WWII Heroes: We Were Just Doing Our Jobs

by Minton, Linda E.

  Les was awarded two Purple Hearts, since he was wounded twice during the Battle of Okinawa, and a Bronze Star. On the way home, he recalled, he saw the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island in San Francisco. He was discharged in April 1946 and took a train from San Francisco to Camp Atterbury in Indianapolis.

  Lee’s funeral

  Les was a pallbearer at Lee’s funeral after the war. “Lee was a big, strapping farm boy, so he was given a Browning automatic rifle. He was a target. It was hard to face his family...”

  Erelene, Les’s wife, said, “It is the one thing that has bothered Les throughout his life. He hasn’t gotten over it.” They still visit Lee’s grave at Liberty Church Cemetery near Patoka Lake in Southern Indiana.

  After the war Erelene Gilliatt and Les Brown were married, in July 1954. After he was discharged, he wrote her a letter and went back to Paoli. They dated and decided to get married after her graduation from college. They had two children—Brad and Beth. Les went on the Dayton, Ohio Honor Flight to Washington, DC. Les went to IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University in Indianapolis) on the GI Bill for two years.

  Erelene Gilliatt Brown

  Erelene said, “when Les and I were first married, one night it was thundering, and I awoke with Les’s hands around my neck.” Also, Les’s mother said if there were bad thunderstorms, Les would walk around the yard because he couldn’t stand the thunder. It reminded him of the war.

  Erelene remembered D-Day, June 6, 1944, “sitting in the swing on our porch and everyone listening to the radio reports”. Also she recalled the death of FDR. She was hanging clothes on the clothesline. Her aunt came to the house, and was crying. When her dad came home, he cried about FDR’s death. People didn’t know how the war would go on. They went to church for a prayer session.

  “There was a peddling wagon that had grocery items that would come by on Friday afternoon. You would use your ration stamps to buy items. She remembered eating Spam for the first time. She liked it. Erelene remembered her youth, “as an idyllic time in life. We didn’t know we were poor.”

  Milkweed pods for life jackets

  “The children in my school picked milkweed pods for the war effort. The children would go out into the field to pick the milkweed pods; then put them in sacks. The school superintendent would come by the one room school and collect the sacks. He would fill his trunk with the sacks. In return for the efforts of the children, he would give them a book for their school library. Also, so many of the sacks of pods would equal a stamp for their ration books. The milkweed pods were used in the life jackets for the military.

  Scott Brown—US Navy

  “People were driving down from the hills to go to Honolulu to celebrate.”

  Scott, a very quiet, thoughtful man, began the interview with this thought: “The United States was a country that wasn’t out of the Depression but turned into a warring nation after Pearl Harbor.” He was quick to point out that the home front sacrificed a lot to help the United States. “The home front was very important to the war effort.” We discussed how many of the Indianapolis factories retooled and were converted to making items for the war effort. “For example, the Naval Ordnance Plant, now Raytheon Technologies, manufactured the highly secret Norden bombsights which were considered one of the most important technological advances in WWII.”

  Scott was fourteen years old when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He said, “Everyone was glued to the radio, listening to FDR.” Three years later Scott enlisted in the navy at seventeen. His high school diploma would have to wait until he returned from the war.

  Military Life

  He did his boot camp training at Great Lakes station, which was very large in those days, housing thousands of men in 1945. From Great Lakes Scott was sent to Camp Shoemaker in Pleasanton, California. It was a facility that funneled personnel out to the Pacific. It also had a huge hospital, Shoemaker Naval Hospital, where people were brought back for treatment. He spent some time waiting to be shipped out. He was moved to Treasure Island near the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. This was a staging area where the navy brought five thousand soldiers on a transport ship with a final destination of the Philippine Islands.

  Along the way the transport crossed the international date line where it intersects the Equator. All aboard received the Golden Dragon card followed by a great celebration. Everyone on the ship was inducted into the Order of the Golden Dragons as part of the celebration. The Gold Dragon card is given to a sailor when he crosses the international dateline on a ship.

  The first personnel dropped off were navy fliers at Admiralty Island. Then it was on to Guam, where more troops departed the ship. From there the ship sailed to the island of Samar and the Philippines. Following that, Scott was placed in a receiving station awaiting assignment to a ship. Scott explained that the Seabees were building “real wide” roads and the base was being developed as a staging area for the invasion of Japan. The mess hall was operational, but they slept in tents on wood platforms with no plumbing and a fifty-five-gallon drum for a shower. The water was heated by the sun during the day. When the warm water was gone, there was no more.

  Pearl Harbor

  While at Samar, Scott was assigned to the USS Neshoba APA 216, which is named for a county in Mississippi. The ship was damaged in the Battle of Okinawa and was headed to Seattle for repairs with a stop at Pearl Harbor. Scott and about seventy other sailors were put on another ship and sent to Pearl Harbor to meet up with the USS Neshoba. While Scott was on the ship returning to Pearl, he learned that Germany had surrendered on May 7, 1945.

  Upon arrival at Pearl Harbor, the group of seventy sailors found that the USS Neshoba had already departed Pearl Harbor. Thus, Scott had to remain in Pearl Harbor for three months awaiting its return. While at Pearl Harbor, from May to September 1945, Scott had the job being a store keeper for the mess hall.

  Japan Surrendered—August 14, 1945

  Scott was at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese surrendered. Prior to the surrender, total blackouts were enforced at night. “When it was announced that the Japanese had surrendered, every searchlight in the area was suddenly turned on. The crossing of each beam created a huge spider web in the sky. People were driving down from the hills to go to Honolulu to celebrate.”

  What did you do to celebrate?

  “The chapel was open, so I went to the chapel.” This was an eighteen-year-old man; he would become a minster when the war was over.

  Yokohama, Japan

  In September 1945 APA 216 Neshoba returned to Pearl Harbor. The ship was enroute to Yokohama, Japan transporting equipment and 2,500 soldiers who would join other personnel in occupying Japan. While there, they were given three hours to go into Yokohama.

  In Yokohama, “there were bombed out places, and the people were not hostile,” said Scott. “They wanted to buy cigarettes from the soldiers. There were about twenty kids on the dock begging for candy. I imagine they were glad it was over.”

  China—Early October 1945

  Along with other transport ships, USS Neshoba APA 216 dropped anchor at the mouth of the Teinsin River. [The name of the river and city were changed when the Communists took over.] Their task was to get the last group of marines out of China before the Communists took over. Since their ship was too large to navigate the river, they were put on smaller naval vessels to travel the river. The journey took Scott past boat people, who were very poor. As an eighteen-year-old, it was difficult to see so much poverty. “Children surrounded you begging,” said Scott. American sailors were required to stay in an American hotel and eat their meals there.

  On the return trip to the ship, they found they could not board their ship because of choppy waters. They remained on the small craft overnight. The sailors were fed one slice of bread, one slice of pineapple, and one piece of Spam. In order to board their ship, the soldiers climbed up the cargo nets. Then the ship sailed back to San Francisco with a stop at Pearl Harbor to pick up mail and supplies.

  O
n the last night at sea, the men couldn’t sleep. Many of them polished their shoes to a very shiny spit shine. Sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge was quite a sight! Scott likened it to what the Statue of Liberty would mean to people arriving in New York.

  They anchored in Sausalito, California, in the North Bay area. That night, half of the ship had overnight liberty in San Francisco. When you were on leave, there were “taxi ships” that would run back and forth from shore to the ship. Scott and his fellow soldiers waited and waited for a “taxi” to come by and take them back. None arrived that night. A lot of the guys stayed in one hotel room. They were on the floor and lying across the bed. The next morning, when his buddy checked out, the hotel staff was not very happy with them!

  When the sailors returned to await the shuttle back to the ship, no shuttles arrived. Thus, at eight o’clock a.m., there were considered AWOL. The next morning, they found out the ship had moved during their leave and was located at the south end of the San Francisco Bay, which is many miles from its original spot in the North Bay. Navy buses were sent to transport them to Hunter’s Point. AWOL status was never entered on the records perhaps due to the kindness of the captain or consideration of the amount of work it would create for the yeoman.

  Next Scott was sent to Stockton, California Naval Supply Depot on the Sacramento River. The USS Neshoba APA 216 was decommissioned, “mothballed,” and later scrapped. Scott had served for nineteen months and could go home. He was discharged in mid-August 1946 as a storekeeper third class. Following his discharge, Scott returned home to Indianapolis where he completed his interrupted high school education at Emerich Manual Training High School.

  After the War

  Scott married Ruth Layton in 1948, and they raised six children—four girls and two boys. He graduated from Indiana Central College and took his graduate work at Christian Theological Seminary. Scott ministered at both Hansing Park Christian Church and Buck Creek Christian Church.

  Scott has read several books about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. The USS Indianapolis means a lot to him for the following three reasons:

  1.The ship was named after our city, Indianapolis.

  2.Two months prior, [Guam to Philippines] Scott and the men aboard his ship sailed the same route as the USS Indianapolis. It could have been me.

  3.The ship carried atomic bomb parts.

  What did you think about the atomic bombs?

  “I don’t know if Truman could have done something else. It [the atomic bombing] probably saved my life and millions of others. [At] Pearl Harbor [the Japanese] killed many of our people. Had we invaded Japan, they would have lost many more Japanese and American lives. Again, it was not the first bombing of Japan. In some areas, the living quarters were very fragile—thus large living areas were destroyed by fires as a result of the bombing.”

  How did the American government handle the Japanese after their surrender?

  “They helped establish government and assisted in restoring what was destroyed during the war. This kind of effort on the part of the country that prevailed in a war was unusual and set America apart.”

  In 2016, Scott was undergoing chemo and radiation for prostate cancer. His candid account of his WWII experiences on a day when he was fighting another battle—this time with cancer—was characteristically humble.

  Robert Buchert—US Army

  “I saw lots of desolation, and the Japanese people were frightened because they had been told a lot of things about us.”

  Bob was drafted into the army in about 1943 then joined the Airborne unit. He was assigned to the 152 Anti-Aircraft Battalion, 11th Airborne Division. After starting out doing qualitative jumps, he was assigned to the South Pacific Theater, to the Marshall and Gilbert Islands area.

  The war ended before he had to jump into enemy territory. However, he did make other jumps while serving in Japan after the war’s end.

  After the surrender of Japan, “we moved up to Manila in the Philippines,” said Bob. “We were there until we were sent to Japan as occupational troops.”

  Bob explained that he got fifty dollars extra pay, or “jump pay,” for making jumps. For the jump pay to continue, you had to make jumps every three months. He remembered making a jump in Sendai, Japan. Sendai is a city located on Honshu Island, northeast of Tokyo.

  He also remembered being stationed in Akita, Japan. Akita is a city located on the northeastern part of the island of Honshu. “I saw lots of desolation, and the Japanese people were frightened because they had been told a lot of things about us.” He went on to say, “We were strange to them.” As it was recorded, “our bombers came over and bombed the [Japanese] cities.” It would not be unusual for a conquered nation to be afraid of the former enemy arriving in their cities. Bob completed his military service with the US Army paratroopers and was discharged in 1946.

  Should the United States have dropped the atomic bomb on Japan?

  “Yes. It could have saved my life because we were going to invade Japan.” He was scheduled to invade Japan, but thankfully the war ended. Later he went into Japan during the occupation, not jumping into battle.

  Do you still jump?

  “I made enough jumps. I don’t have to jump anymore.” Bob thought it was funny that Max Bates jumped out of a plane on his ninetieth birthday.

  In my search to include as many WWII stories in this book as possible, I spotted one of those beloved black and gold WWII veteran hats in the Orlando International Airport. Bob was travelling from Orlando, Florida, with his daughter, Karen, back home to Indiana and graciously agreed to an impromptu WWII interview while waiting for the plane to arrive.

  During this flight Bob didn’t have to worry about jumping out of the plane. So many years ago, this would have been a very different kind of trip. There may have been enemy gunfire below him instead of white, fluffy clouds.

  The flight attendant told everyone to turn off their portable phones and electronic devices. These particular items were not even dreamed about seventy-plus years ago. Today nearly everyone on the plane had one in their bag or pocket. Bob is one of a rapidly dying breed of brave soldiers of another generation.

  As we began to talk, Bob said, “This all happened a long time ago.” We don’t want people of today and in the future to forget what so many soldiers gave up for us, this present generation. Perhaps all Americans should feel like singer Norah Jones when she said at a recent concert that she was thankful to America for the freedom “to have a song that I can sing on Election Day.”

  We should all be grateful, Norah!

  Lewis Cowden—US Navy

  “... we were hit by a kamikaze, killing forty-two of our guys.”

  What did you think about Pearl Harbor?

  “I didn’t think about it. I had an automobile, and that’s all I was interested in at that time. I was seventeen years old and very immature. It wasn’t until my senior year in high school that I thought about it. I was also running out of gasoline stamps!

  “On the first battles of the war, we tried to be soldiers and go out help the [enemy] injured. They would lay there with a hand grenade, and when a soldier would try to help them, they would blow up our people. So, we became animals, too,” said Lewis. Fortunately it was not part of what he had to deal with, since he was in the navy. He was glad he wasn’t a marine.

  Lewis enlisted in the navy in January 1943 under the Minority Cruise program. The Portland Tribune defined the Minority Cruise program as, “a program where people could enlist at seventeen years old and be discharged before their twenty-first birthday.” He was seventeen years old at the time and then turned eighteen on February 15, 1943. He completed boot camp at Great Lakes naval base.

  December 1943 was the first time he went to sea, on the brand-new destroyer escort ship the USS Whitehurst DE634. He described this as his “shakedown cruise” on the ship and was surprised “that the navy sent them out in such rough weather. It was twenty experienced seamen and a hundred and sixty kids.”
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  The shakedown cruise was a time when a new ship was tested and tried out. The Whitehurst was named after a sailor who was killed in the Battle of Savo Island, off Guadalcanal, in August 1942. Lewis was onboard this ship for two and a half years. The USS Whitehurst was involved in battles during WWII, Korea, and Vietnam

  During the war years, the USS Whitehurst was involved in several invasions in New Guinea, Leyte in the Philippines, and Okinawa. Lewis’s job aboard the ship was on the evaporator, a distillery that converted sea water into drinking water aboard the ship. He had training for a month from the Carrier Corporation on refrigeration. He was the ice machine man as well and the only one aboard who knew anything about refrigeration. There were about five sailors in the auxiliary gang. Lewis took care of maintenance. He was responsible for making sure the evaporator was working and cleaning up the coils whenever it became clogged. “Every once in a while,” he said, “we would have to tear it apart and clean it.”

  “Being sailors,” Lewis noted, “we didn’t have any idea what was going on.” They escorted tankers, navy transports, and ammo ships. Some of the time the USS Whitehurst escorted supply ships between the islands. Lewis recalled, “We took part in several invasions over the years. They called us MacArthur’s Navy.”

  Why were you called Mac Arthur’s Navy?

  “MacArthur was involved in taking back New Guinea from the Japanese, and we were there. We were shot at once; also we were shot at by artillery. We were in Leyte harbor on the night of the invasion. We shot down a Japanese airplane while protecting our convoy. We sank a Japanese sub that sank a ship like ours fifteen or twenty miles ahead of us. We tried to protect the USS

  Bull that was picking up survivors. The ship that was sunk was the USS Eversole DE 404. The Whitehurst arrived on the scene and saved the USS Bull.”