<Begin Segment 17>

MN: And then you were transferred to D Company and your tanks were involved with supporting the Marines during the firefights. Can you share with us an experience at this hill called Luke's Castle?

RW: Well, at Luke's Castle, we were called up there one night, It was called Luke's Castle 'cause it was this sniper was in the ground there and it was on a kind of ridge that went out to where he was at. A ridge would go right out to where his hole was, and then when the Marine patrols would go walking by down at the bottom of the big valley, he'd shoot at them. So it was kind of a cat and mouse thing, and I guess one day this Lieutenant who just got there without orders he went up on that ridge towards the Luke's Castle 'cause he was gonna knock it out, get rid of that guy once and for all. Well, when he got halfway there they hit a mine and now they're stuck. They get shot at, so they're stuck. They called our tank up there, and now it was nighttime. We ran our tank up right behind his tank and hooked up. One of the guys dropped out of the trap door on the bottom of a tank to be able to get out in emergencies -- got out and hooked the cable onto that other tank. And everything was quiet, there's nothing, no firing or anything, just all real quiet, and the minute our tank and their tank put their tanks into reverse then the enemy shot everything they had at us, trying to demolish ours too. But we finally dragged the tank back, but in doing so, I had a California flag on the antenna, was gone, most of our gear on the back was blown off. But we got the tank back, and when they got 'em out of the tank it was a real mess inside. You know, in those tanks you just get sick, vomit and stuff like that, I guess it's the fear, it's the smoke, just a lot of things that contribute to that.

I can tell you one humorous story about someone getting sick, was when we were on this one hill, firing, and we start getting shelled, so we buttoned up, closed the hatches, and of course we had done some firing, so it's smoky in there. Anyway, the assistant driver got real sick and he was gonna vomit, so he asked for my steel pot of the helmet. So I gave it to him and he vomited in it, and then after we went back to the rear area to get some more ammunition -- it was wintertime, there's snow all over -- so we went back to get ammunition. While we were there, he yelled out, "Anybody want some hot chocolate?" So everybody ran out, yeah, I'll have some, so I dipped a little out of it and then I looked at the helmet and I said, "Hey, that's my helmet, isn't it?" He says yeah. I says, "You just puked in that." He says, "Oh, I cleaned it out with snow." I almost got sick. I luckily hadn't tasted it yet, so I just, I just dumped it. It was humorous, but at the time it was kind of, God, if I'd have found out after I drank it it'd make me sick.

MN: You mentioned also that you lost your California flag on the tank?

RW: Yeah, that was on that, in the rescuing that tank.

MN: So did each tank have a different flag, state flag on it?

RW: Well, not every tank, but some guys had the Confederate flag and different flags, and so I wrote home to the Redlands newspaper telling 'em a lot of tanks have their own state flags flying, so I said I'd like to see if somewhere I can get a flag to fly on my tank. And this lady from Redlands -- it so happened my brother, in later years, was working for her as a house caretaker and stuff -- so she sent me a couple of flags. So one day this classmate from a year behind me, comes walking in and he was in C Company, Charlie Company of tanks, and he was from Redlands, he came to visit me, so I gave him one of the flags. I had one on my tank, but I lost mine, and he said he lost his but he didn't know what happened to it.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.