Oral history interview of Roland Jefferson Knobel

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of Roland Jefferson Knobel
Creator:: Gardner, Robert D.
Knobel, Roland Jefferson, 1923-2010
Date of Original:: 2004-04-01
Subject:: World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Guadalcanal, Battle of, Solomon Islands, 1942-1943
Atomic bomb
Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American
Churchill, Winston, 1874-1965
Lee, Willis Augustus, 1888-1945
Lyle, Alexander Gordon, 1889-1955
Hope, Bob, 1903-2003
Philadelphia Naval Shipyard (Philadelphia, Pa.)
Phi Beta Kappa
Washington (Battleship : BB-56)
King George V (Battleship)
Navy V-12 Program (U.S.)
DePaul University
Miami University (Oxford, Ohio)
Harvard Business School
Kearsarge (Aircraft carrier)
Kearsarge (carrier CVS-33)
Location:: Guam, 13.47861, 144.81834
Japan, Sapporo-shi, 43.061936, 141.3542924
Spain, Andalusia, Rota, 36.62545, -6.3622
United Kingdom, England, Kent, Gravesend, 51.4422972, 0.3696206
United Kingdom, Scotland, Orkney Islands, Scapa Flow, 58.89862, -3.04459
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, New York, Richmond County, Staten Island, 40.56233, -74.13986
United States, Rhode Island, Newport County, Newport, 41.4901, -71.31283
United States, Virginia, City of Norfolk, 36.89126, -76.26188
Vanuatu, Espiritu Santo Island, -15.15634105, 167.05107047173
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
hi-8
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In this interview, Roland Knobel recalls his time in the U.S. Navy during World War II. After getting into a "little trouble" in high school, the dean of students told him he'd never amount to anything. The dean was Major Morris, a World War I veteran who wore his uniform with a riding crop every Thursday. Morris told him that the only way he would allow Knobel to graduate was for him to enlist. Later, Knobel returned to his school in uniform, displayed his fraternity key to Morris, saluted and left. After basic training he was assigned to a commissioning crew and sailed on a shakedown cruise to the Guantanamo, Cuba, area. His first assignment was protecting merchant ships on the Murmansk run. He reports that his ship was armed with 15" guns, while the Germans' ships had 13" guns; he relates that the Germans didn't contest their presence there. He recalls a time when they were able to board a British battleship where he inspected the catapult and aircraft; he discovered a bird's nest in the cockpit. His ship headed for the Pacific through the Panama Canal and he participated in naval battles and supporting island invasions. He describes in detail their participation in the Battle of Guadalcanal, where his ship, the USS Washington, used the new technology of radar to locate and sink two Japanese ships. He recalls that at the end of the war, many men left the Navy, but he chose to complete his education and remain in the Navy. He retired the day he was due to leave for Vietnam. His successor was one of those evacuated from the embassy roof by helicopter in Saigon at the end of the war. He describes his post-war education and career. He describes his philosophy of war and how his time in the military influenced his life.
Roland Knobel was in the U.S. Navy during World War II.
ROBERT GARDNER: This is an interview with Mr. Roland J. Knobel (pronounced No-bell). ROLAND KNOBEL: Knobel. ROBERT GARDNER: Knobel. Excuse me, sir. Roland J. Knobel, 2637 Kosmos Drive, Atlanta, Georgia, April 1st, 2004. Mr. Knobel was born 2/23/23. Interview is Robert Gardner. Mr. Knobel, can you tell me were you drafted or did you enlist in the military? ROLAND KNOBEL: I enlisted. ROBERT GARDNER: Where were you living at the time? ROLAND KNOBEL: Staten Island, New York. ROBERT GARDNER: Why did you join? ROLAND KNOBEL: Because I was forced to. It is a story. I was a senior in high school and the Dean of Students was a Major in the First World War, who was quite an autocrat. I got in a little trouble because I was working as a volunteer in the supply room at Curtis High School and I got to be the student sort of director, and with that I had to recruit other folks to man the station during the day. I had about 30 folks that worked with me, all students. I also had the authority to let them out of class because it looked as if they were going to work in the supply room. One afternoon 17 out of a class of 30 were missing. I had been a little bit aberrant and signed a lot of passes that day. Colonel – or rather Major Morris who used to wear his uniform on Thursday with his riding crop – he was a Calvary Officer, called me into the office and said “Knobel, this will not do; you are a disgrace to the school.” And this was in January or February of 1941. I was getting ready to graduate. And he said “If you do not join an armed service you will not graduate..,” and with his crop – and so, I joined the US Navy on the 9th of February, which was two weeks before graduation. The sequel to that – oh, he told me that I was a disgrace and would never make anything of myself. In 1948 he was still there as the Dean of Students. I had by that time done some service, gone to school, and gotten Phi Beta Kappa, and I was in the New York area on a ship and I made an appointment to go back to Curtis. I visited him. I asked for permission to visit him. His secretary said “yes, Major Morris will see you. I was in uniform; I walked in, I saluted, threw my Phi Beta Kappa key on the desk, let him look at it, picked it up, saluted again, turned around and left. That is the last I saw of Major Morris. Now, to go back, so, this gets me into the Navy. There I am. ROBERT GARDNER: Why did you pick that branch of service to join? ROLAND KNOBEL: Because the Navy looked good to me. ROBERT GARDNER: Do you recall your first days in service? ROLAND KNOBEL: Well, it was on a – actually a very small ship that took folks from New York up to Newport, Rhode Island. ROBERT GARDNER: What did it feel like? ROLAND KNOBEL: Going up to Newport? Well, that was for boot camp as they called it, and I was young. I was, at that time, just a little bit under 18. ROBERT GARDNER: You mentioned boot camp. Can you tell me about any of your boot camp or training experiences? ROLAND KNOBEL: I've kind of put that out of mind. I mean, I did not have any troubles and at the end of the boot camp I was assigned to the commissioning crew of the USS Washington, which was commissioned on May 15th, 1941 in Philadelphia Navy yard. ROBERT GARDNER: Which war or wars did you serve in? ROLAND KNOBEL: I was in World War II. I was in the Korean War. I was in the Vietnamese War. ROBERT GARDNER: Where exactly did you go? ROLAND KNOBEL: Well, in the big war I was commissioned on the Washington on the 15th of May. I did what they called shake down cruisers in the Guantanamo area and in – on the East Coast. And we were in Norfolk on the 7th of December. Sometime after that in January we headed up the Coast and across the Atlantic to Scapa Flow, which is in Northern England Scotland. We were there to protect the merchant ships, which were moving from Great Britain to Romansk. This was at the time when things were pretty tough over there. And we had 15 inch guns on the Washington, several of a number of the German ships were in the northern Norwegian area. They had 13 inch guns, and were a little bit bigger and stronger than we were and they did not contest our protection along the northern area to Romansk. We were in Scapa Flow for about three or four months, also Iceland. We picked them up from all over the place. And one of the kind of exciting things was we were in Scapa Flow when Winston Churchill was getting ready to go to Newfoundland to talk with President Roosevelt, and he came aboard the Washington, wanted to see what the food was like and things like that. And he was going on the George the Fifth, which was a British battleship to Newfoundland, and he invited us to go back and visit the George the Fifth. I was at that time a very young fledgling Yeoman. Yeomen were the penmanship folks for the Navy, and I was in the gunnery department as their junior Yeoman, and so I went with the troops. And one of the things we did was inspect the George the 5th. My job was to climb up the catapults at the rear of the George the 5th and look at the aircraft they had sitting there. So I climbed along the catapult and up onto the wing of the – these were, of course, catapult type observation aircraft, and I looked in the cockpit, and in the cockpit was a nest with six little baby seabirds. I didn't report this to anyone. It was my secret. Now you know about it. The world now knows about it. But they did not use those aircraft very often obviously. We did the Scapa Flow thing, came to the United States in May or June, maybe July of 1942 to the Brooklyn Navy yard to have the first gun directed radar in the US Navy. We were the only Capital Ship with this. And that was quite good for us later on. Of course it was very nice for me because I was sitting in a Brooklyn Navy yard and Staten Island was a subway away and a ferry away, so I got to see my family for a couple of – for about three or four weeks while they were putting this radar in. Then we headed out to, let's say areas unknown but we knew where it was going to be. It was going to be the South Pacific and we were there. We went through the Panama Canal. I've the only diaries I ever did, two of them, which covers the period from leaving Gravesend Bay to getting to Espirito Santos just south of Guadalcanal and it stopped very abruptly on a Sunday, but I have those. They're, you know, quite personal. There's not a lot of war in it, but it was an interesting operation. We went to Tonga Taboo to Espirito Santos, and we were quite involved in the war activities around Guadalcanal from August of 1942 to November of 1942, which was about the end of line. We did have some very – okay, well that's where we are. Do I just go ahead? ROBERT GARDNER: Yes, sir. ROLAND KNOBEL: Okay, well we supported the post invasion operation on Guadalcanal, which was quite hairy and time was flip-flop as to who was going to do it. There was quite a bit of strong Naval Armament Japanese and American in the area. During that time a couple of US ships were sunk right after August the 7th, and we wound up supporting a major conflict in November, I think it was 11th and 12th or 14th and 15th, but it was in that area. And we were the flagship, a group of two battleships, a cruiser or two, and a number of destroyers and off in back was the Enterprise and someone else. They did not get into the actual fray. On the night of November, I think it was the 14th, at midnight almost to the “T” we were in what is known as a convoy, we had four destroyers in front of us and the North Carolina and the Washington were in the fray. We were the flagship. Admiral Augustus Lee was our Flagship Commander. He was aboard. And at midnight there was a great deal of furor. And ships on Savo Island, which was across from they called – oh gosh, what the heck was it? It's where all the ships were sunk anyway. There were two Japanese battleships and they opened fire on our destroyers, sank two of them, which led to a lot of fire and a lot of blood shed of course, and the decision was made where were we going to go? Admiral Lee made the decision to move his ship – that's the Washington – the west of the burning ships, between that and Guadalcanal. The Carolina went to the other side and took quite a bit of a beating from the two kind of concealed battleships. We had this radar. We picked them up. We got them both. We sank both of them. And I was the Gunnery Yeoman at the time. I was the speaker they call it, and my Gunnery Officer – at that time I think it was Commander Walsh – gave the order to fire. And we sunk both of those battleships inside of about three minutes. It was one hell of a winner and it was because of these radar. It was the only radar in the US Navy at the time. And so, with that – now this was 26 miles away and to this date I believe we are the only battleship – or major ship – that sank another major combatant without seeing. We never saw them. All we had was the radar. So that moved out. We had our little group. Then the radar picked up a mass of – a fleet of Japanese ships. These were troop ships. They were hopefully going to bring in the major support to reinforce the Japanese on Guadalcanal. It was like a shooting gallery. We sat there and just popped them all, not only ourselves but the others. Also, the Carolina got taken a couple of heavy hits. I think it was the Carolina. Yeah, I'm sure it was the Carolina. But they also fired, too, and we all got – I think there were a total of 24 ships – these troop ships that were sunk, and as a result the reinforcements never arrived and as result the Battle of Guadalcanal just about fizzled out at that time. Just about five months later I was told that I was going back to school in the U.S.A. and to go down to New Zealand to get a troop ship back. We happened to be on the ship that also had the First Marine Division, which is the one that was under great fire, which was finally, I think, rotated out with US Army folks. But the First Marine Division -- I came back onto San Francisco with the First Marine Division. And then we started the school bit. Do you want me to go on from there? ROBERT GARDNER: Yes, sir. ROLAND KNOBEL: Okay. Well, I went to school at Depauw University in a thing called V12, which was Officer Candidate School from fledgling – by this time I was about two years into the military. And I spent two semesters at Depauw, then went down to Miami University in Ohio for another four semesters, then went to Harvard graduate school to what they called pre-training for the supply corp., which is the bill collector group in the – the money folks in the Navy and finished not quite a Masters there, but at that time the Harvard Graduate School of Business had been bought out by the Navy to train their young officers. It was very nice. As a result of that combination of service I got my degree, I met my wife, who was at Depauw and just about time we got married. But the last – this was right at the end of the war and when the war finally got over, when they finally did Hiroshima, of course, Harvard Graduate School wanted their school back but there was a contract so the folks, the young naval officers – potential naval officers who decided to stay in the Navy were kept on while the rest of the troops went out, did some sea duty and got the heck out back to their civilian jobs. So there were about 30 of us that stayed in. So, for about a quarter, about three months we had this huge University complex and all of the big economic gurus who were helping FDR do things like social security and all of these things, they would go down for a couple of days in Washington, come back and we'd be sitting there just like this, face to face, with the gurus. I can't remember any of them right now, but they were the biggies. And then in April of 1946 I was sent to the USS Kearsage, which was a carrier, my first sea duty as an Officer. And I was there for about three years. From there I went to Intelligence School and never used any Intelligence. Then went to – this was right at the beginning of the Korean War, went to Guam, which during the Korean War I was on Guam. My wife got to join me there eventually, and came back then it was a variety of sea duties and East Coast services. And up until 1966 I was in a variety of other duties and on the 31st of August, 1966 I was retired. The day I was retired I was due to leave for Vietnam. I had to do my duty in the military at that time was a joint service, and I was the director of a thing called Supply Operations Center, and I procured, distributed, and tried to keep track of things like jungle boots, barbed wire, medicines for the mashes, those kinds of things. And I had total control of it. It was going to Vietnam and disappearing. We didn't know where exactly although we do. It was going to the Viet Kong. And I had all my shots. I had my personal plane that was going to get me there the day I retired which was rather nice. And the word was out that I had about a 50/50 chance of getting home, that the Supply Sergeants had a number on me as soon as I got there. My deputy in this thing, of course, replaced me. He survived very nicely. He is still a dear, dear friend. He lives up in Tennessee. He made Colonel. He was an Air Force type, and he is the gentleman that got on the helicopter in Saigon on the top of the legation roof, if you remember. He survived and came home. We still are dear friends. Then I went to school at – well I had a Public Health Service Grant. I had my GI Bill, I had my retirement, was making more than the professors at Michigan when I got my PhD and there we are. ROBERT GARDNER: Were you awarded any medals or citations while you were in the service? ROLAND KNOBEL: You know the usual thing. I mean, I – you're not in there shooting at eye ball to eye ball, I mean, I got the European Service Medal, a couple of Asiatic Service Medals, some kind of a DOD distinguished service thing, which I really can't remember what it was in that last tour of duty. Good conducts medal because I was enlisted for a while, those things, nothing very exciting. ROBERT GARDNER: What was the highest rank that you attained in the service, sir? ROLAND KNOBEL: Commander. Commander is the equivalent of a light Colonel in the other services. I was up for Captain, and I had my ship already assigned when I got out. ROBERT GARDNER: How did you stay in touch with your family? ROLAND KNOBEL: During the war? ROBERT GARDNER: Yes, sir. ROLAND KNOBEL: Well, as I said, for some of the time I was quite lucky in being able to visit my mother and my sister and things. They were right on Staten Island. Once I got, of course, into the far Pacific it was by letter, and I was very scrupulous. In fact, I had a list of who I had written in one of these things -- I guess it's this one – that showed who I was writing to and how often I'd written. I was quite a linguist at that time. I wrote a lot of letters. And then of course as soon as I got home in '43 I got to visit regularly from the various schools that I was at, mostly on the East Coast or middle end. So I'd go home on breaks and leaves and things like that. ROBERT GARDNER: What was the food like? ROLAND KNOBEL: The food in the Navy is excellent. Of course being the far Pacific we got a lot of mutton, a lot of New Zealand mutton. We didn't get much beef, but we had good food all the way through, everywhere I went, including one tour I was not only Commissary Officer and Supply Officer, but I had to buy it and that's kind of – one tiny little incident. I was on an LST which had been converted into a aviation engine and propeller factory and this was right in 1954 at the time when Franko let the US back into Spain for the first time. The LST was of course an LST, supposed to go in, drop the thing and you do things. We had a commanding officer whose name I will not give you and an Executive Officer, both aviators who had never been on a ship before, and we were sent in to just south of Barcelona to support a group of P2Vs that were landed in that area. If they needed repairs I was to do them. However, we did not go in and drop the – we broached, which is putting it on our side and as a result we lost three of the four anchors. That's what they had on them. And we were embedded right off the Coast there in a peach grove actually. I mean, we could see and smell the peaches, but we couldn't get off. So, they brought the fleet in and we had all kinds of folks aboard telling us how to do it and what to do it. And as Supply Officer I had to feed these folks. And the coup de grace was when then the brought 700 Marines aboard to transfer our limited armament kind of supplies out of the – onto the tank deck. I had to feed them. I fed them a breakfast, lunch and dinner. And finally got it all up, the ships got free and with that they called the 700 Marines back, put them on their ship and the fleet left. There we were sitting off the coast of Spain with live ammunition on the tank deck. And the word came out “you better take care of this.” Fortunately we went into the Portal [unintelligible] of the little port right there. I asked him “could I get some help?” I said we'd had these Marines that had moved this stuff and I had to get it back into the proper place. And he said, “Yes, they thought they could do that.” I said, “Well, what will it cost me?” He said, “I don't know; a million dollars.” And I said, “No, I've got some cigarettes.” And I went to my Captain – this is the guy that, you know – and said give me $300 out of the ships fund. That gave me 300 cartons of cigarettes, a dollar a carton. And I went and I said “I got some cigarettes.” He said, “I'll need a thousand cartons.” I said, “I've got 150.” He said, “How about 500.” I said “175.” He said, “How about 200?” I said, “Fine.” So I gave him these cartons, he got 50 little scrawny Spaniards; he gave each of them a carton he kept the other and became rich immediately. But they got back into the ammunition holes in about a hour and a half, 700 Marines to get it out. But the thing was that I had to feed these Marines, and we didn't have the food, so I had to provide food. I had a Commissary Steward who was Italian and he dreamed up things like chicken – these were the number ten cans of World War II chicken. These were 10 years old, but they had a ration tank, which is absolutely gigantic. And as a result I was able to build up huge ration counts feeding these 700. When I came back to the states into Norfolk I was able to feed the crew for about a month. We had pheasant, and we had lobster, and we had all kinds of things thanks to those 700 Marines. That's the end of the story. ROBERT GARDNER: Did you have plenty of supplies? ROLAND KNOBEL: Well, sort of. It depends. When you're on a battleship, yes. And when you're in the war zone – yes, always. ROBERT GARDNER: Did you feel pressure or stress? ROLAND KNOBEL: Not really. Not really. I was always either at home or on a ship, which felt pretty good. Maybe a little stress when the Marines were there but nothing really. ROBERT GARDNER: Was there something special you did for good luck? ROLAND KNOBEL: Nope. ROBERT GARDNER: How did people entertain themselves? ROLAND KNOBEL: Well, on various ships, depends on where you were. If you were on the Washington, we of course had our movies and we were what they called Condition Two a great deal of the time. When you were sitting waiting for the enemy to strike or what you have. We were always waiting because we really had only one or two real active engagements. You smoke for a while until you got so sick, because you could not smoke in Condition Two, so I gave up smoking at the age of 18, which was great. And I've never smoke since. Later on in life it depended. If we are in the Kearsage we went to Europe we visited – I spent four years in Spain with my family. I mean, I did all kinds of things. ROBERT GARDNER: What did you do when you were on leave? ROLAND KNOBEL: It depends where we were. But we did lots of wonderful things either over seas, or I remember that, for instance, on the Washington the 1st of January 1943 we were New Mia -- New Caledonia and we went to a horse race. We also had Bob Hope on the ship, and you know, we had all kinds of exciting things. ROBERT GARDNER: Do you recall any particular humorous or unusual events? ROLAND KNOBEL: You've heard them. ROBERT GARDNER: Do you have any photographs of anything? ROLAND KNOBEL: I brought one stinking photograph. It is the day I retired, the day I was going to Vietnam – ROBERT GARDNER: If you'll hold it up I can zoom right in on it. ROLAND KNOBEL: There it is. That's the family. I don't have Admiral Lyle [phonetic] there but I have another picture which does, when he was giving me this distinguished service whatever the hell it was. ROBERT GARDNER: [LAUGHTER] That's perfect. That's wonderful. Thank you. ROLAND KNOBEL: Got it? ROBERT GARDNER: Yes, sir. ROLAND KNOBEL: Okay. ROBERT GARDNER: So you recall the day your service ended? ROLAND KNOBEL: There it is. You've seen it. ROBERT GARDNER: Yes, sir. ROLAND KNOBEL: And, as I say, quite a momentous day. Instead of going to Vietnam I got in my car and went to Michigan. ROBERT GARDNER: Did you make any close friendships while in the service? ROLAND KNOBEL: Many at all levels. ROBERT GARDNER: Do you continue any of those relationships? ROLAND KNOBEL: Yes, right now we are – in fact, last night I had dinner with one of my friends from Rhoda, Spain, that was in 1962. At that time I was a Lieutenant Commander and these were the folks that worked with me. In October of this year we're going back to Rhoda, three couples. My wife died, but I am going with them, and we're going to retrace our steps. That's one thing. ROBERT GARDNER: Did you join a Veteran's organization, sir? ROLAND KNOBEL: Yeah. Not a lot of – I mean, there's the USS Washington; I'll probably be going to their reunion thing this year. VFW, yeah, I mean, I send money in, and one of the other militaries I send money to. ROBERT GARDNER: What did you go on to do as a career after the war? ROLAND KNOBEL: Well, I went back to Michigan – the University of Michigan, got my PhD in a thing called Medical Care Organization with, incidentally, some of the same folks that I had met at Harvard. In fact, Dr. Silver who had started the Medicare kind of thing was at Michigan. He had also been at Harvard. So, it's a small world. But I went on and taught, well from 1970 to 1999 and I'm still involved with teaching. ROBERT GARDNER: Did your military experience influence your thinking about war or about the military in general? ROLAND KNOBEL: Yes, I strongly abhor war, and I am quite adverse to what's going on in Iraq now. ROBERT GARDNER: How did your service and experiences affect your life? ROLAND KNOBEL: Very profoundly. They gave me all of my education. They found me my wife. It paid for my two kids' birth, so very, very profoundly and very wonderfully. ROBERT GARDNER: Is there anything you'd like to add that we haven't covered in this interview? ROLAND KNOBEL: I can't think of a thing. ROBERT GARDNER: Well, I want to thank you personally very much. It's been my pleasure to do this interview. ROLAND KNOBEL: Well, thank you, Bob. I appreciate it. ROBERT GARDNER: It's been my pleasure. I really appreciate this. Thank you, sir. ROLAND KNOBEL: Yeah. Okay. [END INTERVIEW] [KS]
Metadata URL:: http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/241
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Extent:: 39:54
Original Collection:: Veterans History Project oral history recordings
Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center
Holding Institution:: Atlanta History Center
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