World War II: The Autobiography (45 page)

March 21, 1942

Dear Mom:

We just enjoyed a very mild hurricane – the only damage done being the countryside made ideal for the growth of hordes of mosquitoes. I hate them so that when I manage to get one alive, I torture and maim him – then bury him alive. The war has made me hard and cruel!

Now for the local news – the sun beats down – as usual –and when it gets hot enough – a nice cool shower comes along. Between the incessant combination everything I own, either rusts, or turns greenmoldy. Constant cleaning of equipment is, therefore, in order.

Sept. 22, 1942

Dear Mom:

Today a big vicious sea bass, mouth agape, sped like a bullet upon his prey, a small mallett. As he sped into range, I held my breath, squeezed, and then let fly. Stunned, he turned to go – and crash! I let him have another charge – and lo and behold we had fish steak – baked, garnished, and savory, for dinner. I tell you, this place is a fisherman’s paradise. So what? It isn’t the first fish dinner we blasted out of the sea, but never before a sea bass, the size and taste of that one.

Some days ago I spent a solid day up in the nearby hills, trying to chase a deer or two – being anxious for a taste of venison again. All day, mind you, and got not a scent. Yesterday morning, with breakfast on the fire, two of the elusive creatures popped up in a nearby pasture – grazing to their hearts content – so-o we sneaked up on them, and fell upon them, blazing away, and got not a hit – they led us a merry chase, finally we lost them, and went back to our French toast, cereal and coffee. No venison. Deah, Deah!

Sounds more like a rich man’s holiday than a war – no? Feeling top-hole, hope you are too.

Love and kisses,

Benny

Jan. 8, 1943

Dear Mom:

So it’s come – 1943, imagine being overseas for nearly a whole year – or at least it will be on January 23rd. On that day last winter we left New York – for parts unknown. We could have ended up in a much worse place, believe me. And time has flown, more rapidly than I ever thought possible, it seems like several weeks, instead of twelve months, since we landed.

And we landed looking for trouble, and we’re still looking – and I don’t think we’ll ever find any here.

The past few nights I haven’t been sleeping well, and I keep having dreams about you and home, and it’s no good for my morale. I get very homesick, poor boy that I am. . . . I suppose I’ll visit you again, in my dreams tonight, and you might leave some milk and cake on the table for me.

Goodnight . . .

Your loving son,

Benny

HOME FRONT: “JIM CROW” IN THE ARMY

Private Milton Adams, 240 Quarter Master’s Battalion

Adams writes to Warren Hastie, the US Government’s adviser on “Colored
Affairs” .

Pvt. Milton Adams

Post Stockade

Camp Livingston, La.

May 13, 1942

Dear Mr. W. H. Hastie:

I am private Milton Adams of Co. B. 240th Q. M. Bn of Camp Livingston, La. I inlisted in the army Oct 17, 1942, in Chicago, Ill. And since I been in the Army, I never had any Trouble in the Army in or out of it in my life, until I came to Camp Livingston. I am asking for the help of the N.A.A.C.P. And the Crisis. I am not writing anything against the United States Army. But I am going to tell you what the White officers are doing to us races Soldiers down hear [sic] in camp Livingston, La. Since they can’t very well hang us, they take the next steps, which is court martial, and that is better know as rail-roading. Now you don’t stand a chance, before them. They are just like a lynch mob with a neggro to hang. Well they do not want you down hear in the Army, and I did not ask to come down hear I was sent down hear. Well my trouble starter when they found out that I was from Chicago, and I have had a bad deal every since I been hear, I have tried to get away from hear, But it was the same old story. When we finde some places for you to go, we will let you go. Well my Commanding Officer did not like me because, I ask him not to use the word niggers, and he saide I was one of those smart nigger from up north. I was tried once for a offmce, and given 30 days and a $12.00 fine. Now after I had finish my sentences, they saide they are going to try me over again. I wish you would look into my case. I thought they could not try any person a second time for the same offince. I really taken all the punishment I can take I could not get a three day pass or a furlo since I been in the army, until my mother pass away in April. They have just about rob me out of very pay day, for things I have never had. There are so many more case like this, a unfair chance. I don’t know what to do now. I don’t want do the wrong thing, so I am asking for help. But I am not going to take any more of these unfair trials, because I did three months in the stockade once for something I did not have any thing to do with. It was because I was from Chicago, and thats way every trial I ever had is base on the fact that I come from Chicago. So I whish you look into this case, because I can prove everything I am telling you. I will look forward to a answer from you in few days.

Respectfully yours,

Pvt. Milton Adams

Post Stockade Camp Livingston, La.

BATTLE OF MIDWAY: ONE MAN’S DIARY, 4 JUNE 1942

Robert J Casey, war correspondent

The naval struggle between Japan and the USA for the Pacific waves culminated at Midway in the Hawaiian archipelago. It was the first sea battle in which the opposing fleets never saw each other: the fighting was done by carrier-based aircraft.

JUNE 4,
Thursday.
North of Midway Islands.

1:00.
Just learned that the Army planes from Midway located another part of the Jap invasion force late Wednesday afternoon.

6:00.
I got up for reveille and looked out at a clotted sky, a black sea and odd gray moonlight.

8:45.
I’m beginning to have a great deal of respect for Admiral Spruance who is conducting this expedition. It is getting more and more apparent as we steam toward the west that we haven’t been detected . . . It’s a miracle but that seems to be the way of it.

We have an inferior force. It’s probably one of the largest the United States ever sent anywhere in a gesture of anger but what of it. About half the Jap navy – and not the worst end of it – is out there ahead.

9:10.
We make a right-angle turn. The wind stiffens, if that were possible, and the SBD’s and STB’s go off.

It’s much too windy for me to hear what’s being said in sky control so I don’t know whether or not any contact has been made with the Japs. Anyway the haul isn’t too far for these planes if they have to go all the way to Midway. It’s comforting to see them up and something of a relief, too. It won’t be long now one way or the other and if anything’s coming to us we’ll soon know it. If we don’t get the Jap he’ll certainly get us.

From the signal yards the flags come down and the flags go up – red, yellow, blue, white, crossed, striped, checkered. Lads are running up and down the ladders of the foremast with dispatch blanks in their hands. It’s all spectacular and beginning to be thrilling.

10:30.
We go into a terrific lateral-pass maneuver and the ships start running across each other’s bows. Donald Duck raises his voice: “Antiaircraft stations stand by to repel attack.”

I go back to my place on the foremast. Then comes the usual wait and study of the sky. You can’t help but think that this fine day which you were finding so useful to our bombers is going to be just as helpful to Hirohito’s bombers.

10:35.
Usual reports of approaching aircraft . . . “Unidentified plane, bearing three-three-eight – forty-eight thousand.” “Unidentified plane bearing two-seven-oh – fifty-two thousand . . .” Everybody is tense of course because sometimes these hysterical shouts turn out to make sense.

We are now leading the procession abreast of the cans. A cruiser – a floating arsenal of ack-ack – has come over alongside our old carrier.

10:45.
Ten planes show up off the starboard bow. They may be the
Yorktown’s
SBD’s. As we glower at them we get the answer – the step pyramid of the
Yorktown’s
bridge structure comes up over the horizon. More planes are reported but the
Yorktown
claims them for her own and we withdraw from the contest.

We are still plowing along at top speed. On the lower decks the roar of the engines is so great that you have to shout to be heard a few feet. The cans, if we keep on at this rate, will have to refuel tonight. One lone gooney is sailing along with us easily and hopefully.

At the moment the carrier nearest us has sent out fighters, dive bombers, and torpedo planes. If the
Yorktown
has contributed as many as our old carrier, there ought to be about 180 planes on the way to the attack, 105 of them bombers or torpedo carriers.

11:15.
A report has come in that one of our fortresses has attacked and damaged a carrier, presumably in the reserve group. The attack on Midway has been driven off – eight planes shot down over the island, the Marines claiming a bag of thirty off shore.

It’s odd how the battle is shaping up to fit the specifications of the story the medical colonel told me when we went into Honolulu after the Coral Sea. The colonel said that the fight had already occurred. I said it hadn’t. Nature as usual is imitating art.

11:35.
We head now into the wind and it’s very chilly. Some fighter planes are coming in, presumably part of our protective patrol. Against the sky they tumble along like a cloud of May flies. We’re making crochet patterns all over the sea again.

11:40.
There is some contact off the starboard quarter. Maybe that’s why the fighters came in. They shoot over the rim of the sea and we continue our cotillion.

I’m getting sleepy. A gray half-moon hanging belatedly in the thin blue sky reminds me so much of myself.

11:45.
Fighters come back to land on our carrier. Apparently a false alarm.

12:00.
Mickey Reeves signaled me to come down to the bridge for a sandwich. So I was right at headquarters when first reports began to come in from our planes. The first message was brief. The Jap carriers had been located, a little belatedly, and they were virtually without air cover . . . Apparently all their planes had been sent out to make the conquest of Midway quick and easy. However, the squadron commander of the TBD unit reporting, said that his planes were virtually out of fuel.

“Request permission,” he called, “to withdraw from action and refuel.” The admiral’s answer was terse.

“Attack at once.”

So as I sat down in the chartroom to bite into a ham sandwich, the planes had begun to move in on the carriers. Whatever might be the result, we’d never be able to criticize the quality of our opportunity . . .

I sat there thinking. The Jap air admiral undoubtedly had figured us as permanent fixtures in the southwest Pacific where last he had had word of us. So just about now he’d be looking up at the sky suddenly clouded with SBD’s and asking himself the Japanese equivalent of “Where the hell did those things come from?”

12:45.
Enemy planes reported off port at twelve miles. New alert sounds. The kids drop their food and sidle off to their guns. The Grummans once more leap off our carrier.

1:00.
Still no sign of the visitors. I guess the contact was another of those phonies that breed so rapidly in times like this.

1:15.
Fifteen of the ––––––’s bombers come over. The squadron is intact and in tight formation, its work, whatever it was, finished.

1:20.
The carriers swing around, apparently getting ready to take on returning planes which are now showing up in two’s and three’s. Everything is set to repel an attack, and with good reason. If these planes have failed in their mission or fought a draw or left the Jap carriers usable we may expect a quick and vicious attack in return. If by some remote juju we have put all four carriers out of commission we have just about gained mastery of the Pacific including the Japanese side of the international date line, or so the more educated of my spies tell me.

I went back to the wardroom and contemplated this phenomenon. Presently the word filtered back to us that the attack had been a complete success. All the carriers had been hit and severely damaged. At least three of them were burning. One, apparently, had been súnk in the first two or three minutes of the engagement.

One battleship of the north group of the force that we had attacked was afire. A second battleship had been hit. Reports from the Army told of hits on two more battleships and another carrier. Discounting these messages to the fullest extent and recognizing how easy it is for one observer to duplicate the report of another, it was still obvious that we had had something of a field day, still obvious that the bulk of Japan’s attacking planes must presently be going into the drink for want of any other place to land.

June 6, Saturday.
At sea west of Midway. Sunny. Calm. Warmer.