. . .October the 18th, 2001. This is Dan Lucas, and I'm interviewing Keith R. Barrass, who lives at 7492 Baymeadows, Nampa, Idaho, and Keith was a soldier in the South Pacific during World War II, and this is his story.

I guess we'll start with the basic training project. I was at Ft. Macarthur, California, and I was inducted in the Army. I thought I was going in the Navy, and they -- I was a sheet metal mechanic, and I thought sure they'd take me with the Seabees.

Did you volunteer or were you drafted?

No, I was drafted. I had a child and I had a wife and I was very happy at home. And unfortunately -- and my neighbors, good neighbors, and friends all along with me getting in the service, according to the letter. So I went out to Ft. Macarthur, and the first night we were there, it was about one o'clock in the morning, I guess, why, there's a heck of a commotion in this barracks I was in with the rest of these inductees. And there was a fight going on down the other end of the barracks, and there was a heck of a noise. And so -- so much noise that it woke the officers up across the street from us, who were in another barracks, of course, and they came running over there to find out what the problem was, and they broke these guys up. And come to find out what had happened, one guy had peed in another guy's shoe. He didn't want to go outside 'cause it was so darn cold at that time. So he didn't want to go outside, he said, and the other guy said he peed in his shoe, and he heard him and he looked at him, and then they started a fight. So that was the first thing that happened. Well, anyhow, we finished basic, so I shipped out of San Francisco, and we had a sub chasing us. I was on a ship that was called the Clipped Fountaine, and it was a Dutch freighter that escaped from the Germans, but they took Holland. And the guy went to India to pick up a Bombay Indian crew. And these Indians used nothing but curry to eat, I guess, I don't know, I never saw them eat anything else. And they had black pepper, black -- or whatever they make this curry out of -- and white and red, and always that smelled, boy, to high heaven. I -- they used big drums of it. They - they eat it and used it for their food. And to this day I can't stand curry. But anyhow, it penetrated your clothes. And we were on this - it certainly wasn't a -- clip fountaine means beautiful fountain, and we certainly weren't on a beautiful fountain, and this ship was rotten to the core. But it had bunks three high, and the guy above me there, we got to New Guinea, and the guy above me got infantile paralysis, and he was taken off the ship. Well, I was scared to death that everybody on the ship would get, you know, would get spinal meningitis or something. And it was dirty because we'd go out on deck, there was nothing but salt water to bathe in. And we couldn't have any lights on board because a sub was chasing us when we got about 2- or 300 miles from the shore, from San Francisco, and we had to zig every three minutes and circle at night because it takes so long for the subs to get their periscope in to where they could fire these torpedoes at us. And so they'd zig every three minutes. It takes four minutes to get it zeroed in. Well, anyhow, so they had latrines, and in this latrine, why, you had to go out on deck there. And they had a telephone post, it looked like to me, it was cut in half. And they used that for you to sit on. Then they had a gutter, a wide gutter, like the kind you have in a home, only it was probably eight inches wide, and the seawater runs down through it. And as this ship would list, why, this stuff would go over the side because this latrine was over on the -- on one of the sides there. I'd given the porter the starboard side of the ship. Anyhow, you'd go out on deck to -- tippytoe. There was no lights, and you'd tippytoe out on the deck if you had to go at night, and you'd feel something under your toe, and you'd kind of maneuver around. Well, finally got out there, and all this stuff was, you know, out on the deck. And they used these Indians to clean up the next day, and so it was terrible. Everything was covered all over with canvas, and it was oily and it had this curry smell to it. And I got to -- I was subject to seasickness, everybody on board was, I guess, and it was just terrible, the conditions we lived under there. But anyhow, we got to -- we went through the straits there between New Georgia and Guadalcanal, and we saw the islands and the devastations that were there and one thing and another. And then we went to New Guinea. And we landed in Hollandia -- and we landed in Finch Hollandia.

And what time -- what was the date?

I don't remember any of the dates, so I'm awfully sorry, but I don't. This is in 1944, I think, the early part of 1944, maybe February or March, I don't remember. But anyhow, it was early '44. So the Japanese were on Rabaul. I think was the name of this little island that was out there. And they even had victory gardens because we bypassed a lot of these islands that these Japanese were on. And they didn't want to fight on them, there was no use taking them because they wouldn't use them, you know. So we bypassed them out in the Pacific there, and these Japanese still were on these islands. And they had victory gardens out there and stuff. I mean, the -- we went to the -- apparently the Navy had sunk a bunch of ships, and they had a big battle right on the Guadalcanal there. It wasn't very far from the Guadalcanal, but these Navy battles took place. It was very interesting, I mean as far as I was concerned on the tour, you know. If it was a cruise I wouldn't want to take it again. I'd like to pay for a cruise, if I had the money, but I certainly wouldn't want a cruise like that. Anyhow, we finally wound up at Leyte, the island which was in the Pacific -- I mean, which it's in the Philippines. And the Philippine Islands, I guess they have, oh, I don't know how many islands in the Philippines. But Leyte is an island. If you dig down 18 inches and you hit water -- it's a floating island actually. It's beautiful over there. And we wound up bivouac'ing-- the Japs were still on it -- and we wound up bivouac'ing in Tarlak -- Taklovin, Taklovin, I guess. Tarlak was over on Luzon. But anyhow, we wound up in Taklovin or Pavo . And then we went to Pavo and we got a bunch of different things there.

So this was after Macarthur's return to the Philippines?

No, this was way before Macarthur. Macarthur was snug down in a nice, clean bed someplace.

(Laughter).

Clean bed someplace. But anyhow, this was during the heat of the war. I mean, the war hadn't even -- this was probably where the war really, really was war, you know. And so anyhow, the Japanese had the -- had the Leyte . The people in Leyte at that time were very friendly towards the Japanese because the Japanese was going to move the capital of the Philippines from Luzon -- from Manila over to Leyte, and these people knew that things would go great for them over there. So we had to dig our latrines. We were trying to disorganize -- I mean, we were in a division at that time, the division I wound up in. And we had to dig our latrines. We didn't do any digging. We had a ladder that goes up on a platform, and we had big 50-gallon drums under the platform so we could go into the latrine. And we -- because we couldn't dig down 18 inches, as I said, we hit water, you hit seawater, you hit the sea. And so -- but it was so beautiful, they had a -- they had a coconut plantation there that had thousands of birds, and you could hear the birds sing. And then some of them sang, some of them talked, and some of them whistled, and some of them didn't do anything. But they were beautiful, all different colors, and how wonderful. Anyhow, we went from there. We were there a couple weeks, and a Japanese bomber came by one night and -- but anyhow, we - we went from there to Luzon. And on Luzon, why, my division and my outfit, we went to start into the jungle there. We took nothing but jungle fighting from then on. So for four months I was in the jungle fighting these Japanese that had taken the entire island. They had three years to prepare the island, and they knew that the cities would be devastated by the Americans if they ever came over there, which they weren't, you know, going to do, but they were prepared in case they did. But they were more prepared in the jungle than in any place in the islands. And on Luzon, why, in the jungles out there, into the mountains where we were, we were fighting for Kungam Valley , which was the breadbasket of the Philippines. And they had pineapple acreage out there. They had all kinds of truck farming stuff, and it was flat as the palm of your hand, there was 200 miles. Moreover, the jungle was on this side which we were on, and for miles and miles and miles and miles, it seemed like more miles than it was. And on the other side of 200 miles over there of this flat land, why, there were wild people, men and women. They still wore loin skins, and I understand they didn't even talk the same language as the Filipinos did. And they didn't want anybody over there. And the Japanese had abused them, apparently, when they were in control of that area. And these wild people -- well, we chased the Japanese finally into there, and these wild people was on our side, and apparently they had a number of them. They used machetes and stuff, and they didn't want nothing to do with very many people. Anyhow, they helped us with packs, and the dead and the wounded and taking them out and one thing and another. And so - but anyhow, we got to Luzon. And Tarlak was one of the big towns there that we went through. And the first thing that I came through when we got into Tarlak was some kid -- they had a parade there. I'll never forget this parade. There was a little barrio, and they called these barrio cities. And what happens, these people go in the jungle, and they'll take out part of the trees and stuff, and they'll set up their huts, which almost all the Filipinos have that aren't in the city. And they're on stilts, these houses they build, and there's one room, and they all live in this one room. There's stairways going up to the -- to the one room. It's about six or eight feet off the ground. And they use this circle hole right in the middle of the hut, everybody throws the garbage down there, and they use that for the toilet and so forth and so on. The whole family lives in this one room. And then they all raise chickens and pigs. And the chickens and pigs go underneath that little hole and they eat all the garbage and so forth that's used in the hole. And then they, of course, kill the chickens and the pigs and eat them. Then they're replaced by chicks and other little piglets and stuff, and it's a cycle. Well, anyhow, so the first thing that I saw in there was a parade, and there was this mayor's son. We talked to some of these Filipinos, and they said that was the son of the mayor. And he had a wagon he was pulling, it was full of straw. I looked at this wagon -- and we were walking along there trying to get to this particular area of the jungle -- and I thought I saw a head in that wagon, you know. It was straw, just a head, that's all. And the kid was waving the flag, and had a big procession behind him. And some poor old sick Japanese, I guess, soldier, had gone through there, and they cut his head off, killed him, and that was his head. So they had an airplane that they knocked down sometime, and they were exhibiting it. And this Japanese airplane had compasses on it. And they gave us tuba juice to drink, you know the only alcohol that we could get a hold of at that particular time. I'll tell you about Macarthur's brewery after a while, it was in Manila. And the funny thing, the Japanese had devastated Manila, they bombed the living daylights out of the whole town, Manila. And -- but this brewery, they never made a scratch on it. And it was Macarthur's San Miguel Brewery, I'll never forget it. And he put out all the liquor and stuff, but then there's not a scratch on it. There wasn't anything in his house that was disturbed. He was down on the beach. It was beautiful down there, which we didn't get to go. I went on later on and saw this. But anyhow -- and the icehouses he owned, I understand, part of the icehouses, and they got a dollar, two dollars, one peso for a scoop of ice cream, which was two bucks. And he went in and got the ice cream. It was two pesos - or a peso. But anyhow, so next thing, why, we get into combat. There was a kid that joined our outfit that had been in there one day, and his name was Holland. And I'd love to find his folks. As a matter of fact, I'd like to find all these guys' folks. There were well over a hundred guys, people, and we came out with only 18. Eighteen men out of all these people was all that was left. And God was very, very good to us -- to me. I've seen miracles that you wouldn't believe. I probably won't tell you too many of them, if any. But you wouldn't believe them if I told you because they're fantastic things that God did while I was there. I never got a scratch from the enemy, but I -- I contacted malaria and the fever, and the damn leeches driving me crazy, and you had to put a cigarette next to their head to get them out of there, and it caused you a sore. And sores don't -- you can't heal in the jungle, it's too humid or something, I don't know. If you get wounded or anything, they have to bring you back aways because you get infection in it.

Did you have a medic assigned to you that was readily available?

Yeah, we had pill rollers. We had medics in our -- in our division, of course. But, you know, when you get in combat and they're busy taking care of the guys -- as I said, there's always somebody that's wounded, or several guys that are wounded, generally. And we fought the Japs, and to give you the G2 on what -- what -- what -- the way the American Army fights in the jungles. I don't know whether they do that out, you know, very much in Saudi and Europe, I guess they don't. But in the jungles they make a perimeter, like the old covered wagons, they form a circle. And they put a guy, maybe eight or 10 or 12 feet, it depends on your -- how many people you have left. And our holes, I guess -- we dig a hole around this circle, and then you've got it covered from all angles. And then you put your key men in the middle of it, the perimeter there. And your key men are the officers and the pill rollers and the Mortar men and so forth and so on. And the Japanese try to get one hole there when they attack at night. They attack at night, and we fought in the daytime, fought them. We were right in the midst of them, always in the midst, because they dig their holes, and they had three years to prepare for this, and they used Filipino labor, and they gave them money, which was only paper because they had no backing in it. And I have some of the Filipino pesos myself here. And it isn't worth a darn for working for them. And then they had Chinese laborers that they -- slaves they were, that they brought with them from China when they were in the war with China. They still had the war with China when we were in the war with them. And they still hadn't had it - I think the peace - made peace with China, I don't know when, I don't remember, probably in the `70s or `80s. But when we -- when they were over there, they took a bunch of the Chinese coolies and made slaves out of them, and they used them to make their fox holes and caves while they were waiting for our --you know, they knew when we were trying to take the island back. If we tried, why, they'd have prepared. And they had all the high ground, they put their caves and holes in the high ground, if they could, or places they thought were strategic. And they used these Filipinos and Chinamen to dig for them. Then their 4Fs, instead of using them for any other thing, they used them for the hospitals, in combat, and for digging the things, dancing for them. And I seen them, I peeped over a kind of a little cliff there. I was sent ahead on patrol, and I saw these Japanese soldiers down there, they were eating supper. And these idiots were out there dressed like women dancing for them and singing for them. They were men. They were feeding them supper, and they'd act just like, you know, it was in the formal thing. And they were singing and so forth. But anyhow, that's the people they used for these things. So they were always - we were always right on the top of them. We fought them in the daytime, and we were right in our caves, like you see in the movies. We were right in the midst of our caves and their holes. And on their holes, why, they'd dig down about -- different than we did. We never would be there very long. We'd take maybe two or three feet deep. But they were six feet down, some of them, like an L. And you'd dig down, then they'd tunnel over. And so that when we threw the grenades in there or the airplanes would come by and use the bomb, or the big artillery would use the big shells, why, they'd have some protection. And if we threw the grenades in there, why, some of the men had like sheet metal that they'd put across the L part, you know. So they'd be in the other part over there, and they'd hope that they didn't get hit with the shrapnel by putting this stuff across that particular opening. So many times I'd use their holes. And one time there I remember we -- I got blown out of my hole with - my partner and I. There was two of us in the hole then because we were so low on people, I guess. And he and I went across -- and I'll tell you about that later on. But went across a ridge there to the other side where our friend bottomed out, and we were way away from the other guys, and they were way away from us all the way around because we didn't have men left. But it was quite a story in itself. But anyhow, that's how we were there, and the Japanese attacked us in the daytime. I think it was the only counter-attack that I was ever in where they attacked in the daytime, and we weren't expecting that, and they hit our machine gunners and killed them. And they blew me and my partner out of this hole with a Pickley casset charge. They threw Pickley satchel charges in on us. And I must have been unconscious when I got blown out of the hole because -- for a little while, anyhow, because I came to and I was on my hands and knees clawing at the dirt trying to get out. So they had our machine guns then, and they each had their machine guns stationed there, and they were firing at us. My partner and I were out of the holes, and they could see us out there and they -- you know, and we were zigzagging. And again God was with me. And it was like raindrops hitting the -- hitting the dry Earth or something. All I could see was spots, you know, where these shells would hit, these bullets would hit. And we zigzagged around, and there were hundreds of these. You know, I don't know how they missed us, I can't understand, with those machine guns. They were firing at both of us, and we were zigging and zagging, and these -- I had looked down at the ground and seen the stuff flaring up, you know, where these bullets would hit. So I never got a scratch. I never got a scratch. God was sure good. But anyhow, we wound up back behind, behind the perimeter there, and I said we got to get in the hole before these Japs come down on us. So we went over and we used a Japanese hole, and there was a leg sticking out of it. I knew there was a hole there, but evidently the bombers or the artillery had hit this a couple weeks or three weeks before we went over there, and the Japs had pulled out and pulled back a little ways. And there was a Japanese leg sticking out of this hole. I knew it caved in. All we did was just, you know, clean it out is all we had to do. Well, anyhow, I pulled on the leg and I couldn't get it out, so my partner came over and we pulled on this leg trying to pull this Japanese soldier out of there. And we pulled the leg off, and we went flipping back about 10 feet, and this leg on top of us, and he was rotten. I mean, it didn't take long to rot in the jungle. I guess he was, you know, rotten. And so anyhow, we dug this hole out, cave out. I call it a hole, one of those I'm telling you about, it was about five or six feet deep, and then tunnel under. Well, we dug it out and we spread a shelter half across the bottom and got rid of him, of course, the Japanese, and put him back in the jungle aways, and we used the cave, or the hole. And about, oh, four o'clock, five o'clock in the morning, it was just getting light, why, I looked at my partner, and there was white all over me, you know, it looked like it snowed during the night, and I wondered, what the heck, did it snow? I didn't know, you know, I was on guard. I didn't notice it any other time I had been on guard there. We each took an hour, and watch an hour out of this hole. We didn't get out because if you got out of your hole to do anything, the Japanese would shoot you -- or the Americans would shoot you because they'd think you were a Japanese creeping up on them. So they'd shoot anybody that was out of the hole at night. Well, I knew I hadn't gotten out, and there was white all over me. And I'd brush it off, you know, and pretty soon I looked down on my partner and he was covered with this white stuff. And I woke him up and I said, hey, you've got white all over you, it must have snowed during the night. Did it snow while you were on guard duty? And you know, we were watching in our hole for the Japanese an hour, and he'd watch an hour, and then I'd watch an hour. Anyhow, he said no, he said, what the hell, they're moving. He said those are maggots. And then we brushed the maggots off of us. That poor old Japanese soldier was in there, and I guess he must have had these maggots on him. I don't know how long he was in there, I have no idea how long, you know, he had been laying there, how long the field artillery unit -- like I said, the bombers had done a good job, and whatever. But anyhow, these guys were laying out all over. And when you eat your rations in the daytime or, you know, your C-rations -- all we had to eat was C-rations, and they were cold. And you get a can of stew or anything, I don't care what it is, the C-ration is cold. We couldn't light a fire. For four months we were in combat, or almost four months, and never got any relief. And these C-rations are cold, and when you eat them, they're greasy. And you get that in your mouth, it sticks to the top of your mouth, this grease does, and it sticks to your tongue and teeth, and you can never get rid of that grease, it seems like, you know. You eat it. And there are these Japanese bodies are all over, and they're with blow flies, just as black as the ace of spades with blow flies. And I'd pick one of those blowflies out just every time I'd go to eat. It would seem like I'd pick a particular fly out, and that rotten rascal would come over and lie right in the middle of my C-rations and then wipe his feet. Well, I -- when I was first eating these C-rations in combat, I'd throw this C- ration can away, you know, if a fly got in it. And after a while, why, of course, I just took my spoon and I flipped him out of the C-ration and finished the can, you know, because I was hungry. But I wasn't very hungry when I first got there and there these flies were, and the little buggy gets on the dead, and it's about an inch long, and they eat part of the thing. And there's mosquitoes around and there's leeches. It's just a miserable, rotten condition. When it rains, you bail your hole out, you know, if you're laying in a hole and it rains at night, which, you know, during the monsoon season, why, you're taking your bail out there, going to hole out, and it's full of water and mud, so that your buddies can sleep, you know, for their time off the guard, and you're right in this hole, you can't get out of the hole. So the water gets in there and you get rid of it, and you wake up the next morning and you're muddy, and you can't take a shower because there are no showers -- there are no showers around. So anyhow, that's terrible conditions in the jungle. Well, anyhow, I -- that was one experience that was kind of rough there without the enemy. I mean, the enemy didn't do anything there, but I didn't appreciate those doggoned maggots very much, you know, I didn't care for that, and I didn't care for those dadgum flies. Whenever we'd get around where there was a group of Japanese, we'd just have it - to get to a particular area where they were time after time after time, there was always bodies around black with blow flies and so forth. And wherever there was water, you'd have these leeches that would dig into you with their heads, and they'd suck your blood. And the only way you can get rid of them is to take turpentine, put it on their tale, their bodies, you know, and then they'd pull out. But if you leave their head in you, if you pull them, for instance, you would pull the body away from the heads, why, the heads stay in there, you can't get rid of them. It's just a little membrane between the head and the body, and it comes apart when you pull the whole body out, you know. The head stays there and it causes you ulcers and it ulcerizes it. Well, so we'd use a cigarette and we'd put it next to their head, we didn't want the head to be in there, or them to be in there. So we'd put this cigarette next to where they were sucking our blood, and they'd get hot and they'd pull that head out, and away they'd go, you know, you'd try to kill them. And they were tough. They're not so tough as they are slimy, you know. It's like a slug, a snail slug. You go to hit it and you're like - in our case, with a bayonet -- why, let's bop them. So I'd mash them with my feet, I'd do anything. I just hated leeches, I hate them to this day. And anyhow, I - it's a miserable, rotten life to lead over there. You can't believe how miserable it is. No baths, of course. For four months we put up with these cold rations in the morning, and then noon and night. You can't smoke because the Japanese, if they smoked, why, they could smell this smoke for a mile back, I guess, and just follow right to our perimeter, you know. I mean, there was no -- no -- no -- there was an odor to it, and if you smoke -- you know what I'm talking about. Well, you'd get down in the bottom of that hole -- we smoked anyhow. And we'd get to the bottom of our little old hole there and we'd cup our hands and light the match so that no light would show, and we'd smoke a - we'd grab a smoke, see. We smoked, but you aren't supposed to. So one of the miracles I was telling you about was we had no radios, we all just used phones. And we were up about a mile where the bulldozers - and I admire these engineers because all they did was they had these big bulldozers, and that jungle was thick, and they'd bulldoze through that jungle and make a trail so the tank could get up there, supposedly. Well, those tanks wouldn't go very far and they'd bog down and one thing and another. But anyhow, these engineers were up there, and these bulldozers, and we were with them, you know, by the side of them or in front of them or behind them, or whatever, trying to protect them. But them Japs would throw mean mortars at them, and they would snipe at them and one thing and another. And these engineers were behind a little shield they had in front of them there and driving these bulldozers and these things. So I admired them greatly, the engineers. And we were guarding the top of this trail, and it was almost 45, I'd say, or a 30-degree angle, I don't know. And it was -- with nothing there, I mean, except where the bulldozer had gone, and we were at the top of it protecting this so-called road so the Japanese wouldn't put land mines out there and our tanks could get up there that far, or our flame-throwers. We had to get permission, incidentally, from New York or someplace, I heard New York, a certain society, in order to use a flame-thrower, and it took about two weeks. By that time we either had the hill or we were chased off of it, you know, by the time we got permission to use a flame-thrower. These are big machine guns like a tank that throws flames out there. It wasn't a flame-thrower a person uses on anybody. They had those too. We had them, but they -- we didn't use them too often. But these guys would use these machines. They had to get permission from New York in order to use them. And as I said, by the time they got the permission, generally we were gone from an area. Well, anyhow, that's what they bring out there with the bulldozers for the roads for. So we were protecting that, and we had our perimeter at the top of this thing, or near the very, very top, and we were away from the company. And we had telephone wires leading back to the company where the headquarters station was and some of the officers, you know, the big shot officers like the colonels and the majors and so forth were stationed back there. And so we were in contact with them with these telephones. Well, during about two o'clock in the morning, here the Japanese - the poor Japanese had apparently stumbled on this, and they followed our telephone wires up to our perimeter. That's what they were doing, they were going up the hill towards our perimeter. And they had a great big roll of telephone wire that they were collecting this wire, saving it. And it was on one side of the road, which was our side, where our hole -- our perimeter happened to be on one side of the particular trail, or road, if you want to call it, that they had bulldozed up there. And my hole was right next to the road. So anyhow, about 2:30 or three o'clock in the morning, two o'clock, whatever, we were into the clouds and it was like a mist, you know, like a rain, it was foggy, and you couldn't see very much, couldn't tell much, and you couldn't see over 10 or 12 feet out there. And we were high in the mountains, and I looked down this road, all at once the fog had cleared, the rain had stopped, or this mist, whatever it was. And I looked down there a little ways down the road where these poor Japanese soldiers were rolling this wire up trying to find our perimeter. And, of course, they couldn't see either in those clouds and all, and they were rolling this wire to find our perimeter. And God, I guess, had moved these clouds up for us and - for me, anyhow. And we had a new grenade, it was snap-proof. In our grenade you'd pull a pin, and then you got a handle on it and you throw it, and you have three seconds before it explodes. But it always pops just as it, you know, as it's getting ready to explode, it pops a handle off and it explodes. Well, you have three seconds. So we used to say, you know, whatever it calls, three seconds, and then we knew that the grenade would pop off. Well, the Japanese had them like a soup can on a stick, and they can hit theirs against a rock or a tree or something, and then they could throw it, and then I guess they had about three seconds too before theirs would explode. But ours were fragmentation grenades. Then we had two white phosphorous grenades also, which would burn. They were -- they were -- you know, you throw them and they'd scatter this white phosphorous like a July the Fourth firework or something. And it'd burn you wherever this white grenade - wherever this phosphorous would get, why, it burns. So we used some of the phosphorous grenades, WP they called it. And then we had fragmentation grenades, and we had pouches we kept these in. Well, these four soldiers came up there to the side there gathering this wire up, and they shine. I mean, I can't tell you how much they shine, like silver in a mirror, actually shine that hurt my eyes almost, they were so brilliant on this road. And it's two o'clock in the morning, blacker than pitch, you know, and they shown, they actually shown. God had to show me where they were, these four guys. And so I'm kicking these two guys in the hole with me, I was kicking them awake, you know. One of them's names was Smitty, and one of them's name was Chick. And Chick was a wild guy, I mean, he didn't serve on anything, he was in the rear. And he got put in the stockade for stealing the officer's jeep, and he took it for a ride so he could take a girl out. Well, anyhow, he got put in the stockade. And then when they started to go into combat, why, he was released to get into combat. He was in my - he was a great guy, and I liked him very, very much. And Smitty was a good guy. He was a shorter man, but he was a wonderful guy. And so we three were generally in the hole together. Anyhow, I woke these two guys up, and they wanted to know what the hell was coming off, you know. And I said we've got some Japs coming up here up the road. So they looked up there, and sure enough - and here we had a bunch of these phosphorous grenades, just that day came out. And so I was pegging these poppless grenades at these guys when they got close enough, and so were they. And we had a couple of frags there that were mixed in with these, a couple of fragmentation grenades. And one of these guys got within, oh, I guess, 200 feet of us, why, they heard these grenades there and they ran like the Dickens, you know. And all these new grenades were duds, I don't know what happened, but they were duds, they didn't go off, all they did was hit. And these guys heard them hit and they scattered. And we were about to fire at them, you know. Two of them went on one side of the trail, and two of them went on the other side. Well, on the other side the Japanese had had a big gun there, and they had big shells that they used in these guns, and they were still there. I don't know what you call them, big artillery pieces, and some of them still had water in them, you know, and they had black powder in them. So after they were fired -- incidentally, I got sick on them because you couldn't get any water for a while, and I got four day's of water that was in these shells in my canteen, and I drank it. I got gastritis. I just got sicker than a dog on this water. Well, anyhow, so two of them got on one side and two on the other. And these two that were on our side, one of them crept up to within our hole, within about six feet of our hole or less, and it was dark and they no longer shown. And the other one, a guy named Rogers, looked exactly like an ape, was in the hole above us, and he could see things down there. He could see these guys coming up on us. We couldn't see them because from where we were it was too thick with vines and jungle, see. So anyhow, except for this guy by the - the one that separated, and this guy crawled up on us, I saw a hump out there. And, you know, I said, well, what is that hump? Is that a rock or is that a Jap soldier laying there? We couldn't see, you know, I mean it was dark again. But the clouds had come back down and - more or less, not as bad as they were. And Smitty said, no, it's just a rock. And I said, no, it's four o'clock maybe in the morning, you know. And Rogers was keeping this other guy away from us, he was tossing grenades out there at this other guy. And so they -- Chick says, well, no, that's a Jap. And he says, no, that's not a Jap, that's a rock, oh, yeah, Chick. And he says, no, no, he said listen, I got eight rounds here in my M1, he says. I was a BR man, incidentally. And he said I'm going to fire a round at him -- you know, he was a rotten person -- my rifle needs to be cleaned anyhow. He was that type of a guy. He fired eight rounds at this thing, and we all laid down. He had a smoke. All the time we were smoking there because we were having -- we made a blast out of it, you know. We'd hear these guys over there with these big shells running back and forth every time we'd toss a grenade over there. And it would hit, maybe it wouldn't explode, but it would hit and these guys would hear it and they'd try to run through these big shells without making any noise, you know. And you could hear them over there running like the Dickens. These shells would go, clang, clang, clang, and we were having a big ball, we were really having a ball. But anyhow, Smitty and I laid down and we were going to put Chick on guard. And we laid down, and it was getting morning now, it was about four or five o'clock in the morning, and it was just getting to be false dawn, which is gray, you know. It wasn't quite dawn yet, but it's not dark either, kind of light. So he looked out there and he woke us up and he says, hey, guys, that's a Jap out there. He said look at that guy. And he was turned on his side. And on his left side here he had what looked like a cross on his shoulder here. And he said a Red Cross man, or a pill roller or something out there. He said look at that cross. So we all got up. The other Jap had disappeared. And these Japs over here in the big gun -- where the big gun was, why, they had gone, got out of there. And so we went out there and looked at this guy, and here he was stretched out on his side, and he had a fragmentation grenade he'd taken off of one of our boys. And he had the pouch with him, and he had a grenade pouch on his belt, and he had this fragmentation grenade in his dead hand. And he was just ready to toss it in our hole, and he had it in his hand, and the holder was there, that -- what do you do -- I guess you'd call it a lever holding the grenade. And he had it in his hand ready to toss up there, and then I thank the good father in heaven that he didn't because Chick let him have it. Chick thought he still had an aid man, and he got down there and his brains were across his shoulder here where the bullet had hit him someplace in the head here, and his brains had splattered on the tunic, and he had made a cross, but that was his brains. And then he had his grenade in his hand, so I kicked his hand and the arm and got rid of that grenade, it went down in the jungle and exploded, you know. And so that was one of the miracles I had. I'd never seen anything like it. You know, it's marvelous what God has done to keep up alive. So anyhow, I could tell you about so many times. There's so many things that I don't know which ones to tell you about because I only have a few minutes left here on this tape, I understand. I'll tell you about this Holland I started telling you about, he had just joined the company, and we were in the jungles, we were fighting, and there was a big mahogany tree as big as our redwoods, any one of our redwoods. It was almost as big as a front room of a house, this tree was, around the circumference. And these Japanese had found it. And it's real hard wood. The Filipinos use it for rifle butts and things. It's great, it's wonderful, hard though. And they'd use the roots of it. The roots extended out there 10 or 12, 14 feet. And they dug underneath these roots in case, you know, the big artillery or the airplanes when they're dropping this Napalm wouldn't hit it, see. And they dug caves under there. Well, there must have been quite a few of them in these caves 'cause as the sun was going down, the sun was setting - when it sets, boom, you know, it's gone. It's no great sunset. But it was about dusk, and Holland was in the hole above me. And there was Holland, Spivey (ph) and Walker, who was in the Pearl Harbor when I was in the regular Army outfit, and they were at Schofield Barracks. Why, he was one of the few that was left. You know, he'd been on the initial attack. And Holland was there, and Dickerson, there was four of them. And they pooled their grenades, put them in a pile between -- all four of them are in this hole, two of them in the front, two of them in the back. And they pooled their grenades and put them in a big pile there. And so about two o'clock, or one o'clock, whatever, in the night, these Japs would hit us. And they were out there and these guys were pegging grenades at them. And Holland was -- or -- well, Walker was real excited. He was the one that had been in Pearl Harbor, he'd been through a couple of three campaigns. He was nervous as the Dickens. And he said that he dropped his grenade, one of these you pull the pin on, and he let it go, you know, he was shaking so bad, he let it go. And he said you better get out of the hole, guys, I dropped a grenade. And we only had, you know, a couple seconds to get out. And Holland reached back, and he felt a grenade that had fallen off of this pile, I guess. He said, never mind, I got it, and then about the time he said that, he picked it up, you know, and he was going to throw it out of the hole. And about that time the thing exploded, and it blew Holland to pieces, there wasn't anything left of him. He was a great guy. I mean, he and I just did great. He was a real hero because he was over there to fight, that's what he was there for. Early that morning, that sunset, that night, why, as these Japs would come out, they were going to come out at night, why, at sunset they were coming out. And they'd get a little ways away from the hole, and he'd pop them off, you know, and he'd gotten five of them that evening coming out of that tree and that big cave. And he was coming back to my hole, and he'd tell me, Barrass, you know, I'm whittling this -- he was whittling this rifle, like the old Texas -- he was from Texas - like the old six shooters did, you know. Those old boys used to fight with their pistols. Well, he was whittling this thing five notches, see, and he said, you know, by the time I'm here two weeks I won't have a stock left on my rifle. Yeah, he said, hey, I got to go, I got to get back there to get a few more of these before it gets too dark. And so he went back there. Well, that night when the grenade went off, why, he got blown to pieces. And I wish I could find his folks. I wish I could find all their folks because I didn't know their last names, but I knew their last names - I mean, their first names, I might know their last. But I knew their first names, but I didn't know their last names. I wish I could find their addresses, their telephone numbers, because I'd love to tell his folks about him and what a hero he was to me and all. We got along great, we were best friends there for the time we knew each other. Anyhow, he got blown to pieces. And Walker got -- lost an arm and a leg. And Spivey got shrapnel in his legs. And Dickerson didn't get a scratch, he was the fourth guy, he never got a scratch. So he came back to our hole and this grenade goes off and stuff. And Walker was up there screaming at the top of his lungs, "I lost an arm, I lost an arm." He didn't know he'd lost a leg at that time. And he said, help me, help, please, help me, please, please. And he was crying and screaming at the top of his lungs. And these Japs, of course, heard that, and they were trying to take his hole, you know. As I told you, they'd pick out one hole and take it, and they were going to take this hole he was in. And he was screaming in pain, you know, and he was scared, I know he was scared. And then he come down on this hole and a machine gun opened up, our machine gun. And we started peppering these guys with grenades, and we come, you know, under control so they couldn't get to those guys. Of course, we pulled them back as fast as we could. We went up there and got Walker and pulled him out. And I know he didn't know at that time he'd lost a leg because he kept screaming about his arm. And Spivey, he couldn't walk, of course, because he had shrapnel in his legs. And Holland, we looked for him, but he was blown to bits and there was nothing there. And Dickerson was there, and he never got a scratch. And he helped us, of course, we got these guys back and, you know, we didn't have any more attack by the Japs after the machine gun opened up. So that in itself was a marvelous situation.