Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with James Shelby Price 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.
Todav we are at the home of James Shelby Price in Bend, Oregon. Jim was born on October 30, 1925 in Magnolia, Columbia County, Arkansas. On November 1, 1946, he married Ruby Lois Smitherman of Louisiana. They had three children: Richard Leroy Price, born October 24,1947. He died of cancer in 2000. A daughter, Nina Renee, born July 2, 1950. She is mailed and now living in Idaho. And, a daughter Sandra Kay, born October 27, 1952. She's married and living in Bend, in fact, right next door! Jim has four grandchildren and nine great grandchildren. The interviewer is Virginia Myler Collins, a member of the Bend Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She will be known as Jinny in this interview.
I'm so happy to meet you and be here. And, Sandy, I'm glad that you're here with us. But, I'm interested in learning a little more about your service in the Navy. But first, tell me, did you grow up in Magnolia?
Yes
Did you really? Where did you live? In the town?
Part of the time. But we moved around, 'cause where ever my dad was employed within the...
Was he a farmer, or did...?
He was a farmer up, at least until 1925.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then, did he drive around? Or how...
Then, I'm not sure what all he worked at in the deal. But I know that he worked at some of the mills, saw mills and duff like that.
Where is Magnolia? What big town?
It's in the southern part - Columbia County, borders Louisiana.
Oh, I see.
Strictly a farming community, growing up. They had oil fields, but that was later in the, in the 40s.
Yeah, after you'd left.
Yeah.
Well, did you enlist in the service, or did you get drafted?
Yes, I enlisted.
You enlisted?
Yeah.
What were you doing at the time? What made you enlist?
I had just got through working for a seismograph crew, where they go around and they'd run tests with explosions and it would make a reading of the underground, testing for oil. And my biggest job was the setting the...
The fuses?
The things to pick up the signals and developing the film.
Oh, film. So you had a filmstrip you could watch the...?
Well, yeah - and he'd pass'em back to the darkroom and I'd put'em in the thing and pass 'em back to him. That way we could - we'd usually shoot four - three or four explosions in each hole.
And that's the way they discovered oil?
That's the way they got the readings of what layers of rocks and things there are.
How interesting. How old were you when you were doing that?
Seventeen.
Seventeen. Gosh. So, where were you on December 7, 1941? Pearl Harbor?
I don't, I dont remember.
You don't remember that day?
I don't remember it.
Were you already in the service?
No, no, no... I didnt go into this service until 1943, yeah, right.
Well, what was the reason you decided to go into the service?
I didnt want to be drafted into the Army.
You're not the only one! I think I'd rather be on a ship too, then toting a pack.
Right. And, the Navy..I was able to sign up and just be in the regular Navy, till I was 21.
Okay, then, how old were you at the time? You would've been 16? 17? No, in '43 you would have been...
Almost 18.
Almost 18.
Seventeen years old, I guess.
So, where'd you have to go to sign up?
Little Rock, Arkansas.
You went in to Little Rock?
Yes.
And you went by yourself?
Right.
Oh
All by myself.
All by your self.
Yeah, right.
So, and where did they send you for basic training?
San Diego, San Diego.
Tell me about that.
San Diego was very much a surprise, 'cause it was August and the fog would come in at night. And I just couldnt get over freezing, cold and...
In the summertime...
In the summertime, right. That was just foreign to what I was used to.
Oh, sure.
And, we went through basic training for six weeks. And, I stayed an extra week in the training camp and then went to a gunnery school in another naval base there in San Diego. And went through that and as soon as I got out of that, they sent me to San Francisco at Treasure Island.
Treasure Island, sure.
Yeah, and from there I was put on a ship and it was a merchant ship that had Navy gun crews.
Gun crews?
Gun - yeah, that was strictly the only thing that we was: gun crews and stand watch. Because the ships that we was on didnt have radar, so we was lookouts. And we'd work on a four hours on, eight off, until we got over into the ocean - you know, past the dateline. We always went to four and four. Four hours on and four hours off. And...
What was the first place you landed? You remember your first cruise?
Yes, I left San Francisco and went to New Hebrides.
Oh yeah.
It was kinda' like southeast of the Solomon Islands, and and waited there for four or five days. What we was waiting for was a escort. So, we got an escort and it was just one little ship to take us there.
Not a destroyer? They didnt send the destroyer?
Oh no, we didnt get a destroyer until '44 - late '44, and we went from there to Guadacanal.
Well, what was your cargo? What were you hauling?
It was a mixed cargo. In the forward hold, we had lots of replacement engines for the PT boats. JINNY. Oh, yeah.
And, different things than those, but the two after things had aviation gas in 55 gallon drums.
Oh, my!
And, you could smell it all the time, so we had to - actually, you couldnt smoke anywhere on the back of the ship at all. And well, just sitting on a powder keg...
Sure
But anyway... and before we left new Hebrides though, they moved us around to another side of the island, and we anchored over there and lo and behold, right by our ship there, there sit a ship just like ours, but it had a hole in it you could drive a Greyhound bus through!
Oh, my gosh!
In other words the Japanese subs... they didnt do their submarine warfare good at all. They had much better torpedoes and everything, but they just - they would catch ships leaving the islands not going to the islands.
Oh, my gosh.
And, of course it didnt sink the ship, you know, 'cause it was empty of cargo.
Yeah, they were light weight.
But, that was kinda' - give us food for thought.
Sure
Anyway- we caught an escort and went to Guadacanal and we stayed there between there and just across another, Tulagi, another island right there close. We stayed there for, oh, about a week and a half Rained seven days of it. And, we didnt know what we was there for.
But, you'd unloaded everything.
No. Oh, no, we just unloaded some of the PT Boat engines there. And, then they finally sent us on up through the islands. And, we went on up through the islands up to a little island right off of Bougainville, and they was still fightin' there.
Mmm-hmm.
And, we unloaded a lot of the spare engines there. And, the reason we had the delay in Guadalcanal, they didnt have a dock built to where we could unload the aviation gas. So, we was waitin' for 'em to put the dock in. So, that's when we went up to there.
And, they were trying to get that airfield under control, werent they?
Yeah, well, they had scraped an airfield off of that little island there.
Was that Hamilton?
It was a flat island, and then one with sort-of a mountain on it.
Yeah...
And, there., but, anyway, they got the dock there. So, then we went into the dock. And, it was - we was still sittin' on all of that aviation gas. And, we had - the most we had in one night was seven air raids.
Oh, my! Did they send Kamikazes in there?
Yeah, but I didnt see any of 'em. Not then, but - and we just had the...
Was it ground fire?
At night - and the Japanese. But, they had - we had guns all over those islands protectin' that airfield. 'Cause that was the closest airfield to Rabaul, where they was bombin'.
Well...
So, anyway they finally unloaded the gas. From that, we'd get away from there. We had one air raid, I'd just like to tell this, 'cause I was sitting in the gun tub and we weren't allowed to shoot because we didnt want 'em to know we was there - the ship. So, we wouldnt shoot at 'em, even when they get 'em in the searchlights - the planes. But, that thing happened and the bombs went off, oh, three or four - well, I'd say more like 300 yards. They - two of 'em landed in the water and a couple on the shore. But they didnt get us. And my loader for the gun, he says "Boy, wouldnt mamma's featherbed feel good now!?"
On I guess so. Well, and you had all the lights out, I suppose, and it was a moonless night, so it was dark.
Oh yes, yeah. The biggest thing that scared me that night, though, they got one of the Japanese planes in the searchlight arid there was one of those - the largest antiaircraft gun we had - it was in the jungle right off of the - it wasnt over - far as from here to your car - just that close! And, they got the plane in there, then they cut loose with that and that made more racket than the bombs!
Well, sure - that's going off right over your head! Oh, my gosh, that would scare you to death!!!
We got through that, all of that. And, the uh...and they started bringing the empty drums back to put on the ship.
Oh, yeah, to take them and fill 'em up.
And, that German Captain we had on this tub, he told the guys, "Cast-off, we leavin'"! We left 'em with their line of trucks with the empty drums on.
Oh, my gosh!
And, our escort had to catch us. We was outta' there!
You were outta' there. Well, who was this German?
He was the captain of the merchant ship. He was just, well he was German - you know - He was, I guess, American citizen or whatever, but he was the captain. We had the maritime crew and a gun crew. So, we went - then we went back to the states. Then the next time we came out, we came out to Pearl Harbor and then went to Kwajalein - that island. And, it was a beautiful bay there, inside the island. 'Course, Kwajalein Island itself was...had one palm tree and the top was knocked out of it, too. It was just like a little - just a little sand island, you know. And they just - they'd just done that and built an airstrip there. So we went there and then went back from there to the states again and picked up more troops. We hauled - no, sorry, got ahead of myself. We went back to the states and I got a leave for seven days and then we came back to - I came back to Treasure Island and waitin' for another ship and that's when I got on the troop transport.
Did you get some R and R in San Diego?
Yeah, we was usually in...when the ships would come in, we'd be there for a week or two - different times. We'd come in - we'd usually come back to San Francisco.
Oh, really?
Yeah, and from there...
Did you go to Alameda then? Or, did you always go to Treasure Island?
No, actually, we'd go into the docks, in the docks in San Francisco there. But then I got on the troop ship. We picked up - went down to Hueneme and picked up a battalion, or maybe a couple of battalions of Seabees on the troop ship and took them out, and went to, uh, the first trip on the transport went to Eniwetok.
Oh, yeah.
The first with the other ship we went to Kwajalein Island. Okay, and the next trip out we wen to Eniwetok, which was just a little, few hundred miles more.
And, you took Seabees out there?
Yes, we hauled them We hauled different troops - some Army and some different -the troop ship was under an Army contract, had Army medical crews, but had a merchant crew for the operation of the ship, and, 30, 32 Navy guys for the guns.
They put the sailors on the guns, huh?
Yeah. So, then we went to the, like I say, Eniwetok, then we came back to the states.
Never back to Pearl?
Oh, well, no, not usually. See, we usually didnt stop every time at Pearl.
Oh
Going out, we usually did stop there. And, well, from there you usually had some kind of an escort; but to go to Pearl, no escort at all.
Now, how did you get fuel, if you're on Kwajalein?
Well, we'd...there, the ship carried enough fuel to make the trip out. We went , then that, the second time we went out, like I say to Eniwetok. And, then I guess the third trip out, with the troop transport, we went to Guam and then over to Eniwetok. In fact it was we was in Eniwetok, the whole Navy landing craft transports came in and dropped anchor around us. And, everybody was debatin' - "Where they going? Philippines? Philippines, you know or where". But, anyway, we went back to the states, and then we came back and we went to Guam. Then, from Guam we caught better protection ship, you know, escorts and took us on up to Saipan and we dropped off troops there. And, then we went from Saipan we come back to Guam, back to Pearl and picked up troops there.
To bring 'em home?
No. And then we went back to, and back up to Saipan, another time. And, the first time we was there, never even nothing'. I mean, no Japanese, no nothing. But the second time we was there, they had - oh, I think at least 20 ships anchored there. And it was just anchored on the side of the island, there was no bay or anything. So, we was anchored there on that second trip, and we had a big Japanese air raid.
While you were docked - I mean while you were anchored?
Yeah, oh yeah. They - they was after the airfield. I think that was about right after the first bombing out of that airfield. About the first time that they bombed from Japanese. It was close enough and they was kinda' gettin' back at us for that, so...
Well, that was the whole reason the US was defending those islands and airstrips so they couldnt get back to the - get to the states or anyplace else.
But, it's a ...it's a - the Japanese planes, though, was off their main course. What they was after was the airfield. They did not attack the ships.
Which was stupid, wasnt it?
It was stupid, because the ships had all the supplies for the troops...
Everything! The troops themselves!
...the fuel, the spare parts for all of the airplanes, and everything was sittin' out there and with all this. But, we set there and watched. I dont think there was a plane got away from there. We set there and watched them go through. And one plane made it through the air over the airfield, and, between Tinian and Saipan, it was - had a little sub that - sub escort thing that kept, you know, always on the lookout for submarines, 'cause they had these 20 or better ships in the harbor there. Well, this plane - Japanese - takin' a dip down, shot at that little thing with his machine guns, and then he was making a real circle, and he wasnt over 100 feet off of the top of the water - made a real circle there. But, he didnt count on that cruiser that was sittin' anchored there. And, that cruiser popped him way out there. I mean, it was way out there!
And, they got him?
Got 'im!
Good for the Navy!
And that was ..but it was just like, everybody on all those ships, you know, we was pretty close together, and everything. Just cheering like a game!
Oh, I guess! What...what was...did your ship have a name?
Hmmm. That one was....Cape Perpetual
Perpetua?
Yeah.
Hmm. I've never heard of...
It's at --?-- bay somewhere on the Oregon coast.
Is it?
Yeah, I think so.
I'll be darned. It's not used for anything is it? Is it just a museum?
No. It's not on one of the big bays, or anything. I go over the map and I cant find it but that's where...I told my daughter that I thought that the ship was probably built either in San Francisco or Seattle.
Yeah
And they named it that.
Was it, was it considered a Liberty ship?
No, no. The first ship I was on was a Liberty ship. But this was a...the troop transport was twice as fast as a Liberty ship.
Well, there're other designations like LST, or something, what...
Yeah, oh yeah. Those were landing craft.
Yeah, So what would you call this kind of ship?
It was troop transport.
That's it, huh?
Troop transport. That was it. We just handled troops, and we...let's see. And, after Saipan, we went back and come back to the states, and picked up more troops and went back this time to stoppin' at Pearl, stopped in at another place, and went to Leyte Gulf in the Philippines.
Lady Gulf?
Probably not prounciatin'...
Lette, L-E-I-T-E, Leite.
L-E-E-Y-T-E
Leyte - L-E-Y-T-E.
Okay. And, that...we went there and they kinda' excited us - told us they had a 30 Japanese plane raid three days before. But the Japanese done...it was a habit, when they went to give the last raid on a particular deal, just give, they sent everything they could and that would be it. And, that's what happened at Leyte Gulf. But they had ships sittin' there, where the Japanese Navy battleships got in there? And, they had ships - one baby flat top we called it - that they convert a merchant ship to a aircraft carrier, that holes all through it from those big Japanese guns that they were shootin'., and some of them would go all the way through. There wasnt enough armory on that ship to make the ship explode, but some of them did. But they had it just anchored there - they took the crew off of it. It wasnt worth takin' back to the states to have it fixed.
No, no.
But, then from there, we picked up some of the wounded and...
In Leyte?
Leyte, yeah, from there. Some of the Army - I dont think there was any Marines, mostly Army and we went down to Hollandia, New Guinea, where they had a bigger hospital.
Oh, that's right.
And left them there, and then we, there was a few people that was stationed there that just, oh, maybe a couple hundred people - different officers, some Red Cross people and they got on the ship and we took 'em back to the states.
Yeah. Did you have any casualties of the guys you were with?
Not on our ships, no. Not on the ships I was on.
How wonderful.
We never were hit, per se. Lucky!
Yes, you were charmed, I think.
I think so. Lucky. Okay, then we came back and went back to the United States, and one trip in we made up to - went up the coast to Seattle and picked up troops and went over. We went to Pearl Harbor then we went to...
Well, you...
...one of the - right in here somewhere - (checking his maps) well, one of the smaller islands there - called a cauldron - right in there. That one, right there, whatever that says on the map. And, it was one of those little flat islands that just with islands around it, and had a bay in the middle, and we went there, and, from there we went to Okinawa.
Oh, you did get to Okinawa.
Yes, and finally we graduated to destroyer escorts.
Well, do you think that's because your cargo was more valuable, or?
Yeah, oh yeah. It was a nine ship convoy, and they was all at least as big as ours and all of 'em were troop transports.
Loaded with me.
Mmm-hmm. And, we was going to Okinawa.
There was an invasion there.
Yeah, it was already...the invasion was already there, but there was still fighting there, and we went there and we dropped the - I think it was a Seabee Battalion there - dropped 'em off on one side of the island. Dropped all the troops there, but all their gear and stuff that we had stacked in the hold, we had to go all the way around the -Okinawa - to another side where they had a nice anchorage.
Yeah.
And...
And, you offloaded it?
And, we'd sit there with our binoculars and watch 'em fighting on the island.
Oh, my. You were that close?
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, you could see 'em. And, they was usin' tanks and they'd use those flame-throwers to get 'em out of the caves and stuff. We'd watch 'em do it. So, we went all the way around the island and got in this bay, where there was quite a few ships. And, we unloaded all the stuff that the Seabees was gonna' - that the gear that they had with us. And, we was unloadin' them and we was sittin' there, and we had to stand watch right there in the harbor because they had some Japanese had come out in a little boat and tried to do things. So, we was sittin' there one night, and I noted, on duty in the gun tub and I noticed that the island got dark - no lights - and all the other ships in the harbor turned out their lights. And, we's sittin' there with our cargo lights on and everything, and I looked up and they had a Japanese plane in the searchlight off the island, and shot him down.
Your ship shot him? Or the guys on the island?
Guys on the island. Now, that's like the deal about sittin' on the aircraft gasoline!
Yeah
Now this was sitting out in the middle of the only light anywhere and the Japanese was right there. They just shot him down before he got ys!
Oh, my gosh!
Because we was lighted up!
Yeah, yeah...
Our radio man went to sleep, or asleep at the something, anyway.
Yeah...
He missed the call.
Yeah. Oh, dear! You were charmed! I really think so!
Uh-huh, I think I was charmed.
Yeah, my goodness!
But, then we went back around the other side and picked up Marines.
Oh, Marines. And, what did you see?
Young men my own age that looked older, and they was all...you could tell they had a rough time.
Were they carrying stuff?
Oh, they was carrying extra rifles, or extra side arms and what have you. In other words, they - if their buddy fell, they picked up the guns...
Yeah, and took them...
And, for that. And they was on that. But, the thing about it, all those Marines there... and as we was pullin' out, we had a destroyer next to us and gonna' escort us back and they had an air raid. And the men in that destroyer - I've never seen a ship just - "swish" -all, everybody was gone and in their tubs and at their guns, and the only ones you could see was a few up on the bridge. In other words, they was used to those humongous air raids at Okinawa, and the Marines wouldn't go below. If you got an air raid, you wanted your troops down. And, if you got a submarine deal, you brought 'em all up on deck. But that - that deal, and they...
Were the Marines afraid to go below? Is that it? They wanted....
They just didnt want to go below. They'd been shot at for a month...
Yeah, and they probably felt safer being on top.
Yeah. Finally, they had an officer that come up and asked them would they please go down!
Please go down where your safe, yeah.
Anyway, the...
Can I - I want to interrupt for a second because you keep talking about the tubs where the guns are. Now describe that. You went into one of those. What was it like?
Oh, the antiaircraft guns we had, we had four three-inch guns.
In the tubs?
No, each one of 'em had, oh, about 5/8th steel around about 4 1/2 feet high.
I see
Inside that tub and then you had your ammunition box and everything with that.
Was there one guy in there?
No. On that particular, on the three-inch guns had, you had the guy, the...
The gunner?
The gunner and then a guy on the other - the gunner goes up and down and the other guy goes across and then they had one guy loading, and...
So, that's three guys...
Yeah, three. And I think there's one more - four. There was a four-man crew to those, those guns.
So, now how big is the tub? How big across?
It would be about 12, 12-foot round.
Oh, well, it's bigger than I thought, then.
Yeah. And, then you just walk between the little deal, and on the other side you've got another one.
On the opposite side of the ship?
Yeah
Another one just like it?
On the other side, just the same thing.
And how many along the side?
Well, they had those two on the stern. Then they had the same set up on the bow, for those. And, then, you had the 20 mm guns up on all four comers of the bridge.
I see
And, you had two men each on those. The loader and the gunner.
Are they down in something similar, then?
No, it was a - they had a lower, inside of a deal, but it was lower, 'bout three feet, three and a half feet high.
But, the guns are bigger, too, arent' they?
No, the --?-- guns were just 'bout the size of -
You're holding up a highlighter that's probably three-quarters of an inch in diameter.
They were strictly for antiaircraft and they will explode when they hit the airplane, on the 20 mms.
And, the 20 mms come out at about how many at a time. I mean, how many can you shoot?
Oh~ you had a magazine on top of it and it just fit onto it and there's 60 shots in that.
Sixty in there.
Yeah.
And, did they swivel 360 degrees? I mean, could you...?
Yeah, you could turn around...
You could turn all the way around?
Yeah. You could.
And, follow the plane?
Yeah. Whew!
Well, when you're firing at those guys, though, dont they try to land on your ship?
Well, probably. But...
Never happened to you, huh?
No. Thank goodness.
Yeah. Well, after Okinawa that was a big time, and that was about early '45?
Yeah, no, it was later than the summer of '45. The war was wearing down and we left there and takin' the Marines to Guam, 'cause they's gonna...that's where they was going to get new troops and rest, for the Japanese invasion. So, and when we left Guam, we started strictly for San Francisco.
You were going home.
Yeah, and when we passed the International Dateline, we had to turn our running on.
Turn 'em on?
Turn 'em on. We didnt have radar on that ship.
Oh, that's right.
Just the Navy ships - the bigger ships, the whole thing had radar. And, after the Dateline we was running lights, and you could almost see running lights at any time at night. We had literally thousands of ships had their running lights on so they wouldnt run into each other.
That's right.
'Cause that is, that is kinda' scary. Because we were run up on, I forget which trip it was, but we come right up on another ship. And, we didnt see it until it was right there and we just passed within, 'bout a hundred feet of each other.
Oh, my gosh. And, that's awful close.
I dont think they had radar either.
Huh-uh. Boy! Yeah. That's, ah...
But, anyway, that was that. And, then I came back to the San Francisco and got off the ship...
For good?
...and the war was over, after we got back to San Francisco, while we was there, so...
VJ Day, huh?
Yeah. So, I got thirty days leave and went home.
And, that was it.
That was it.
Now, when you crossed the dateline, did they give you a certificate? Some guys got certificates.
Oh, I think it was something like that, 'cause every time you go by, they had a ceremony that you done.
A ceremony, right
I know...and after that, I got off my leave and went back and went to San Diego, and they... we caught a aircraft carrier - took me to Hawaii - Pearl Harbor, aid then I caught another ship, aircraft carrier, the Bon Homme Richard.
Oh!
Yeah, and they took us to Guam, and I found a ship there, going...
You kinda' had to find your own way home?
Well, no, it's just - well, see, I had to stay in the service until I was 21.
Oh, that's right.
I had enough time in the war zone, or if I'd a been just, for the war and plus...
Yeah
I could've got out, but I had to stay in til I was 21. So went to there, and I enjoyed that trip on the Bon Homme Richard 'cause that's something to see - a large aircraft carrier.
Oh, I guess.
No planes or anything - they was just hauling troops.
So, you could really go, couldn't you?
Oh, yeah, I mean literally - it was really, it was really nice. But, we went to Guam and it was all just 'sit and wait' til they assigned us to a ship, and...
Now, were you discharged out of San Diego?
No, I, no this was... from there I got a ship - the destroyer escort - and we stayed in the Pacific for a few months. And, then they sent us back to the West Coast. And, then from there, we went down through the Panama Canal and up the coast to...
Norfolk?
No - Boston!
To Boston.
And, went into dry dock and particularly getting the ship ready for decommission.
So, how did you spend the last few months of being in the Navy?
That was it on that ship. After we got out of dry dock, we went to Florida, up the St. John's River, and they had, oh, maybe 30 destroyer escorts there. And, they put six - yeah, there's six each - and just anchored 'em in that bay, and decommissioned 'em. In other words, we went through and tore down the big diesel engines, and put preservative stuff in and circulated it all through - just got 'on all ready to...
To sit!
Yeah!
That's all they're gonna' do. They've got a bunch of 'em up in San Francisco, off...
Yeah, they got a place up there. Yeah, I've seen a lot of 'em there.
I've been through that too. Just like they've got airplanes out in the desert, just lined up and sittin' there.
That's true, that's true. And - but, that's where I spent the last days in the Navy - on the St. John's River, decommissioning these ships. And, they just were dropping off men all the time because everybody was goin' home.
Sure. So, did you take a train then, back to Arkansas?
No, a Greyhound Bus. I, well, we was in there and we - I was there tor months, decommissioning those ships and we enjoyed it. And, went to Daytona Beach, to the beach and all of us, you know. It was really nice for service to get out, it was. The war was over and all that, so - hey. And, it was nice warm weather there, and so we had a nice time.
Yeah, and did you work an eight hour day, and then you had your nights off? Nights and weekends?
Yeah. Most of the time.
So, it was like a job.
Yeah. But we was anchored out in the river, though and you had to take a boat into the docks to go on, so they...
And, then hitch a ride?
Yeah! Yeah!
Thumb your way?
No, they run a lot of, they run Navy buses between the little town that we was in, over to St. Augustine and that's where I met my wife.
I see. While you were there?
Yeah, oh yeah. There in the summer. Oh, I believe it was the Fourth of July dance - a street dance. I met her there.
And, did you get married down there?
Yeah, I got discharged on the 30th of October in '46, and we caught a Greyhound Bus and went up to Georgia to get married, because there was no waiting period. And, I didnt - we didnt marry before then, because I wasnt 21 and I didnt want to ask my dad for anything!
There you go.
But, anyway - all right.
I surely want to thank you, very much.
Well this one - this - we got married in Georgia. We went and seen my wife's folks in Louisiana, seen mine in Arkansas, went by Dallas, couldnt find a place to live and my wife says, "I got two brothers in Cloverdale, California. They want me to come out there". I says "Okay, you go and I'll follow you!" And, then we all wound up about at Christmas, in Cloverdale, California. And, that's where our children were born. Well, in Healdsburg, close to Cloverdale. That's the closest hospital.
Well, it's a good interview. Thank you so very much. End of a ONE SIDED TAPE We apologize for the malfunction. Our recorder was failing and we didnt realize it at the time.