Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with C. S. Briston, Jr. 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.
...March the 3rd, 2002, and we're talking with Mr. C.S. Briston, Jr., about the Veterans History Project. He served in the United States Navy. He currently lives at 1905 Truman Drive in Sanford, North Carolina 27330.
People call you "Guts" --
Right.
-- as we start. Tell me how -- it's not on your bio. Tell me how you got the nickname of Guts.
Well, nobody knows except two people; they're dead. My wife doesn't even know.
Oh, okay. This had to be from your service days?
Oh, yes, yes. 1943
You went in service in 1943?
July 1943.
Why did you -- did you join or were you drafted?
Yeah, joined. The Navy.
You joined?
Yeah.
Why?
Because I was going to be drafted in October if I didn't join.
And you wanted to choose the branch of service?
Yes, yes.
Did you stay in touch with your family while you were in the service?
When I could, yes. Uh-huh.
Letters with your at the time and come back the same way?
Right.
How was the -- how was the food?
Good.
Good food?
Yeah. Very good.
Tell me where you joined and where your basic training --
I left from Rocky Mountain and went to Bainbridge, Maryland.
Okay.
And that was up there close to Perryville. And went in there and stayed until -- I went through three schools. One of them was ship USS O'Neill, Destroyer Escort 188, December the 6th, 1943.
Now, I assume you -- Rocky Mountain, did you grow up on a farm or did you --
No.
town.
You grew up in town?
Yeah.
Had you been working before you left to go in --
No, I was in school.
So you went right out of school?
Out of high school, yeah.
How old were you when you enlisted?
Seventeen.
Seventeen years old. You decided you want to help this country?
Yeah. Well, anyhow, I joined in July. And October of the following year they sent me a draft notice, and I was in the Pacific. My skipper said just tell them come find you. They didn't know where I was. I said, well, I would just get out of the Navy.
You were already in the Pacific when you got your draft?
Yeah.
Did you keep a diary while you were in the service?
Yeah, yeah.
Talk to me about that. Because most folks didn't remember. What prompted you to keep a diary?
Well, for some different things. We went on shakedown cruises, and where we were, and -- well, passed the Rock of Gibraltar, September the 7th, 1944. And --
So you kept almost a daily log?
Yep. More or less. It was, like, from October the 9th to 19th.
And you maintained that all these years?
Yes, yes.
Since 1944?
'43.
'43?
'43. And in May 26th, 1945, we were hit by a kamikaze plane on a smaller ship.
Where?
In Okinawa. And they fly about 10 feet above the water because you can't shoot at them because you'll hit another ship. So they hit us. And one came at our fantail and he crashed about 15 yards behind us. He was trying to hit us, too. And three days before that we shot down a Betsy, which was one of the fighter planes. We shot him down. And we also went chasing a submarine that Bostwick I think got him. We were dropping depth charges on him. We finally got him, too, anyhow.
Now, what were your duties aboard ship?
I was a radarman.
You were radar?
Radar. And just before we got through, we had -- in the Atlantic we had torpedo tubes on our ship, but they was changed and we went to the Pacific. Put four 40 millimeters on that. Took the torpedo tubes off.
Now, I know you have a diary you kept in the service. Did you end your diary when you got out of the service?
Let's see.
And you maintained that and kept that in your possession for almost --
Yes.
-- 60 years?
Held it.
That's remarkable.
Well, like August 14th, Japan surrendered, the war was over. And December the 10th of '45 I was transferred from the USS O'Neill. I was discharged in Charleston, South Carolina, March 10, 1946.
And that was when you ended your diary?
That's it.
When you were discharged?
Right. That was the end of the Navy.
Oh, I think that's terrific that you did that and kept up with it. Do you still have reunions with folks you served with?
We had one three years ago down in Florida. And the 111 I was -- there were 180 men aboard ship. The ship was 302 feet long and 37 feet wide.
Which ship was that?
Destroyer Escort USS O'Neill.
USS O'Neill.
I went to Charleston, South Carolina, to be discharged. And the week before I was supposed to be discharged, they put me on the USS Jarvis, which was in port, Destroyer 799. And a day before I was discharged, they were going out for a short run. Well, that's what they told me on the Destroyer Escort; I was down there three years. But, anyhow, I asked the commanding officer there would he just let me go ahead and stay on the Jarvis. And I stayed on there about three days and got off and got discharged.
And don't you -- you saw battle action in World War II --
Oh, yes.
-- in a number of theaters while you were in the Pacific?
While I was in Guam and Okinawa, Iwo Jima. All those places.
Do you feel comfortable telling me which medals you received and in what areas?
Oh, Atlantic, Pacific Theaters, Philippines. I got a list down at home. I can't remember a lot of them.
And you received a number of medals yourself --
Yeah.
-- for --
I got one star in Pacific Theater.
One star?
Uh-huh.
Silver star?
That's when we were hit.
By the kamikaze?
Yeah, yeah.
Did you receive a purple heart?
No, no.
You just got a silver star?
I got a piece of shrapnel in my neck. But, anyhow, I heard one of the boys that was going aboard the USS Hope, which was a hospital ship, and as far as I know he stayed on about six months. And I didn't want to trade anything for that --
So you --
I didn't know how long I was going to be on that.
So you weren't going to turn it in?
No. The mate dug it out. I still got the scar over there, anyhow. He dug it out and I didn't want to go over on that hospital ship because I figured I never would get back home.
You wanted to stay with your ship and come home?
You better believe it.
So you received a number of medals --
Yeah.
-- and recognitions?
Yeah.
When you came home, and you say you were -- you got out in Charleston, South Carolina?
Uh-huh.
What did you do as soon as you got out? Do you remember?
No. It's been so long ago now. I don't remember.
Did you come straight home?
Yeah. And my mother and father, they moved to Lumberton. When I left they were living in Rocky Mountain. He was a manager of + Tobacco Company, a redrying plant in Lumberton. And I went down there and stayed about three weeks. Went down to Charleston. Went down there and worked a year-and-a-half. Came back and was with the Department of Transportation, locating engineer for highways. Some of these things you've ridden on.
State of North Carolina?
Yeah. I stayed there 31 years.
So you retired from the Department -- State of North Carolina?
1979.
With the Department of Transportation?
Right.
Tell me how your service in World War II changed your life.
I saw a lot of disaster. And you try not to let them get to you. And I reckon this is the first time I really talked and explained about it because I don't remember much. There were a bunch of boys, nine killed on our ship when that plane hit us. And you sort of don't want to remember stuff like that too much.
You know the thing I find from many of the men and women, especially from World War II who came home, they went to work, they didn't say much about it, didn't talk about it, just went to work, or either went to school. Came back home to change the world and did, and did a great job at it.
Well, I left out of Charleston after I got there and went to state college and stayed there two semesters and was offered a job in the highway department with a friend of mine, and I came back to work. And I'm glad I did because I had 31 years and got retirement out of that.
Now, while you stayed I assume you used the GI bill?
No.
You did not use the GI bill?
No, uh-uh. No.
You just went to NC State --
Right.
-- and paid --
It was cheap back then.
It didn't cost a lot?
No. Very little in '46.
I assume you -- did you join any Veterans organizations as soon as you came home, or did that take a while to get --
No, no.
Decided to get --
Well, I joined American Legion, I don't know, when I came back here to Sanford. And I got out of that and I came over here to VFW, and I have been a member of that 18, 20 years, I guess.
Is there anything else you want to share with us about your service or activities in -- during the war?
Not that I could think of right now.
Let me ask you something if you feel comfortable. How did you entertain yourself even in the midst of war and all the challenges that people face? You don't have a lot of time, but there is still some time that men and women find -- in World War II it was mostly men, there was some women -- you find a little spare time. How did you entertain yourself in the spare time that would have been available to you such as it was aboard the ship?
Other than liberty? Not talking about liberty?
Other than liberty. I mean, liberty was just --
You slept most of the time that you could and went on battle station three-fourths of the time.
Okay.
Because we were in a war zone and stayed on alert all the time. And on most of the time if you were not on alert, you were still at your station.
Tell us what alert means so that people --
That you had to be -- standby to be ready to go in general quarters.
And general quarters means, when general quarters sounds --
Sounds, you go to battle stations and you start your job.
And you're ready to start attack --
Right, right.
-- depending on your vessel?
Yes, yes. I couldn't understand why the planes blast at us, because we were so small anyhow. And anything they hit were flying above about 10 feet above the water because you couldn't really shoot back at them. If they were going to hit you on the top going straight down like they hit in New Mexico, three planes were up in the air and came straight down and they were firing everything. They got 50 killed on that, and 72 of them -- I got that written down here somewhere.
And for people listening, what the kamikazes were, they were planes?
Yes.
Wherever they may have taken off from, Japan or otherwise?
Probably not enough gas to get back.
Did not have enough gas to get back. They knew they were not going home?
Right.
And their job was to fly into a --
Ships.
-- ships by and large?
Right.
And do the maximum extent of damage.
That they could.
And they knew that it was a suicide, in effect, a suicide mission?
Yeah, yeah, they were suicide.
And probably one of the most feared things that a sailor face was a kamikaze mission?
Right.
Because they knew that they were coming to do lethal damage on board a ship in the middle of the ocean?
Well, we didn't see the one that hit us on the starboard side until after he was 300 yards from us before we saw him because he came right straight down in the water and hit us. I got a picture of the damage on my ship at home.
Wow.
Knocked a hole in it almost about twice as big as this table just above the anchor on the right-hand side.
And the size of this table is about three by eight. So you're looking at something about 16 by 6?
Right. Got a big hole in the side at where he hit us. And what the funny part about it is he had a chute or pack in that plane that came aboard ship when he hit us, and the number on that ship was 188, and that was our destroyer escort.
Wow.
That was uncanny.
Wow.
I don't think they allowed them to have parachutes, but they had some kind of pack or probably a seat pack on the back. And it came out and landed on our ship and 188. So it looked like we were doomed from the time he left his home.
No kidding. Is there anything else you would like to share with us?
That's all I know of right now. We had to cross the equator and had all that service that we had to go through. That was terrible. Over three-fourths of the ship I reckon had not crossed the equator. The ones that did gave us a rough time that day. Crawling through slop, being thrown over board, all that stuff.
Oh, man. Any time you're in -- you know, what folks don't understand when you're at sea and you get hit by a major storm, you don't have anywhere to go.
No. We were in Atlantic and had a 45-degree list on our ship. And our sister ship was about mooring a half a mile off. Most of the time all you could see is the antenna. And she come up on top and she would go back down again. The swells were about 30 feet high. They were rough. That was a bad storm.
It's hard to hold your breakfast or lunch on that.
I didn't want to go through anything like that again. Ain't nobody was top side. Everybody had to be below the deck.
Because you would be washed off board.
Oh, yes. Precious, yes. Because all up in the Conning tower up on the top of the bridge up there was just covered with water half the time. And that ship would lean over 45 degrees at one side, the other one. My skipper said he didn't want to go through anything like that again. I didn't either.
You just tie yourself to one place and hope you're still --
Well, I was up on the bridge section, not on the bridge top, but on the compartment just below the bridge. And we were locked down, all the hatches were locked down. You could tell it was rocking.
Well, Mr. Briston, thank you for coming and sharing with us your story.
I appreciate that.
And we thank you for your contribution.
Thank you.