<Begin Segment 20>

EH: But when we got up to the airfield, here was a TBM or a TBF, I'm not too sure. There were three navy people on there, they were off of a carrier, and they'd run out of gas. And they landed on... Kadena, when we started out, was nothing but a Piper Cub field, or a small field. And it was just full of shell craters, because the navy had started shelling on both sides of the island for quite a few days prior to our landing there. And we didn't have any aviation gas, but on the way up, after we got off of the ship, we noticed a gas dump, which was Japanese, and so we went over across the airstrip and here were tunnels in there, we should have never gone in there. But here we rolled out several drums of aviation gas. And picked it up with the wrecker, took it up and I made a big funnel, and we lifted the drum up in the air and tipped it, pulled the bung out, and that's the way we poured the gas. We were pourin' gas all over the place... oh, boy. And...

DN: Good thing you didn't pass out. [Laughs]

EH: Well, we got, we put, I think, two drums of gas in. I'm not too sure, but we got 'em enough gas. Then we all went out on the airfield, and lined up in a spot where they could taxi out and take off. And they took off, we never saw or heard from them again. And it's, to this day, and I've been to, I don't know how many of our -- well, I have not missed one of our reunions of the 1901st, and nobody can remember what the carrier was. And to this day, I would like to know. But our LST, we, we got off, four days after we got off, was hit and sunk by a kamikaze, and I have a picture of that.

DN: It was empty at the time, more or less.

EH: Yeah. Well, the guys were on board. We, we had taken all of our equipment off. But my friend off of the LST, he comes to all of our reunions, 'cause I, several of us have been to several of their, the LST reunions. And I'm a honorary member of the crew. [Laughs] Which is great, and I get all the, their newsletters and stuff. But that was kinda sad, but then George, he, he was blown off of the ship, and they picked him up, and he came to May the 17th of '45, and he was at a hospital near his home. And the reason he had to wake up was because it was his brother's birthday. And he, to this day, he doesn't know how, how he knew, but it was there. But he didn't even know he was home, or back in the States.

DN: Took quite a shot.

EH: I've, I've got the news article on him, and... great guy.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.