Interview with Ellis Barklow [5/15/2004]

Karl Arnet:

Today is May 15, 2004. This is the beginning of an interview with Ellis Barklow at his home at 1726 Flamingo Avenue in Chico, California. Mr. Barklow is 78-years-old and had been born on September 18, 1923. My name a Karl Arnet and the other interviewer is Patrick Green and we will be interviewing Ellis Barklow. Ellis Barklow is Kyle's grandfather and his mother's stepfather.

Karl Arnet:

I'm sorry. I didn't get your name, I don't have it.

Ellis Barklow:

First name is Ellis.

Karl Arnet:

Ellis?

Ellis Barklow:

Ellis.

Karl Arnet:

Ellis?

Ellis Barklow:

Barklow.

Karl Arnet:

All right, PJ. Is it all right if I call you Ellis or would you like me to call you Mr. Barklow or --

Ellis Barklow:

Huh?

Karl Arnet:

Would you like me to call you, Mr. Barklow?

Ellis Barklow:

No. Call me Ellis.

Karl Arnet:

All right.

Ellis Barklow:

Yeah.

Karl Arnet:

Is it turned on? What branch did you serve in?

Ellis Barklow:

Navy.

Karl Arnet:

How did you chose the Navy over like the Air force, the Army or --

Ellis Barklow:

I just didn't want to sleep in a trench. I thought, you know, the Navy had bunk beds, you know.

Karl Arnet:

Yeah.

Ellis Barklow:

I thought it would be a little cleaner. I just -- my thoughts on it. I always said that, "Boy, I can't see digging a trench or a fox hole and crawling into it."

Karl Arnet:

A little nicer quarters, conditions?

Ellis Barklow:

Yeah.

Karl Arnet:

Were you drafted or did you sign up?

Ellis Barklow:

No. I enlisted at 17.

Karl Arnet:

What year was that?

Ellis Barklow:

1944. I graduated from high school in June and I went in the -- in the Navy that September.

Karl Arnet:

September?

Ellis Barklow:

Yeah.

Karl Arnet:

Was there any reason in particular that you joined the Navy instead of going into like college or work or anything?

Ellis Barklow:

Well, there was a war on, World War II. And it was either being drafted into the Army when I turned 18 or at 17, with your parent's consent, you could enlist in the Navy and sign up and join that way and that's what I did before I turned 18. I signed up at 17 and joined. So when I turned 18 they couldn't draft me.

Karl Arnet:

That way you could do what you wish to do?

Ellis Barklow:

Yeah, righ.

Karl Arnet:

That makes sense. So you were 17 when you enlisted in 1944 and was it pretty tough? The whole like training and --

Ellis Barklow:

Oh, it was. You know, I was just a kid. You know, out of school and I was nieve about everything and you get thrown in there with a bunch of older guys. There were several of us that were my age but there was a lot of them that were 20's and 30's, too; that were drafted but were all put together. So it was tough.

Karl Arnet:

Hard to --

Ellis Barklow:

And then they discipline you and, you know, like, you know, they feel your face and say what's this? It's nothing. He said, "Yeah. You got a lot of peach fuzz. I want to see that off tomorrow." So then I had to start shaving. I didn't shave when I went in. So I had to go down and buy a razor and stuff and start shaving because they wanted clean shaving and this and that.

Karl Arnet:

Yeah. Was it like what you expected, do you think?

Ellis Barklow:

Yeah. Yeah. It was and I wouldn't trade it for anything. It was great. I saw a lot of the world and it was a good experience and I came back in one piece.

Karl Arnet:

Definitely good thing, right there.

Ellis Barklow:

Yeah.

Karl Arnet:

So you were on a ship then or --

Ellis Barklow:

Yeah, most of the time I was -- let's see -- yeah.

Karl Arnet:

Would you --

Ellis Barklow:

Well, I had. I was on -- three ships. One was a tanker. We carried crude oil and high octane gasoline to the islands in the Pacific and we went and shuttled from San Francisco -- from L.A. to San Francisco to the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific and Hawaiian Islands and then we went to Panama and then we went back and then we went back to Panama and then they took me off at Panama and I was on Base Air for a month and they put me on a C-2 cargo ship; which was a ship going from France to Japan for the war with Japan. And they were moving Army trucks and stuff and they were on the ship I was on. It was a big cargo ship. And then the last one I was on was a garbage gaul (?) in Long Beach Harbor.

Karl Arnet:

Okay. And the -- the ships were civilian ships that you were --

Ellis Barklow:

No, they were-- Yeah. They were civilian ships -- they were U.S. Merchant Marines. Which was -- they were privately owned, they belonged to the Merchant Marine but they were privately companies but they had Navy armed guards on them to protect them. We had -- they had mounted guns and we were on the ships as gunners.

Karl Arnet:

All right, so they were like cargo ships with --

Ellis Barklow:

Yeah. With a Navy crew of seventeen men and we manned .20 millimeter-three-inch and five-inch guns, front and back, front and starboard and fantail and then we had four .20 millimeter gun tote around the back, so --

Karl Arnet:

So, what job -- were you under, what was your position?

Ellis Barklow:

That was called armed guard, armed guard. Yeah.

Karl Arnet:

So the you were with that position then was called?

Ellis Barklow:

I was a gunner but I was just a Seaman First Class. Yeah.

Karl Arnet:

Seaman First Class?

Ellis Barklow:

Yeah.

Karl Arnet:

All right and in the -- in the typhoon that occurred?

Ellis Barklow:

Yeah.

Karl Arnet:

Around that time?

Ellis Barklow:

That was around 1945.

Karl Arnet:

1945. The end of war?

Ellis Barklow:

Yeah. Pretty much we were waiting out in the Sea of Japan off of Okinawa and there were five hundred ships waiting in there for the invasion of Japan and we were just sitting off of Okinawa Island and this typhoon came in and they said everybody scatter. So everybody -- all the ships just took off. A lot of them were smaller ships than ours and they sank. And it was, oh, a hundred and fifty, two hundred mile hour winds, you know. And you could look out the porthole and see these ships sinking. And you could hear, "Mayday, mayday, SOS, SOS." And you couldn't do anything. You just -- we thought our ship was going down too and it cracked. Yeah, I thought it was going to sink because we were sitting there in what we call passageway which is like a hallway. I had my feet against one wall, my back against the other and we were rolling. You know, and you could hear and we were just rolling. And it was way other here and then it cracked and then it slowly came back up and when we got to New York they checked it and they said it was a big crack in there but it took on a little water but it wasn't bad --

Karl Arnet:

Yeah.

Ellis Barklow:

-- they just closed off that section down at the bottom of that ship and we made it but --

Karl Arnet:

Yeah.

Ellis Barklow:

But boy all the jeeps and trucks were hanging over the side of ships that were on top and on the deck, you know.

Karl Arnet:

Wow.

Ellis Barklow:

The cables had just been ripped off and it was a mess. But it was -- was an experience because I saw all these people in the water drowning and there wasn't anybody that could help them.

Karl Arnet:

I understand.

Ellis Barklow:

It was scary.

Karl Arnet:

So was there anything you guys could do like during the typhoon or were you told to go down to like your quarters and like protect yourselves or did you guys have to do any bridge duty or anything?

Ellis Barklow:

No, they wouldn't. They sealed up the whole ship and you had to just stay put. The guys got hungry. We were like that way for four days and four nights. And the guys got hungry --

Karl Arnet:

Right.

Ellis Barklow:

-- and went into the mess hall and started open up cabinets well every time the ship would roll all the dishes would come out. We had the biggest mess. So they just made you sit put and not do anything until it was over with.

Karl Arnet:

Get real seasick?

Ellis Barklow:

Yeah. I was lucky I didn't. I never did get seasick. That first -- when -- in boot camp when we went on first cruise, why, they gave us a coffee can, you know, and I told the guy I don't need this I never got sick in my life. So he made me clean up everybody else's puke and I never got sick but I, you know, I still -- I said I don't need it and I didn't. I never did. Any of it. I think it's a mind thing, you know.

Karl Arnet:

Yeah, mostly is. People think they're going to get seasick and they do a little bit.

Ellis Barklow:

Oh, yeah. Because we were on a fishing boat some years ago and everybody got sick.

Karl Arnet:

Yeah.

Ellis Barklow:

Everybody and I never did but I just sat there and my -- my youngest son with us and he kind of got squeamish and he said you watch all these over people puking and you just want to do it too.

Karl Arnet:

Yeah, gets to you?

Ellis Barklow:

Gets to you. Its a contagious thing.

Karl Arnet:

Definitely?

Ellis Barklow:

Yeah.

Karl Arnet:

Were there any other big memorable events that you can think of?

Ellis Barklow:

Well, everything -- everything was really important to me cause I was so young and I was seeing different places. But the typhoon and then when we went back after the war our ship was the main base was New York City. So we went through the Panama Canal and up the Atlantic Coast into New York and Manhattan and I got to go ashore and go to New York and have "Liberty" before we came back to California.

Karl Arnet:

All right.

Ellis Barklow:

We caught a train and came back to California on the Liberty.

Karl Arnet:

So when you were out on sea, how long was each of your deployments on each of the ships you were on?

Ellis Barklow:

Well, the first year was about a year and then the second time was about a year.

Karl Arnet:

Well, on one ship?

Ellis Barklow:

Yeah, on one ship and then the other ship. Yeah. They were about equal space.

Karl Arnet:

Equal?

Ellis Barklow:

Yeah.

Karl Arnet:

So you were in for two years then?

Ellis Barklow:

Two years. Yeah. Or pretty close to it. Yeah.

Karl Arnet:

Then that was around the time with the -- before the -- they wanted to have the invasion with Japan that had been --

Ellis Barklow:

We signed the treaty on the ship out there in the Pacific and it was all over with, you know. So nobody had the invasion of Japan or nobody went to it, you know, so.

Karl Arnet:

?

Ellis Barklow:

Yeah.

Karl Arnet:

Do you have any pictures or any like notes or anything from when you were on the ship or journals or anything you might want the share?

Ellis Barklow:

I don't.

Karl Arnet:

No. All right. That's fine. We were just curious in case you wanted to?

Ellis Barklow:

No. You know, most of that stuff got lost in the moves and stuff, you know, and I don't have anything. I don't think I have anything.

Karl Arnet:

That's fine, yeah. Just in case?

Ellis Barklow:

Sure.

Karl Arnet:

Well, thank you thank you very much?

Ellis Barklow:

Glad to do it.