EEG Falcon Demo
is May the 11th, year 2001.
My name is Floyd Cox.
I'm a volunteer at the National Museum of the
Pacific War
in Fredericksburg, Texas.
We're here as part of the oral history team of
the museum
to interview Mr. George Allen Barrett from
Carmel, Indiana,
concerning his experiences during World War II.
I'd like to start out, George, by telling you
And thank you very much for setting in on the interview.
We certainly appreciate it.
And as you know, this will go into the archives
of our museum and be here from now on out.
That's very good, and I appreciate the fact
that you're willing to listen.
Well, we are definitely willing to listen.
To start out with, I'd like to ask you a few
basic questions, George.
When you were born, where you were born, a
little bit about your schooling, and we'll
just take it from there. I was born in
Brentwood Borough, a borough of Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, January the 1st, 1922. I lived in
Pittsburgh and on the north
side and went to elementary school there on the
north side of Pittsburgh. I was
actually born in my grandmother's house. The
doctor came there for the delivery
and so forth. In 1931 my folks moved to San
Diego, California and it was quite a
trip going cross-country in 1931. The roads
were not anything like they are
today. I finished elementary school there in
San Diego and went to Memorial
Junior High School there, and to San Diego
Senior High School.
I finished the 10th grade at San Diego, and I
was not doing all that well, and so my folks
had me go back to live with my grandmother, and
I went to Brentwood High School in Pennsylvania.
I got through the 11th grade there.
My folks came back in the summer of 39 and we
returned to San Diego, myself included.
My dad wanted to know if I wanted to go back to
school, I told him I didn't, I thought
I would like to join the Navy.
And so I was 17 at the time, I had to wait
until I was 18 in order to be sworn in.
I went down earlier than that to get my
physical and paperwork and so forth, and he
found that
I was underweight and couldn't take me, so he
told me to go home, eat a bunch of bananas,
drink a quart of milk and return, which I did,
and apparently that was all right because
he took me in on January the 5th, 1940.
I went through boot camp there in San Diego and
was transferred from boot camp in April
of 1940 and went to the Hospital Corps School
there at Naval Hospital San Diego.
graduating from the Naval Hospital- from
Hospital Corps School.
May I stop you there? Sure.
Tell-for the benefit of the reader and
future-tell us a little bit about what type of training
you got in Hospital Corps School.
I had courses in anatomy, physiology, material
med, therapeutics, bandaging, first aid, working
Working with poisons, just like a medical
school, except on a much smaller scale, and
no English, no history, and foreign language,
so forth.
It was all bunched in together for medical
purposes only.
Did you enjoy going through that?
Oh, yes.
I always had thoughts of working with medicine,
even as a youngster, and it worked out just fine.
After you graduated, did you get a ranking then?
I went from seaman second class to hospital
corpsman second class.
They asked me where I would like to go for
additional training, what hospital I would like
to go to.
And I said I would like to go to the Naval
Hospital of Pearl Harbor, the territory of Hawaii.
And that's what I did.
And that was in 1940?
Yes, Sir.
I went to the U.S. Naval Hospital of Pearl
Harbor, the territory of Hawaii, and got there
in July of 1940.
I was trained-that's for additional training.
I was trained additionally then on the medical
ward, on the surgical ward, in the O.R., um,
in the O.R.
department, learning about diets and messing,
things of that nature.
You said messing, that refers to food.
Food, yes.
So about that time, I was transferred then to
the USS McDonough, and that was in July
of 1941.
How do you spell that? M-C-D-O-N-O-U-G-H.
It was a destroyer, its number was DD-351, and
we were in the first destroyer division.
While on there, as a beginner, and regardless
of your rating structure, it didn't make
any difference, you learned everything there
was to know about a destroyer.
They gave you two pages of questions, and you
had to answer all those questions, and
you went to the various department heads in
order to pass their muster.
You had 30 days in which to do this, and you
learned everything, all the different departments
on a destroyer.
Now why was this, so in case somebody got injured?
was hurt, you could step in and take over their
job. You had the rudimentary
instructions and know-how to do that. That was,
you know, that was about all
there was to it. But in order to pass that
thing, you had to go to the
different chiefs and they had to say, yes, you
qualify. And if they said, no,
you didn't qualify, you went back and started
over again. As far as that
That department was concerned.
You had thirty days in which to do this, cover that.
If you didn't do it properly within thirty
days, you got no liberty.
You stayed right on board ship until such time
as you did qualify, because they don't
want any dummies out there.
This was pre-Pearl Harbor.
Now do you know, did they continue this after
the war started?
Not so much, no.
because of the urgency. Yes, yes. I was aboard
ship on December the 7th, 1941, and
in fact I was new getting, I was just finished
shaving, getting ready to take a
shower, and I heard the general alarm sounding.
I thought, well, probably away
fire and rescue. I don't have the duty, so I
don't have to worry with it. But about
At that time the chief gunner's mate came by
and yelled in,
Hey doc, the God damn Japs are after us.
Oh, come on gunner, go get another drink.
No, he says, honest, look.
And by golly, I looked out at the port and sure
enough there was Japanese aircraft.
And one of the ships was turning over.
I went immediately down below to get some
clothes on, and then I went forward to set
watertight integrity.
Watertight integrity is you close the ports,
you close and put the dogs down on all the
hatches, and that compartmentalized your ship
so that if you did get hit in one part, that
part might flood, but your ship wouldn't sink.
You had plenty of airspace to keep you going.
That was my first job.
The second job was to set up the after-battle
dressing station, which was in the after part
of the ship.
So how many decks down was that?
On the destroyer there was only one deck down
except for the black gang who went down farther.
But the after-gun station was where the
after-battle dressing station was set up.
I set that up, and then it went forward up to
the wardroom where the main battle dressing
station was set up, and Chief Leslie A.
Anderson was in charge of that.
He and I were the only medics on board.
Now let me ask you, setting up these dressing
stations, what did that entail?
Getting your bandages and splints and
stretchers ready, and also set up a table so
that you
could have somebody be brought in, lay down,
and take care of whatever might come about.
Well, unfortunately, we had been in for repairs.
A destroyer of that type had two fire rooms and
one engine room.
Both fire rooms were torn down, and the engine
room was torn down, being repaired.
We were alongside a repair ship, USS Dobbin, as
well as some other ships in our division.
They were okay. They broke away from us.
They just cut the lines and took off.
We had no way of getting underway.
No water, no electricity, no water, no steam,
you know.
So we're sitting there dead in the water.
But the Japanese were not really after small ships.
They were after the big guys.
So we only had one bomb drop after us,
which raised our fantail up out of the water a
little bit.
caused one young man to cut his hand and we
sewed him up.
That's all the casualties you had on your ship?
That plus a burn. Had a bad burn.
And the reason we had the bad burn,
we had lines formed from the magazine up to the
gun mounts.
And we didn't have any, no cover over the guns
making a turret, we had mounts.
And so some of the powder that was up there was
kind of laying out and the shells were
being fired, the gunners were in their
positions and they were turning their handles
for sideways
and up and down, and as the gun fired, the
brass would come flying out, and it was practically
red hot.
You had a catcher there, and he had a glove on
and a catcher in the other hand.
When the bomb exploded aft of us, this kid was
knocked down and as the shell casing came
out, this kid grabbed it with his bare hands,
and it was hot, and so he had some bad nerves.
They were the only two casualties that we had.
I went back up to the forward dressing station
to help Anderson, and he didn't need any
help, but again, no other casualties.
Did you go to any of the other ships, or did
you just-right after the attack, to help
out with their wounded, or you just stayed on
your own ship?
No, we stayed on our own ship.
We did pick up some kids out of the water from
ships that had been sunk, and of course
the .50 caliber machine guns that we had were
water-cooled and we had no water, so as the
barrels got good and hot, you have to replace
the barrels. So again, we had the
kids there taking the barrel off and they had
asbestos gloves and put that
barrel down and screw another one in. That way
you can keep firing.
The kids in the engineering department said
that as they heard these machine
guns going off, they were tightening nuts and
bolts faster and faster, and we were able
to get both fire rooms and our engine room back
put together before sundown that day,
and we started steaming up, and we got ahead of steam.
We started steaming out of the harbor, and as
we went past the Nevada, which was beached,
He gave us, and the, you were passing the
Nevada, yes, and as we went past the Nevada
they gave us three cheers, because you were
underway, underway, great, but after we got
out to sea the sun had set and things were
getting a little on the dark side and we saw
a ship off in the distance.
We were under the impression that Japanese had
troop ships and that they were going to
make a landing and that they had had other
warships out there.
So here we see this ship off in the distance
and one of the quartermasters had a rifle-like
signal gun and he was trying to signal them to
find out who they were and we were getting
no answer.
Well, on this destroyer, we had eight torpedo
tubes, and we had five 5-inch .38 anti-aircraft
guns, and we had a 12-inch searchlight up
forward, 24-inch searchlight aft, and about
the time the old man decided this ship wasn't
going to give us any answer, he had all eight
torpedo tubes turned out, 5-inch 38s turned
out, the 12-inch and the 24-inch searchlight
turned out, and when he turned those lights on,
we had the ship dead center.
The poor thing, it was a seagoing tug.
Well, you got their attention, didn't you?
Oh, boy, we got an answer from them right
quick, you know, and then we went back into
port the next day and got fuel, additional
fuel, got food, and then we went out to sea
and we stayed out at sea for quite a period of time.
We did go back in and we had one 5-inch .38
removed, we had a couple of 40mm guns put
on, we had some 20mm guns put on, we had the
5-inch .38 training equipment removed to put
these other guns on.
So we were in pretty good shape.
We had 5-inch .38s, we had 40mm, we had 20mm,
and, oh, they took off the 5-inch, the machine
guns because we didn't need those with the 20mms.
And then they put on some K-guns, some K-guns,
no Y-guns on there.
Then after, of course, we carried our tin cans.
Now, what is a Y-gun and a K-gun, if you could
describe that briefly for the-
The K-guns were put on, and they fired a
300-pound depth charge off on one side.
A Y-gun can fire two of them off if they are unencumbered.
And then on the fantail, which is the after
part of the ship, we had 600-pound TNT depth
charges and these are set, the gunner's mate is
back there and he can set the
various depths. You want to set them in a
pattern of 50 feet, 100 feet, 150 feet, 50
feet, 100, 150. So they go off in a pattern.
And then the K guns, the same thing, you set
them to go off in a pattern. And they reach out
to the sides? Yes, they go out to the
sides and the 600 pounders just go off the fan
tail, straight down.
You really don't want to hit a submarine with
the depth charges because what you want to
do, you want that explosion to occur and that
increases the pressure and submarines are
pretty well set to withstand certain pressures
and if you can increase that pressure enough
Then you open up some of their seams and cause
them to sink, so that's the job of the depth charges.
Then you went out on patrol? Yes.
Did you happen to encounter any enemy
submarines on any of your patrols?
No, not really.
On one patrol we were going across the entrance
to Espirito Santos, and we had patrol duty
there and we got a ping from sonar and they got
excited on a bridge and instead
of telling the gunners mate or the torpedo men
on watch on the fantail that
we had this ping and to set the depth charges
we're only going five knots and
And the 1st depth charges, 600-pound cans, are
set for 50 feet.
And here we're steaming 55 knots.
And we let go 2 600-pound depth charges set for
50 feet.
And that really opened up our-after steering.
So then we're leaking there.
Oh, the OD up on the bridge set those off
instead of notifying the-
That's the officer of the day, OD.
Well, when you're at sea, he's the officer of
the deck.
Deck, I'm sorry.
Because he's not on all day. Uh-huh.
But then as we were-we were out there and we
were under fire from Japanese planes numerous times.
We were at Noumea, Espirito Santos, we made,
well we took a group of Marines into Guadalcanal
and Tulagi and we had a Marine gunner come
aboard and he was helping to direct firing
into the beach.
We were sitting off the beach by about half a
mile, steaming back and forth and firing
at various places that he would point out,
trying to hit ammunition and gasoline storage
facilities that Japs had.
Did at any time did your ship knock down any
Japanese aircraft that they were aware of?
No, not that we were aware of.
We were out there with the Yorktown and the
Lexington took a couple
torpedoes and we had to then pull into the
Friendly Islands and do some repair on her.
They opened up the blister site, so they were
able to shift oil and add water and so forth
to make the ship blist and get the blister up
out of the water.
Then they were able to patch it up on a
temporary basis.
Let me ask you this.
While you're out at sea like that, can you
describe some of the cases that you would
that you would treat as a hospital
corpsman-burns, cuts, or-can you describe what
your everyday
duties would be like?
One time, one of the guys was down at the
magazine, and he decided he was going to kind
of dope off, so he laid down on a deck, and a
5-inch .38 shell bounced off of the place
that it was supposed to be wired in and broke
his arm.
So we had to set his arm, no x-ray or anything,
but through feeling and so forth, we set his
arm and then put a plaster cast on him, and it
turned out okay.
Other seasick stuff, and Uh-
Sailor get seasick?
Oh, many times.
times and the first while that I was on the
destroyer I'd get a little seasick
but I got over that in a storm then I really
got seasick and that was when
this kid broke his arm and I had him in a bump
I had a wastebasket between my
knees and I'm looking after him throwing up in
the wastebasket. I believe that probably
We wouldn't give him too much confidence in your-
But it-that ended my seasickness.
I've never been seasick since.
And then eventually-oh, one time we went
alongside USS Colorado,
and they were supposed to be fueling us.
and they had some gun mounts, 5-inch 38 gun
mounts, that went on beyond the side
of their ship. Extended over the side, yes. We
got into a situation where we
hit a wave, they went up, we went down, we came in
toward them. We came up, they came down, and
that Gun Mount really about tore our
folks a lot. So we were in trouble there. So
with our leakage in the after
steering room and our banged up folks, they
decided we should go back to
Pearl and get some repairs. This was in
February of 1942. I believe so. Anyway, I was then
transferred. Oh, instead of going to Pearl,
they sent us to Mare Island. Well, at Mare
Island, I had made second-class P.O., and the
destroyer did not rate a second-class
They rated either a first-class hospital
corpsman or a third-class pharmacist mate.
So I had been at sea long enough, they decided
I should have a little shore duty.
So they transferred me to the U.S. Naval
Hospital Oakland, called Oak North, and while there
I went to radiological school and became an
x-ray technician.
I started feeling a little guilty, oh in the
meantime I got married there
at Oakland and my wife was a WAVE and she was
also an x-ray technician.
While there of course she got pregnant and in
those days WAVEs could not be pregnant
and stay in so she got discharged out.
I got feeling guilty, here I am at shore and my
buddies are still out at sea, so I think
well I should be out there with them doing something.
So I sent a request into the Bureau of Naval
Personnel requesting submarine school.
Well, they notified me that the submarine
school had been closed for one reason or another.
So then I thought, well, I ought to be able to
get something.
So I don't know how to ski, but I asked to be
transferred to a ski troop.
Well, they didn't do that either.
But I guess they figured as long as I was
wanting subs, they'd give me something close to it.
So they sent me to a cub unit, a combat utility battalion.
His combat utility battalion was biblacked over
at Tanfran Racetrack, and by this time
I was a first-class Petty Officer.
I thought you were still in California. Yeah.
San Bruno, California, right across the bay
from Oakland.
And the first class P.O.'s, there was two of us
to a horse's stall.
Lesser than first class, there were four to a
horse's stall, which is better than 40 and eight.
You're talking about living accommodation, correct?
Yeah, that's better than 40 and eight.
But anyway, every morning you get a bucket of
water to clean your floor and you swish
it down and the water then goes down between
the fairly wide cracks in the floor down into
the horse manure and you pretty smell it.
We were being trained to take a specific island
in the Pacific.
Just about the time we were through our
training, General MacArthur decided he wasn't going
to take that island, he was going to go around
it, starve them out.
And so they broke us up, couldn't go some other
island, I guess.
So they transferred me on a temporary basis to
Naval Hospital San Diego and put me in
the x-ray department there in charge of the
x-ray department.
That's where a young officer came out from the
Bureau of Naval Personnel and he called
me into the personnel office and he said,
Barrett, we are looking for volunteers for
extra hazardous duty, can't tell you where
you're going, can't tell you what you're going
to be doing, can't tell you what you're going
to be eating, but we hope you have a cast
iron gut, because you're going to be eating off
the land, whatever land you're going to.
So I said, well, when do I go? Oh, he says,
you're just the guy I'm looking for.
So I got transferred then from there to
Washington, D.C.
That's from San Diego to Washington, D.C.
Stayed in Washington, D.C. about three weeks
and got some additional information,
not about where we were going or what we were
going to be doing.
They talked to us about judo and a few other
odds and ends.
Let me ask you, when you went from California
to Washington, D.C., how did you travel? Train.
By train?
By train.
Was that on like a troop train, or was it a
trooper train?
And you were still married at this time? Yes.
And you left your wife?
My wife had been-went back to Indianapolis to
have a baby.
I had had one other troop train ride, though.
I took a group of convalescent patients from
Naval Hospital, Oakland, to a hospital that
maybe had taken over in Colorado Springs,
Colorado-oh, Glenwood Springs, Colorado.
And while there, I had a real nice time.
We had a couple of days extra there.
We'd hear a bunch of snow, we're throwing
snowballs at each other, we're in swimming
trunks, and we'd jump into the hot water pools.
It was the first time I'd ever done that, and
that was kind of neat.
So you don't, you know, wartime in the
military, you don't always have rough times.
You have some fun times, too.
And sometimes, even in rough times, you make
your own fun.
We want to cover that later on too.
Getting a little ahead, but any time you think
of something that you felt was really funny,
please bring it out, because as you said,
there's rough times, but there's some fun times.
That's right.
So you're in Washington, D.C., and you didn't
know where you were going or what you were
going to do.
That's right.
I spent only three weeks in Washington, D.C.,
and darn if they don't send me back to San Pedro.
and put me on an APA, a troop carrier, and a
couple of other corpsmen along with me,
and our pharmacist mates at the time, and we
were there as passengers.
But they had a ship full of soldiers.
When you talk about seasick kids, oh my gosh,
those poor kids who were throwing up all over
the place just about the time they heard the
anchor chain moving, wow, but they would clog
up the toilets and it made a mess in the
latrine, oh golly.
Anyway, they asked us, the pharmacist mates, if
we would be willing to give these troops
their shots.
They still needed shots.
So, yeah, we'll do that.
So, we lined up several tables similar to this
one, end-to-end, and then had them come
through on either side and we had a pharmacist
mate set up at about three
different stations to give them three shots and
we told them do not stop do
not ask any questions we don't have any answers
we're going to shoot you and you
go to the next guy he's going to shoot you you
go to the next guy and then get
out of here well periodically somebody would
want to stop and ask a question
boy, he got two shots. Bad news. And the kids
behind didn't learn. Some of them
then would come by and do the same dumb thing,
but they got their
shots. The Army was really not prepared to set
them up and give them shots like
the Navy was, so that was the reason we were
asked to do this.
We were out at sea for about, it must have been
about three weeks.
We pulled into Melbourne, Australia, just
stayed overnight, couldn't get off the ship.
So I was in Australia once.
You saw it anyway.
Yes, yeah, saw the pier there. But then we
discovered that we were going to wind up
in Calcutta, India. That's the first time we
knew about that. So we set sail the
next day for Calcutta. You still had the army
troops with you? Yes, yes, and that's
That's where they were getting off.
We got off at Calcutta and we found out that we
were going to be there for a period of
time until we could catch a flight and go over
the hump, which is the Himalayas, and
on into China.
We were there for a couple of weeks and another
funny thing that happened while I was there.
I was made a shore patrolman and I was assigned
to an army military policeman.
So the two of us would go into downtown
Calcutta and it was hotter than blue blazes.
People were dying, Indian people would die from
the heat or lack of food or whatever.
But they'd be there dead on the sidewalk or in
the street.
walk around them, because if you try to help
them, then you became responsible for them.
So people wouldn't try to help.
Would the government end up taking care of the
deceased people laying on the street?
They were hopeful that one of their relatives
would come by first.
But what happened?
If they didn't, then local policemen had to
pick them up?
The local police have to take care of it, but I
was never told what I was supposed to
do as a shore patrolman, so I really had
nothing to do.
But the poor old military policeman, he had
been told, you must get so many names of people
doing things that they weren't supposed to be
doing, or dressed in a way they were not
supposed to be dressed, or undressed, whatever.
And so as soon as he did that, as soon as he
got his group of names, we headed for a
restaurant and we said, we're here to examine
your kitchen.
Oh yes, yes, come in, and well then of course
you have to try some of their food.
Of course, also, the restaurant was
air-conditioned, so that helped.
And then we'd go from there, walking down the
street a ways, going to an air-conditioned theater.
And that was all there was to being a military
policeman and a shore patrolman in Calcutta.
But I was then sent from Calcutta by air to
Shabwa in Assam, Shabwa, C-H-A-B-U-A, I believe.
Something similar to that, anyway.
And then we waited until the Army Air
Corps-there was no Air Force at the time, Army
Air Corps
And the Army Air Corps treated us really nice,
the pilots and the enlisting people, and the
higher echelon, they didn't treat the Navy all
that well.
They were part of the Army, and the Army wasn't
treating the Navy all that well.
Anyway, we did get a flight across the
Himalayas and got into China.
Do you remember what kind of plane you flew on,
C-45, C-46?
Forty-six, I believe, yeah.
And one of the pilots, as we landed in one
place and then had to take off again,
he said, do you want to crank an engine up for me?
I said, sure.
So I was up there in the cockpit with him, just
kind of being rubberneck, you know.
And so he says, okay, there are two buttons.
You push this button, and when you hear it
getting a good whine and it's making a circle,
then you push that second button, and that
turns this propeller.
So I hadn't known that, and that's the way you
crank up a C-46 propeller, two buttons.
Anyway, we conned them into picking up
additional mountain rations for us, because the K-rations,
you know, you ever had K-rations?
You know what they are.
They're edible, and that's about all you can
say, except the chocolate.
The chocolate is like wax, you chew it for a
while and spit it out, but otherwise you're
constipated that's not a good place to do that
so you were mountain rations
what did this consist of they were in a box and
then each box had three meals
breakfast dinner breakfast lunch dinner and
they were in big wooden crates and
we conned them into about half a dozen of those
big wooden crates and that
That made the plane a little heavier than I
really wanted it to be, along with other things.
So as we're taking off, I'm sitting there in
the bucket seat, and there's a port, I'm
looking out at the port, and there's a white
line on the runway, and we're going down the
runway looking for it, and that white line is
still there, and the next thing I know,
There's no more long white line, and I haven't
felt us go up.
The pilot told me later, he said, hell, I just
pulled the wheels up.
We were airborne.
But, whew, I figured that was close.
Did you know at the time what unit you were
assigned to now? No.
You were just more or less Incognito?
into Kunming and then they put me on another
plane with a couple of other
fellas and we flew off to another airport
behind Japanese lines. I don't
know what airport. It wasn't an airport, it was
a little field.
Yeah, and they gave us to three Chinese men.
One was a driver, one was a mechanic, and the
other was a lieutenant in the Chinese Army.
And they had a truck, and they were going to
truck us to our duty station.
They spoke no English, we spoke no Chinese.
We learned a few words of Chinese right quick,
about different foods, you know, this is a cow.
Put your fingers on your forehead like horns, okay.
But then he told us Ju-Ru, Ju-Ru, cow, that's
Chinese for cow, either that or pig, and then
the other word we learned was pork, you know,
for a pig, so you made like a big
nose, yeah, and they try to make it sound like
a pig, well the Chinese Fella did,
the lieutenant, he was he was trying to help
us, and he wanted to know, you know,
what we wanted to eat. I forgot the word for
eggs, but they had, they could get
eggs for us, and they could get beef, and they
could get pork, and also a rabbit, they could
get a
rabbit occasionally. We were with him for, I
think about three weeks, and occasionally
the truck would break down. The mechanic had to
go to the nearest town to get a
a part for whatever it was, and then he would
come back and he would put the thing together
and we'd go some more.
Now on this truck did you have your mountain
ration, were you still carrying those with Yes.
And plus some other supplies? Yeah.
Medical supplies and whatever?
No, we didn't have any medical supplies.
Here you are a medic without any medical supplies.
Right, right.
I had no patience either, so no big loss.
We finally get to a town called Kino, K-I-N-O,
in Fujian province, southeast China.
I've got a map here, but I don't know if that
shows your area on it or not.
Well, I'll look and see if I can see Fuqian-or
Fuqiao, I mean.
Now, is this area close to the coast of China
that you're going to?
Fairly close, fairly close, yeah.
And you are behind the Japanese line. Yes.
Yeah, because the Japanese were in Fuchao, and
we were up a little bit north of there.
Oh, here's Fuchao.
And we were up in here-I don't see-yes, I do.
Here it is right here, K-I-E-N-O-W.
That's a fairly good sized printing for that,
where'd you make your circle, here's K-N-O-W.
Now, what did you do there?
Was that your duty station, or you kept moving? Yes.
No, I stopped there.
I found some other corpsmen there, and boy, one
guy, he was delighted to see me because
he was being relieved.
I was his relief.
This is the end of Site 1.
This is a George Barrett interview, side two.
Okay, so you relieved this young man.
I relieved him, and there were about four
medical officers there, and several other
pharmacist mates.
And what they were doing, they opened up a
small hospital there, And-
Were you attached to any-did you have a title in?
Were you attached to-?
Schmottlach, Jr.
I was attached to SACO.
Vickio, Jr.
Now you knew you were attached to-?
Schmottlach, Jr.
Oh, I knew that when I got into India.
Vickio, Jr.
Oh, okay.
Schmottlach, Jr.
I knew I was with SACO, Sino-American
Cooperative Organization, official name U.S.
Naval Group China.
Vickio, Jr. Right.
Now was there, this hospital that you're at,
did it have a designation, Camp One, or
just in common? No.
Pack Dock Two.
There was a Pack Dock, and that of course would
have been Pack Dock One.
And that's spelled P-A-C? D-O-C.
And we were number two.
We were supposed to be training nurses and
young Chinese men to be hospital corpsmen
or pharmacist maids, and the senior medical
officer there was Dr. Robert Cranston, C-R-A-N-S-T-O-N.
He found out that I had had some training in
the operating room, so I wound up becoming
as Scrub nurse, and so any surgeries that were
being done I scrubbed up, but also being
a first class, kind of a senior first class, I
wound up as a medical supply officer for
Southeast China, and I had a big go-down, which
was a warehouse, and we had numerous
and sundry medical items there.
I also had an x-ray machine that came in three suitcases.
One big one, one medium, and one small, and
when you put three together, you had a small
portable x-ray unit, and so I had the x-ray machine.
I was the x-ray technician.
They asked me also to start making up forms for
the pharmacy, for the lab, and other things
that you would need in a hospital, so I was
doing that.
They kept you busy, didn't they?
Oh yes, yeah.
And then Dr. Cranston took me on a trip
occasionally to other camps
because he was senior medical officer there.
It was his job to check and be sure that all
the medics were doing
what they were supposed to be doing, whatever.
What kind of patients would you have in a field
like that?
Did you have any wounded?
Did they bring any wounded Chinese in?
We didn't have any during the time I was there. Malaria?
I got malaria, but I think I really got malaria
on a cross-country trip because at the end
of the war I had to take all the stuff out of
the go-down warehouse, put it in
trucks, and we were going to take that down to
Shanghai. So we were going over
cross-country, got into areas that they hadn't
seen a longnose in, oh, maybe 15
years. Longnose referring to? European, you
know, instead of flat Chinese
And we'd get into these little towns and the
kids would follow us.
They wanted to see how we were eating and what
we were eating and that was kind of neat.
How did you find the Chinese people?
Were they friendly people or not reserved?
Very friendly and good sense of humor.
While I was in Quinault, we had done some work
for the Chinese, and the mayor of Quinault,
the magistrate of Quinault, gave me a citation
thanking me for the good work that I had done.
He gave three of those.
I was one of the recipients.
It's what, about three feet long, it's on silk,
and about a foot and a half wide, maybe
two feet wide, and white threaded characters
going down either side, and then gold and
red characters going down the middle, and I
still have it.
It's written in Chinese?
Oh yes, yes.
And I have had it told to me what it means, and
so I do have that.
And when I left Canoe, one of the youngsters
that I had hired to help me in the go-down,
there was a Moon Festival coming up, and he
needed some money so that his wife could get
moon cookies made so they'd have good luck the
rest of the year. So he asked me
if he could borrow $10,000. American money? No,
no, no. I said sure, Huang, I'd be glad to.
So I gave him the equivalent of $10,000. There
was a thousand and one at that time.
So about the time I'm ready to leave, poor
Huang went around to all of his friends.
What was his name again? Huang.
Spell it, please.
H-O-U-N-G, Huang.
Not Huang, not Y-O-N, but Huang.
Well, it sounds like a Y. Yes.
Spelled H.
Yeah, it's more like the Mexican J. Yes.
And poor Huang went around to all of his
friends and he came to me with a paper sack
full of
money and it was the $10,000 that I had loaned
him so he could have the moon cookies made,
which his wife did.
So then he and some of his friends and other
friends of mine there had a dinner for me.
So I went to the dinner and I took this sack
full of money along and gave him the sack
full of money.
He and his friends gave me three pairs of
sandal-like shoes, one a little bit larger,
one medium, and one small.
I was to take those home for me, my wife, and
my son.
They gave me a suit of pajamas for my wife,
silk, all embroidered.
gave me two, well they're not quite dresses,
they're like kimonos. One is all white silk
with all kinds of different colored threads
woven with, made into dragons and so forth.
And then the other is a dark blue dress, opens
on the side, well, they're made for Chinese
who are very small.
My wife was smaller, similar to this one, but
she was not-
That small? Yes.
Well, that was quite a deal for $10, wasn't it?
Yes, yes, but golly the people there treated me
just beautifully and they were marvelous people.
I really enjoyed them.
I got into Shanghai, well going cross country
is when I think I got my malaria because I
wasn't being covered at night with Mosquito netting.
were several days on the road. We got to a
river and there was no bridge. The
bridge had been blown up and they told me it'd
be six months before I could get
a bridge to continue my trip. Can't wait that
long. Have to get to Shanghai. Well,
then you better hire a sandpan. So I hired a
sandpan. Well, they have a piece
paper about this big, 8 by 11, and a contract
written in Chinese on one side, and on the
other side a bunch of official stamps, and so I
had an official piece of paper to take
with me downriver to Hangkou and then from
there we went on the Hangkou-Shanghai Railroad
on into Shanghai, that's how I wound up in Shanghai.
Let me ask you this, this was all in an area
commanded by Nationalist Chinese rather than
any Communist Chinese?
Oh, I don't know.
Most of the communist Chinese were farther north.
So I would assume that most of the,
anyone in control would have been a nationalist
or at least have those leaning.
Right, allegiance to Chiang Kai-Shek.
Yes, yes.
So it was later after that
that the communists came down into the southern part.
But I got into Shanghai, reported to the
Glenlight Building down on the Boon, got rid of
my materials
and my men, and I was told to report to the
Shanghai American School out on Petun Road.
That would be where I would be billeted.
So that's what I did, I went off to Shanghai
American School.
While I was out there, I got a call to come
into the Glenline Building.
Some captain, Navy captain, wanted to see me.
I went in to see this Navy captain.
He says, Barrett, oh by this time I'm the Chief
Petty Officer, he says, Chief Barrett,
Were you the acting medical supply officer for
Southeast China?
I said, yes, Sir.
He said, where the hell are my uniforms?
I said, Captain, I have no idea what you're
talking about.
Well, he said, I had them shipped to you.
He's a line officer, and he's shipping his
uniforms to me, the medical department.
What the heck for?
So I said, Captain, I'm sorry, I have no idea
what in the world you're talking about.
I have never seen your uniforms.
They never arrived.
Well, he said, they were sent to you, and if
they are lost, you're responsible.
No, Sir.
My God, I couldn't afford to buy a captain's
outfit or several.
So he told me I was going to be responsible.
Well, that kind of scared the foo out of me.
So I went back out to the school and I saw
Commander Cranston.
I said, Commander, this captain's all over me.
What's the matter, Chief?
Well, he wants his uniforms, and I don't have
his uniforms.
Have you ever seen his uniform?
I said, no, I've never seen his uniform.
Well, he says, don't worry, I'll go downtown
and I'll see him in a little bit.
So that was the last I ever heard of that.
Well, I was in Shanghai for several weeks, I guess.
And one of the things that we did there at the
school, we took turns waking each other up.
And the way you woke a guy up, it was your turn.
came into where he was sleeping, he lit a
cigarette, he opened a bottle of beer, he
shook him and said, time to get up, Reveille,
here's your cigarette and here's your beer.
And that was the wake-up call.
After about three weeks or so in Shanghai, I
was ordered to a ship, and the ship I was
ordered to was a seagoing tug. The seagoing tug
was towing a seagoing tug.
I was on the metal one and she's towing a
wooden one. Well, in the meantime, I had
started shaking, you know, with malaria, so I
was on some anti-malarial drugs.
We're at sea for a while, and we get to these
little islands, and some of the kids
on this wooden tug came over and said, Chief,
we have scabies, and we have things in between
our fingers, and they itch terrible.
Well, I said, don't you have a corpsman or a
pharmacist mate on there?
Yeah, we got a first-class pharmacist mate.
he doesn't do anything for you?" No, he doesn't
do anything. So I went over, I
thought maybe he didn't know what to do. So I
went over and talked with him and
suggested that he make up some self-rejointment
and put on these kids,
kill the skabies. And I told him, I said, if
you don't kill them
with just these few, your whole ship's going to
be scabied." Well, the next island
we got to, the kid came back and said, that guy
never did a thing. Oh my gosh.
So I had nothing I can do except go see a
skipper. So I went to see a skipper and I
told the skipper, this guy, your people have
scabies and I told this
pharmacist mate what to do for them and he
hasn't done it. So you're gonna have
to do something with him. Well the next island
we got to finally, excuse me, was
Kwajalein. First-class pharmacist mate got
transferred. I got sent back to the
wooden ship. So that wasn't Kwajalein, that was
another island before
So anyway, I was on the wooden ship acting as
their chief pharmacist mate, and I took
care of their scabies and we got that cleared up.
But when we got to Kwajalein, boy, I was so
sick, I had malaria and just really run down.
So I got transferred off of there to the
hospital at Kwajalein.
They got me fixed up pretty well, then they
sent me to an APL, which is like a hotel ship,
to wait transfer to a ship going back to the States.
Then I got on an APA as a passenger and sent
back to Treasure Island, California.
By the time I got back to Treasure Island, my
six-year cruise was already up in January
of 1946.
This was February of 1946.
So I'm there at Treasure Island, and I'm not
sure what I want to do.
I'm thinking about getting out and going to
school, and along about the same time,
I start seeing fellows coming back in and
wanting to re-enlist because they were getting
close to their 90 days of being out, and if
they didn't re-enlist prior to the expiration
of that 90 days, they'd take a reduction in rate.
So they were flying back in, no jobs, schools
were all filled up, and I thought, good Lord,
maybe I'd just better stay in.
And if I'm going to stay in, I'm going to make
damn sure I stay long enough to retire."
So I signed up for another six years, which
would have made me 12 years active duty.
And I'm not about to get out with only eight to
go to retire.
So I got my leave, and I went back to Indiana,
and then I was transferred to U.S. Naval Hospital,
Parris Island.
Oh, I was sent back to San Diego at first-I'm
sorry, I was sent back from my leave, I was
sent back to Treasure Island. So I got it back
there early. I went down to San
Diego to talk to a captain I knew in the Navy
who was an x-ray radiologist and I
had worked there at San Diego as his x-ray
technician in charge of the
department while I was on TAD and he said boy
I'd love to have you back. So he
sent word up to Com-12 to have me transferred
to Com-11.
Com-12 didn't like it too well.
So they sent me to Parris Island, South Carolina.
That's about as far away from San Diego as you
can get.
Yes, it is.
And still be in the States.
I was a temporary appointment chief.
And that was in 1946.
I was there at Parris Island for about a year
and I told my wife I'm getting
afraid from downsizing and so forth that
temporary appointments are going to be
done away with and I'll revert back to first
class. I need a year of sea duty to
get permanent appointment. She agreed. So I
wrote a letter to the Bureau
requesting any destroyer Atlantic fleet, they
sent a set of orders back to me,
U.S. Naval Medical Center, Guam. So I went to
the U.S. Naval Hospital, Guam,
Marianas Islands, June of 97 I reported there,
or I went from there. I'm sorry, I
got to there. 97 or? 47. 47. Yeah, I'm sorry.
Boy, do I ever jump ahead. Yeah, 47. And I
I stayed there until, well, they didn't have
any housing available there at the medical
center, the hospital,
and a billet came open up at Headquarters
Command, Commander Marianas,
and I put in for that, and I got it.
And I was able then to get housing right away.
So I sent for my wife and my son and my dog and
my car, and they sent all of that over to me.
And so then I stayed there until 1949,
September 47 to May of 49.
I went back to the States and I was sent to
COM-9, Chicago.
In the meantime, COM-9 then sent me a set of
orders to the Naval Marine Corps Reserve
Training Center in South Bend, Indiana, so I
had about three years at South Bend training
reserves, and about that time, of course, the
Korean War was on, so I got transferred
from South Bend to San Diego to pick up an APA
there, the USS Calvert, APA-32.
So in October of 1952, I got on Calvert.
I went over to Korea and then we went to Japan,
picked up a load of soldiers and Marines,
brought them back to Korea, went into Incheon,
and I happened to know the Commodore, whose
flag was on the Calvert at that time, and he
had been the officer in charge of ROTC
at Notre Dame, and he was a neighbor of mine in
South Bend, and so I, some of the chiefs,
Two of the other chiefs asked me if I wouldn't
go up to talk to the Commodore and see if
he wouldn't say it would be okay for us to go
into Inchon, stay overnight, and then,
you know, just rubberneck around the war zone.
Well, the Commodore says, hell no, I won't give
you permission, but I won't stop you either.
Okay, so anyway the three of Us chiefs went
ashore there at Incheon in Korea.
We hitchhiked a ride in a helicopter up to the
Han River and we get up on the Han River
and the helicopter pilot let us out, he took
off and went someplace else and the three
of us just horsing around, all three of us
looked like we were really hot shot guys,
you know, a gun belt on, a .45 on our hip, and
good Lord, John Wayne personified.
But anyway, the communists started firing
rounds in there, and we decided, hey, we better
get out of here.
So we hitchhiked then back down to Inchon.
We had to stay ashore overnight, and the
soldiers were real nice to us.
They fed us, and they gave us a sleeping bag.
We stayed overnight, and the next day we got
back on Calvert.
You didn't want to stay around there, did you?
Not while they were firing at us.
Not in the fifties.
I mean, you know, what the heck, a guy can get
hurt doing this.
Anyway, the Calvert then went back to Japan and
we got sent over to Hong Kong and we stayed
in Hong Kong for a couple of weeks and then on
the way back to Japan I received a set
of orders ordering me to the USS LST 1126, no
name, just a number.
So I went to the 1126 with a chief boatswain's
mate that I met, and he and I started out
there together.
And your duties on LST was still medical then? Yes.
And we were in a Weetok and Bikini working with
the atomic energy people, taking stuff
into wherever they needed it and bringing stuff
out from wherever they wanted it out.
And eventually, we left then and we took a
bikini, sailed into Kwajalein, and then from
Kwajalein we sailed back to San Diego, and I
got transferred off of the 1126 in September
of 54 and was transferred to the U.S. Naval
Hospital in Great Lakes, Illinois.
I got there in September of 54, and they
assigned me to a warehouse.
Well they had a civilian out there in that
warehouse, and he was in charge of that warehouse.
I'm a Chief Petty Officer, I'm supposed to be
in charge of wherever in the heck they
send me.
So I'm just sitting there, you know, doing nothing.
He's doing whatever I should be doing.
I'm, gosh, I don't like this.
So I went over to COM-9 and I went up to the
medical officer there, Admiral, and said that
I would like to be transferred to a Naval and
Marine Corps Reserve training center within
in the 9th Naval District if they had an opening.
Oh yeah, we've got an opening and we'd be
delighted to send you there.
Oh great, where would that be?
Well, that would be at St. Louis, Missouri.
Gosh, you can't beat a deal like that.
So I went back over to Naval Hospital and the
officer in charge there calls me in and
says, Chief, what the hell did you go over
there and tell them that you're not wanted here?
I said, I never told anybody I wasn't wanted here.
I said, I went over there and told them I
didn't feel I was needed here.
There's a big difference between wanted and needed.
Oh, well, okay then, he said.
He was a little put out thinking that I thought
he didn't like me or something.
I didn't care if he liked me or not.
But I did get transferred to the Naval Marine
Corps Reserve Training Center at St. Louis, Missouri.
And I had a real good time down there training
young Naval reservists and Marine Corps reservists.
I also became associated with the Boy Scouts of
America while I was there.
I became a scoutmaster and then I became
associated with the seagoing part of the Boy Scouts,
the Sea Scouts, and I also wound up with the
Air Scouts.
Man, I was scout happy.
But I stayed in St. Louis for about four years,
had a very good tour of duty there, and I
was ordered to destroy an escort in the
Atlantic out of Norfolk.
Well, about that time, my wife had a
hysterectomy at Barnes Hospital,
so my commanding officer sent a request to the Bureau
requesting a delay in my transfer until my wife
got out and was well enough to travel.
So instead of getting a delay to my destroyer
escort, they sent me a set of orders to the
2nd Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, Camp
Lejeune, North Carolina, to report to the 2nd Battalion,
2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division.
What year was this? 1958.
So, I went there and took my wife and
youngster, and we got housing there on the base.
Another funny thing happened.
My wife was fanatical about cleanliness, and we
were in a Quonset hut, and boy, she went
over this Quonset hut with a fine-tooth comb,
scrubbing everything, and the first thing
I know, I'm being inundated with cockroaches."
So I go over and talk to the entomologist, and
he said,
Chief, did your wife scrub the walls down in
that coincident?
Yep, she sure did.
I'm thinking, God, you know, you're great.
He says, she washed off all the residual materials
that kept those cockroaches out.
We did get the thing sprayed again
and she did not wash that down.
I was told by the regimental surgeon
that I was going to be making a six months tour
of duty
in the eastern Mediterranean.
We did that
and during that period of time
we made a landing in Beirut, Lebanon
because President Shimon asked President
Eisenhower to send the Marines in to try to maintain
control during a period of a coup-no, they were
going to have an election, during an
election period.
He didn't want a coup, and he was fearful that
something like that might happen.
So we went in.
We took over the airport first.
We went from the airport-we stayed at the
airport overnight, went down the next morning,
took over the port facility, and we left only a
few minutes at the airport, left only a
few minutes at the port facility, and we took
to the hills because we wanted to be looking
down their throats, not them looking down ours.
So we did that.
I stayed thirty days up in the hills of Beirut,
Lebanon, and it was a gorgeous city, a beautiful
city. The Paris of the Middle East, really.
Buildings were multicolored and oh just
beautiful. It's a shame the way they are now.
Anyway, we stayed at 30 days, then came
back out onto the ship that we were making
circles, and we were relieved on
post, went back to Camp Lejeune, and I had
already applied to Butler University in Indianapolis
to see if I could enter there.
While I had been in St. Louis, I took two
courses of English and one course of history
at St. Louis U during the noon hours so I could
compete with the kids.
I got six hours of B in English, three hours of
A in history, I can compete with the kids.
So then I submitted my letter requesting early
retirement so I could enter school in September,
which I did.
I got out in July of 1959, they gave me credit
for 20 years service, I moved to Indianapolis,
I went to Butler University, I earned a
Bachelor of Science degree, and had 30 hours in biological
science, and my major was history and
government, history and political science, and
I got my
education license as well.
So I have a minor in education, I have a minor
in biological science, I have a master of
arts degree in history and political science.
And did you teach school?
I taught school for 20 years.
So I retired from school teaching, I taught
grades 7, 8, and 9.
Retired from school teaching, so when they call
me a double-dipper, I say, no I'm not, triple.
I got military, teaching, and sociable security.
That's the end of my story.
Well, George, it sounds like you had a full
life when you were young, and I want to personally
thank you for what you did for me as a youngster.
When I was a youngster, you were young, but you
were a young man, and you did your thing
to protect me as a civilian, and I appreciate it.
I was really young, when I told you that I made
Chief Petty Officer, I was twenty-three
years old, I had only had five years in the Navy.
Today Doris and I saw a young man in the Navy,
medical department, same as I was.
He has three hash marks, which indicates he's
got at least twelve years in, and he was only
second class.
So boy, it's rough today.
It's yours.
Well, thank you again.