Oral history interview of Clifford B. Dunaway, Sr., part one of two

Collection:

Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews

Title:

Oral history interview of Clifford B. Dunaway, Sr., part one of two

Creator:

Brown, Myers
Dunaway, Clifford B., Sr., 1920-

Date of Original:

1999-10-07

Subject:

World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Pacific Ocean
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Ballard, Robert Duane, 1942-
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963
Hornet (Aircraft carrier : CV8)
Atlanta (Light cruiser : CL-51)
Yorktown (Aircraft carrier : CV-5)
Washington (Battleship : BB-56)
South Dakota (Battleship : BB-57)
Gunner's mate strikers
90mm anti-aircraft gun
50-caliber machine gun
Iron Bottom Sound

Location:

Panama, Panama Canal, 8.99797, -79.59269
Solomon Islands, Tulaghi Island
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Hawaii, Honolulu County, Honolulu, 21.30694, -157.85833
United States, Rhode Island, Newport County, Melville, 41.58705, -71.28338
United States, Virginia, City of Norfolk, 36.89126, -76.26188
Vanuatu, Espiritu Santo Island, -15.15634105, 167.05107047173

Medium:

video recordings (physical artifacts)
mini-dv

Type:

Moving Image

Format:

video/quicktime

Description:

In part one of this two-part interview, Clifford Dunaway describes his experiences in the Navy in the Pacific during World War II. He served on the USS Atlanta during the naval battles of Midway and Guadalcanal. He recalls his desire to be a sailor and his efforts to get into the Navy; he read an article about how Georgia boys could enlist to serve on the USS Atlanta. He describes his training and their naïveté about war. He describes the work of the ship and his responsibilities aboard ship as well as the living conditions. He describes in detail the maintenance and firing of the Atlanta's guns. He recalls the sinking of their ship and his subsequent time on the island of Guadalcanal. He remembers liberties in Hawaii and the dispersal of the Atlanta's crew. He became part of a motor torpedo (PT) boat crew, and describes incidents that happened during that time. He talks of his "30 day survivor's leave." After his leave, he was recruited to be on a PT boat crew in Europe, where he would serve in high-speed boats behind enemy lines, but Germany fell before he left. He states that dropping the atomic bomb was "the best thing that ever happened." He recalls telling his parents that he was unharmed in the sinking of his ship. He describes meeting a friend from Georgia during the battle of Guadalcanal and the contact he has had with other veterans of the USS Atlanta over the years.
Clifford Dunaway served in the United States Navy in the Pacific during World War II.
CLIFFORD DUNAWAY My name is Clifford B. Dunaway, Sr. I was born in Jacksonville, Florida, on February fourth, nineteen twenty. I joined the Navy on Navy Day of nineteen forty-one. And I'd always wanted to be a sailor. Previously I tried the Navy, the Coast Guard, but I was a little bit underweight. Then in December forty-one, the big newspaper write-up came out showing a picture of a ship cutting through the water, which was the USS Atlanta. And the word was that Georgia boys could enlist for this particular ship. Well, that … Yeah. Well, I got off of work that day, went down to the new post office building. Before the day was over, I was in the Navy. That was the new post office on Spring Street. In Atlanta. Right. That was where my home was, in Dallas, but I was temporarily living in Morrow, because I was on a construction job. Oh, let me see, let me think here for a minute. That was in [BREAK IN AUDIO] that was during the Depression, they uh I was a teenager I think. Yeah, it was in the early thirties, yeah. Right. Actually it was Labor Day, October the twenty-seventh, nineteen forty one. [INT: Question about Pearl Harbor.] Uh, I was finishing up boot camp in Norfolk, Virginia. And we were uh we was having some kind of a drill that night when we got the word and of course, it didn't faze us too much cause we were just young boys. We didn't know what war was. It was no different from any other day. We just went on about our usual business. Uh, like I say we, we were just young boys. Name uh war didn't have much meaning. We, we didn't understand uh nobody had defined the word war to us. [Int: Did you know you would be going to the Pacific?] No idea of going to the Pacific, and we uh we commissioned the ship on uh Christmas Eve of forty one. [Int.: The USS Atlanta.] Yes. And we left the States uh I think around the third of March of ‘42. And went down through the Panama Canal and over to the Pacific. And training and escorting ships um finally the battle of Midway came along. We returned to Pearl Harbor. I believe it was Pearl Harbor, anyhow, shortly after that, we grouped and uh as far as I could see, in all the directions on the oceans were ships. I mean nothing but ships everywhere, and we finally found out that we were going to Guadalcanal. And nobody even knew how to pronounce it. And uh so we made the invasion there, but escorting ships in and having some skirmishes and uh protecting our forces there. [Int.: What had you been trained to do on the ship?] You mean in civilian life? [Int.: On the ship.] Oh, on the ship, well, after I had been aboard, this was just a day or two, uh later they were asking for volunteers, a gun striker. I didn't know what it meant, I had my hand up. [CHUCKLES] [Int.: What was the job?] Okay, you work with the gunner's mates and uh specific in rear, uh which mine was uh gun turret number eight, which was the last one back half. Uh, the upkeep of the gun turret and uh the guns, ammunition, everything connected uh with uh the operation of that gun and turret. [Int.: Swabbing the gun barrel?]Uh, we would have to clean them every once in a while. Uh, I was fortunate in becoming a gun striker and I hated to swab decks. And I wouldn't swab the deck the whole time I was in the, aboard ship, the Atlanta. And I didn't do any mess cooking aboard the Atlanta. Uh, I was a gun striker and that was my job and uh nobody messed with us. Cause it was too important that everything was ship-shape, uh, on each and every gun. [Int.: What was the total number of men?] Approximately seven hundred and fifty men and officers. [Int: Type of ship?] Light anti-aircraft cruiser. [BREAK IN AUDIO] [How many men per gun?] Six. Uh, three uh man per gun. And, well, actually loading the gun was only two men. And the gun turret, let's see the old ammunition was coming up from below decks. There's two decks down below, and I don't remember how many men, I believe it was thirteen men combined from the magazine to the front of the gun. Because there was number thirteen sailors, thirteen ships in that column. It was November the thirteenth, and there was thirteen men assigned to our gun turret. [What was your family reaction to your joining?] Just normal, yeah. So, I had, I was the first one in my family to join. It was. I had always had a desire to be a sailor and this was an ongoing situation and the opportunity came because it was an emergency and some of the standards had been lowered, which one of them was weight. So, I got down in my weight and I had sense enough to join, so [OVERLAPPING VOICES]. I don't remember. But I was, I wasn't what you would call a skinny little guy, but I was just a little bit underweight for the Navy standard. And before I went up that morning to the recruitment office, I crossed the street there at the old railway terminal. There was a fruit stand, and I went in there and I got some bananas, and a quart of milk. And I stuffed myself good, and I passed the weight. But I honestly did that. I stuffed myself with bananas and sweet milk, knowing you know that just a little bit of margin there could have kept me out of the Navy. So, uh. [Can you tell us what the Atlanta did at Midway?] Not really. I can't, I'm a little confused on that situation, um. The best I remember on it, we had uh finished firing, we was alongside, I think it was the Hornet. Anyhow, we had ceased firing and I went outside the gun turret for just a moment, and I looked back on the port quarter, and the Japs were diving on the Hornet. Of course, I was only out there for a moment, but I had to get back in the gun turret. In case, you know we got attacked again. Uh, but being inside the gun turret you don't see anything hardly. All you get is the noise, you might say, good [PH] ear, you're you're involved with firing the guns, working to fire the gun just as rapidly as you can. [What was the size of the shells?] Five inch. Five inch thirty eight. That was our main battery. Yeah. Five inches in diameter. Oh, I don't know the distance that uh I don't recall the distance that they would fire, but as I came up from the magazine, they were in a sheet and uh the shell is upside down, and it, it fits into some grooves there and the control tower is working their instruments giving the range of the attacking planes, and at the same time setting the firing mechanism on this projectile. And you, you reach there and grab that projectile, lay it in the tray after this powder man had laid his powder case in there. So, when you turned loose the projectile, which weighed I think it was fifty-two or fifty-four pounds, you push a little lever, and that rams it, and the breech, the breech closes and the gun automatically fires. Unless control tower has seen fit to discontinue firing. [How does the gun fire?] Yeah, there, there were fire control is uh, well, I, I could show you, no right. Easily. [BREAK IN AUDIO] Okay. The five controls. I believe it's between the [OVERLAPPING VOICES] it's sort of hard to tell, but it's in that area, where [INAUDIBLE] after batteries, and then the [PH] forward batteries somewhere around right along in there. It's just a little thing that some officers are out there and uh they're, they're controlling everything. It's, it's a radar, and uh whatever, whatever they decide to do, is sent in to our gun turret. Uh, electronically, and uh as I say when the breech closes, well, it automatically fires. Unless the control tower has ceased fire. [How long were you engaged with the Japs?] Holy moly. Few minutes. Just a few minutes. At night. [SIGHS] The night that we were fired on, we had only been firing approximately a minute and a half, I guess, before the torpedoes hit us and put us out of commission. Uh, I did know at one time uh how many rounds we had fired and from that info, I uh figured that we were only firing for about a minute and a half. But I, I don't remember how [OVERLAPPING VOICES]. [You are firing at a specific objective?] Just as fast as you can. [?] Uh, not on, not on aboard ship. Uh-huh. Um, I know his face is on [INAUDIBLE] coming up, uh, in a minute's time, we we could fire, it only takes a few seconds to, to fire a shell. But I I don't remember the the real speed. [What did that do to your ears?] Well, of that particular time when, when the guns were being fired, uh, it was an awful lot of noise. [Did they give you any plugs?] No, no, no. You know, you were inside the gun turret, everything was closed off. The only opening to that turret was the gun barrel, and, of course, you were firing it constantly, and uh, but the other guns, the guns from the other. Wait a minute. The explosions from the other uh guns. Uh [OVERLAPPING VOICES] the heat and the, and the light, and I wouldn't say flame, but the light and the smell and the noise and uh it was all coming up there in the barrel. Right into your, your gun turret. And I heard—we're about that far from the beach. [Did your ears ring?] I don't remember any problem on that. There the only problem I had was when uh we were approaching the enemy, and they said uh three cruisers up ahead and there were thirteen ships. I thought to myself, we're, we'll knock him off, because we had been so successful in every engagement so far, and uh, then when they uh let's see they gave us condition red. That meant that uh ships was right close where when they had uh had already identified and uh I was standing there, and uh I admit, I was scared, scared to death. Shaking like a leaf. And uh. Yeah. I, I was standing and turning round and round beside the gun, swinging my arms to steady myself. But then when they said commence firing, I just calmed down right now. But uh that suspense. [Int.: Was that due to your training or to you?] Due to me. [Int.: Oh, no. No.] Due to me. Everybody did their job. Right.. And they were, they were scared just like myself. Uh, it's, it's uh it's an awful . . . . [Int.: Prior to Guadalcanal did the ship have any action?] Not, not really. We had had some aircraft attacks, but they had come out without any damage, uh, we had been so successful, that there was no idea, no thought of uh being lost. No thought whatsoever. Do our job, get it over with, and go home. That's, that's the way it was. [Int.: Did you have a regular routine on the ship?] A what? [A routine.] Uh, I guess you could say stand, pretty much standard. Because you were so, you was on duty uh so many hours, and you catch a little sleep, you go back on duty, uh for so many hours, uh, and go catch a little sleep, and uh, ready or not, I slept right outside my gun turret on the deck there, steel deck. Cause all you had to do was take your little white cap, roll it up and put your head on it and sleep. Cause being as young as we were, it, a hard steel deck wasn't too bad to sleep on because you were tired and uh. Oh, yeah. It was a [INAUDIBLE]. Well, not aboard ship. Because you were always moving. You always had a breeze. And uh you could lower the topside deck at night and uh you didn't, you weren't bothered by the weather unless it started raining. I slept on the on deck on PT boat. Course it was real, with steel, hard, uh, then you're not putting on the cap on my head and take a poncho. You know where to [INAUDIBLE]. Just pour down rain would. It didn't bother me. [You mentioned that you often slept in the turret.] Ab, we slept, I slept outside the turret. No, you didn't sleep inside the turret. Because you was either in there working or you was on, on watch, and you didn't sleep at either time, uh, but I've, uh I've laid down outside the turret many a night. Catch a nap. [How was the food on the ship?] We had, we had good food. Yeah. We had good food. Uh, in fact uh when I came home on my thirty day leave, uh a little over a year after the ship was sunk, I went in to a restaurant to get a good steak and the waitress says, Why, don't you know that uh the [INAUDIBLE] Army and Navy's got all of the steaks? I says, No. And she was convinced that they didn't have any, so I got up, walked up the street to another restaurant and went in and ordered a steak. Now, we [SIGHS] we had sufficient food. I've been on a PT boat. Aboard ship, we had we had good food, yeah. Uh, sometimes you didn't get to go back for seconds, like you liked to do. But we had good food, uh, in fact, we had just provisioned the ship, a few days before we were sunk, but we had been in and bombarded Guadalcanal, and we spent over three thousand rounds bombarding them. And we uh we retreated to uh uh [PH] Esperito Santos, which was a big base south of Guadalcanal, and uh, we provision ed ship. [What did you eat?] We had a lot of food like anybody would have. [Any snacks?] Oh, no. No, no. No snacks. No, no coffee or no, nothing in between. Uh, uh this is off uh not concerning, but I went out on the Eisenhower with my my son, back in '84. [OVERLAPPING VOICES] ‘88, I guess it was. Yeah. And uh the, they rated, the first class petty officers had a compartment where you could go in there twenty-four hours a day, get some cookies or whatever they had. You know. Uh, no no no no no. It was served by the Navy. And in fact they filled it practically around the clock cause there was so many men on there. And uh [PH] me you talked about eatin' good food, that ship had it. I don't know about other ships, but believe me, the Eisenhower had it. [How often did you get mail?] You know, we constantly received our mail I couldn't complain about that. Uh, it was brought out to us regularly, it uh it might be a week or two old, but uh we we got it. [Tell us about the Guadalcanal landing.] Right. Okay, we we met up with the invasion force as our ships were everywhere. And in all directions as far as you could see. And um we found out we was going to Guadalcanal. And uh we went in as a support, screening for the uh landing forces, and we were in and out of Guadalcanal continuously supporting the supply ships, and we had uh I remember one night particularly. We had been trying to catch the Jap war ships and this particular night was a beautiful night. [sobbing] We uh we chased up north of Guadalcanal from a ways at night. It was big swells on the water there was uh it was just like glass, and uh the moon was coming up from behind the clouds, just a beautiful night. And uh you'd look up ahead you'd see warships, you'd look back out and you'd see warships, ours, but we didn't find the Japs that night. And uh we were in and out of Guadalcanal with the supply ships, uh and then that period there when we uh bombarded uh just a few days before we were sunk. Uh, then the Marine officer came up, boarded, and we went out and around the coast there, it, bombarding the Jap forces. And uh we found out later that uh we had stored a whole lot. Uh, they scooped up troops uh with bulldozers. Uh, so evidently we did a lot of damage, and uh so we got word that the uh Jap planes was headed to Guadalcanal. So the Marine officer disembarked back to the beach, and we took off south Guadalcanal. Actually, we went down to [PH] Esperito Santos, to uh re-provision ship. That's when we took on approximately five thousand rounds of five inch shells. And uh then we came back to Guadalcanal, and I don't remember how long it was we were with other ships. Until uh that night there our skipper was giving the opportunity for engaging or retiring. And he says we will stay with the group for good. And he didn't ask us. So, anyhow, we was we were coming in that night, we knew the Japs were coming in, but we didn't know anything about what size of force they had until my turret captain says three cruisers up ahead. And what we didn't know is that it was approximately thirty-two or thirty-four Jap warships, and two of those were their big battleships. And one of them is laying there now in the bottom of the Guadal Bay now. And when she sank, I [INAUDIBLE] a ship you know will, it will go down nose or stern or on its side, uh heel up battle, but this one, she was so she had a huge superstructure, and when she went down, she did a complete turnover. And you can see the keel and a little bit of the bottom and see her, the propellers. The rest stayed stayed stuck up there in the mud. That's in Guadal Bay. There was uh [INAUDIBLE] who found the Titanic uh went down and uh discovered thirteen ships in that in that area there. And which included the Atlanta [INAUDIBLE]. [Tell us about the attack.] Three cruisers up ahead. And um he found out we could uh destroy them and uh cause we'd been successful in everything we'd been engaged in previously. And uh. [Tell us what you knew about how the war was going.] Oh, well we we had the radio, yeah. Well, wait a minute. I'm getting that mixed up with uh the PT boat base. We would occasionally get an old newspaper, and we we managed to get some of the information. Well, if information came to you, insofar as I know, no one tried to keep it away from you. Uh, we were just out there to do a job, we wanted to do it, get it over with, and get back home. Uh, the it was a good spirit with everybody. We we weren't depressed or anything like that, we had a little music aboard ship, my turret captain had a phonograph. And he used to play records for us while we was on watch. And uh we just uh or we were out there to do a job, and we just wanted to get it over with. Yeah, there were approximately thirty-two or thirty-four Jap ships coming in three columns. And but unfortunately our senior admiral was not combat experienced. If he had been, I think we uh probably would have come out a little better on our side, uh, cause we were down between the Jap ships and we had not far to torpedo, and I hadn't [?] fired a shell, until they put a search light on us. And we had no choice then but to commence firing, which we did. And it was this [INAUDIBLE] all hell broke loose. It was a a bowl, round bowl. And it. [How long . . .?] Well, we were only actually firing for I figured for approximately a minute and a half. Maybe a little longer. And then we were trying to abandon ship, and then the first [INAUDIBLE] comes up, shells us. Yeah, we were dead in the water. Barely. And uh we got the life rafts over and I had these two badly wounded men in in the life raft, and we was trying to get away from the ship. Cause we thought she was going to sink. And we knew that we had those depth charges back there on the stern, and I saw one ship blow up right behind us. Uh, it looked like it was [INAUDIBLE] and a several few hundred feet behind us. And then there was a Jap destroyer. Yeah. Yeah, and all of it she lit up like a million light bulbs, she must have blown up. And uh of course it it looked like a ball or the the stern went up like that, and she just went right down. And then there was a Jap destroyer come right across our stern, and I was expecting any moment to hear a torpedo hit us uh but evidently uh it was just making a run to get away because uh he was burning coal cause the smoke stacks were black, and uh it disappeared into the night. And uh we paddling trying to get away from the ship. I don't think we got more than a few feet, cause when daylight came, uh we were just a few feet from the ship. And we came back aboard, we stayed all day, and the crew was trying to save the ship, and finally late that afternoon, they decided there was no way we could save it. And uh, so they took everybody off, and uh lift demolition crew on there and they set off a charge to port to go on over there cause the Japs were sending another task force in that night. And they didn't want the Japs, of course, to see us sitting there, you know. So, we we got all over on the beach, and uh we were sent out with the Marines. I was on the [PH] man millimeter anti-aircraft and uh a fifty caliber machine gun in a bull [INAUDIBLE]. Just a several hundred feet back from the beach. I wasn't, never got a scratch. I had a man— Scared to death. Uh, at the actual… engagement, but afterwards, uh, I was okay. Uh… [PAUSE] We were sitting that evening or that night waiting for the Japs to come in ‘cause they'd radio'd us that they were coming in, and, uh, we could surrender or be annihilated. In other words, no prisoners. And, shortly after dark, we could see some flashes up north and we'd feel the ground, it rumbled, you know. And in a little bit we got word over phones, that the Washington, South Dakota, and Florida destroyers, had engaged the enemy at the—at the horizon. And, uh, they turned ‘em back. There was one troop-carrying, supply ship got through, and up until a few years ago it was still sitting there on the beach. In fact I've been right up to it. Uh, there's, there's been a lotta concern, about how many torpedoes hit us. We know…well, some would say, one did the damage. And one failed to explode. But when you get two tremendous jolts, just almost, one right after the other, you—you been hit hard by more than one object. So that's where I say, we were hit with two torpedoes. ‘Cause it almost blew us in half. And then when, when she sank, they discovered that this other torpedo was sticking out up there by the forward magazine, but it had failed to detonate. Those two were just the boom, boom, just…That suck us apart. And it seemed to sort of pick the ship up, she dropped back down and, and, shortly started listing. And others, uh, we was in the gun turret, and my turret captain says, uh, ordered us to abandon ship. And so that's when we came outside, started getting the life rafts over. Well…we had some nice liberties in Honolulu. [LAUGHS] But there were no grass-skirt girls meeting us. The streets were filled with white uniforms. Sailors, everywhere. The Royal Hawaiian Hotel was the biggest thing I reckon on the island, and of course it was full of submarine sailors. Uh, but Honolulu was a nice visit, there was one disappointment, I went ashore the first time with a shipmate that had, uh, been in in peacetime and had been in Honolulu before. And he was gonna take me out to Waikiki Beach. So, we go out, we go through the lobby of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel out to the beach, and we walked up the beach to where it comes up close to the, uh, traffic. And we're standing there looking around. I says, well, come on, Collins, let's go to Waikiki. He says, that's Waikiki right there. It's just a beach, that's all. You'll find nicer ones here in the United States. Uh, we, uh, on one liberty, uh, seven of us rented a Model A touring sedan, and did a little touring, went up to Blowin Lock [PH], and back in, and as we were coming back into Honolulu, we saw several girls out there in a—in a pineapple field. And being sailors, you know, we wanted to talk with ‘em. So we stopped, and, uh, couple or so of us went out there to talk to the girls. And about the time they got out there, we'd looked and here comes a man, across the pineapple field. He comes up and says, uh, you boys know where you are? Far as we knew we was in a field of pineapples, talking to some pretty girls. He says you're at a women's prison. So, we left. [LAUGHTER] There was no fancies [?] or no nothing, you know, they were just out there like…the hired help. And, uh, so we was running a little late, to get back to catch a boat back to ship, and we was coming into Honolulu. But—in a, in an A Model we was probably doing twenty-five, thirty miles an hour. I don't remember what the speed limit was but we were going above the speed limit. And this officer, he was with his sergeant. And when he stopped us he says, I wouldn't have stopped you but says I had to because my sergeant was in the car with me. And he give this boy a ticket for speeding. And we went on, went back aboard ship, and, uh, this boy was killed at Guadalcanal so, they lost that ticket. We'd left—we left Guadalcanal, went down to, uh, our big base, Espirito Santos, south of Guadalcanal, and they took us way back up into the hills to what they called a rest area. The only thing it was was, living quarters, and eating, and they, uh, started sending us out to different areas. A few of the fellows, native men, uh, were sent back to the States from these ships, new construction they call it. Uh, the rest of us, we just went with the…in either direction. And there was thirty-six or thirty-seven of us, were, uh, destined to go back to Guadalcanal area, in motor torpedo boats to the motor torpedo boat base. And, uh, we were there for a little over a year, before we got to come home. Well, while we were attached to the PT boats, of course, Kennedy'd come through there. And, uh, actually I did not see any action onboard a PT boat, I was out there, patrolling, but, uh, I never did encounter any of the Jap warships but some of my shipmates did. Uh, my crew went out one night without me, because we had two men extra riding with us, that had just come out of the States, out of school, and they were raring for action. So, they—when they got the word that they was going out they didn't come across the bay area to get me because, they had a full crew. So they go out, and they engaged the enemy that night and they were making the run on a Jap ship. And, uh, they caught my crew in a searchlight, and blew ‘em up. And, uh…we found one of the men the next morning, the gunner's mate. But the fish had just about finished him off, so they didn't even bring his body in. And they picked up one motor machinist's mate. And he was, he was back there between the three engines. And of course it blew him out, and he survived. But I saw him, uh, when I came back to the States la—over a year later, and, uh, his mind was still messed up. He was very much like a little boy. Instead of being a man. His actions were like a, say a nine or twelve, thirteen-year-old boy. Okay, during that time, let's see, I had been promoted to first-class seaman, and then one day they told me I was a third-class gunner's mate [LAUGHS]. Uh, but I stayed on the base most of the time, uh, supplying the, uh, keeping up the ammunition and guns by the boats. I was a gun striker. Uh, pret—along with the enlisted, uh, graded men. One third of the crew was either killed or wounded. But to break it down, uh, I don't know how many. Uh, I know there's a lot of ‘em killed, I was looking through that list this morning. And the last [UNINTELLIGIBLE] each man's name that was killed, you know. And, uh, but there was, there was a lotta men killed. Uh, I walked by one man, after I came back aboard ship that morning. And he was laying there on the top-side deck, and, on a… stretcher of some sort, anyhow, he was a fire controlman, and he had been drafted, and I would say he was approximately thirty-five years old. Old man, compared to us young, twenty-one, twenty-two-year-old boys. TP 2 [STARTS MID-SENTENCE] CLIFFORD DUNAWAY —[UNINTELLIGIBLE]. And that's I think when they come back to the States and got… some medals…and I think that's all on that, I just…just a little something on PT boats. And my crew was lost at Guadalcanal ‘cause they went out without me. And, uh…then I swapped with a boy for D-Day, and that crew was lost. And at Guadalcanal, one of my shipmates off of Atlanta that lives up here in Chester, South Carolina, uh, I guess I credited him with partly saving me from that, uh, going out that night, ‘cause, I was, I was down on, uh, toward the end of…on the lower end of the island, and I found out that my crew was going out. So I had no transportation and they didn't send after me. And I was running up through there— [TAPE CUTS, PAUSE WITHOUT AUDIO, RESUMES MID-SENTENCE] —not to go out tonight ‘cause you was on patrol last night. I said well I better go, go see. And about that time the coxswain started backing away from the dock, I went running out there waving at him but he didn't see me. He sailed out, well, there I was left, and our crew went on out, and they were all lost except one motor machinist's mate.

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Extent:

1:01:14

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Veterans History Project oral history recordings
Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center

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