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So we got together and on December the 4th, 1939, we left
Fort Worth and went over to Dallas to the Allen building and
enlisted in the Marine Corp. We went to the recruiting station
there, and of course, we had to get an application and fill that
out and they were saying how good the Marine Corp was and that
they were going to make a man out of you. And they really did. I
was 21. We enlisted on December the 4th, about 7 o'clock we took
our oath and by 9 o'clock we were on the train. I rode the train
from Dallas to Los Angeles and then we rode another train from
there into San Diego, and we got in late in the evening. It took
about three days to go by train in those days to San Diego. We
got into the barracks there, and then we started training the
very next day. Of course, you go into close order drill and
memorize the different ranks of the service, the Navy, and the
Army and the Air Force, corresponding with the Marines. Our
training was just the manual of arms and marching - the manual
of arms and marching - the manual of arms and marching. So just
for that period of time, we'd go into parades and do parades. We
would go on hikes and we started out with small hikes like 10
miles and ended up doing 30-mile hikes with a pack, they made a
man out of you real quick.
The biggest surprise was the discipline. As long as you're a
recruit in training, if a Private First Class with just one
stripe on his arm happened to walk in your barracks, well then,
the first one to see him would holler attention and everybody
would jump up and just stand at attention. They were doing this
all along just to acquaint you with the officers you would run
into in later years. And our platoon leader was a staff sergeant
and we had two corporals as the assistant instructors and
whenever they walked through the barracks, you jumped up real
quick.
After I graduated from boot camp, I was sent up to Mare
Island, California, which is a Navy Base and they made
submarines there. They bring in the ships, put them in dry dock,
and work them over. I stayed there about four months, then they
made up the orders to go overseas. I went aboard the U.S.S.
Shona, which is a troop ship for the Asiatic Pacific fleet and
we proceeded -- as they told me then that I was going direct to
Shanghai, China. I didn't realize at the time that when we got
to Guam that they drew names, who was going to stay in Guam and
who was going to go on the Shanghai. We just wanted to go to
China because that's where the Old Salt Marines were. But I was
fortunate enough that my name was drawn to go to Shanghai. In
our trip over, we stopped at Pearl Harbor and then we stopped at
Guam, which we ran into a typhoon at the time and had a rough
trip there.
We did guard duty on ship but the Navy and the Marines never
get along on a ship. We always sit there and watch them work,
you know, swabbing and scrubbing and this and that and they get
mad at us, you know. But that's about all we had to do on the
ship was just, we had to pull our watch, and, of course, we were
carrying the Asiatic payroll at the time and then you take your
turns guarding the safe, which they had several million dollars
in the safe. Of course, nobody's going to get it in the middle
of the ocean.
If you didn't have duty, why you could go up on the deck and
write letters if you wanted to. But then when you get close to
the 180th meridian, well, then, if you haven't been over that,
well, then, that's when you're initiated. You're a pollywog
before you cross the equator and you go through the initiation,
which is pretty rough. We got up that morning, had our breakfast
and then right after that, well then all of the Trusty Dragons
started rounding everybody up and taking us to the bow of the
ship and then from there they started. They run you through a
slop chute and then they have rice paddles that they bang on you
going through. They cut your hair. They paint your face. And
just do everything in the world to just mess you up real good.
And, I mean, that lasted most of the day, you know. You'd go
back through that chute two or three times and it wasn't fun at
all.
Then we went on into the Philippine Islands and ran into
another storm, which was the first time I've ever seen a water
spout and it rained fish because fish were falling all over the
deck of that ship. If anybody's been on the ocean, they know
that what they have is flying fish. As the wave breaks, then
these fish come out of that wave and they have little wings on
them and they fly. Not very far, but they fly, 20, 30, 40 feet,
then back into the water again. And the first time that I
witnessed that water spout blowing, it was just sucking up that
ocean and fish going all over everywhere.
From there we went to Shanghai, China. At this point we
started seeing some passing ships at that time, the cruise ships
that were taking people around. We ran into foreign ships as
well, the Chinese and the Japanese. We were going into the
Yangtze river at that point. We got there July 26th, 1940.
In Shanghai, what really baffled me when we first got there,
they drive on the wrong side of the road, they drive 90 miles an
hour and the streets are just filled. I don't see how in the
world they couldn't keep from killing hundreds and hundreds of
Chinese, but they seem to manage to get out of the way. But the
saying is if you're driving a vehicle and you hit one and injure
them or kill them, you're responsible for that person. So you
were double careful not to injure anyone or anything else.
Now we were only able to stay in what they call the
International Settlement, which was a very small place because
it was divided up with the Americans, the British, and the
French that patrol this area and the rest of it. Of course the
outline areas we couldn't go because the Japanese completely
surrounded the International Settlement, their ships were out in
the Yangtze River. We could go to the British sector or we could
go into the French sector, but then you couldn't venture beyond
that at all because if you did, then you run into the Japanese.
There were American citizens over there which we protected,
but most of our duties were strictly guard. Standard Oil Co. was
over there and we used to guard them. Then we had our own areas
that we to guard. We had to guard the hospital. The navy
hospital. And so it was one day on and two days off . The two
days that you're off, you did your close order drill.
The billets were what you call the mansions of Shanghai where
the rich Chinese were ousted. And, of course, the Marines took
all those over and made living quarters out of the whole thing.
We had a squad in each room and we had eight men in a squad.
They had one room that was quite large that they may have put
two or three squads in. It was just like a dormitory.
Each Marine had a Chinese person that washed your clothes and
blank hoed your pack and shine your shoes, press your clothes.
You didn't have to do anything. Of course, you paid him every
month. The only thing he couldn't fool with was your rifle. But
everything else they took care of. They'd shine your shoes and
everything. So it was pretty nice. And Shanghai was a real
interesting place. They had everything there. You wouldn't
imagine.
When you're there you're buying this, you're buying that and
so the first thing you do is buy a teakwood chest. Then you go
down, you start buying this and buying that, whatever you could
afford. The ivory was the most important thing that we could
buy. It was real, real inexpensive there and you could buy like
a Hamilton wrist watch was like a Rolex today. You could get
that for less than a hundred dollars. Some silks, some kimonos,
and just a little bit of everything that you could. You just
kept packing it and packing it and hopefully we can get it home,
you know.
The 4th Marines had their our own club in town, and, of
course, everybody would go to the club. If you would venture out
to say, French town, there were several bars. Most of them went
to what they call the Green Hall Bar. It was a popular place
that everybody would go there. And it was just a regular beer
place, you know. So everybody would get drunk as a hoot owl.
Our own MPs, they'd get them drunk. They'd haul them in and
put them in the brig, you know. And then, of course, the
commanding officer had to go down and try and get them out and
find out what was wrong. The French police is the one that you
really have to really be careful with, and if you got caught by
the French police. They would throw you in their jail and it's
like being thrown in jail in Mexico. You'd never get out of that
place. Boy, it's terrible. So you had to really be on your toes.
The Japanese would just test you and see what you would do.
They would come on into our settlement, and, of course, what we
would do is just force them back out again. And I think two
occasions we got into gunfire with them. It was not in our end
of the field but First Battalion, they ran into it. They had a
gun fight with the Japanese. Most of it, see, was down towards
where the harbor was. The Japanese were down in there with their
destroyers and light cruisers so they had a lot of run-ins down
there. They thought that they could just come on in and do it,
and, of course, we had orders that if they come into your
sector, well, you're to put them out, or, if not, then you get
into a gun fight with them so that happened a few times.
The Japanese would capture the Chinese people and would
execute them every other day at 5 o'clock in the afternoon.
These were the the Communist Chinese. Now, Chiang Kai-shek was
down in Chungking, but it was the communist regime that actually
took over China. It was Mao and his group that we would catch
and then turn them over to the Japanese. We watched a lot of
killings over there.
We knew six months before the war started that the Japanese
were going to come in and take over the International
Settlement. We were going to try to evacuate the settlement and
fight our way to Chungking where Chiang Kai-shek was, which
would be impossible to do because that was quite a ways. But
that was the plan. Then we got orders to that we were going to
leave Shanghai.
We heard that we were going to leave in November. We started
buying this and buying that and so whoever wants to send their
stuff home, tell us now and we'll box it up and send it. So we
wanted to go ahead and buy more stuff, fill it up and take it
with us. So, of course, not knowing what the outcome was going
to be. I took mine along with everybody else, quite a few,
loaded them up on a ship, and just went right along with us to
the Philippine Islands.
The citizens started leaving on the president liners long
before that because they watched and said, when the Marines
leave, then they want to get out. And some of them stayed and
they got caught when the war started. They didn't think anything
was going to happen like that, but a few of them stayed. Most of
them left. Of course, we left there November 28th and we got to
Philippine Islands December 1st. (continue)
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