Memories of an Oklahoma Farm Boy

by Virgle Chappell

WORLD WAR II December 7, 1941

Looking back, I guess life was pretty simple prior to December 7, 1941. We, my parents, brother and two sisters lived on a farm in northern Ellis county, Oklahoma.

The depression and drought was pretty well over and dad, Leon Chappell, was finally able to somewhat care for his family as he had always wanted to. We didn't have a lot of surplus but had about 15 to 20 head of cattle, some were milk cows, and four horses and dad finally had a tractor. He was farming about a section of land, though he owned none of it. We had graduated from the single seat Model T to Chevrolets with two seats. There was a time when we had a pickup as well as a car and in 41, we also had a second car. My older sister, Joan, had just graduated from high school and I rode the school bus to Laverne High School. When she began High School there was no bus service, so her first year she attended school in Darrouzett, TX where she stayed with our grandparents, Charley and Rose Chappell.

There was very limited communication capability at our farm home with no telephone and only occasional radio available. We did take different news papers from time to time but I believe we received them only once a week. There was the Kansas City Star or the Wichita Beacon or perhaps the Grit. Our main contact with the outside world came when the family would go to town on Saturday afternoon to shop and visit with others there. But then, things of the world did not seem so important to us in those days. We lived in our own community, had our own friends and relatives, and it seemed the outside world really had little bearing on our lives. Little did we realize the Japanese attack which was taking place that Sunday, December 7, 1941 would bring about the end of the world as we knew it.

I don't remember what activities we were involved in on that Sunday at our home. Typically we would have been at a relatives home or they at ours. If there were not visitors at our home then the young people would often gather at one home and find many activities in which to be involved. One Sunday afternoon about this time my dad had permitted me to stage a rodeo at our home and kids from several miles around came to participate and to watch. We built a pin for the livestock and a chute where we could mount the "wild" stock. I never learned to ride a horse bareback, so it's no wonder that on the second or third jump I found myself on the ground beside the bucking calf.

I prepared for the bus that Monday morning and made the 20 mile bus ride in to school. When we arrived there was excitement all around. Pearl Harbor had been bombed by the Japs! I'm sure there was no school that day, especially from the subject matter we were supposed to be studying. Radio's were available where we could listen to developments as they were broadcast. President Roosevelt was on the radio expressing the gravity of our nation's situation. Later, on movie Newsreel, we were able to witness the Japanese ambassador, who was in Washington at the time, being escorted from the state houses and permitted to leave the country. Within a few hours America was changed from many small communities to a united nation and a part of a world which would continue to shrink for years to come.

Almost overnight, patriotism was in full bloom. My best friend, Arthur Gebhardt, was of German heritage and he and his family would soon feel the pressures of prejudice and even hatred. He was born in America and refused to speak the German language except to his grandparents who lived in his home, still he did not escape entirely from the public sentiment against Germans and Japanese.

One Saturday night when the community had assembled in Laverne, a group of about 8 boys were walking the street together. One of them, who was of draft age, was wearing an Army jacket but had not been in the service himself to earn the right to wear it. Another group of local boys began to harass the first group until they finally left town. The second group, of which I was a part, jumped into their cars and proceeded after them. A short distance out of town they were stopped and one on one, the man with the Army coat was forced to remove it. Every home had it's yellow star, or stars, hanging in the front window indicating their boys in the service. Probably at no other time in history could there be found such a large nation with it's people so concentrated upon one thing.

Soon there came rationing. Coffee was difficult or impossible to find. Many items were rationed such as sugar and gasoline. Often mom would not have sugar available in the home. Dad was allowed extra gasoline because he was a farmer and he seldom used up his allotment for the tractor. Rubber items were difficult to find, especially tires for the cars. Everyone had his patch kit and hand pump for an unexpected (or expected) flat tire. When a tire blew out or had a hole which could not be mended, a second tire would be placed within the first then the inner tube inserted and placed on the car. Such measures could not be used today because of speeds which cars travel but remember there were virtually no paved roads and travel was usually 25 to 35 mph. Anyone driving 45 mph would leave a trail of dust about a mile behind him and probably 50 feet into the air and everyone would wonder who that maniac was who was driving that fast.

Most families supplemented their income by gathering discarded iron machinery which the government would buy. There was also a demand for bones of dead animals and every farm had these lying around. Dad usually permitted me to use his pickup and take these items to town to sell them. Needless to say, the countryside was a more attractive place soon after the war started. High school pupils were encouraged to help in this effort and some of us boys would gather these items from abandoned farms or from neighbors. Children were encouraged to save their pennies to buy War Bonds and thus aid in the war effort. Every movie, usually attended on Saturday afternoon, would have short reports on the developments on the battle fronts. Soon feature length movies presented very emotional portrayals of individual battles and the atrocities of the Axis powers.

Dad was too old to be drafted into the service and farmers, at least the head of the house, were usually exempt. However there were friends of the family who had passed their 30th birthday and still were drafted. Though I was only fourteen years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed, I began to dream of the time when I, too, could join in the war overseas. In fact, I suppose all the boys dreamed of the time they could join the older ones in Europe or the South Pacific. After three long years of waiting, shortly before my 18th birthday, I made the trip to Oklahoma City to join the U S Navy. I had previously made two trips to Kansas City and attempted to join the Merchant Marines but God saved me from that effort. If I had been able to join the Merchant Marines for the duration of the war, then it would have been required of me to register for the draft and spend additional time in military service.

My enlistment in the Navy proved to be more of a pleasure, sight-seeing time than that of war. While in boot camp at San Diego, the Japanese surrendered. There was total bedlam on the streets of San Diego that night. The whole nation relaxed for the first time in four years. While in boot camp I was chosen to attend a Radar operators school at Point Loma, near San Diego. We were to be trained for minor repairs of radar equipment as well as operation of the sets. Upon graduation, my group was sent to New York, by train, to the Brooklyn Naval Yard to be assigned as the first radar operators on Merchant Marine ships.

USS Marshall Victory

After a few days of "sight seeing" in New York, two of us were assigned to the SS Marshall Victory, a converted cargo ship about 500 feet long to go to France for a load of returning G I's. We were sent by train to Baltimore, MD where we were assigned to the ship. We were the only Navy personnel on board, and after taking on some ballast to steady the empty ship, we made our way down the Chesapeake Bay to Newport News for degaussing (demagnetize the ship) and then headed out into the North Atlantic. This was undoubtedly our nicest "cruise" for we were assigned a stateroom to ourselves and since the Captain didn't seem to like Navy personnel, we pretty well did what we wanted on the trip. After several attempts at operating the new radar on board, we finally gave it up, and left it in the Captain's hands. On the return trip the troops, Rangers, along with about a dozen USO personnel, some of whom were girls, and they did not fare so well. The Army personnel was placed into the hold of the ship where there was no ventilation and many became sea sick so needless to say, it was not a good trip. However they were going home, probably some for the first time in nearly four years, so any price was not too much to pay. The ladies were locked up at night for THEIR protection but were permitted to come on deck during the day. In Le Havre, France, my buddy and I were permitted to sight see in the town for a time. This was my first experience of setting foot on foreign soil. We had a difficult time telling the local Frenchman with his pickup, that we wanted to go into town, but we finally made him understand. The open fish and meat markets were strange sights to me. Someone had a dead porpoise lying on the curb, for what purpose, I do not know.

As I look back there was one experience which could have been fatal to all persons on the ship. We were only about a day out from France and my buddy and I were on deck, amidships. Suddenly there was a warning sounded and the ship steered a sharp right turn. Sensing there was some danger, we ran to the left side of the ship and looked overboard. There, within inches of the hull of the ship was a mine narrowly missed. I've often wondered if we had been on the radar, would we have detected the mine. Probably not.

As well as I remember it took about a week to recross the Atlantic and dock in Boston, Mass, where our cargo of Rangers were unloaded. After a few days we were told we would be reassigned and would leave the ship. We packed our gear, took one last day of liberty in the city and returned to the Marshall Victory for our last night on board. Early the next morning we were awakened and told the ship had already left the dock and was putting out to sea. If we hurried, we could probably catch the tug back to Boston. That was probably the fastest I ever dressed in my life. We hurried up on deck, threw our sea bags over the side onto the tug, and went over ourselves on a ladder. I still think the Captain simply ignored sending us word the ship was leaving.

We returned to Brooklyn Naval yard for reassignment and a few days later we were on board a train to San Diego to be assigned to the Pacific Fleet. This was the only time we were assigned Pullman cars, so the trip was somewhat a pleasant one. We were usually assigned to regular passenger cars and had to sleep, whenever we could sleep, in our seat. But this time our beds were let down and made up each night This was my second trip to completely cross the United States and the sights were beautiful. We arrived in San Diego during the night and found only confusion. No one was expecting us and there was no place for us to go. (It was later rumored that we were to have been reassigned to another dock in Brooklyn but someone had mistakenly sent us 3,000 miles across the nation.) Anyway, when the confusion died down and the paper work corrected, we found ourselves in a desert camp outside San Diego (I've forgotten the name, Camp Pendleton??)

Several days later, being reassigned to the Pacific Fleet, we were shipped to Treasure Island, San Francisco Bay, where there were still remains of the World's Fair held there several years before. We were greeted by a huge statue of a cowboy (or cowgirl) positioned over the entrance gate. While there we again attended school for operation of other radar sets used on Navy ships. San Francisco was a beautiful place but even then there were some "strange" people living there. We knew to be cautious when out on Liberty. While there, a riot was staged by the inmates at Alkatraz which became the subject of all conversation. Now assigned to the Pacific Fleet, we boarded the USS Pitt.

APA" stood for Amphibious Personnel Auxilary. The Pitt had been commissioned on December 11, 1944 and joined 600 other ships in the South Pacific preparing for the invasion of Okinawa. While on this assignment she and her troops was assigned to liberate some of the smaller islands around Okinawa and cleaned out Zamami Shima, the key island in a small group of islands off the southwest coast of Okinawa. She later was participant in the caring for several hundred survivors of Japanese suicide attacks. She holds the distinction of shooting down one suicide Japanese plane on April 6, 1945.

The USS Pitt APA 223

The Pitt was also a converted troop transport about the same size as the Victory ship I had been on previously. The main difference was this ship was armed and there were several firing practices staged as we made our way to Japan and Saipan. When they fired the biggest gun on the ship, a 5 inch on the stern, it rattled the whole ship. There were several 20 and 40 mm guns mounted on the ship as well. One often wonders how the men coped with fear during the severe battles of a war. We learned that the greatest emotional trauma for most soldiers and sailors came after the battle was over. A sad situation developed with one of my new friends. He had been on the ship for some time and participated in battle. This was his last voyage before discharge and going home. He became despondent and evidently near a nervous breakdown and he kept telling us he would never make it back home from this trip. He would often be found huddled against a bulkhead with tears in his eyes. He was sure, after many months of war, he would loose his life in some way on this, his final trip. I don't know what happened to him, but he did make it back to San Francisco.

Japanese Pagoda, Nagoya, Japan

  
Our first assignment was to Nagoya, Japan to bring troops home. It took several days at sea before we arrived in Japan. It was my first time to cross the International Date Line where we lost a complete day. On trips of this length the ship would run short on fresh water and it became necessary to take salt water showers. It is very difficult to get soap to lather in salt water! Also, food was no longer fresh and often our meat would contain an extra green color.

Captain Meyer, Commodore

When we approached the harbor at Nagoya, a Japanese Pilot was brought on board to bring our ship into the docks. As we looked around at the landscape we saw only devastation. Mile after mile there were only a few remains of buildings standing. I don't remember seeing a standing tree. In Nagoya we were allowed to go ashore but cautioned to stay in groups Strange to my eyes were the natives wearing masks over their nose and mouth, the wooden shoes worn by most of the natives and barrels of a brown liquid (rice?) on the curb where venders offered a meal to the public. We did go to a Geisha house but simply looked inside and left. We had been told not to enter into any buildings.

Tinian, Pacific Ocean

The first night out from Nagoya, I was on Radar duty and we had some excitement. (The reader must remember that Radar was new and not as accurate as today.) While at sea, the radarmen stood 4 hour watches with 8 hours off. We had three or four large radar sets in the radar shack located just off the bridge. About midnight we sighted an object on the radar screen and began plotting it after reporting the sighting to the bridge. The second and third fix indicated the object moving about 200 mph. Then it stopped and did not move for several minutes. This was a very confusing situation and Captain Meyer was awakened and summoned to the bridge. Lookouts were also called out to search for visual sighting. Finally, what looked like a fire was sighted some distance ahead of our ship. Finally a fairly large Japanese fishing boat passed on our Port bow with it's occupants screaming at us from their deck which had been lighted by a bonfire in the center of it's deck. Evidently they had no running lights on their boat and were afraid we might ram them.

Navy buddies, Mullen and Byrn on Siapan

After unloading our troops we remained anchored in San Francisco Bay for a short time. We were the "Flag Ship" in the Sausalito Bay for awhile and an Admiral had his flag brought aboard and displayed so it would count as his sea duty. (The flag left our ship shortly before we sailed again.) Our Captain, who had been with the ship since her commissioning, was promoted to the rank of Commodore.

Our second assignment was to Saipan for more troops. Excitement on this trip was a bad hurricane which we tried to avoid by turning south around it. If we did miss the worst of it, I would have hated to be in it's center. Our ship took a terrible pounding, at times the bow was completely out of the water, to fall with a terrible boom, only to be repeated again and again. The stern would come out of the water and the screw would whirl, shaking the whole ship. No one was allowed on deck during the worst of the storm. We sprung a few leaks which were quickly repaired and the ship took several side to side rolls which she was not supposed to be able to withstand. When we went to the mess-hall for our meals, the tables had extensions placed on the legs and the benches where we usually sat were removed. We had to eat standing up with the tray held in one hand to keep the food in place while we attempted to eat with the other. We received an SOS from an LST, a landing ship, whose front doors had been pounded off by the storm. There was another ship that was closer to them so we continued on into the storm.

We were allowed to go ashore on Saipan, which, except for burned out U S tanks still on the beach and concrete pill boxes of the Japs pocked with scars of war, was a beautiful island. One could hardly conceive of the thousands of Japanese who had taken their own lives by jumping over cliffs and other means, just a few months before.

Marines boarding the Pirr, Tinian

After loading several hundred soldiers from Saipan, we headed for Tinian to finish our load of U. S. Marine personnel who were to be taken home. There were no docks on the island so the marines had to be taken out to the ship in boats and then climb up a rope ladder to board ship.

Golden Gate Bridge

We were not allowed to go ashore in Tinian and were soon on our way back to San Francisco. It is a breath taking sight to enter San Francisco bay, through the Golden Gate into the harbor.Upon our return to San Francisco, I had the necessary points for discharge, so left the Pitt, went by train to Norman, OK, where I received my discharge.

All in all, I appreciate my tour of duty in the U S Navy. In my imagination I can still hear the pounding of the sea on the bulkhead beside my bunk on the Port Bow. I can feel the sensation of running up a ladder (stairs) as it was almost a level plane, and then it suddenly becoming almost straight up as the ship would roll from side to side. There was also the unique sensation of "sea legs" when on firm ground again.

While in the Navy, I earned the right to wear the American, Atlantic-Near East and Pacific Theater Campaign ribbons as well as the Victory Metal. Besides the privilege of seeing much of the world, the G I Bill of Rights was probably the incentive I needed for my college education and the preparation which would give a whole new direction to the remainder of my life.

Virgle L Chappell
August 11, 1998