Oral history interview of William "Al" Cahill

Collection:: Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
Title:: Oral history interview of William "Al" Cahill
Creator:: Gardner, Robert D.
Cahill, William, 1913-2014
Date of Original:: 2004-05-27
Subject:: Douglas DC-3 (Transport plane)
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
Temple University
United States. Navy. Hospital Corps
Naval Hospital (Jacksonville, Fla.)
Naval Hospital (Oak Knoll, Calif.)
Location:: United States, California, City and County of San Francisco, San Francisco, 37.77493, -122.41942
United States, California, Ventura County, Port Hueneme, 34.14778, -119.19511
United States, Florida, Duval County, Jacksonville, 30.33218, -81.65565
United States, Florida, Duval County, Naval Station Mayport, 30.39076, -81.42509
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Georgia, Floyd County, Rome, 34.25704, -85.16467
Medium:: video recordings (physical artifacts)
hi-8
Type:: Moving Image
Format:: video/quicktime
Description:: In this interview, William Cahill remembers his time as a Navy corpsman in the Pacific during World War II. He had been managing a mortuary for ten years at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the event prompted him to enlist. As he had already had four years of medical school, he became a Pharmacist's Mate 2nd class. He was attached to the Marine Corps and made three beach landings in the Pacific, describing the preparations and difficulties of the landings. He also worked with a Navy underwater demolition team to help dynamite coral reefs to facilitate an invasion. He survived a plane crash with crushed ankles, and continued his service by preparing medical reports in a Navy hospital.
William Cahill was a U.S. Navy corpsman i the Pacific during World War II.
This is an interview with Mr. William A. Cahill born July 14, 1913. Current address is 42 East Canora Drive, Rome, Georgia. The date is May 27, 2004. Interviewer is Robert Gardner. Interview is taking place at the Atlanta History Center. Interviewer: Mr. Cahill, what war and branch of service did you serve in. Mr. Cahill: United States Navy. I enlisted and was assigned to the Marine Corps because the Marine Corps doesn't have a medical department. A lot of people don't know that and it's ridiculous but that happens to be the case. And for every time you see Marines doing almost anything, there has to be a corpsman among the group just for their security and safety because of the, what a corpsman can do to you if you get badly hurt. Interviewer: Where were you living at the time you enlisted sir? Mr. Cahill: At what? Interviewer: Where were you living at the time that you enlisted? Mr. Cahill: Ah, … Interviewer: It's not that important. Mr. Cahill: Ha, ha, it's Jacksonville, Florida and ah the ah, I can't remember that street address. Interviewer: Oh, that's fine. Mr. Cahill: Ha, ha. Interviewer: Why did you join? Mr. Cahill: Ah, Pearl Harbor, of course, prompted me to enlist immediately. But I was already 1A in the draft and ah, there was, ah, when the numbers began to call and all and my number came up. Well, it didn't make sense for me to be number 9 zillion something when I could just go over to the recruiting office and line up because I was manager of a funeral home. I had been there 10 years and was a licensed embalmer and in Florida and [my] interest in anything related to public safety and stuff like that prompted me to just go ahead and enlist early because I knew that, that the owner of the firm was selling the company because she was a very elderly lady. I had run it for her and managed it for her for a number of years. Interviewer: Why did you pick the service branch that you did to join? Mr. Cahill: Family background. I had a couple of uncles that were surgeons in the U.S. Navy Medical Operations and I once got an appointment to Annapolis and my father died before I could even remotely take advantage of it. He had been in a hospital for five years. He was a locomotive engineer in a terrible railroad crash. And if you want the details on it I would be happy to squeeze it in because he was in Florida East Coast Railroad when the trains got to, had to pass each other. Sometimes one had to get on a siding. And this particular time the, when a train does get into a siding then someone else can pull out while the faster through train can pass. Get on down the road and someone that was the flagman—and they did it with lanterns, back in those days, see they have walkie-talkies now—but the signal lamps it off that there was a train coming or whatever and when that breakman/flagman woke up and jumped up and started running back towards this passenger train that was coming at him about 80 miles an hour with 16 big steel Pullman cars, the procedure under those conditions since it was going to be a rear-end collision because they were hitting this freight train and that when just before they hit he got out on his side down on a step and his fireman did on the other side to jump. That was the only way he could be saved and usually you learn to do a roll. He jumped on top of this fireman and killed him but my dad landed on his chest, got all chewed up with the gravel and this sort of thing and never recovered because he was in the Florida East Coast Railroad hospital in St. Augustine, Florida, and it was handy and because I was going to grammar school there nearby and that's how that came about. Interviewer: Do you recall your first days in the service? Mr. Cahill: Yes, sir. When I walked in the _____ I was greeted by one of Jacksonville's most prominent doctors that had an office not too far from the funeral home that I was, lived, I lived there in it, the funeral home, 10 years. And he, when he found out that I was enlisting as a corpsman he insisted that when I get through with that he wanted me to come over to his office and he insisted that I fill in papers to start out as a second lieutenant because I had had four years of pre-med up at Temple University in Philadelphia because after my father died my mother later remarried to the professor up there. He invited me up and as our profession was somebody came up with the smart idea on how easy it was to create a brass mask so accurate that you could see every pore and that it was a technique to do that. And he had me come up there to be, to learn how to do it because it was such a market for it in Florida. A lot of older people retired come down there and then once they had retired or something they didn't want to go, if you put them in the cemetery then you have to kiss them good-bye but if you could get one of these metal things done, that sits on a pedestal and all that. That's it. I'm sorry, long answer. Interviewer: Can you tell me about your boot camp and training experiences? Mr. Cahill: After enlisting as a second class pharmacist mate. That was their decision because of my pre-med background. I was told to report to Mayport which is about 20 miles from where we were in Jacksonville, at the mouth of the St. John's River. That was a shrimp boat headquarters, deep sea fishing and all that sort of thing for decades. Let's see. Since I was a corpsman to give shots down there for tetanus and typhoid and all kinds of malaria, other things because they were trying to get troops out of their way. People lined up trying to enlist but they had to have certain shots and stuff and I was sent down to Mayport. And that became a submarine turning basin, aircraft turning basin and a small submarines because the nuclear subs then are down at St. Mary's, only about 20 miles away but in that special facility that the government has for the nuclear subs because they cost so darn much. Interviewer: How did you get through your basic training? Mr. Cahill: I was handed a board that was about 5 inches wide at the bottom and about 1 inch wide up at the other end and it was 36 inches long and I stood in line there with a bunch of other people that were, that had enlisted and we were getting some basic training to learn the manual of arms if you are familiar with all that and to learn to do as commands said without hesitation and all that. And that's, that was sufficient reason I guess. Interviewer: Do you remember any of your basic training instructors? Mr. Cahill: No. Only a couple of doctors that were there because they also checked these people from, for vital signs. I can't remember any of them now because this was prior to 19 and I believe 45. I'm not sure. Interviewer: What war did you serve in? Mr. Cahill: World War II. Interviewer: Where exactly did you go? Mr. Cahill: From Jacksonville I was sent first down to Mayport, that's just a one-horse (ha, ha) medical person and because they had people down there that were beginning to work on those shrimp boats because of some patrolling we were beginning to do there. And from Mayport I was, after getting everybody caught up on shots and everything, I was transferred and it surprised me. One person transfer to the U.S. Naval Hospital in Jacksonville which is one of the largest of their hospitals and from there, you want me to keep going on that aspect? Ok. While I was there they were, I learned in the wards there how many of the young officers were “90 day wonders.” Those who had some limited college and they were eligible for starting in as a, I forgot what they were, but anyhow, young officer, naval officer and they were, none of them had professional backgrounds like I did or a few other things. And the, oh, let me see, I learned as much as I could and found out in a hurry they were learning from me more because I had had more first aid, more autopsies and more, all kinds of accidents and injuries, because of having lived in a funeral home for 10 years. Interviewer: Where exactly did you go on your military assignment, your first duty station after that? Mr. Cahill: Orders came in, they were with an 105-lb WAVE that had just gotten in from somewhere, just shipped in to relieve a corpsman that were on duty at the U.S. Naval Hospital, which was me in a hospital jammed pack with over almost 3,000 patients and with all the aircrafts, all of the airports in the flat ground of Georgia and Florida and all of the flying and pre-flight training and all of that stuff. It was a need for a corpsman just for Mickey Mouse bandaids and any kind of dressing you could think of, a corpsman was qualified, could take care of. Interviewer: Did you see any combat? Mr. Cahill: I sure did. In going overseas, orders came in for one corpsman out of the hospital to report to Port Wynieme above Santa Barbara, California. A massive supply depot that had supplies 3 and 4 stories high. It must have covered a couple of hundred acres and ships lined up trying to get people fitted, trying to cram people into uniforms and to teach them something so that these ships could get on out and take personnel and especially a load of fuel and uniforms and whatever was needed to take it with them to the South Pacific. That was the first assignment and we landed there in just after sundown and the next morning when—and I'm still aboard ship, a couple of us were—and it was daylight and our ship, 500 feet long, jam-packed with material of every description, fuel, ammunition and all kind of stuff. And it was, we were tied to a tree because (ha, ha) it was right at the end of the strip and the water was 90 feet deep and that was the quickest way to with their rigs to pick these trucks up and all kinds of things. And I'm coming to the trucks. I learned pretty soon that we had dropped a truck. When we first started to lift the stuff and put it on the ground they dropped the truck and somebody had to take a cable down and hook it so that they could wrench it back up which, which they did. I watched them do it. And I didn't do it personally because I didn't have any gear with me and I wasn't a good diver. I didn't have that much experience. Anyway, that's that part. Well, let me see what else might have happened related to that. Well, troops began to come, just increased, increased, increased and patients that were banged up in this flight training. And then we were, the Germans had learned enough about our coast line to sink us with the mines, by turning mines loose with submarines about 20 miles out near the Gulf Stream and it would, they would drift in with a hook on the bottom of the chain and when it hit the dirt just like a bucket does on an anchor and it would dig in and then it would pull, automatically pull that mine down below the surface of the water so that you couldn't see it and avoid it. And then they were sinking so many ships that were coming around the coast because of our supply lines that, for fuel for the factories in the north and east that had to go across the Gulf of Mexico below Key West and up the chain of islands and the coast of Florida and then up the Atlantic Coast all the way up into New England states. And then they began to have the pipe lines working and then of course that slowed down a lot. However, big gear that you don't put in the pipe line like trucks and ah, airplanes that were being manufactured and we, out of along the Gulf Coast, especially out of New Orleans, there were so many small tanks, small, well I don't know where the guns came from at that time, anti-aircraft, sometimes weapons, trucks, jeeps. A lot of that stuff was coming in to Jacksonville because it was used in training. It was places people waiting for them where they had a whole bunch of troops but they didn't have that jeep to practice on. Interviewer: What were your combat assignments? Mr. Cahill: ……. That branch of the military, when the Marines, that what they were had to come ashore in most of the islands, in the South Pacific then, had coral reefs right up under the surface of the water, okay. And when these landing craft came in sometimes they could ride clear over that and then come on ashore. But if they couldn't then they would be stuffed up in there like a shooting gallery. And the Japanese had been waiting for us for over four years from the tops of sand dunes and elevation, they were all in trenches with machine guns. And where the sand dunes were thinned out down toward the beach, ah, where the tides would make the ground harder, that sorta, that was ah ah what we had to cross to even make any kind of approach successfully where the Japs were concerned because you couldn't see them. So we ah, as a corps and every ten Marines that came out of one of these landing crafts, one corpsman was supposed to be with them. And since this was so early in the war I was soon to be the first one out there and I did go on three different landings and they only ask you to do two because the survival rate was so poor. And I was surprised when I did find out that, well I'm covering something else, well I'll wait for that. Interviewer: Were there many casualties in your unit? Mr. Cahill: Yes. In the ah Marine Corps historically has been about the highest in all countries and in wartime with so many new troops, new people, enlistees and all that sort of thing, the corpsman, oh excuse me. When we got there, beg your pardon. When we got to the, to the beach the first time and we, I had been loaded up beyond the range of guns from a ship when these landing crafts were swung off tankers or whatever it was and then we made a run for shore. Sometimes you did in the dark. But to do that it was so hazardous that, and we learned all of a sudden, I'm surprised they waited that long to figure it out, that all officers took their bars off their helmets, we, all enlisted men were ordered don't, not to say “sir” to any officer because if they were captured that was a bigger, worse loss and ah, let see what was the thing on the corpsman. Oh. Corpsmen, we took off our red crosses because the Japs got smart because they would be in the fringes of our camps as we took these islands all the way up, remember 2900 miles of little islands and under all conditions. It all went just to the Philippines and these ah, these ah ah, I'm sorry, ah these ah combat troops, ran ashore. The corpsman was the last off the boat, off the landing craft and his mission, and he was the only one unarmed. He did have tourniquets, he did have morphine and a few things like that and some pads he could apply but his mission was to drop with the first person who was already down. And stay perfectly still because the guy who was on the ground had been picked off maybe two or three hundred feet on this elevation and if he lay perfectly still sometimes they didn't start shooting back at the, at either one, him or the man that was a patient on the ground. But the ah corpsman was, if it was hemorrhaging, the degree of it was important. That if you could do certain things with a pad, if you could do certain things with a tourniquet you did it. If it was a tourniquet then you are cutting off circulation and you gonna have to amputate unless you remove that tourniquet within a reasonable length of time. So the corpsman had a marker and you put T on his forehead and you put down the number of grams that you gave and the time and then you try to wiggle on over to somebody else or I learned to turn around on your stomach and with the collar just drag that patient up toward the outward line of whatever it was that was part of the aura of the way we did things. Blunt description but that, that's how we survived (ha, ha, ha). A lot of us. But the casualty rate was the highest for the corpsmen of any service and it probably still is because of the nature of how it operates. You see even on our battleships today with all of the 10,000 naval personnel that is aboard, almost all of the anti-aircraft shooting is done by Marines. Interviewer: Were you awarded any medals or citations, sir? Mr. Cahill: No, sir. I came out after being in a hospital for three or four months, and I better back up. If it is appropriate, if you don't mind. We were, it was 1:00 in the morning ah about the 3rd or 4th day that we had been anchored out shipping, come in we were tied to the tree. When the, not reveille, whatever it was, ah but the bugle they woke us all up, up the whole crowd. There were I think 13 Marines and two corpsmen. One was a pharmacist mate. I mean one was a pharmacist out of a drug store in the states. Anyhow, we were hustled down at the beach to the beach right near there but we told by our officers, take everything you got with you because you are not apt to come back. And they were right. Because of the plane loss the ah ah, when ah we stood in pouring down rain for almost two hours, driving rain with all of our gear getting wet and everything else soaked but this was in December, it didn't make a lot of different down there near the equator. In the ah, we were in a DC3, one of our light freight planes, inner island mostly, stopped to pick us up and they loaded 12 corpsmen, I beg your pardon, 12 Marines, two corpsmen, of course we were Navy and I think there were three or four other guys that just happened to be on the damn beach. I don't think they were doctors cause we were two short of them. Anyhow, we took off in blinding rain and it had been raining there for almost two months and we had been in the air I believe about 40 minutes when the pilot came on and said that he had news for us and it was very important that everybody listened. That the strip that we were to land on was 250 meters too short because the weather had been so bad that they hadn't been able to grade with the tractors or front end loaders or whatever it was and the mud was so slippery and sliding that you couldn't land the plane on it safely but they were contemplating, no, they said it would strip, since our plane, our plane was overloaded too, cause they put a lot of damn stuff along with it, crates of stuff, it took two or three men to pick up one box and a few other things. That damn plane, we were already overloaded. Then the pilot said that, when we touch ground we will be sliding mostly out of control because we do not dare try to use the propellers because on a flat ground it's different than in the mud and that we all would end up. Also they said that since we cannot stop in view of what they told us, radar people or radio, if we ah do not stop shy, short of the end of that strip no one will survive because the plane will be in 90 feet of water. That's how that came about. Okay. And that with an enclosed plane with everything jammed up and you are dead straight down you won't even survive just the depth. So the pilot had said that the good rule is for us to spin the plane to the left before we get to the end. We're still sliding probably out of control in the mud but if we can, if he could spin the plane and wipe out that right wing then we got 1200 gallons of high test gasoline and a red hot motor, all of it on the ground. And we have to get our asses out of the neighborhood as fast as we can. Therefore, I think that's the terminology he used. He said when the moment we hit the ground and the plane is sliding you'll know. He said and I'll tell you all over the intercom. He said you will have to jump and some, I want everybody to have their lifebelt, which was a little rubber thing and had two little cans of compressed air with, you know pull-ems, ah these lifebelts will be ah ah will keep you afloat if we are in the water. But that was before we landed. But ah when we were, when the plane stopped sliding we were to jump. Be lined up as close as you could, you do not have time to look. You do not have time to make up your mind because some of us want to survive. And we did. Just like that. I jumped and crushed both ankles because we didn't have combat gear on. I was a corpsman and just wearing G.I. shoes. They were high leather shoes but it was soaking wet mud because it had been raining where we were. So you waded everywhere you went. Anyhow, the ah, I can recall getting up leaping, because you jump out, when a plane is sitting on the ground flat under any conditions you gotta have a little ladder to get up in the damn thing. Okay. Usually it's 4 or 5 feet up. But in the airport, of course, you go up a bunch of steps so you can get up high. On this plane, he said, the pilot called down and get you. He said that door will be open and you folks will be falling backwards but he said that will be on top of the ship. Climb up and jump regardless. You do not have time to look because it will cost you your own life. That was crammed down their throat. Anyhow, all of us did to my knowledge except three. Damn plane blew up. Three of them I don't know what became, happened to them. Ah, we did, ah what I did was take to cover to get nearer those damn sand dunes because these jokers could pick us off like you know stuff sitting on the dining room table. If you were right at the edge of the water or the edge of the strip. But what we did was ah ah I climbed, in fact I remember my feet begin to tell me I was, I was hurt and I remember crawling up into sand and debris and whatever, and I think I stayed pretty still until daylight and then somebody came along to rescue you but these jokers up there where they were still shooting at us. I was supposed to get a combat ah ribbon for that ah, I get a Purple Heart on that thing. I never did (ha, ha). First I didn't, I didn't apply for it because I didn't, I didn't know I needed to and second the couple of ribbons that I did get through the mail. Because every now and then you'd see guys that get his. There were some good conduct medals that one, yeah. Ah and a couple of others. I forgot what kind they were (ha, ha). But ah I did end up with three that I still got at the home and ah I never got any more medals. Oh, excuse me, with these crushed ankles I was in bad shape for further combat for some little time obviously and ah when they finally got me back to a rear area I think we had it was a week, maybe they're just wet, muddy, all of us messed up and they, doctors came along and gave me a lot of morphine mostly I think and I had to take my shoes off cause they, my feet had swollen so bad. Then when daylight came somebody says, I can recall being helped and carried back. The island that we landed on had been virtually wiped out before we got there because that was a, Japanese had raided them and killed them and done all kinds of things. That's the reason we were, we were just a rescue unit. At the moment that's all I know except that later on I ended up with ace bandages on these feet and from then on for the next months I was mostly in a cot. Because I could lay down and at the side of the cot I had a little old Mickey Mouse shovel. I could dig that little trench just a little bit further and use it and (ha, ha) when you used it pushed that dirt on top of what you put in it. But that's what happened. That I can remember. Let me see. Injuries. No, the ah we landed somewhere a few months later and ah, it was Green Island and I had just opened shoes, I had taken a knife and cut out holes so you could get your feet in somehow. And that's about all because we were waiting for battle weapons, that's right, for me to get to a rear area where orthopedic doctors could do something for you. And ah the ah I was the oldest of our, of the enlisted Marines and me. I was the only, I was 28 years old then. So ah they, and the doctors went and I was usually in the first-aid camp or the back to strip was always __________ or something and the doctors told me to ah ah … Interviewer: Did you stay in touch with your family? Mr. Cahill: I didn't during that period. I may have, once we got settled on the island, excuse me. There were eight typewriters that came with the office and I happened to be in high school when my dad was dying in a hospital and all that sort of thing and I had a chance to go to a typing and shorthand class before school started. I was just a junior in a small town high school, high school. And ah they could ah ah, I did all the reporting of everything for the doctors because first they, just like a prescription, they talked in Span, ah Latin, a lot of you know architectural [?] things. Architectural, bone end, injuries. Injuries and diagnosis. And doctors with a guy banged up there, remember we were a long ways away from a hospital or rescue or anything, would, they would try to get on paper, statement or description of this person, his service number and all that sort of thing so that when we had a chance we could mail that somewhere so it would be in their, their track record. And I did it for everybody but myself. But (ha, ha) anyhow, in that ah dumb thing we ah, I think I better stop here for a few minutes (ha, ha). I can't remember a thing. What happened after that? Interviewer: What was the food like? Mr. Cahill: Dehydrated in a word. Ah, it was not too bad. Ah, water was something that used to aggravate us. We used a lot of _____ [?] tablets and ah these ah beaches that we used, the Natives, they were fuzzy wuzzies, they called them, the Native people that lived around these places where they could get their little old boats or canoes, whatever it was, over the coral reef if it was a little one or small one or whatever it was or it had been knocked out. And later on when we had to ah, we were losing too many people going ashore on that type of landing. Andrew Higgins was turning out these increasingly bigger and smarter landing craft and it worked. And ah there was always a corpsman (ha, ha) on one of them—me—because I never missed a one of them and ah when ah we would, did get ashore, ah then, ah well I don't even know why I brought, started to say then. I was in a crash somewhere when they ah. I had been a good swimmer and ah I heard about the underwater demolition, that's right, underwater. And just below us about 40 miles there was a, Navy had sent some, somebody out there to teach these guys how to dynamite these coral reefs so that we could get ashore whenever we needed to or in the best place. And ah the, all I know is I went down there and I, first thing they asked me to do was to swim down to this point over here, it was 200 feet, underwater. I was the only one who could do it. But I had been a stunt diver with a big old swimming pool in Jacksonville (ha, ha) and for fun we did all kinds of things and ah we, the ah stunt diving was, we did it and got paid for it around some hotels in the resorts on the east coast on weekends. And I could, I could earn $25. That was more than I was getting from the military because ah when I signed in to go aboard the first time, first time I left those doctors up there whatever it was. Hospital, whatever it was. That I did not need a draw and never took one and because I was learned, I learned about what the I deviated from the typing reports that the doctors wanted. Since I was good at shorthand when these doctors, they didn't hesitate a moment, stopping me doing anything. They even _______ me in my own bunk and asked me to write down this and that, whatever, because if we were having to evacuate someone to a forward area and the doctor would write down, if I wasn't there to do it he would write it down on a piece of paper or something and then when transportation, sometimes it would be a DC-3, sometimes it would be a boat. It would be a landing craft of some description. That was part of the rig, anyhow, under water, oh, in that underwater demolition, beg your pardon. When I went back to our camp to demonstrate what I could do, I mean since I could do it. Interviewer: Um um. Cahill: At 20. Hell, I, I told them all, y'all can do the same thing. If you can't I'll come after you, whatever. And we did swim. I did do 200 feet under water. I do remember that one time. Then I got to thinking that I was showing off. But I quit. But they ah, that was the end of that episode. And ah somewhere I was in a plane crash. Interviewer: Can you recall the date your service ended? Cahill: Sir? Interviewer: Do you recall the date your service ended? Cahill: No, because I was in a hospital in a wheelchair, ha, ha. And what had happened was that they finally got me back to a rear area. And remember I had said all these feet all broken up. And when it got near x-ray the bones were out of position and had begun to lock up or fuse together. Okay. And then I remember the doctor, orthopedist, I think there was an orthopedist told me that, ah, you're in bad enough shape as it is but any monkeying around could make it worse. So let's just sit tight until we can get you further back somewhere and in that situation. I think they were taking some patients that wouldn't last long enough til next Monday or whenever the truck, somebody came by. And we loaded two or three of those and since I had everybody's health record and I had already prepared it for the doctor's signature and all that stuff and including myself because I was going on that particular run and they were going to leave me up there. Wherever it was at that point, I didn't know where it was. And ah, but later on I finally got back but only on very limited duty because my feet was, looked so bad and ah they needed to surgically do certain things and no, they didn't, they said we don't know anybody out here that we oughta trust to do that. And we don't want to, I do remember some, some old doctor telling me that he said, Son, you gonna end up being in a damn wheelchair rest of your life in a veteran's hospital if we don't do something but we feel that if we try to do it here you might be worse off than if we can wait a little bit longer. Pretty soon I did get back to another island and they did some things and then ah we ah, the war was over. Yeah, couple of things stems from it. I keep talking if it doesn't matter. Interviewer: That's okay. Cahill: The ah, when the war was over out there the ah … **** TAPE ENDED – SIDE 1 **** Cahill: … around San Francisco that's where we were. Until they moved me over to Oak Knoll Naval Hospital which was a new one. It had 11,000 beds and ah they just put these fabric, prefab, look like mobile homes, ha, ha. But they were putting them over all this golf course because they could do it by sitting them right on that darn grass and we were trying to get by but troops that were coming in from overseas wanted to get home. And I stayed busy typing up medical reports or doctor's opinions and something so that these guys would have something in black and white when they got somewhere else and I know darn well that it worked because later on I heard from some of these guys that, they said if you hadn't interceded so and so, which is not important. The ah, in ah … Interviewer: What did you do in the days and weeks after you were discharged from the service? Cahill: Ah, I went back to Jacksonville, Florida, to pick up the pieces. While I was overseas and ah two weeks before I could get back to the states, three weeks, ah the owner of the, the elderly lady that had owned that funeral home was finally buried. She died, had been in a hospital, whatever. And her heirs had been able to strip this big funeral home. It was a half a million dollar building because that what the damn thing cost to build it. It was a beautiful one, big one. In the heart of Jacksonville, Florida. By heart I mean two blocks from the main park there. Ah, the ah, let's see what was _____. What did I started to say then? Lost it. Interviewer: Returning to Jacksonville. Cahill: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Ah to get there I was not in that big of a hurry because my first wife I married, before I left, that's something I should have told you way up front. A couple of years before the war started I discovered that one of my close friends was scout master over in western part of Jacksonville. And I was scout master over in the nice residential section of Ortega in the western part of Jacksonville, okay. And we were competitive, a lot of the Boy Scouts used to do a whole lot of things in teams and stuff. Anyhow, with these, ah ah ah, with that, this guy and I got to be good friends. I used to resent the fact that when we were anywhere, on the ground, anything. I remember the war wasn't on then. But we went to the same parties because our wives were there and all that sort of thing. That if we were, he was the type, “come on, the drinks are all on me.” Well, it used to make me so damn mad because I had been wiped out. My dad was gone, my mother had 3 children, I was ah the, the only one old enough to do anything and I was the only, really the sole source of support. Cause I had three jobs. I remember newspaper and magazine route, working for a dry cleaner and then cleaning up a grocery store every Friday night, Saturday night so that I could, I could have all the stuff that would be thrown out and ah, I managed. But that was part of our survivalist or, or getting along. And this ah, I discovered that this fellow was a playboy. I didn't realize that until I got to know him. You didn't, you didn't find it out in the Boy Scouts, anyhow. Later on I found out that he was just a nice, sharp, smart, well dressed fellow. But that his wife was smart as him and that she was a little bit ah, ah caustic and she was a little bit older than either one of us. She was two years older than I and I think only ah one year older than he was and which shouldn't had entered into it but ah she worked for a magazine and had, now this was worse, and she had been editor in rank and publications and all for a number of years and the man that owned it owned this magazine that was mostly a confidential source for everything that happened in the whole damn state of Florida where the courts were concerned, jobs, lawsuits and ah all kinds of things. And this man Owen was politically, he was the one that was so smart about ah who got money and who didn't and I later learned what a sharp operator he was. He got in that situation I got to meet his wife, okay. I met his wife and took her to the, there was a sunrise service. He'd been dead maybe 7, 8 months and there was a Shriners Club, had a sunrise service at the beaches and I had, ah, was getting ready to go to that thing cause I was in the Oriental band, I don't know if that's important but the Oriental band and here I asked her at, someplace we crossed paths, and I said, have you started dating anybody yet? She said, no. She said, I'm afraid to. I said, let me take you to the beach in the morning there will be a thousand Shriners down there and you will know a lot of people and she admitted it. So I went by the next morning and picked her up and took her to the beach, 18 miles, and we attended the sunrise service and when it was over I brought her back home. And ah the ah, of course, I lived in the funeral home that part still. And ah the owner of the funeral home, she was still alive then, was relying on me almost entirely for business and whatever it was and so she liked my wife because they were all Catholic except me. They ah, I learned that this guy would like to come out of a bar whether it was that the drinks were on me or all that sort of thing. For the simple damn reason he didn't pay for it. His wife did. But she had so got damn much high income and her boss didn't give a damn because they were both rich in a thriving business, that explains that deal. So later ah I found out what a genuine and smart and good looking person and ah I think I let a month go by and one day I asked her to go to a movie one night somewhere and she went and then oh I was vice president of the little theater, that's a dramatic thing and that was a safe place that anybody could go and ah so I took her there and here came war fouling up. Okay in a hurry and it was that made the, she got the idea that we oughta get married because it was a panic. Everybody wanted to marry these kids off, the wives, girls also that somebody else would support them I guess, whatever, anyhow. So I, we got married just before the war was declared over. Yeah, whatever it was and ah that's ah, we got along fine. We were married 17 years, got along fine but ah we had virtually nothing in common and when I later got into public life and got so damn prominent because I got elected to everything. And everybody [said] we [want] you to be the president. I ended up president of three different insurance companies, big companies at different times and other things. And then I went down to the courthouse and after had a whole bunch of people said you are the logical one to be the next sheriff of Duval County and it's the most corrupt. Well, the newspapers. I had written a paper that Jacksonville was the most corrupt city in the United States and that the ah Duvall County was the most corrupt county in the United States. And no wonder everything was so rotten and that damn sheriff had been in office 26 years, rich as hell. And so I was just swamped by friends, they were going to help me ah be the new sheriff and clean up the county. They did and I did. And I got elected so easy it was pitiful because I was so well known on television and ah the ah, when I got elected handsomely, I go down to the damn courthouse and here my wife, you met her today, she was down there in the criminal division on the ah confidential records or something, what it was, I happened to see her down there and I didn't even know she was still on payroll and ah anyhow I went over and asked her how come she was there and she said, well, she said it has been very interesting and she said I have been watching you, hoping that you would get elected. And she said, I've been with this group over here been trying to talk you into it and you didn't know it (ha, ha). Anyhow ah, within ah ah month I was alone, my father was dead, my mother had remarried. She was doing well. And ah so before I had went over seas, I ah ah asked her, she asked me to marry her. Let's be honest. Okay. And ah, so I went on over seas and I didn't come back for three and half years and ah I was little worse for wear because I (ha ha) had gotten banged up. Interviewer: I want to thank you very much for doing this interview. It's been my pleasure. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. Cahill: Well, I'm a amateur at what you are doing. But I'm comfortable in it and pleased and of course my family, they will get a laugh at a lot of this stuff and ah what my wife will say or my daughter. They will say, “Why in the hell did you tell him that” or this or something that I forgot about. Because I had really had a powerful experience in all parts of the world and I'd organized today many things that work like a charm and every business I touched worked great. Turned out and made a lot of money and I could sell them for a profit (ha ha). [END OF TAPE – SIDE B]
Metadata URL:: http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/370
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:: 1:00:51
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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