Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with James F. McEnery 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.
Today is Sunday, May 30th, 2004, and this is the beginning of an interview with James McEnery at the Veterans Memorial Park in Ocala, Florida. Mr. McEnery is -- how old?
Eighty-four.
-- eighty-four years old, having been born on --
September 30th, 1919.
Mr. McEnery, could you state for the recording what war and branch of service you served in?
I was in World War II, I served with the United States Marine Corp.
What was your rank?
Sergeant.
Where did you serve?
I served from --
Where?
Starting when I went in the marine corp? I went to Parris Island, South Carolina, for recruit training, and from recruit training I went to Naval Operating Base, Norfolk, Virginia, God's country. From there I went to Quantico, Virginia, where I joined K Company Third Battalion Fifth Marines.
Were you drafted or did you enlist?
I enlisted.
Where were you living at the time?
In Brooklyn, New York.
Why did you join?
Because I was working as a shipping clerk, and I -- I couldn't see future in it. I wasn't making any money, and that's the reason.
Why did you pick the service branch you joined?
Why did I pick the Marine Corp? I always thought much of the Marine Corp.
Do you recall your first days in the service?
Yes, ma'am. I went to boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, and it was a very good training facility, basic training, that is, that prepared you to go out to future work with the Marine Corp.
What did it feel like?
What did it feel like? It was rugged, it was a good, good training facility.
Tell me about your boot camp, your training experience.
We learned a lot of close order drill, that's marching. We learned general order guard, the guard duty general orders. We learned basic first aid, infantry tactics, also weapons. We went to a rifle range, we fired Springfield rifles, Model 1903 Springfield, we fired BARs, machine -- Browning machine guns, threw grenades -- not live, we didn't throw live in those days -- fired pistols, .45 pistols.
Do you remember your instructors?
My instructors? I remember one was -- there was one Corporal Collins, but I had maybe -- maybe four all told. Kirby was another one, Sergeant Kirby.
How did you get through it?
We had -- the initial emergency had come on, and they were forcing men, pushing men through. And we had very bad weather when we fired for record, and as a matter of fact, we did so bad we had to go through record fire for another day. And I was one out of a very few that made marksman, and there was only two sharpshooters out of the whole platoon, and that was about 76 men.
Which war did you serve in?
What war?
Uh-huh.
World War II.
Where exactly did you go?
In World War II? We formed in New River, North Carolina. And the forming was something, because when we went to war, Japan had bombed the ships and Navy in Pearl Harbor. They did a bad -- a very bad job on our fleet. Thank God, our aircraft carriers weren't in there at the time. And --
Do you remember arriving and what it was like?
Oh, yeah. And the way we had training was first of all we had World War I helmets, we had old packs. We were not equipped or even up to standard as far as person -- personnel goes. Standard organization, you have so many men, and the men were coming right out of boot camp joining our company right there in New River, North Carolina. And then as they were bringing up a regiment at a time up the strip. They brought the Seventh Marines up first, and in the Marine Corp, marines is a regiment. The Second Marine regiment was built up first. New helmets, new packs and whatever they -- and weapons. It was so bad like one time we had machine guns in our outfit and the First Battalion had tripods. And it was crazy. Well, the Seventh Marines was brought up to strength, they were sent overseas and they went to American Samoa. Then I was in the Fifth Marines, they did the same with us. They brought us up to strength as much as they could with weapons and equipment and all. And we went to New Zealand and we were going outside of a place called Paekakariki outside of Wellington, New Zealand, and we were going to train for five months there. And then the same thing happened to the First Marines. And in World War II, an infantry regiment was a triangular regiment. They had three basic infantry regiments and one artillery regiment. And so we were getting set to train in New Zealand. The first Marines was in the West Coast packed to travel from city to city, not combat loaded. And then our general got orders from the higher ups that we were supposed to hit Guadalcanal on August 1st, 1942.
What was your job assignment?
My job, I was a corporal squad leader at that time.
Did you see combat?
Did I see combat? Oh, yeah. I'm getting to that. So when -- all right. The first Marines was on the West Coast, and we had to have three rifle regiments and an artillery regiment. So the Japanese had control of the Pacific at the time, so they didn't want to take the Seventh Marines out of American Samoa, keep them there, protect that in case worse came to worse. And anyway, Vandergrift did all he could to get us into shape to go up to land on Guadalcanal and he got a week deferment. In other words, we got, instead of August 1st, we got till August 7th. And then when the First Marines came to Wellington, New Zealand, we were taken out of camp, we were put aboard ship and we were loaded for combat. We were supposed to go on maneuvers in the South Island. New Zealand is both a north island and south island, and we were to go on maneuvers in the south island. And then the First Marines come in, and it was really -- really a laugh, because we had to unload them ships from city-to-city transport and reload them for combat duty. And at Iola Kay, which is a dock, they had all kind of stuff on the dock there. Cornflakes was all over the place mashed up, raining, and it was crazy. And then we had -- we worked like about four on and four off. Four hours work and -- stevedores back and forth. And finally we come to the day we're leaving Wellington, New Zealand. It was a beautiful harbor, had one entrance in it and was round like that and beautiful. And up on the hill there you could see the name of one town up there that was Brooklyn. It was beautiful.
Did you -- were there many casualties in your unit?
Yes, but I'm coming to that too. Now, when we started pulling out of Wellington Harbor there, they had general quarters right off the bat. Everybody had to go to their quarters assigned to them for action. And there was one sailor who had a Tommy gun, he had it loaded and he couldn't -- he didn't know how to unload it, so I had -- he asked me to unload it for him, so I had to do that. But anyway, we went out to sea and what we're going to do is we're going to have a staging area in the Fiji Islands. A staging area is what you call a place where you practice a landing. So we went to the Fiji Islands, we made a landing there, and that wasn't too smooth. As a matter of fact, one time they landed my boat in the wrong place, and my squad was blaming me. It was the higher ups. But anyway, we completed our training for the landing on Guadalcanal at the Fijis and when we come out to sea, instead of having our Seventh Marines join us, which the First Marine division was the First, Fifth and Seventh and Eleventh, the Seventh stayed in American Samoa, and we borrowed the Second Marines from the Second Division. So that give us a triangular -- and then we borrowed the First Marine Raiders Battalion and First Parachute Battalion, and off we go up to Guadalcanal. And on August 7th, at 0910, the Fifth Marines made the beach hit on Guadalcanal, the Third Battalion Fifth on the left, the First Battalion Fifth on the right. We made our landing, the First Marines came through us and went down and captured an airfield that the Japanese were building there, cutting routes off of the -- cutting routes off in the Pacific. When we captured that airfield, we named it Henderson Field after a Marine SBD pilot, Scout Bomber Douglas. He got killed in the battle of Midway, we named our airfield after that marine that was killed in the battle of Midway.
Were you a prisoner of war?
No. All right. Now, when we landed there, the guys that crossed Iron Bottom Sound, which was a sea-lock channel, the First Marine Raiders, the First Parachute, and the Second Battalion Fifth, they had war right off the bat. We had it pretty much pretty easy. When we set up the First Marines when up and captured the airfield. Then our time there was for four months and two days. Primarily our meals there for them four months and two days primarily was coffee for breakfast and rice for supper. Intermittently, you know, like one time where our company was there was a cow and we knocked him off and we had a little chow there. But that was, like, in four months and two days. And then we had to basically watch our defense, watch that airfield. The Japanese would come down and attack us, we'd knock the hell out of them. Then when we had them beat up a bit, we'd go up and troll after them. Then the next thing you know, all the while Japanese is sending down ships and they'd shell us at night in our beachhead there, and while they were doing that, they'd unload Japanese troops on the west end of the island and built up an attacking outfit. And we had to come back to guard Henderson field. They'd attack us, we'd beat them up a little, we'd go on patrol again. It was back and forth. As a matter of fact, on one river there the Matanikau River, we had a patrol go up there, somebody reported that some Japanese wanted to surrender, and a division patrol went up there, it was called the getchy (ph) patrol, and they were caught, the guys, the Japanese didn't want to surrender. When they landed, they opened up on them and shot them up, and they mutilated them. And our company was on one of our patrols. We crossed the Matanikau River, and went through where them people were cut up. And what I remember besides some of the bodies was a head was all cleaned already was down by the water, a wave would roll it up and it would roll down again, like back and forth. And there was a leg cut off like this here, a brand-new -- leg in a boondocker, and there was a first sergeant's shirt with no head and body. And I don't remember all the others, but that's the way they were all cut up like that. And then I asked the lieutenant, as a matter of fact, how come, you know, we didn't bury them guys there. And we had to get out of there because another company the day before that was up there, a friend of mine that joined the Marine Corp with me, he got killed on the company patrol.
Were you awarded any medals?
Good conduct medal.
How did you stay in touch with your family?
How what?
How did you stay in touch with your family?
By mail. We had what you call a V-mail in those days. You used to write out a thing on this here, and what they would do with that, they would bring it somewhere and put it in film and they would ship the film back. And then they'd make the thing. It was saving space on transportation.
What was the food like?
The food like?
You mentioned earlier that you guys only had coffee for breakfast and then --
Rice for supper.
Rice. Uh-huh. And that was what you had until you were --
And once in a while we had bamboo sprouts or something like that that was Jap -- and another thing, you know Jap -- we smoked Japanese cigarettes, and they were better than the Australian or New Zealand cigarettes. You could breathe through them, you know. The Jap -- the New Zealand ones you had to get a pump or something to help you. But anyway, they also had little caramels, they had -- you opened them up and they had stories in them. They were comics for Japanese in Japanese. And the stupid things were about that big. You now, you had to open up a -- when we got them I took a handful and put them in my mouth, two of them, it would be gone.
Did you have plenty of supplies?
No. Lousy. You know what? One time they give us a PX ration, somebody over the First Battalion got toothbrushes and we got toothpaste, something like that. And then there was one ship there, the ship we landed on, the USS Fuller, they come in one time and they sent a carton of cigarettes to all the guys on the line. After that we started getting free cigarettes. And we were bombed every single day. And at the nighttime, one time battleships come down and shelled us while they were after the airfield. They come down and shelled us. And then, like, we used to -- we were having a problem with malaria, and five -- five grain tablets of quinine I'd throw in my mouth, and then I'd be walking this high off the ground. And then at nighttime when the ships come in to shell, we were about a couple of miles from the airfield, so they were mainly over there. I'd sit on the parapet and watch them shells go off. And then like one time one of them was right, like, from here over to that thing over there. Well, one of them shells had landed, and then -- so a lot of air fights, you know. Like the first airplanes to come in to help us out was ten days after we landed. In other words, the first Japanese I saw was we were on patrol going through a coconut grove, and Zeros went overhead. And I look up and I saw a Japanese pilot. That was the first Japanese I saw. And then from the beachhead, where we set up the beachhead, we were down to set up a perimeter around the airfield, on the way down a Jap sub come up out there, started shelling us, and the shells were going right overhead. But the first Jap I saw was a Zero pilot, and the first shell fire I was under was a Jap sub.
How did people entertain themselves?
I guess it used to be a lot of, you know, in liberty ports you talked about women and cooking. On the island you were just talking about eating and preparing your life, you know.
Were there entertainers? Did you see any entertainers?
No, no, no. Don't _____________. They did have entertainers come to Guadalcanal but that was after we left. We left four months and two days after we landed there.
Where did you travel while in the service?
Where did I -- oh, mostly ship.
Where did you travel?
Oh.
What countries?
From Norfolk, Virginia, I went down through the Atlantic Ocean, and we had one cruiser and four destroyers with us, four tin cans, and airplanes, and we went down through the Caribbean through the Panama Canal, and three days after we come out of the Panama -- when the Panama Canal, we had six PT boats protecting us, our ship, and after that we were on our own. We was on -- our transport was the USS Wakefield, it was an old transport going from New York to France and all that, and the name of it was The Manhattan. And when it was commissioned it was a Coast Guard commission, The Wakefield. And then we were caught in a storm out there on the way over to New Zealand and the ship would go like this here and like this. And when it went like this here, the propellers, the screws would come out of the water, the whole ship would shake. And that ship was big enough to hold a regiment and division headquarters, so you can imagine how big it was. And one time, you couldn't go up forward, forward of the bridge because the waves were too big, so I come back aft by myself, and I'd look up, I'd see a wave about three stories high, then I'd look down and see a sinkhole about six stories down, so when the ship went up and down like that. And nobody was out there.
Do you have any photographs?
I have some photographs home, but -- oh, yeah. I sent some photographs home. I've got some pictures of a guy that -- one of the guys in our company got a Navy cross on that Matinikau River where the nips -- I used to call the Japs nips because nipanese, you know, nips -- where they mutilated that getchy patrol, on the other side of the Matinikau River we'd pull a bayonet charge on them. And I was -- I was a corporal squad leader, I made reconnaissance sergeant, so I was in the CP. So it was a regimental operation on the other side, the west side of the Matinikau River, and the Second Battalion was on top of a ridge going west, the First Battalion was on flat land like a coconut palm -- coconut plantation. They got hit and we the Third Battalion Fifth, would follow the Second Battalion, and we were called back by Semaphore, you know, flags, we were called back and we had to take up behind them, the First Marines.
What did you think of officers and fellow soldiers?
I think -- I think basically, I think -- I'm not talking about higher ups, because we had some pretty good higher ups. General Vandergrift, he commanded that. I thought the world of him. And basically, I thought a lot of our enlisted men. At least in the Marine Corp they were, I'd say, the riflemen were maybe average 18 to 19. One time after about -- I was about, like, 22 and I was an old man. And one time after a battle one of the men came to me and he said to me, you know, Mack, I used to be afraid of the dead, but now that's the only way I used to see them. And his name was Gibson. And he is in -- like, I have a First Marine Division patch. Is it on here? No, it ain't on here. But the First Division patch is like this here and it has Guadalcanal down the middle. Then on each side we have the names of the guys that were killed at Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, Talalo, and Okinawa. And his name wasn't on there, so he made the war.
Did you keep a personal diary?
No. You weren't allowed. But I didn't anyway.
Okay. Do you recall the day your service ended?
Sure.
Where were you?
I was in Parris Island, South Carolina where I started. I was a drill instructor. The roll of drill instructor is mean people.
What did you do the days and weeks afterwards?
Oh. It was screwed up again. Something come out on furlough leave. You know, I was in the Marine Corp for six years, and I don't know how many furloughs I had. So I had about three months and some days furlough. So what they did was they paid me off, they shipped me out and I'm still in the Marine Corp, so I used up that furlough time, and they're paying me. I was getting pay and subsistence and food and all that. And then they paid me for a couple of months too. And then I got a job. Oh, geez, I was a millionaire in those days.
So you went back to work rather than school?
I went -- yeah.
You went right to work?
And then I went to, to sign up at registration, you know, for voting? And I didn't know what the hell I was doing there. I didn't know when to -- because my family were Democrats for a million years, and I didn't want anything to do with the Democrats because I didn't care for the way everything was working at the time. So a policeman that watches the place come over, he said, you don't have to do anything, Mack, just be an Independent. So I was an Independent.
Did you make any close friendships while in the service?
Did I make any what?
Close friendships.
Oh, yeah. I have a friend in Vancouver, Washington, that's just north of Portland, we call each other once a month easy.
Did you join any veterans organizations?
Yeah.
Here in town in Ocala or --
Oh, yeah. I tried the VFW in Ocala and I don't like it.
So what did you do as a career after --
I joined the First Marine Division Association. I'm a life member.
What did you do after, as a career after the war?
I went to work.
Where?
In Brooklyn.
For how long -- what did you do?
I was a carpenter.
So you were in a private business?
No, no. I was working for somebody as a carpenter.
For how long?
Oh, I don't know. Then I went from working for Western Electric, and then I went for working for a seat cover place and I learned how to use sewing machines and all that there. So I went into business on my own and I had a trim shop in Hempstead, Long Island. I used to make automobile seat covers, convertible tops. In those days you could make a convertible top, you know. Then they come out with the vinyl tops, and I couldn't do that because they had, they had to heat seal the tops electronically. So I had to buy the prefabbed and then install them.
Do you attend any reunions from your veteran organizations?
Did I what?
Do you attend reunions for the veteran organizations that you --
Oh. I used to every year, but lately I haven't. I can't get around that fast anymore. I'm not fast and I'm not slow, I'm half slow.
How did your service and experiences affect your life?
Well, I think it was an experience that I'll never forget, and I don't regret either. Of course, my sister worked for a big company and they had a dinner/dance over in the Hotel New Yorker, and I went there and my sister had a scout out at the door. And when I come in this girl said to me, are you Lillian McEnery's brother? And she's my wife yet.
Is there anything that you would like to add as we close this interview?
Yeah. I made a couple of more bad operations, tough. Guadalcanal was more of a war of attrition. Four months and two days of, you know, you didn't know when you were going to eat. Sometimes when we were on patrol we'd get what they called a ration, D ration. It was a chocolate bar like that, and that was breakfast, dinner and supper. Big deal. And then maybe a can of -- canned food, you know.
How long did you do that?
How long did I do that?
Uh-huh.
That was -- that was on Guadalcanal, four months and two days. You know, after a while it started getting rough, then we started -- like I told you when I was in the company CP and the First Battalion Fifth got stuck. We were called back, we set up a line, the First Battalion pulled through us. They got shot up pretty bad. And our line was set up there all day in the hot sun, then all the next day. And I'm in the Company CP back here, and some lieutenant said to one of the -- said to the line, Who'll helped me get that gun over there? It was a Jap gun. And this guy DeLong stood up from our company, and they all stood up and made a charge, a charge on bayonets, and they went down so far. The company commander said to me, that's ours right there, __________ find out where the company is. So I go up, I find the company, they go on another charge. So I could -- I go with them. And, you know, the nips were supposed to be real tough, indispensable in those days. I seen them running like rabbits. And our line only went, I Company went in, then K Company went in so far, and some of them were running around the left over there, and I saw that. And, you know, a coconut log was like this and like this here, and I was laid behind that there. And there was a million bullets going, and I'd say more Our Fathers. You know what the Our Father is? The Lord's prayer? I said more of them in that time there, maybe three or four minutes, than I did my whole life. Our Father, who art in Heaven, I said it. And then, then I went back to tell the company commander where the line was. And he said, okay, go back. I come back, they took off again. I don't know where the hell they are. So there's a guy from Georgia, Moe Darcy, and oh, boy, he -- he -- you could cut his accent in half. And I'm hollering, hey, Moe. And those nips that went around our left flank over there, that bush over there, one of them hollered over to me, hello, come on over. He sounded like he was from Brooklyn, that rat. And that's Moe Darcy, though. So I didn't go any further, I went back. As a matter of fact, on the way back, I found one of our guys that was, made lieutenant the day before and got hit in that charge, and I got stretcher bearers to get rid of him. That guy's still alive and he don't remember that. But that's life. And then I went back. Then I went out at night. Then I went out with the lieutenant at night. And that lieutenant, he was stabbing dead Japs. He was a _______, I guess, you know.
Okay. All right, Mr. McEnery. Thank you very much for the interview.
If you want to hear anymore, I have two more islands that were rough.
Sure. Go ahead.
All right. I went to Cape Gloucester, New Britain, and we were under the army there, and actually we had the least casualties, we had -- the division had the least casualties we had in the war. Then we went back under the Navy again and we hit an island called Pelelo. It was one of the worst islands in the Pacific. And Admiral Bull Halsey said we didn't have to hit it, and stupid Nimitz said hit it. And we lost over 2,000 marines in the First Marine Division there. I mean KIA. I don't know how many wounded.
How long were you there?
I was there for four months. And then from there we went from shore to shore, we hit another little island, necaseebus (ph). And there, it was only our Third Battalion, had a ridge here, my platoon crossed this line here, and then I Company was on our right again. When we got then way down at the end and they were shooting the gun out, and right at I Company, and we got that gun and we got a tank up and shot and knocked that gun out. And at one reunion a guy from I Company said to me, we got to thank -- we thank K Company for getting that gun down. And then we were there about a month. And then we were finally relieved -- we didn't -- it was a pocket of them left like this here, about 500 yards by about a hundred yards. And -- Oh, one night, you know, we went up to the frier sista (ph), what we call the frier sista, and we had to pull back and some of the caves we knocked out was alive yet, and then some nips come out at night. And one of them threw five grenades at me, he'd throw grenades -- I couldn't see -- I couldn't shoot at him, I could see that, you know, the light like this here, and the Company CP was behind him somewhere, I couldn't shoot at him. And then I hit the deck. And then stretcher bearers come around this way here and that nip threw a grenade at them and he got one of our marines there. But the field music that was with them come up with me, and I got up and ____________ two more. And then that nip went through our line, went this way here around. He went this way here where a rifleman got him. And I didn't get scared anymore. That was the last island that -- the last island I was on.
Okay. Well, very good. Thank you.
I had malaria about one time, and I had it about 15 relapses, you know.
Okay.
You want my autograph?