisco;
that’s the last time I ever seen him. The next day then I had orders to go back
aboard ship; go down to San Pedro for my discharge. Well that was
November the 7th, ’45 and that was my birthday. And my brother was…was out; he knew I was there so he come in there and said, “Let’s…let’s go out and do the town!” So we went out that night there and done the town. But
I…had some…had some dental work to get done, and I had to sign a release to get away from that, so when I…then I went…my home was in Pampa,
Texas then. Then the next day…to…I got my…home…I went home to
Pampa; that was in September of…no, that was in November…I got home in time for Christmas of ’45, and then I came back out to California then after
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that then and went to work for an old boy out there…Paul Mann (sp?); he…he
done steeplejack and…and all kind of work. And…and they put me on a crew
there (unintelligible)…Quonset huts then…a hundred of them…big and they
were putting…making apartments out of them. Well the fact is they got a
store down here where a young couple was getting married and they used
Quonset huts for temporary homes for the (unintelligible); that’s what we was
doing. They couldn’t get painters in the union there, so we was spray painting
them.
Ed Metzler: I’ll be darned!
Mr. Cummings: And they had me in charge of a gang…had to spray paint those and all. Then
I went to a flight…flight school out there. I…I got my pilot’s…pilot’s license
and my brother he…he got his commercial license. Well went through
(unintelligible) School of Business downtown; hundred…we had to have a
hundred thirty hours of night schooling. Andy Devine and Provert
(sp?)…movie star Andy Devine and…and Provert had a airfield in
(unintelligible) Valley; that’s where I got my flying in. And I almost got
grounded there two or three times because I tried to do some fighter pilot
deals and…and it…it wouldn’t work. The old boy was an ace in the
Army…as a…as a ace fighter pilot. Well before World War II he trained a
bunch of Jap…Japanese pilots.
Ed Metzler: Really?!
Mr. Cummings: And then World War II then he said, “I just wonder how many of those little
bastards I had to shoot down that I trained?!” Well he was my instructor…
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(end of tape 1, side 2)
Ed Metzler: Well what I…okay this is tape #2, Mr. Cummings, and let me ask you…when
you came back how did you feel when you came into San Francisco harbor
after being out there for all those years? What was going through your mind
as you came back into the U.S?
Mr. Cummings: Well it was kind of a weird feeling ‘cause I spent all of the World War II in
the South Pacific islands there and I felt like I was a…kind of a…oh, I…I
enjoyed it, but…I…I felt like I was a cork in the ocean floating with nothing
to do. And I…just…
Ed Metzler: Kind of lost your roots, you mean?
Mr. Cummings: Yeah…
Ed Metzler: …(unintelligible)…
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, I mean I was…just wondering what I was going to end up doing, so I
had a chance to join the active reserve…first three months, but I…but I
didn’t…but later on I did. So I got in the Navy active reserve and I stayed
active on that…and then I got…all…all together I had about…active reserve
and this and that I had about twelve continuous active duty and the rest was
active reserve. And so I got credit for thirty-seven years.
Ed Metzler: Golly!
Mr. Cummings: From 19…from November ’41 until August of ’79 I believe it was.
Ed Metzler: My golly that is…!
Mr. Cummings: And I’m retired Navy.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
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Mr. Cummings: Then I came back then to Cabot’s Shop…that I…I trained and I left them two
or three times…didn’t tell them where I was going…and when I came back to
Cabot’s…said, “We’ll put you back to work on one condition,” said, “next
time you leave, you give a notice!” (laughter) I had some paychecks coming
there and they got with my folks and they run me down in…in California
there…L.A. Then…then I done some window display for Hiram Walker
on…on L.A. there…for…all that…all that different booze and wine and stuff.
Ed Metzler: Right, right, right.
Mr. Cummings: Then I done a swing stage as steeplejack for Paul…Paul Mangele (sp?) there
in…in Los Angeles there.
Ed Metzler: Well…well let me ask you about this…how do you feel about the Japanese
after…you know…(unintelligible)…I mean, do you harbor any grudges or
how do you feel?
Mr. Cummings: Well I…I tell you what…well I guess you might say…as long as I know a guy
outright…everything’s okay, but day…day time there’d be your buddy,
nighttime…you don’t know. So I’ve got a saying - we all got our good
personality front yard but our backyard is something else. And a lot of those
guys had a backyard…I wouldn’t trust them.
Ed Metzler: Really?!
Mr. Cummings: And now days and time everything is going fine, but once get to a showdown,
I still think these foreign countries would still take advantage of it.
Ed Metzler: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Mr. Cummings: I…I do.
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Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Cummings: Even though things going good right now, but that…that…that’s their front
yard.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Cummings: Now their backyard now, I…
Ed Metzler: Who knows?
Mr. Cummings: …that…that’s my philosophy.
Ed Metzler: Well that’s fine.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah. But I do…I do believe they…I believe they would stick by us
now…maybe…all in all, but…
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
Mr. Cummings: …but other than that, well…I don’t…I don’t…I wouldn’t…I don’t trust
anybody else because one time I went to Europe with the midshipmen on the
battle wagon, [USS] New Jersey. We trained midshipmen a week…with
every foreign port. That was in…that was in ’47, and they thought we was
coming back (unintelligible) World War III with Russia…and…which we
didn’t, but then…then, too, we did have a conflict with…with…when
Kennedy was President…now was it Cuba?
Ed Metzler: Uh-huh.
Mr. Cummings: Now the Russians though was kindly…acting up…
Ed Metzler: Right.
Mr. Cummings: …well our (unintelligible) about that.
Ed Metzler: Yeah.
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Mr. Cummings: But I do…I do say this…this…this Iraq…this hundred year war
that…hundred…hundred (unintelligible) war…they should have went ahead
and did everything then instead of now!
Ed Metzler: Yeah, I agree.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, that…that…I don’t…
Ed Metzler: Well, okay, what else can we do to talk about World War II and your
experiences? You have remembered so many things.
Mr. Cummings: Well, I met my wife and I…I left all of a sudden I quit my job there in Los
Angeles…this big job I had…I (unintelligible) taking a loss…I’m going back
to Texas. And then my boss then said, “Man, tell you what; you’ve got me
over a barrel here.” I had those Quonset huts out there and they…and the
union would allow eighteen (unintelligible) painters but we got by spray
painting. And I spray painted them sides, oh man, I’d get potted as old
(unintelligible)…I got…(unintelligible)…I came back to Pampa, Texas in, so
in September of ’46 I had a buddy that was in the Army, and he lived about
two hour drive out of Pampa, Texas which is (unintelligible)…about an hour’s
drive. Said, “Let’s go downtown here and get us a date!” I said, “Man I
haven’t been around in four or five years, I don’t know what’s going on but I
do know in downtown there’s a little café there and that café…there’s a
telephone operators about a block over…they come in there for coffee I
understand, we might get a date there.” (laughter) So we went up there; we
walked in there and this little ole…kind of one counter café there and some
chairs sitting there and little ole gal behind the counter there…kind of got
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acquainted there and my wife…her sister was sitting there and as I walked up
in that café and looked in that door there I said, “My gosh, what would I do if
I got married to a gal like that!” Man she looked awful! And so I…so I was
sitting there drinking coffee and every time I looked back she looked better.
And come to find out she had a kind of thyroid problem and she had to take
some kind of special medicine an hour before she eat; it made her all drawn
and that…and then she started eating there…she…
Ed Metzler: Perked up.
Mr. Cummings: …perked up there, and I got to dating her there for awhile then…I…I’d leave;
go here and…every…everything…every time I could make a Navy cruise I
would. I made the Mardi Gras in New Orleans one time in the Navy and we’d
try to make a light…battle wagon out of the USS…dad gum
it!...Ma…Macon…(unintelligible)…Georgia…?
Ed Metzler: Yeah, Macon.
Mr. Cummings: Yeah, USS…she was…she was a light…a light cruiser…they tried to make a
light battle wagon out of her. And we cruised…anyway…anyway…I met her
and that was about…I came back then; went back to work for Cabot Shops, so
we decided to get married. So I give Cabot…you’re supposed to give them a
two…two-week notice. Well I give them a note one day and quit and got
married the same…next day. They said, “What are you doing here?” And
I’m supposed…while you’re going to school…they…they’d hold the job for
you, see? Then I went to work for (unintelligible) for (unintelligible) paint
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and construction company there. And then for my wife and I got
together…(unintelligible)…then…
Ed Metzler: I’ll be darned.
Mr. Cummings: That’s when I (unintelligible) and she had a (unintelligible) in the ranks there,
and…and she bought it. She…she used to run the horses for a big rancher
there…rich…they had gas and oil and that type of thing.
Ed Metzler: I see, yeah, okay.
Mr. Cummings: Well she said, “You big boy, you,” she had some brothers in the Air
Force…said, “You haven’t told me one bit about…I wasn’t…I wasn’t trying
to fool you!” “Yeah, but I had a mile and half rope on you and you tied to a
snubbing post,” and it took a year and a half to get me snubbed down…I had
to say “I do” to get loose!
Ed Metzler: Okay, well we’re going to end it here. Great stories!
Mr. Cummings: I got married in…May…21st…of ’40…’48, and my first daughter was a…was
a year and a half later…May of…’40…49. I raised three daughters and I got
grandkid and great-grandkids and granddaughters and great-granddaughters.
Ed Metzler: Built…built a dynasty!
Mr. Cummings: And I belong to a dance club; I dance three times a week at the VFW and…
Ed Metzler: So you’re staying in shape!
Mr. Cummings: Staying…I won’t…I won’t let grass grow under my feet!
Ed Metzler: That’s right! (laughter)
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Mr. Cummings: And I’m about the only one of…of our crew…I’m about one of three that’s
left. One in Seattle, Washington is in good health and myself and others…I
don’t know.
Ed Metzler: Shaky, huh?
Mr. Cummings: They…
Ed Metzler: (Unintelligible).
Mr. Cummings: Out of about three hundred, I’m about the only one that’s still crazy and still
going!
Ed Metzler: Well let me close this tape by first thanking you for spending the time to share
your experiences with us and you had some experiences I must say!
(laughter) And let me also close by thanking you for what you and all of the
rest of your generation did to win the war and to perpetuate America and
protect us; we do appreciate it…sometimes we don’t say that, so thanks again!
Mr. Cummings: Well I hope this don’t sound erratic…the way I’ve been talking. (laughter)
Ed Metzler: It’s not…it…I mean it’s…it’s a great story! Thanks again.
(end of interview)
FINAL copy CD – #OH01861a, b – Mr. C. T. “Ted” Cummings Transcribed by: K. Matras Houston, TX July 13, 2015
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