About Joseph Francis Campion

Like James Bradley, a fellow Wisconsinite, in his book Flags of our Fathers, this reflection on my father's service is drawn primarily from and filtered through recollections, anecdotal testimony from family members, and records from his letters and photography sent home during his service years. This cannot be considered a comprehensive accounting of his service during WWII, but it is my hope that it gives the reader perspective into his contributions to his country while he and his shipmates served in the US Navy.

Drawn from a lifetime of experiences with my father, my first exposure and recollections of his service record are those of a child, ending at about the age of 12. They resumed when I became eligible for the draft during the Viet Nam War; and then again, in the later years of my father's life. In 1994, I connected with my father at the request of his second wife, Margarite Benson, in order to assist them with his post-traumatic stress, which resulted in nightmares and numerous outbursts of emotion associated with the media coverage of the 50th anniversary of many of the great landings and assaults in Europe and the Pacific.

Upon learning of his problems, I needed to research the nature of the battles he participated in to be able to understand his trauma and the major source of his torment; the memories of his experience on Bougainville and, most significantly, Peleliu.

Born in 1948, my earliest recollections of WWII were drawn by events that sparked my curiosity about what my community, grandparents, and parents had experienced. One of my earliest recollections is from a horrific event from 1952, when the barn on the family home dairy farm burned to the ground. It was a long difficult fire to fight and my father took me with him to the farm, located only 7 miles north of town. My grandfather was overwhelmed with the loss. In particular, the loss of two of the tenant farmer's children, who, it was thought, started the fire in hay mow where cremains were found after it was extinguished.

My grandfather lamented both the loss of life and property; all the cattle had to be put down; but also the loss of the barn. It was the second fire in 8 years. He characterized the barn as a work of art, constructed by German prisoners of war in 1944. It was the first time I had heard of WWII, and later learned that the barn was rebuilt in 1944 by German prisoners from Camp Janesville (WI). They were such craftsman, that my grandfather treasured the barn. He so deeply appreciated the quality of their work that he provided them with a cup of fresh milk with their lunch break, which eventually ran him afoul of Capt. B.R. Wetenhall, the camp's commanding officer. The prisoners and their guards told others about the treat and my grandfather was reprimanded for providing "Nazis" with food that our fighting men did not enjoy. POW's were paid 55 cents per hour for their labor. Prisoners were allowed to keep 80 cents per day for their spending money, but milk was not allowed.

I was able to make a connection with this information. The war had been over for seven years and Camp Janesville was closed and dismantled on October 29, 1945, but numerous war time facilities were still standing in Janesville and I walked past a military Quonset hut on the way to the local park with my mother on a regular basis and envisioned it the residence of those special craftsman whose talent my grandfather valued.

In 1954 my brother was born, and my sister and I were moved into bunk beds; navy bunk beds from the surplus store with matching ivory wool blankets with a horizontal blue stripe containing the word NAVY in ivory relief. The beds were a blond wood and I had the upper bunk, reached by using the foot step on the head post instead of a ladder.

My father was a salesman and spent a good deal of time on the road. As a result, I often had an opportunity to spend time with his parents. I was frequently permitted to use the sleeping porch on the second floor of the house on warm summer nights. Among the bed and the wicker chair on the porch were a number of cardboard boxes. My curiosity about the boxes finally did get the better of me, and instead of going down to breakfast one morning, I opened several of the boxes to see what was inside.

I did not really appreciate what I found, but I had discovered my grandmother's trove of WWII treasures that my father sent home from the Pacific. There was a whole coconut with my grandparents address nailed to the husk. It was not the most exotic of the contents that I began to explore. My immediate attention was taken by the black and white photos of sailors, ships, what looked like men in strange costumes dancing around the wooden deck of a ship. I was stopped from exploring further when I found a picture of two black women with kerchiefs wrapping their heads. I was transfixed because the photo captured the women from the hips up and they were naked from the waist up, with pronounced breasts.

I had never seen black women or breasts and was astounded. A wave of apprehension washed over me. For some reason, I was cognizant of the fact that I should not be looking at pictures of women's breasts. I put the pictures back and restored the lids on the boxes, and retreated from the sleeping porch down to breakfast. I never slept on the porch again; telling my grandparents that I preferred to stay inside. To this day, I can see those women as if it was yesterday and not 1954.

My mother loved to sew and was very good at making our clothing. In October of 1955, she took my father's uniform, disassembled it and made a Halloween costume for me. I was fascinated by the insignia on the arms and learned my father had been a Pharmacist's Mate, although it was not clear what that entailed.

The following summer, and for the next four years, I was sent to summer camp for 8 weeks with all my belonging in my father's sea bag. It had a unique smell and was very stiff and heavy, but I got more than enough in it and because our last name was already on the bag, my posessions seemed secure. My mother sewed my name in all my clothing to make sure that did not disappear.

One of my sisters married in the early 1980's and held her wedding reception at the local VFW hall. As I made my way around the hall I found a list of all the members on little brass tags nailed to a stained and framed plywood board. There among the list of Life Members was my father's name. I was taken aback.

He had never mentioned his membership. When Memorial Day came around each year, and the community celebrated with a parade, we watched from the sidewalk. My father never marched in the parade and to the best of my knowledge, never participated in VFW activities or hung out in the bar with other members.

During my childhood, I remembered thinking about my father never being in the parade like my friend's fathers, but I never broached the subject with him. He never made a point of explaining why. He did take me to the cemetery on Memorial Day when I was a cub scout and our pack was helping Boy Scouts plant a flag on the grave of each of the veterans from all the wars. There was a special section in the cemetery for veterans of the nation's early wars, particularly the War of the Rebellion, but we also went throughout the cemetery where other veterans were buried until our supply of flags was gone. My father never commented on the dead or the reason for the ceremony beyond the nature of the holiday.

When I finally screwed up enough courage to ask my father about what he did in the war, he simply replied, "I was in the Navy". While this offered little in the way of insight, it did leave me with a sense of pride when we watched Victory at Sea on our new black and white television. On the one occasion when we saw an episode together, I commented on the white bullets being shot from the ships at the approaching planes. My father explained that these white rounds were tracers so the gunners could see where the rounds were going in relation to the target plane. He indicated that every seventh round was a 'tracer'. It took a while for this to sink in. He also explained that the gunners would fire into the water in front of low flying planes attempting to ram the ship from the sides. The water flying up would serve as disorientation for the pilot and perhaps confuse the pilot so he flew into the oncoming rounds and was destroyed. There seemed to be so many bullets in the air, I could not figure out how the planes could fly through it all and crash into the ships.

Two other behaviors demonstrated strong reactions to serving in the Pacific. Despite our pleading to be taken into the woods, he would not go camping with us when we were in scouts or on family outings. He said he had enough living in tents during the war. Secondly, he refused to eat raisin bread or toast. My siblings and I loved to toast raisin bread and watch the sugar coating on the crust bubble up as the bread slices browned between the heating elements. We delighted in fighting over the hot syrupy powdered sugar pooling on the plate with the melting butter and hot raisins. My father would shake his head disgustedly as we enjoyed the toast. He told us that he had to pick out the bugs in the bread while in the Navy and never wanted to have to do it again.

In the late 1950s, comic books were the great fascination of boys. I generally went with the superheroes like Superman, Batman, and Spiderman. My favorite comic was The Silver Surfer. My friends and I were gathered on the floor in the living room one afternoon swapping comics, trading those we had read for those we had not. One of my friends had a copy of a Sgt. Rock comic and I was thumbing through it skimming a story called The Ice Cream Soldier. Suddenly the comic was ripped out of my hands by my father who had approached me from behind. I never heard him coming, nor did the other boys who were equally engrossed. My father angrily announced that he never wanted to see such comics in the house again. That was it. My friends scrambled up and fled the house leaving me crushed and embarrassed. No further discussion was ever held on the subject.

My father took me fishing with him, but he never took me hunting; goose hunting was his interest, not deer hunting. I had seen dead birds; dead chickens were brought to the house from the home farm to be gutted and plucked. My job was to remove the remaining pin feathers with pliers. My first association with the remarkable beauty and sadness of hunting was a string of ducks my father brought home after a hunting trip with his friends. The ducks were freshly killed and the contrast of the remarkable emerald head feathers, blue trim feathers and the ruby shine of the fresh blood in contrast signifying the violent death of the birds caused me to wonder about dead and wounded we had seen on television black and white portrayals of WWII footage.

My father and his hunting friends gathered around the kitchen table for a post hunt drink and it was a magnet for a small boy. My father brought out a jar of moonshine he purchased on a sales trip to Kentucky. After pouring four shot glasses for everyone, except me, one of his friends pulled out his Zippo lighter and lit a glass on fire. The fire quickly spread to the other shot glasses in a beautiful blue and orange dancing shimmer that floated down around the glasses and onto the table. It quickly spread across the table around the glasses in a lovely translucent blue blanket of fire and then just as quickly disappeared leaving the shot glasses with small flames atop each. Everyone laughed and extolled the quality of the brew, blowing out the flames as they tossed it into their mouths and swallowed. A discussion of the comparison of this brew to war time liquor brewed on board ship and in the islands called 'Torpedo Juice' followed. One of my father's friends, who served on a submarine, talked about the brew made from plumbs secreted on board. Another brew was made from native fruits from the islands. All of them referred to the practice of some men to drink medicinal alcohol and the damage it did to them. All of this was heady stuff for a 10 year old.

WWII faded into the back ground with time with my own departure for a boarding high school. When I left going into the 9th grade, it was the last real close contact I had with my father because high school was followed by college. As the Viet Nam conflict heated up while I was in high school, the draft became a reality in 1966. Naturally, I had to register and I wanted to follow a path that would lead to a real desire I had to fly. After enrolling in college, I applied for enlistment into the Navy's Aviation Reserve Officer Program. On only two occasions did I discuss my plans with my father and he emotionlessly remarked that I should stay in college; that was his vision for my future. I was perplexed by his position. I thought he would have been proud that I wanted to serve in the same branch of service. However, I found his position reinforced by similar sentiment expressed by veterans who were returning from service in Viet Nam. One of my fraternity brothers with a bright future had just returned to campus after losing an arm and suffering a disabled leg. Potential service in the regular Navy was ended by a football injury and I completed college on schedule.

1994 brought me back into close contact with my father for the first time in nearly 20 years. His second wife, Margarite Benson, called to tell me, "Your dad is having a difficult time with nightmares and you need to come home to talk to him".

My father was suffering from what could best be described as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Listening to him explain what he was experiencing and why, it was clear that he was also suffering from Survivor's Guilt; the anguish of surviving what so many of his fellow marines and sailors did not, all of which he suppressed for fifty years.

The following is what I learned from my father, his family members, researching public and military records, and reviewing his correspondence and pictures sent home during the war. In addition to the many listening sessions, a video tape was made when we began to specifically speak about his experience at Peleliu. The video was made in late September of 1994, just after an ABC 20/20 program ran a special about the little remembered battle in prime time. My father watched the program and spent the night and next morning crying uncontrollably. When I asked if he thought returning to Peleliu, the site of the battle, would help to alleviate some of the strong emotions he was experiencing, he simply said, "I would end up in an insane asylum."

Pre-Induction Information 1943

My father was not a particularly good student, evidenced by the fact that he was 18 years old in May of his sophomore year of high school. In high school he was known as, "The Mayor of Afton". He was old enough to drive the family car and filled it with as many classmates as it would hold and take them to parties held on the shores of the Rock River near Bear Creek in Afton, WI. One of his female classmates apologized in his 1943 year book for spilling beer in the car at one of these parties and indicated that she would do even more of his science work in class to make up for the accident.

The 1942-'43 school year was filled with war support activities, including reduced school weeks to help conserve gasoline and diesel fuel. Letters and pictures of those who had left school in the spring of 1942 for military service appeared in both the school newspaper and the 1943 year book. Fit young men like my father, strained at the continued high school regimen and longed for an opportunity to get into the fight. In the spring of 1943, my father was ordered by the local draft board to report for a pre-induction physical.

My grandparents had other ideas and worked with friends to steer my father into the Navy where they thought he might be safer than in the infantry. In April of 1943, a prominent businessman, who was my grandfather's colleague, wrote a letter of reference for my father, recommending him for service in the Navy/Marines. His parents insisted that he finish his sophomore year in high school before departing for service. On June 22nd, my father took the bus to Milwaukee to meet with a Marine Corps recruiter. He returned home and an exchange of letters took place with Staff Sergeant Charles Fleming detailing the steps necessary for enlistment in the Navy/Marines.

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Reporting for duty July 1943

He was subsequently sworn in on July 7, 1943 and his family saw him off at the Great Northern Terminal in Milwaukee. Fran rode the Empire Builder to Spokane, WA and subsequently was bussed with other recruits to the Farragut Naval Training Station, then the second largest training facility in the world, located on Lake Pend Oreille, five miles east of Athol, ID.

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USNTS Farragut Idaho 1943

Fran was in Basic Training through August 25, 1945. He graduated with Company 540-43 Regiment 4, Battalion 16, and was an AS/2 Class when he was sent home on a 10 day leave.

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Bremerton Naval Hospital 1943

Upon graduation from Hospital Corps School in Farragut on November 12, 1943, he was assigned to the US Naval Hospital at Bremerton, Washington as a Hospital Apprentice 2/c and then 1/c. "I solemnly pledge myself before God and these witnesses to practice faithfully all of my duties as a member of the Hospital Corps. I hold the care of the sick and injured to be a privilege and a sacred trust and will assist the Medical Officer with loyalty and honesty. I will not knowingly permit harm to come to any patient. I will not partake of nor administer any unauthorized medication. I will hold all personal matters pertaining to the private lives of patients in strict confidence. I dedicate my heart, mind and strength to the work before me. I shall do all within my power to show in myself an example of all that is honorable and good throughout my naval career."

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US Navy Receiving Barracks Shoemaker, Ca. 1944

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USS Monticello AP-61 1944

Fran and other medical personnel were sent overseas on March 5 of 1944 from the US Naval Receiving Barracks in Shoemaker, Ca. He was headed to Naval Mobile Hospital #8 on Guadalcanal.

I received this update from Lelland Fletcher, who was on Guadalcanal at around the same time.

Read about Lelland Fletcher

US Naval Mobile Fleet Hospital #8 Guadalcanal 1944

The principal naval medical facilities at Guadalcanal consisted of the 1290-bed hospital for MOB #8, supplemented by a 300-bed hospital for Acorn 1. Hospital construction was severely hampered by lack of building materials. To take care of the situation, temporary structures were improvised out of native material to accommodate the overflow of patients until permanent surgical facilities and other requirements could be completed.

He arrived on Guadalcanal in April of 1944 and participated in the Bougainville campaign with the Americal Division's 132nd Infantry Regiment. When he landed in Cape Torokina, he recognized the Beach Master, who was from Janesville, WI, his home town.

My father was involved in fighting around the village of Mavavia and near the Mavavia River. It was here that an event took place that haunted his dreams and caused him grief some 50 years later. He was assigned to a fire team that included a heavy machine gun. They were in ambush on a trail when civilians, two women and four children walked toward them on the trail. My father was convinced they were Japanese or part of the family of the Korean laborers the Japanese used for construction on these islands. It was the first contact my father had with women and children in combat and he was stunned when the machine gunner began firing on them. The spectacle of the children being torn up by the rounds was one that he never forgot and that returned repeatedly. It was a common practice for the Japanese to booby trap the civilians and send them down the trails to be welcomed by the Allied soldiers without skepticism, allowing them to get close enough to detonate explosives they wore and kill as many soldiers as possible. This strategy was explained to him after the fact, but the patrol found no explosives on the women and children.

After heavy fighting on Bougainville in March and April of 1944, the two sides settled down to defensive positions and minimized skirmishes in the no-man's- land between them. Japanese soldiers could be seen in the jungle beyond right field watching recreation baseball games between teams from the Americal Division. Another was captured after getting too close to the base theater on movie night. The prisoner was cheering the news reel footage of the sinking of the carrier Lexington by the Japanese Navy. Such behavior was considered unacceptable despite the current conditions.

There is little other evidence in my grandmother's collection of papers and pictures to provide evidence of his participation in the battle. If he did have access to a camera, he did not document his time on Guadalcanal or Bougainville.

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US Naval Fleet Hospital #10 Russell Islands (Pavuvu Island, Mbanika Island) 1944-1945

By July of 1944, my grandmother's scrap book displays evidence that my father was assigned to Naval Mobile Hospital #10 on Banika in the Russell Islands. By this time he was a Pharmacist's Mate (PhM3c). This rating title for petty officers was established in 1917 as Pharmacist's Mate (PhM), following the pattern of some of the Navy's other ratings (boatswain's mate, gunner's mate, etc.). Pharmacist's Mate Third Class (PhM3c), Second Class (PhM2c), and First Class (PhM1c) were now the petty officers, and Chief Pharmacist's Mate (CPhM) was the CPO. This structure would remain in place until 1947.

The first medical facilities on Banika consisted of several large hospital tents. By May 1943, these had been supplemented these with two timber-frame hospital wards to accommodate 60 patients, a surgery building, and an underground surgery.

In June 1943, four 35-patient wards were built for a naval dispensary, completely screened, and equipped with emergency battle dressing stations that could be blacked out. An operating room was also constructed. In August, additional construction was authorized, including a dental laboratory and administration building, two additional wards, and an officers' mess.

Construction was started in December 1943, on a 1300-bed hospital for MOB #10, To meet a completion deadline of March 1, 1944, Seabee personnel worked on plumbing and electrical installations, and doctors and hospital corpsmen aided in the erection of the prefabricated-steel building, 20 feet wide and 250 feet long.

Four hospitals arose, providing for recuperation of sick and mildly wounded troops expected to return to their commands, temporary care for those permanently out of the war, and emergency and stabilization treatment for severely wounded before evacuation to the States.

My father was assigned to the Mobile Navy Fleet Hospital #10. He did not specifically identify when he arrived on Banika, but here is some evidence from my grandmother's scrapbooks. A newsletter dated August 16, 1944, Vol. 1, Number XXII, highlights the 1st anniversary of MOB #10 in Banika. Fran wrote notes in the cartoon panels that illustrate high points in the chronology of the unit. In panel one, he writes, "This is Shoemaker, Ca." referring to the Naval Receiving Barracks. In panel 5, showing a sailor carrying building supplies under the direction of a bare chested superior, "This is where I came in. What a sad story". It is most likely he arrived in Banika in May or June of 1944. The first evidence of his presence is a July Catholic Chaplin's memo on services that month and includes a note in my father's handwriting describing a patient's poem read at services by the Chaplin. However, along the opposite side of the page is "© St. Columban's Foreign Mission Society, Nebraska." I am not sure who is correct.

What is certain from the document is that August 16, 1944 was 5 months and 4 days after the first patient was admitted with an acute appendicitis and the hospital was under construction the entire time. On the anniversary date, the hospital served it 6,000th patient.

It was my father's practice to protect the family from his participation in the "Pushes" as he referred to the island hopping campaigns to which he was assigned. He had served in Bougainville and was now destined for Peleliu, a battle that has been characterized as "The Devil's Anvil" by one author, and widely considered one of the most brutal campaigns of the war in the Pacific.

It is not my intent to further detail what happened during that operation, identified as Stalemate II. With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge is the definitive statement on the experience of those who fought that battle. In addition to The Devil's Anvil by James H. Hallas, I did research a number of sources so I could feel I was prepared to listen to my father knowledgably when he shared his experiences; this included the Marine Corps' monologue of the battle. It is my intent to share my father's recollections of his experiences during the weeks before, during and after the "Push" on Peleliu.

My father wrote letters and included pictures of activities around the base to be sent periodically in his absence to his family back home by fellow hospital staff members. One of the pictures makes it clear that he is preparing for the landing by capturing a Higgins boat loading drill alongside an unidentified ship. There are three copies of photographs taken by combat photographers from the Navy. One is a photograph of Catholic services in the newly opened base chapel, the loading drill, and the devastation at Hiroshima after the bombing.

My father also identified other pictures as taken by a fellow Pharmacist Mate with that man's camera. He took personal credit for taking other pictures of hospital personnel and friends with the camera on the island and commented on his photography skills and lack thereof. There is also ample evidence that the photos were printed on the island by the ship's photo services in enough copies for all those who were depicted. My father also sent negatives home and asked his parents to make copies and send them back to him for distribution to his crew mates. Given the war time rationing of other supplies, this seems like a huge sacrifice by his parents, unless they knew someone who could print the pictures for them. There is no explanation in the documents or the letters home.

Many of the pictures of daily life on Banika are marked with dates that he was admittedly on Peleliu, which was necessary to reassure his family that all was well. Other pictures have dates written on them by his mother who was filling a scrap book with his mailings and date the photo's receipt. Unfortunately, he did not plan for a six week "Push" on Peleliu and the letters home ran out well before his return to base eight weeks after he left.

Because this was the first time the family had not heard from him after he left home in July of 1943, they began to fear the worst. Fran's sister reported that his father's hair turned white with worry, which would later figure in an awkward reunion with his father at a train station later in the war.

My father participated in the rehearsals for the landings as part of Co. C 1st Medical Battalion with the fire team he was assigned. While I have no evidence as to when and how many, he indicated that mock landings were held as part of the preparation using the beaches of Pavuvu.

He went ashore in a Higgins boat, with a ramp that fell forward rather than a tracked vehicle. He indicated that when the ramp went down men immediately began to fall from an enemy machine gun firing from a spider hole not 30 yards directly in front of the boat. He could not explain how he got out of the landing craft without becoming a casualty, but he did indicate that he and others pushed dead and wounded back into the landing craft so the ramp could be lifted and the boat could return to the ship for more Marines.

As he left the water and sought cover on the beach, he picked up a carbine lying next to a dead Marine and rushed up the beach to find his platoon. He immediately began responding to calls for a corpsman. This was the source of his survivor's guilt. In 1994, he stared toward the ground when explaining the landing as if looking for answers or focusing on the pictures in his head. He could not explain how he avoided injury or death in the landing or over the next six weeks. He could not find the words to adequately explain his experience to someone who was not there.

The temperature at the time of the landing was 115 degrees and the unit was only supplied with equipment for a four day mop up operation after heavy naval and aviation bombardment of the island. He explained that his water was gone by the end of the first day because he was sharing it with the wounded, fully expecting to be able to replace it from the supplies that would follow.

By dawn of the second day, he was covered in the blood of the wounded and dead as well as suffering from abdominal cramps and diarrhea. After bearing a litter with a wounded Marine to the beach for transport back to the ship, he took off his helmet and 'boondockers' and waded into the surf and began to swim away from the island. He stripped off his uniform and "shit his brains out". He lay back with his head toward the sea and watched the naval shells arcing into the mountains on the island, but there was no sound. When he lifted his head he could hear the small arms and machine gun fire overhead from the defenders and it reminded him of rustling oak leaves in the fall wind at the family cottage on Lake Koshkonong.

After cleaning himself in the ocean, he swam back to the shore, which was still tinged pink with blood of the fallen. His helmet and boondockers were where he left them, but he had to take clothing from the dead to complete his uniform.

At 0800 he participated in the assault on the Japanese air field. He said he simply put his head down and ran across the 400 yards of flat open terrain toward the buildings on the north end of the field. Machine gun and small arms fire, mortars and artillery shells rained down on the Marines from the coral mountains as they charged toward their destination. My father recalled that the coral surface of the airstrip was just as deadly as the bullets and shells when it was blasted out of the ground by the Japanese artillery. Once he successfully got to the end of the airstrip and caught his breath, he had to turn around and go back out under fire to tend to the wounded.

Once again he simply stared at the ground and could not describe his experience further.

My father described an event that continued to trouble him. His unit captured a Japanese officer several weeks into the fighting. The Marines stripped the officer of his uniform and tied him to a tree. The sergeant in charge briefly left to communicate the capture to his superiors. My father said that a member of the platoon walked over to the prisoner and shot him in the head.

The incident continued to trouble him to the day he described it to me. He shook his head from side to side, not in disbelief, but in acknowledgement that such killing was contrary to the values of his catholic upbringing; even now, when viewed out of context. By that time in the battle, however, the Marines were locked in a deadly horror that made such behavior pale by comparison.

I asked him if he collected any souvenirs as described by Eugene Sledge. He shook his head no and said he had not. However, he acknowledged members of his platoon had collected teeth, ears, even skulls by the time the fighting reached the fourth week. The only objects left in his mother's collection at the time of this writing were a Japanese bayonet and the paperback book that is part of this photo collection.

He was on the island for six weeks as the fighting continued and left on or about 28 October. He returned to Banika and said that his first goal was to get clean and find decent clothing. He indicated that the coral on the island had shredded his boondockers. His shoes were stuffed with rags and secured with laces wrapped around the bottom and the arch. He said the Marines got new boots before the navy personnel but he knew where to get new replacements. One of the wards in the hospital contained 200 beds specifically for multiple amputees and given the fighting that had just taken place it was full of men without legs. The Marines, however, issued these men new boots despite, and because of, the fact that they had no feet. My father took two cartons of cigarettes to the ward and traded them with two of the Marines with no legs for their new boots.

Pavuvu was considered a rest area, and the 1st Marines were no longer an effective fighting force following the battle at Peleliu. My father said he watched as the replacements arrived and was struck by how young they were. In November of 1944, he was 19 years old, but he was apprehensive and expressed misgivings about the age and inexperience of the replacements. He said that he "did not know any enlisted men in the division who had survived three "pushes". He was confident that he would not live through another island assault, particularly if he had to go into battle with the 'boys' that were filling out the depleted ranks.

My father continued to expect he would be participating in the next island invasion but he had no idea when or where (Okinawa, April 1, 1945). One morning, he learned that his name was posted on a list of personnel who were being reassigned. He was being reassigned to fly with casualties to and from the Philippines where heavy fighting continued through March of 1945. My father was overjoyed and felt greatly relieved. As the fighting on Iwo Jima and Okinawa continued into the middle of 1945, MOB #10 continued to serve the wounded and transfer serious injuries to Military Hospitals in Manila.

He remained on Banika with MOB #10 until he was granted furlough and was sent home in October of 1945. Before he left Banika, there was a fire on an adjacent island that contained poison gas shells. He pointed out the island in one of the pictures in which he is enjoying the use of a power boat with other sailors from the island. That was the first time I had heard of poison gas in WWII from anyone, including my father. I used the internet to see if others knew of the incident. What little I was able to find was located on www.pacificwrecks.com.

Mustard Gas Dump

Banika maintained large dumps for munitions, including poison gas. Although never used in combat, the American military maintained large stockpiles of Mustard gas in artillery shells and bombs. Its presence was highly secret, but well known to men on the island.

Vincent Butch Bochiaro adds:

"I served in the USN on Baniki from Nov. 43 until Sept 45. I was attached to Mob 10 a hospital unit. Guarded nurses. Drove ambulances and would to hear from one who served there."

Ammo Dump Fire October 1945

Richard A. Saylor RM3C recalled in an October 20, 1945 letter:

"I was going to tell you about the ammo dump that blew up the other morning. It was about 1:30 in the morning, and the siren started blowing like mad. I had just come off an evening watch, and only just got to sleep. The while sky light up, and the ground shoot so that you could feel the tent floor vibrate. I first thought we would all have to go fight fire. But, we didn't though they sure cleared the men out of the bases over there on that part of the island fast. We were safe enough here, but the bad part was that there was two and a half miles of mustard gas, and other gas stored there. Just a good thing the fire didn't get it. It burned up till way after noon the same day. Jim was talking to one of the guys who fought the fire and he said he thought he was lucky to be alive. There were bullets, shrapnel and everything but no one got burnt. He said it was as bad as any battle. Boy, glad I'm a radio man."

In 1988, an Australian was demolishing these weapons. After the charge went off, there was an almond odor in the air, and he was burned on the face by mustard gas. American military was immediately dispatched to the island to deal with the possibility of more gas. In late January 2006 another mustard gas report was reported and a second team dispatched. They found nothing other than a few conventional artillery shells in a swampy area.

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Home on Furlough 1945

My father traveled home through San Francisco and took a train to Chicago and then Milwaukee. According to his sister, Patricia, an unusual incident took place there. Fran's father and mother traveled to Milwaukee to pick him up at the train station. His father went down to the platform to greet him and when the train arrived Fran got off and began to look for his parents while his father was looking for him. Neither of them recognized each other until the platform cleared and they were the only ones left. It had been two years since they had seen each other and my father had lost so much weight he was a shadow of his former self. My grandfather's hair had turned white and he looked appreciably older than his age.

My father said he expected to be discharged and was looking forward to hearing from the Great Lakes Naval Training Center while he was home instructing him to report there for separation. Japan had surrendered in September and my father had the necessary points to be mustered out. There is no evidence in his mother's record other than the three pictures of the two of them standing in the driveway. My father spent the month of November and early December enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday with his family, friends, and catching up on civilian life. In the last week of November, he received notice that he was to report to the USS President Monroe AP-104 through the Naval Receiving Barracks in Shoemaker, California.

He indicated that he was both surprised and stunned. The family was disappointed, naturally, and urged him to call the training center in Illinois to make sure the orders were correct. My father explained that there was the "right way, the wrong way, and the Navy way". He sadly noted the papers directing him back to San Francisco would not have been sent if they were not correct, even if the war was over. What he learned upon reporting in was that his 'rate' had been frozen and Pharmacists' Mates were needed on Operation Magic Carpet Ride to accompany the military personnel that were being returned from Asia and the Pacific theaters to the United States.

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USS President Monroe AP-104 1945-1946

He reported to the Monroe. He made one uneventful trip to Japan to deliver occupation forces and pick up personnel for return to the U.S. His only noteworthy memory of the sail was mine duty. He and others were positioned on the bow of the ship with a rifle to fire and detonate any mines that the ship may encounter. Toward the end of the war, a typhoon had torn loose contact mines and they floated with the currents in shipping lanes. Sailors were expected to shoot at the mines and detonate them before the ship struck them. He remained with the President Monroe until it entered Hunter's Point Naval Dry Dock for decommissioning in January 1946.

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USS Electra AKA-4 1946

My father was transferred to the USS Electra AKA-4 and remained on board the Electra serving the crews who were decommissioning ships in Richmond California. Ships would be prepared for transit to the 'mothball' fleet in Bremerton Washington, or like the Monroe returned to the companies that owned them before the war.

The members of the Electra crew and sailors assigned to other duties in Richmond suffered food poisoning on March 8, 1944. The incident can be most eloquently told by my father's letters home before, during and after the incident. Following the incident my father indicated that he and the other sailors who suffered from the food poisoning were discharged. To visit the official USS Electra website, go to www.uselectra.org.

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Discharge and Return Home 1946

My father took a Southern Pacific train to Mankato, MN and then on to Chicago and the Great Lakes Training Center for honorable discharge on March 27, 1946.

My father indicated he would be a student upon return and he completed his GED and subsequently enrolled in Milton College, Milton WI; a small private Seventh Day Adventist Institution 5 miles north of the family farm. He also held part time jobs as a retail clerk in clothing stores in Janesville where the family home was located. He also tried a job as a driver on the assembly line at the local Chevrolet/Fisher Body plant, but left after several months when a car he was driving to the storage lot crashed into the exit doors. The steering gear had been put in backwards and when he turned left, the car veered to the right. He admitted that during this period he used alcohol to put the war and its memories behind him. While he was no longer the Mayor of Afton, he enjoyed a good party.

He married in April of 1948 and fathered seven children with Ruth Mary Jones, a local resident who graduated in 1944 from the high school he left to enlist. He remained very close to his immediate family and remained in Janesville. He remained a steadfast member of the local Catholic Church and made every attempt to follow the American Dream that the fighting in WWII had won. While it partially eluded him, our family was challenged by three children who struggled with and died of Cystic Fibrosis. The medical bills related to the children's needs required more than he was able to provide on his own. He remained close friends and partnered in business with the husband of his younger sister, Ruth.

June 1998

Ironically and perhaps appropriately, my father died on Flag Day, June 14, 1998 at the home of his second wife, Margie, in Arpin, WI. At his funeral, a fellow community member came to the visitation to pay his respects. He had lived in Janesville, like my father, all his life. He told me he was a Seabee, an electrician, and served on Peleliu. He too had made it across the airfield under fire and immediately began repairs and installation of electricity and communications in the airfield command post and control tower so that planes could begin using the airfield to help fight the enemy troops in the adjacent mountains.

The Seabee acknowledged that he did not know my father and only learned of his service by reading his obituary in the local paper. He wanted us to know that he and others who served on Peleliu would not forget the sacrifices made by those who died and those who survived. He was leaving in a few months to return to Peleliu with copies of the obituaries of those who passed away and he would place a shell casing from my father's military honor guard salute and his obituary at the Marine Corps Memorial erected on the island by survivors.

There are numerous sailors pictured here that are unidentified. If you know their names, send a comment and we can update the web site. When examining what is left of the memorabilia so carefully collected by my grandmother, it is clear that many of the letters and even some of the pictures were lost or deliberately destroyed upon her death. My grandmother was something of a diarist, keeping detailed journals of her life, which would have included details of the family life during the war years. Family members report that the journals were buried with her after her death. These pictures and documents are all that is left of my father's service record and I hope they are useful to those who visit this site.

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