I have to talk about my CIA experience, my IDF experience.
In 2001, we're at the office of Lester Meese in
Victoria, Texas.
This is Peter Reese interviewing for the
Military Order World War.
It's about 9:15 in the morning.
Morning, Les. How are you doing today?
Doing fine.
We're going to talk a little bit today about
your military experience, mainly.
What we would like to document as accurately as
we can is times and places and units you
are assigned to, perhaps.
Any stories or interesting anecdotes you might
have, good or bad, hopefully good, but anything
you want to add about your experience in the
military, we would be glad to hear.
First of all, what is your complete name?
Lester Arnold Luce.
And when and where were you born?
New York City, October 11th, 1925. 126th and
Lexington Avenue, the Doctors' Hospital, which
is no longer there I guess. I haven't seen it
in fifty years so it wouldn't make any
difference to me, but now I guess it's Harlem.
I was born in New York at Sloan Hospital for
Women or something, wherever that is on the
Upper West Side, that's another story.
It's probably a trash dump now.
You lived in New York? No.
I'd like to buy sprints. It was ten years ago.
What was your educational experience? Where did
you go to elementary school?
Elementary school, Los Angeles. Secondary
school, Los Angeles. High school, Los Angeles.
What high school and when did you graduate?
Fairfax High School, I think January of 1942,
something like that.
Yeah, I believe so. Take a look at the deal there.
Yeah, let's see. You went into service in,
let's see, January of 43. You entered service
January 43 in L.A.
All right, then it was June of 41 that I
graduated high school because I immediately
went to
to UCLA and had a year and a half at UCLA
before I went into the service.
I had two choices, become a dog-face Army or
enlist in the Navy as a volunteer. I could
not see myself trudging around in mud and crap,
and so I went into the -
Now, how did you know that? You had registered
for the draft and your number was about to
come up?
I believe so.
Predicted to come up?
Predicted to come up, yeah.
Did someone give you a warning you were about
to go or was just what you read in the paper?
One of the members of the draft board of that
area who knew my mother and so forth.
So what was your move then?
I volunteered for the Navy.
Went down and joined the Navy? Yeah.
Right there in L.A.?
Right there in L.A.
Okay. And what was your experience there? Do
you have a test or something? Yeah.
Did you qualify right away?
I had a test, NGCT or something, a naval deal.
I remember this distinctly. I had 90 points and
I made 90 points, which meant that I could read
and write.
You were fully qualified and you had a physical
there or something?
Oh yeah.
Now what day was that?
Do you recall what that date was?
No, but it was one day before my eighteenth
birthday, I know that.
Oh really?
Oh okay.
Or maybe a couple of weeks before my eighteenth
birthday, somewhere along that line.
So that would be in October, September or October?
And did they call you right in to duty then,
swore you right in and ship you off, or?
I think it was like 36 hours. Really?
Go home, get your toothbrush and report in?
Yeah, report in.
We took a train from Los Angeles to San Diego
and was toted on a bus to San Diego Naval
Training Station.
Arriving there just in time for breakfast,
which was a drastic surprise to me, shit on a shingle.
Typical. I didn't know the Navy had that. I
thought that was an Army exclusive.
If it was anything bad, the Navy had it.
And you went right into boot camp then, or
whatever they call it, in the San Diego Navy
training station.
After about six weeks in boot camp, I guess all
the records and crap caught up with me
and they immediately transferred me to the
hospital corps.
Was your boot camp completed?
No, that one wasn't.
What was the boot camp experience like?
Pain in the ass as far as I was concerned.
I thought you had a march and salute, wear a
uniform, make your bed.
Yeah, the whole routine was new for me and not
very rewarding in experience.
This is getting to almost 43 now, was there a
lot of activity there, a lot of troops being trained?
A lot of boot companies being trained, yes.
Were you divided into different companies, like
a drill sergeant that gave you a harrassment?
Not a marine drill sergeant, but a naval chief
petty officer. I guess they must have dredged
him up from Timbuktu or something. I think his
IQ was probably 70.
He was in charge of whipping you into shape.
Now what do you mean your paperwork caught
up and then you went to the medics? What was
that about?
I have no idea. They must have decided that I
had a year and a half of college and I could
On the basis of that experience and your
initial testing, whatever you did, they tried
to fit
you into a square hole.
Well, I was surprised they didn't fit me into a
truck driver or something like that.
So when they decreed you'd be a medic, what
happened then?
There was a medical service training facility
at San Diego and all they did was transfer
me to that for the corpsman training which I
think was ten weeks.
Ten weeks of corpsman training? Yeah.
Was there a big class there?
If I remember there was a class of about twenty-five.
In your class? Yeah.
First of all, this is separate from the Navy
training station, this is a separate facility.
It was within the Navy training station.
OPOP is a sub-section of that. Did you know you
were in the Marines then? No.
Or you were just a Navy, training to be a Navy corpsman?
And your serial number was five, do you
remember your serial number?
Five, six, five, five, eight, six, one.
Okay, that's the one you got and kept all the
way through.
What was the training to be the corpsman
experience like, that ten-week training?
Very minimal shock traumatic training.
A little bit of anatomy or something? Nah.
Not even that?
Not even that.
Here's somebody dying, take care of them and so
forth, about like medical school.
It just takes, that's why it's long. So is that
how to put splints on, stop bleeding?
General field hospital, but you know, I kept
thinking to myself, the Navy does very little
of this, most of it's on the ship. And finally
it struck a chord that I'm being trained for
something else. And right at the end of the
thing, they had a big listing on the bulletin
board, so-and-so will be going to this, that,
and so forth, and there I was, Medical Field
Service School, Camp Pumbleton, California.
Oh, okay. That's after the ten week Navy
Corpsman training. During that time, do you remember
did they teach you how to start IVs and things
like that or wasn't that a part of that? This
was all really just basic advanced first aid I
guess you could probably call it.
No, that's probably what it was.
Yes, okay. And after the ten weeks if you had
aptitude and qualified they moved you
on to the Aptitude?
What did they call the other school?
Medical Field Service School.
And where was that located?
Camp Pendleton.
177,000 acres of nothing, Oceanside,
California, 25 miles north of San Diego.
Was that a big, huge, going base at that time
like it is now?
The 4th Marine Division was in training there.
The 2nd Marine Division was in training there.
God knows what else. Of course it was 177,000
acres. They had a tent camp here and a tent
camp there.
What was your medical field training school
experience like? How long did that last?
That was approximately ten weeks. Then I was
assigned to the training staff.
At the end of that time? Yeah.
What was that training like? More training
people, field situations?
Actually my end was field sanitation. We had
the beginnings of usage of DDT, how to dig
slit trenches, how to dig disposal. They did
have some decent training for considering
that most of the officers didn't know from shit anyway.
Yeah. Who were you trained by? Other corpsmen
or some officers?
Physicians. Physicians attached to the Marines.
Did he have some book work attached with that?
Yes. Something about how to identify things you
were coming up?
Some very minor manuals.
Yeah. Okay. Did he get into actual treatment of
wounded people at all during that time?
that was not a part of your subsection that you
were in. You were
expected to know that. Yeah. Where did you live?
Were you in barracks during that
time? So you developed enough camp. The medical
field service school barracks. Yeah.
And I suppose you walked, you marched to class
and did all that business. No
marching. You got to be kidding. No marching
there. Casual. Work your ass off
that's about all. Yeah. Dawn to dark type
training. Ten to twelve hours a day. Did
Did you have any field stuff with any of them?
Lots of field stuff.
In a practical sense though, to do with the
sanitation, did you have to go out on maneuvers
like other training?
Only with respect of going from the medical
field service school to the area of maneuvers
to see whether they had built their latrines
properly. It was a very interesting deal.
You were a military plumber.
You were more of an inspector then at that time.
As a part of it, we inspected the food
facilities too.
But you weren't attached to a specific unit at
all, this is still a training phase.
nighttime stuff or Mickey Mouse stuff at night.
Pretty good meals? Food adequate?
Food was adequate. I mean, you know, certainly
not a gourmet menu.
Oh, was there a lot of physical conditioning,
calisthenics? Really? Just in
naval boot camp, that's about all. What did you
do at the end of the medical field
service school training. What time would you
guess we're getting toward by the
way, by this time? It says he went overseas in
February of 44. Getting
on to the end of 43 or early part of 44. Of
course there were campaigns going on
in the South Pacific and we had a choice. Stay
at the medical field service school and
die on the vine because of boring as shit or go
into the pool where they would assign
you to wherever. They assigned me to the 4th
Medical Battalion, 4th Marine Division. At
that time was in the rear base at Maui. Had
just come back from, if I remember correctly,
the marshals in Kwajalein and were re-fitting
and re-rigging and so forth.
So the 4th Division had left San Diego area and
been involved in a battle while you were
doing your training. At the end of the training
you were assigned to the 4th Medical Battalion
Medical Battalion, 4th Marine Division.
How was that Medical Battalion organized, do
you remember?
Four companies as far as I know. One company or
maybe two companies, strictly field hospital
and then a specialist company. I don't know
about the other company, I never ran onto
them or never thought.
Were you in a company that was just all sanitation?
and general, you know, whatever. Whatever they
needed you for, that was you. Everything
from dental on down.
You could be called on anything, but you knew
the sanitation and you were trained for the
sanitation end of it. Anything else was just a
body to do a job and not really trained
for it. Okay. Did they ship you right over to
Maui to join up with the... Zoom.
Flew you over?
No, no, no.
Oh, okay. No.
So they got you on a ship?
Oh, it was a wonderful ship.
Do you remember what it was, the name of it?
It was the Palau Lau, which was a Netherlands
East Indies merchant ship.
And it was an El Stinko from the word Goat.
Where did you sail from?
From San Francisco.
San Francisco? Yeah.
Did you go up to camp in San Francisco?
We went from, if I remember correctly, directly
from Pendleton to debarkation in San Francisco
or embarkation.
I don't really know whether we went from an
Army area or a Navy area or what because most
of it was at night anyway and I didn't know anything.
Was there a whole huge mob of you going at the
same time?
If I remember correctly, there were two ships.
Two ships that went at the same time?
So some people from Pendleton, people coming
from all over?
Yeah. I'm sure there were drafts from other areas.
What was your rank at this time, by the way?
I think I was pharmacist, mate third or
something like that.
I was really a field marshal, but nobody
believed me.
They didn't find that out until later on.
Was that what all the Navy Corps persons are
called, pharmacists make? Yes.
Well, now it's hospital men.
Hospital aid men or something.
Yeah, they've changed it. Yeah.
It was hospital corps then, now it's medical
service corps.
Was this ship clearly a Lua or something? Palau-Lau.
Was that run by the Merchant Marine or by the
Dutch still or Dutch crew?
Dutch crew, well East Indies crew.
Just with our troops packed down there like
sardines probably? Yeah.
And you sailed out from San Francisco?
I sailed out from San Francisco right under the
Golden Gate Bridge past the Fairlawn Islands.
I remember that very distinctly.
Oh, really? Oh, good birding islands. They're
famous now.
and right to Pearl Harbor.
Right into Pearl.
Was that an easy trip across?
Other than the crowded conditions,
poor sanitation, the smell and stink?
Smell. Food was wonderful.
No big
storms or anything like that.
Were you in a convoy? A zigzag?
To tell you
the honest truth, I don't even remember. Yeah.
What happened when you got to Pearl then?
Unloaded and
marked for Maui. I think there was a one-day
deal to get across to Maui.
You know what that time frame is? This is in
February then of 1944. I don't put down
your description of the ship. You catch up with
the 4th Marine Division, where were they
on Maui?
were on the side of the volcano Haleakala. It
was mostly a tent camp but it just stretched
all the way up, not way up, along the side.
About four years ago Geneva and I went to
a conference in Honolulu and I said, you know
what I want to go over to Maui and look at
some things that I used to remember and so
forth. So we went over for a couple of days
and had a car and wandered in these areas and
couldn't find the goddamn area until we
got to the top of one of the roads and there
was a service station and a convenience store
or what I call a convenience store. I went in
and I said, could you give me directions
to the old camp areas of the 4th Marine
Division. And this guy looked at me and he
says, were
you with the 4th? And I said, yes sir. He said,
well my dad was with the 4th. He says,
I can show you where the damn thing is. And we
were about six miles from there, but he
showed on a map, he says, you take this road
right here, go right down and you'll find
that there is a very large playground for
children right there, plus a monument to the
4th Marine Division which was sort of pictures
encased in plastic of the various battle areas,
plus a middle picture of the tent camp itself.
I did not take a picture of it, I should have,
but it was very interesting. And looking up
this area, there was not a thing there, cattle
grazing, exactly the same way, they left it the
same way as when they found it. There
was a pineapple field on the right, it was
owned by somebody, and there was a pineapple
field on the right that we used to borrow
pineapples from. I learned one thing, you
don't ever eat a pineapple right from the bush,
you got to let it sit for three or four
days otherwise the citric acid just kills you,
I mean citric acid you take a bite of
it and it just burns your mouth, but after
three or four days it is as sweet as it can be.
You found that out in a hurry.
Now how did you fit in with the medical
battalion there, were you in training at that time?
So you fit right into the medical battalion then?
Well, I actually, if I remember correctly,
helped set up a dental clinic.
Oh, okay.
Of course, I wasn't a dental tech or anything
like that. I don't know a whole shit about that.
that, but did that and then started checking
sanitation facilities throughout the division.
Now the 4th Marines had been off in battle and
then they'd come back and this was getting them
back up?
This was their main base.
Okay, throughout the war?
Throughout the war.
Okay, and they were back getting replacements,
I guess, for their wounded and healing some
wounds and getting reorganized?
The marshals had been fraudulent. They had, if
I remember correctly, a thousand casualties or
something like that. It wasn't really bad.
They really didn't get tore up completely.
No, but some of the later ones tore their ass
up good.
Yeah. How long did that last then, once you
signed in with Fourth Division? How long were
you there? When did you leave, do you think?
whenever, probably two weeks before the
Saipan-Tinian campaign.
You have June 15th with Saipan.
Well then we were at sea the 1st of June,
probably a little before that.
Did you know something was coming up?
Yeah, we knew something was coming up, get
aboard this God damn ship.
Did you have any idea where you were going though?
It was all top things that he got out in the ocean.
Did you go back to Pearl Harbor to ship out or
did they ship you right from Maui somewhere? EFFERMAN.
Right from Wailuku, which is a port on Maui. CHUCK.
On Maui? EFFERMAN.
What sort of ships were you in for that recall? EFFERMAN.
If I remember correctly, that was an Army troop transport.
Transport type thing? EFFERMAN.
They sort of set them aside from all Army stuff
because if they were next to an Army
base or something like that, half the equipment
would be stolen.
You never seen anything like that.
They had a list of what they needed and I saw
Jeeps, four-by-four trucks, you name it,
And within an hour, there were Marine Corps
numbers, paint, and the whole bit.
I saw-
So you got a lateral transfer.
At Saipan, of course the goddamn admirals
always were fed very well.
But I saw a reefer that was full of wonderful
New Zealand mutton exchanged for a reefer
full of wonderful steaks.
And the Marines won that one.
The Army lost.
The Army lost everything.
No matter what it was, the Army lost everything.
Saipan was a disaster for the Army.
That's when the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions
were on the end of the deal or across the
island or some damn thing and the 27th Army
Division was in the middle and they sat on
their ass and the Japanese came around and
that's when General Smith relieved General
Smith of his command, essentially kicked all
the Army officers off the island.
By the way, when you went in the Navy, you had
the Navy whites and the blues uniforms.
When you were assigned to the Marines, what
sort of uniforms did you have with the Marines?
Marine uniforms.
The khaki? Yeah.
In those days? Yeah.
Was there sort of a work uniform and a dress uniform?
You wore Marines, whatever it was.
Khaki and the blue Marine uniform, similar to
what they have today?
Because you had a Navy insignia and that was
the difference.
The Navy supplies all the medical care for the
Marines, so you had a Navy patch on but
Marine uniform.
Did they ever train you in rifles, pistols,
anything like that, any training with that?
I think I got two days training.
Didn't they trust you with it?
You never carried a sidearm.
personnel never carried. I have a .45 in my sea
bag and a carbine in my sea bag because
they gave you those and you just put them away somewhere.
Now, the Army had those Red Cross armbands. The
Marines wore anything like that or no
distinctive insignia of any kind?
No, because the Japanese loved to kill them.
Oh yeah, that's a good target. The Army guys
got rid of them in a hurry.
Okay, you ship out. Now, did the whole 4th
Marine Division go on ships? How many? Was it a
huge convoy? Would you recall?
I don't really recall. There were a lot of ships.
Several ships, though.
The 4th was a reinforced Marine Division of
about 22,000.
Oh, okay, yeah. Twenty-two thousand.
Approximately. So you all sailed together?
You know, that was 4th Artillery Battalion, 4th
East Battalion. The breakdown is pretty
damn good in that book.
Oh, really? Can I borrow that?
Oh, absolutely.
Okay, thank you.
You'll find me in that.
That'll have the dates.
Oh, yeah.
I'm weighing back saying, go ahead, fellas, go ahead.
What is your recollection of how long it took
or where you went to when you sailed out from Hawaii?
I think it was two or three weeks.
Did you go straight into, Saipan was your destination?
Yeah, Saipan was our destination.
Did you know that?
I think at the same time Guam was being hit, if
I am not mistaken.
Did you have an idea where Saipan was?
Yeah, it is over there.
Where you going?
Where the ship is headed?
Were you zig-zagging with destroyer esploits?
To tell you the honest-to-God truth, Pete, I
don't even remember, I don't even give a shit.
I was playing chess most of the time with a
couple of the medical officers.
We had these little portable chess sets.
Just passing the time of day.
Did you have any corpsman responsibilities in
the dispensary or anything like that?
Ship's company.
Sanitation, inspecting the ships, sanitation.
Ship's company took care of that.
Okay. Did you go straight into Saipan then or
was there a stop somewhere?
No, we went straight to Saipan.
Straight into Saipan. And you were on the lead
invasion in Saipan?
Well, all hell was breaking loose. I assume I
was somewhere there.
I don't know whether we were. I don't think we
were the first group that went in
because there was so much smoke, crap and so
forth in front of us, so I assume that the...
A lot of firing noise and activity. There were
other waves of ships going in. How would
they get from the ship into the shore? These
LCVP things or Higgins boats type thing, amphibious
boats. So eventually you went, your detachment,
company, whatever, climbed down the nets and
all those things, got into the boat, headed for
shore. What's your experience as you got
to shore? Do you remember the action?
As far as I could see, nobody was shooting at
us there. I didn't really see any initial
action until we got to the sugar refinery and
then there were a bunch of snipers and
I watched.
Do you think this was on the first day of the
invasion of Saipan that you went in?
It was the first day, yeah. We went in the
first day.
Except the whole 4th.
The ancillary forces coming in afterwards.
Yeah, so the whole 4th Division was landed on
that day. Yeah.
The 2nd Division, did you say, was involved
with the...
They were out 2 or 3 miles up.
Oh, different area.
And the 27th Army Division was also landing at
the same time.
So you just kept advancing then with your 4th
Division? When did you get to do things there?
What was your experience as he advanced at that time?
Field Hospital was some. Actually, I was sort
of a left hand because I didn't have too much
of anything to do other than fill in and help out.
So just common sense things to help out, what,
moving patients back and forth, supplies they
needed, things like that?
Yeah, go to the beach and pick up ships.
You certainly weren't doing your sanitation thing.
Oh, no.
That's what I say.
That's remote.
Were there a lot of wounded?
Was it a fairly efficient treatment of the
wounded, would you say?
There were a lot of wounded, but they moved out
in a pretty fast manner.
In fact, we had three hospital ships right
offshore, and I guess those that had to be
taken care of were taken care of in the field
hospital, and those who made it to the field
hospital were transported to the hospital ship.
So that initial, when they brought them back,
if they were still alive, they would get sort
of emergency treatment and sorting, and then if
necessary, they'd be evacuated out to the
hospital ships where they do the definitive
stuff on them. How about the
dead? Was there a registration area? Would they
try to bury them
there or were they evacuated? I just saw a lot
of bodies, body bags and so
forth, but I don't really know. There was a
grave registration like the Army had
that sort of took care of it. I don't think
anybody was buried
during the campaign. Yeah. Now how long would
that progress on? What was
the course of the action there on Saipan? I
think Saipan was about
10 days to 12 days, if I'm not mistaken. The
first six or seven days was the real
mess and then cleanup after that. Yeah. Did you
keep moving up behind the troops
or did you stay back more with the field
hospitals? I was sort of half and
half. Not all the time as a direct corpsman,
although I did do a little of that. I left
a yellow streak all the way up. When somebody
tells me they were this and they were that
and so forth, I just thought of myself. I was
scared shitless the whole time. Anybody
tell you that they enjoyed combat and they
weren't frightened, they were either a psychiatric
case or something else.
Now, it's my understanding the 4th Marine
Division did real good, advanced up, got to
a point where the battle was almost over and
the Japs were pretty well contained. Is this
This hilly countryside, by the way, is fun. Up
and down hills, valleys, all sorts of caves.
I don't know which day it was, but I don't
think Tinian was hit at the same time. I think
Tinian was hit a couple of days afterwards,
because it's just a little shit island. But
You can get most of the information out of that.
Very frankly, unless I read it and remember
things, I don't remember all this crap.
Well, I just like your impression, you know,
the things you remember about what it was
like at that time.
No, I see.
Did you get to... Yeah.
Fires going off.
Were the Japs bombing, artillery back at you,
shooting back at you all the time, too?
Only for the first day.
Only for the first day, and then they were
knocked out.
Was there any air support by the Japanese at all?
You didn't have to worry about air raids or
being hit like that.
That was Guadalcanal that had all that. Yeah.
So from that on, you just kept advancing up.
Now, it's my understanding you got almost to
the end,
and then the 27th Army Division was called in
to relieve you,
and they almost lost the battle.
I don't know the exact circumstances, but the
27th fucked up good.
Didn't know what their first experience, didn't
know how to fight.
You know Sidney Key here in town? No.
he was on Saipan. I'll have to review his story.
I'll give you a copy of his story.
This rings a bell. I think Sidney was involved
with us. He was in the Marines on Tarawa and
then I think on to Saipan.
Well, that one I missed, thank God.
Oh, man.
Well, even so, Saipan and Tinian, if I remember correctly,
None of them are cakewalks.
4th Medical Battalion had about 25% casualty.
Is that right? You had a lot of corpsmen up on
the front lines doing the
initial patching and then evacuation back to
the field hospital.
What happened after the ten days now the main
thrust of the battle is over?
What was your disposition? Then we went to
Tinian. Oh right away? Yeah. Okay.
But Tinian was just about secured at that time.
Okay, so you left the Saipan, the
whole 4th Marine Division? Not all of them.
Portion of them. Went over to help.
And I'm sure that they looked at me and they
said, he doesn't have anything to do,
send him over there. What'd you do on, was
there a little transport that took you
over? Landing craft. Landing craft. What did
you do over there to recall? Mess
around. One of the Marine sapper companies had
a casualty or something,
they were looking for a corpsman. The guy had
been nicked by a Japanese sniper or
something like that. He wasn't dead by any
matter of means, and the lieutenant said,
he said, why don't you stick with us for a
while, we are looking for some special things.
I said, hey, as far as I know, nobody knows I
am here alive or dead, I am here. Their
objective was going into Garapan, a little
town, and blowing the Yokohama Specie Bank.
Yes, that was the lieutenant's prime deal,
which they did.
Go over this way, fellas, go ahead, blew the
shit out of it, jarred the door and they found
an extensive amount of Japanese currency, of
English pounds, of American currency, and
the best thing in the world, something like
twenty-five cases of black and white Scotch
belonged to the Japanese admiral. That's where
he kept his. The thing that I remember most
about that is that everybody had, you know, 100
yen notes and you'd light your cigars
with them. And the thing that astonished all of
us at a later date is that the Japanese
never demonetized their money. It was all good money.
They kept the same currency? Yeah.
Isn't that amazing?
If you only knew, you would have double bagged
stuff with us. Ship another bag back.
But the shopper company, we were about fourteen
guys. They just had lots of this stuff.
Had the town been taken already? Yeah.
Okay. Where did you advance to after that?
I just went back to the...
Back to your main medical company?
Still on Tinian, though? Yeah.
The Chief Warrant Officer said, where the hell
have you been?
I said, I've been up with a marine shopper company.
He said, oh, good deal.
Was that just a couple days?
No extended time?
No extended time.
What did you do after the Tinian action?
Was Tinian pretty much secured by that time?
Yeah, back to Maui.
Back to Maui?
Okay, the whole 4th Division? Yeah.
Okay, same camp, same place?
Same camp, same place.
Same song?
Same song, except at that time I got a real
nasty bronchitis and went into the dispensary.
This lieutenant commander looked at me and he says,
you've got a hell of a case of asthma.
And I said, I do?
He says, yeah, we're going to ship you over to
Aiyia Heights, Pearl Harbor,
Fleet Hospital 10.
And I said, load up all your stuff, you're
going over there.
So they shipped you over to hospital in
Pearland for treatment? Yeah.
But there was no treatment. Yeah.
You just were on the ward. Yeah.
And they would look at you and finally
bronchitis was getting over and I must have
caught another
cold or some damn thing because I went back to
the same hacking and so forth.
And there was a, and I'll never forget this,
Lieutenant Commander Johnny Blue, who was an
obstetrician, and was sucked into service.
On infectious disease war.
And he looked at me and he says, you can't stay
in service, you've got asthma.
And I said, I have. He says, yeah, we're going
to ship you back to Oak Knoll in Oakland and
they'll probably discharge you. And I said,
they will.
This is December of 1944, is that right?
Yeah, I believe.
September of 1944, you went to Pearl.
December is when I was cashiered out of the service.
CHUCK Then you went back to Long Beach?
JOHN I was discharged in Long Beach.
CHUCK Medical discharge?
JOHN Yeah.
CHUCK For asthma?
JOHN Yeah.
CHUCK Is your asthma all cleared up and your
bronchitis all cleared up?
JOHN Well, they gave me a 10% pension and
I think three years later or four years later
the VA called me in for an examination and
And this doctor looked at me and he says,
what the hell are you doing here?
And I said, what am I doing here?
I said, here's the form.
Can I help you?
The VA doctor says, what the hell are you doing here?
And I said, here's the sheet calling me in for physical.
And he went over me with a fine tooth comb and
he says, well we'll run some blood tests
but as far as I can see there's not a damn
thing wrong with you.
That was it.
But in the meantime that 10% pension allowed me
to get on Public Law 15 I think
it was, whatever the hell it was, not the
regular GI Bill but the extended GI Bill.
So I got three degrees out of the government.
What did that qualify you for additional?
Additional funds.
Oh really? Yeah.
Oh, because of the disability? Yeah.
I'll be darned.
Did you ever have any more trouble with that?
This quote is unfortunate.
I had probably psychosomatic when I went back
to Georgia with my wife.
Every time I'd go up there I'd get wheezing.
Oh really?
A little bit? Yeah.
Well they must have heard something in your chest.
I'm sure they did because
I'll just tag you with something that, yeah,
you're probably allergic to the sugar cane,
bagasosis, what do they call it, the sugar cane.
Allergic to my relatives. Yeah.
Well, that's fascinating.
So this, it didn't take them long, very long to
medically discharge you then.
How long after they discharged, did they
re-examine you again?
Four years.
Four years later, they finally, for
re-evaluation of your disability,
You didn't find a disability. Did you have any
reserve obligations at all or were you
completely tied up, especially with the medical?
I was gone. I told them that I'd be happy to
come back into service, as I've told you
before, as a nine-star admiral and work my way down.
That would interfere with my Israeli Defense
Force. I am a Brigadier General retired.
Any experiences you had along the way that were
unusual or curious?
The whole thing was curious as far as I was
concerned because just seeing the total screw
up I often wondered how we won the war and then
I figured out that the Germans and Japanese
were a little more screwed up than we were.
We screwed up less.
Did you get any idea during the Saipan and
Tinian there was any order to the battle or
What was it, just sort of chaos and confusion?
Pretty much chaos and confusion the first day,
but after that it was pretty much orderly advance.
Supplies always coming in, whatever you needed?
Medical supplies they needed were always there,
enough to throw away.
That is interesting.
But it was interesting. I always figured that
if anybody could go through essentially three
boot camps like I did, anybody in the world
could do that.
Now, you were highly trained in sanitation. Did
you ever use that training at all in your time
on either island?
On Maui.
On Maui, back on Maui? That was the only time
you had occasion to use it?
Because neither Saipan nor Tinian were going to
be bases for any Marines whatsoever, because
then the Air Force came in and took over
everything, or Air Force.
Yeah, Tinian became the big base for B-29s. In
fact, is that where the atomic, you know, Legay
took off from Tinian? Those were really
important islands.
The island was one long runway as far as I
could see. Tinian?
Saipan was more hilly. Why do you suppose they
took Saipan first? Did it sort of overlook Tinian?
They probably thought there was eighteen
zillion Japanese. There were a lot of Japanese and
they did have artillery in the caves that they
could fire at.
Did you hear any of the fanaticism of the
Japanese? Stories about that?
Stories, yeah, but I didn't witness anything
first hand.
Was Saipan where all the civilians were jumping
off the cliffs too when they finally got to
the end of it? You didn't see any of that part
of it?
So I saw the results, but I did not see any of it.
They were fanatical.
Okay, well good. This has been an interesting talk.
Does this give me a reserve status?
If I get you in a jail, I'm going to turn this
over to your friends at IRS.
And I'm way in the back like this.
There they go. Get them.
I'm right behind you, fellas. I'm in front of
you in reverse.
You're not in the Mossad, the Brigadier General
in the Israeli Air Force.
I'm a retired B.G. in the Mossad, of course.
Well, I told you how we, as a result of the,
that's their secret police, isn't it? Yeah.
Mossad, the ones that are so highly trained?
That's the, well, same as our CIA. Yeah.
Only more nasty.
Well, you notice that Fujimori in Peru was
having a problem with these Shining Path guerrillas,
and the story is that how he cleared that up,
he sent all his security people over to train
in Israel with the Mossad.
they came back and they had those bastards.
That one guy is still in the cage, I think.
They poked sticks at him.
Well, Ethiopia, in the old days, when Haile
Selassie was king, had a lot of airline hijacking,
so he contracted with the Mossad to eliminate
that, and they caught one of these gentlemen,
sat him in the first-class compartment, cut his
throat, and took pictures of him.
Oh yeah.
And just distributed the pictures all over
Ethiopia and said,
this is what you will receive if you even think
of doing something like this.
Well, there weren't any more hijackings after that.
You know, those bastards are crazy, and you
gotta be...