Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The entire interview with Elwyn Gaines was digitized.
This transcription was encoded with minimal changes to the original text in an effort to preserve original content and idiosyncrasies of the person interviewed. Period language and terminology are also retained. Encoding is literal with regard to the transcriptionist's capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Spelling errors are indicated with [sic]; however, recurring errors in spelling within a single document have been marked the first time and not subsequently.
Interview with Elwyn Gaines April 4, 2002 Transcribed and edited by Barbara Douglas March 3-6, 2003.
It's April 4, 2002. I am interviewing
I enlisted.
And what year was that?
It was June 23, 1944.
And what were your feelings when you enlisted?
I had been working on a farm and I said anything is better than working on a farm. So, I said I'm going to join the, join the service. And I actually went down there, and I wanted to join the Navy, and a friend of mine waited around, and we went up and had a cup of coffee, and while we were gone, they called our names to go into the Navy, and we weren't there, so we had to go in the Army.
And was that, how soon after Pearl Harbor was that?
Oh, that was -- Pearl Harbor being on December 7 1941, let's see, three years, two and a half years, I guess.
And how old were you when you enlisted?
Let's see, that was 1944, I was 20.
And, so you ended up getting into the Army then?
Yes. Went into the Army infantry. Went down to Salt Lake at Ford Douglas. We were down there about a week, and then we took off on a train, went down to Little Rock, Arkansas, and we trained at Camp Joseph T.
Robinson down there. It took us about three or four days to go down there. It was real hot. So, finally we got down there and took a bath, and we felt good.
And what was the training like?
Well, it was intense. You know, difficult. We had to crawl under fire, and then, what-you-call-its, were at the other under end of the fence where the things are blowing up and machine guns shooting over our heads. Um -- obstacle course. And yes, it was tough.
And that was live fire?
Yes. Live fire with machine guns over our head, maybe. Our head is here. It was about right there.
About --
About three feet?
Yeah.
And do you remember any of the instructors?
I remember a captain, but I can't recall his name.
No, I don't remember the names at this point.
And where did you go after training?
We came back home for vacation for a couple of weeks, or maybe it was ten days.
Back home was --
Back home to Idaho. Back in Marsen (ph), Idaho. And then we went down to Fort Ord, which is located in Monterey, California. And then from there we took off and, I think it was in November, we left. November,
December. And we went on across the Pacific and past Orange, New Guinea, and we were there for two or three days and then we went up to, to the Island of Blakey (ph) in the Philippines.
What was the crossing, the Pacific, like?
Oh, it was pretty bad for me. I stayed seasick about half of the time. It was really bad.
And what were the accommodations like?
Oh, they were okay. Well, we got, we ate twice a, twice a day. We had two meals a day. And we slept in bunks, and it was real hot, you know, down beneath, in the ship hold.
Were you in a convoy then?
No, no, we weren't. We just went by ourselves. Of course, we traveled the V (ph) like this. Zigzag course.
And so then at late day, what did you end up doing?
Oh, we went there and we were assigned to the 77th Division, and we never trained there. You know, I was surprised we never trained any there at all. We just kind of stood guard and loaded ammunition on the ships.
And, we were there from February the 4th of 1945 until April, and then we took off to Okinawa.
So the Philippines was liberated then at the time you had been --
Yeah, been liberated. The Army, the 77th Division had just, the British, the campaign at Ormuck (ph) which it's called in the Philippines, and they came across Tutacloman (ph) there in the Philippines, and that's where we joined the a, their division there.
And what was the situation like, was there still much fighting when you were there then?
No, there might have been some clean up, mop up, that they had to do, but, no, we didn't see any Japanese or any firing or anything like that.
And what were the living conditions like?
They were intense. We had cots and we ate okay. Had plenty to drink. And coffee and food and anything like that.
And what did you do for entertainment?
Once in a while a guy would have a guitar or something and he would bring it out and play it and sing and of course there was other guys that were there that were singers, and that's about all.
So then you went to Okinawa?
Went to Okinawa.
And that was in a convoy then?
Yes, we were in convoy. We had other ships going, I guess I'm trying to say, they call them tin cans. What is that?
A destroyer.
A destroyer. Oh, okay, they had a destroyer there, following and guarding us all the way over there.
Any aircraft carriers that you saw?
No aircraft carriers, just smaller ships like that.
And so when did you land on Okinawa?
It was the first part of April sometime. I don't recall. Sometime in April. We landed, I know we landed near an airport because we could hear the planes coming and going away, you know, and then we left there and went up and joined a unit and then from there we went on up to the escarpment. I don't know that you have ever heard of the escarpment in Okinawa, which is quite a famous place. It was, run east and west on Okinawa.
And, it was about, oh, maybe 50, 60 feet high. And we had to climb to the top by the means of cartlements (ph) and on top was the, were the fox holes. Then climbed into an assigned fox hole. And while we were there, they told us ahead of time that the Japanese would shoot their machine guns over top of their head, blade bones (ph) over top of their head, so as we could never raise our head up. And they said that lowered the morale of the America soldier when you they did that. So that went on for some time and then it quit.
So the initial landings had already taken place?
Yes.
When you were there?
Yes. Yeah.
So tell me about some of the other experiences that you had there.
In walking up to the escarpment, we, the escarpment say run east and west, we walked up at an angle to about 5, a 45 degree angle. And just, the escarpment was over to our left, and then this path, right beside the path, lay, probably, 18, 20, 22 dead American soldiers with their pouches open, and I wasn't thinking too much about being scared until I saw that. Then when I climbed upon that, upon the escarpment, this is hard to explain, or for somebody to remember, but I was so scared I felt like I was about an inch tall. I don't know how else to describe it. But that's how I felt.
And then what happened?
And then that's when the Japanese started laying the machine gun fire over us. And then we stood guard by night and sometimes we'd get four hours sleep and sometimes we'd get two hours sleep. And it was on top of that escortment that I killed my first Japanese soldier. I carried at the time a BAR, which is a Browning Automatic Rifle. That's how I shot him.
And there is one per squad or, what was that?
Yeah, one per -- yeah. Yes.
And what, did you make pretty good progress as far as getting in ground?
No, we sat up there for a long, I don't know how long. I could say as long -- almost two weeks. Then we moved down and we moved to back and let somebody else take the place for a while, then we would come back and get back on it again.
So they would rotate you out?
Yes.
And then how long were you in the hole?
Oh, about two or three days.
(Inaudible) And I suppose that actually during that -- tell me a little bit about that -- when you were relieved.
Well, when we went back, we picked up, we had lost quite a lot of men, and so we picked up some replacements, recruits and, of course, they were just green soldiers, young kids, you know. And so, we picked them up, and took 'em back with us, but didn't take us, take that long to where they were coming in up there, you know, because it's either do or die up there. You either kill a man, kill that soldier, other soldier, or you die yourself.
And did you loose quite a few of your men then?
Oh, yeah. If we went up with a platoon of, I think we only went up with three squads. Seems like that was it and we would loose probably at least half of them either to death or being wounded.
And what were the living conditions like on the front line?
Oh, terrible. On the line, terrible. It rained a lot. Of course, the fox holes got water. But that couldn't, it didn't bother us. All we had to do was just kind of wrap ourselves up in a poncho, live through the night, and then we got out in the daytime, go back and dried off.
Was there very much night fighting?
Oh, yeah, all the time. We, there were a lot of flares being shot by our side that light up the, you know, of the land before us. And then they used to string a wire across from one point to the other, and they'd hang a tin can on there with a rock inside. And sure enough, you could hear that tin can rattling because, you know, a Japanese trying to cross, hit that line, and, of course, they'd kill him.
And what other experiences?
Oh, I was blown up in the air with a, with a mortar shell. It went up in the air and I fell down on my stomach and I was out for a period of time. I don't know how long. And another point, I was laying up on a side of a cliff. This was _____+. This was another place. And was laying there like this. And there was a soldier to my right, and this Japanese fired and went right across my fingers right here. Just missed my face about this far. About three inches.
So, what happened then after you got the escarpment?
We cleared that and went on down past Naha on the Shurry Castle(ph)which is pretty famous and went on down through there and then went on down to another area and we dug a fox hole, not just us, but me and my friends and I, but other people did too. And we had this fox hole nice and deep and we'd had the ponchos Elwyn Gaines 10 April 4, 2002 all over the top, and we were getting ready for a good night sleep, and at five o'clock in the afternoon, the colonel made us pull out, get away from there, and I was extremely angry with him for doing it. We got up the next, we left there, and we got up the next morning and returned and artillery shell had landed exactly where we had had our fox hole dug.
And how did the Japanese fight?
Very tough. Never would give up, you know. Very tough. I recall, they'd be hidden in these caves and the group of soldiers that hands the explosive through a satchel charge into the hole, into the cave. About that time, the, evidently the Japanese soldier was getting ready to come out. And it blew him out, and he landed maybe, he was five foot in the air when he blew out. He landed about 60, 80 feet down. And by the time he hit the ground, he was dead. Cause, you know, someone would have shot him to death.
So there were a lot of Japanese in caves?
Oh, they were all in caves. They wouldn't come out.
Yeah, we had to, they had to blow them out or take a, the a, fire and burn them out, you know.
Then try to go in after them and __?
I think some did. I remember one trying to go in after them and they, the a, evidently the Japanese threw a concussion grenade at him and all I could see was blood running out of his nose, just right there a little bit, and he died from concussion instantly.
You were injured?
Yeah, and then I had shot across the fingers and I had a piece of shrapnel in my hand.
And were you taken to --
I went back to the field hospital and I stayed there. Three to five days.
And what was that like?
Oh, that was nice. I enjoyed being back there. I enjoyed being back there because, because the nurses treated us good, and we had a nice bed and with food to eat and -- it was hard going back, but we had to go back.
What was, what were you thinking?
Oh, I was thinking I hope this war ends. And, of course, it did, and we cleared it in, I think it was June when the war ended there. They had some mop up they had to do, you know, individual Japanese snipers and things like that. And then we left there on a flattop and went to Sabo (ph) in the Philippines.
And did you see any aircraft B29s or any of the Air Force ___?
No, we a, no, didn't see that. I mentioned, I should have mentioned at first when we were sitting outside of Okinawa to land, there were these Kamikaze pilots diving down trying to hit the ships. And I don't recall one hitting any ship. They got them down. They shot them down. So that's, that's, and then I saw other Navy planes shoot down a Japanese Zero. Things like that.
And what kind of, how did you get off of your ship on to the landing craft?
Oh, well, we just loaded -- we were at Okinawa at the time and we just, they loaded us on to the slamming craft. I forget what you call it. It's just a flattop, everybody is on top. And then we went to Sabo(ph) where we, I don't know how we were gone, five days it took us to get there, I don't know. And from there we were going to start training and that's when we heard that the Japanese had given up. The atomic bomb had dropped.
You were training for --
We were going to train, but we didn't get around to it.
Training for what?
To, for the, for the invasion of Japan.
Oh. And what about did you end up having any long time friendships after the war?
Oh, no, yes and no. I had some good friendship with guys out of Kentucky and Nebraska, down south, things like that. But, we were all about the same. We were so anxious to get out of there and go home, we never bothered leaving our names with anybody or anything.
And when, where did you get discharged?
Discharged in Fort Louis, Washington. I think we arrived there at April the 4th, I think it was. And by the time I got back from there it was April the 7th, I believe that's what it was.
Is there anything else about the Okinawa experience that I didn't touch upon?
Oh, let's see. I don't think so. There was other minor things probably that I could remember if I worked on it, but I don't think so.
Could you see Suribachi from every place on the island?
Well, let's see. I don't know. I don't think we paid that much attention. I just wanted to get out of there.
Yeah. And then what did you do once you got discharged?
I, we, discharged, we got on a bus and came back to Napa here and that was, of course, in April. I got married on June the 9th, of 1946 and temporarily went at the sugar factory and worked as a electrician helper. And I left there and went over to Boise. We got a cabin, what-do-you-call-it to rent, right there on Vista, and ____ to a college.
On the GI bill?
GI bill.
And then what did you do after that?
I studied, I got an associate of arts degree and then I went ahead and we went down to California to study commercial art. And then I came back here and worked in the sign business. I design road signs and I design neon.
Do you attend any reunions today?
We went back in 1990 and 1992 back, back east, but since then we haven't had any more reunions at all.
How did your service affect your life?
Oh, I suffered post traumatic syndrome. It wasn't diagnosed until last year. So, I often wondered what it was. I was dreaming of being attacked by Japanese and bayonets and guns and I didn't know what that was. And they later told me that's post traumatic syndrome.
And this is 50 plus years after?
Yes. Yes.
And how are you doing now?
Oh, I'm doing fine. Yeah. Doing much better. Oh, while over in the Philippines in Okinawa, I served with a conscientious objector who received the Congressional Medal of Honor from President Truman. And his name, the conscientious objector, was Desmond T. Doss (ph)(?seven day at rest?) who refused to make any movements forward in the platoon there until he had read his Bible, and then prayed, and then he would go forward. They threatened to court-martial him, and he said, "Go ahead, I'm going to read my bible and I'm going to pray." So they are making a documentary about him now.
And you served with him?
I served with him. Yes. That's all. Blew him out, or they'd take, I got a name this, what is it? The gun that shoots liquid and then fire.
Flame thrower.
Flame thrower, yes, flame thrower, and that's how they took him out.
And how much progress would you make in a day, as far as footage?
Oh, we hung around the escarpment there just doing those things for a while, well, for two weeks maybe, ten days, two weeks, and finally --
So all of the, the only cover, the ground you covered was all vertical ground?
Yes, and on top it was on that escarpment, there was, it ranged anywhere from six foot wide to maybe 12 feet wide or something like. That's the best I can remember.
And, so how would you, once you got on top of the escarpment, were you still dug in?
Oh. Yes, yeah. Now there was something we didn't have to do. Another platoon, another division had done that. Had gone up there and dug in and they, they gave up, I don't know whether they give up or not, they just backed off. And when we went up there, we finally took the escarpment. We were the division that took it.
And were there any tanks in --
There's tanks, maybe off to the side someplace, like the green side had some tanks up there. Why, I don't know. I don't recall.
Were, so, you don't recall if the tanks where actually at risk?
Probably not. The only thing that would fire at them is, probably Japanese fired their artillery or got, just gun fire and machine guns or something like that.
Did you have any support from ships offshore?
Yes, oh, yes. They shot missiles, you know, over on to the area there. I don't know boat it was. That's about all I know, remember.
And what about air cover?
Yeah, we had air cover, but not much. They were a bit mostly just machine gun, yeah. No, it was just pretty much we did by ourself. The captain was just a little ways behind the platoon. We were on this small knoll and in come those mortar shells and Japanese just all over the top, you know, so the sergeant said,
"Retreat. Get out of here." And so we had started running, and I stepped into a fox hole, and it was the captain's fox hole, and I missed his head this far, which was six inches, and the same afternoon he was killed by a mortar shell.
What did you end up receiving the Bronze Star for?
Oh, I guess it's for serving in Okinawa. Maybe a few things that I did.
Volunteering. Things that he didn't have to.
Like going after water in a five gallon can. They wanted to know if somebody would volunteer, and I said,
"I'll do it." So I got the five gallon can, that was about, between an eighth and a quarter of a mile back is where the water was. And I just started, just walking back there with a can around my shoulder, pretty soon I heard snapping, popping over the top of my head. They were firing machine gun bullets at me, and I run and got there and got the can full of water, and I came back, and they started firing at me again.
Now the water was, that was to --
To drink.
Yeah, and that was, in what, did you have a creek, or --
No, they had it in, what do you call those, that the military had, those big, I don't know, 50 gallon, whatever.
Fifty gallon drums.
Yeah.
Now, here's a picture. Is that Okinawa sector?
We were taken down to the southern part of, off coast of Okinawa there, and we rendezvoused. They, we had us off the ships, and they put us on these landing boats, and we, of course, we, in order to wait for the other people to get ready, we rendezvoused in a circle round and round until everybody is out and we all made a fake attack up here on the southern part of Okinawa.
This just drew the Japanese down this was and then they came up here.
And then you landed --
Evidently -- I don't know who landed, but this, they, I heard that they went up there.
And were you seasick? Were the troops seasick while they were circling --
No, I felt pretty good. I felt pretty good.
Just going over there.
Well, I was going to tell you about this snooper, this snooper scope. It was brought up on the ridge there and it was infrared. You could see after night with it. And that was a top secret back then. The snooper scope. And they put them on machine guns so the machine gunners could see and, what am I going to say here. That was, as I said, it was a secret. Nobody, not even guys in the ____ platoon, some of them would even know that. I happened to be up there and I saw it.
And did they have one on the BAR that you carried?
No, just on the machine gun. You know, they had to set up on a tripod.
And were you trained in the use of the BAR?
No, I was trained with M1A1 gun. And they wanted me to carry the BAR because I went ahead and volunteered for it, I wasn't, I didn't realize until later that's one of the first man the Japanese take out is the BAR man. And, of course, the officers.
And what was that like to fire?
Oh, pleasant. You could just feel power, you know, from it. They taught us to shoot within, in three shots at a time, you know, it was a touch trigger like this.
Just touch it. And it shot, it fired I think, 350 rounds a minute. Something like that.
Was there, were you on a team, or was another guy carrying --
No. Yes, we were with our squad, and there something I was going to mention, no, can't remember. It weighs 20 pounds, approximately 20 pounds. I think it was 19 something. And I had ten case of ammunition that slipped into the magazines. Slipped into an H magazine. They had 20 (?chips?). So I carried the gun, which is 19, almost 20 pounds, and whatever the shells weighed. It was heavy, yes.
And what did you do for food on the front lines?
Oh, we had rations, you know.
Did you ever run out?
I don't think so. No. No, they, there wasn't --
He eats Spam to this day.
Oh, yeah. Whatever.