THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE PACIFIC WAR Center for Pacific War Studies Fredericksburg, Texas An Interview with Julius “Bud” Masinick Warren, Michigan September 7, 2010 USS Icefish SS 367 6 Patrols 1 Mr. Misenhimer: My name is Richard Misenhimer and today is September the 7th, 2010. I am interviewing Julius “Bud” Masinick by telephone. His phone number is 586-773-5989. His address is 21763 Dexter Court, Warren, MI 48089. This interview is in support of the National Museum of the Pacific War, Center for Pacific Studies, for the preservation of historical information related to World War II. Bud, I want to thank you for taking time to do this interview today, and I want to thank you for your service to our country during World War II. Mr. Masinick: You’re welcome. Mr. Misenhimer: Do you have a middle initial? Mr. Masinick: No. Mr. Misenhimer: NMI, okay. Mr. Masinick: On my dog tags and everything it was “Julius None Masinick.” Mr. Misenhimer: Right. The next thing I need to do is read to you this agreement with the museum. When I do these in person, I let the man read it and sign it; since this is by phone let me read this to you. 2 “Agreement Read” Mr. Masinick: It’s fine. I agree all the way. Mr. Misenhimer: The next thing I’d like to do is get an alternative contact. We find out that sometimes several years down the road, we try to get back in touch with a veteran he’s moved or something. Do you have a son or a daughter or someone that we could contact in case we needed to? Mr. Masinick: I have a daughter. Her name is Amy O’Brien. Mr. Misenhimer: What’s her address? Mr. Masinick: 3929 Ruthland, Troy, MI 48080. Mr. Misenhimer: How about a phone number? Mr. Masinick: Yes. 248-524-2824. Mr. Misenhimer: Thank you. What is your birth date? 3 Mr. Masinick: 02/05/25. Mr. Misenhimer: Okay, and where were you born? Mr. Masinick: Mary D, Pennsylvania. Mr. Misenhimer: Did you have brothers and sisters? Mr. Masinick: Six brothers and two sisters. Mr. Misenhimer: Were any of your brothers in World War II? Mr. Masinick: Yes. Let’s see, my oldest brother Mickey was in there. I had two older brothers in the Army and one younger brother in the Navy. Mr. Misenhimer: Are any of those still living? Mr. Masinick: No. None of the three. Mr. Misenhimer: They came home from the war though, right? Mr. Masinick: Yes, they did. My mother and dad were white-haired when I got home. 4 Mr. Misenhimer: With four of you in there, that would be something that would make your hair turn white. How about your sisters? Were they involved in war work? Mr. Masinick: No, not at all. Mr. Misenhimer: December 7, ’41 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor; do you recall hearing about that? Mr. Masinick: Oh my goodness, I’ve got a story. I was there coming home from the bowling alley. I was in what they called a kids’ league, I wasn’t…let’s see it was ’41, so I was… Mr. Misenhimer: You would have been sixteen. Mr. Masinick: Sixteen. There was very few bowling alleys that allowed kids, and there were no kids; bowling leagues except this one, and I was bowling in it. We bowled like Sunday noonish. I was coming home in the afternoon, I had to walk about two blocks from the bus stop. It was a warm day, and all the people had their doors open, just the screen door, and you could hear the radios blasting. “Pearl Harbor’s been bombed!” ‘What the heck? Pearl Harbor, what?’ So, I got home and I said to my dad, “What’s this Pearl Harbor?” He said, “Looks like we’re going into war.” He told me about Pearl Harbor. How many people knew about Pearl Harbor at the time? Mr. Misenhimer: That’s right. Mr. Masinick: Then I went to school the next day. I was a senior, I was sixteen year old, but I was a senior. The homeroom teacher got us in the room, in our homeroom before the start of the day, and he said, “Listen you guys, I know you want to be patriotic and everything, but you graduate in June. Stay 5 here, don’t be running down to the recruiting offices. June, when you graduate, you can join up then.” That was pretty much it. Of course, most of the guys were older and a lot of them did just that: after graduation they enlisted. I had to wait ‘til ’43 to register for the draft. I did and that was February 5th. April 17th I was in Great Lakes Naval Training Center; it was that quick. Mr. Misenhimer: Of ’43. Mr. Masinick: ’43, right. Mr. Misenhimer: Were you drafted or did you volunteer? Mr. Masinick: I was drafted. I’m no hero; I was drafted. Mr. Misenhimer: You went to Great Lakes? Mr. Masinick: Great Lakes Training Center. Mr. Misenhimer: Did you have any choice on the Navy or how did you get in the Navy? Mr. Masinick: No, they just put me in the Navy, period. I was thankful. Mr. Misenhimer: How did you travel to Great Lakes? Mr. Masinick: We went by train. Mr. Misenhimer: How was that train trip? 6 Mr. Masinick: Well, it was long, and this funny part about it is: I had a dream while I slept on the train, you know, and I had this dream and it said, in essence, “You ain’t seen nothing yet; this is only the beginning.” It’s a dream, “this is nothing”, I didn’t hear a speech on that or anything else, but that was in my dream. How true. (laughing) Mr. Misenhimer: Had you been that far from home before? Mr. Masinick: Yes, in fact I played baseball. In fact, the previous year, I was on an American Legion team, I don’t know if you’re familiar with American Legion program, but they have local chapters that you played for, then you go to a district like we went to our district in Charleston, West Virginia. Then we went to the regional is Charleston, South Carolina. That’s where we lost and we were all done. We went all the way up to the finals in the national. I was an enthusiastic baseball player; I thought that was all there was in life was baseball. Mr. Misenhimer: What position did you play? Mr. Masinick: Then I was a first baseman. Mr. Misenhimer: Okay. Now, what did you do from the time you finished high school ‘til you went in the Navy? Mr. Masinick: I was not eighteen years old, so I couldn’t get into a war plant. I went out to Ford Motor Company, way out to the Rouge, all the way from the east side, and they said, “Well, we can make you a mail boy,” although all their mail boys up until that time were sons of fathers who had been killed on the job at Ford. They gave them these mail carrying jobs, and their pay was only ten cents less than the guys on the line, but they were given this job for the support of their 7 families ‘cause their father was lost. They said I could be a mail boy. I was the only mail boy where I had a living father, and I was there for three months and the foreman who was about twenty-one, twenty-two years old got drafted into the service. They called me in, they said, “You want to be foreman, ‘cause you’re the only high school graduate, so we’d like you to be the foreman.” Which I was. I was until April of ’43. Mr. Misenhimer: What did this plant make? Mr. Masinick: Oh, Ford Motor Company, my goodness, they were making Jeeps and out at Willow Run they were making airplanes, up at Rouge they were making primarily Jeeps. Mr. Misenhimer: You were at the Rouge plant? Mr. Masinick: Yeah. Then they started making amphibians, you know, the amphibians. Mr. Misenhimer: The amphibious Jeeps. Mr. Masinick: Yes. You know, a strange thing on that, when I was still carrying a route, when I first started, there was a building, it was called a B Building, in fact that’s where they ended up – the Jeeps – ended up being packing up in the crate and shipped off right out of the B Building; but the plant protection man standing there was who would you know but Jim Thorpe. The Jim Thorpe. He didn’t speak much, he was typical Indian, but I would stop and try and to converse with him. He was just big, a big plant protection man; Jim Thorpe. Mr. Misenhimer: Good. 8 Mr. Masinick: Carrying mail at Ford I got to know the whole plant, ‘cause after I became foreman I had to go out with the carrier once in a while to make sure everything was copasetic, you know. That was the Rouge; that was the Rouge and the Navy called. There was things right in the main side area where it had offices, military offices, they were under budget so they’d go buy a whole bunch of typewriters and then just dump them after a while because they didn’t need them. That was strange. No wonder the war cost so much. Mr. Misenhimer: You’re right, right. Now, tell me about your boot camp there at Great Lakes.