George Paul Hendrickson

George Paul Hendrickson served in World War II in the Pacific Theater.

On January 15, 1944, he joined the U.S. Navy. He served aboard the USS Essex (CV-9), an aircraft carrier. It was the lead ship of the 24-ship Essex class. Mr. Hendrickson and the crew of the Essex were involved in the invasion and occupation of Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Iwo Jima, all the major islands in the Philippines, and Okinawa. They also participated in attacks on the Japanese-held China mainland, including Hong Kong, Hainan, Swatow, and French Indochina, as well as attacks on the islands of Japan. Mr. Hendrickson was discharged on June 5, 1946.

His rank was Aviation Radio Technician Petty Officer 3rd Class.

He was decorated with the Distinguished Unit Citation and the Philippine Presidential Unit Citation.

Mr. Hendrickson was born in 1925 in Tower, Minnesota. He is the son of George and Esther Hendrickson. He graduated from Tower High School in 1943.

Source: Veterans’ Memorial Hall veteran history form; veteran’s account (below)

NAVY DAY DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR
by G. Paul Hendrickson

“I believe a short prologue of my time served in the U.S. Navy is important to the record my experiences aboard the USS Essex. From the time I was drafted into the service to the end of my time on the Essex, certain events happened, which at times I call it fate and the maybe the hand of God.

“The first event happened at the recruiting station in Minneapolis where I was drafted. After going through my physical, which I passed, I was asked which branch of service I preferred to serve. My mind was already made up. My wish was to be an aviation radioman gunner on an aircraft carrier. The problem was, I was color blind, able to pick out only one or two numbers out of the colored dot circle.

“I could be put into the Navy as a SeaBee [Construction Brigade] or a medic. After much pleading, the recruiter gave in and swore me into the regular Navy. When asked if there was any special school I’d like to go to, my answer was aviation radio school.

“Another problem came up: my IQ tests were too low. I then ended up in boot camp at Farragut, Idaho. A few days before graduating, I came down with scarlet fever and spent twenty-one days in sick bay and finished training with a new company. Again, was my getting scarlet Fever fate or the hand of God? I went home on a fifteen-day leave.

“Further orders sent me to Bremerton, Washington, where I was to be sent overseas. My father was working as an electrician in the shipyard. On the only day there, and not knowing how to reach him, I decided to walk around the yard, and as I came to the first ship in dry dock, looking down at a 5” turret, I saw someone who looked like my father. I hollered, “Dad!” He looked up, and it was him! We had lunch together. Again, was this fate, or the hand of God?

“The next day, I boarded the battleship Colorado, destination Pearl Harbor. From there, we transferred to the heavy cruiser Houston. The trip continued to Majuro in the Marshall Islands, which was a Naval base taken from the Japanese a short time before. We disembarked to a small harbor craft heading out into the harbor past cruisers, battleships, destroyers. Not knowing on which ship I was to serve, we headed to a large carrier, and that was my destination for the next two years/fifteen months during World War II. Again, was this fate or the hand of God that I was on an aircraft carrier? I wasn’t an aviation radioman, but I was put into V1-T Division, whose duties were to assist in launching and landing the aircraft, which consisted of F6 [F6F Helicat] fighters, SB2C [Helldiver] dive bombers, TBF [Avenger] torpedo planes, and F4U [Corsair] fighters, piloted by Marines.

“The Essex was the first of its class launched after the beginning of the war. It was 27,100 tons, 872 feet long, maximum width 147 feet, top speed 33 knots. During my war years on the Essex, we were involved in the invasion and occupation of Japanese-held islands of Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Iwo Jima, all the major islands in the Philippines, and Okinawa.

“The Essex was also involved in several attacks on the Japanese-held China mainland, including Hong Kong, Hainan, Swatow, and French Indochina, plus twenty attacks on all major islands on Japan itself. We were engaged in three major engagements with the Japanese fleet. During the sixty-eight combat missions the Essex was involved in, she fought through 375 Japanese air raids and was hit only once, off Luzon, when a kamikaze took out a 20mm gun mount and tire repair station and tied up flight operations for one-half hour. The AA [anti-aircraft] gun crews shot down thirty-three enemy planes, the plane handling crew manned a 20mm gun mount during these attacks. Her air groups destroyed 1,531 Jap aircraft with 800 more probables, they sank twenty-five war ships and damaged 415 more.

“We were fifteen months in continuous combat except for refueling and taking on supplies off Okinawa. We spend seventy-nine consecutive days under attacks by Jap planes without seeing a port, we had the number one naval ace, Commander [?] Campbell, who shot down thirty-four Japanese planes, nine in one day. I have a diary I kept during the war years, which was illegal, for which I could have been court-martialed. I was never caught.

“This is one of the excerpts recorded on October 14. 1944: 'After we landed our air strikers, about 1200, the Japanese planes started coming in on our Task Force about 1300. The ship went to general quarters. I just got up to the hangar deck when our anti-aircraft opened up. A dive bomber dove on the Essex, but failed to drop his bomb. He then dropped it on the carrier Lexington but missed. Things quieted down and we secured from general quarters.

“'I was down eating chow, and torpedo defense was broadcast over the PA. I got up to the hangar deck and a Jap fighter plane had just finished strafing the Essex and several men were wounded. About the same time, two enemy torpedo planes came in on the Essex, dropping their torpedoes. The ship turned sharply as the torpedoes seemed to be headed for hits, but one barely missed the bow, the other our stern. Essex gunners shot down one plane and it went in about 35 yards off our fantail. The pilot could be seen getting out but the gunner was slumped over, apparently dead. The other plane crashed on the fantail of the cruiser Houston, which I’d traveled on from Pearl Harbor to Majuro. Shortly after the torpedo attack, a dive bomber came in on us but failed to drop his bomb. About 10 minutes later, another plane appeared high over us, we opened fire, then he disappeared. Another plane came in on the Essex, failing to drop his torpedo, flying right over our flight deck. Things quieted down and we secure from general quarters.'

“Another event I would like to relate to you is one that had a lasting effect on the rest of my life. This took place April 14, 1945, during a raid on Okinawa. At that time in the war all Japanese air attacks were kamikazes (suicide). A large group of enemy planes came in to attack our fleet. I was standing to the rear of the catapult and our AA firing was into a cloud above the bow when out of the cloud came a Zero fighter plane, a 500-lb. bomb on its undercarriage, traveling about 400 mph at a dive of about 60 degrees, heading right for the catapult where I was standing. I jumped onto the catwalk on the side of the flight deck and prayed, “Dear Lord, I’m not going to see home again, but if I do, I’ll dedicate my life to you.” This plane wasn’t much more than 150 feet above the ship. I could see the pilot, his goggles and the white scarf the suicide pilots wore. Some unseen power flipped him sideways from his dive, and he crashed into the water on the side of the ship, throwing water and shrapnel under the catwalk where I stood. The photographer who took a picture of this plane captioned it, ‘He had us cold turkey but couldn’t crash.’ This wasn’t fate, it was the hand of God.

“In closing, I want to leave you with a bit of philosophy that I have lived by and has made me a stronger-willed person. It is important that I tell you where and when this came about.

“It was on February 17, 1945, when the ship’s captain announced over the PA system, 'Tomorrow we hit Tokyo.' Now this was to be the first raid on the Japanese mainland since Doolittle did it in 1942 from the carrier Hornet.

“All hands were a little apprehensive. After being relieved of duties that night, I went to my quarters, opened my locker, and in it was a book entitled Mansions of Philosophy. It appeared to have been well used and looked ancient. I had not idea where it came from. That night, I opened it to read and the first words that came to me were the following. I quote, 'It is by doing the things you don’t want to do that you gain your strength, moreover your capacity to enjoy life is greatly increased, for there is no greater satisfaction in life than that which results from the overcoming of difficulties.'

"The days of raids on Japan were launched during heavy overcast skies 125 miles from Japan. Large numbers of enemy planes flew over, but none could find our task force. Again, was this fate or the hand of God? There is no doubt that he is the one that is responsible for my being here. Many carriers that fought along the Essex were severely hit and many lives lost, but the USS Essex came through with a minor hit by a kamikaze. Again, was this fate or the hand of God?”
________________________________________________________________
(Disclaimer: To the best of our knowledge, the information provided in this oral history interview is accurate. We do not make any representation or warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of the information.)

The following is an oral Interview with G. Paul Hendrickson.

Conducted by Dan Hartman, Veterans’ Memorial Hall Program, St. Louis County Historical Society

Recording Date: Unknown

Recording Place: Unknown

Transcriber: Susan Schwanekamp

Transcription process funded by a grant from the Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation

DH: We are conducting an interview today with – what’s your name, sir?

GPH: G. Paul Hendrickson. My first name is really George, but I don’t go by that name. I go by G. Paul.

DH: And so, George Paul Hendrickson. And how do you spell your last name?

GPH: H-E-N-D-R-I-C-K-S-O-N.

DH: OK. And what year were you born in?

GPH: I was born in October 24, 1925.

DH: And where were you born at?

GPH: I was born right here in Tower.

DH: I take it your parents were living here in Tower at the time?

GPH: Yes, they were.

DH: OK. And what were your parents’ names?

GPH: Pardon me?

DH: What was your Mom and Dad’s name?

GPH: My dad’s name was George. My mother’s name was Esther.

DH: OK. What was your mom’s maiden name?

GPH: Peterson.

DH: What was the ethnic background of your parents?

GPH: Well, my father was, he was station agent at Tower. He was a telegrapher. He worked for the DM & IR for quite a few years.

DH: And was he Swedish, was he…

GPH: He was Swedish and Finnish.

DH: And how about your mom?

GPH: My mother was full blooded Norwegian.

DH: OK.

GPH: And my grandmother and grandfather came from Norway in 1883.

DH: You came from a pretty Scandinavian family.

GPH: Definitely.

DH: So, your parents were both definitely Scandinavian, and the lived in their whole life up here, too, or…?

GPH: They got married up in Tower, yes.

DH: OK. And did their parents come over, or did their parents grow up in the United States as well.

GPH: My grandmother and grandfather Peterson – they came from Norway in 1883, to Tower. And my grandfather – my father’s father – lived in Aurora. I don’t know too much of their history.

DH: Pretty impressive, that your family has a long history in the city of Tower.

GPH: I know my grandfather Hendrickson – he worked down in Partridge Lake, I think, by Aurora.

DH: Did you ever get to meet your grandparents at all?

GPH: I met my grandmother; my grandfather was dead. My grandfather Peterson died the year I was born, so I never did see him.

DH: OK. But, um, okay, as you grew up here in Tower, what were some of the things you did as a child, for fun, I guess, that you did in Tower?

GPH: Oh, fishing.

DH: What did you fish for?

GPH: I fished for walleyes, mainly, on Lake Vermilion.

DH: And how was fishing different than compared to today?

GPH: It was tremendous. We fished with bamboo poles mainly, from shore. And if you’d catch one walleye you could use the eye, the gill, or anything, and you just kept them, one after the other. It was tremendous. It gone down drastically. The DNR denies that, the walleye population in Lake Vermilion is going down, thanks to the muskies that were cleaning out the lake.

DH: And, were the muskies introduced into Lake Vermilion, or were they always there?

DF: From years ago, they showed the maps of Lake Vermilion, muskies, you know, but all of a sudden they disappeared. There was nothing. I don’t know how many years ago they started planting. Probably within 10 years.

DH: So you think the muskie was responsible…

GPH: Definitely. Every local person will say the same thing.

DH: OK. And I just want to repeat this, but you sound like the walleye population has gone down.

GPH: Oh, definitely.

DH: And so…

GPH: And another thing that ruined Lake Vermilion was bass. Dr. Preston Bradley, who was a teacher from Chicago, I think, he came up every year. He would bring a bunch of bass to dump in Bass Lake, east of Lake Vermilion, and a storm came up and he had to dump them in Lake Vermilion, and after that the bass taking over too. They're are detrimental. I guided out of Ely for two or three summers when I was with Dun Woody. I was a carpenter, when I saw bass take over the lake.

DH: And this was a large mouth bass?

GPH: Small mouth.

DH: How often…was there any other activities you would do as a kid besides fishing with your friends? Any games you guys would play around the neighborhood, or…?

GPH: Oh boy, I’m trying to think. My time was spent working, because my father had turned into being an alcoholic and he left the job and we had a tough time going and I had to work hard. I had to work hard.

DH: What type of jobs were you doing at this point?

GPH: I worked for a fellow by the name of Mike Driscoll who had a truck and he had the gravel business and so forth. Tower and Soudan schools both filled their coal bins with coal, which was probably about several thousand tons. And every year I helped him load those bins with coal, scoop out of the box cars. Then in Soudan, years ago, they never picked up the garbage. For the whole winter. Can you imagine how much accumulation you’ve got there? And he always got the contract to clean up the alleys. You can imagine what that was like, eh?

DH: That’d be a lot of trash!

GPH: I shoveled a lot of you know what!

DH: And how old were you when you started doing the work?

GPH: Well I had a paper route from eighth grade through high school, delivering the Duluth Herald. And when I started doing this work? Probably it was in eighth grade, too.

DH: So you started working pretty young.

GPH: Oh, yeah.

DH: Do you remember the 1920s much? You were pretty young - about 5 years old. Do you remember…?

GPH: The 1940s?

DH: 1920s.

GPH: I don’t remember much, but there are a few things I remember as a kid, you know. I went to school in Tower until I was in first grade. And then we moved to Soudan, in the middle of the winter. We moved to the first house coming into Soudan. And we moved with a team of horses. Jackie Osteppin was the name. He hauled all of our furniture with a team of horses. It was 40 below when we hauled that furniture. It was cold! And my Dad, you know, he bought this house, and before we moved there, he brought me up and somebody had vandalized the whole thing, broke all the light fixtures. We started out pretty badly. But it was a good experience? We fired up with an old Heatrola coal burning stove. If you load it with coal at night – nobody’d fill it up during the night. It was 40 below outside and it was 40 below in the house.

DH: How did you guys keep warm?

GPH: A lot of blankets. I know the first one up built a fire in the heating rig, big kitchen rig down in the kitchen. You had to get reservations to put your feet in the oven, to warm up with.

DH: (Laughter) I want to talk a little bit about Tower. How is Tower different today, compared to then?

GPH: I don’t know…..Tower hasn’t changed, which is a bad thing, you know. The business people in Tower, they more or less didn’t work together. And between Tower and Soudan, there was a confliction (sic) you wouldn't believe because up in Soudan, the miners treated really, really good. The Oliver Mining company gave them houses and so forth and practically everything for nothing. The Tower people were jealous of this. We used to go up from Soudan to Tower and the kids would say “What are you Soudan bums doing in Tower?” And to this day, that’s still there. We’re two miles apart and we can’t have one fire department.

DH: And I see you shaking your head as well, so there’s definitely some agreement on it.

GPH: Two miles and they will not join together. We had confliction (sic) with the police department, too. We had service for both Tower and Soudan and finally they disbanded. We’re served by the St. Louis County now, we have a sheriff. Soudan still has their police force. It's not very good.

DH: So do you want to talk about - how was the school in this part of... was the school pretty well together? Were the teachers pretty good? Sounds like you went to school in Tower.

GPH: Well, when I moved from Tower to Soudan, there were some certain kids that picked on me, that’s for sure. Bullies, eh? Yeah. That’s where I got started off on a whole long wrong track of education because I just felt left out.

DH: Do you remember any of those bullies’ names?

GPH: Sure I do. I’m not going to tell it.

DH: So, in your teenage years, it sounds like you were working a lot, too, but what were some of the things that you did as a teenager around town?

GPH: Oh, we always played football and baseball – every place you looked there was a field where somebody was playing some kind of sports. We worked together, the kids, really good, really good.

DH: Was there any sport in particular you really liked, or any sport that you really liked to play?

GPH: I liked football very much, but see, I had a paper route, you know. That’s what disrupted my whole thing because I had to deliver papers in high school after school every day, but I did get to play a little bit. It was my favorite sport.

DH: So, I’ve heard a little about this before – it sounds like you were always interested in joining the military, before you joined. Is that true?

GPH: Not really. I never gave it a thought! Maybe that’s why I waited until I was drafted, eh? It was different when I got in. Then I was very dedicated.

DH: And how old were you when you were drafted? I would imagine…

GPH: I was 18.

DH: And did you just graduate school recently then or were you still in school or…?

GPH: I had graduated in 1943. And I was drafted in January 1944.

DH: OK. And what were you doing at the time? Was there a certain job you were working on, or…?

GPH: I was working for the Minnesota Box Factory, which was making boxes for ammunition and meat products for the service. That's been taken down west of Tower here. It was a big facility, but when they started getting into cardboard, then they didn’t use the wood anymore.

DH: But you were actually still helping out with the home front?

GPH: Oh, yeah.

DH: Do you want to describe to me... Obviously, the war was actually going on since 1941, what were some of the activities that were going around in Tower on the home front?

GPH: Well, I’ll tell you, a lot of people collected aluminum foil from cigarette papers and so forth. They were really dedicated – the civilians here in town. I was friendly with a real German family [unintelligible] was the name. They were the most patriotic people you could ever find. He had a brother in the German army, too, but he was killed. The United States got him.

DH: Yeah, that had to be kind of a tough thing for him.

GPH: Yeah.

DH: I imagine people were overly patriotic at the time, everyone was very much helping out with the cause?

GPH: Oh, yeah.

DH: So, on December 7, 1941, when Pearl Harbor – do you remember that day?

GPH: I remember it very vividly. I went to see one of my friends up in Soudan. Otti Sippla was his name – full Finnish person – and he said, “Let’s go skating.” And so we skated up to the east end of Lake Vermilion and there was glare ice, not a bit of snow on it, it was just a beautiful day. And we stopped up there, talked to... I’m trying to think of his name, he was killed in a boating accident, his motor blew up, anyways ---Nutta (sp?) – that’s what his nickname was, he was a full blooded Finnlander, like Crockett, but with curlier hair, that’s for sure. So we came back and I said “Let’s go back to Tower” and we went back to Tower, up to the river, and somebody said “Did you know that Pearl Harbor was just bombed?” And I said no. That’s when I learned about it. I’ll never forget that day.

DH: And so, also this is still in the throes of the Great Depression. Now could you tell that there was a Great Depression on, or was it still the same as it was in the 1920s, or…..do you want to describe that at all?

GPH: It was pretty bad. We mainly lived on food stamps – they didn’t have food stamps then, but we lived on commodities like powdered egg, powdered milk, prunes, things like that. We didn’t get sticks (??) like they do nowadays. And my father, he became a foreman, a concrete foreman, when they built the liquor store, it was a city liquor store at that time.

DH: And so – the Great Depression. FDR was a major part in that. And what are your thoughts on FDR? Do you think he was doing the right things during the Great Depression, or…?

GPH: I don’t know if he was the one who started it, but during the Depression is when they started the CCC camps, but that was a….army tent trucks came by all day long from my house up to Ely and they did a lot of great work. I wish they still had that program today. When a lot of people are out of work, just put them in the woods and beautify them.

DH: And you’re definitely a big fan of the CCC program, then?

GPH: Oh, definitely. Definitely. Very good.

DH: And now I’m going to move you back forward (??) a little bit again and ….so how did you find out that you were drafted?

GPH: I got my notice, eh? After they send out a draft notice….

DH: And were you expecting it all, or…?

GPH: Oh, I knew I’d get drafted. I knew it.

DH: OK. And did you get any choice at all, or did it just say “You’re going into the Navy”? Or how did that work?

GPH: Well that’s how it all begins. I was drafted and then there was a recruiting center in downtown Minneapolis, and that’s how it got started. I got a lot of history in that interview……

DH: So, were you kind of worried to go down there?

GPH: No, I was all hepped up. I wanted to go, in the worst way. I was gung ho. I wanted to help the war effort, eh?

DH: And you wanted to be in the Navy?

GPH: Definitely. When I was drafted, that was my choice.

DH: And why did you want to be in the Navy, versus the Army or…?

GPH: I had an ambition to be an aviation radioman on an aircraft carrier. I’ll start out this way. I passed my physical, but I was color blind. 100% color blind. And they do not accept you in the Navy when you’re color blind. They put you in the Seabees (??) or in the medics, eh? And I pleaded with that recruiter. I said “I want to go in the Navy! I want to get on an aircraft carrier!” He says “I’ll pass you.” So he passed me. He says “Any specialty you want to be in?” I said, “Definitely. I want to be an aviation radio man gunner.” So then he finally informed me, he said “Your IQ is too low. You can’t go to school, you’ve got to have the IQ.” But from there on – you want to hear the rest of it? OK, then I went to Farragut, Idaho. To Camp Hill, Idaho and the Navy training base there. And I can’t remember the course was, anyway. On the day I was supposed to finish school I was in the _(sounds like “chattle bind”)____ and I passed out completely. I ended up in the hospital, in the fever ward. Rheumatic fever, to begin with, not scarlet fever. Then they diagnosed me as being scarlet fever. And I was sent there for 21 days. I came out and I finished my schooling and was sent home with a 15 day leave. This is one thing: why did I get scarlet fever, like that? Then when I got done with my 15 day leave I was ordered to go to Washington. And it happened to be that my father was an electrician in a shipyard there. I was just going to be overnight there before I was shipped out. And I said “I’m just gonna take a walk down the line.” And I had no chance – I didn’t know where my Dad was. And first ship I saw was a destroyer, and I looked down there and I said “I can’t believe it. It’s my father!” Hundreds and hundreds of ships there and there he was. “Dad!”

DH: So your Dad was serving in the military, as well, then?

GPH: No, he was a civilian. He was working at the shipyard, as an electrician as a civilian. I hollered “Dad!!” He couldn’t believe it. ___have a little lunch and conversation______one of those fate things that…...

DH: And so I guess, tell me what happened after that. Where did you go from there?

GPH: Then I went, see, I’m trying to think of the right order. I think it was a cruiser, Houston. One of the crews on Houston, to San Francisco. From San Francisco to Pearl Harbor and I was there for about two weeks. And then….

DH: How did you like Hawaii?

GPH: I never suffered so much as Hawaii. More standing around on the crap (??) beaches and standing around in downtown Honolulu. I ate more pineapple than I ever ate in my life. It was hard. I suffered there. It was not like a civilian would have, when he went there, a vacation. And I went aboard the battleship Colorado. And I was shipped over to the ____islands. I didn’t know where I was going to go. In my orders, I didn’t know where I was going to go and _______on a small craft, with another dozen or so guys, and we went through the fog and past battleships, cruisers, destroyers, ________aircraft carrier. We headed right towards it. I says “I can’t believe it! Thank God! _______an aircraft carrier.”

DH: And what was your role at this point? What was your role? Were you a radio man like you wanted to be?

GPH: Oh no. I was just a seaman, second class. _____in the Navy? Private seaman something.

DH: OK. So when you saw an aircraft carrier, do you know what the name of it was?

GPH: Yeah. Essex. It was the Essex.

DH: OK.

GPH: Again, God read my mind. Not only that – I didn’t know what division I was going to be put on. I was put on the flight crew. Landing and launching aircraft, eh? So close to what I wanted to be. I worked in landing_________to the carrier, which it did._________and you pushed ‘em and you had to fold up the wings in certain planes. It was exciting.

DH: And how big was the aircraft carrier?

GPH: It was 900 feet long. Three football fields. And it weighed about, I think, dead weight I think was about 27,000 or 28,000 (tons?) before anything was loaded.

DH: And how many guys were on this ship?

GPH: 3000.

DH: And how many of those guys did you get to know?

GPH: Not too many. Not that many, because of the job we had, you were busy. And when you got done with it, you didn’t have much time for anything. I can (only) remember the name of half a dozen people from the service.

DH: What about some of the guys that you hung out with the most, that you do remember? Do you remember any names, by chance?

GPH: Ah – there was a Hedlund from Minneapolis, I know. And , well, I’ll tell you, this is where memory is gone.

DH: Don’t worry about it.

GPH: When it started – when I was with the recruiter – this bothered me all the way through, you know. The recruiter says “If you want to stay with the Navy after the war, you’ve got to sign up for six years.” So I signed up for six years. After the war, you know, people are getting discharged, and I said “I can’t get out.” It bothered me all the way through my days on the Essex, knowing that I wasn’t going to get out after the war was over.

DH: So you were there for the long haul.

GPH: Yeah. That changes, too, because I’m….

DH: So tell me a little bit about your operations. What was your job? What were you doing, exactly, then? On the Essex.

GPH: We had to restock the flight deck. Usually the plans are all lined up in to the _(sounds like “box derby”)___there are usually about 70 planes on, different types, PBM bombers and F6X fighters and SPQC dive bombers and then there was Navy – Marine too, that have it -____ , the Corsairs, the gull wing plane. And the planes took off and then when the planes landed, we had to, after they ---we had to restock them on the ___(deck?)____ and wait for the rest of the planes to land. And then when all the planes were in, we’d have to take all the planes and move ‘em back again, ____take off again.

DH: And you were just towing them, right? You weren’t starting them and driving them around?

GPH: No. We towed them. Usually, after they went _______landing hook, you know, that catches the cable there, then they ____the plane up to the bow and so forth and they positioned themselves. And coming back, we had to pull ‘em with Jeeps, crowbars….

DH: And where did you run into, where did you first join the USS Essex again?

GPH: Pardon me?

DH: What was the series of islands called where you first _____?

GPH: Madeira Islands. I think that was the first island that the Americans invaded down there, after Pearl Harbor. _________Guadalcanal area.

DH: And where did you go on from there? Where did the Essex move on to?

GPH: Well, there was a few days after I went aboard the Essex, we went into ____Saipan (??) __ Planes would go up there and the bombed and strafed and took out facilities that the Japanese had there. The first day that I was on there, the first launch we had ______said “When are we going to get some action? I came up for action!” I said “You’ll get it soon, eh?” It wasn’t 10 minutes later when a Japanese plane came down on the bow, up stern, you know, headed right down to right where I was standing on by the _______. And he dropped his bomb but missed by just a few feet. And I think Wayne Morrison was a movie actor, don’t know if you remember him, that’s a long time ago, he was in the catapult at that time, and we lost him. And he went down after that Japanese shot him down. We said (to the guy who made the “action” comment just before, apparently) “Did you have enough?” And he said “No, I want more!”

DH: So what were you thinking when that first plane came in? Were you getting a little worried there, I imagine?

GPH: No, I didn’t know. I was just standing there and pretty soon there’s a plane ahead, diving at us. The shrapnel flew up and the bomb blew up and I hit the bomb deck and…..

DH: It all happened pretty quickly, sounds like?

GPH: Oh yes, yes, yes.

DH: So what happened after that? Where di d you go from there?

GPH: Well, during the______, that’s when the Japanese knew that we were getting to bases closer to Japan, so they wanted to do everything they possibly could to disrupt our operation. They came in with a fleet of carriers and battleships. They still had Guam at that time. But they called what was the Mariannas turkey shoot. It was maybe about maybe 800 to a thousand Japanese planes that came after us. There was some action, eh? We shot down …400 different planes were shot down that day. There was a few that come into us. We had a Commander McCampbell – he was in charge of the ____ - he shot down nine in one day. But boy he was greedy. He took kills away from his wing man, and everything. He’d ____he’d say “Get that thing gassed up and fueled and ___I want to take off!” He was a gung ho guy.

DH: Did you say he got eight? In one day?

GPH: Nine. Nine in one day, that was a record. Marianas turkey shoot. He was given the Medal of Honor after the war. He was trying to get ____named after him, but……

DH: And so, you got to meet him, obviously, and you knew him?

GPH: Oh, every day. We worked with these pilots.

DH: Yeah. And how was he otherwise? Was he a nice guy to deal with otherwise, or was he…?

GPH: Very good. But he was one of those egotistics (sic). I hate to put this down, if it’s going to be recorded, but that is the truth. He was reprimanded many times by the Captain.

DH: So on days like that I imagine you had to be very busy, then.

GPH: Busy, busy, busy. We probably had about ______then about four bombing missions in a day. The planes would take off, they’d come, rinse off the deck, go off again. Four times in a day. You didn’t have much rest.

DH: Oh man. And how was the food on the Essex?

GPH: t was really good. Really, really good.

DH: Wow. What were you eating?

GPH: On holidays we had the best. We had turkey and cranberries, mashed potatoes, everything. We had SOS – you know what that is, eh? Somebody must have told you about that? But to this day, I still like it.

DH: I’ve heard that too. And I’ve heard others that – not so much. One thing we had that they didn’t have in the Army, I’m sure, we had ice cream – all you could get – sundaes, banana splits and everything. Hard to believe, eh?

DH: So it sounds like the cooks were doing a pretty good job?

GPH: Oh, yes. Considering feeding 3000 men.

DH: Oh wow. That would be pretty tough. And how did you deal with the seasickness?

GPH: I never got seasick one time. After the service I went to bring my brother-in-law to Detroit, Michigan. He wanted to go to college there. And we took the ferry, where the bridge is nowadays, and I got seasick. On Lake Superior.

DH: So where did you guys move on from Saipan?

GPH: When we went over, we bombed Guam, of course, and I believe we went to the Philippine Islands. We were bombing that location there.

DH: And was there ever a point in time where you were getting a little worried about the Japanese, or….? Where you thought they were getting a little bit stronger, or….?

GPH: I was looking forward for them to come after us. After the Marianas turkey shoot _____pilots that were getting shot down. After that most of the pilots had nothing but kidney ____s (??) A lot of them graduated from the University of California – many of them. In fact, when you took prisoners, you know, shot down a plane and took a prisoner, you were a prisoner ship. ______transported_____(unintelligible)______Essex. Very, very humble. They were out to kill us, but after that, they were humble.

DH: And so, talk about, do you remember anything specific, stories from Guam, or the Philippines, any action or anything funny that happened on the ship at this point?

GPH: _______(place name, can’t hear it)___. That’s the first place. That’s when MacArthur____landed_______returned. The rumor was out that there was a fleet of troop transports coming from China. So we were sent over to China. We bombed Hong Kong and several places and on the troop ships we must have killed at least 250,000 Japanese that would have gotten to ___________and that would have made the war a lot tougher, eh? See, my brother-in-law, he was in the Army on ____(sounds like “Lathie”), too. He got wounded. “What did you guys do in the Navy, anyway?” (he said) I mentioned about the time we sunk all those Japanese troop ships. We would have been in trouble (otherwise).

DH: I never even heard about that. So, what did you think of MacArthur?

GPH: You know what happened in the Korean War, when he retired, eh? I think he was another egotistic (sic), a picture of him showing off, “I shall return”, _______.

DH: I ask because many veterans I’ve interviewed have had a similar opinion, so that was interesting. And was that kind of a common feeling amongst the guys?

GPH: Oh yeah, definitely.

DH: Yeah. Tell me a little bit about the Chinese troop ship? (Weren’t they just talking about it as if it was a Japanese troop ship? Or at least filled with Japanese troops, that they killed 250,000 of?) How long were you over by China?

GPH: We went there for probably about 3-4 days of waiting (??).

DH: Then you came back out again.

GPH: That was about the time the Japanese were coming down with a big fleet from Japan, and so forth, and there was another………the Marianas turkey shoot……what they called this one was the Philippines sea battle. Two of the biggest battles ever fought. Just imagine ________. The Japanese came down with battleships, unsuspected. We knew they were around, but they were all around different islands. _____them all together and they came in with battleships and the battleships were 30 miles, 40 miles behind us. And we waited for the shells to start coming, because I think they’ve got to be within 15 miles for that, for the shells to reach us. And we sank quite a few of those ships. And the battleships got into a group of _____carriers (?), small carriers. We sunk two or three of those guys ____unintelligible_____shells coming at ‘em.

DH: So how did it feel to be a part of all this at the time?

GPH: It felt good. I felt good. I felt good. I wanted excitement in my life, and I sure got it, eh?
To this day I want it.

DH: Sounds like it. So, what happened after the Philippines Sea Battle?

GPH: During all this time we were bombing Okinawa, _____(different place names)______________, different places. And then in fact, I do remember that the first one bombed Japan but then one day the Captain announced “Tomorrow we will bomb Tokyo.” So the first wave was carried out with _______bombing Tokyo. Then the ship’s paper showed a cartoon of everybody jumping overboard when he said we were going to strike Tokyo tomorrow. We went up there and we were there for a couple of days but we were very fortunate, because the weather was foggy and rainy and we were able to launch planes and bomb Japanese airfields and ship yards and so forth. We had planes coming around us for two, three days and they could not find us, eh? Another blessing of God, putting that shield over us, eh. All in all I think I was in 26 different raids on Japan. ___________. We came a lot of times within 70 miles of the Japanese mainland.

DH: And the Japanese now, they never got close to bombing you, out there at all?

GPH: Well, they tried, you know. We were missed by many a bomb.

DH: So, God was on your side many, many times.

GPH: Oh, that’s for sure.

DH: And so where did you guys go after your ….?

GPH: I think after the Philippine invasion we went to Iwo Jima. Because they needed a place to land crippled aircraft that were going to bomb Japan, eh? _____ B29s, ______invasion. I still remember coming into Iwo Jima harbor that time. There was still some fighting, but more or less the Japanese had given up, and boy, the stench was horrible. You could smell dead bodies and…

DH: And how close? You were on the shore, then?

GPH: Oh we were in the harbor, then, two-three miles from shore. The only time we went into the harbor to take on supplies, like food and ammunition. Most of the time we’d be bombing, we’d pull back two, three hundred miles or so.

DH: And so how long were you at Iwo Jima? How were you helping that out?

GPH: Probably till after they declared it. Until after the Japanese surrendered.
OK. And then where did you get shipped to from there, I guess?

GPH: Then we headed for Okinawa. That’s where they bombed…they were going to invade Okinawa.

DH: And how did you assist the invasion of Okinawa?

GPH: We, our ____went in and we bombed the fuel facilities and airports and whatever. Entrenchments. They did a fine job on stopping the airport.

DH: And from the ship, could you see them what was being bombed at all? Or were you too far away?

GPH: No, we were too far out. I was up to 18 months, eh. I was on land four hours in the Philippines, we had a shore leave and we got four bottles of beer. I didn’t drink at that time so I sold my beer for a dollar a bottle. We were off Okinawa 79 straight days without any let up in action. Never came ashore. 79 days. The longest tour a ship ever made. It was tough. Lots of times they were using suicide planes. Every plane was a suicide plane.

DH: And was that, were you guys more worried about the suicide planes than the bombs before, or what were your thoughts when you started to see the suicide planes?

GPH: Definitely. Because when they came down, they were after you to kill you. There were experiences we had, you know, before the started suicide, where a Japanese plane would come in with a bomb and he didn’t crash and he would try to get another ship. They’d be coming in with torpedoes and the torpedo wouldn’t be released – he’d come up over the flight deck and drop down ______the Massachusetts battleship got hit. They had a lot of fun. In torpedoes. They weren’t noted for the United States, because we had trouble with torpedoes during the second World War.

DH: So, did you mind being at sea this long? Did you want to go to land?

GPH: I didn’t really care. It’s interesting going to the Philippines, you know – hot and sultry. I never suffered so much. I used to get fresh bananas for a dollar a bundle. _______I didn’t give those away, though.

DH: A dollar for a beer, that’s a pretty good price back then.

GPH: Then there was quite a few prostitutes out in the Philippines, too. I’m not going to go into detail on that. (He may have meant to indicate here that he went on land in the Philippines for four hours at a time, more than once, or possibly for only four hours total, during the 79 days.) The Philippine women were actually selling their daughters for sex to a lot of guys in the Navy. “Dollar for daughter”.

DH: I imagine a lot of guys took the bait.

GPH: Yeah. Not me, though.

DH: I’ve interviewed several guys who have taken the bait. But how prominent was that? Were quite a few of the guys taking advantage…?

GPH: Oh, I think so. You know, we’d been out to sea….some of the guys had been out there for two years, already. So you know, you get….But alcohol, there were so many stills. _____suspensions. They made alcohol out of raisins, anything they could get ahold of, eh? They’ve got “torpedo juice”, eh? One time when we went to shore there were a couple of guys that drank torpedo juice _________and died, you know? That’s alcohol, 100% alcohol.

DH: It was called “torpedo juice”?

GPH: Yeah.

DH: What were some of the things you guys did on your down time on the ship? Did you guys ever play cards games?

GPH: Oh, you had boxing. I was a boxer, too. And we had basketball, in the hangar decks, you know. Then we played football in the flight deck. I remember one time I went for a pass and I lifted my arms up and I threw my shoulder completely back of my back. Really dislocated it. And I was in the harbor someplace, that time and they finally had to get three doctors, from three different ships, to get that thing back in place. It was painful!

DH: Especially with all the work you had to on the ship, later, too.

GPH: I was laid up only for about a week.

DH: And so what happened after Okinawa? Where did you move on from there?

GPH: Well, we more or less stayed around. We kept bombing Japan. But during Okinawa, these people went through hell. They had what you call a pick-up line, between Okinawa and Japan. This was destroyers, positioned half-way between Okinawa and Japan, and report any planes coming down. I had a cousin from Duluth that was on one of the destroyers, and the Japanese really…his ship was hit by kamikazes. They went through hell. They were sitting ducks. They were never recognized for what they did.

DH: The thing you referred to was the pick-up line?

GPH: Pick-up duty.

DH: OK. And where did we leave off from….from Okinawa you said you went to Japan again?

GPH: Yeah, I think we were right off Japan when they had to put the atomic blast up there. We were probably 60 miles from Japan. We couldn’t see the cloud formation or anything. Then a few days later, of course, the Japanese surrendered. GPH: We were ready to, we were all set up to go into Japan. I was designated as a ____, driving a Jeep and so forth, when we went into Japan after the surrender. I wish I had, but all of a sudden, but we were on one of the ships that had been out the longest, so we were sent back. We picked up maybe 2000 Army and different troops, you know, to transport back to the United States, after the war.

DH: When we dropped the bomb, how long, when did you hear about it when we did it?

GPH: Same day. _______

DH: And what were your thoughts and what were some of your other shipmates’ thoughts at the time?

GPH: Well, they did surrender. I figured if they didn’t give up, we were going to have to get in there and invade them. If every one of those citizens had been on a suicide mission, it would have been a horrible thing. You had to do it, because ____cost to American life, I think.

DH: So are you thankful that we dropped the bomb?

GPH: Yes. Yes. It was a terrible thing for the people that suffered there.

DH: But in the end you think it maybe saved more lives?

GPH: Oh yes. If we had had to invade Japan, we would have been in really serious trouble.

DH: And I imagine a lot of people were kind of ready, I wouldn’t say ready, but were awaiting that. I know several Marines that I interviewed. That was their next thing. They were going into Japan.

GPH: I’ll tell you. With the raids of B29s that were going in, we had that country all ___??___I can show you some pictures of cities before the bomb that were completely flattened out. So those B29s did a tremendous job. It’s a good thing they had a Iwo Jima and Saipan to land in, up there. Crippled, eh? It saved a lot of life there.

DH: So when the Japanese finally surrendered, I imagine you had to be pretty excited to have the war over.

GPH: Oh yeah.

DH: I wonder – was there a party on the ship, or any celebrations?

GPH: Not really. I think it was more people were just relieved that it was over.

DH: OK. And so you said you picked up a bunch of guys from the Army?

GPH: Oh yeah, different servicemen. We had about 2000 extra men when we went back. We took the Great Circle Route. It’s hard to believe that it’s shorter to go around Alaska than to go take across ____ We crossed the Great Circle Route. It goes around by Alaska and we came from weather that was 90, 100, 110 above, to 30 above, a few days later. We had no gear to keep warm. What a change, in a few days!

DH: And how was the travel back? Was it pretty decent?

GPH: Oh yeah. Very decent. Very decent?

DH: [unintelligible] okay, or did they get seasick?

GPH: Oh, no trouble. No trouble.

DH: And where’d you land at?

GPH: Bremerton, Washington.

DH: You remember it pretty well. Is there anything I’ve passed over – any stories that you have, of your time while you were overseas, that got left out?

DH: What about the kamikaze attack?

GPH: I was on the catapult crew at that time. I’m trying to think of what battle it was. I think we working at ___up, but there was a cloud formation in the bow of the ship there and all of a sudden AKAKs (?) started going up into that cloud there and I remember being on the flight deck looking up and seeing a Japanese plane come down, at a 60 degree angle, straight down to the flight deck – I’m standin’ there. “I can’t believe it!” (I said.) He came down within a 100 feet of the flight deck. He had goggles, I could see his scarf ___the kamikaze pilot___. I jumped to the catwalk on the side, I said “Dear God, I’m not gonna make it, but if I make it, I’m going to dedicate my life to you.” 1200 miles an hour, 100 feet to the ship, all of a sudden something took it and just picked him up and threw him onto the side of the ship, eh? No way! The __wind__??__should have crashed him right in, but all of a sudden _____unintelligible words___something picked him up and threw him into the side and it blew up our catwalk. And the Captain – I’ve got a picture of it there – said he had us cold turkey (?) but couldn’t crash. And I’m here today.

DH: Wow. That’s a great story.

GPH: We were involved in 376 raids against our fleet, you know. 376, eh? The Essex was one of the best ships out there.

DH: A very famous ship, yeah.

GPH: It was. It was. It was. I’ve got things here I could show you that…

DH: Is there any part of your story that is left out yet, besides your turning back home yet? I don’t want to skip over anything, so…..

GPH: What gets me, is that they talk about homosexual. I was a young kid. I experienced it, you know. I was attacked by quite a few guys out there, trying to get at me, so, that was bad. And a lot of these people just disappeared overnight. They threw them overboard.

DH: Really.

GPH: Yep.

DH: That’s a story you don’t hear often, either.

GPH: I don’t condemn…..I think it’s a hereditary thing, but these guys got so desperate to get me, they practically wanted to kill me.

DH: But they disappeared, you said.

GPH: Well, not all of them.

DH: OK. And so when you arrived back at Bremerton, Washington, you took a train back? Is that right? Tell me about your return, I guess.

GPH: OK. I came back to Bremerton. I was scheduled from the second bunch of guys to go on leave, 15 or 30 days, whatever it was. And the Captain announced, he said “If there’s anybody with a _______please inform us.” So I went down there to the yeoman’s office, where they kept records and everything, and I was put in as a yeoman. And I didn’t plan it, they just____6’5”____discipline and that______and I was given a job that when guys went AWOL, I had to contact the police force in their cities, you know. I looked up the fact that this guy was AWOL and so forth and we caught a few of them. I was very fortunate to get that. I got very good – I’m trying to remember the name. _____book work part of the trip. I was helping discharge these guys, you know. I looked at them and I felt bad. Here these guys were getting home and I’ve got to stay on for another four years. It bothered me badly. I _________and so forth and the recruiter in Minneapolis, he gave me false information, because I don’t think it’s true that you have to sign up for six years. And I went to the Commander, you know, to talk to him about this. I was very fortunate, to get to know him good. And they worked together and they finally got me discharged. I think they got that guy who said you had to sign up for six years. I think he had been doing it to quite a few guys.

DH: So you were probably happy to have that….

GPH: Oh yes. I wanted to get home in the worst way. Sometimes I think back and I think I wonder if I had spent 20 years in the Navy where I would have been. I had a good position as a yeoman. I was on top, with all the paperwork and so forth.

DH: And when you came back, did you go straight to Tower, or did you live somewhere else for a while?

GPH: I came right to Tower. In fact, I signed up at the Ely Junior College. I wanted to be an architect. In the worst way. When I was in school the system was bad. They only had you go through eighth grade mathematics. And I couldn’t cut the mustard being an architect.

DH: One strange story: When I was coming home after the second World War on a leave, eh, I was, it was around Christmas. Missoula, Montana, and the train broke down, and I figured I better call my mother, eh? To let her know I won’t be able to make it. And so I got on the phone – this was Christmas Eve – I talked to her and I said “Mom, I can’t make it home.” She said “I can’t talk to you, Paul.” And she hung up. I said “What’s going on?!” I couldn’t believe it. What did I do to make her mad?

GPH: Two days later I got a letter on the ship saying “I’m sorry I hung up, but the house was burning down around me.”

(Laughter)

DH: Wow. She had a valid excuse, then.

GPH: And I completely _________________________(The interview ends here.)

Support The Museum - Help us continue our work of saving and educating the public about our local veterans. Visit us on Facebook and keep up to date with us!

Sign up for eNews