<Begin Segment 21>

DN: When, when you were getting bombed and strafed there at Okinawa, did you lose many men?

EH: [Holds up one finger]

DN: Just one.

EH: One of the guys that I relieved, he got hit by shrapnel. And it grazed him right across the neck here, and it scared him so much, the next day he was this way. [Pantomimes shaking motion] And he was getting worse and worse, and then they put him on the hospital ship, I believe it was Hope. And she was hit by a kamikaze. Now, that's the last I ever heard of the guy, so I can't say. But then this airfield that we built was Kadena Air Field, and at that time, it was the largest airfield ever built by the military. And we didn't complete it, we had it paved, and the 101st Airborne, all their planes came in when Japan announced that they were gonna ceasefire. And I have pictures of that, and then we loaded on LSTs again, and went to Korea. And that's when I went through that 120 mile-an-hour typhoon. And that was no picnic. It's hard to describe the way that the ship would come up on a wave and it would go down this way, and the propellers would come out of the water and just shake. And then the, you would hear that roar. And then back down into another wave, and you could see the plates buckling on the side. And I thought, "We're never gonna get home again." But it blew us almost back to Saipan, and then, then we headed for Inchon, Korea, and went up through Kimpo airdrome, which was another small airfield, which we built up into a major air -- well, we built, I think we built Kadena up to 11,000 feet long, and I think we built Kimpo 11,000 feet long. Because we went way out over the rice paddies on that, to get it so that they could get big airplanes in. And then when my turn came up, "I'm goin' home." And the lieutenant, he says, "Earl," he says, "I wish you'd stay." He says, "I'll give you a couple more stripes if you'll stay." "No way, I'm goin' home." [Laughs]

DN: So you had fulfilled your...

EH: I had, I had enough points to go home. So... and I left, left Seattle from down, you know where the Coast Guard pier is?

DN: Yes.

EH: Okay, that was, I think, Pier 39 at that time. I left on the north side of that pier, and then landed on the south side of the pier, or vice versa, I don't remember which. So came back to the same spot.

DN: Probably a welcome sight.

EH: I got down, boy, and I kissed that old dock. And there wasn't any bands, no fanfare, no nothing, except there were some gals down there passing out little bottles of milk. Whew... fresh milk.

DN: And did your mom come over and get you?

EH: Well, I called my mom... we went right on up to Fort Lawton, and, "You're free to go, do whatever you want to do." Well, Tuesday, that was on Sunday we got off, and Monday, Monday we were going to Fort Lewis to be discharged, and I called my mom, "Who are you? Who are you?" Well, my voice had changed. I said, "Mom, I'm home." [Laughs] She says, "I thought it was some of the guys you had told to call." You know, because I think it was ten cents a call to call from Seattle to Bainbridge. [Laughs] So I got home Tuesday afternoon, I was free and clear of the service by Tuesday, March 26th.

DN: 1945?

EH: '46.

DN: '46?

EH: Yeah.

DN: Okay. So and by then, victory had already been declared, of course.

EH: Oh, yeah, yeah. All the fanfare, well, you know, the day that the Japanese said that -- or evening, is when we got the word on Okinawa that the war was over. Everybody, every gun on that island went just completely crazy. We were at, we had outdoor theaters, and I ran like heck back up to -- I had, was a battalion machinist, so I got underneath that truck and I lay there all night long. Because they were shootin' everyplace.

DN: You never knew where they were gonna come down. [Laughs]

EH: No.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.