The Independent-News, Volume 121, Number 14, Walkerton, St. Joseph County, 17 August 1995 — Page 11

Veterans Recall World War II 50 Years Later (This series will end next week, fter three more stories). JAMES W. VERKLER IMI Machinist’s Mate First Gass U.S. Navy — Seabees After my tour of duty in the emolition unit in the European heater of Operations (ETO) I joined the regular Naval Seebees id became a heavy-equipment jerator and was sent to Pawicket, Rhode Island, to a replaceent camp. For a month or so I ove a truck delivering furnace oil different barracks on the base. r e were given a 60-hour pass, id a group of us went to New York ity. Being unable to find adelate housing, I hopped a train ling to Qiicago through South end and came home for a short ay. This was known as ‘embarition’ leave, because upon rerning we were moved into quarts awaiting a transport ship to tarts unknown.’ From Pawtucket le ship turned to the south so we lew we were headed for the anama Canal and very likely Pearl arbor. Our assumption was correct, sari Harbor was teeming with livity, and had an over abunmce of manpower. Usually 50 or • men would be sent out to do a b that 10 men could handle, e were told to help tie up the warimaged aircraft carrier ‘Franki.’ With smoke still filtering am its decks, the ship must have stained severe damage throughit. Its heavy guns had melted to many grotesque shapes. Anher incident that happened iring my brief stay at Pearl arbor resulted in my getting lost i a routine vehicle convoy. We id been sent to one of the main otor pools and told to move a nvoy of jeeps and trucks. A arine shouted “follow me” and ch man drove a vehicle, about 20, tappened to be in the last jeep, j drove through the city and I got ught at a stop light, before the [ht turned green the rest of the nvoy had disappeared so I wanded around the rest of the afteron enjoying myself touring the y! Finally I stopped at a Marine >st and told them my dilemma, In’t know where I was supposed go, didn’t know where I had en! The Marine took pity on me poor sailor) and took me back to y barracks. I was glad to get out Pearl I We were not a unit of anything, ; were only considered replaceents. Again we boarded a transit for ’parts unknown.’ While

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on board ship we received word of President Roosevelt’s death on April 12, 1945. Harry Truman became President. Our destination (as we learned later) was the island of Tinian in the Marianas. Tinian was a coral island with steep cliffs and very few natural beaches. The climate was delightfid. My job as a crane operator or a truck driver was, for the most , part, routine and an easy Bto 5 job ! six days a week. [ On my day off, I would hang . around the airstrip watching the planes come and go. I became . friendly with some of the pilots and . hitched rides on some of theß 24’s, [ B 25’s, and B 29’s when they went I on short practice runs. They used to practice dropping bombs on Rhoda, a small island just to the south of Tinian, still held by the Japs. On day I saw a plane being loaded with a torpedo. I asked if I could go along, the pilot said OK, but he was on patrol and would be gone for four hours. He also said I had to check out a flying suit and a parachute. This was done easily, as I knew where to go for these supplies. Soon we were roaring down the runway and off we went. He climbed to 10,000 feet and then came down out of the clouds to a lower altitude. The pilot spied a ship (our own) and radioed the captain to ask if he could make a practice torpedo run. We received clearance to do so. Then we climbed again to 10,000 ft. and started our run which was a steep dive leveling off to just a few hundred feet above the water. Our speed was close to 600 mph as the pilot pulled out of the dive. It felt like my stomach was still up there in the sky! The bombing of Japan was carried out from Tinian, Saipan, and Guam. Nightly raids by 200 planes from each of these three islands bombed Japan repeatedly. They would start taking off early in the evening and not until 10 p.m. would the last one become airborne. Then they would begin returning at about 6 a.m. until 10 a.m. the following morning. Around the first of July about ten of us were sent to a remote area of the airstrip to work. We had some equipment moved in for us, a crane which I operated, some dump trucks, shovels, jack hammers and dynamite. This was a heavily guarded area with a number of security checks through which we had to be cleared each day. We were ordered to dig a large hole 20 ft. long 8 ft. wide and 12 ft. deep. Everyone wondered what the hole was for, but no one seemed to know. We asked some of the guards and they told us that it was to be a king-size latrine (then they would snicker about it). This

project took several days to complete because digging through coral seemed an impossible task. First drilling with jack hammers for the dynamite to be placed, then blasting and digging out piece by piece and trucking away the debris. The same process had to be done repeatedly. Late one afternoon at the end of July, a warship came into our harbor. This was very unusual because all we ever had visiting our harbor was oil tankers and cargo vessels. It was the cruiser ’lndianapolis.’ The warship unloaded a large object on a barge and brought it ashore. Later on that same day a small convoy passed our encampment with a large trailer hauling something covered with tarps. It was heavily guarded. On August 6, 1945, when we heard that the atom bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, we realized the purpose of the huge hole we had dug earlier. Os course, we can only assume that this was true. Three days later on August 9, another atom bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered on August 14, 1945, which was already the 15th in Japan because of the International Dateline. After the war ended, troops were clamoring to be sent home. But it was done in an orderly manner. You had to have so many points to qualify to go home. Points were determined by how long you had been in the service, whether or not you were married and how many kids you had. A total of 60 points were needed. I could total only about 18. I thought that I would be there for another ten years! I Those of us who did not meet the requirements of going home were loaded on a Liberty ship (an old rustbucket) and told to proceed to Tokyo Bay, which was some 2,000 miles to the north. The living conditions aboard this Liberty ship were the worst I had encountered during the entire war. We had to sleep nine bunks high and eat only twice a day - and the food was lousy. We had no shower facilities and since our gear had been packed into the hold, we wore the same clothes for the entire 29 days to Tokyo Bay. After arriving there we awaited the signing of the peace treaty on the battleship ’Missouri’ before we could set foot on Japanese soil for ’occupation duty.’ We were undoubtedly among the first Gl’s to walk the streets of Yokosuka. Every man had to carry a rifle and 100 rounds of ammunition with him at all times. However, we did not encounter hostilities of any kind. In fact, the Japanese were overly polite and courteous. As we left the naval base on shore and entered the city of Yokosuka, the people seemed to be afraid of us. We could see groups of people about a block away, but when we reached that point they had vanished. Maybe it was because of our 29 days without a shower!! We returned to the Yokosuka naval base which was right on shore where we had docked and found that our seabags finally had been unloaded. We found a huge bathtub in a nearby warehouse *hat probably had bcvu used as such by Japanese factory workers. We fired up its boiler and within a few hours were enjoying a refreshing bath! By this time our battalion commander had organized us into different groups. Our group unloaded the mail each day. I was in charge of the steam crane with four helpers, but the Japanese did all the work. We just stood around with our rifles trying to act important. We used a weapons carrier to meet the Japs at the gate in the morning and take them back every night. We could get a phony pass anytime we wanted to leave the compound. We would go to Tokyo or Yokohama on the pretense of needing parts for the job we were working on. ... 1 got to -know my way around

i pretty well as there were no restrictions on where we went or what we did. The fact that we i carried our rifles with us everywhere made us look very official. On our trips to Tokyo or Yokohama we saw the devastation our planes had made. Most Japanese homes were of flimsy construction and the bombing had created fire storms that had burned and burned over large areas of the cities. The only building that remained standing were of masonry construction, like churches and government offices. Our ‘occupation duty’ in Japan lasted about six months, or until the month of March. We were the only conquering army that ever set foot on Japanese soil. Toward the end of our stay we were provided with an opportunity to go to Kyoto, a city south of Tokyo. We were given a 7-day pass and transportation by train to this city. Kyoto was a city untouched by the war. It was a very elegant and ancient city. It had a number of beautifully constructed temples and shrines and imperial palaces, some of which were actually ’painted in gold.’ One such temple had 4 foot wide beams that were 100 foot long in its construction. As the legend goes about 1,000 years ago a prince had vision of where to locate these beams for his temple, from a shipwreck out in the sea of Japan. The women of the village used their long black hair to make a strong rope to raise the beams. Maybe it was just legend, but, the beams were really there, I saw them! Kyoto was the imperial capital of Japan for more than a thousand years. It is still the spiritual and cultural heart of Japan. Probably this was the reason for the absence of bombing in this area. It was the wish to preserve the beauty of this unique city. Soon after our return from Kyoto we boarded a transport ship anchored in Tokvo Bav bound for San Francisco. But this ship did not sail for several day. All of a sudden there appeared to be a terrible storm brewing. Our bow anchor did not hold, immediately most of the ships in the harbor were ordered out to sea to ride out the form. S-T-O-R-M I had never experienced such violent weather! All troop passengers had to stay below decks because they were ’awash.’ It was three days before we were allowed out on deck and then we could still see Mt. Fujiama, the highest mountain in Japan some 12,000 ft. in height.

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AUGUST 17, 1995 - THE INDEPENDENT-NEWS

• Making headway directly into a storm of this magnitude was a slow ’ process. The voyage to the ‘good ole’ U.S.A, took about a month and was l very uneventful the remainder of 1 the way. Toward the end of April, 1 I was on a troop train headed for Chicago and the Great Lakes Naval Base awaiting my pay and final discharge on May 1,1946. Submitted by Helen D. Verkier on behalf of James W. Verkier (deceased 1991) CHARLES MCKESSON United States Army Air Force (a part left out per Mrs. Verkier) Finally in January 1945, we set sail for Guam via Seattle, Hawaii, Eniwietok and Guam, arriving in mid February. We lived in tents and commenced to build our own bunkhouses and mess hall, while awaiting the arrival of our planes and flying crews. Our planes arrived in March and we were glad to be done with building bunkhouses. The bombing runs soon started with our planes departing every three days. In June, July and August the pace increased and we were doing round-the-clock bombing culminating in the dropping of the two atomic bombs and the cessation of hostilities. The runways on Guam were scraped out of coral rock and jungles which left mounds of rock and dirt lining the runways. We always watched our planes leave and return from missions by sitting on the mounds along the runways. On one of the return flights as soon as the B-29 touched the runway, a 250 lb. bomb dropped through the bomb bay doors, bouncing and skidding along the runway. Persons not familiar with bombs ran for cover believing it might explode. I was sitting with several armorers so we immediately ran to the runway to pull the bomb off to the side as other planes were lined up on final approach. The control tower apparently saw the incident and the next plane pulled up to go around again. The remainder landed in order. As armorers we were aware that the bomb would not be armed to explode unless dropped 500 feet! Read our Gassified Ads! The simplest and commonest truth seems new and wonderful when we experience it the first time in our own life. —Ebner-Eschenbach

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