-CH4C-

First Liberty -Sailors vs Marines

The EM Club was, indeed, an escape from a nightmare world outside into a haven of retreat, a house of fun, but to all who entered, it was also an entrance to a volatile world. Anything could happen, and did happen at the EM Club. There were no women, only service men in uniform. The noise was deafening. The floor vibrated,  the walls shook, the ceiling threatened to collapse, and with jabbering, shouting, hard drinking Marines from the 6th Division and sailors from the 7th Fleet, the place was unhinged. There must have been a hundred tables or more, and clustered around them were groups of Marines and sailors, not together but separately. They mocked and sneered at one another, sailors vs. Marines, and any minute threatened to pounce upon the other. The more beer they consumed, the more tense the situation grew. Among this entire melee, waiters carrying trays laden with cans of beer and glasses with harder stuff scurried dutifully among the tables. The waiters accepted willingly, although not gleefully, the jibes and jeers from the carousing band of brothers. At some tables empty beer cans were stacked as high as a Marine or sailor could reach, that is, while standing on a chair attempting to place another can on top. When a mountain of cans toppled over it was mayhem. Dare the man who might deliberately have knocked over a pile of cans. He was sure as hell dead meat.

Behind the bar was a large mural painted across the entire wall. The mural was a masterpiece, the EM Club’s piece de resistance. It depicted various scenes common to China and to seafaring men. One scene showed King Neptune in pursuit of a beautifully endowed mermaid. He chased her at high speed, leaving a large foaming wake behind him, his long white beard streaming in the wind.  He had a wild lustful gleam in his eye and there was no doubt what his intent was if he caught her. Behind him came Queen Neptune. She was in full pursuit of the King, leaving a large wake behind her too. She was terribly ugly, having a long nose with a large wart on the end of it. Her bare breasts were long and stringy like an old woman’s. One long tit was thrown back over the top of one shoulder. The other tit trailed in the breeze under her other arm. Her eyes were shooting sparks and fire. It was quite apparent she was mad as hell. The mural had a drunken mouse on it and the custom was for new guys to find the mouse. If they couldn’t find it, they had to buy a round. The more drinks they consumed, the harder it was to find the mouse for he was hidden behind a table leg lapping up spilt liquor. It was apparent the mouse was very drunk. It was really quite a work of art and very funny.                            ·

We found a table, marked out our territory and began swilling down cans of beer at ten cents a can. Hecklinger bought a box of Havanas, and soon we puffed on cigars, leaned back and boasted about what a great life we had. Stevenson arrived an hour later, all smiles, wearing his barracks hat, and immediately challenged everyone at the table to see who could chug-alug a beer faster than he could. He easily won the first round since most of us had our fill and were drunk by then. A swabbie at the next table made a remark about Stevenson’s hat, a most sensitive thing to do. Chandler defended his buddy, fists began flying and the machine gun squad of 2nd Platoon, Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 29th Marines, was kicked out and banned from the EM Club on their first liberty ashore in Tsingtao.

“Never mind,” shouted Smitty out in the street. He had his sleeves rolled up, and the Hawaiian girl tattooed on his left forearm seemed to dance in agreement. “Hey, boys,” he stammered, gyrating from side to side, “we go dancing, you know, dance.” He held his arms stretched out, like he was holding his dance partner.  “Go dance, drink, you know, whiskey.” He puffed his chest, tilted his head back and smacked his lips, pretending he was kissing a woman. Terry turned his back and would have pulled down his trousers and drawers to expose his butt if we hadn’t pushed him away, with Smitty attempting to plant a foot in his rear. It was all worth a laugh.

Agreed, we’d go to the Prime Club, all except Hecklinger. He wanted to strike out on his own. “If you’re ridin’ ahead of the herd,” he said, staggering from one side to the next, “take a look back every now and then to make sure it’s still there with ya.  I’ll find ya’all when I look fur ya’all.”

We called rickshaws and instructed the drivers in our newly acquired pidgin English-“You take us chop chop Prime Club lookie see.”  The lead rickshaw boy said he knew the place, but we had doubts as our convoy shot through crowded streets and into back alleys, avoiding the main traffic route. The driver knew his business. A block before we reached the club we could hear the noise, a boisterous mixture of shouting, merry making and music. Feeling our liquor and in a jubilant mood, we gave the rickshaw boys more than they agreed to; they still complained and ran after us as we charged up the stone steps to the Prime Club.

The club was jam-packed and about ready to burst at the seams. It was marvelous. Dance music came from a four-piece band assembled upon a raised platform at the far end of the room. Behind them hung the sign THE TSINGTAO CHARIOTS. They were a comical lot, more like characters in a comic strip than a real live band.  They wore Western suit coats and long trousers. The coats were ill fitting and the trousers hardly reached down to their shoes. One man was perched on a three-legged stool in front of an upright piano, and another sat half-hidden behind a set of battered drums. A saxophonist and an accordionist stood in front of a microphone. They were playing “Golden Earring” when we entered, not like Benny Goodman on sax and Gene Krupa on drums but their music was good enough to fill the dance floor with Gls swooning over their taxi-dancer partners. The music ended, Marines and sailors returned to their tables and the girls went back either to the tables where they had been sitting or else to their chairs along the wall. With only a brief delay, the band took up the beat and began playing “Give Me Five Minutes More,” or what sounded like “Give Me Five Minutes More.” The Prime Club was a rectangular room about the size of a basketball court. The dance floor was in the very center of the room.  Tables three deep flanked the dance floor on three sides. The remaining side was lined with straight-back   chairs.  Here the taxi dancers sat. They were a pathetic-looking bunch of women and one felt pity for them. They tried to look their best, but sadly they had little to work with. Their dresses were motley, some Chinese, some Western. They were certainly more attractive in their Chinese clothes than they were when they wore Western costumes.  Somehow they didn’t look right in ilk dresses with ribbons and bows their tailors made for them from pictures in the Sears & Roebuck catalogs dating back to the 1920’s. When it came to their attempting to wear high-heel shoes, which very few women had, they were a catastrophe. Surprisingly, no one laughed at them; GIs treated them as ladies, and in most cases the guys were proud, and protective, of their women.

However, these women were very clever. They didn’t miss a clue. They saw us coming, and smiled beguilingly and ogled any of us who happened to look in their direction.  We had to grab Smitty by the shirt to hold him back when he saw the line up. Scotty and Chandler weren’t much better.

We looked for a table but all were taken. The room was heavy with smoke and the air charged with high-powered excitement. Through the smoke we had a difficult time telling if a dancer across the way was pretty or if she was pockmarked. Things were in a blur, Iike photographs out of focus. I attributed the blur to the smoke but most likely it was due to our consumption of booze. We did a lot of stumbling, and we felt we could lick any swabbie in the joint.

We stood at the bar, waiting, and when a table was free we rushed in to grab it, outmaneuvering a couple of sailors who thought twice about arguing. A bow-tied waiter in a white apron brought us two extra chairs and took our order. We had several choices of whiskey, all certified to be tested as safe to drink, but we settled on local Tsingtao beer, which the waiter called pijiu, and Hubba-Hubba vodka, which we had heard was the safest booze to drink. We ordered pijiu for everyone and two bottles of Hubba-Hubba. When the order came we poured out a peg of Hubba-Hubba for each of us and attempted to down them straight. We couldn’t stop the embarrassing tears that came to our eyes. The rotgut vodka numbed our tongues and burnt all the way to the bottom. We agreed it was fine stuff and ordered lime soda mix for the next round, with ice, but the waiter said they didn’t have ice. The band now began playing its rendition of “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” and made it sound like a polka. Smitty found a girl he fancied and asked her to dance but discovered he first needed a ticket to dance. The dancer led him to a booth near the entrance. Ten-cents a ticket to dance, or 50 cents per hour for a lady to sit at a table. lf you paid for a girl for an hour, you could dance as much as you liked, or you could spend the time talking. The girls also ordered their own drinks. We paid for the price of whiskey but figured it was only tea, but we weren’t allowed to taste.

The crowd became unruly, the music louder and the women more aggressive. They no longer sat at their chairs but now wandered among the tables, running their fingers through a man’s hair. They asked to sit at tables, and if rejected, they stormed off mumbling “Cheap Charley.” Disagreements over the women began to break out. Men sized up one another. Tensions were building.

Scotty brought a girl to the table. She was part Korean and spoke barroom English. She was quick to reprimand him when he admired a girl at another table.

“What’s with you?” Scotty asked. “You can look around and I can’t.”

“Me no likee man him butterfly,” she admonished him. “When girl sit your table, and you pay money, no one can come talk her. No dance with her. You furstay?

“I furstay,” he said, “but me no likee. Me have one girl friend, okay. You have many boy friend, that okay.”

“Now you furstay. You only one girl fiend. Me. You smart man,” she said and they got up to dance.

At a few tables away there was a ruckus between two Marines from Baker Company. The shorter of the two men grabbed an empty Hubba-Hubba, knocking over the drinks on the table as he stood up, and was about to swing it at the other Marine. The Marine squared off with both fists. All hell was about to erupt. The band took the cue and began playing The Girl that I Marry” as loud as they could. At that moment the girl sitting with them rose to her feet and stood between them. We couldn’t quite make out what she was saying but it was obvious the Marine with the bottle had paid time for her and the other one butted in. I couldn’t take my eyes from the woman.  She was lovely, not beautiful, but striking.

I thought for sure she was going to get slugged, and having just enough vodka in me, I rushed over to their table. I was unaware that all my buddies from the machinegun squad, five of them, had followed behind me.

“We’re okay, okay,” the woman said. She spoke with a light English accent, not fractured English like most of the bargirls there spoke. As rapidly as the argument began, it ended. The woman bad everything under her control.

“A real pro,” Terry muttered when we sat down. We ordered more vodka and bought tickets to dance.  There was more to pick from when you weren’t saddled with a girl at your table. I danced with a few girls but I couldn’t take my eyes from the one at the next table, the girl who prevented the fight. She was tall for Chinese, and slight of figure. It was her smile that was so beguiling. She had two dimples. I was tempted to ask her to dance but it was obvious she had been bought for the night. She was aware that I was watching her.

Two more fights broke out that night; each time, the band played louder. The last fight became a free-for-all and the Shore Patrol was called. Word got around the paddy wagon was coming. Everyone rushed back to their tables, straightened their chairs and tried to cover up their torn shirts, black eyes and broken teeth.  We appeared to all outsiders like a loving bunch of babes in arms when the SP’s arrived. Nevertheless they stood around, and a half-hour before curfew they ushered us out to our waiting rickshaws.

The girls waved us good-bye and asked that we come again, which each of us promised we would do. But love stopped at the door. Taxi dancers in the clubs were not permitted to leave the premises. There was no need to explain to the rickshaw boys where to take us. They knew exactly. They dropped us at the main gate, but shortly before we arrived there, we all became disturbed by something we saw. A young Chinese boy, perhaps seven or eight, was asleep in a sewer pipe. When he heard our singing, he stuck his little head out from the sewer and with sad eyes watched us go by. The sight of him stopped us all from singing. We went through the gate in silence. Our defense was not to make comments.  We pretended we didn’t see him.

-CH4C-

-CH4B-

Duties In Our New Home

The moment we stepped out the gate half a hundred rickshaw drivers, two lines of them that extended far down the hill besieged us. “Hey, Joe, hey Joe, rickshaw,” they called out, holding on to their rickshaws with one hand and extending the other in pleading gestures. At the slightest signal from a Marine, they dashed forward. We made our selections, agreed to ten cents a ride, and in a phalanx like charging chariots shot down the hill to the EM Club.

We learned instantly that rickshaws are delicately balanced machines. A heavy-set Marine could lean back in his seat and lift the driver right off his feet. A couple of Marines tried to put drivers into the seats and take over but it didn’t work. It took skill, balance and practice to pull a rickshaw. We saw scores of other rickshaws farther down the road parked by the wayside. They were serving as shelters, even homes, for their owners. The drivers had covers over the tops, and many were stretched out fast asleep.

We were about to have our first real look at a Chinese city. There were no waving, cheering people now. What did greet us was reality. It was like looking through a kaleidoscope and not seeing colors but instead a scene of gloom and despair. To farm boys like most of us were, who .had only seen Charleston, South Carolina, when we got out of Parris Island boot camp, this was shocking. We were too bewildered to make comments. No one cracked jokes or made wisecracks.  We couldn’t comment, only stare in disbelief. Every direction we turned there was something startling to see. We were awed by the Chinese, the confusion of traffic, the vehicles, the noise, the filth, the dilapidation, the smell. Charcoal burning trucks bounced over tom pavements, some so heavily loaded we thought their axles might bust. Some did, and traffic had a devil of a time getting around them. Battered buses with people hanging on the outside like flies on flypaper rolled past, their exhausts kicking out evil black smoke. On some, passengers sat on top. Nationalist troops in columns of two marched through the streets. Policemen in black uniforms and Sam Brown belts across their chests stood on concrete posts at busy cross sections, blowing whistles and waving their arms frantically. No one seemed to pay attention to them. Stalls with dirty sagging canvas awnings overhead lined the sidewalks, and here merchants sold their wares and customers argued with them about prices. Motorcars with doors falling off, and some tied with twine to keep the doors on, rumbled past. None of the signs, not a single one, could we read. They were all in unintelligible Chinese characters. We could only imagine what was behind the signs and closed doors.

The saddest thing we witnessed were the heavy, overloaded carts, pulled not by animals but by men, human beings. It was inhumane to watch. These carts were the backbone of the transportation system. They were on all the streets, clumsy carts, with two huge wooden wheels with spokes and steel rims. The coolies that worked them did so with backbreaking effort. Two, sometimes three men labored in unison at each cart to keep it in motion. Over their shoulders they slung ropes, and upon these they bent their weight as they pushed, and at the same time they pulled on the two handlebars sticking out from the front. They  slid  and  often  fell  to  the  pavement, bloodying  their  knees  and elbows, but not  giving  up.  When their  carts became  rutted  and  stuck,  they twisted  and turned them  sideways  and  pushed  and  pulled  again until  they  had them  free. Such a curse against humanity that man should labor so hard.

And among all this traffic, rickshaws shot in and out, darting away from oncoming trucks and avoiding crashing into other rickshaws. Rickshaw boys called out warnings and threats that no one seemed to heed. Now and then an immaculately kept rickshaw, shiny black and polished, with neatly crafted gold trim, ambled past. They were the envy of everyone. Their drivers were smart; they wore new canvas shoes; their clothing was uniform and clean. They pulled well-dressed Chinese men and women, and some school children. Whether man, woman or child, these passengers sat back smug and arrogant and looked upon the world around them condescendingly. Some of the rickshaws, not the wealthy ones, had young boys running alongside, and when they came to an incline the boys helped push. Some boys couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old. These drivers and boys wore cast off clothing. No two pieces were the same.

The masses, the throngs of people, moved along the sidewalks and out into the streets as recklessly as the traffic. Many, mostly school children, had their faces covered with white surgical masks. Men wore long robes, slit up the sides. Women wore simple dresses that reached below the knees, also slit up the sides. Every fifth person had a pockmarked face. Smallpox had disfigured them permanently. All the women had bangs, and when they smiled, which wasn’t often, they revealed gold teeth. As we looked over the scene, there was lack of color, no pastels or light colors among the whole lot. Things were either black or brown. The Chinese, the shoppers, the merchants, the pedestrians, they all appeared oblivious to the beggars, and beggars were as numerous as the shoppers. There was no escaping them-lepers, the blind holding on to sticks following young children, men with missing limbs, young girls hardly old enough to be mothers yet still cradling infants, and child beggars who came in hordes running after our rickshaws. “No mama, no papa,” they called. “Kumshaw, kumshaw!”

Mingled with all this chaos and confusion was the smell of China. The smell wasn’t anything in particular but everything in general. It was a blend of the whole of China. It was a smell we first detected far out at sea, and it was the same smell that followed us ashore. It was the unwashed bodies, the human waste gathered to fertilize their crops, the garlic they ate to sustain their lives. It was a smell that would never escape us.

There were some souls we saw-we couldn’t call them beggars for they didn’t beg-who appeared to have never washed in their lives. Their skin was black, black as coal miners coming from the pits, their hair uncut, matted and tangled, and their clothing tattered rags as filthy as their bodies. They had to have demented, sick minds, for there could be no other excuse for their existence,  and yet, we wondered, wasn’t there a place for them to go other than the streets of Tsingtao.

The fleet of rickshaws carried us to the EM Club without mishap. Upon seeing the three-story redbrick building with a sign WELCOME SAILORS AND MARINES, our mood quickly changed. We each gave our rickshaw boys the money due them, but they demanded more and ran after us. We charged into the club leaving them on the steps below. Laughing and hollering, happy that we were still in one piece, we burst through the doors like conquering heroes.

-CH4B-

-CH4A-

Duties In Our New Home

Everybody on their feet!” Cpl. Marsden sounded out.  “Fall out in five minutes,” he continued, “helmet liners and rifles.”

Marsden had a harsh Oklahoma cowboy voice that commanded respect, and we all hated him for it. When our officers couldn’t find anything else for us to do, we had short order drill, and Marsden had to rally us into action. I think he hated it as much as we did but he kept it to himself. It wasn’t that we were lying around all day doing nothing; it was just that somebody up above wanted us to be miserable. Of course, the basic reason for Marines to be in China was guard duty, no matter what anybody said. We were told we were going to China to repatriate the Japanese forces, to send them packing back to Japan where they belonged, but after only a short while we began to wonder about this. Instead of sending the Japanese home, we began using them as guards. The Japanese and their puppet troops continued to hold the rail route from coastal towns to Peking. “Until the 4th Marines in the north can take over,” Whittington had said a minute or two before Marsden poked his head in the door. Whittington had heard the staff talking about it that morning at HQ.

“Isn’t the Nationalist Army supposed to be doing that?”

Chandler asked.

“They can’t even take care of the communists,” Whittington replied. “There’s talk about a civil war but Col. Roston said no one is allowed to call it a civil war.”

“What do we call it then?”  Hecklinger asked in his Oklahoma accent. “If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin’.”

“Skirmishes,” Whittington answered.

“What’s the difference? We can get killed in one as easy as the other,” Melanowski answered. “What are we guarding anyway?”

Just then Cpl. Marsden opened the door and shouted instructions, and Whittington was out of there faster than a banzai charge, back to his bench in front of Col. Roston’s office.  While we gathered our helmet liners and rifles, the grumbling began. We had been in Tsingtao two days and we had already stood guard duty, had field training and now we were having short order drill, and there was no mention of liberty.

Our guard duty began even before we had settled in our new quarters. We guarded our headquarters, supply buildings, coal dumps, ammunition dumps, airfields and dock areas. We even had guards to guard the guardhouses. Everything in China needed guarding at all times.

The prize guard duty was the main gate. Sentries here were corporals with sergeants in charge, all picked for their neatness. They manned the gate twenty-four hours a day, and checked every person and vehicle passing in or out for a proper pass. Compound guards were privates and PFCs. They patrolled the entire university, which was surrounded by a stone wall. The wall rose to a height of eight or ten feet, more in some places. The top of the wall had jagged shards of glass embedded in the concrete, like many buildings we saw in Tsingtao when we arrived. Where the wall was not so high, rolls of concertina barbed wire were strung. The most miserable guard duty was the docks. It was as bad as guard duty could get.

The dock area was gloomy and depressing, not a place you’d call cozy. The warehouses, row after row of them, were unpainted with roofs of broken tiles and tiny barred windows high up out of reach. A high wall surrounded the entire area.

The warehouses all looked alike and the only way to distinguish one from the others was by the numbers painted on the corners. Rats were so numerous in the area that even in broad daylight they didn’t bother taking cover. Doors on the buildings were huge, crossed with iron straps and studded with bolts. During the day there was all sorts of activity in the area. Military trucks loaded with cargo from the docks arrived one after the other, and gangs of Chinese coolies set to work unloading crates of stores and stacking them in the warehouses. The crates included everything from Bourbon whiskey for the officers’ mess to winter underwear for the troops.  There was canned tuna and gallon-size tins of fruit cocktail. It seemed half the space in warehouses was taken up by cartons of fruit cocktail. Someone in America was making a killing on fruit cocktail. Never did an occupation army anywhere in the world have more fruit cocktail than the China Marines.

At night the picture changed.  Guards had prescribed areas to patrol, and with their loaded M1s slung over their shoulders, they walked their posts. It was lonely and wearisome. Officers-of-the-guard made periodic inspections by Jeep, and sentries called out, “Halt, who goes there!” as if they didn’t know. Sentries reported their posts were secured at which the officers and their drivers drove off into the night.  Young lieutenants liked to sneak over the wall but that stopped when Terry unloaded a clip of ammo over one’s head one night. They were more careful after that. Sentries counted the minutes of their watches, even the seconds, until they were relieved.

When not on guard duty, we had field training. We stripped down and cleaned our M1s, our carbines, our .45 pistols and our .30 Cal. machine guns, blindfolded.  No sooner had we put them together than we had to take them apart again. Smitty could field strip his carbine behind his back faster than anyone else could. We had map reading, first aid drill, compass orientation and on Saturday morning we were scheduled to go on a conditioning hike. All this duty and no liberty yet. And now they called us out for short order drill. Who wouldn’t beat their gums?

Peacetime But Not Idle

The morning sun came out warm, and for two hours we drilled-”One, hup yah left, one hup yah left.” Everyone would be in step, heading straight into a wall. Then, at the last minute, “Left flank hooh, right flank hooh, to the rear hooh.” Sometimes there were so many “to the rear hoohs” in session we got dizzy, to the delight of the drill sergeant.

At noon, just before chow call, Cpl. Marsden appeared with a grin on his face. “Okay you leatherheads, liberty call at 1600,” he said and cheers went up from every man on the drill field. He continued:  “Take the afternoon off and let’s see some shined shoes.” We didn’t walk; we ran back to our quarters.

The only man who wasn’t pleased was Stevenson.  He didn’t get off duty until 1700. He carried his boondockers back to his desk after chow, grumbling, and began the slow process of spit-polishing them. He took his barracks cap with him. Not all of us had dress shoes in the early days, only GI issue ankle-high field boots we called boondockers. We wore them in combat and later for dress as well. They were made of rough brown leather but if you polished them hard and long enough you could get a shine on them. It wasn’t mandatory that we shined them but nevertheless Marines prided themselves in the fine gloss they could get on their boots. If you could see your reflection, you had reached perfection. We didn’t have dress-green jackets, only field jackets, the ones with four pockets on the outside. A couple guys had Eisenhower jackets. These were cut short and came down to the belt with a slanted pocket on each side. They were smart looking and the envy of everyone.

We spent the afternoon spit-shining and pressing our trousers and telling one another what we intended to do on our first liberty.

For the two days we had been in Tsingtao we had listened to talk about the best liberty spots in town. There was all kind of scuttlebutt, good and bad. We heard one didn’t have to venture too far.  Right outside the main gate was Sophie & Marie’s, a neat little bar that served great steak sandwiches. They said it was run by an old White Russian woman named Sophie and her daughter Marie. That was as far as some of the Marines said they would go, until they heard the damn steak was really dog meat.

Even before we went ashore we knew the names of all the bars and taxi dance halls in town.  We had our own intelligence source-the grapevine.  Some guys said they were headed for the ABC Bar. “That’s for American, British and Chinese,” Terry said with certainty.

“No, the Tivoli,” insisted Smitty, “that’s   the place to go. It’s first class. They have table cloths, and it’s located in the center of Tsingtao, in the tallest building in the city.” Other names were tossed out-Prime Club, New York Bar, and Cherry Club. The New York Bar, someone remarked, had White Russian hostesses.  But the word was that the best place in town was the EM Club-the Enlisted Man’s Club.

“A good meal of steak, eggs and potatoes cost less than a buck at the EM Club,” Hecklinger announced. “Drinks, ten cents for any kind of beer and five cents for any kind of liquor or mixed drink. I reckon that’s fur me.  It don’t take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.”

We didn’t talk about museums and art galleries; we talked about bars, eating and women, and not necessarily in that order. A heated subject was the bordellos; one, we heard, had a thousand women under one roof. We all agreed we had to go see what they had to offer and look over the merchandise, but the big question was, where would we go first? Some opted to check out the whorehouses   first, while others couldn’t make up their minds whether to get drunk or to eat first. Our machine gun squad elected to start at the EM Club first. It was settled, unanimously, the EM Club, and we would stick together. Buddies watched over buddies.

Clean-shaven, trousers with creases that could cut fingers, and faces that shined as bright as our shoes, we headed to the Fox Company office to pick up our liberty passes. We beamed with joy as we bounded into the office, but sadly Stevenson became crestfallen when he saw us. “You aren’t gonna wait for me,” he whimpered, threatening to tear up our passes. He had another hour before he got off duty.

“And waste an hour,” we all growled. We finally convinced him we’d  meet him at the EM Club in town.

As Stevenson handed me my pass, he said he had a message for me. “Col. Roston wants to see you at 0800 Monday morning,” he said.

“What about?” I asked. Any time a Marine had to see the Old Man it had to be for Office Hours, for some offense or infraction of the rules, but I hadn’t done anything wrong, not anything that I knew about.

“He didn’t say, but it must be something important.  He had discussed it with the Exec.”

“Why Monday? Why not now, or tomorrow morning?” I asked. “You kidding. We go on a hike at 0600 tomorrow,” Stevenson snapped. “You forget!” He then changed his tone. “But hey, buddy, we get liberty tomorrow when we get back from the hike, and all day Sunday too.” I immediately forgot about Col. Roston and Office Hours.

-CH4A-

-CH3C-

Chinese Interpreter in Action

The Chinese foreman came rushing up to us when he saw us coming. He was a shadow of a man, dressed in a long black robe slit up the sides. He wore a felt hat, had a row of gold teeth and carried a slate for jotting down notes.  “Ask him if the buildings are empty, and make sure no one is living in them,” Lt. Brandmire said.

“You want to know if the buildings are empty?” I asked. “Yes, I want to know if the buildings are empty,” he said and then abruptly stopped.  It seems he suddenly remembered the briefing where Maj. Wallis said it was his duty to gather information about the local military situation. “Find out about security,” he added. “How many National Army troops are guarding the city.” He looked at me with cutting eyes and then at the foreman.

I searched my mind for-words. Troops. Soldiers. Guards. I didn’t remember seeing them or any words like them in my Spoken Chinese book. Not one. “Go ahead, ask him, private,” the lieutenant barked.

In my best Mandarin Chinese I addressed the foreman. “Sir, what is your honorable name?” I said. I remembered clearly, when addressing anyone older than me, I had to call him “honorable.” When referring to my name, I had to say that my “humble” name was so and so.

The foreman smiled and bowed from the waist. He repeated his name in Chinese, which I immediately forgot as soon as he had said it. Chinese names are hard to remember, especially when their last names are really their first names in line.

“What did he say?”  Lt. Brandmire asked impatiently. “He said there are many.”

“How many, damn it! Ask him how many!”

“Sir, are you married?” I asked. The foreman looked at me as if I were asking, ‘are there green elephants in Tibet?’ He didn’t reply, only nodded. This wasn’t going to do. I had to get an answer from him. “How many children do you have?” He fired back his answer, so rapidly I couldn’t catch one single word. “What did he say? What did he say?”  Lt. Brandmire questioned.

‘Sir, ah, he’s not quite sure,” I answered.  “Ah, he will get full report for you later.”

“Very good, very good. How long will it take his men to clean up this place?”

“Honorable, Sir,” I began. “What is the color of your rice bowl?” And to Lt. Brandmire I replied, “They can do it in a couple hours.”

Other questions followed and I was able to learn where the WC was located, and what time the restaurant opened. I even think the old Chinese foreman liked me, although he must have thought I was a bit whacko.

The Seabees and Engineers came to our aid. There was no time to dally around with our quarters. The Chinese coolies were too slow for them. They stormed into the building with sledge hammers, axes and shovels. Opening the double windows wide, they began tossing everything in the classrooms out the windows-glassed-in display cabinets with jars containing strange specimens, weights and scales, vials, glass bottles, books and files with papers, charts and graphs, and anything that moved.  Even things that didn’t move and were bolted to the floor, they smashed apart and threw those out the windows too. They then built wooden bunks, two high, and for each room brought in an oval kerosene heater.

A high brick wall surrounded the compound; pieces of glass were embedded into the concrete capping that topped the wall. Over this engineers strung rolls of barbed wire and immediately guards were assigned to patrol the inside of the wall.

We had to pitch our eight-man tents again, but not for long.

In a few short days we of the 29th Marines moved into our new quarters. That first night, when we were still in our tents, chow went early, and as we sat around in front of our tents wondering when we would get our first liberty, Melanowski came running towards us. “You can get laid,” he shouted. “You can get laid right here on base.”  He grabbed his wallet from his seabag and ran off with everyone in our squad in close pursuit. I had a hard time keeping up with Stevenson.

At the far end of the compound was a cluster of pine trees matted with thick bushes. It was dark now but there was enough light to see a gang of Marines in a long line. “Get in line,” they shouted as Stevenson and I approached to see what was going on. “A buck, that’s all it costs,” one man said. I recognized the voice, Cpl. Wilson from the Hoopa Indian tribe in northern California.

“Who’s the woman?” Stevenson asked.

“What the hell does that matter,” Cpl. Wilson replied. “Yeah,” said Pfc. Robinson who was near the end of the line, and his second time in line, “what’s the difference. Stand them all upside down and they all look alike.”

“Right,” agreed Hecklinger. “How’s a man gonna find out. Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.”

And so a couple dozen Marines from the 29th became indoctrinated. It wasn’t actually a Pearl Buck romance, not what Stevenson and I had in mind when we talked about China aboard the USS Napa. But our time was to come.

-CH3C-

-CH3B-

A Warm Victory Embrace, But Not At Home

The lead Jeep, with Maj. Wallis and Capt. Johnson sitting upright in the rear of the vehicle, moved slowly through the arched gate and entered the street. They met with sudden loud cheering and a tumultuous welcome of enthusiastic applause. We were stunned, completely overwhelmed at the reception that awaited us.

First impressions they say are lasting. If this be the case, those who were there that day in Tsingtao on October 15, 1945, will forever remember the landing and the reception we received. No ticker tape parade in New York City for a returning victorious army could have been more grand. The streets were one continuous mass of humanity, a carpet of happy, smiling, waving people. In every direction I looked there were people. They jammed the streets. They crowded the alleys and doorways; they hung out the windows and looked down from rooftops. There wasn’t a telephone pole, a signpost or a tree that didn’t have people clinging to it. They waved and they cheered. Each and everyone there that day, without exception, babies included, held small American flags which they waved frantically.

An armored Chinese military vehicle was waiting outside the gate and turned into the stream of people when they saw us coming. They led the way as the masses parted to let us past. But barely. Chinese officers in dark brown uniforms and Sam Brown belts sat riding in the lead vehicle, but unlike the rest of us, they remained somber and unsmiling.

We drove through the city, passed a twin towered church and up a long hill to a cluster of stone buildings surrounded by a high wall. The sign at the entrance had Chinese characters with the name “Shantung University” underneath. Our entire route, from dock to university, had been lined with people. There wasn’t an inch of standing room to spare. Inside the gate were more people, but now they formed two lines. We passed through the lines to another reception party standing at the doorway to the main building.

The officers and senior enlisted men in our convoy stepped out of their vehicles. Chinese officials in long ankle-length robes bowed slightly from the waist and then extended their hands.  Soon everyone was shaking one another’s   hands. One Chinese official, upon seeing the two guards and me sitting in the Jeep, motioned for us to join the others. It was an awkward situation. We made overtures thanking him and remained seated. The Chinese official ran up to Maj. Wallis and pointed back towards us. I couldn’t hear what he was saying but he was speaking in English. What a relief. I suddenly relaxed. They wouldn’t need to count on me for Chinese. Seeing our predicament, Maj. Wallis signaled for us to join the party. The Chinese delegation now shook hands with the two guards and me, and pushed us ahead to join the others. Lt. Brandmire was not too pleased.

The main building had been turned into a banquet hall, and we were the guests. It was a banquet deluxe, course after course, lasting two hours.

The meal finally ended and the staff officers were ushered into another room. Col. Best from Division Quarter Masters gave Lt. Brandmire his orders and rushed off to join the staff officers.  Before any of the Chinese delegation could lead me away, as I was hoping they would, Lt. Brandmire summoned me to follow him. “We have our orders,” he snapped and led the way to an outer courtyard,

The university had been turned over to the division for our billets.  Lt. Brandmire’s task was to see that classrooms  were emptied out and made habitable. Since none of the Chinese in the work party spoke English, I was assigned to assist him. The thought was frightening.  I didn’t know that much Chinese, but there was no use trying to explain to Lt. Brandmire.

I was at Lt. Brandmire’s mercy. He now had me where he wanted me. I had to stand at attention while he gave me instructions. He was a most irritable guy who suffered from some kind of disillusionment. He was downright nasty, and it didn’t take a head shrink to reason it was his diminutive size that made him that way. His first name was Clark, named after Clark Gable they say, but he was no Clark Gable. The men in our company could see through him, and I think he was aware of this. He was a non-combatant dealing with combat Marines. His was defensive, which made him a bit cocky. When he walked, he strutted. He wore non-regulation boots with straps and tucked his trousers into the boot tops. This alone would have been enough to make the troops dislike him. Marines like their officers to be regulation. Lt. Brandmire was not.

-CH3B-

-CH3A-

Disembarked At Tsingtao

During the early morning of October 11, while the 7th Fleet stood offshore, the first of the division’s transports docked at Tsingtao’s wharves. The 6^th reconnaissance Company disembarked and was soon on its way to secure Tsangkou airfield, about ten miles from the city. Two VMO-6 observation planes launched from the escort carrier USS Bouganville flew low overhead above the docks and headed toward the airfield.

At 0750 I reported to the bridge on the USS Napa, and along with two Marine officers transferred by motor launch to the USS Bouganville. Once aboard we were escorted to a stateroom next to the bridge. Gathered around a conference table were a dozen officers and ranking enlisted men.  Both officers and men were dressed in their green uniforms. I had never before seen so many campaign ribbons and decorations as I did that morning. Maj. Glen Wallis from the Adjutant General’s office stood with his back turned talking to his aide in a tone that was hardly audible. In one hand he carried a black leather brief case; in the other, a swagger stick. At his side was Capt. John Johnson, also from the Adjutant General’s office. With the exception of a young pimpled-face lieutenant, I had seen all the officers at one time or another. Everyone in the room carried side arms. Staff NCOs stood in the background. Lt. Brandmire was off to one side. He gave a scowl when he saw me and motioned that I stand in the rear behind the NCOs. I do believe that he expected me to salute him, but since I wasn’t armed or wearing a duty belt, I wasn’t required to salute. I moved to the back as he instructed. I shoved Stevenson’s barracks hat farther back under my arm and hated myself for bringing it. Not a single officer or enlisted man in the room had a barracks hat.

Maj. Wallis withdrew some documents from his carrying case, unfolded one, scanned it quickly and then looked up. “Lt. Austin is from G2,” he said, glancing over at the lieutenant with the pimple face. “Some of you gentleman may already know him.” Lt. Austin smiled. Maj. Wallis continued. “We are not going ashore to engage in combat,” he began. “That’s not our mission. We are on friendly soil. Tsingtao is under General Chiang K’ai-shek’s control.” General Chiang K’ai Shek-a name we all knew, one of the good guys. “Lt. Austin will explain in more detail the situation in Tsingtao.”

Lt. Austin from the G2 Section stepped forward. “I am pleased to announce that Tsingtao is backed up by armed irregulars recognized by the Central Government, the Kuomintang,” he began slowly. What he lacked in appearance, his voice carried in authority. “The Nationalists are running Tsingtao. The communists, however, hold most of Shantung Province, right  up to the countryside at the outskirts of Tsangkou airfield. Japanese troops are holding the rail route leading into the interior.” I glanced around at the others and wondered if they had the same thoughts as I did.  What were the Japanese doing holding rail lines? Weren’t we supposed to repatriate them? “Until Nationalist troop units arrive at Tsingtao in sufficient strength to replace the Japanese, there is little hope of rapid fulfillment of repatriation plans. The IIIAC has the enormous task of processing over 630,000 Japanese military and civilian repatriates in North China. We expect to proceed smoothly so long as the Japanese can reach American-controlled areas.”

“But we don’t expect any armed conflict,” Maj. Wallis spoke up. Lt. Austin didn’t like being interrupted.

“The colonel is right,” he said. “However, the disciplined strength and tactical and technical know-how of the Japanese will keep both the Nationalists and the Eighth Route Army under control.” The Eighth Route Army I learned was another name for communist forces.

“What happens when the Japanese leave China?” a warrant officer asked.

“Only time will tell. We can’t speculate,” Lt. Austin replied.

In the meantime, the Nationalists are on their way as I speak. The US 14th Air Force is airlifting 50,000 men comprising the 92nd and 94th CNA, the Chinese Nationalist Armies, to Peking from central and South China. The Nationalist are also known as the Kuomintang. The important thing to remember is that we must be careful. We don’t want to let our men agitate

the situation. We are here to liberate not to conquer.”

Maj.  Wallis thanked the lieutenant and reminded him that his staff officers are well aware of what is important and what wasn’t. He then pointed to a map on the table. “Gentlemen, this is a map of Tsingtao,” he said. “You will each get a copy. You know our mission now. An advance party under Col. Best, from Division Quarter Masters, will make arrangements for billeting our troops and will obtain information regarding the local civil, military, and political situation. Lt. Brandmire will accompany him.”  Lt. Brandmire snapped to attention and saluted.  He attempted to snap his heels but his bootstraps got in the way.

The 6th Reconnaissance Company had left the docks by the time we disembarked. Our small motor convoy consisted of five 4×4 weapons carriers and three Jeeps with the tops of the vehicles removed. Lt. Brandmire motioned for the two Marine guards and me to be seated in the last Jeep.

“You swinging with the brass,” the driver said as I began to climb into the Jeep.  I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was Sammy from Motor Pool, from the “Night Fighters Squadron” we called them.  “I always knewed you were sumptun.”

“”Hey, Sammy, I’m not one of these guys,” I said. “I’m only a private.”

“Yea, boss,” he said and saluted from behind the driver’s wheel. I was about to push his hat down over his eyes but I noticed Lt. Brandmire watching us.

-CH3A-

-CH2E-

Harold Speaks Chinese, Will be the Translator

From aboard ship we could look over the harbor towards the docks where masses of humanity began gathering.  Some sat along the docks, their feet dangling over the sides, while others squatted atop buildings, and still others scampered up telephone poles and any higher places they could find. The din of those voices seeped out across the water like the humming of a swarm of a billion bees.

Before our anchors settled on the bottom, hundreds upon hundreds of bumboats, or sampans, besieged us. Single oarsmen who stood at the stem sculled each boat. They came waving small American flags, shouting joyously,  and quickly displayed their wares: silk robes, embroidered drapery, jackets embossed with golden dragons, ladies garments  of mostly dresses slit up the sides, paper lanterns, scrolls with fancy designs, and whiskey, bottles of whiskey-White Horse scotch and Hubba Hubba vodka. Soon more boats arrived, these with young maidens half hidden under tarpaulins. With braided pigtails, bangs, powdered white faces and lips painted bright red, they smiled revealing gold-filled teeth. They definitely weren’t Vargas girls. Their presence brought howls and screams from the Marines who crowded the railings.

With a shipload of Marines threatening to jump overboard and Chinese hawkers ready to climb aboard with their wares, orders were given to the deck watch to keep the boats at bay. It was not a task easy to fulfill. Whether or not any women got aboard that first night is questionable, but whiskey did, in bottles with neatly printed labels, certified to be genuine and safe by one Dr. Wong, MD. By morning a couple of Marines from Charley Company were in the sick bay with hoses stuck up their noses, and several others had reportedly gone blind.

At dawn another wave of bum boats began to arrive; MPs with carbines were mustered on deck. When threatening warnings to the gathering bumboats had little effect, the deck officer gave the order to bring out the fire hoses. These high powered hoses could tear the bumboats apart, sending them to the bottom in an instant. I don’t think the Chinese boatmen were aware what was about to happen. I moved over to the railing and looked over the side. Chinese hawkers, many dressed in rags, stood in their boats with their arms lifted up to the Marines along the railing, beckoning us to buy their wares. They looked so pathetic, pleading with us, and I felt sorrow for them. A dozen sailors pulled the limp hoses up to the railings. Two men at each hose grabbed the muzzles and waited for the final order.

It was worth a try. In Mandarin Chinese, a language I had never spoken aloud before, I shouted out-“Ni zou, ni zou bah.”  Go, go! Go borne.

I was more shocked than anyone else standing there. It worked. The bumboats withdrew. The deck officer gave me a startled look. “Where did you learn Chinese?” he snapped.

“I just learned it,” I said.

Terry had joined us and stood at my side. “His family were missionaries,” he said.

“Shut up, Terry,” I said and tried to push him aside. He wouldn’t leave.

“What’s your name, Marine?” the officer asked.

I told him, and when he asked what outfit, I had to tell him that too-Fox company, 29th Marines.

That afternoon before chow I was summoned to the bridge. What had I done now? I held my hat in my hand and stepped onto the bridge. A dozen Marine officers, with Col. Roston, our battalion commander lording over them, were gathered around a chart table with a map spread out before them. I breathed easier when I saw Whittington standing to one side. He was on duty. He wore his white duty belt with a canteen on the left side and an empty .45 holster on the right. A slight smirk came to his face when he saw me. He then stepped up to Col. Roston. “Sir, here’s Private Stephens,” he said and stepped back. I was even more dumbfounded than before.  Were they going to court-martial me right here and now? Or was this all some kind of a mistake?

Col. Roston gave me the once over. I wondered if he might be expecting someone else the way he looked at me. “I hear you speak Chinese,” he said. As I stumbled for words, he continued: “The 6th Reconnaissance Company is going ashore in the morning to secure Tsangkou airfield.” Why was he telling me this? “Another landing party is going ashore with them, to negotiate for quarters for the regiment. Unfortunately no officer aboard speaks Chinese. You will go as their interpreter.”

I felt the blood drain from my upper body; my knees were about to give way on me. The feeling was far worse than looking up from my foxhole and seeing a banzai charge coming my way as it did at the southern end on Okinawa.   “Sir,” I said, my voice breaking, “my Chinese is not good.”

“Nonsense.  It will come back. A little practice. Report on deck in shore uniform at 0800,” he said and turned  to other matters at hand. I was horrified. What was I to do now?

“That’s hot shit,” Melanowski said gleefully as he dug into the bottom of my seabag looking for my greens. There was no need. Cpl. Marsden stepped forth and offered me his uniform, all neatly pressed. Stevenson  volunteered to let me wear his barracks hat. It was the only barracks hat aboard the US Napa, maybe in the whole fleet. I missed chow that evening. I had to study my Chinese handbook. I climbed into my top bunk but to my horror the light had gone out. The storm must have had something to do with it. I went into the head and sat on a toilet and studied, until I was run out. “You som’  kinda nut or sumptun,” the  MP said. “Get the hell out of here!” I went back to my bunk, laid my head down on my life jacket and went over the phrases in my mind. I was progressing. “Are you married?” “Do you have your own rice bowl?”

-CH2E-

-CH2D-

Dangers on the Harbor

The tragedy was there was no avoiding it. The helmsman could only steam ahead no matter what. There were splashes, monstrous splashes which you could only hear and not see. We were flooded, the entire APA, with a mighty sea that rose up from nowhere.  No one saw it. It just came. It came and fell everywhere. Perhaps it was more than one wave; maybe two or three waves that had collided, rushed together and collapsed upon one another.  It was the sea gone mad!

For sixteen endless hours the storm continued, and when we were about ready to give up, no longer caring, it ended. It ended as abruptly as it began. They say the China Sea is shallow, and it doesn’t take well to typhoons. But when the winds stopped, the seas stopped with it. I went back to my bunk and fell into a death sleep, despite the filth and stench.

I was in bunk the next morning when I became aware that the ship had slowed down. Suddenly the thought came that we were in a minefield. I was needed on deck. I grabbed my Ml and rushed topside as rapidly as I could, knocking everyone off the ladder who had already started to form the chow line.

I reached the turret and looked out at sea. It was a shocking, abominable sight. The sea as far as the eye could behold was littered with smashed, wrecked junks. These poor junks, they were literally torn apart by the typhoon, ripped wide open, beaten into a pulp, smashed into kindling wood, annihilated. The typhoon had dissipated but it had left a ravenous swath of destruction and death. The convoy had slowed down to half speed, and as we slowly churned forward we glided through a sea of death. On every quarter was wreckage, not one or two, not even a dozen, but a fleet of demolished junks, all devoid of life. There were the bodies, yes, lifeless bodies tied to the masts and rigging, floating corpses. There was not one single sign of life among the sea of wreckage. All morning we continued, but by afternoon our convoy could no longer linger, searching for life, and with a rendezvous to keep, it resumed speed. Night came and we could only imagine ploughing through such human carnage in the darkness.

Our destination was Cheefoo, a seaport on the north shore of the Shantung Peninsula. On the morning of October 9th, we caught our first view of the Chinese mainland. It appeared in a darkened silhouette off our port bow, and as the day grew brighter-there was no sun-the land began to take form. The sea turned from yellow to the color of mud and we knew we were near. A voice came over the PA system announcing it was the coast of the Shantung Peninsula.

China came as a shock, not at all what we had anticipated. It was dismal, mountainous and barren. There was no sign of life, not a tree, not even a shrub. There was no color. It was gray and hard. Even when dawn turned into day it was bleak. That first view was disappointing, but what came next was far worse. It was the smell. Far out at sea we could smell China. It was like no other smell we had known before. It was a musty, unforgiving smell, nauseating to the senses.

As we sailed along the coast, Marines stood at the railing studying the shoreline: a sheltered cove with junks at anchor. Some at least had survived the typhoon. Farther on, a fishing village nestled in a valley came into view.

There was something else. It looked so odd at first. Near the fishing village was a long and narrow line, as if someone had taken draftsmen’s dividers and had drawn a pencil mark from the edge of the sea to a diminishing point in the far mountains. As we sailed closer, we saw it was nothing more than a wall, a wall without apparent purpose. But still it was there, a Chinese wall, our first wall, but not our last.

Later that morning I was at my post in the turret, drinking cup of coffee a sailor on duty had given me, when Stevenson appeared.  By the look on his face I knew he had something urgent to tell me.  “We are not going to Cheefoo,” he blurted. “No Cheefoo landing.”

The words hit me like a weight, like one of those barbells try lifting but it’s too heavy and you have to drop it. The barbell hit me right in the chest. After all this, we were not going to China.  I was going to the electric shop, to work for old man, to sell radio vacuum tubes.  I hated vacuum tubes at that instant more than I ever hated vacuum tubes before. What in the hell are you talking about?” I shouted back. “Take it easy,” Stevenson said, looking around. “We’re not going to Cheefoo.  We’re going to Tsingtao.”

That was better but I didn’t say so. I didn’t know where Tsingtao was but nevertheless it was still China. “Why’s that?” I asked, calmer now.

“The communists,” he said.  There was that word again.

Over the last couple of weeks that same word was tossed around but none of the Marines would admit they had no idea what a communist was, except that it had a bad connotation. Stevenson continued and I listened, as though I understood.

Major General Keller E. Rockey, the Commanding General, IIIAC, had arrived in Cheefoo shortly before to discover communist troops had already seized the city from the Japanese. They installed a party official as mayor, and were not sympathetic to the request from Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, Commander of the Seventh Fleet, that they withdraw before the Marines arrived.

Vice Admiral Daniel E. Barbey, Commander, VII Amphibious Force, recommended that the landing be temporarily postponed. Gen. Rockey concurred, that the Cheefoo landing be delayed, and that the 29th Marines would land instead at Tsingtao with the rest of the 6th Division.

Tsingtao, Cheefoo, what did it matter? China was China and no one in the 29th cared much where we landed, just so we would get off the tub we were on as soon as possible. Our division commander, Major General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr. and a small staff had transferred to the Destroyer Escort Newman and were en route to Tsingtao. The rest of the convoy followed in close pursuit. USS Napa arrived at dusk on October 10th and stood off shore for the night. The following day the rest of the convoy arrived, minus half a dozen LSTs that had lost their rudders. They were in tow.

Together we steamed into Tsingtao Harbor and dropped anchor. The rattling of chains in their hawseholes could be heard clear across the city. What a splendid show we made. From all the riggings, from the bridges to the tallest masts, signal flags, colors and ship’s ensigns flew aboard every US vessel in the harbor.

Never did the port of Tsingtao see such a massive flotilla enter its harbor as it did on October 11, l 945-APAs and AKAs, LSMs and LSTs, and other various landing craft, all escorted by the 7th Fleet with her destroyers and destroyer escorts. Ships stretched as far as the eye could see.

Against the splendid backdrop of American ships was the flotilla of Chinese junks. The contrast of ships was never so keen. By the hundreds junks were rafted together, their masts appearing like a forest of trees in a New England winter scene. One could easily have leaped from one vessel to the other and crossed a mile or two of harbor without touching water. They were ancient wooden craft, sea-worn vessels, never having known a coat of paint, only the eyes at their bows were done up in bright colors. Their rigging was hemp, thick as a man’s wrist, and their stays were cables blackened with tar. They had rudders that stuck high out of the water, and aside their gunwales running fore and aft were massive leeboards that could be raised and lowered. Their sails, of course, were lateen, and badly sagging. The junks were right out of Terry and the Pirates. They had probably been there when Genghis Khan and Marco Polo sailed past.

-CH2D-

-CH2C-

Dangers at Sea

I could not have believed it possible for the wind to blow as it did. Stevenson borrowed a foul weather jacket and came to stand with me in the turret. We were grateful we were not back in the furnace room for now the ship was pitching and listing so violently there was no mere shovel that could have kept us from falling into the open flames.  On deck it was less frightening. At first, we thought it was fun. “Whoa, holy hell, look at that wave, over there,” we’d cry and found it all amusing. But when the wind increased, and tore at our bodies, we now looked at each other in dismay. Was this really happening? Soon we stopped laughing. “I had better get back inside,” Stevenson said and I was alone.  I was going to call him chicken but I knew in my heart I wanted to be with him.

The wind grew even more frightening. There’s no describing it. How can one describe a nightmare? It tore at my clothes, threatening to rip the buttons from my jacket.

I felt the flesh on my face distort with each blast of wind and I had to turn away to breathe.  It was a monstrous thing, and the most monstrous thing about it was that it increased and continued to increase.

It was incredible! The sea, which had risen at first, was beaten down by that wind. It seemed as if the whole ocean might be sucked up into another sphere, another world. There could be no force now that could control this hellish thing we call a typhoon other than, perhaps, the very sea itself. The storm reached a point where the driving wind actually flattened the sea, but it did not reduce the swell.  Often when  I tried to find the LST to our starboard  it had completely vanished from view, lost in the trough between two mighty waves, and then it would reappear, shedding  water on every quarter as is it rose. How high were the waves? The masts on the LST were at least 40 feet above water.  God forbid, when I looked again I remembered that LST. It was carrying 3rd Phib Corps Motor Pool, and Sammy was aboard. Poor Sammy. I knew him from Okinawa. Samuel Carver Washington. He was a driver and a mechanic with Motor Pool, a black man from Alabama. Blacks were not part of the fighting corps, but they did serve as drivers in motor pools. I saw Sammy at the docks when we were hipping out, and he said he was going to sleep on his 4X4 on deck. No way was he going below deck. The very thought of the ocean made him seasick. I wondered where he was now. I wondered if maybe even his 4X4 had washed overboard.

As time passed, it became so dark it could have been another day and I wouldn’t have known the difference.  I had to get away for a spell and see what was happening below deck.  I really wanted to be with my buddies.  I told the deck officer I had to make a head call.

I descended the five sets of ladders and worked my way to the bow where my bunk was located. Here the ship tossed and heaved at its worst. The bow dropped so violently, it momentarily took one’s breath away. There was vomit everywhere, down the sides of the bunks, on the bulkheads, over the floors. It was dreadful! It made walking slippery, almost impossible. Men lost their balance as they dashed for the head, and they came down the isle head first, feet first, sidewise, rolling over and over, twisting and squirming. Now and again a man caught a grip on a bunk; but the weight of the bodies behind tore his grip loose. It was a melee, a curse, but as terrible as it was, there was still bantering and joking among the downtrodden men, even some laughter when someone went tumbling by.

I hadn’t been to the galley but we heard that it suffered the worst damage of all. A heavy cooking range broke away from its fastening and crashed from one side of the galley to the other taking out all the tables. It had to be lassoed like a wild steer before it could be stopped. They said Stretch should have been the one to do it, but at the time he couldn’t get out of his bunk.

I knew at once, no matter how terrifying the sea might be, I would be much better off topside. I went back to my turret. What happened next I shall never forget. The turret where I stood was a good 50 feet above water, but when the first sea-there were three that I recall-broke over the entire deck, in one mighty flush it flooded the turret. I was swept from my feet but managed to grab on to the railing. The second sea sent the LST to our port-Sammy’s  LST was to our starboard-so far over in a roll that her whole underside became exposed. I was certain she would continue to roll and not right herself but she miraculously rose again. The third and worst sea was yet to come.

The situation continued to worsen. Had we not been in the path of the storm, conditions may have been better. “Who makes the decision for the Navy?” Stevenson asked when he came back on deck between lulls. He answered the question himself:  “Someone back in the Pentagon says ‘steam ahead at all costs,’ and that’s what they do, at all costs. Would a day or two or three make any difference? Would those guys called communists do any more than they have done already?” He continued to rant about miscalculations and military ineptness, about the thousands of Marines who lost their lives at lwo because no one took time to consider the tides. He ranted but I lost his words in the roar of the sea, or maybe I just stopped listening. I was shaking from something more than the cold.

Stevenson had joined me during a lull, but in the absence of the wind and pressure, the sea rose. It jumped! It leaped! It soared straight up! It sprang up from every point of the compass. We had passed through the eye-when the wind temporarily stops-but leaving the eye of a storm is far worse than entering. We were about to meet the full onslaught of wind and wave.

Just at that moment the USS Napa flung down to starboard.

The third sea hit us. It didn’t merely hit us, it struck, it slammed, and it bombarded, all at once, in one powerful, mighty blow. It came so violently, so shocking, that it felt like the earth might have fallen from its axis. There was no system to the waves now, no stability. They were hollow, maniacal seas. They were higher than forty feet now, or fifty, or a hundred. What did it matter? They were not seas at all but mountains of rumbling water.

-CH2C-

-CH2B-

Ship Duties

The next morning pandemonium broke out on deck during morning chow. The cook went into a terrible rage and every navy officer from CO to deck officer assembled at the entrance to the mess hall. The navy was stunned. Their monkey was gone. He went over the side! That morning, the story goes, he had swooped down as he always did, grabbed a Marine’s hat and then leaped out on the boom, only to miss his grip and fall into the sea. At close inspection they found the boom had been greased. The CO called for an investigation. The culprit would found, and the book would be thrown at him. But, of course, he never was. No one on deck had seen Scotty drop his skivvy shirt overboard.  It was covered with lard.

On October 1st, USS Napa stopped at Saipan, and on October 7th we watched the southern end of Japan come into view. We lined the deck, thankful the war had ended, knowing at it wasn’t this barren, inhospitable coast that would take our lives. “A hell of a place to die,” Marsden said.

“The bomb saved us, didn’t it, Sarg?” Chandler asked.

“Yes, maybe a million of us,” Marsden replied, reflecting or a minute or two on those words, and then continued.  “And maybe twenty million Japanese.”

“It was worth it then, wasn’t it? We’d be dead now, and all those Japs too.” Chandler commented.

Was it worth it?” Marsden repeated, hesitating over his words. We waited for we knew he would answer his own question.  Finally, he replied:  “Yes, it was worth it, for us, but I’ll tell you, the world may not think so in years to come.”

Aboard ship work parties were our daily routine. Every square inch of deck space, above and below, had to be swabbed own twice a day. Aside from the need for swab jockeys there was mess duty. Given the choice, a Marine would rather swab than stand with arms up to his elbows deep in hot soapy water.

It was a miserable assignment, but there was one even worse, and that was trashman in the furnace room. All trash aboard navy ships had to be burned. Nothing was ever to be thrown overboard. The concern wasn’t the environment. The navy didn’t want to leave tracks. So someone had to shovel trash into the furnaces. Each morning after chow Pappy Preston, the company gunny sergeant, appeared in each quarters, and with duty roster in hand he called out names and handed out assignments for the day. He had a tough time pronouncing names and often had to repeat himself several times to be understood. Since there were several Marines aboard with the same name as mine, or names sounding close to it, he would merely call out STEVE. I discovered, quite by accident, that by hesitating and not answering immediately, another Marine would answer up for me. Even my friend Stevenson never caught on and took work assignments that should have been mine.

This went on for about a week, until one morning instead of sneaking into my hideout I made the mistake of climbing back into my bunk and there I fell asleep. Before I knew what happened I found myself tumbling from the top bunk to the hard steel floor below. When I came to my senses I was looking up at an irate gunny sergeant straddling me with a heavy boot on each side.  He was so angered that even Stevenson, who Pappy said was dumb enough to stand in for me, was assigned to the furnace room with me.

The furnace room where we burned trash was midship and the only good thing I can say about it is that it was but one floor below deck. The heat was so intense, the air so stifling, that every fifteen minutes or so, while stripped to the waist, we had to charge topside gasping to get fresh air. The door to the furnace had been removed and so vast was the opening that a boxcar could have easily fit through without touching the sides, or so it seemed.  We were given wide, flat shovels to use, and we learned quickly they had a purpose other than shoveling trash. When the ship rolled sharply to starboard, we used the shovels as props to keep us from lunging into the open furnace. The fire was as vicious as the flames of Hades. It consumed piles of trash as fast as we could shovel it in. Not once did we manage to get ahead so we could rest, for as soon as we had shoveled clean the deck space in front of the furnace, another batch of trash would come tumbling down a chute completely inundating us. It never ended.

Our troubles aboard USS Napa, and for all ships in the China Sea, were just about to begin, however. During a break from the furnace room, I noticed the sky had turned an ominous black, and very strange was the texture of the sea. It was flat and an oily calm. Something was about to happen, and one didn’t have to be an old sea dog to know that. The next morning we learned a typhoon was approaching.

The news of the coming storm didn’t bother Gunny Prescott as much as did the news that Stevenson and I had been relieved from our duties as trashmen. Stevenson was summoned to company headquarters located in a tiny compartment next to the bridge. The Exec reassigned him to his old duties-Fox Company clerk. From yard bird trash burner to pencil jockey.

Not bad. My calling was of a different nature. Our convoy was sailing in seas that had been heavily mined by the Japanese, and Navy gunners were put on alert and called upon to man 20mm guns to look for floating mines. Also those Marines who had scored Expert Rifleman were called upon with their M1s to be on the lookout for mines.  Having fired 307 at Parris Island, one point over the mark, my name was called. Hecklinger also got the assignment, and for an Oklahoma cowboy it was a natural, but he wasn’t too pleased standing deck with a storm coming up.  “This ain’t like hanging on a bronco,” he said. “Why did I admit I could shoot a gun better than anyone? Hell, lettin’ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin’ it back.” For me it was better than the furnace room.

During daylight hours I was assigned to stand guard duty with my Ml in a gun turret that extended far out over the superstructure to the right of the bridge. I had a clear, unobstructed view of the bridge and all the activity that was going on inside. I didn’t know it but I was about to have the ride of my life.

The first words from the bridge that caught my attention were that the barometer was falling. Terrifying words to seamen. I remembered those words from reading Jack London. In one of my favorite stories of his, he wrote about the barometer falling when a hurricane was coming. Odd that I should remember this now. The average for a barometer reading was 29.90, and now the deck officer was saying the barometer was down to 29.62. The only difference between Jack London’s world and ours was that we were in the China Sea, and they call the storms here typhoons. In Jack London’s Tales of the South Seas they were hurricanes. Whatever name we gave them, there was no doubt the USS Napa and the ships of the convoy were directly in its path. Orders went out for Marines to remain below deck and for the crew to close hatches and secure everything on deck.

I felt ridiculous, standing in the turret, holding on to a tiny rifle, and looking out at a raging sea. This was no time to be on the lookout for mines bobbing up in a tossing sea, but I guess it was better than being cramped up below deck in our quarters, or even worse, in the furnace room.

-CH2B-