Joseph Berklich
Era: World War II
Military Branch: Army
BERKLICH, Joseph
Veterans Memorial Hall Oral History Program
Interview with Joseph Berklich July 28, 2021
Interviewer: Ron Hein
RH: Ron Hein
JB: Joseph Berklich
RH: The following interview was conducted with Joseph Berklich for the Veterans Memorial Hall Oral History Program. It was recorded on July 28, 2021, at Joe’s home in Hibbing, Minnesota. The interviewer is Ron Hein.
Joe, let’s start with some background information. Can you tell us about where you were born, where you grew up, and where you went to school?
JB: Okay. I was born on February 24, 1921, in Hibbing, Minnesota, and I went to school in Hibbing.
RH: So, did you finish high school?
JB: No, I did not finish high school. What I did, I and my oldest brother, John, it was during the depression, so my oldest brother and I decided to quit school, go to a CC camp, so our parents could get twenty-five dollars a month, so they got fifty dollars a month at home during the depression. My middle brother was graduating from high school, and we told him to stay in school. My youngest brother, I told him to stay in school, and my oldest brother and I would quit school and go to the CC camp, so my parents would have some money.
RH: Where was the CC camp that you went to?
JB: The Civilian Conservation Corps. What I did, I lied my age to get in there, and he never checked me at all, but I was sixteen years old when I went in there, and believe you me, I got a better education there than if I had stayed in school. They had a library there. They had every kind of book in the world. I was too young to drink or anything, so I spent most of my time in the library and the recreation hall. It ended up, being that we went to service, the Hibbing High School wanted to give me my graduation. So, my oldest brother, he accepted [that], but I didn’t. I said, just leave it be. But I figured I had a better education in the CC camp than I did there. The CC camp was run by the army during the day, from seven in the morning till four in the afternoon, or rather, by the Forestry Department, from seven in the morning until four in the afternoon, because we went out on different jobs, planting trees, and forest fires, and all that, and then from four o’clock until the next morning, we were under the army. They had a hospital there, and they had a doctor, and they had a lieutenant in charge, so it was nice. I got a good education there.
RH: Was the food good?
JB: Wonderful. Three meals a day. The food was wonderful. We had to cook. In fact, about every second or third month, we would get assigned to the KP duty—kitchen police. But the food was very good, very good. We got thirty dollars a month, twenty-five dollars went home, and we got five dollars, and I lived on five dollars from month to month. I was stationed in Cusson, that’s about five miles north of Orr. Do you know where that is?
RH: Yes.
JB: We used to go there on Saturday night, but the first two years I couldn’t go there because I was too young to drink. A glass of beer and a shot of whiskey was fifteen cents. Can you imagine that? But I used to go to Orr once in a while. There was a restaurant there, and then we used to go swimming in Pelican Lake. I spent three years there. But it was for my folks. They got that fifty dollars a month, you know, twenty-five from me and twenty-five from my brother. The government sent that to them. We never saw that money at all, but we got the five dollars. But we lived on it, but, actually, at night we played cards. We weren’t gambling. We played Whist and what was the other one? Other guys played Cribbage. I never played Cribbage, but I liked to play Whist. That was a good game. I thought I had a pretty good education there, and I was there for three years.
I got a discharge from there, and there were still no jobs available. This is kind of funny. I’ve got to tell you what happened. So, when I had a discharge from the CC camp in Cusson, I came home and there were no jobs available yet, and the only way I could go back into the CC camp is to lie my name, so what I did is I took my brother Matt’s name. So, I was Matt Berklich, and I enlisted in the CC camp again, and I was sent fourteen miles out of Chisholm. They had a CC camp, but this is kind of funny. When I was in the other camp, I learned how to drive truck, and I drove truck. So, when I joined this other camp, we had to go to Duluth to pick up new recruits, so the lieutenant from there and I took the truck down to Duluth to pick up the new recruits, and the lieutenant from the other camp where I was, was down in Duluth, and he said, “Hi, Joe. How are you doing? I’m surprised to see you here.” And the lieutenant that was with me said, “I thought your name was Matt.” I said, “It is. That’s my middle name.” [Laughing] That was kind of funny. So, we loaded up the truck. So, I spent one year there. Then I got a job at the mine. The mines opened up, so then I got a job in the mine as a laborer. I was there about a year, and then I got drafted.
RH: What year did you actually get drafted, Joe?
JB: March of ’43. I got drafted, and I was sent to Paso Robles, California, for that thirteen weeks of military training. That was the worst place in the world that I ever lived. It was a hundred about every day. Gas mask training and a lot of guys were falling all over the ground it was so hot, and then the gas mask full of water and stuff. So, we had our thirteen weeks of basic train at Paso Robles, and then from there we loaded on the ship, and the clothing we wore, when we got on that ship, we had all winter clothing. We even carried Mackinaws with us, but all winter clothes. We loaded up on a ship at two o’clock in the morning. We were going under the bridge at San Fransisco. At two in the morning with all these winter clothes, and we thought, oh-oh; we’re going to Alaska. We ended up in New Caledonia. We asked questions about that later on, and then they say that the reason they do that is they thought if there were any spies or that when we loaded up and they saw the way that we were dressed, they thought they’d know where we were going. They thought we were going to Alaska. And that was the reason for it, I guess, because we never saw the winter clothes again, I’ll tell you that.:
RH Did all the people in your basic training program go to New Caledonia?
JB: I don’t know. I really don’t know, because once we got to New Caledonia, then we were assigned to a division, so New Caledonia is where I joined the Americal Division, and that’s the only division with a name instead of a number. That was the only one. So, I was in Americal Division there. Then from there we went to Bougainville, and that’s where I fought. That was my first session, Bougainville, and that’s where I lost my buddy from Ely. Joe Evam (sp), he was eighteen years old, and I lost him. He was a first scout and I lost him. Oh, he was such a nice guy. We were at Bougainville. Once we finished Bougainville, then we went into a little bit of more training, and then we went to Leyte from there. Then from Leyte, we cleared that up pretty good, when we went to Mindanao, I think it was, and then Cebu, and then a little island that was called Bohol, and that was supposed to be the honeymoon island of the Philippines. There were only about a hundred Japs there, and cleaned them up in a hurry. That’s where I ended up, at those places—Leyte, Cebu, and Mindanao and Bohol. From there, that’s when we were getting ready to go to Japan. God, you can’t imagine how many ships there were at Leyte getting ready to go to Japan. As far as you could see, there was every kind of ship in the world, and our whole outfit. We were loading on the ship, and all of a sudden, out come blasting, they dropped the atom bomb. So, then they had to get rid of all of us, and they put us on any ship that was available to come back to the States, and I got stuck on a merchant marine ship. Thirty-three days from the Philippines to California. I ended up in a hospital in Seattle with malaria. I had never had malaria until I got on the ship. I got malaria on the ship. But I’ve got to tell you, before, when we were going from California to New Caledonia, on that troop ship going over there, there were three marines and a lieutenant in charge of those three marines, and every morning and every night they did whatever they had to do. But the first morning, I was laying on the deck, going overseas, and I looked at that lieutenant in charge of those three marines, and he looked awful familiar, and it kind of bothered me. The next morning, I said, I’m going to get a little closer to him. The next morning, I got a little closer to him, and when they came out doing their routine, who was it but a lieutenant from Chisholm—Zip Rolle (sp) from Chisholm on this troop ship. Now, you wonder, what a small world it is. A guy from Chisholm. I thought he looked familiar the first day and I thought, I’ve got to see him a little closer, and there he was, Zip Rolle, and he said, “Berklich!” I said, “Rolle!” It was really something. But anyway, when I finished, we did that…do you want to know any more about the battles or anything?
RH Let’s go back to New Caledonia. How tough was that?
JB: New Caledonia, we didn’t do anything but get dressed, got all new clothes, and then they joined us with the outfit, with the division.
RH: So, you were in an infantry company—
JB: I was in the 164th Battalion with the Americal Division. We did about
three weeks of training on a little island, anyway, we did about three weeks of training, and then we went into Bougainville and had a battle there.
RH: What kind of training did you do?
JB: The training was mostly, well, we did some hand training and that, in case we got into a problem with hand-to-hand fighting or something like that. We trained with bayonets, too. We had quite a bit of bayonet training and that, but thank God I never had to use it. Then the hand fighting, we did a lot of that.
RH: Did you do any training going from the troop ship to an amphibious tractor to over the beach?
JB: Two battles, we had to unload off of those ladders off the ship, onto a landing pad. Boy, that’s a thrill. That’s a thrill! Full pack and coming off that big ship on that rope ladder and onto the small crafts, the landing ships, and then hit the island on that, and that’s a thrill. I mean, you don’t know what you’re going to hit, but luckily, both times that we loaded on those landing ships, we never hit the enemy. The enemy wasn’t on the shore. We had to go into the jungle to get them. But we thought that the two times that we had to come off the big ship, that was Leyte and I think it was Cebu, was the two cities that we thought we were going to get shore trouble on the landing craft. But we had to go back in the jungle and get them. There were two episodes there where had to get off of there and come down on that rope ladder. Well, that’s a thrill. Loading on that landing ship, you don’t know what the hell you’re going to run into, you know. But luckily, we didn’t. Most of our battles were in the jungle on the patrols and that, that’s where we hit them. I don’t know if I told you, but we captured five women one day, five Japanese women, five of them, and all five were full-bloom pregnant. You see, I think what happened on Bougainville, on one end of the island all the Japanese civilians were put on one end of the island and the soldiers were put on the opposite end, because I think they thought that after the war was over, that was going to be their home. So, I think that’s what happened. These women left that place and wanted to get the hell out of there because they knew that where were no Japanese left, we took care of that place.
RH: How close combat were you with the Japanese?
JB: I think there were three times. Well, I’ll tell you, lieutenant and I were getting ready to go on a patrol, and we had our men all staked out, and the lieutenant got shot by a sniper up in a tree. But before he could shoot a second shot, our people who were on patrol got him out of the tree. One night they hit, one night we got pretty close to them. We didn’t have a close encounter, not in Bougainville, I think one of the other islands…oh, I think it was Cebu; I’m not sure. I was within about six feet of a Japanese, but I got him before he got me. But I don’t know, on patrol I would say maybe about four or five times we had some pretty close battles that we could almost see each other. Then the one battle we had, it was on I think it was Mindanao, the Japanese had control of the hill, and we had to get up on that hill on them, and that’s where I lost another buddy, going up on that hill. Then another guy from Hibbing here, he got shot, too, on that same hill. We did get the hill, but we lost quite a few guys there. I would say there were quite a few occasions where we could see each other.
RH: Were they fanatical?
JB: Oh, God. I think to this day, I still say the Japanese are the meanest people in the world. You couldn’t trust them. Then you couldn’t, but I don’t know how they are now. Then they tried to keep you up all night. They always had a plane at night, and all they did is just turn the motor on and off and they’d be flying up, just a small plane, like these little cub planes, or they’d come down and they’d fly down into the river with those little cub planes. Once in a while we’d hit them, but they were terrible people. I thought they were really mean people, very mean.
That jungle fighting is so wicked, because you don’t know, you can’t see very good. Then those islands, they’ve got so many bamboo trees. God, it was just thick with bamboo and trying to get through those forests with them, but you lose quite a few people. That’s where, on Leyte, that’s when this lieutenant, he was just out of West Point, his first battle, and he and I were getting ready. We had our men strung out, and his name was Carl Tetlak. I’ll never, ever forget that name…never, ever. He was asking me questions, and we were getting ready to go on the patrol, and I was telling him what we were going to do and everything, and before we got started, this sniper got him out of the tree, shot him, got him right through the helmet, and he dropped right at my feet. I’ll never, ever for that. His name was Carl Tetlak, and right out of West Point. That was really a bad day, bad day. That was the same way when I lost that scout from Ely. God, you know, but you don’t think of anything else when you’re in a war. You do your job, and you’ve got to do your job and you don’t think of home or anything. It’s really something different. I never thought I’d ever come home. I never, ever thought for one moment that I would come home…never, ever. It’s not easy, it’s not easy. When that lieutenant got shot at my feet, Captain Kecklak, he was from California. He was the nicest captain in the world. That’s when he promoted me. That’s where I got my promotion was there, and when he got killed and Carl Kecklak, I went from a PFC to a staff sergeant as a platoon leader. I’ll never forget that, either. I never thought that after we got done with that battle (inaudible 27:50). He said, “Joe, you are now a staff sergeant.” God, I couldn’t believe it. I went from a PFC to a staff sergeant. So, from then on, I had a platoon under me.
RH: He knew a leader when he saw one, Joe.
JB: Oh, I don’t know. I thought I did a pretty good job. I thought I did.
RH: So, you never went to Japan?
JB: My outfit went, but what they did, when they dropped the bomb, what they did is us guys that were older that already had battle commissions and stuff and battle experience, what they did is they sent my division to Japan, but all of us older ones, then put us on a boat and told us to go home. But they took the younger ones and sent the division to Japan. So, I could have probably volunteered to go to Japan, but I wanted to get the hell out of there. I didn’t want to go to Japan. The only way I would have gone to Japan if we didn’t drop the atom bomb, I would have been in Japan. We were all ready to load, everything, all our gear, all the boats out there and everything. Everybody was set to go and, God, in the middle of the afternoon they said the war is over. Wow, wow! But my division, I think they’re still there. You know, there are patrols or something. I’m not sure but I thought they were there for quite a few years, and then some of them went to Korea after that, too.
RH: Once you got back to the United States, where were you actually mustered out at?
JB: I was mustered out of Jefferson, Missouri. What happened, when I got malaria on the boat, I went to the hospital in Seattle for five days. (Inaudible 30:32)…to Wisconsin (Inaudible)—
RH: Oh, Fort McCoy?
JB: Yes. There were so many soldiers there getting discharged, they sent me home. They said there were so many people there, so they sent me home and told me until further notice, so I came home. About three weeks later, I got a letter and a bus ticket to Minneapolis and a train to Missouri, and that’s where I got discharged from, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. That’s where I got discharged from.
RH: What was the date of your discharge?
JB: I think it was November of 1945. I’m quite sure. And we had a ball team and the Croatian Lodge was going to sponsor us, but we had to get blood tests to see if anything was wrong. So, one evening I went to the clinic and Dr. Arco, and he took my blood and he said, “How does this blood look to you?” And I said, “I don’t know. It looks pretty good.” He said, “Well, I’ve got to tell you, I’m color blind and I don’t really know how it is.” Well, I said, “Doctor, I’ve got news for you, I’m color blind, too. It looks pretty good to me, too.” [Laughing] That was really funny. God, I couldn’t believe it. I came out of there and I told my wife what happened, and she couldn’t believe it. My wife is a nurse. Show him that picture, Marian.
That was another thing Mr. Government did. They started a nurses’ school in Hibbing here, during the war.
Woman: There’s public nurse health cadet…and that’s outside our hospital here in Hibbing, and here’s me.
JB: And all those girls, they were… Then I got a job, I went back to US Steel. I worked for US Steel a year before I went into the service, and then US Steel had to give me credit for the years that I was in the service, I had to be credited for years as working, also.
RH: Really?
JB: Yes, so out of the forty-one years that I worked, I actually only worked thirty-eight, probably thirty-seven, because I got four years of credit from the service, and that’s what US Steel did. They gave us credit for being in the service as working. So, I thought that was pretty good.
RH: What mine did you work in when you first came out?
JB: US Steel. Oliver Iron Mining Company is what it’s called, US Steel. I started as a laborer. I was interested in machinery and being a mechanic. So, there was an opening for mechanic helper at US Steel, so I went to the office and I signed up for that mechanic helper job and I got it. Well, probably within three years as a helper and learning after three years, I got to be a heavy-duty mechanic. I worked as a heavy-duty mechanic on all the shovels and heavy equipment. I took an interest in it. I worked on that for about twenty years as a mechanic on heavy equipment. After twenty years, I got a promotion to a foreman. I got to be a foreman. There was not a machine built—shovel or truck or grader or whatever, loaders—I thought being a mechanic, you have to know how to run a machine. So, what I did when I was a mechanic, I wanted to make sure I could run the machine because if I fixed it, I wanted to know how it run and everything, but I wanted to know what I did and everything else. But I finally got promoted to a foreman as a heavy equipment foreman, but this goes a long ways. There was an outfit that had used equipment, Mesabi Service and Supply. Did you ever hear of Mesabi Service? Dutch Weber?
RH: Yes.
JB: Dutch Weber called me one day, and he said, “Joe, I want you to do me a favor.” And I said, “What’s that, Dutch?” And he said, “Well, I just came from The Cities, and I’m setting up a business.” He did brake lining and that for the small diesel shovels and stuff, and I was in charge of all that, so I did a lot of business with him on that. He took a liking to me. So, that business started going good, so then he went into the business of buying used equipment. When the mining companies would get rid their Caterpillars and tractors and all that stuff, they’d buy new ones and then Dutch Weber and them, they’d buy them. So, Dutch Weber said, “Joe, I’m going to buy some of this stuff from US Steel. Can you tell me a little bit about it?” I said, “Yes, I can tell you about everything.” So, we got pretty close together. So, he came to me on my vacations and weekends, he’d ask me to help him out and work with him, and he always said, “You name the price. You name the price.” So, I helped him a lot. In fact, I went to how many different states on my days off and my vacations. I made one trip to Niagara Falls in New York. He had two shovels there, and he asked me if I could go there, and I said, “Yes, I can go there.” He said, “I’d appreciate it if you’d go over there.” So, I went and shipped. We took the shovels apart and we hired a crew for the cranes and everything, and I showed them how…we took them apart, loaded them up, shipped one to Arizona and one to California, two shovels. They were six-yard shovels, so we sent them, and that was for him. Then I went through Alabama, and I had a shovel there. I helped them out there. Then they had one at Hoyt Lakes. Then I had to put a shovel together for them in South Dakota with a little briquette mine, so I put a shovel together there. Then there was another equipment, Joe Brettle (sp). Did you ever hear of Joe Brettle (sp)? Oh, he had horses, and he was a huge man, and I did a lot of work for him. So, I traveled the country quite a bit, quite a bit. But I ended up as a foreman at US Steel, at Minntac, and that was it.
RH: How many years did you work at Minntac?
JB: I broke ground there when they started Minntac. I spent about a year and a half there, and then they wanted me to stay there, but we still had the Sherman Mine, and I said, “No, I want to go back to the Serman Mine.” I don’t care for Minntac. When Minntac started, what happened is they were bringing all the shovels in, and I had a crew that was putting the shovels together, and then there was another foreman. He took care of the mine, the shovels on the breakdowns, and I had the job of assembling the shovels to go down the mines, so I spent about a year and a half there getting Minntac ready with drills and shovels. Then I stayed there for another couple months or so. The superintendent, he wanted me to stay there, and I said, “No, I’d like to go back to the Sherman Mine.” I loved the Sherman Mine because it was more like a family thing, you know, because you knew everybody. At Minntac, you didn’t know anybody. The guys you worked with, some were from Grand Rapids, some were from Duluth, some were from all over hell, you know, so I really wasn’t nuts about it. Then when the Sherman Mine closed down, then I ended up at Minntac, and that’s where I got a discharge from. But the taconite mine was not as much fun as the iron ore mine, because everybody was strangers, you know, but I did get one nice compliment, though, from a couple of superintendents. They thought that I was one of the best foremen they ever had. I’ve got to tell you this. I got two sons that worked in two different mines, and I think I taught them right. I taught them not to do anything that they couldn’t do, or treat them like you treat yourself. They both ended up with the same kind of job I had. They were heavy equipment foremen. Both of them ended up in two different mines. So, I thought I did a pretty good job with those kids. I always thought, I’m no better than the guy that’s working for me, and treat him like you treat yourself, and you’ll never get in trouble. I proved that. I was on the city council for eight years. The union leader in Hibbing, he was the head of the police department, fire department, all the maintenance, and they had all kinds of grievances. I spent two terms as a city councilor, and I got together with that union president, and I said, “We don’t want any grievances. We’ve got too many grievances, and we don’t want any more. That’s it.” He said, “Joe, I’ll work with you if you’ll work with me.” I said, “We’re going to work together.” In eight years, we never had one grievance.
RH: Wow!
JB: Eight years! We never had one grievance! I said, “It goes to show you, if you do what you think is right, you’re going to accomplish something, and don’t think that you’re better than anybody else.” And, like I say, that union president said he wanted me to run for a third term, and I said, “No, I’ve got enough! Eight years in the city is enough.” But I liked the job. It was a good job. But anyway, that’s how I ended up.
RH: Joe, I have to ask you, how did you meet your wife?
JB: How did I meet her? That’s another good question. They were living on a farm south of town. The farm next door to them was the people by the name Maris (45:47), and that one was in the service with me; he got shot. Anyway, I used to go to that farm, and my folks used to go there and pick blueberries and stuff. Then I stayed there one whole summer, and Marge’s sister’s girlfriend lived on that farm that I was staying on next door. Shirley told Marge, “I want you to meet Joe Berklich over here at the farm.” So, it ended up me going to her farmhouse. She was going to Lincoln School. We chatted a little bit. So, one day I said, ah, heck, she gets done with school at three o’clock, and I lived in a (little location 46:50), and I said, I’m going to wait until after school, and I’m going to meet her again. So, I met her. She was waiting for the bus to go home. So, then we made a date, and that was it. That was it. We started going together, so we got pretty close. Then I got that notice that I was being drafted, so, God, we were both in love, maybe. I must have been in love more than she was, probably, because I asked her to marry me. [Laughing]
Joe’s daughter: So, how old were you when you met Mom? Because you must have been in the CC camp, too.
JB: Well, I was four years older than her, so she was eighteen and I was twenty-one, I think.
Joe’s daughter: That’s when you got married, but how old were you when you met her?
JB: I met her when she was in tenth grade. Lincoln School went to tenth grade.
Joe’s daughter: So, you were done the CC camp then.
JB: Yes, I was done with camp, yes. Because I met her after. So, then when I got drafted, I said, “Sweetheart, do you want to get married?” She said, “Well, yes, we can get married.” So, I thought, oh-oh. [Laughing] Well, it happened. Called the church. I’ll never forget. Oh, this is funny. This is funny, I’ll tell you. We decided to get married. We got married and we were going to have spaghetti dinner after. We had quite a few people, maybe thirty or forty people at that wedding at (Lind Park 49:00) at that restaurant, and it was a spaghetti feed. I think it cost me thirty-five dollars, or something like that. Anyway, we had that spaghetti feed. Marge’s mother was quite the woman. So, anyway, we got married. I had to be at camp in Wisconsin, so, instead of going with the military on the train, her folks drove me and Marge to Minneapolis, and then I took a train from there to Wisconsin, so I never saw her again until after the war.
Joe’s daughter: Didn’t Mom come down to Paso Robles for a little bit?
JB: Yes. She came. I had her come out to Paso Robles, and she got a job in the laundromat, and she stayed with this widow woman. This old lady had a little apartment right next to the camp, and Marge worked at the laundromat. Then what they did, after we got done with basic training, they paid our way back to Hibbing for, I think it was a two-week vacation. So, then we both came back to Hibbing together. I think they even paid for her, too. Then from there I went back by myself. Yes, Paso Robles. She was there and worked in the laundromat for, I don’t know, a couple of months, well basic training, really. When I was at basic training and she was in Pao Robles, the only time I could see her was on Saturday. We never trained on the weekend. But, oh, I never, ever want to see Paso Robles again. Oh, God! Hundred, hundred and fourteen, hundred and ten [degrees]! And at night you had to use a comforter on your bed to cover up. Six o’clock in the evening. It was just like somebody turned the God darned refrigerator on or something. But at six o’clock in the morning, it was a hundred above. Bakersfield. Oh, Paso Robles! Never, ever want to see that place again. Wow! But that’s where we ended up.
RH: Did you ever maintain contact with any of the people that you were in the service with?
JB: Yes. I’ve got to tell you. George (Kimock 52:26) from Michigan was one of my best buddies. In fact, he used to come here. We went there, I don’t know, two or three times at least, and then we went to Michigan one time, Marge and I, and him and his wife, we took a tour bus from Michigan to Branson. We went together there. Then they came and stayed with us. Nicest people in the world, and a good soldier. Oh, he was a good soldier! What happened, we got five black soldiers in our platoon, and we went out on a patrol, and what they did, they put a black guy in between each white guy. We went out on a patrol, and we came off of the patrol, and they had a hot dinner waiting for us because the cooks had it. We all lined up with our mess kits, waiting for the meal, and one of those black guys was carrying a gun in the chow line. The trigger went off and he shot my buddy in the foot. Well, that was the end of that; I never saw him again until he got discharged, until after the war. I never saw him after that. And when they did that, after we ate, they took those five black men, took them down to the headquarters, and we never saw them again. Never saw them again. They never brought them back for another patrol or anything. I couldn’t believe it. But that’s what happened to one of my best buddies. He got shot in the leg. It bothered him even after. He got a job with the post office when he got back, but man he was a hell of a good soldier and a good ballplayer, good ball player. He probably could have played major league baseball even. We had another Indian—(Woody Kebo 55:00). God, I would say he was one of the best soldiers I ever had. God, he was good, and what a ballplayer he was, but he couldn’t leave the booze alone. He went to Korea, also, and he was a sergeant. He loved to drink, but you couldn’t beat him as a soldier. God, he was good. Combat and that, you couldn’t believe how good he was. The nicest guy in the world, but he could not leave that bottle alone. Anytime he could get a drink…and the nicest guy in the world. Strong, big, good ballplayer.
Woman: You weren’t a bad ballplayer.
JB: Yes, I guess I was a pretty good ballplayer. [Laughing] I had an interview with the Cleveland Indians scout. We were playing in the state tournament, and we lost one to nothing. I got two hits that day, and I caught two fly balls. After the game, a fellow came up to me and he said, “Do you mind if I interview you? I’m a scout with the Cleveland Indians.” I said, “Yeah, I’ll [do an interview].” We went through things, then he said, “How old are you?” I said, “I’m twenty-seven.” He said, “God, you’re such a nice ballplayer, but I’ve got to tell you this. Twenty-seven is a little bit too old. By the time you go through the cycle, training and everything, I don’t think I can get you anywhere.” And he was right. I mean, twenty-seven was [too old]. But it was a nice interview. I was happy that he interviewed me, and I thought, God damn, he thought I was a pretty good ballplayer. That made me feel good. Well, we had a seven-team league, in fact one team from Duluth—Duluth Coolerator—and in the twenty-one-game schedule, I hit seven home runs. So, I had a pretty good year. I was a pretty good ballplayer. I guess I can brag a little bit about it.
RH: Yes, you can.
JB: But I love baseball and I love football. That’s the only thing I missed in high school. I wanted to play high school football, and I played in the ninth and tenth grade, and then that’s when my brother and I decided we were going to help the family, and we’ll both quit school and get some money for our folks. Fifty dollars was a lot of money at that time, a lot of money. So, they didn’t starve at home anyway.
RH: Well, as you look back on your military service, what feelings do you have about having served.
JB: You know, I loved the military. In fact, at one time I think if I wasn’t married, I think I would have stayed in there. I really liked it. I didn’t mind the military at all. I was happy with everything. The military treated me pretty good, I would say. They were good with me. The officers that I had, God, I don’t remember a bad officer. Captain Keklack (59:00) from California, God, he was the nicest guy. He used to come up in the barracks and talk to me and to other guys. He’d come over to the barracks, and he’s not the only one. There was another one. I’ll never forget this young one. He must have just come out of school or something, and he was a second lieutenant, and he came up in the barracks, and he was asking a bunch of questions and stuff. Real nice guy, but he almost looked like a baby to me. [Laughing] He must have been out of college, probably the first year, you know, he looked so young. But he was so nice, and he’d ask questions, and God, I really enjoyed the military. I played a few ballgames there in the military and stuff, and I think if I wasn’t married, I probably would have stayed for a while. Because when we were getting discharged, a couple of the lieutenants wanted to know. They said, “God, you’re a staff sergeant. Do you want to come out and do some of the training and stuff with us?” I said, “No, I’m just waiting to get a discharge and get the hell out of here!” But I really liked the military. I thought they were very fair with me. I never, ever bitched about the military. I never run them down. Maybe I was lucky, because I never ran into a bad officer. Those guys coming out of school and that, they were very nice. They were willing to learn, and they asked questions and stuff. That’s no different than these college graduates from school—mining engineers and that. The mining companies, during the summer, they’d hire these graduates and made supervisors out of them. I had one from Bovey, and his name was Dick (Kirkus 1:01:40), and he was a graduate from the University of Minnesota and a mechanical engineer. What they did, they always took these guys from the school, and they’d set them up with every department. So, I got this guy from Bovey, Dick Kirkus. Mary knows him. He came here many times. Anyway, when he came, I thought, holy Christ, this guy’s six foot five, and holy Christ, he’s going to be a bug at a bee to work with. So, he was assigned to my department for about a month. I think they stayed with each department for month—four weeks. Anyway, I thought, oh-oh, I’m going to have a problem with this guy. He’s from Bovey and he’s big. God, when he was done with his four weeks with me, about six months after that, it ended up he was a supervisor of my department. He came into my office, and he said, “Joe, I don’t know what goes on here. My schooling never had any of this. You’re going to have to help me.” I said, “No problem.” Anyway, he said, “Joe, you do what you’re doing, but the only thing I want you to do…I don’t know what’s going on here. You know more about this job than I do, but at the end of the month, I have to turn in a report. All I’m asking you is you make out a report at the end of the month for me, and I can hand it in.” So, about six months later, one day I got mad at him. He came at the end of the month and he said, “Joe, you got my report?” I said, “No. I told you I ain’t going to do a damn thing for you anymore!” Well, I got to know him pretty good because he used to stop here. Mary used to take piano lessons, and he used to come here, and he could play that piano pretty damn good, and then he’d want a drink. But anyway, I said, “No, I didn’t make a report. I’m all done with you. I don’t want nothing to do with you anymore!” He said, “Oh, come on, Joe. Please!” Well, then I finally opened up the desk drawer and I gave him his report. Oh, he…[Laughing] He was quite the guy, but sharp. Oh, he was smart. He said, “The machinery in the mine has got nothing to do with that I learned in school. [Laughing] But those guys that came of the U, they were foremen. They knew that us guys that work in the mine for thirty, forty years knew what we were doing, you know. So, their job was kind of nice because they knew that it’s going to be done. But then once in a while you’d get one that thinks he knows more than you. A good example was, we had one smartass. One day we had to take one of the shovels. The bucket door was broke. So, we had to take the bucket door off. This engineer, he was a foreman down in the mine, and I thought he’s mechanical engineer and he’s a foreman in the mine, and he said to me, “Well, can we use the shovel until you bring the other bucket door down.” I said, “It’s pretty hard to load a crane without a bucket door on it.” Our crew was there, and oh, God, our crew went crazy. They thought, what the hell? He’s an engineer and he doesn’t know that you need a bucket door? But he was a smartass engineer. But you run into maybe one out of a hundred, that because they had an education, they thought that they could do anything. And everybody, I don’t care what kind of education, you’ve got to learn, you know. It’s just like your job. You learn from bottom up. But I didn’t have a problem in the mine. I had a lot of fun with a lot of people. But I treated people like I should be treated, and that’s they way it should be, too. You treat the people right, they’re going to treat you right, and I told my kids that. You treat your employees right, they’re going to treat you right, and they both ended up as maintenance foremen in two different mines, so I don’t know if it’s because I taught them or…but I’m not bragging, either. I don’t like to brag, because I don’t feel I should brag. But I had a good life, I had a good life. Sweetman in Sioux Falls; I did some work for them. I went to the Nevada Gold Mine two or three times, and she (Joe’s daughter?) was living in California then. I’ve got to tell you this. The owner of this mine in the Dakotas…they were mining, and mostly for railroad grades and stuff, the pea rock and stuff. Anyway, he called me one day and he said, “Joe, I want you to go to the gold mines and bid on some shovel parts. “I said, “Okay.” So, I went. Then the second time he called me and he said, “Do you mind going back to the gold mines and go with me.” We got in the airplane and we were flying, and he said, “Joe, I’ve got to tell you, Minnesota is a beautiful state. It really is a beautiful state, but it sure has a lot of swamps.” [Laughing] I thought that was kind of funny. But anyway, I went there, and I called her (Joe’s daughter?) and her husband, and from there we went to [Reno], and he paid for everything, the rooms and everything. He was the nicest president in the world. So, I did some work for him. I made quite a few trips to Sioux Falls to his mine. In fact, they bought a shovel from the Sherman Mine, and his general foreman came into my office and he said, “Joe, I’ve got to ask you a favor. I don’t want you to do any work or anything, but I’m bringing my own crew from Sioux Falls. I want them to dismantle this machine, because they have to repair them and they’ve got to work on them.” The machine was only maybe about a block away from my office, and he said, “Would you kind of help me out a little bit and show them how to get started to dismantle this machine?” And I told him, “Yes, I’ll help you out with that.” It (1:10:47) had to really be nice. So, anyway, they got the machine all apart and shipped. Then when they got it together, he called me and asked me if I could come to the Dakotas and take the machine down the mine, because they put it together up above, out of the mine, but they didn’t know how to operate it. So, he said, “Do you mind coming over here to the Dakotas and take the machine down the mine for me?” I said, “Yes, I’ll do that.” It was a big electric shovel. So, I went there and took the machine down the mine, and I loaded a few trucks for them. Then one of the shovel runners who was operating a diesel shovel, he came over and then I kind of broke him in. When he got all done and ready to go home, he said, “Well, stop at the office. What do I owe you?” I told him what I thought, and it wasn’t too much. He said, “You just name the price, name the price. No problem.” I gave him a nice deal. I just told him, “I’m glad to help you. You’ve been good with me.” I made about four or five trips there and he never, ever bitched about money or anything I said. He took care of me and I took care of him. So, we got along real good. Just like I say, when we had Mary and Ed, he paid for the rooms, and all that and they were the nicest people in the world. His dad, the president, his dad was the owner of the mine. He had to go to Arizona for the winter. Then he’d have one of the mechanics drive his car to Arizona and then fly back so he’d have a car while he was in Arizona. Then when he came back to the mine, the mechanic would fly there and bring his car back for him. He did that for…I don’t know how many years he was doing that. The young one that was the president, he was the nicest guy in the world. God, he was so nice to work with. He was just like Dutch Weber. Dutch Weber was the nicest guy you could ever work for. But the booze got the best of him, too, and that’s what’s bad. I saw three guys now that they had a nice business, but the booze killed them. They got rich in a hurry and they didn’t know how to handle money. They had nice wives, beautiful; very nice wives. Wives that were common, you know, just…but the booze got them. That’s why I’m glad I never drank. I’m glad I never drank.
RH: Well, Joe, I’m happy that you took time to do this, and as soon as we get this, and I don’t know how quickly it’s going to be transcribed, but once we get it transcribed, I’ll get you a copy.
JB: Well, did I do you any good?
RH: Yes, you did. You told your story, and that was good.
RH: Well, I had a nice life and I had a nice family. But I had two setbacks. The two boys that ended up as foremen, Michael, he had back surgery. He thought everything was good, and about a month after he had surgery; wasn’t it Mary?
Mary: Well, recovering, his kidneys failed him during the recovery.
JB: Yes, and both of his legs went to hell. Then they said they could operate again, but they were afraid it might go up. So, he said, “To hell with it. I’m not going to go.” So, actually, he lost both legs.
Mary: Well, he has his legs; he just has to have a walker.
JB: Then my son Danny, he was a foreman for I don’t’ know how many years, maintenance foreman and that, and he was only retired, what, about four or five months, and he had a stroke, and that backfired. Both of them had beautiful retirements, and that’s the way they ended up. Danny, much worse than Michael. Danny, the thing is, he got too big, too fat, too heavy. His brain doesn’t control his meals, and I think that’s what the problem is. He got so heavy that he…I don’t know how his wife can even handle him. God, he gets in that chair…and now he’s getting a little bit crabby, they tell me. I suppose they get that way, you know. But he’s putting on too much weight. But Gerry, his wife, told me that she’s got to watch him when he eats because his brain doesn’t tell him when to quit. I feel bad about that. And Michael, he’s not going to have another surgery because he’s afraid it’s going to go the other way, and here he thought when he had back surgery, he was going to be perfect. You see how that works
End of recording
Track 1: 1:17:02.4
Transcribed by Debbie Anderson
