Oral history interview of Irving Daniels

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of Irving Daniels
Creator:: Wallace, Fredrick C.
Daniels, Irving, 1921-2010
Date of Original:: 2003-07-02
Subject:: World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Pacific Ocean
MacArthur, Douglas, 1880-1964
United States. Army. Corps, 24th
United States. Army. Infantry Regiment, 96th
United States. Marine Corps. Marine Division, 1st. Combat Engineer Battalion
United States. Marine Corps. Marine Division, 6th
American Red Cross
Wharton School
United States. Reserve Officers Training Corps
United States. Army. Infantry Division, 7th
United Service Organizations (U.S.)
United States. Army. Quartermaster Corps. Graves Registration Service
Anti-Semitism
Location:: Japan, Okinawa, 26.53806, 127.96778
Korea, Inchon, 37.456, 126.7052
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Virginia, Fairfax County, Fort Belvoir, 38.7119, -77.14589
United States, Washington, Pierce County, Fort Lewis, 47.06171, -122.58344
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
hi-8
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In this interview, Irving Daniels describes his experiences in the Army in the Pacific during World War II. He trained as a combat engineer after attempting to join the Navy. He recounts his family's immigration to the United States from Latvia, where his father had escaped from the Russian Army. He describes his journey to the Philippines via Johnston Island, Kwajalein, and Enewetak on a troop ship. His job was constructing bridges. He recalls Japanese defensive tactics at Okinawa and, referring to the atomic bomb, feels that it had to be done. He discusses making friends with Korean children and an encounter with a Japanese officer. In Japan, civilians had no gasoline and many converted their cars to burn coal. He describes the difficulties in getting supplies to occupied Japan and how he and his men overcame them. He recalls his trip home aboard ship.
Irving Daniels was in the U.S. Army in the Pacific during World War II.
INTERVIEWER: Today is Wednesday, July 2nd, 2003. This is the beginning of an interview with Mr. Irving Daniels. Mr. Daniels is a veteran of World War II. He served in the US Army in Combat Engineers and he saw service in Leyte, Okinawa, and Korea. IRVING DANIELS: Occupation at Korea. INTERVIEWER: Mr. Daniels, this is your story. We want you to tell it in your own way from the beginning of your enlistment. Did you enlist or were you drafted? And tell us if you were drafted why you – if you were enlisted why did you decide to enlist? And then take us step by step from the date of your enlistment to your boot camp, to your permanent duty stations, and to you OC service and tell it in your own way. You may begin, please. IRVING DANIELS: I joined the Army in 1943 and I was assigned to Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, which is a combat engineering center and went through training, which concluded in learning many aspects of what engineers do in combat, as well as in non-combat stations. Frankly, I enjoyed the training; one because I was good at and I was one of the few that took the trouble to read the manual to learn how, and because I had the desire to move up in the service, especially to go to Officer Candidate School. I was undoubtedly, in my platoon, among the top two or three trainees and was recognized as such. One of the accomplishments that I had, that to many of the officers and non-com's who were training us, was that I had the highest shooting score on record for the whole battalion. They couldn't figure out how a New York City kid learned to shoot like that. So, when I won the contest among the battalion shooters I was given various prizes, a three day leave of absence, but the officers called me over and asked me where did I learn to shoot? And my first inclination was to go into an explanation of the fact that I always – as a kid I loved to shoot baskets, and I was very good at that but I didn't play very well. But I could sink the three pointers without any problem. And anything that involved hitting a target I loved to do. And the net result is that we're in {unintelligible} shoot for record I had learned a trick that helped me and that was to heat rocks in a fire, put them in my coat pocket – we were shooting in the dead of winter so that was an additional aggravation. And before I was called up to the line we had to shoot in eight different distance and slow and rapid fire, I would put my hands on the rocks so that they wouldn't stiffen up on me, and I had read the manual and I zeroed my rifle in so that I knew it was the best that could be done with it. When I got to the last position one of the other trainees came up to me and he said, “Look…” he said, “If you can get ten bulls eyes you're going to win.” I said, “Leave me alone because this is nerve racking; now you're telling me I have to be perfect.” Anyhow, the long and short of it was that this was 300 yards rapid fire. In other words we had to get off ten shots within – eight shots within ten seconds. And I followed the manual very closely and put all eight into the bull's eyes. When the target went up there was tremendous shouting and hurrah and this and that. And that's when the officers called me over and said “where did you learn to shoot?” And my first inclination was to tell them about, you know, as a kid I did this; I did that and so on. But instead I pointed to the Platoon Sergeant and I said, “He taught me.” And the Platoon Sergeant just puffed up. He was so proud and he gotten an accolade. From then on he was by best Platoon Sergeant. Anyhow, at the end of my training I was asked to become an instructor, which I certainly did, and I really had no choice. That's what they wanted that's what they got. And I liked training. I went through five cycles training recruits, and one day when I was about to go on leave I was called into the Colonel's office and told that I was to be confined to the base, no telephone calls, that they would follow up with me and tell me what was going on. So I pleaded my case to go on leave and I lost and about two days later they called us together told us to pack and that were ordered to go to the railroad station in Washington and we boarded a car. That was all for us; there was no one else in it, fourteen of us. And we ate and slept in that car and we slept on hammocks that we strung between the two baggage racks. And it took us five days across country and we eventually wound up at Hamilton Naval Base – it was a Naval Air Base, spent about four or five days there and then boarded a luxury plane, which was full of a lot of brass Admirals, Generals, Colonels and us. Very luxurious, happened to be my first time in an airplane, too. So we flew to Hawaii and then spent five days being processed for duty in the Pacific, but especially in the tropics. And at the end of five days we boarded C47 with the bucket seats; it was a jump plane, and we island hopped across the Pacific because the planes at that time could not make the journey at one swoop. So we went from there to Johnston Island, Kwajalein, into Wotok [phonetic], Kuwong [phonetic], and landed in the Philippines and reported to the Commanding General, the 24th Corp. and he said to us basically it's a little too late to do the training now because we're going to embark on our next mission, and he said we'll take you with us. So they did. They put us on a transport and about four days later we knew that we were going to the next invasion, and this is right behind the Hiroshima. INTERVIEWER: When you say they put you on a transport, what kind of transport was that? IRVING DANIELS: It was ship transportation. And we were bungled into these pods I called them where 400 troops used a single pod and they had like ten pods on the two transports, 4000 troops, and they were stacked five high and it was so stifling that most of the troops slept on deck rather than stay below, because in addition to it being stifling you got sick. Anyhow, on Easter Sunday morning we were off the coast of Okinawa, we had been briefed by that time and told that we were going in, and we were assigned to the 96th Infantry, which was one of the 24th Corp. Divisions. And the Japanese had a brilliant strategy of defending that island, and when we went in there was no opposition. The Navy and Air Force and artillery have thrown more armament -- armed to those beaches than was used in D-Day invasion or anything in history. And the Naval Martyr [phonetic] was two or three times bigger than the tonnage used in D-Day. It was unbelievable. They have like eight battle ships in a row just throwing these 600 pound lethal bombardment armaments on to the shore. Anyhow, when we went in and found there were no Japanese they have wasted millions and millions tons of ammunition. Apparently our intelligence was not as good as I would have hoped it could be. Anyhow, the Japanese strategy was to bleed us to death. Up until then the strategy they'd have the bonsai charges and other persuasive means, but this time they decided that they had a long time in which to fortify the K-position and they built miles and miles of tunnels and depots underground. And they were so brilliant and camouflaged that you couldn't spot them if you were standing on them. So, initially this was all done in the bottom third of the island. The island was 60 miles long and from four to ten miles wide. One division went north, which was one of the Marine divisions. I believe it was 6th. And they took over the entire two-thirds of the island in two weeks. The other divisions turned south and immediately ran into what the Japanese had planned for them. The short of it is that it took 82 days to control the island or say it was under control, and our average forward advance was only 400 yards a day because we only had 14 miles to go and it took 82 days. And the casualties, especially with the Naval Forces were overwhelming – not overwhelming but they were stupendous. The Navy lost over 5,000 men killed. They had more than 12,000 injured, they lost 140 ships sunk and damaged. It far exceeded anything that we experienced in Pearl Harbor, and unfortunately most Americans never heard of Okinawa and they should. INTERVIEWER: Can I stop you there? IRVING DANIELS: Sure, yeah. INTERVIEWER: When you were ready to leave the United States and go to the Pacific, did you leave family at home, a wife, a girlfriend or whatever? IRVING DANIELS: No, my problem was my mother had been seriously ill for a number of years and that was my biggest concern, and she lived in Pittsburgh while I was going to school in New York. I went to college on a city scholarship so I had nothing to pay and had graduated and I got a scholarship to go to the University of Pennsylvania to the Walton School. And since I graduated in Arizona 20, I didn't have to get into the military until I was 21, and then subsequently they lowered it to 18. I tried to enlist in the Navy – well, actually I wanted to enlist and go to OCS – Naval OCS and I had a terrible experience in trying to do that. So I left New York went to Pittsburgh and tried again because I figured that I'd be more anonymous there. INTERVIEWER: Why did you want to join the Navy? IRVING DANIELS: I knew it was a lot cleaner living for one thing. Also, I'd always had a fantasy about ships and so on, but it probably was a mistake on my part because I was very subject to sea sickness. But I thought I would out grow it and get over it. But when I went to Pittsburgh on my second interview after they turned me down in New York I went to Pittsburgh, and I was interviewed I guess by a regular Navy Lieutenant, and he told me that I had failed the eye exam. I knew I had 20/20 vision, and I proved it a year later when I was the highest ranking sharp shooter in the entire battalion. And I said to him “Sir, that can't be right.” I said, “I have 20/20 vision; I don't wear glasses, I don't need them.” I said, “Would you mind if I took the eye exam again?” So this gruff officer called the Medical Officer over and whispered to him and they – he said to me “Read the second line from the bottom.” And I looked at him and I said “you mean the second from the bottom?” He says, “Yeah.” He says, “Can you read it?” I said, “I'll try.” Well, nobody can read the second line from the bottom. And so, he went back and told the guy I failed again. Well, the truth of the matter is he didn't like my pedigree, didn't like it at all. He was rough, he was regular Navy, and there was still a lot of bigotry. He said “You went to that communist school in New York.” I said “For your information, sir, the school I went to had the largest voluntary ROTC infantry in the world, in the whole country.” We had 2,000 people in the ROTC, and I joined when I was a sophomore so I could not get commissioned because I couldn't complete four years. I said, but I did take two years of ROTC there and then it turned out he says to me “Where were you born?” I said “New York City.” He said “Where were your parents born?” I said, “Well, sir, to be honest with you I don't know how that's relevant to our purpose here.” He says, “Are you going to answer my question?” I said, “Certainly.” I said “My grandfather came from Latvia in 1905, because he escaped from the Russian Army. He had served four years and the war broke out with Japan and he escaped out of Russia at great risk and then he sent for the family and brought them over and that's how my folks got to this country in the year of 1905.” Oh he says, “You're from Russia, the communist country.” I said “Sir, there were no communist ruling Russia, that was dissolved.” And he just didn't like our kind of folks and the {unintelligible} would come through and chop heads. He said “Well, you flunked the eye exam twice.” And I decided I'd never again apply, and that's why I enlisted – became a rookie, but they asked me to become and instructor, which I did, and now that I've been through five courses in four or five I knew I could go through OCS and not have to do – track a book, so applied again and that's when they called me on a mission. So I had to cancel that. Anyhow, we got to Leyte and we boarded ship and we were standing off the coast of Okinawa and that's when the first real heavy kamikaze attack occurred. And I could never understand to this day why the Japanese preferred going after the capital ships even though they did tremendous damage. Why did they go after the transports? I mean, if they had sunk just our ship alone it would have destroyed our whole division. And if they had sunk three transports, which had practically no defense, they had like a machine gun, but we did have – and they attacked at night. We did have our own planes protecting us. They shot down, during the course of the invasion 1100 kamikaze planes in addition to 6700 regular air force. But what happened when the kamikaze's came and started to attack our area there was one kamikaze plane that was shot down and damaged and it went in between two transports, ours and the one about a half mile from us {unintelligible} so all the soldiers who had been on the top deck started to scramble and ran below and I let them go. I didn't go down with them. I said to myself would you rather die in a hole of that damn ship or take your chances jumping into the water in case, you know, we get another attack. So I was the last man, they all ran below and I was at the hatch and I was the last man and closed the hatch except for about six inches to protect us from shrapnel, and I was able to watch what was going on. Q: And this attack occurred when you were in route from the Philippines to Okinawa? IRVING DANIELS: No, we anchored off Okinawa. INTERVIEWER: You were anchored off Okinawa. IRVING DANIELS: We were due to hit the beach the next morning. So when this happened my brain said to me don't go below, number one, you could get killed in the stampede by friendly forces. So I was the last man down the hatch and I stayed – the door was here, I stayed within five feet of it. And I said if we're hit I'm going over the side. I don't want to die below. So, that was my first introduction. And then we were assigned with the 96th Infantry and when they turned toward the southern part of the island because of the cake walk across, cut the island in two right away for three, four days, because the Japanese chose not to defend it. And then they turned to pursue the Japanese in the last fourteen miles while one Marine division went north and took care of business up there. Well, that's when they ran into all hell. And as I say, it took 82 days to go the fourteen miles. Our job then was to instruct when possible and where possible and also to maintain all bridging material and move it forward. As the line moved we moved with it so that there was always bridging material available. Well, the first – INTERVIEWER: When you say we, what was this, a platoon? IRVING DANIELS: No. INTERVIEWER: Or a company. IRVING DANIELS: There were fourteen of us; seven were sent north with the 6th Marine Division and seven of us went with the south. INTERVIEWER: When you were combat engineers? IRVING DANIELS: Yeah. Q: We were only with the 96th Division for about ten days then we were transferred to the Marine 1st Division, which was a crack outfit and we were with the 1st Marine Combat Engineer Company. We stayed with them. Not that we did everything they did. We had our own job to do, but we did {unintelligible} and moved with them. Anyhow, one day they pulled us and said, “Look, we've got an opportunity for you to train the bridge builders.” Fine, okay, that's what we were here for. So they took us to an area where there was a – you might call it a river, but our job then was to train in putting a 70 foot span across the river and the {unintelligible} bridges {unintelligible} and you have to figure out the weights or when it tilted over and started coming down the other side where you had already built and abutment for it you had to be precise. If you sent it over without the proper weight being in back of it, it fell into the river. So I caught one officer whose mathematics was not too good, and before he was about to issue the order to tilt it and I said to him wait a minute; you need to put on another bent, which is like another 1200 pounds to get the proper weight on it. So, we went out with the Marines and they at first resented it. They said “Look, we've built these things; we know how to build them. We don't need to go to school on this.” They're pretty touch cookies. But we said, “Look, what we're going to show you is not how to build it; we're going to show you how to build them faster than you can imagine, and when you learn that it will save lives.” So we went to work, and we showed them our technique. Each one of us was responsible for a certain group and a certain function, and while we were building the Japanese had spotted us all over forever and they spotted us and they called back to artillery and then started to shout. So every time – you know, there would be four men carrying a 400 pound piece and when the shouting started they had to drop it and dropping 400 pounds you have to be very careful in order to the shock. And we had to go through that three or four times during the building, but nevertheless we built it in two-thirds of the time that they were used to building it in, which meant, you know, lives saved, so that was one of the things we did. INTERVIEWER: How long were you on Okinawa? IRVING DANIELS: From the beginning to the end. We were there Easter Sunday. The first day we went with our company of engineers, hit the beaches first day and fortunately, as I say, the Japanese did not resent it so that there were no – I think there were only three killed in hitting the beach. But the casualties have resulted at campaign were far, far greater than anything ever experience before. So we stayed there when the campaign ended we were way down at the southern part and then we were transferred from the Marines to the 7th Infantry, which is a crack outfit and then our job was that we were going in with them in the invasion of the main island of Japan and I guess they call it the Tokyo Plain, so that was our next port of call. And we were scheduled – the timing at that time to invade the main island was going to be about November and we were {unintelligible} from July and August, September to be re-equipped and so on and get rested and whatever, and then we were to board ship for the next invasion. And other units were going to invade Kyushu and other islands of the main land. Well, probably the second most dangerous day in my life in that combat area was the day that the war ended. And you say how can that be? Well, when the atom bomb was dropped there were five or six good reasons why it was done. I guess forever there will be a chorus of nays and yays arguing we should have, we shouldn't have, and so on, and I studied this all these 60 years, came to the conclusion it had to be done. And one reason for the campaign in Okinawa and the results of that campaign, it showed that when the Japanese assume a defensive posture and board long tunnels and depots, they have their hospitals underground, they have their tank depot underground. Everything was underground. Everything was zeroed, every inch of space was pre-zeroed in for artillery, and it was just incredible. Well, the casualties, if you project that in going from an island 350 square miles into Japan, which was the size of California, you could project the death rate not only of combat, of military, but of Japanese. It would have been horrendous. I mean, it would – millions would have been killed. And probably the allies, because at that time the British also were starting to join us, we probably would have had half a million killed at the minimum, and that was more than we had killed in all the wars in history. So that was one of the reasons why they dropped the bomb. Okinawa told them are you willing to lose this number of American and allied lives and also millions of Japanese? The B29s that fire bombed the cities of Japan in one day killed more Japanese than both atom bombs combined, and most people don't know that because the cities are made of paper and bamboo and wood, and they dropped these fire bombs night after night after night and now we had bases where B29s could fly in from the Philippines, from Okinawa, from the little island where we got so bloodied so badly, and to Guam and so on. So, that was one of the main reasons why the bomb was dropped. Q: Were you aware of these raids by B29s – IRVING DANIELS: Oh, sure. INTERVIEWER: -- at the time? How did you get the information? IRVING DANIELS: We had bulletins given to us about what was happening. Also, throughout my military service I had a weekend review section of the New York Times mailed to me even it was a month old. So I always kept up – and I used to give the orientation lectures to the platoons also. As a matter of fact, the intelligence service interviewed me and wanted to know where I got my information from because they thought I knew something they didn't know. Well, the truth is I had predicted the day that D-Day was going to occur and they wanted to know how I knew that. All I did was took – I knew what the weather option was. You had to invade between this date and that date and I split it down the middle and I was right, I won $100 on bets and pools. So, anyhow – INTERVIEWER: You said the day the war ended was the day that you were in most danger. IRVING DANIELS: Right. INTERVIEWER: Can you expand on that? IRVING DANIELS: I'm glad you reminded of that, and I'll tell you why, because in a sense it's humorous. The troops were so elated everything that they had was fired. Their guns went off. I mean if you owned a machine gun you fired it. I looked around and I said this – ammunition is flying in all directions and we no longer had fox holes; we were sleeping on cots. So, when I saw all this happening I ran into my tent, I took all the mattresses piled them up and crawled underneath, and who knows, that may have been my saving, because you know a lot of people get killed in friendly fire. You know, you see what's going on now. I'll tell you one other incident where I came very close. We were dug in when were with the Marines on the reverse slope of a hill that was maybe 40 feet high, and we were on a reverse slope because it theoretically afforded protection against shrapnel. So one day Sergeant and I, we both agreed we needed hair cuts. So I says okay. He cut my hair first and then I cut his, and he sat on a crate and I was standing in back of him shaving, talking away, and we could hear, you know, shells maybe a half mile or so away, but we didn't pay any attention to them. And then suddenly I hear a wiz in the branch of the tree that I was standing under falls down and we both immediately knew what was happening, we hit the ground, and when it stopped I saw a piece of shrapnel – as a matter of fact I was looking for it last night; I couldn't find it. I brought it home. A piece of shrapnel about this big, and I'd never seen piece of shrapnel from a fired piece of armament and the edges of it were serrated and razor sharp on all sides, and it missed me – I saw where the branch had been cut off. It missed me by about six inches, just that. And I went to pick the shrapnel up without thinking and it was red hot, just blistered by fingers and eventually when it cooled down I brought it back home. But that was a close call. Anyhow, the campaign in Okinawa was in blood, material, everything was tremendous but – INTERVIEWER: So when you left Okinawa where did you go? IRVING DANIELS: I had hoped that we would be assigned to occupation duty in Japan, but that was not to be. Instead they sent the 7th Infantry to take over Korea. And this of course was in September '45. And we went into Korea, and the Japanese have occupied for 40 years. Well, we landed at Inchon that was where McArthur made his famous diversionary incursion. You may remember it had a tremendous tide differential, 30 feet, but we of course went in at high tide, went in and – I don't know how I got there, but myself and another buddy, I guess we were assigned some time off you might say, because we had been on the ship for several days. And so, this fellow and I went to a park in Seoul. Yeah, no, in Inchon, went to a park in Inchon and sat under a tree and we both played the harmonica. And so, the two of us are sitting there and we're playing, you know, and a few children gathered around us and they were smiling and dancing and then we played Turkey in the Straw, and we played Yankee Doodle Dandy, and pretty soon we had 30 or 40 kids moving around. I said to the guy “have you ever read the Pied Piper of Hamlin?” He says, “Yeah, that's that story about where they played the flute and the kids all followed him through the town?” I says, “Yeah.” I said, “Well, why don't we do that?” So the two of us went parading through Inchon and as we walked along more and more kids joined and pretty soon we had our own Army of these little shavers {unintelligible} and it was just hilarious. And another incident was the day after we landed we were walking through Inchon and we were starting to take over things, and there was a Japanese car parked and they had run out of fuel, because the American Navy did a superb job, especially the submarines, they just sank everything, so they were short of fuel. So, they converted to charcoal burners which stunk like hell, but it got them places. And inside the car was a Japanese Major and he looked at – there were six of us, eight of us, he looked at us with a look of distain and you could tell the hatred that came out of this man's face. So most of the boys that were with me were Texans, big and brawny, and one of them got a brilliant idea. He said, “Why don't we teach this guy a lesson?” I said, “Well, what do you have in mind?” He said, “Let's pick up his damn little car and turn it upside down and lock him in there.” And he did. And this major was screaming, yelling, and he just locked him in there, walked away. And I don't know how long it took to get him rescued but that was hilarious. We really enjoyed that. INTERVIEWER: So, your duty in Korea was the Occupation Forces; is that right? IRVING DANIELS: Yes, we took over the Japanese, what was called a Calvary installation, and it was a permanent installation. It had been there for about 40 years, well built and I was given -- not immediately but after a while I was given complete charge of all divisional engineering supplies, which included the food and all that. And I had learned that a lot of the better stuff never reached us. Because every Beach Master, wherever the ship docked, would examine the manifest and he saw that you had smoked turkey in tins he wanted that or whatever was good. And we wound up with the K- rations and the C-rations and this is during combat, too. I mean, you see these amphibian tractors coming down with the rations for the combat troops, and there was nothing in there but the good old spam and all that junk, and the good stuff the Beach Masters had taken off in Hawaii and wherever else they stopped they sorted through. So I said “We're going to get ours this time.” So, I had about – these same Texan boys some of them real good thieves, and I said to them “Here's what we're going to do, we will drive down the depot…” I said, “I'm going to get the Master Sergeant that runs this place and he and I are going to have a nice conversation.” And I said, “While I'm keeping him busy you guys look around and see what special stuff there may be around, and don't be bashful, just put it on our truck.” So I got a hold of the guy in charge of the depot and we became fast buddies, and I promised him a souvenir because I was also in charge of collecting all the Japanese troops – their personal guns, swords, which is where I got this from. And so, these guys loaded us up pretty good. And I took some of that stuff and the Colonel in charge of our battalion, he entertained quite well. He had a beautiful house there in the Korean hills and he had parties, and he would come down and say “Sergeant, what do you got for me?” He says, “I've got a party; we're going to have some geisha girls…” or whatever. I said, “Well, Colonel, you're just in time.” And I kept a locked bin, and I opened the bin, I said, “Look around, tell me what you want.” And I had a crate of Washington apples, and I had corn beef and all that stuff and he just selected it and we delivered it, and he was my pal so – INTERVIEWER: We've got about 15 more minutes. IRVING DANIELS: Okay. INTERVIEWER: Take us from Korea back to the United States hitting the most important points you want to make. IRVING DANIELS: The return to the United States for mustering out was done on a point basis, and these points were allocated based on how long you're in service, your rank, and also combat experience, whether you went in with initial wave, or whether you were in supply – in other words, points for all that contributed. So, when my time came we boarded ship, whereas I'd flown across the Pacific I was now going home on a ship. And this was pretty nice. My duty on the ship was that I was in charge of the bakery, which was nice because they made beautiful pies and so one. But it was eleven days getting home and one of the highlights that there was a non-stop poker game that went on for eleven days. And the winner, when we finally docked, walked out with $14,000. So I think he did the most – other than the Marines that used to collect Japanese gold teeth, which I didn't mention in this, but there was some ne'er-do-wells after the shooting move forward some of these guys would go into the {unintelligible} of the Japanese and extract whatever gold teeth they had. And I counted one guy – because I was mad about. I thought that was a terrible thing to do. One guy had a pouch and he had about, at that time it would be worthy maybe $300 worth of gold. And I said, “For this you're doing that?” He in fact told me go mind your own business. And I did because these guys – some of them are half nuts anyhow after being in several campaigns. So the trip back was great. It was eleven days like a cruise and when I got back to, I think it was, not Seattle, Ft. Lewis in Washington and they greeted us at the dock and there was a how do you do, glad to have you back, and they're waving, the girls and this and that, and they served us – the Red Cross – first time I'd ever seen them. The Red Cross came over and handed out milk, which was a bad mistake because we had not tasted milk in a year, and it made me sick as anything. But anyhow, so we went to the USO after we were checked in and guess what? The building started to shake. There was an earthquake tremor. That was our greeting home. And then we did fly from Washington back to the East Coast and I was mustered out at Ft. Dicks and that was the end of that. And then I went back to school and finished up in seven months instead of a year. I got my first job at the ripe old age of 28. INTERVIEWER: Well, Mr. Daniels, we have certainly enjoyed you sharing your experience with us. Is there something that if a young person came to you today and asked you about your military experience, what would you tell him what you gained from that experience? IRVING DANIELS: Well, what I would tell young people and I tell so many now is you've got to know your history. If you don't know the past, you know, the old adage, you're bound to make the same mistakes again. And I would tell them history is a very interesting subject. I mean, read what you enjoy reading in history, pay attention. And today, unfortunately, you can through Harvard and never take a course in History. It's terrible. And in my recitation here, even though I've written it down, I didn't know go into the horror. I really did not. Because if I gave you the number of casualties and what I experience at Graves Registration it would be a terrible thing to talk about. [END SIDE A] [SIDE B BLANK] [END INTERVIEW] [KS]
Metadata URL:: http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/321
Additional Rights Information:: This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required.
Extent:: 49:16
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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