Oral History Interview with Herman Weskamp, May 10, 2001 Track: 1 of 1

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Herman Weskamp. Born in Mansfield, Colorado on 30 December 1923, Weskamp enrolled at Loyola University under the V-12 Program. After one year he was sent to Midshipman School at Notre Dame in 1943. He volunteered for a program called Amphibious Roger. He was sent to Fort Pierce, Florida for guerilla training in preparation for assignment in China. Upon completion of the training, he was transferred to Long Beach, California where he embarked on the USS General LeRoy Eltinge (AP-154) for transit to Calcutta, India. Weskamp was assigned to the Sino-American Cooperative Organization (SACO) as a Transportation Officer. He met Chiang Kai-shek and his security chief, General Li Dai who headed SACO while he was in Calcutta. His unit was sent across the Hump in a road convoy with equipment to support the invasion of China. Before the convoy arrived in Kunming, China, the atomic bombs were dropped and the war ended. En route to Kunming on the Burma Road, he relates several harrowing incidents and an attack by Chinese insurgents. Weskamp was next assigned to a motor pool near SACO headquarters in Chungking. After the camp was decommissioned, he flew to Shanghai, and was placed in charge of that motor pool. While in Shanghai, he took an assignment with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation organization to transport materials for the revitalization of China. Upon taking that assignment, he transferred from active duty to the Reserves. He was with the UN for the next three years moving supplies to the north of Chungking. During this time he made a trip to Nanking for a meeting with General George Marshall. Weskamp related his fears that should the Americans leave, it would allow the Communists to take over. In 1948 he resigned from his position with the UN and returned to the US.

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