Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with Theodore R. Cummings 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.
So Ted, where were you when you heard about Pearl Harbor? In Chicago?
Yeah. It was --
Do you remember the moment you heard, what you were doing?
The very -- I do. People had set up -- the USO had set up tables outside the -- the entrance to this cavernous, huge pier that was stripped naked for the Navy, to set up these schools. And they had invited us that Sunday. I got an invite to dinner. So I grabbed the 'L' and went out. I can remember -- I don't remember where it was. Cicero, Skokie, wherever. And got off the 'L' and went to this home. It was a bungalow-type home. And there was a lot of wood paneling in it. And the people were very pleasant. And there was a lovely girl there. Isn't it crazy? I can remember she was wearing a print dress. And -- and so we were about to have dinner. And there was -- and the radio, a small radio, was on the mantle of the fireplace. And it was about 12:30 or 1:00. And the announcer said that -- interrupted the program, that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor and that all service personnel should report to their base. So I left. And she walked me to the -- to the station, the 'L' station. I can remember that. I can't remember her face. I can guess at it, but -- And -- and on the way back to Navy Pier, and it was a long ride, I recall an old, old woman selling newspapers at one of the station stops along the way and literally screaming, "War. Pearl Harbor bombed. War." Those things, they really stay with you.
Right. Why did you select the Marine Corps when you enlisted?
Because my brother was -- went there. I didn't want to be outdone, you see.
Where were you living at the time you enlisted?
Pardon?
Where were you living at the time you enlisted?
At home. At --
Manchester, Connecticut?
In Manchester. Yeah. I've always lived here.
After you enlisted, where did you go for your basic training?
To Parris Island.
And can you recall what that was like?
Oh, boy. It was infamous agony. And honestly, I felt that I had achieved, when that training was over.
How long did the training last?
Then, it lasted two months. Two months to 10 weeks. Something like that.
And what kinds of things did they train you?
They trained you to believe in the ability and the pride of the Marine Corps. And they -- they pushed you extremely hard physically and beat upon you mentally, and the kind of thing is, you know, give your -- and this is no bull. Give your heart and soul to God because your ass belongs to me. That's -- that was the first -- that was the DI's attitude.
So you remember --
Forget about -- your umbilical cord is gone, lad. And --
Do you remember any of your instructors?
Yes, I do. And you know, when it was all over, we chipped in and bought the DI, who was feared and loathed but respected --
What was his name?
-- a watch. I don't know his name. I don't remember his name. I have a picture somewhere of that recruit platoon.
Oh, great.
I'll try to get it. I just know one incident, and it shows you the kind of thing. It was -- he had been -- the DI had been describing the early Marine Corps and independence and Independence Day and all this stuff about what the Marines had even done in the Revolutionary War. And there was one guy in the platoon who was a little smaller than me, only one. And he was from Tennessee, and his name was Paradise Cole. And the DI liked to needle us a little bit and push us a little bit because we were so small. And he stood in front of Cole, who somehow was -- grinned while he was talking. And he asked Cole, "What's your name?" And the recruit said, "Paradise Cole." And he said, "When were you born, Paradise Cole?" And the -- and the recruit said as seriously as one can, "July 4, 1776." (laughter) He -- he was so -- and -- and it expressed the fear that was in many of us of this guy who looked like a Cardiff Giant, the drill instructor.
Where did you go after you graduated from basic?
To Quantico for about a month and then out to Chicago to Navy Pier, as I had indicated.
What did you do for the month you were at Quantico?
I just hung around and picked up cigarette butts.
Now, when they sent you to Navy Pier in Chicago, what were your duties there?
We were setting up a tin knocker, metal smithing, school. However, we were the first troops there. And the first thing we did was set up our own bunks and really -- And then we began to bring in machines and place them where -- where the organizers wanted them. We were the forerunners of a big metal smithing school. When the war came -- you see, I didn't know -- I know -- knew far less then than I know now, which is true and isn't hard to imagine. But I asked for a transfer to the fleet Marine force.
When?
I didn't want -- immediately. The next day after Pearl Harbor. I didn't want to miss the war, you see. I didn't want to go to school. It was a marvelous opportunity, to learn a trade, welding, metal smithing. But I asked for the transfer because I didn't want to miss the war. Because I didn't know.
Did they grant you the transfer?
And immediately got the transfer and was shipped down to -- the end of December to -- it was at that time called tent city, New River Marine Base, Jacksonville, North Carolina. That grew into the massive Camp Lejeune. It was a very cold winter in North Carolina in the winter of '42, and we lived in tents.
They didn't even have barracks at that time?
No. They didn't.
How long did you spend at Camp Lejeune?
Until May, training. And then we boarded ship. We went to Norfolk. Boarded ship. The first -- let's see. I was assigned to the 5th regiment, the 1st and the 5th regiments. And the 11th, that was the artillery regiment. We boarded the converted United States liner, it was now named the WAKEFIELD, and set sail down the East Coast through the Panama Canal to Wellington, New Zealand. And we arrived in Wellington, New Zealand in the early days of June. We did not know that we had arrived in Wellington after 30-some days at sea, running alone, this huge transport with about 7500 men on it, that the Battle of Midway had taken place a few days before our arrival in Wellington, New Zealand. And we were -- we were encamped there -- oh, there's something worth telling. When we -- we went by train from Wellington, after debarking about -- to a camp about 40 miles away. Beautiful little camp called -- had a native name. It was called Paekakariki. And it also had a Christian name, McKay's Crossing. English name, rather. When we disembarked on the concrete platform, there were many, many local people standing around, so many. They were crying. You could see the tears. And we felt uneasy. Why was this? And there were old men with chauffeur's caps on or Greek-like fishing caps on. And they were crying. And one woman, I can remember, held up her baby and said -- and several then said, "Thank God you've come." And we were uneasy because we didn't know. You see, we didn't know that the Japanese had broadcast that was of course directed toward New Zealand and Australia, that told the New Zealanders what would happen when they occupied them or they were within their sphere: that the men would be sent to South Island and that the women would stay in North Island where agriculture would be primary, and manufacturing would be in the south. I didn't know that for 50 years until I read some account. I can understand why the women cried and the men and they held up their children. But we didn't know at the time. We didn't know anything. It was not like Hollywood where you're gathered together and there are dioramas and all this other stuff. It was very -- at least at that time, there was very, very little. Things were moving awful fast, quickly. Changes.
Ted, what were you trained to do? What was your job?
I was an infantryman. I was a BAR man, Browning automatic rifle.
And where did you receive your training in the BAR?
At tent city. New River Marine Base.
What do you remember about that weapon? Can you describe that a little bit to me?
Well, it was -- with the bipod, it weighed 21 pounds, I think. I think they gave it to me as they did -- that was the Marines way. They would give a heavy weapon to a small guy to see if he could stand it. That's at least my take on it. Because -- and at that time -- listen. We went -- we went to -- we went to war at that time with the same weapons that were used in World War I. The BAR, the Browning automatic rifle. The troops -- the in -- the Marine infantry had the bolt action '03, 1903 Springfield rifle. And these were weapons that came out of the Spanish-American War. I can remember on the landing on August 7 on Tulagi, that the machine guns in the -- on the Higgins boat that we went in on were Lewis guns. They came out of Snoopy and World War I from the British de Havillands. It was -- Anyway, we stayed there at this camp. And it was a beautiful place, like the Berkshire hills and --
Were there barracks or you slept in tents?
They were -- the New Zealanders had constructed these little -- two-men huts is what they were. It was nice quarters.
How long did you stay there?
About a month, and then we were moved quickly to -- a month, six weeks, to Wellington. The New Zealand dockworkers were on strike. Of course we didn't know why we were unloading all of these transports that had come from the U.S. They were all loaded back asswards. So they had to take everything off of them and reload it, combat load it. And because the New Zealand dockworkers were on strike, the troops had to do it. We were working. And it was cold. That's their winter. Wet. And we were working around the clock. We didn't know that there was a landing planned at the end of July that had -- that was then boosted forward a week or two to August 7 in the lower Solomons on Guadalcanal, Tulagi, Gavutu-Tanambogo, Florida, Malaypa(?). I may not even be pronouncing some of those places right.
When did you ship out of New Zealand?
It must have been about the middle of July.
What was your first stop?
We -- we went to -- we went to -- we had a practice landing in the Fiji Islands that was a bust. Some of the boats swamped, got hung up on coral. But it was done.
Did you at that point have any idea of where you were --
No.
-- were heading?
No. We did not. And I can't -- I know that we were told at one point, I think after the -- after the practice landing at Fiji, that we were going to a place -- we couldn't even pronounce it. Guadalcanal, Tulagi. We didn't know if --
Was Guadalcanal your first combat experience?
Actually, we landed on Tulagi.
First?
The Second Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment landed on Tulagi as backup to Colonel Edson's Second Raider Battalion, and he also had the First Paratroop Battalion. They were part of Edson's Raiders. They never jumped, but they got the hell beat out of them, along with the raiders, and were evacuated from -- from Guadalcanal about the middle of -- I think about the middle of October.
So you were on Tulagi, waiting to be replacements for Guadalcanal?
No. We went on Tulagi, and that island was secured within a week. There was some bad -- heavy fighting there and --
Was your unit involved in that fighting or was that before you landed?
No. We landed a couple hours behind the -- the raiders. And we backed up the raiders. We had a little fighting there. I want to tell you a story about the humanity that is shown by some people in war and in very unusual ways. We landed on August 7, on the night of August 7, on the end of the island, the northwest, that we had -- it was jungle-covered, that we had been assigned to clean out. We didn't find any Japanese there. The raiders and the para -- and the raiders were heavily involved with the Japanese. That night, we were enveloped with fear. First night in the jungle. It just grabbed you and settled in your groin. And I think we shot two or three of our own people that night. And when we came up out of the jungle on the ridge that bisected the island and into the brilliant light the next morning, about, say, 8:00, whatever the time was, 7:30, 8:00, we could see from that point on the ridge the whole operation. To the right about 20 miles away, there was the line of Guadalcanal, the large island. Between Tulagi and other larger islands off to the north, there was about 20 miles of ocean called the Sea Lark Channel or Indispensable Straits. And there lay the whole invasion fleet. And you could see the Higgins boats and the tank lighters. It was all -- they were like toys, but you could see the wakes, the white water behind them, as they were moving away from the -- carrying troops into Guadalcanal and supplies, for the landing had been made there on August 7 as well. That was the main object. That's where the airfield was. And off to the left was Tulagi Harbor. That was a very deep -- small, very deep harbor, formed by Tulagi and the island of Florida immediately to its north. And -- and warehouses and -- and -- and other outbuildings were burning. And oil stores were burning. And there was black and brownish smoke everywhere. And ahead of us was another -- was -- was -- you could see a cut in this ridge on which we stood that would have taken one from the southern part of the island to the northern part, bilateral. A deep cut. And you could see caves in this cut from where we stood, looking to the east. And immediately to our right, as close as you're sitting to me, had been the high commissioner's home, the high commissioner of the Solomon Islands. And it was destroyed, blown apart by shelling. And there were a lot of shell cases on the trail on this ridge where we stood. And it made us uncomfortable because they rolled beneath your feet and kicking them out of the way, and as you kicked them, you noticed there was a lot of dried blood on the ground. So there had been a hell of a fight there that night before. And you could hear the firing of the machine guns, the -- ahead of you, the whacks of the rifle, the whump of the mortars. And the cordite and the woodsmoke and the burning smoke from oil stung your nostrils. And suddenly two SBDs, scout bomber Douglas, workhorse airplane, came in from the south very low. And the pilot and the gunners waved to us. We were all in line, you see, on this ridge, halted. The fighting was going on to our east, a few hundred yards. And they dropped bombs and created these huge beautiful concentric smoke rings. And you know what I thought of? I was a big fan of the big bands. And there was a big band leader who was kind of a clown. He was called Ben Bernie, and he smoked cigars while he was directing and would blow smoke rings. And suddenly -- oh, and ahead of us, just about a mile, there were these tiny islands, and they were called -- named Gavutu and Tanambogo. And there was a landing going on there then. And the destroyer was offshore and whump, whump, whump. The flash of the guns and -- and firing onto the island. You could see where they were hitting. And the troops going in, the boats going in behind them. All of this disharmony and chaos of war. And a guy got out of line, out of the line of us. And he walked over. And suddenly I realized as close as that wall, there was a piano alongside between us in file and the shattered residence. And one of its legs, the right foot -- leg had been -- the right foot had been shot off, so it canted to the right. And this fellow came out of line, kind of smiling. And he got up to the piano, and I can still see him because his weapon was shouldered and he -- he pitched his -- his body to line up with the keyboard, and he played. All the hellishness going on. And he played, "You may not be an angel for angels are so few, but until the day that one comes along, I'll string along with you." A song that was popular in the '30s. I just found out who wrote it. Someone got the words and the author and its origin for me. And he played it again. And you could hear the notes in between. And then he kind of smiled. I can see him. He was almost smiling to himself, and he went back in line. I never saw him before because we were kind of mixed up in -- in platoons, companies, coming up out of the jungle, and we were waiting there. And then a short time later, never saw him before, but I thought to myself or think today, the humanity of it with that -- all of that going on, the planes, the ships, the shelling, the action going on ahead of us on the ground. The whole thing spread out, the smoke, the cordite. "You may not be an angel."
After he played and then got back in line, did you then go into battle?
Yeah. The sergeant came up, said, "All right. We're going in on the left of the raiders to give them a hand. We're going to clean out -- we're going to clean out those shacks and those buildings along the harbor."
What were you thinking at that time? Because that was your first taste of combat. Do you remember what you were thinking?
I hoped I could manage the fear. Yep. We were there for two weeks and -- no. About 10 days. And then we went over to Guadalcanal and were there for the whole four months. See, we took that island, and they had built an airfield there.
Are you talking about Tulagi or Guadalcanal?
Guadalcanal. Tulagi was --
Finish up with Tulagi, and then tell me in detail about Guadalcanal. So after you helped the raiders out, how long did that battle last, would you say?
The raiders really and the paratroopers secured that island in, oh, two, three days.
Did you immediately go after these couple --
No.
-- days to Guadalcanal?
We were there for another week. After we were there for a week, we were allowed to -- to go swimming, to take a bath. Somebody got some sandsoap. So we stacked arms and put our -- folded our clothes and left them. And there, we were allowed to go in about a squad at a time. So you had eight or nine naked guys, so glad in the water. And then to our right that day, about a hundred yards, it seemed even closer, a Japanese submarine surfaced. These are the weird kind of things that never make the record books. Goddamn, I could -- "There's one of our subs," one of the fellows cried. Then there was a moment of silence, and another guy said, "Bullshit. Look at the writing." And it was Japanese.
So what happened?
I wish they could have taken -- I wish somebody had had a camera, taken a picture of us running. Understand --
Once you realized --
-- naked and scared.
-- it was Japanese?
Yes. And grabbing our clothes and our weapons and making for any shelter whatsoever that we could. And then as I remember, the mortar platoon, I think blanketed somewhere from mortars, fired from that island some position, it seems to me, and blanketed that submarine. And all of a sudden, it was slipping beneath the water. It had surfaced and obviously seen the -- that the island was no more occupied by Japanese. It went away. And the next day, we were in holes along the beach. And it was early morning. And we were two to a hole. And there was a channel between the eastern end of Tulagi and the next island in the group, called Florida. And the channel was very deep. The harbor was deep. That's where our PT boats were tied up, where they were -- were based later on in that long campaign. And we looked off to the right, and this beautiful, beautiful destroyer was coming. And again, we said, "One of our destroyers." Then all of a sudden, we realized it wasn't because the flag flapping from the fantail was the rising sun. She came in. Beautiful. Silent except the throb of her engines. Swung through the channel and into the harbor, and then she began to fire. You could hear those shells that -- what floatplanes of ours were on the water in the harbor, she destroyed. And she fired a few rounds into the buildings along the shoreline and then turned. And when she came back out, the Japanese sailors in their whites were all over the deck. They were thumbing their nose at us. No, no. No. Just by the fact that they were on deck, doing their duties. No fear. Nobody was firing at them. They knew that. If they had had the force ready, they could have -- they might have retaken things. We had taken the island. They wanted it back. None of us knew -- we couldn't even pronounce the name Guadalcanal at the time. We went over one night. I can't remember getting aboard this old cut-down destroyer. A sailor came to me with a can of peaches. Can you imagine that? A sailor gave me a can of peaches. He opened it up for me. And he gave me a toothbrush and a comb and I think some toothpaste. And a can of peaches. Because we had lived on Tulagi on -- we had -- only had a day's rations when we went ashore there. So we lived on coconuts and stolen Japanese rice -- I mean recovered Japanese rice. Gave me those peaches. Big can of peaches. And that syrup. It was champagne. Beautiful, that guy was.
Now, when you boarded that ship, were you on your way to Guadalcanal?
Yeah. We went across the straits.
Did you know that's where you were going?
Oh, yes. We knew then.
So you knew you were going right into another battle?
Oh, yes, we did.
Now you were a seasoned combat veteran, did it feel any different going into Guadalcanal?
No. There was always fear, if that's really what you're asking. No. It didn't -- it didn't -- we -- at that time, we -- we didn't -- The fear was always there. The knack of a good soldier is to manage it, to learn to manage it.
Well, you had been tested at Tulagi and you made it through, so did you feel more confident that you were going to be able to handle that fear?
No, not necessarily. It took another more personal and testing experience when I lost a mate and he should not have died. I -- he was in my place in the line, and that happened on the Matanikau River in early September. And that stays with you as long as you're around. But that experience made me into a much better Marine and made it possible for me to better manage the difficulties.
Well, then Ted, can you describe the landing at Guadalcanal?
Well, we just -- see, that -- we went across, I guess it was the 17th, 18th, 19th of August, from Tulagi to Guadalcanal. And that island had -- they had already made what was our lodgement there for four months. It was about 6 miles long, and at its greatest -- and it was kind of in a -- a radius. At its deepest into the island, I'd guess it was about 2 miles. It was anchored on the east by the -- by a river and on the west by a river. And that's where we were, 6 miles long along the beach. Perhaps at its greatest depth, 2 miles inland from the beach. Kind of in a radius, like a bit of a moon sliver. And that was carved out in the first few days. While we were on Tulagi, that's what they were -- had achieved on Guadalcanal. And within that lodgement was the airfield. And that's what that campaign was all about. It was -- after we -- it was years, in reading. That airfield, if the Japanese had been allowed -- see, that whole thing was just cobbled together, and an example of that was having to unload the ships at Wellington because they had been loaded in reverse for the landing, to show how it was always cobbled together. The practice landing at Fiji was a -- was a -- was a disaster. But we went ahead with it anyway. I mean, they had to go -- because if that airfield had been allowed to operate by the Japanese, they would have been able to have their planes across the supply lines from the U.S. to Australia. They would have been able to cut the supply lines, even to New Zealand. And it would have given them a great staging area to move even further south to Samoa, to Caledonia, New Hebrides, Samoa, Fiji. We were really hanging by a thread in the Pacific at that time. Never realized it, and I don't think that many people did. So we took the airfield, and they wanted it back bad. And they came for it. And that's why the -- they came by air and sea and land. And that's why that campaign was a -- a -- so -- so much for a long time was like a siege. They -- they -- they moved troops into Guadalcanal by the thousands. So that at one time, I think about middle of October to end of October, we had about 20,000 people there, and they had about 25,000. They were overextended. And our Navy recovered so much. I -- there's another part of this story. I had a brother on a -- on the heavy cruiser VINCENNES. The heavy cruiser VINCENNES was part of the invasion fleet. I didn't know it. On the night of August 9, we were on Tulagi. The main landing on Guadalcanal had been successful. They had taken the airfield. It was a surprise. The few Japanese troops there fled into the jungle. The Japanese came down what was called the slot from Rabaul. They were headed by an admiral who was brilliant, named Mikawa. He came down with seven ships to attack the landing. The piece of ocean between Tulagi, Florida islands, Malaysia, others, is about 20 mi -- and Guadalcanal to the south is about 20 miles wide. At the entrance to this 20-mile-wide sound, you might call it, there was a small island like the cap of a bottle called Savo; thus, the tragic, for us, naval battle of August 9 called the Battle of Savo Island. We had four heavy cruisers, the QUINCY, the ASTORIA, the VINCENNES and the Australian cruiser CANBERRA, on patrol at the entrance to this sound of water, this 20-mile-wide, where all of the invasion fleet that had discharged some, not all of its people, not all of its landing force yet, and certainly not much of its supplies. So Mikawa came down to do them harm, and he ran into these -- the first -- to get into the sound, he ran into these four cruisers. And it all began about 12:30. And we were on Tulagi and looked over our right shoulders to the west through the rainsqualls and saw the greatest firework display that one has ever seen. Ships blowing up. Searchlights on. The flash of guns' fire on the ocean. He caught the American cruisers, that's four of them, plus the heavy cruiser CHICAGO, plus two or three destroyers, at complete surprise and in an hour and a half had sunk four of them. About 1500 American sailors died that night, I think. Probably an equal number were wounded. And we saw it all. I mean, we saw it from 15 miles away, 10 miles. You'd see this huge, just satanic kind of fire on the ocean. And we thought that the U.S. Navy of course was kicking their ass. And we did not know until about September 10 or so. We just -- one of our people was at -- where the bulletin board was or the tackboard for division headquarters and came back to our area where we were emplaced and said, you know, we lost that sea battle. We lost four cruisers. The fifth with its bow blown off. Several destroyers.
Did you realize that it was your brother's cruiser?
No, I did not.
When did you find that out?
Well, I knew when the word came back that the VINCENNES was one of them. And I thought he was dead. He survived. He was picked up in the water. And I recently found out what destroyer picked him up the next day. So -- and he thought that I was gone because I was there on the island. And I thought he was gone. And one week before Christmas in 1942, as fate would have it, he recovered from his wounds, and he was put aboard a submarine tender called the FULTON that was tied up in the Brisbane River. That was our northernmost base for submarines. That's how bad it was. Brisbane, northeastern Australia. We had been evacuated from Guadal -- relieved by the Army and put in a -- in a -- in a wet, stinking, hot camp there just west of Brisbane. And I'll be damned. A corpsman came back from having liberty in Brisbane and said that there'd been a fight in a pub where he was, and he found a guy. One guy's name was Cummings. His first name was Edwin. I'll be goddammed. It was my brother. Can you imagine? The -- the humanity of war. The humanity --
That was the first that the two of you knew that each other was alive?
Yeah. Yeah. And so I got a leave. Not only that, I got a -- I had to hitchhike a ride. Officers were all in -- in Brisbane. There were women. There was booze. There was fun and games. The enlisted men were out in this godawful camp. Because it was hot. And we had malaria. Everybody had malaria. It was like a common cold, but for some, it was bad. So I got this word from the corpsman, and I went to the FULTON, the ship the FULTON, that was tied up in the Brisbane River. And we met and sent cables home to our mother and father. And he was married. He did not tell them when he -- that, when he signed up, that he was married or they might not have taken him. Anyway, he didn't tell them. But he sent a cable to his wife. And we had -- let's see. I got a few days off. Five or six. I can't remember any of it except just a few because I was sick as hell and I -- you know, I drank a ton. And it just made -- between being -- the alcohol and malaria, they don't mix. So I was out of it. I don't remember.
But you got to spend those days with your brother.
I did.
Did your parents think that you both had died? What did they --
I'm sure that was in their mind.
Wow. That's pretty incredible.
Yeah, it is. But there are some -- a friend of mine who was a corpsman in the Old Breed too went through some other awful landings in the Pacific that were so little known. A place called Peleliu. So very few people knew about it when it happened. So who the hell is going to know about it when it's over and 70 years have passed? And then on to Okinawa. And he met his brother on field at Okinawa, this corpsman did, who just died. His name was Bert Cooper. And he'd cry often because I think he really -- he took his work very seriously, and I think he had held his share of men as they died. And he'd break down sometimes when we went together to these meetings that I told you about that this fellow who is now -- years and years ago, there were only six or seven of us. And it would get -- there were some personal descriptions of events that would come out. I think that a lot of men -- Well, that's why I admire what you're doing so much because I think that there are many who want to unload. I think that some of the stuff is -- it has a different impact upon everybody because we're all different, but I think there's -- it's like -- it's like a boiler with no relief valve. And that's why you're providing the relief valve. You're doing even more than you know.
Ted, go back to Guadalcanal. And after you had actually witnessed the battle that sunk your brother's ship, although you didn't know it at the time, what transpired after that and how long did you stay on Guadalcanal?
Until December -- about December 10 to 15, we were -- we were relieved. We were there four months. I'll tell you an experience, and then I'll have to go. But this is what it was like there. In the first place, it was a deceit. When we came round Cape Esperance before we -- the task force split and we went to Tulagi and the main force moved to the east toward Guadalcanal, you looked at that island, and it was beautiful. The ridges that were running the length of it seemed smooth and rounded. It was like a deceptive man or woman with beautiful form and color. Once we were there, it was the most diseased place on earth, I think. Everything rotted, including your body. If -- the flies were relentless. The mosquitoes were a terror. And the heat and rain were constant. Every scratch became, on the surface, unless treated -- and there wasn't treatment. The troops of the line in place or in reserve constantly moving, patrols. Constantly moving. And everything rotting. Jungle rot was the order of the day. That's like having athlete's foot or crotch itch magnified by 10 times. Every scratch was infected unless it was -- And -- and -- and it was -- malaria there was -- was of great proportions. We hadn't -- didn't have the quinine. I'm not sure except somebody else had the -- had the market cornered because we didn't have quinine. There was a malarial suppressant that was used called Atabrine that was a little yellow pill, and because the old wives' tale was that it would make you sterile, we wouldn't take it. We'd spit it out until --
So you all got malaria.
Yeah. But finally, we had to take it, and you got malaria anyway. We would take it because the corpsman would literally stand over you and throw it in your mouth, if that was possible, or watch you take -- swallow it. But that was -- you know, that was an old -- that was just backyard gossip. It didn't make you sterile. But it was -- it was a deceitful place. On Friday the 13th, October 13, Friday, 1942, we were in division reserves, and we were bivouacked in the coconut grove. There were beautiful coconut groves there. They were owned by Lever Brothers and BP. BP is familiar initials, isn't it? Burns Phillips. They also owned the coconut groves, and they were extremely big in interisland trading and the ships that did interisland trading of merchandise, of supplies. So we were there in the coconut grove, just a little bit north of the airfield, Henderson Field. Midnight. Two of us had the 12-to-4 watch. He was on one -- we were standing. He was on one side. My mate was on -- or the guy -- I was -- the mate too was on one side of the coconut tree, back up against it, and I was on the other side. And we were on watch over our sleeping mates. Suddenly, there was -- midnight. 12:30 actually. No. 1:30. Suddenly, there was a flash to the north out at sea. I said, "Holy Jesus. What is that?" And it came in. And it came in, whatever it was, the first one. It was truly like an express train. Said, "Holy Jesus. They're shelling from the sea again." We're getting that all the time. But this was huge, the flash and the sound of that thing coming in. We screamed, you know, "Condition red. Everybody in the hole -- in your hole." For the next hour and a half, two Japanese battleships, the KONGO and the HARUNA, cruised in line and bombarded the airfield. It was the prelude to a Japanese land offensive. They threw in 900 and some shells in an hour and a half. You do the arithmetic, and that means one shell every five -- every six seconds. Every six seconds. One, two, three, four, five. They were 14-inch shells. It was the night of the sizzling, the night of the buzzing. The buzzing and the sizzling came from the shrapnel that, you know, just cleaved the air. Sizzling. Hour and a half. Some of the rounds fell short, so that they didn't all make the airfield, and we were to the north of the airfield. At one point, it seemed to be over. And we poked our heads up out of the holes. You looked toward the airfield, and it was all flame, planes burning, fuel burning, men burning, tents burning, everything. Then it started again. It's just that they had reached their easternmost point and were turned and coming back. Jesus. Not many reporters stayed for any time there because there was nothing of interest for them there. And if that wasn't enough, an hour and a half and they were gone, and that would have meant -- let's see. 1:30, 3:00. A couple of hours later, three Japanese cruisers came in and, in an hour, threw in 15 -- 1500 more. These were assorted shells, 4-, 6-, 8-inch. Because the main armament on cruisers is 8-inch. But that's the kind of thing. Bombing, shelling, always moving, looking for them, and they looking for us. And often wet, dirty. Goddamn it. War is an unpleasant thing to be involved in. When I -- when you think what -- what these guys are going through now. They're all volunteers too. And you know, I'm ashamed because the country should be -- if we're going to -- if we're going to be everybody's cop and if we're going to have wars of adventure such as we had in Iraq to really get oil, that's what it was all about, and be dominant there, under cover of getting rid of a tyrant, Hussein, then the country ought to be behind it. The country ought to be as involved in those wars carried on by -- And then you wonder how long they would be going on. But there isn't any of that, and I feel that we're taking -- you can say well, they had -- those men and women volunteered for it.
Ted, I know you have to get back to work, and this might be a good breaking point. We'll end at Guadalcanal, and then we'll resume at another time, if that's okay with you. (Conclusion of Part 1)
Today is September 9, 2010. This is Part 2 of the interview with Ted Cummings in Manchester, Connecticut. Interviewer is Eileen Hurst from Central Connecticut State University. Ted, we had left off with -- you were telling me about the bombing from the sea while you were on Guadalcanal. Now, can we pick up from there and continue?
Sure.
Now, you were just telling me that was actually on a memorable date?
Yes. It was a Friday the 13th. October '42. And it was -- it was followed by heavy bombing the next day and Japanese land attacks from the west across the Matanikau River, that was our western anchor of the small lodgement that we had. And from the south again down what had been called Edson's Ridge.
All right. Now, you -- at this point, you still had time to serve on Guadalcanal. What transpired during the rest of your time on that island?
Some heavy fighting along the Matanikau River. Some heavy fighting to the south. I think one of the most fearful experiences that I had there was going out on night outposts. A hundred, 150 yards in front of the lines, the outpost spotted. Especially to the south and what was then open field before the ridges began, the ridges and the jungle. And they were two-man holes. There wasn't a tinker's chance in hell that you'd get back if the Japanese made a night attack. And that was a fear I had difficulty with every night. There'd be two men in the hole. One would sleep a couple hours. You'd be on -- you'd go out at dusk and come back at dawn. And there was a great deal of patrolling. We seemed always to be moving. I don't remember vast periods of time. What I do remember is like a patch here and there in a blanket or a quilt, something of significance. I remember the morning or a morning shortly after that heavy night shelling, which wasn't unusual. We were often shelled or quite often shelled at night, but never by two battleships followed by three or four cruisers. Usually it was some cruisers, destroyers, submarines. And then they got land art -- they landed land artillery. They landed artillery, rather, and began shelling us from the land, shelling the airstrip. But anyone who was anywhere near the airstrip, whether in the coconut groves that you saw there in that -- that picture in the Life magazine. Their -- their aim wasn't the best, and those shells fell in unusual places. They were firing their version of about the 155-millimeter. That was our largest land-based piece of artillery. Theirs were really Howitzers. And they were firing them more to be an aggravation and to create fear and disrupt everything onto the -- onto the airstrip. Their aim wasn't the important thing. It was just to upset and keep us unsettled. And they were sure successful in that. There was fighting and all. And then in -- in November, there was a great sea battle that took place. Again, you'll see Savo Island that you're familiar with. Well, in that strait between Guadalcanal and Tulagi and Gavutu and Tanambogo and Florida, there was this great sea battle, November -- I think it was November -- something 8, 9, 10. Something like that. Went on for a couple days and a couple of nights and a third day. And our Navy prevailed. The Japanese lost the battleship, the HEI. You know, we could see that -- this action took place at night. And you could see. I mean, you could just -- you'd see this tremendous flashes and -- and we got to be able to determine what was lightning on the horizon and what were gun flashes, and to differentiate between thunder and the -- the gunfire roll, the roll of the -- the echo and the reverberations of that. That was a big win for our Navy. And the WASHINGTON, the battleship WASHINGTON participated. I just know this. We knew nothing.
What was your reaction as Marines on the shore?
We were just -- we just knew that, Jesus, there was really hell going on out there.
You couldn't tell who was winning or --
No, we didn't. I told you way at the very beginning, the night of August 9 in the Battle of Savo Island, that's a story worth reading about the boldness of the Japanese commander Mikawa. That's when -- if he had continued, he'd have knocked out all -- the whole invasion fleet. As it was, he took down four -- four cruisers, and my brother's was one of them. The VINCENNES. That's -- so they were really in more or less command of the sea. And it was all -- The ships that brought the raiders up and that took us to Tulagi and that took us from -- ferried us from Tulagi to Guadalcanal somewhere around the 17th, 18th of August, they were all gone. They were all down within a month of the landing. Those four World War I cut-down destroyers to transport, fast transport of the raiders, there was the GREGORY, the COLHOUN, the McKEAN and the LITTLE. And they were all gone in about a month or five weeks. Anyway, there was a lot of action that took place after the shelling, and it tapered off at the end of -- about the third week in -- for us, about the third, fourth week in November. And the Army relieved us about the 10th to 15th of December, '42.
So you were actually there almost four months?
We were. A little over four months.
On Guadalcanal? Wow, that must have been pretty stressful. You must have been thrilled to finally be leaving. What was your -- do you remember your feelings at the time?
You know, honestly, all I remember -- and I think this is fairly accurate. We were pretty -- I'm not sure I can find the right words. We were pretty -- a combination of being stoic, just feeling whatever comes, comes. We'll handle it. We got no place to go. And I think I said to you once before, Eileen, all this baloney about for God and country is just that. We were just -- we were just -- we tried to stay alive. That was no. 1, for us, you, me. And then once that is accomplished, it's for -- it's for everybody. It's for the next guy because you can't -- you can't -- because you need him as he needs you. And then the sense of what I think you would call, and I've had a hard time finding this, but it's come, and that's honor to -- to accept your responsibilities and your obligations to the unit, to yourself, to be worthwhile, to fill -- to fill your shoes with merit.
Ted, when the Army relieved you, where did you go?
We boarded ship and went to Australia.
And was that for the purpose of some R&R?
We were there for I think about nine months. And the division was pretty sick.
Where did you go in Australia?
First to Brisbane, a camp outside of Brisbane. And it was an awful place. It was in a swamp, and it was -- for a division that was loaded with malaria, it was a bad place to be. The division surgeon came down to that camp one day, and we were gone 10 days later. He said, "You've got to get these guys the hell out of there." So -- Because honestly, the officers all went to Brisbane. We were 30 or 40 miles outside of Brisbane. No transport except that which you could thumb from the Army. And we drank everything and sent out foraging parties during the day. It was like Coxey's bonus Army. And we had loaded weapons. And we were -- we were the closest thing to an armed rabble as -- as Marines could be. So they --
Now, did you -- was it a camp and were there barracks or --
It was a -- it was a camp and tents. And it was wet, and it was in -- in junglelike conditions. And that was December. Hot -- that's the Australian winter. So we were in pretty poor shape, and they -- and we got aboard ship and went to a beautiful place, Melbourne. And we were there for -- we were there until late November, December '43. And the division was rebuilt, and it was correctly called our bacchanalia. It -- you have to under -- we have a little bit of background. The Australian divisions had been in North Africa. Great fighters, those people. Whew. Boy. They came home one division, was only home for a month, and they sent them north to New Guinea. So their girls hadn't seen young men for a long time. And so we were welcomed. We were welcomed also as their savior because that's what they viewed -- right or wrong, that's what they viewed, stopping the -- the Japanese advance there on the Solomons. Beautiful, beautiful country. Jesus. They treated us just beautiful. But when the Aussies came home, you know, from the -- from the mid-east and found many of their women, their girls, with Americans, there were some bad times until they shipped -- they shipped the Australians north again to New Guinea. And there was quite a few marriages between Aussies and Marines.
On Melbourne, where did you stay? Was it --
We were in a camp about 30, 40 miles south of Melbourne at a place called Mount Martha. It was right on -- it's hilly country. Pretty. It was a former Australian Army camp. Fine barracks. And it was right on what reminded me -- reminded many of us, like -- it was like the Connecticut shoreline, Lyme, Niantic, that kind of place. And right outside our camp was a little town called Frankston. And there was a hotel there, and it was -- and a pub or two or three and ice cream places and shops. And the train stopped just a few miles away, the train that ran to -- to Melbourne.
Now, in this time that you were at both Brisbane and Melbourne, did you have duties, military duties, or were you basically on leave and free to come and go as you --
No.
-- pleased?
No. When we got to Melbourne and after maybe three, four weeks of getting settled in, they immediately began to rebuild the division. Replacements came from the States, and we began the usual drill and then field exercises. But for the most part, honestly, Eileen, for several months, three, four months, that was pretty modest. And we were given a hell of a lot of leave. Then the division was rebuilt. We began a lot of field stuff. We boarded ship in late November/early December of '43 and started north again.
Did you know where you were going?
I don't recall knowing where we were going until we were -- no. We -- remember we landed at a place called Oro Bay for some exercises. And then I think we learned we were going to Cape Gloucester, which was on New Britain Island, which was north of New Guinea. And at that time, the Old Breed was under Douglas MacArthur. We didn't like him much. There was a -- there was a song that came out of Guadalcanal that was sung to the tune of the "Road to Mandalay." "On the road to Gizo Bay, where the Jap flotilla lay, we know they'll soon be coming 'cross Iron Bottom Bay. Take me somewhere east of Lunga, where the best ain't like the worst, where there ain't no Doug MacArthur and a Marine can slake his thirst." On the road to Gizo Bay -- Gizo Bay was a place where the Japanese staged to the northeast, up in the Russell Islands or up at Kolombangara, Vella Lavella, somewhere up there. Maybe in the Russells or -- no. New Georgia, I think. A long chain of islands going all the way up to Rabaul. Anyway, that showed that we didn't like MacArthur too much. But we were under him, and so we -- he wanted that island neutralized, I guess. We didn't like him also because, understand, we were going north to land again, and we were aboard ship at Christmastime. You know "I'll Be Home for Christmas"? They were playing those songs over the intercom. And there was a lot of sentiment, longing to be home, thinking that we might have gone home, and of course it was all laid off on MacArthur, under whose command we were. Unfairly. But we landed up at Cape Gloucester. I think it was a couple days after Christmas. Forty --
Must have been '43.
'43. And that began that campaign that in itself lasted another four months. That was a more -- it was not as diseased as the Solomons, but in all honesty, that was a more primeval place.
So after you'd already been in Guadalcanal for four months, you now landed at Cape Gloucester and were there for --
When we were there --
-- the next four months? What was the landing like?
The landing was -- was -- was easy. There was no -- no opposition. We overran an airstrip and gave MacArthur the airstrip as his Christmas gift. There was an in -- one thing I recollect. We'd run across this or taken this airstrip. And it really wasn't much. It was -- it was like a dirt strip. There were all kinds of Japanese aircraft parked along it, shot all to hell. I don't think the strip was much used, if at all. And we'd taken the strip. We'd run across it. And we were in a line of skirmishers, and we were on the far side of the strip, on the island side of the strip, not the -- not the water side of the strip. And at that time, I was a rifleman. And we had, in Australia, been issued the new Garand rifle, the rapid -- the gas-fired.
So you didn't use the BAR anymore?
No. I had -- I'd made corporal in Australia. So I had a squad.
So was it the Garand M1?
Yes. And I'd disassembled the M1, my rifle, because it was full of dirt and mud and sand. And then all of a sudden, the mortars started coming in. Small mortars, but they were walking them up along the edge of the strip. And we sensed that. We had to get the hell out of there. But my rifle, the springs and the bolts and everything were in my lap. So I scooped them up in my hand and took off and just hoped the hell I wouldn't drop anything.
Or need to fire it.
And -- and we got off the strip and into the -- into the jungle and in a ditch or a cut somewhere. And I literally put that piece together from memory. Fast-forward a year -- let's see. That was '43. Fast-forward -- '43, '44. Six months. Training replacements. Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. I can remember pleading, persuading, the need -- and this is what I know we did for those replacements. You see, when we were assigned, we came home in the summer of '44 and we wanted to get assigned to a Navy yard someplace, you know, where you get the city, the liberty, the booze, the women, the steaks and the eggs and all that stuff. And we got assigned Camp Lejeune, training replacements. Eileen, we thought we were the world assholes because we were a -- that wasn't true. After a bit, we realized that we could help these kids. We could teach them to crawl lower. We could teach them all the uses of their helmet, which wasn't just on their head. We could teach them the use of different stuff to help combat chiggers and ticks and all -- And we could teach them -- and this is -- I can remember. I used to blindfold them time after time. You've got to -- and strip their weapon down. Now you put it together. And I remembered running with the -- with the guts of that weapon in my hand, with the mortars coming down close to our rear, and -- and literally putting it together as I had been taught. And I can remember with those replacements, they used to think that was a bunch of baloney. I said, "You guys don't understand. You're going to put this thing together if you have to stay here until midnight because it may save your ass sometime." And after a while, I really think -- and I don't think this is sentiment. I think that those guys that we were training to go over as replacements, places in -- in the fifth and sixth divisions that went to Iwo and Okinawa, that just maybe we helped them a little bit. And we didn't feel like the world dunderheads after a bit because we --
Because I'm sure you helped save many lives with that training.
We taught them to shoot straight. (laughter)
(laughter) Go back to Cape Gloucester. Now, after you're running with your rifle in pieces in your hand, what happened then?
We were -- I don't remember. There's a big blank sometime. The next thing I recall there was -- I don't know whether that was day three, four, five, six. We were at the foot of this very small but steep hill. And we were lying at the foot of it behind in the scrub. And the hill was naked. Just a few stumps remained. The trees had been destroyed by shelling. The earth was a reddish yellow color, and it was -- it was slippery as hell because it had been raining on and off there. Heavy, heavy, monsoon-like rains. And one or two of our guys were hit and either walked or crawled to the rear. The word came from below we had to take that hill. And our guys said, "Bullshit. We're not going up that hill. There's no cover. We'll get -- there's no cover." So I was a squad leader. Had to take the hill. I don't know. I'm not into stuff that's much, but I knew we had to go. So I ran along behind our squad. And some of the other men too, not our squad, but others, were kicking them in the -- in the boots, in the soles of their shoe. "We've got to go, you know." "We're not going to go. You go." I said, "We're going up the hill because we've got to go. That's all." So I said -- after running twice along the line of them, kicking them in the shoes and saying, "Come on. We've got to go," I said to the guy next to me. "Look. We've got to go. When I get up and start to the left, you get up and go to the right. Just do it, and they'll all come." And we did.
And did they come?
And they all came. They all came, not only our squad and extended, but the next squad to the left did, followed our lead. We went up the hill. It was hard. And we got to the top. Half of it was so steep. I reckon that hill must have been almost 30, maybe 30 degrees, 30, 40 degrees. And it was wet and slick, hot. We got to the top, and people just slumped down. We got sorted out, and I had them form a kind of perimeter. And we just lay there. And I'll be goddammed. Just -- we must have been there an hour. Nothing happened. No word from below. Nothing. The word came up. "Okay. Come down the hill. We're moving out to another place." The unexplainables of -- of war. The next thing I remember -- I don't remember home. I got typhus, scrub typhus. Gloucester was a place that rained constantly. And then the sun would come out, and everything would steam. It's just like the heat that we have had this summer. We were patrolling in these kunai grass fields. The kunai grass was 6 -- 6 feet or so high. Very, very hot. It was only about seven points off the equator, I think. That's hot. We'd roll up our pants, threw the leggings away. We were supposed to wear them. We learned there was a reason for them. But to be cooler, we'd throw the leggings away and roll up the pants, you know. The kunai grass fields were full of rodents. The rodents carried lice, fleas, mites. They carried what was called ty -- what was -- there'd been a patrol out, and they came back with some captured Japanese officers' papers. And I know the scuttlebutt was there's a strange disease here called scrub typhus that's bad. Well, I got it. About seven of us got it. And your temperature skyrockets, a hundred and five. You don't last long at a hundred and five. It just burns everything. The headaches were enormous, and you broke out into a rash, kind of like scarlet fever. Anyway, I just don't know for a long period of time what happened. I came to in a beautiful iron bed with sheets. I do remember one time in the bowels of that --
Where?
That was in Milne Bay, Aus -- New Guinea. I'd been evacuated. And I do recall once coming -- coming to while in this LST and sur -- I was all off by myself because that's a highly contagious disease. And the rest of the wounded and sick, but I wondered, "Why am I isolated?"
So the next thing you recall --
No. There was -- I came to in this -- in this bed. And shortly thereafter, honest, Eileen, this is one of the most beautiful recollections of the -- a nurse appeared. And I can see her to the day like I'm sitting across from you. Her arms were open. She said, "Ted, Ted, you're awake. We thought we lost you." Can you imagine? You don't forget something like that. It was just -- just absolutely --
So that was a hospital back in Australia?
No. It was a hospital. It was an Army hospital in Milne Bay, New Guinea. The Aussies had held Milne Bay from the Japanese. And MacArthur was pushing the Japanese back up the island of New Guinea to the north -- to the west and this -- this fine hospital. Anyway, after I recovered, and it was a long recovery, the officer in charge called me in one day and said, "You know, Ted, we're going to send you home. You don't have to go back up there." He didn't call -- he said, "You know, Cummings, we're going to send you home. You don't have to go back up there." He said, "You've -- you've" -- I guess he said, "You've done enough. You can go home." Jeez, you know, I was -- whew. Go home? This was sometime -- must have been in February of '44.
How long did you stay at the hospital --
I was there about five, six weeks. I said to him, I said, "Sir, you know, I've just got to think about that." He said, "Come back in the morning. We'll send you home." But you know, Eileen, I thought to myself, "Jesus, I can't do that." All those guys that I was with that have been through hell of a lot more than me, and I -- I couldn't go home when I could go back. So I went back the next day, and I said, "I just can't do that." So they sent me back up, and I joined the unit again.
Back on Camp Gloucester --
Yeah.
-- Cape Gloucester?
At this time, they had moved way up the coast in a blocking position across the trail to intercept the Japanese that were coming, that were moving east, trying to get to their bases to the east. And when I get back, they said, "What the hell are you -- you're a -- you're the biggest fool that was ever born, to come back up here." You know, they just -- "you're such" --
I'll bet they were glad to see you, though. So you returned here, same unit --
Yeah.
-- and same buddies --
Yeah.
-- and same position?
The same people. And just one last story that I do recall. I think they were testing -- I said to you before the Marine Corps has a way of doing that. I guess all services do. They test the devil out of you. So they'd send me out on patrols to set up ambushes to catch these Japanese -- remnants of the Japanese, that they had been demolished back there at Cape Gloucester. And so this position on this place called Talasea on the Willaumez Peninsula jutting up out of the north coast of New Britain Island was across the main trail. And you've got to understand, these are primitive places, these islands. The islands of New Britain and New Guinea and all of those whole Solomon Island chain down to Guadalcanal and on to New -- the New Hebrides and New Caledonia that were French possessions, some of them. And they, like New -- New Caledonia. And they were a little bit more developed. Anyway, we went out with a squad one day. This one, I recollect. And we came to this native village. We were sent out to -- to find any other trails and to set up ambushes in hopes of catching some Japanese soldiers coming out. The commanding officer said, "We want prisoners. Get me some prisoners." We came to this opening in the jungle, and there was a village in this jungle. The jungle was very, very heavy. And there were maybe a half a dozen huts, grass huts up on stilts with, you know, rickety wooden stairs going to the opening. But there was nobody in the village. It was empty. So I -- we knew something -- something was up. This village was plainly occupied, but there was nobody there. So -- and the trail ran out from it, going west. So I said to another guy, "You come with me, and we will go in this one." I sent two other guys to begin. And we were going to look into each one of these huts. We sent the other men out in a kind of -- of perimeter for defense. And we began to go in these huts. And we went in -- the very first one, we went in. And jeez, we -- the door was closed. We kicked open the door and went in. And there sitting on the table like an ancient Japanese holy man was this -- this Japanese sitting there, cross-legged on this table with a sack, a cloth over him. And he had a -- and he was bearded. And his hands were up, and in one of his hands was a rusted -- it looked like a sickle. "Jesus," I said to the other fellow. We looked around. He was the only person in the -- I said, "I'm going to knock that sickle out of -- that blade out of his hand." I said, "If he comes after me, you just shoot him." I said, "For Christ sakes, make sure your aim is right because" -- So we motioned -- knocked it out of his hand, motioned get off. Get off the table. Get down. He did. Strange. About this time, I heard a lot of shouting outside. "Kill 'em, kill 'em," we heard. So we moved out quickly with the guy in front of us, this Japanese shuffling. Outside, saw men raising their weapon, one in particular, almost up to his shoulder. Looked off to the left, there were these two natives, and in between was a naked Japanese. You could see -- he was about from here to the end of this building, covered with sores. "Kill 'em, kill 'em. Shoot the gooks too," because that's what they called -- at that time, I knew less than I know now, which is -- doesn't say much, but English -- American superiority, we called everyone who wasn't like us "gooks" because we didn't know any better. We were fools. Okay. That's -- "Kill 'em, kill 'em. Kill the gooks too." Started across from the shack, across the clearing, and these guys were raising their rifles. And I think I said to them Eileen, "Goddamn it. You shoot him and I'm going to shoot you. Put those down. Put those weapons down," because I knew our mission was to get prisoners. Here was a prisoner. Nothing heroic about that. Here's a prisoner. And I said to one of the guys, "Throw a poncho over that poor bastard." And at this time, the two natives just melted away into the jungle, and that poor thing was standing there. So the guy went up, dropped the poncho over him. We took him and the other fellow that had come out of the -- a hut and three of our people. I said, "You get these two guys back to the captain. He wanted prisoners. Now we've got two. If they give you any trouble, shoot them. If not, you get them back there. And no -- no faking. You get them back, really get prisoners." And the rest of us went -- and they went off. And the rest of us went down the trail and set up an ambush. And when I got back, I recall a fierce guy, hell of a fighter. Jesus. His name was Red Mike Mitchell. No -- yeah. He said to me, "You -- goddamn you." He said, "You SOB. Why did you bring those people back here? They're just taking food out of our mouth. Why didn't you kill them?" He meant it, you know, of course. He wasn't -- So they got on me pretty fierce for a while. And I just let it go. The captain wanted prisoners. He got a couple.
Was that towards the end of your time at Cape Gloucester?
Mm-hmm.
What do you recall of Cape Gloucester after that?
I don't. I just know we did more patrolling, and finally we -- I remember the rains were very heavy there. It seemed to always be wet. And we were evac -- we were relieved from -- from -- from New Britain Island sometime in -- I guess about April. Or May rather. And --
This was May of '44?
Yeah. And moved off to the Russell Islands. And can you imagine this? We were shipped -- transported back to the Russell Islands for rehabilitation. And we got -- they sent us back to this -- another -- a place. We couldn't believe it when we got ashore. There was nothing there except -- they put us in a coconut grove that stunk from rotting coconuts. Nothing. We had to build the camp, clean the coconuts, erect the tents. It was -- it was just typical. It was typical Marine Corps.
How long were you on this -- at this camp for R&R?
I was fortunate to be one of those who -- there must have been a lottery. I don't know how -- how we were chosen to go home, but I was one of those that was chosen to --
Fairly early on?
Mm-hmm.
What were the casualties, do you recall, on Cape Gloucester? For your unit?
No, I don't. The casualties were not too heavy for the whole division on -- I think only maybe about 500. That is killed. I don't know about wounded. I really don't.
Ted, before we go on, now you get shipped home back to the United States, and before we continue with what life was like back there, I want to ask you some questions about daily life while you were both on Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester. When you were overseas and in the field like that, how did you stay in touch with your family?
V-mail. There was a -- a small form that was -- that was issued, as I remember -- and I may be wrong. V-mail. Small -- seems to me it was one of these self- mailing things, where you -- you could send a short note. And it was supposed to get through more quickly. Or you could write a little longer letter. But you couldn't say much because they were heavily censored. So you sent back letters about "pretty warm here" and "things are going okay" and "could be better." This, you know, kind of thing.
Did you receive mail while you were out in the field?
I don't remember. I'm sure we did. I don't remember. Just as an aside to show you, to go back to the -- to the girl, my mother knew how intense we were. When we got to New Zealand in June of '42, she sent me a letter that was in effect a Dear John letter. She said, "I thought that you should see this clipping." It was a clipping about this girl's marriage to this other fellow.
This was a girl you had been dating?
Yeah. And she sent me this announcement of her engagement or marriage or something. And we were in a New Zealand camp. This was prior to going north to the Solomons to Guadalcanal and Tulagi and those places. So that was pretty much of a shock. However, I think that I rationalized that pretty well. I said what the hell? Pretty girl. Liked to make love. Wanted to be -- wanted to be wanted. Wanted to be looked after. Wanted company. Liked to laugh. What the hell? I don't know what's going to happen to me. I can't -- can't blame her for that. I think I -- I think I actually handled it that way. I like to think I did anyway, but my mother sent me that -- that clipping. And just this past week, I went over to Borders Books, and I got a disk of Vera Lynn. Now, Vera Lynn was a British songstress who was so revered in Britain and in the whole commonwealth during the war, that she was -- I don't know. She became Dame Vera Lynn. And I remember her singing "White Cliffs of Dover," "When the lights go on again, we'll meet again," in both Australia and then a year later after the Solomon Islands, when we were rebuilding in Australia. So I got her -- I'd heard on television that Dame Vera had a release of these songs and that in Britain, they had outsold the Beatles releases. Well, that's a great deal of sentiment there. She was strictly a British songstress. Very little feeling. That's Britain. That's a lot of the British model. And -- but she so expressed in their typical way the feelings of the time, that they stay. I'm glad that I was able to get that.
Ted, what was the food like? Both on Guadalcanal and then Cape --
There wasn't much of it. Most of the time, we had two meals a day. I honestly don't remember -- the number of hot meals, I can barely remember. We lived mostly on canned rations. That was pork and beans. Little cans like the -- hash. Beef stew. Crackers. This is before there were those balanced diets that were put out in all the boxes and all that stuff. It was pretty fundamental. Coconuts. Captured -- if we hadn't had the captured Japanese rice, we'd have been in deep crap. Stuff didn't get in to us. There was a -- Guadalcanal was a siege. We took the place. They wanted it back. They came after it. They'd built an airfield. They wanted it back. They tried to get it back. For a while, through the middle of October, through that -- that time of the -- the battleship shelling, it was all hit and run, hit or miss, for stuff coming in there. Though there were some places where they were getting three meals a day and others were getting two hot, but the troops of the -- the troops of the line, always moving, work parties, patrolling, digging in deeper to protect yourself from the land shelling, the sea shelling, the constant bombing. Water was from the streams or from the lister bags. We lived out -- cooked out of our helmets and all this stuff, heating up the can. I don't re -- I don't think I'm over -- we didn't have a hell of a lot of food. And only for a while. A couple of -- August, September. Most of October. That's why it was -- with the intense heat and the -- and the -- the movement, always on the go. It wasn't any surprise that you lost 20, 25 pounds. So guys that went in at 125 came out at 100. That's -- that's how it was with men.
What about other supplies? Things like ammunition, clothing?
We had the ammunition. Thank -- we had the artillery and the ammunition, and we had those planes on the unsinkable aircraft carrier. Those guys are -- those flyboys were something. Something. Whew. Jesus.
Ted, did you do anything special for good luck?
No. But we did something special. Every night that we could, Walter Stowers, who was a corporal, big 6 foot, 2 or 3, Polish guy from Holyoke, thin as a rail, very quiet. When he said something, you'd better listen up. We'd sit on the ground with our backs against the coconut log and play a game. "You know this one, Walter?" And I'd hum or whistle, "Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah." And the melody. And Walter would say, "Oh, I know that one. That's Ted Williams. Perry Como is the singer. And Elmo Tanner is the whistler in this particular song, which just comes to mind. "My Silent Love" was the name of it. From the '30s, you know, the late '30s. "Okay. Your turn, Walter." And then he'd sing something, and I'd -- we'd play those games. And those -- and we'd play them for maybe half an hour, smoke a couple of cigarettes, and that would be it. But it would be not -- often enough so that they became meaningful. That was a -- that was a real chunk of back home transported through the music and the -- the feeling, the naturalness of it.
Ted, how did you handle the pressure and the stress of the combat?
I learned through the death of a friend, of which I was somewhat responsible, and the fact that I had been cowardly for a few seconds, to see that, to recognize it for what it was, a great flaw in myself. And his death gave me the strength to manage fear. And I became a better person for it. Took them up the hill. It was always the fear, that sweeping fear that -- from the groin up through your trunk. And you had to -- it was -- it was there. And you had to manage that. Not going to go away. You had to manage it. To do. And that's what you did.
What did you do for entertainment other than sing to each other and try to figure out --
That's all.
That was basically it?
We had nothing to -- honest, Eileen. I don't -- you mentioned more clothes. We wore the clothes out. And then we'd get -- I don't know where the hell we got the other clothes.
Did you ever get to see any USO shows while you were overseas?
Not on places like Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester, New Britain Island. In the Russells, after -- after the second campaign in New Britain, when our camp that we -- that's the place we went, the stinking, rat-infested coconut grove. We made it into something neat. Bob Hope, Frances Langford and Jerry Colonna came. And Les Brown and his Band of Renown. That was really some -- I thought the island was going to sink. There were so many guys on that hillside. Jesus. Bob Hope, Jerry Colonna, Frances Langford. She was -- That's what made Vera Lynn the -- she went -- Vera Lynn, the British singer, she went where the troops were, not only in Europe. India, Burma. Well, it was -- that was -- that was the one USO show that I remember.
Do you recall any particularly humorous or unusual events?
Yeah. One night, Walter Soares and I were playing that game. All of a sudden, we heard a dull roar. And we both looked over toward the airfield. We were bivouacked in the -- the coconut grove that you --
Now, was this in -- where was this?
This was on Guadalcanal, and we were bivouacked in the coconut grove that was just north of the airstrip as division reserve. Jesus. We saw these two-engine Japanese aircraft coming in very, very low. This was just at twilight. Said, "Jesus. What the hell is that?" And Walter said, "It can't be. It can't be." You could count them. They were coming in from the west, very low. Two-engine aircraft? Holy smokes. And flying over them and performing all kinds of maneuvers was this Japanese zero float plane. The zero model. The others, biplanes. 18, we counted. And they came in and bombed the Jap -- and bombed Henderson Field. Then turned and went over Iron Bottom Sound, turned to your left and -- and started back toward their base which was up at Gizo Bay, take me somewhere up in that area. Untold. Two-engine aircraft. Do you realize that -- they were very good airplane. Very maneuverable, but awful slow. And we -- we were so amazed that that happened and how they ever got in. Well, because our planes, a few were on night patrol, and they were way, way gone. I don't know how they ever -- 18 two-winged aircraft with a Japanese zero float plane jacking and jigging all over the place, and they bombed. And as they turned, every guy on the ground, I think, whatever weapon they could get, whether it was a .45 or the '03, began firing up, just to relieve the tension. You had no more chance to -- to hit them. And the Japanese zero float plane strafed us. It was -- that was almost -- that was a humorous -- that was something that shouldn't have happened. And it -- it did. I -- I don't remember too many things that made me smile on that island.
Ted, what did you think of officers and of fellow Marines?
They were extraordinary. I was lucky in that circumstance to be with -- to be with them. We had good officers. I'll tell you another story about an officer. The humanness of war that happens so unexpectedly. We had spent the night on the spur of a ridge, Japanese dead all around us. The stench was unbelievable. In the morning when we left that place, we went down a very steep ravine, crossed the stream, up the other side, out of the jungle and onto a ridge. We formed in skirmishers and faced to the north. The fight was going on below us. Heavy smoke everywhere. Heavy sound of fighting. We were behind the Japanese. We'd cut them off. The commanding officer sat on an ammunition box off to our left. All of a sudden -- and -- and we were on this ridge and with all the scrub growth down. And then you could see -- you could see the Iron Bottom Sound and the trail, the east-west trail that ran the length of the island alongside that. Suddenly saw a Japanese soldier running. Was close enough so that you could see that his uniform was fresh. And he had leggings on. And he was wearing a prize. He was wearing the Japanese slicker, the Japanese -- we had ponchos. They had light raincoats. They were -- they were a prize to get. I raised the BAR. I figured if I led him -- led him by just a little bit, that I could take him. And sitting, as I said, on this ammunition box was the commanding officer. I knew his name. His name was Lou Walt. He was a major. Louis Walt went on to become commandant of the Marines in Vietnam. Eileen, I think he never was a favorite, I don't believe, of a lot of the Marine brass. I think he was -- he was very careful about the lives of his men. And this little thing that I'm going to tell you what happened indicates that to me. Just bringing up that BAR, if I can get off a burst of maybe three and bring him down. Understand, he was the last man running. Walt said, "Put it down, son. You'll have a lot of time for that. There'll be plenty of time for that." And he let him go. He was the last man running. We killed every one of those people in that pocket, about 300, 350 Japanese that we got behind. And they were -- other units were pushing them from the front. "Put it down, son. There'll be plenty of time for that." Now, you say so what? Commanding officer of this unit, you know. It wasn't kill, kill, kill. Last man out. The last man out. He was running back to -- to -- because the -- all to the left, all to the west, that was Japanese stuff. They'd -- that was a place called the Point Cruz pocket.
Let's pick up where you return home to the United States. Did you have any leave before you were assigned to Camp Lejeune?
Yes. Yeah.
So you were able to come home?
In the summer -- it was in July -- You know, holy smoke. I really got to go back.
Shall we break here?
Yeah. I'll go. (Conclusion of Part 2)
Today is September 22, 2010. This is Part 3 of a three-part interview with Ted Cummings from Manchester, Connecticut. Interviewer is Eileen Hurst from Central Connecticut State University. Ted, at the last session, we left off where you had returned home to the United States, and you were stationed at Camp Lejeune. So let's talk about your experience at Camp Lejeune. How did it feel after being in combat for those many, many months in those different campaigns to come back to the United States?
It was a great feeling to come home, and it was just -- sailing underneath the -- the San Francisco Bay Bridge brought the -- just thundrous cheer from everybody -- everybody on board. And to come home was -- and enjoy the 30-day leave was something that one finds hard to describe. But when we were posted to Camp Lejeune to train the replacement battalions, we felt that we had really a -- we must be the world's worst Marines because we knew that we were being posted to a place where we'd be right back in the bush again with all the chiggers and -- and all the mites and all the fevers and -- and just more of the same. And we wondered what we had done to draw that kind of duty. And for -- you know, we wanted a -- a post at a Navy yard, at an ammunition dump, someplace near the best of liberty.
So that was a disappointment to get --
A great disa -- and we thought we were -- that we were the -- the rear ends of creation in the eyes of the Marine Corps. But as it turned out, that was not so. And I don't believe that it was made up in our minds as a compensation to our feelings, as a offset, because the -- the men we were training, anywhere from age 17 to 30, after a bit with us, a week or two, they began to listen. And we found that they were giving us, most of them, a great deal of respect because of where we had been. And those that didn't, we took delight in coming down as hard as possible on them to make it -- make them realize that what we were trying to instill in them is not something that you'd get from a book or basic training, but something that might save their butts in more difficult times.
So your only responsibility was to train these new young recruits?
And they were going to such places as Okinawa, maybe Iwo, the -- and the occupation of Japan, China. There was one thing I recollect that I may have mentioned earlier. There was that incident with me that was half laugh, half a laugh and -- and actually quite serious, that happened at the landing at Cape Gloucester, when we had taken the cow pasture that was supposedly a airstrip. And that had happened a couple days after Christmas in 1943. And we were on the edge of this airfield. It's a strip that we had run over in a line of skirmishes, and the jungle was on one side and the strip that was littered with disabled and destroyed Japanese planes. It didn't look like that strip had been really used for a long time. And then all of a sudden, the mortars started coming in. And it was plain that the mortars that were first landing to our left were being walked up along the strip in a methodical way. So we knew we had to get the hell out of there. But at that time, I'd taken apart the guts of my rifle because it was full of dirt and mud and -- because that was a wet, dirty place and hot. And all of this happened very quickly. So we ran to get to the jungle, to get off the edge of the strip, get -- looking for cover. And this -- all of the moving parts of the rifle were in my hand and -- because no one was expecting the incoming shower of small mortar fire. And when we found cover in a ditch at the edge of the jungle, away from the strip, had to put that piece together quick and not drop any springs or other parts. Well, fast-forward to the replacement training. One of the things that I found satisfying was we'd blindfold these guys and make them strip their piece. This is an old thing. This is something that they'd get in boot camp. But we did it in -- in a different way. We put them in ditches and thickets and all this stuff with -- with their pieces in their hand and that -- with the pieces of the rifle, the moving parts in their hand. And that came from that experience. And at first, they just -- they really didn't like it. They thought this was foolish. But then when the story was told to them, it began to sink in that this might be a good thing to do. And they listened up, and they did it well. It took a few times. The story had to be told a few times with some emphasis, but --
(laughter) What other lessons had you learned in the field that you could instill in these new young recruits that were going to go over into combat? Besides to assemble their rifle.
That you had to do what you were told to do, and the same way with the man on the right and on the left. That although crawling with your body just as -- practically in the ground through the mud and the crap off Onslow Beach at Camp Lejeune was -- they just wondered why. They'd better get used to it because that's the way it was -- that's a very strong possibility of where they were going and the conditions where they were going. And you might as well get a taste of it in as real time, making it as real as possible because just maybe you'd learn to stay down and -- Because I remember a time on a beach next to the Matanikau River on Guadalcanal where we were pinned to the beach, trying to get across the river, and every time a man raised up a foot, he went down because the Japanese on the other side of the river with their Nambus and maybe one heavy machine gun were grazing over that beach like a cow grazes for grass. And so in the bush at Camp Lejeune in 1945, we tried to make them understand that getting down meant getting way down.
What was a typical day like for you at Camp Lejeune?
Well, up at -- I don't know -- 5:30, I guess, 6. Breakfast. Then off, 5-mile, 10-mile, 20-mile hikes. Days in the bush. Landings on Onslow Beach. Everything that replicated war and being strong, strong of body. And hoped also that we could make them understand that they really were dependent upon one another.
How long were you at Camp Lejeune training recruits?
I think I was there almost a year because I was there when -- at VJ Day and mustered out a short time after that, as the back of that photo I gave you showed.
Do you recall VJ Day?
No, I really don't. I just know -- I just recall, I believe, what a happy time it was and that I think all -- all -- all duties were called off that day. But I'm not sure. I don't recall.
What was your impression of the recruits? Now that you had gone back, you weren't a young recruit yourself. You were a hardened combat veteran. That must have felt a lot different than when you were training.
It did feel different. You had -- you had a feeling that -- besides wanting to -- to try to make them do whatever exercises we were going through better, you couldn't help but have a feeling that they were going to go to some bad places. Yet, and you hated to think of them being killed or wounded badly. That -- because you got attached to some of them because of the feeling of respect that they gave you. That was one of the very unusual things that occurred in that infantry training regiments duty, that -- that they showed a respect for people who had been there. I was married at the time too. Got married in April of '45.
After you came back?
Mm-hmm.
Did your wife live with you on base?
We found a place to live, a lot of us did. A little town called -- right across the street from a huge Army antiaircraft base called Camp Davis. Holly Ridge was the name of that town. We visited, stopped there one time when we drove to Florida, way back in the '50s or '60s, just to see how -- Did you ever see the film The Last Picture Show?
No.
Well -- and anyway, Holly Ridge seemed to come right out of that movie, The Last Picture Show, which was a very sensitive film. And maybe it was 20 miles from Camp Lejeune. And they'd provide transportation back and forth, you know, in trucks at all different hours. So we lived in an apartment at Holly Ridge. We were married in April of '45. And I got out in September of '45.
So once you got back to Camp Lejeune, your living conditions were much more normalized.
We were -- Camp Lejeune was still called -- the part of it that we lived in was still called tent city. The infantry training -- the troops lived in -- in tents. The replacements lived in tents, as I remember. And the instructors, that is, before I was married, we lived in huts that were made of composition board. Remember the word Celotex? It was a board made of sawdust and dust.
So apartment living must have seemed nice to you.
Yes, it was.
When you were done for your day, was -- was your training schedule you trained all day and then you were free to go home at night?
Yeah.
And on weekends? So you could basically live a normal life?
Mm-hmm.
Do you recall your last days in service?
No, I don't. You know, the truth of this -- Eileen, there's -- the whole time is like -- there are a few pages that I remember well, like reading a book. A few pages, you remember well. Then there are great, great blanks. Huge. I can't -- there's nothing there. I don't know. It took me -- it took me -- I'll tell you of an experience we had on Guadalcanal, and it took me -- let's see -- 60 years until I read a book as to what we had done this day. We went on a patrol one day. We were in division reserve and were bivouacked in the coconut grove, just to the north of Henderson Field. They rousted us out very early, just -- even before dawn. And I was a BAR man then. We wrapped the day's rations that were canned rations. We were told to wrap them in socks or whatever rags we had so that they'd make no noise in the pack. And stripped out -- left the ponchos behind. Traveled as light as possible. And we went out through the lines into the kunai grass fields beyond the northern perimeter and started north. No. Started -- I'm sorry -- south. And we moved very fast, and there were only about a dozen of us that I remember. And if you were moving south, you were going toward the ridges. And as the ridges moved further south, they grew higher, the ridges and then the valleys between them. The ridges were very steep. We moved very fast. And there was no smoking. As we climbed higher -- remember, we were then in anybody's territory. We were out beyond our line. And we didn't know where the hell we were going. We just figured we were looking for Japanese because nobody -- contrary to what you might get from Hollywood film or some other places of information, seldom were you told what you were doing this for. You just did it. And pretty soon, it didn't make any difference because you knew what was going to come. If you were lucky, nothing was going to come. If there was, there was going to be a fight, and you wanted to do what you were supposed to do and hoped that the people on your left and right would do the same thing. And anyway, we kept climbing, higher and higher and higher. And you'd look back -- high enough so that the planes on the field were like little tiny toys. And we came upon occasional fires, scraps of rice on the ground, so that the enemy had been there too. And finally we got up so high, and we were running parallel to a river, and we were forced into the river. And nobody wanted to get in the river because if you were caught in the water, for a -- for a brief time, you were a slower-moving target. And I remember being -- squatting in the river. And a couple of officers on the bank looking at maps. And then we were -- and we were -- it was tough going. We turned and went back. 60 years later, I found that General Vandegrift -- in a book I read by General Twinning, who was Vandegrift's operations officer, I think. I'm not sure of the titles. And Vandegrift had -- had ordered -- this is how -- how flimsy it was there. Remember this was -- this happened, I think, in October of '42. He had ordered these patrols to follow the rivers to the south, for he was thinking of -- of -- if things got much worse, that he would have to withdraw, burn and blow, and go into the -- into the hills to fight like the guerillas had in the Philippines. That's what that patrol was all about. And the patrols found that the rivers wouldn't take the amphtracks to carry supplies, munitions, primarily, south into the mountains. So another plan was devised to move east, units skipping one over the other in a defense line. Anyway, it was all mapped out. It was all described by Twinning in this book called No Bended Knee. And at 60-odd years to find out what the hell we were really doing. I mean --
When you were discharged in September of 1945, what did you do in the days and the weeks immediately following your discharge?
I came home, and I drank too much and tried to figure out what the devil I really was going to do because I had no trade, no education. But I was lucky. We were all lucky. We had the GI Bill, which was the greatest thing that this country ever -- that and 3 and 4 percent mortgages. The greatest thing that this country -- what a -- what a country.
Did you go back to school on the GI Bill?
Finally did. After I had worked for -- let's see. Worked for a little better than a year as a laborer on many different kinds of -- of jobs, always -- always as a -- as a construction laborer. And we had one -- one child in the spring of '46, our daughter. And yes. I did go back to school. But in order to show Uncle Sam that we were worthy, a group of almost misfits had to go back to high school, had to go back to a -- an accelerated course or courses that were held in the local high school for two months to see if we had the right stuff to go to school. There were about 25 or 30. Ranged in age from -- anywhere from 20 to 30. And that was some -- you talk about a motley crew. But there was a teacher. Her name was Helen Estes. Eileen, she sensed that those near misfits were -- most of them were there to -- because they meant it, because they wanted to -- they wanted to be able to pass that test, that training, in order to be approved to go to school. She was the most absolutely inspirational person.
Where did you go to college, Ted?
UConn. Went two years to the then extension that was in the Barnard School in Hartford. Used to go nights and work days. And -- and then had a Model A Ford which I bought for 25 bucks, and with a pair of pliers and some wire and some tape and some screwdrivers and 25 cents and 50 cents of gas here and there, drove it two years, commuting to Storrs and was able -- There was a lot of work then, you know. Worked construction, as carpenter helper most of the time. Worked in grocery stores at night. All kinds of -- you could get all kinds of hours. People would let you work two hours here, an hour -- you had to work. But you wanted to. Absolutely wanted to.
What did you get your degree in?
Economics. Now I can hardly count.
(laughter) After you graduated from college, what did you do?
Well, I got several jobs, from which I was fired from three. And finally I went to work for a new construction firm for a guy who took a chance on me. And he was a home builder, and they built thousands of homes all over Connecticut, here in Manchester, East Hartford, Windsor, Wallingford. And also built multi-family apartments for the military. Sub base, New London. Hanscom Air Force Base, Lexington. Griffiss Air Force Base, Rome, New York. Some redevelopment in Syracuse, New York. And then --
What did you do for that company?
Well, first, I was a salesman in a -- in new lumberyard. And then I became the gofer and assistant to the construction superintendent and did that for a long time. That involved inspecting houses and -- and lining up work. And then I began to run small jobs, small apartments, Newport, Rhode Island, some other places, Westover Field in Massachusetts, by myself until I realized that the firm was getting much bigger and much more technical, and I had no engineering, civil or otherwise. And I was involved in community politics. I'd run for the town -- served the town board of directors for a couple of terms and one term on the board of education. And I thought that I'd made enough contacts with people that I might be able to make a go of it as an insurance agent. So I studied enough to pass the exam and went into business. Borrowed money from the very people I worked for. People treated me like -- I'm a lucky guy. I'm a lucky man. I have not contributed to the extent that many have, but we tried. And I was fortunate in being able to make a go of the insurance agency. That's -- which opened in '65, and it's still active on Main Street, Manchester, USA.
Ted, while you were in the service, did you form any close relationships?
Any what?
Close relationships?
Yes. And I'm very sorry that I didn't keep them to any degree after the war.
That was my next question. Are you in touch with any of your fellow Marines at this point?
No. Only in this way, which shows -- I hope it shows that I regret not keeping in touch. There was a guy killed on the Matanikau River. It was partially my fault and -- in the day when we were pinned there, trying to cross there. He had told me, "Don't worry. I'll get you across, kid." He was 23. I was 18. But he sat up from behind the huge log he was lying behind, and he was hit right in the middle of the forehead. Death was instantaneous. I always wanted -- he was from Brooklyn. I always wanted to go to Brooklyn to see his -- his family, but I never did. A couple years ago, my sis -- my daughter and her husband -- I found out where he was buried. He was buried in a cemetery in Guadalcanal. And then he was brought back home by his family and interred in the huge military cemetery in Farmingdale, Long Island. I found out where he was. And we went there. And I told them the story while we were there at his spot. And I was -- I was glad for -- to -- for that experience, for telling them the story was a -- admittedly a poor second to going to see his family because it took a long, long time for real -- for me to realize what his death brought to me. And he gave me strength to do what the hell I was supposed to do, to take men up the hill when nobody would go. He did that.
Ted, what was his name?
His name was Joseph Faria. F-A-R-I-A, I believe. He was born in Puerto Rico. He lived in Brooklyn. He was from the Old Breed. You're the first person I've ever talked with about military, the war, that characterized the First Division as the Old Breed. You're pretty salty. You know that, you know.
Ted, have you attended any reunions?
No. I have not. Only lately, a real -- a real American hero named Bruce Watkins in this town, First Marine Division, Cape Gloucester, Peleliu, a place nobody heard of when it was happening, one of the most hellish places, islands in the Pacific, for casualties in the length of time they were there and for the living conditions to go with it the month they were there. The place where Chesty Puller, the legendary Marine commander, tried to do too much. His name is Bruce Watkins. He's a very old man now and ailing. He began, oh, several years ago, to get people from the division together, and it began with half a dozen for lunch. And it grew to 30, 40. And brought in speakers from guys that had been to Iraq and other places. So we formed a bond because he included me in. I was fortunate. And there were two or three other locals that I now stay in touch with. But no. I did not. I'd never attended any -- I'm just not a joiner to that extent and never really participated in VFW things either. I'm a -- you know, a card carrier, but not -- not a joiner.
Ted, did your military experience influence your thinking about war or about the military in general?
Yes, it did. I think we ought to have universal military training in this country, like the Swiss, like the Israelis. And if you do not wish to serve in the military, then have an honest-to-goodness Peace Corps operating, not this patty-cake half-baked or halfhearted U.S. -- or service we have. It's not -- it's not significant enough. I think that it's made me feel ashamed that we have wars now that -- that are being fought with -- with no sacrifice from this country. If we're going to have adventuresome wars, the whole country ought to be behind it, and they're not now. And though my experiences were limited compared to many, it's not fair -- that made me understand about wars today, wherever they are. It's not fair to send people, even though they volunteered, without the country being also involved, giving something of itself, giving something of itself. It -- it is not involved. It's not engaged. Only those who are fighting were engaged. It's like 1942, just after Pearl Harbor, for that whole year. In the Pacific and to -- and also in the European Theater. When the people here really did not know what was going on. Especially that was true in the Pacific because it was -- it was a -- it was not the main theater. And it's not fair to -- to -- to not have the entire country involved except for the money that is being just poured down the crapper and the lives. This country is too engaged in its entertainment and should be more engaged in its adventures without -- without substance that is -- that is -- that is killing and maiming so many. That's what war has taught me.
Ted, how did your service and military experience affect your life?
Well, I'm a very poor example of a good guy. But in the end, when all the misplaced poor things that I do are over with, there is, I believe, a bit of the honoring of responsibility, even though you may not want to do it. Eileen, I think it taught a sense of honor, honor -- you can make lots of mistakes every day, but when the crap hits the fan, in that last instance, the guy once told me, "Don't lose your self-respect. No matter what you do, don't lose your self-respect." He was so right. And say at that last minute, be able to find that stuff to honor your obligations.
Ted, is there anything else that we haven't covered in this interview that you'd like to add?
It may seem unusual. It seems sometimes, I'm not sure myself. Even in war, there is a humanness. And it gives one hope. I have difficulty making myself clear. That humanness that is shown, and I'll give you an example, gives one hope that somehow, someday, the humanness shown can -- can find its way into the human spirit to make war unnecessary. And I'll give you an example. And this was an exam -- maybe I said this to you before, but if so, just bear with me. This came from the -- okay. This recollection, we'd spent the night at a place on the ridge. There were dead Japanese all around. It was the night with the dead. The next morning, we went down into the valley, crossed the river, went back up on the ridge. And the fight was going on off to our right. I'm sure I told you this. Anyway, this was a bit of humanness. We formed up as skirmishers on the ridge to go down and close the door behind the Japanese when all -- and we're up on this ridge, and the -- the sea was off to our right. That was the north. The trail ran along next to the water. The fight was going on to our right, down beyond the scrub. Suddenly this Japanese soldier began to run. We saw him. He was running along the trail. And he was close enough so that we could see that he had on a Japanese raincoat, a slicker. You could even see that his leggings were -- everything was new about this guy. And I raised the BAR. And I figured if I could lead him just enough, I could take him. I just did it automatically. And all of a sudden, the officer sitting on an ammunition box off to the left about 20, 30 paces said, "Put it down, son. There will be time for that." That guy was the last man out. We killed every one of them in that -- about 300. He was the last man out. And that commanding officer knew that. We didn't know that. I didn't -- we didn't know what was going on. There'd been a horrible fight there. So he let him live. He let that guy live. His name was Colonel Louis Walt. He had served under -- Lieutenant Colonel Walt or Major, at that time, Walt, I believe. In Vietnam -- and maybe you can find out something for me about him. In Vietnam, he was, for a while, commanding officer of all Marines there. It is my belief -- and he did not -- and I don't -- and he was at odds with the -- with the Washington leadership, the commandant. And I've got to find out because it's my -- my guess that he was probably too careful with his men. He let that man live. Last man running. He was human.
Well, Ted, I'd like to thank you for all the time you've spent on this interview, and I'd like to thank you for your service. (Conclusion of interview)