INTERVIEW OF ROBERT L. ELLINGER USS CALIFORNIA Mr. Litzelfelner: This is Joe Litzelfelner. Today is December 8, 2001. I am interviewing Mr. Robert L. Ellinger. This interview is taking place in Fredericksburg, Texas. This interview is in support of the Center for Pacific Studies archives for the National Museum of the Pacific War, Texas Parks and Wildlife, for the preservation of historical information related to this site. Mr. Ellinger, where were you living on December 7, 1941? Mr. Ellinger: Kansas City, Missouri. Mr. Litzelfelner: What were you doing at that time? Mr. Ellinger: I was a high school student. I was 16 years old. Mr. Litzelfelner: That means you didn’t go the service right away after December 7? Mr. Ellinger: No, they wouldn’t take me for one thing and, also, my mother wouldn’t let me go. Mr. Litzelfelner: When did you join the Navy? Mr. Ellinger: I joined the Navy in August, 1943. The reason I joined was because I wanted to pick the service I wanted to serve in. I was drawn to the U. S. Navy so I joined to make sure I would be in the Navy. Mr. Litzelfelner: Did you join in Kansas City? Mr. Ellinger: Yes, I did. Mr. Litzelfelner: Where did you go after you signed up? Mr. Ellinger: There was a waiting period of two or three weeks. I left for Farragat, Idaho, on August 30, 1943. It took about three days to get up there. That is where I went to Boot Camp was in Farragat, Idaho. Mr. Litzelfelner: Did they send you on a train? Mr. Ellinger: Yes. Mr. Litzelfelner: You went to Boot Camp then in Idaho? Mr. Ellinger: Farragat, Idaho, yes. 1 Mr. Litzelfelner: How many weeks did that last? Mr. Ellinger: Eight weeks. Mr. Litzelfelner: Then where did you go from Boot Camp? Mr. Ellinger: I went home for leave. I think we got about a 15-day leave. Then I was to report to Bremerton, Washington. Once I reported there, they put us in a waiting area for assignment. Mr. Litzelfelner: Did you get sent to any schools? Mr. Ellinger: No, I did not. Mr. Litzelfelner: So your rating when you came out of Boot Camp was like a Seaman Apprentice? Mr. Ellinger: Yes. Mr. Litzelfelner: How did you get assigned after you got to Bremerton, Washington? Mr. Ellinger: It was a matter of as they came in, they put us on a ship. I didn’t find this out until later on. I went aboard the California on December 7, 1943. Mr. Litzelfelner: Exactly two years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Mr. Ellinger: That didn’t mean a lot to me at that point. I didn’t even remember what the date was until I looked back on the ship log. I have a friend in Houston who has a lot of the USS California ship logs. Mr. Litzelfelner: What was your assignment when you got on the USS California? Mr. Ellinger: I was assigned to the 9th Division. That was a anti-aircraft division. I started my duties there. Not having any skills whatsoever, I was a deck hand in a deck division. We also were part of the gunnery squad on the 40mm. We went aboard we didn’t know what was going to go on. There were very small quarters than what we were used to before because of the many sailors that were on that ship. Mr. Litzelfelner: How did you stow all your personal belongings after you go on the ship? I guess you had a sea bag with your clothes in it. Mr. Ellinger: That was interesting. We had learned a little bit how to roll our clothes in Boot Camp. So what they gave us there, we had to get all of our contents of our sea bag into our locker and a place where we put a lot of stuff was underneath our mattresses. Also, when we made our beds after sleeping in them, we learned to put our flash-proof gear over it. So all you saw when 2 you went down the row of bunks, and they were four high, was flash-proof gear. But everything was in there, our reading material, our personal items. It wasn’t a big locker, but it is amazing what you can roll and put in there. Mr. Litzelfelner: After you got on the USS California, did it stay in Bremerton long? Or did you leave shortly after you got aboard? Mr. Ellinger: Well, when we went aboard, and we were one of the last large groups to go aboard. They were ready to go to sea. But they had to go out and do test runs. There were a lot of things they had to do before going out to the open sea. It was just a few days after January 1, 1944, that we did go out. When we left Bremerton, we were recommissioned, the USS California Bb-44 and we headed for Long Beach, California. We were going to be down there for eight weeks, constantly training. At least 85%-90% of the crew didn’t know anything about the sea or the equipment we were about to take care of and use. So that was why we needed 8 weeks of training. We trained all day long. Mr. Litzelfelner: You would get underway in the morning and go out and then come back into port and.... Mr. Ellinger: Target shooting. Shooting guns. I’ll never forget that I was eating lunch down on the OT deck, the mess deck. A five-inch gun went off and I had never heard the five-inch gun go off. And it was near where we were sitting and (could not understand) ___________________ _________________________. Oh it was a shocker, it was terrible. But we knew nothing about all that. They were trying to get people aboard these ships trained and going as quickly as possible. As it turned out, when our group went out and joined up with the rest of the old-timers, the big push was to get off. We didn’t stop and rest for anything. We just kept going from operation to operation to operation, island to island. They really had to train us hard for those eight weeks. They did let us come in and have week-end liberty in Long Beach and Los Angeles, which was very nice. Mr. Litzelfelner: When you were in Long Beach, were you assigned to where your battle station? Mr. Ellinger: Yes. We learned all of that and trained in those positions. We shot at a lot of targets. The 14-inch were shooting, the 5-inch were shooting. We all had to learn what our equipment was all about. Now we did do a little training with a 40mm. We did that after we were on the California. We went to San Francisco to do a little more training. Most of the training was aboard ship. We just needed to get use to ship life. It was entirely different. Mr. Litzelfelner: Did you ever get seasick? Mr. Ellinger: No. I never did. But I did learn that as we got underway, how to get along with the 3 motion of the ship. I learned each time we went out after sitting there maybe 30 days at a place. I would go topside to the 7 deck and stand there and get the roll of it and get the wind blowing in my face. Then I could come back down and be ok. Otherwise you would be a little green. We had quite an experience when we went out from San Francisco. We went from Long Beach to San Francisco and stayed there 30 days. We picked up 800 Seabees to take out to ______________________ and they had to _____________ there. A lot of them were sleeping on deck. They were all over the place. 800 is a lot of men. They got sick. Mr. Litzelfelner: So you were acting as a transport ship for those Seabees. Mr. Ellinger: We were heading that way and they were put on there. We were busy training and they were sitting around watching us. Actually we waited in Frisco till things got together and then we left to go to Pearl Harbor. We met some of the other ships we were going to go out with. When we left Pearl Harbor for Saipan, we were ready for the big push. We hit Pitcarin (Mr. Ellinger’s voice was very low at this point and the transcriber could not make out what he was saying.) ......I did realize that until the last couple of years. (once again the voice level is too low to understand). Mr. Litzelfelner: Now what was your battle station after you left Pearl Harbor? Mr. Ellinger: I was in Quad 7. It was on the _____ Deck. Most of our Quads except for 7 and 6 were nestled into the ship. But these two had a magazine underneath. The rest of them were underneath in the ship. Ours was on the deck. So we were about 25 feet up in the air. So we had to run to go up there. Mr. Litzelfelner: What kind of a gun is a Quad 7? Mr. Ellinger: That was a Quad - 4-barrels, a 49mm. Mr. Litzelfelner: Oh, I see. Mr. Ellinger: You would have two and two. You have 1st levels, 2nd levels, and 3rd levels. I became 1st level. I was on gun 1. We would practice our battle stations.