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VETERAN: Edward Gilbert
INTERVIEW DATE: June 17, 2004
TRANSCRIBER: Tom Brezina
TRANSCRIPTION DATE: January 2, 2013
EILEEN HURST: Tell me if you want to stop at any point. Today
is June 17, 2004. I am interviewing Edward Gilbert at Central
Connecticut State University. The interviewer is Eileen Hurst
Downey (ph) from Central Connecticut State University. Ed, would
you tell me what your full name is, your birth date, and current
address?
EDWARD Gilbert: My name is Edward Gilbert, , and I was born June 5, 1920.
HURST: And can you tell me what war you served in and what
branch of the service?
Gilbert: I was in the Pacific theater, South Pacific, and I was
in the 2nd Brigade of the EBS and R. They call it engineering,
boat, and shore regiment, which is amphibious landing craft.
HURST: What was your rank when you were discharged?
Gilbert: Sergeant. It's a technician fourth grade, actually,
with a sergeant's rating.
HURST: Ed, were you drafted, or did you enlist?
Gilbert: I was drafted.
HURST: Where were you living at the time?
Gilbert: I was living at Six Railroad Place in Wethersfield,
Connecticut .
HURST: Do you remember the date you were drafted?
Gilbert: Let's see. I think it was in June. In June '42. I
think it was around the 24th.
HURST: Do you recall your first days in service?
Gilbert: Yes. We were taken from Asylum Street in East
Hartford, where they put us on a train to Fort Devens,
Massachusetts, and most -- most of us were sick. I don't know if
it was from homesick or lack of food, but it took us quite awhile
to get there. It was an all-day thing, being away from home.
HURST: And is Fort Devens where you did your basic training?
Gilbert: No. That was the jumping-off spot. Fort Devens was
the induction center.
HURST: How long did you stay at Fort Devens?
Gilbert: Not more than two or three days, and they -- then they
sent us to basic training in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
HURST: Can you tell me what your basic training was like?
Gilbert: It was -- as far as I remember, I think it was eight
weeks of just regular basic training: Getting into condition,
infantry training, and exercising.
HURST: Do you remember any of your instructors from basic?
Gilbert: In basic? No. Nothing special happened, really. It
was July and August. It was very, very hot there, but just
regular training: Rifle, infantry training.
HURST: What were the living conditions like at the basic
training camp?
Gilbert: Living conditions? Very good. Excellent, I thought.
Food was great. Trying to get us in condition.
HURST: Where did you go after your eight weeks of basic
training?
Gilbert: Then they -- they sent -- well, 90 percent of us to
Camp Edwards, Massachusetts.
HURST: And what did you do there?
Gilbert: Well, that was -- they formed the 2nd Brigade there.
Amphibious, which would consist of landing craft, ship to shore.
HURST: Can you tell me about that second brigade? Because this
is the first time it came into being; correct?
Gilbert: Yes. It was a newly -- new organization, and from Camp
Edwards, which is in Falmouth, Mass, they sent us to Washburn
Island where we had training on LCVP, landing craft, and we --
and we had training from Washburn Island. We used to land
infantry on Martha's Vineyard for training. That's where I had
my training.
HURST: And you were being trained specifically to operate these
landing craft?
Gilbert: Yes.
HURST: And this is the first time the Army had landing craft?
Gilbert: First time I ever been on a boat.
HURST: Really? That must have been pretty exciting?
Gilbert: But the -- they come and told us that, hey, you're a --
we're putting you on a landing craft, and we're going to make you
a coxswain. That's the driver. I said, okay. I was never on a boat before.
They said, well, we'll show you how to do it.
HURST: How did they chose you?
Gilbert: How did I do?
HURST: How did they choose you? Why did you --
Gilbert: Oh, I don't know. I have no idea. They just came in
our tent one night and said, Mr. Gilbert, you're a coxswain and,
Mr. So-and-so, you're an engineer. We had a crew of three: A
coxswain, an engineer, and the ***.
HURST: And the coxswain was the driver? That was you? What did
the engineer do?
Gilbert: He is supposed to take care of the motor, engine, and
the ***, he was to take care of the ropes and the ramp and
such. So we -- we had a lot of training there, and we went from
there to Florida in the Gulf. We had no training there because
we didn't have any boats and there was no camp. We just slept on
the beach for a couple of weeks, and they'd send us to Fort Ord,
California.
HURST: And what did you do there?
Gilbert: Well, we started training at Monterey, but that was not
too good either. The surf was so high at Monterey that we could
not operate the boats.
HURST: Really?
Gilbert: It would just sweep us away. So then they decided to
-- we -- they sent us overseas to Cairns -- I think it's Cairns,
K-A-R-I-N-S -- Cairns, Australia. Australia. So they sent our
whole outfit to Australia for training, and that's where we got
our best training. In fact, in Cairns is where they built our
boats, our LCVPs, the small one.
HURST: LCVP?
Gilbert: Yeah.
HURST: They built them right there, and you trained on those
boats in Australia?
Gilbert: In Cairns, yes.
HURST: How did you like being a *** after being on land all
your life?
Gilbert: Well, that's why -- I got to like it after a while. I
really -- I did not particularly care about the boat, but the --
we did pretty good because most everybody that -- never had too
much experience. There was a few old salts from -- that had been
on boats or -- but most of us were strangers. We got through
training in Australia. Oh, by the way, they took us from San
Francisco -- it took us 30 days to get to Australia on a troop
ship with 3,000 of us, and we're all by ourself. No escorts,
nothing. It took us 30 days.
HURST: Were there any incidents on the way over?
Gilbert: On the way over.
HURST: Wow. What did you do on the boat for 30 days?
Gilbert: Not much of anything. Just hoping to get off, you
know.
HURST: Did you get seasick?
Gilbert: Too many people got sick, and you wake up every
morning. There was more water, more water. But, no. They had
exercise a little bit and give us two meals a day, and that's it.
Tried to sleep .
HURST: After your training in Australia where did you go?
Gilbert: Well, then we went into our first combat. We drove our
boats, our own boats, from Cairns to New Guinea. It was pretty
close because the Japanese were getting pretty close to Australia
at that time, so our outfit took on the East Coast -- East --
that would be the East Coast, and our first mission was at Lae,
L-A-E; Lae, New Guinea. We made a landing there. Wasn't too
much resistance, but a little bit. It was our first combat
affair. It kind of upset us a little bit there, and then --
HURST: How big a group of boats would go for this kind of a
landing? How many landing craft were you --
Gilbert: Oh, you know what? I don't remember how many boats
were in our company, but the whole company was there.
HURST: So is that like 20, or 200?
Gilbert: Oh, no, no. I would say more like 20, yeah, and we
took the infantry in and -- no. We went right up the New Guinea
coast, to Finchhaven, Hollandia, and a few -- a few I don't
remember. The last one was Hollandia, but another thing was
interesting, in -- in New Guinea we were -- we were attached to
the Australian 9th Division, the infantry, so that's what we
worked with in New Guinea, not the American. It was Australian
9th Division.
HURST: So your commander was an Australian?
Gilbert: Well, no. Actually, MacArthur was my commander, but we
had to take the Australians. They had no amphibious operations
there.
HURST: Ed, can you explain for those that might view this tape,
exactly what landing craft's job is? What is the purpose of a
landing craft? What kind of jobs do they do?
Gilbert: Well, they have to get to these beaches somehow, so our
boats were -- we had so many infantry or -- equipment or whatever
you want. We had to bring it to the beach, and we had -- we
picked up the infantry or equipment from a large Navy boat out
about maybe a mile or two, and we brought it to the beach. It
was like a transport to the beach, since that's the only way men
could get to these islands.
HURST: And note for the record, there -- in Ed's file there was
an article about landing craft, and what was the nickname for
them? Sea taxis? Water taxis? What was the nickname for the
landing craft?
Gilbert: What was the name of it?
HURST: The nickname?
Gilbert: Oh. Some of us called it the Mighty Midgets and the --
see, what else they called it? The taxi. And the Australians,
they called us a lot of things. They were a great work to work
with. Very, very tough soldiers.
HURST: Really? After your first combat in Lae, where did you go
from there?
Gilbert: Up the coast of New Guinea. Finchhaven was the second
one, and little -- little ports all the way up. I don't remember
the names of them, but the last one was Hollandia. That was --
they were getting larger as we went along.
HURST: What time frame was this? Was this still 1942?
Gilbert: '42. No, this was -- no, that was '43 because we went
to Australia in January of '43.
HURST: All right.
Gilbert: And this Finchhaven, it wasn't the -- it was a
malaria-infested place, and that's where I got malaria the first
time.
HURST: So you caught malaria at Finchhaven?
Gilbert: Yes. I wound up in the field hospital for a few days,
you know, and as soon as I could stand up, they told me to go
back to duty again.
HURST: Have you had recurring bouts of malaria since then?
Gilbert: Again? Yes. A little -- not while I was in the
service. If I did, I wouldn't tell anybody. But after I came
home I had a few, and I -- I wound up in the Newington Veterans
Hospital for ten days, and they compensated me for a few months
after that and for maybe a year. Then I went in one day, and
they told me I was all better. They cut my -- cut off my --
HURST: Wow.
Gilbert: But I think it came back a few times, but not -- you
know, not too noticeable. Just went away again. And over there
in the Pacific theater, quinine was the main medicine for -- but
we did not have any because the Japanese stole it all, so they
had to give us a -- an Aderan (ph) -- they call it Aderan (ph)
tablet -- to compensate for it. We had to take one a day. Of
course half of us turned yellow and -- taking that little pill,
but I guess it did the job.
HURST: Well, it did the job for some of them, but not you if you
caught malaria? Or did you take the pill later? Does that help
you even after you've caught malaria once?
Gilbert: They started giving us the pill as soon as we got over
there, even before we got there.
HURST: Oh.
Gilbert: And some of the -- some of the fellows in the company,
they got malaria so bad that they had to send them home. They
got a real good case.
HURST: After Hollandia where did you go?
Gilbert: And then we went to the Philippines and a few small
places, but the -- I would say the largest one was the Battle of
Leyte Gulf, the landing at Leyte. In other words, there was --
oh, my gosh. I think there was hundreds and thousands of ships:
Navy, Army, everybody; Air Corps. It was a big day.
HURST: And your unit was involved in that landing?
Gilbert: Oh, yes, uh-huh (affirmative).
HURST: Can you --
Gilbert: First day.
HURST: -- describe that day for me?
Gilbert: Yeah. It was -- it was a little exciting. We'd see
all those Navy ships and Army and Air Corps. It was quite --
quite noisy, but, you know, hundreds of airplanes up in the air
and bombing the beach.
And the Japanese -- I had a little problem of
my own, and probably nobody even knows. The
Japanese -- before we got there, evidently they knew
we were coming, and they had been -- well, we will
just say practicing. You know, they were in the hills
dug in, and they would shoot out onto the bay, you
know, so they had these markers on the bay. We didn't
realize what they were. We thought they were just
sticks or something.
So when we would hit certain part of the --
maybe so many yards out on coming in, they would start
shooting, so we were right in the middle of all those
shells landing. Of course the Navy was shooting over
our heads at them. It got kind of noisy.
And I personally -- they had other things.
They had things in the water that would get -- I
caught a piece of rope in my propeller and stopped the
boat, so we had to go in the water with a knife and
cut the rope off. Nobody ever -- nobody, I don't
think, ever knew that happened. I didn't -- never
said anything, but we got in the boat and took off for
the beach.
HURST: Who got in the water and cut the rope off? You and the
other guy in the boat?
Gilbert: Oh, yeah. We'd take turns, you know.
HURST: Oh, my gosh. And so then you just resumed action?
Gilbert: Yes. We resumed the beach and unloaded whatever we had
on there and then go back out to the Navy liberty ships and get
another load or equipment or Jeeps, materiel or personnel,
whatever.
HURST: Wow.
Gilbert: And we had -- we had a few casualties but not -- not an
awful lot. I don't think our outfit -- we never had too many
casualties, really, battlewise.
HURST: Did you have casualties otherwise? Accidents?
Gilbert: Well, we had people getting hurt or drowning or
whatever.
HURST: Could you swim?
Gilbert: Did I swim?
HURST: Do you know how to swim?
Gilbert: Oh, yes. Yeah. But a lot of them didn't know how. A
lot of them -- a lot of them are from down South, and they didn't
know. We had -- we had everybody, I think, from every state in
the union in our outfit. A lot -- most of them from New York,
New Jersey, but we had some from Louisiana and places.
HURST: Where did you go after the Battle of Leyte?
Gilbert: We stayed there quite awhile servicing -- like you say,
taxi back to -- ship to shore or different islands, little
islands that I cannot remember the names of them. Then they came
up with a new one. We had -- the second one was Mindoro, not
Mindanao. It's Mindoro. And we -- how we got there from Leyte,
not under our own power, but we were towed by a Navy LST, landing
craft. That was an LST. My little boat was an LCM. That was
the -- I think that was the largest the Army had. It was 56 feet
long.
HURST: Your boat was 56 feet long?
Gilbert: I think it weighed 26 tons, something like that, and we
could carry probably 100 men or a Sherman tank or something like
that, but mostly all small stuff. And we -- we were towed by an
LST, and that was the Navy landing ship, and they were like
300 feet long, and that was a -- and that was a trip, being towed
all night by --
HURST: Did you stay in your boat while it's getting towed?
Gilbert: It was a rough ride, all night, so next -- the next
morning at dawn we'd landed on the beach and -- in Mindoro. It
got kind of rough there. To me personally it was -- it was worse
than Leyte. Personally, now. We pretty -- we come pretty close
to a lot of action there, and that was the first opportunity, the
first we had the action against the kamikaze pilots.
HURST: So this was the first kamikaze you had --
Gilbert: Yes. We had a little trouble with them, and, in fact,
something happened to me there that I never said anything about
and nobody witnessed. Well, it was quite a bit -- it was an LST
on the beach, and I -- I was coming in between two LSTs, maybe
300 feet off the beach, 400 feet.
And the kamikaze plane hit that LST on the
deck. You know, he just swiped the deck with that
thing and -- and knocked quite a few sailors in the
water, you know, and I picked up 21 sailors or people
out of the water that were burning or hurt very bad.
Some of them were burnt quite bad from the fire, and
we put them on our boat and then took them ashore or
to the hospital ship or something like that, but
that's the last I heard of that. Most of them were
sailors that we picked out of the water.
And then we -- after the landing we -- they set
up our camp there. We stayed there quite awhile in
Mindoro doing jobs, like you say, ship to shore,
unloading ships. We did a lot of that unloading.
HURST: How long would you say that you stayed at Mindoro?
Gilbert: In Mindoro?
HURST: Would you say a couple of weeks, or a month?
Gilbert: Oh, no. No. We stayed longer. I don't know. Just
offhand I would say two or three months.
HURST: Oh.
Gilbert: And we -- even our camp setup, we still had trouble
with kamikazes. I guess they knew we were there and they kept
bugging us, you know, and one incident we were doing some
errands, like you say, and it was a liberty ship we were on to
unload it, and it was ammunition. And before we got -- and it was about maybe
two miles from our camp, and we were going there on
our way, other fellows in the company, to unload this
thing, and it was quite a ways away, and the kamikazes
came, and one of them hit this boat, this -- the
liberty ship, and they had the hatches open to unload,
and he was right down the hatch, and that ship blew in
about 100,000 pieces.
HURST: Oh, I can imagine with all that ammunition on it.
Gilbert: And we were close enough to it that it knocked all my
crew down on the boat. I wasn't hurt too bad because I was in my
little cubbyhole, where the wheel was, you know, the steel
protection, but it knocked the other fellows down, a concussion,
and we were that close, and I would say we were half a mile.
HURST: Did you see the huge explosion and the ship flying apart?
Gilbert: We saw it, and -- but then after we got up and woke up
and you could -- there was nothing there. Nothing. That's how
much it blew. So at Mindoro that's what we did. We -- errands
and unloaded ships.
HURST: What was your rank at this time?
Gilbert: Sergeant.
HURST: You had already been -- when were you promoted to
sergeant?
Gilbert: The first day I got to Massachusetts, before I even got
on the boat.
HURST: Oh, really? So becoming a driver of the boat got you --
Gilbert: Yes. And I have no idea why they -- or I don't know
why they put me in the outfit. I guess they -- they took the
whole outfit to -- just to train them because all I had on my
record was that I lived near the Connecticut River and the
Wethersfield Yacht Club, and it was only about only about a half
mile away, so I guess maybe they made me --
HURST: They thought you might know something about sea --
Gilbert: Yes.
HURST: So you were a sergeant. That made you an officer?
Gilbert: Noncom. Noncommissioned officer.
HURST: As a noncommissioned officer what would your duties be?
Did you only have the two men on your boat that you had to
supervise?
Gilbert: No. I didn't -- I was in charge of the boat. That was
my --
HURST: Just your one boat? That's all you had?
Gilbert: That was my -- that was my boat.
HURST: So that was your responsibility?
Gilbert: And I was responsible for my crew, and the Navy -- Navy
had some LCMs, but it was a little different. The Navy LCMs were
stationed on their mother ship. They had -- when they made a
landing, I guess they designated somebody to take the boat, you
know, and when they were through, they put it back on the boat,
but our outfit, we lived on these boats.
HURST: Did you keep the same boat the entire time?
Gilbert: I took the same boat. It was my boat.
HURST: Did it have a name?
Gilbert: Not really, no.
HURST: Did it have a number?
Gilbert: Well, if I can remember, it was 425.
HURST: Did you have the same crew the entire time?
Gilbert: Most of the time. Once in a while some of the crew,
they either got sick or something and they sent me a replacement,
and you'd -- replacements were all, you know, 18, 19 years old,
and some of them couldn't swim. I had a *** from -- he's from
out west there. Nice -- a good ***, but he could not swim,
and many times I had to dish him out of the water. He fell
overboard.
HURST: That must be pretty scary if you --
Gilbert: Yes, it was scary.
HURST: -- can't swim, to be in the water?
Gilbert: Now it's kind of comical. It's funny, things that
happened, but then it was kind of scary.
HURST: When you started out when you left the United States, did
you leave with your crew that you trained with at Falmouth, or
when did you first pick up your crew?
Gilbert: Oh, no. I picked up the crew in --
HURST: In Australia?
Gilbert: In Australia.
HURST: Where did you go after Mindoro?
Gilbert: Well, actually that's where we stayed, but they did
send me -- they picked four of our boats to go on a special
mission, and that -- that's what our outfit was all about, you
know. If they had something to do on some outpost island
somewhere, they'd send just a few of us, even though we didn't
know where they went, you know. We were all, like, everything
was secret. Well, they sent four of us. We went to Romblon
island. It was a -- it was a small island, and we --
we went there on our own, and we left in the middle of
the night, and nobody -- to this day -- I've been to
reunions, and the people in our company, even the
officers, I asked them about this, and they didn't
even know that I was gone.
HURST: Really? Did you know what your special mission was?
Gilbert: No. No. And they --
HURST: Did you ever find out?
Gilbert: Oh, yes, I found out. The next morning I found out.
We went to Romblon island with four boats, and the -- we had
Filipino infantry on each boat, and it was -- it was an actual
combat landing. We didn't know it until we got there, and we
landed at -- about a mile from the center of Romblon, two miles
off the beach. We let these infantry off at 6 o'clock in the
morning, and it was dark, and we didn't know where we
were -- what was there or -- all they told us, that if
somebody was there, they would have a light. It would
direct us to the beach. We had one officer -- that's
all -- a lieutenant, and he told me, watch out for the
light; somebody's got a light there. But evidently they
never showed up, so in the dark we just took a chance, but what
we saw was the moon shining on the tin roof on the beach. We took
that for the light, you know, so we all landed and got
the infantry off there and -- and then backed off the
beach and we heard a lot of shooting, so evidently
somebody was there. The poor infantry was -- those
guys were great. And the Filipinos, a few got killed. What --
they landed there. The reason they landed there was
they were going to -- it was about, I think two miles
from town, which was nothing but a bunch of grass huts
and a town hall. They were going to encircle the
town, and I found out later that -- that there were
Japanese in the town hall, and these Filipino infantry
surprised them entirely. They didn't even know they
were there. They had quite a -- a battle there. Not much
-- the Japanese just either ran or was killed. And
then after we landed, we went back to the town where
they had the dock, and that's where we stayed, and we
stayed there 45 days. We were on our own, and while
we were there, like you say, we were doing duties.
We went from these little islands, each island,
to pick up people that were living there hiding from
the Japanese to bring them back home where their
island was, and we did that for all the time we were
there, and the -- we picked up quite a few people, and
we picked up one family, a whole boatload. One family
lived in Romblon. They had a home there, and
evidently they were business people. They were
Spanish. Very tall, Spanish. Spoke English
excellent, but they had been hiding all this time, and
I think they were the owners or managers of some
plantation, so we picked those up.
They were very nice to us. Brought them back
to town, and that's where we stayed, at that dock,
doing errands for 45 days, so it was -- it was quite a
-- actually, it was a rest.
HURST: Wow. Those people must have been very grateful to get
picked up?
Gilbert: Yes. I mean, it was -- it was quiet. It was not --
not war-like, you know. We were just doing our duty.
HURST: Wow. Where did you go after your 45 days?
Gilbert: Well, that -- we were going -- we went back to Mindoro.
Oh, in Romblon -- you want to hear -- it was a funny thing
happened to me.
HURST: I want to hear it.
Gilbert: My boat, I had my landing craft backed into the dock,
and the -- and I had a mirror hanging on my cockpit there and I
was shaving, you know, and it was warm, so all I had was shorts
on, and I was shaving, and there was a -- on the shore, which was
only about maybe 150 feet, there was a warehouse, and these
people's homes were on the other side.
And I was shaving, and I looked in the mirror,
and I saw this person come out of the -- I opened the
door. You know, I thought it was one of our -- I
looked again. And he looked at me, and it was a
Japanese soldier, see, but he -- you know, he didn't
have a gun or anything, and so we both recognized each
other at the same time. I don't know who was
scaredest.
You know, and I dropped the razor. He ran. He
ran up in the woods, and there was a bunch of Filipino
infantry sitting around resting, and I hollered for
them. I said, Japanese come out in the warehouse, and
so they took off after him, and I don't know what
happened, but --
HURST: Wow. That was a surprise.
Gilbert: Well, it was a surprise, but -- and after it happened I
said, you know, this guy, he could have had a gun or something.
All I had was a razor.
HURST: You're not going to do much damage to him. Oh, my
heavens. And then you went back to Mindoro?
Gilbert: And so what happened is that I went back to Mindoro,
and my company had gone. There was nothing there, just the
island, and they told me that -- where they had gone, and I
think -- and they told me that I was to leave the ship because I
had orders to go home. I said, how come? What? What happened?
What did I do wrong?
And -- but it was -- there was another boy in
my outfit, and him and I were sent home because I had
a -- my brother had died in the Pacific. He got
killed, and he -- he was a radio gunner on a B-24
bomber, and he got shot down. And he was only
overseas two months when he got killed, and I'd been
over there for almost two years, and the other -- the
other boy, his -- he had two brothers killed in
Europe, so they picked us two to go home.
HURST: Do you know what that date was?
Gilbert: No, I don't, but it was around, I would say June of
1945.
HURST: So then you --
Gilbert: But I -- my orders, the understanding was that I would
go home for -- for some certain days, and my orders was to come
back, but while I was home the war ended, so that was the end of
that. I was -- I went back to Camp Devens, and they sent me to
Durham, North Carolina, to the camp, and then they kept me there
until they discharged me.
HURST: So what was the camp in Durham, North Carolina?
Gilbert: What was the camp? I'll think of it.
HURST: When you think of it, let me know. Otherwise I'll look
it up on your -- and you were discharged?
Gilbert: I was discharged from there, and while I was there my
own outfit, I understand, was disbanded, so they didn't know what
to do with me, and before they give me a discharge, they -- they
put me in the medic and kept -- in the camp, so they -- I still
held my sergeant's rating, and they gave me a private room in the
barracks, and I was in charge of the barracks.
HURST: Were you a good office --
Gilbert: And it was a -- it was a camp for the soldiers that had
come back where -- from overseas with battle fatigue and
nervousness and all that, and so I was sort of charged with
trying to help them or taking them for a walk during the day or
something like that, but then that's where I was discharged from,
the medical center.
HURST: Can you remember any of the memorable experiences while
you were overseas?
Gilbert: Well, only those two that I mentioned about the Mindoro
and the people -- my poor engineer almost drowned a couple times.
It was nice being on the water because we used to let our ramp
down. We used to go swimming. And then of course it was against
the rules, but we used to throw a hand grenade in the water to
catch fish, you know. It was -- it would stun the fish, and then
we could just pick them out of the water, you know, because food
was pretty scarce.
HURST: Were you awarded any medals or citations?
Gilbert: Not that I know of. I think the -- I think the unit as
a whole was --
HURST: And you were awarded a good conduct medal, and you were
awarded something about the Asiatic Pacific with a --
Gilbert: Yes.
HURST: -- battle star and arrowhead? I saw that.
Gilbert: Yeah. And don't forget the good conduct medal.
HURST: That's important. As an officer, noncom officer, were
you ever involved in any battle planning?
Gilbert: No. No.
HURST: I'm going to ask you a few questions about living
conditions and life in the military. How did you stay in touch
with your family while you were overseas?
Gilbert: Mail. It was the type of mail. They had the -- they
photograph your letter, sent it home.
HURST: V-mail?
Gilbert: V-mail. And of course it was censured. Half of it was
cut out, but the mail coming in was -- was pretty good, but
living conditions in the Pacific were not too good, especially
New Guinea.
HURST: In what ways? Can you tell me a little more?
Gilbert: Well, it was quite hot, dirty. You could just -- once
you got off the beach, you just stand there and perspire, and it
was very, very hot. Very. And I think they only had two seasons
over there. It was hot and rainy, and when it rained, boy, it
was just mud, so you could see what these infantrymen went
through after we let them off because we could just back out,
where they have a breeze out in the ocean.
HURST: What was the food like?
Gilbert: Mostly rations, K-rations in a package. You get
powered milk, powdered coffee, powdered everything, and three
cigarettes and a chocolate bar, and once in a while we would stay
in one place long enough that they would set a camp up for us, so
we could sleep in the tent, and then we'd eat on the -- they
cooked some mutton or some mashed potatoes or something.
HURST: Did you sleep on your boat when you were --
Gilbert: Yes. Yes. We lived on the boat.
HURST: Did you have plenty of supplies and the other things that
you needed?
Gilbert: Just what we had, but I don't think it was too many.
Like -- like equipment for the boat or parts for the boat, for
some reason or other sometimes it was hard to get. You know, we
got -- they'd have to repair -- do our own repairs. Not us, but
we had a maintenance outfit that would do the repairs, but the
food and the -- of course the water was not to good.
They put the chlorine in the water, and it was
-- boy, it was -- then it was -- and of course they
would hang it in the lister bag on a tree, you know,
and it would get pretty hot, you know. So we had to
drink that, and, oh, another thing interesting in the
-- Finchhaven, I'm pretty sure, that we had to -- it
was one of those islands.
We found out we could not drink the water
because it was -- there was a nice brook and a
waterfall where we camped, but the Japanese had thrown
their dead soldiers in there and poisoned the water,
and so that is where I think I had my first glass of
beer. It was -- it was Japanese beer that they had
captured, and there was no water to drink, so I had to
drink the beer. I really didn't like it, but I had to
drink something.
And that's where -- that was where our first
casualty. We lost a -- a Southern boy, not from
combat, but he was standing on the back of the landing
craft, and you have the anchor line. It was rolled up
on the back of the landing craft.
Well, he had -- he had his foot in the middle
of the boat, and he threw the anchor over, and he went
with the anchor, and they could not get him in time or
find him with the current and stuff that -- we lost
him. That was our first.
HURST: Note at this point that -- Ed, didn't you tell me when
you came home you weighed 125 pounds?
Gilbert: I weighed 125 pounds.
HURST: So I guess that tells us what the food was like?
Gilbert: And I was home -- I was home in October and November.
The first week of November I wound up in the Newington Veterans
Hospital with another recurrence of malaria.
HURST: Did you feel pressure or stress when you were in the
military?
Gilbert: Truthfully, I don't think so. I was a little homesick,
but not bad.
HURST: Was there anything special that you did for good luck?
Gilbert: No. No. No rabbit --
HURST: Nothing like that?
Gilbert: No.
HURST: Did you do anything for entertainment?
Gilbert: We had very little. They -- they about all these shows
overseas, but I don't ever remember -- maybe we moved around so
much, we didn't see any. We had movies once in a while.
HURST: You never got to see Bob Hope or any of the USO shows?
Gilbert: No. I don't know where Bob Hope was. I don't think
that he ever went to New Guinea.
HURST: I don't think --
Gilbert: No. Never saw him, no. We had -- we had movies.
That's about all, and sometimes in the -- we were on the beach,
and we had a camp set up. They'd have the camera set up in the
jungle, and every once in a while we get interrupted with -- did
you ever hear anybody talk about Washing Machine Charlie?
HURST: No.
Gilbert: Well, that was the Japanese flyer. It was an airplane.
They'd come around at night just to annoy you, you know, so
sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night and here he is,
buzzing and buzzing. Sometimes he'd dropped a bomb, but he
didn't know where he was dropping it.
HURST: Was it the same guy?
Gilbert: Yes. It was something to annoy you, get the fellows on
edge, you know, and it -- and it not only happened to us, but it
happened to a lot of people over there. They call him Washing
Machine Charlie.
HURST: Did it work? Would that get you on edge?
Gilbert: Some of the fellows -- well, we were having movies.
We'd have to stop and run, hide in the foxhole, and then he'd go
away. We'd go back to the movies.
HURST: And that was it for entertainment?
Gilbert: That was it.
HURST: Did you get any leave while you were overseas, or did you
have to stay there the whole time?
Gilbert: No leave. Never got a leave, and I don't know whether
that was -- I heard of people going to Australia for a respite,
but I don't ever remember our outfit doing anything like that.
HURST: Do you recall any particularly humorous or unusual
events?
Gilbert: No, I can't remember. I know there was many.
HURST: Did you guys play jokes on each other?
Gilbert: All the time. Well, one -- this wasn't a joke, but
when we were in Cairns we had a camp set up where we were
training our boats, and we came back from training one day, and
in our tent, in the sergeant's tent, the top sergeant, I don't
know whether somebody did it on purpose or not, but there was a
16-foot python snake in his bunk, so -- we never found out
whether somebody did it on purpose or not, but -- so they had to
kill the snake. Snakes were -- there was a lot of snakes.
HURST: Ed, do you have any photographs? Pictures?
Gilbert: From over there?
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
Gilbert: I have a few at home, but I didn't bring them with me.
HURST: Well, maybe I can get copies of them? I'll make copies
if you will let me borrow them?
Gilbert: I don't know. Is there anything -- well, you know,
it's pictures just of the fellows. It might be interesting.
HURST: Any pictures of yourself?
Gilbert: Yes. I'm in the picture, yeah.
HURST: Good.
Gilbert: Oh, going back to Romblon --
HURST: Yes.
Gilbert: -- I told you we met this Spanish family. Very nice.
There was two brothers, two sisters, and a sister-in-law, very
nice family, and after the war was over I corresponded with them
for -- they used to send me Christmas cards and different things.
HURST: From where? Did they go to --
Gilbert: They lived in Manila. That was --
HURST: Where they stayed?
Gilbert: Yes. Whatever the -- summer home or whatever you want
to call it, was on Romblon. I don't know how far it was from
Manila, but it was quite a ways, and they -- another thing might
be interesting, being so far out there, I guess they had to order
their clothes, you know, and this family, they dressed just like
they did in New York.
Of course they were Filipino family. They --
in the grass hut. They were different. They used to
order their clothes from Montgomery Ward, and, you
know, once a year, whatever time the boat came back
with their supplies, that's where they got their --
but they were very nice family, and like I say, I got
Christmas cards and stuff from them for a few years
after the war.
HURST: Well, that was nice. What did you think of your fellow
officers and fellow soldiers?
Gilbert: I never had any complaints about any of them, actually.
HURST: Did you form any close friendships?
Gilbert: Oh, yeah, with my crew. The officers -- I don't know
if I mentioned that. We had -- after I got out of the service we
had -- we had 25 reunions. Every year -- and the last reunion
was 1997, and every year we'd have a reunion in a different city.
We went to New Orleans. We went to Virginia.
We've been to Chicago, but three or four times we went
back to Falmouth, Massachusetts, is where we
organized. Went back there and, in fact, at Camp
Edwards -- they took us through Camp Edwards and
showed us our old barracks.
HURST: Did it look the same?
Gilbert: No. No. They were pretty well run down.
HURST: Oh.
Gilbert: Yes. They don't use them anymore, so --
HURST: Did you attend all 25 reunions?
Gilbert: Twenty-two. Twenty-two of them.
HURST: That's a lot. You made most of them?
Gilbert: And the ones that we had in -- in Falmouth, my wife and
I were in charge because we lived so close, so we -- we were in
charge of getting a hotel and motel, and they were nice to us up
there. They took us -- they gave us a bus, took us on tours
through the camp, and we went back to Washburn Island, but we
could not go out there because there was a bridge when we were
there, but it had washed away, so they said they don't use it
anymore, and evidently the town -- or Massachusetts rented the
island to the Army during the war, so after the war the Army
left, and it's the same -- they won't change it. It just stayed
the same as it was.
HURST: Do people live there?
Gilbert: No.
HURST: Nothing?
Gilbert: No. And after we left -- we had tents. After we left,
another amphibious -- I think it was the five -- 534th or 592nd
moved in there, and they built barracks, and after they left,
then they -- there was nobody. But I'd been there a couple of
times, but I couldn't get on the island. Nobody would take me
over there, but I understand there was broken-down old barracks
over there and -- but nobody is over there. No tours or nothing.
I was still trying to get over there, but I -- even -- I went to
the -- the town, and they said that you'd have to hire a boat.
HURST: If somebody -- could a regular person -- if somebody had
a boat, they could take you over there?
Gilbert: They could probably take you over there, but we had --
we had a good time in Falmouth, and our -- our commanding officer
lived in Massachusetts. He showed up at our reunion. Captain
Harris.
HURST: Did you stay in touch with your crew after the war?
Gilbert: For a short time, and then I found out through reunions
that -- they came to what -- they -- all the crew that I had,
they all passed away.
HURST: They have?
Gilbert: They're all gone.
HURST: You're the last one? Wow.
Gilbert: I don't know if they had -- well, I had three -- three
crew, regular crew, and then during any combat or landing they
would give you a couple extra men, and then they'd jump from boat
to boat, but my regular crew, they -- they're gone.
HURST: Did any of them live close enough that you could see --
Gilbert: Yes. My engineer lived in New York.
HURST: So did you get together after the --
Gilbert: Just once. And then after that, he -- it was shortly
after that, that he passed away. So he didn't pass -- he didn't
show up at any reunions anymore.
HURST: Do you remember his name?
Gilbert: No. The -- oh, do I remember his name? Yes. Alex
Yoochefskee (ph). And the fellow that was in charge of all these
reunions lived in New Jersey, and he -- and, in fact, his name
was Connors (ph), and he worked for the Veterans Administration
in New Jersey, so that's where he got all his information to
start this thing rolling.
He knew where everybody was and the names and
-- so he did a good job, and then for -- but two years
ago he got very ill, so he said he could not do it
anymore, but we stopped in 1997.
HURST: And you don't think there will be any more reunions?
Gilbert: I doubt very much.
HURST: Do you recall the day your service ended? When you were
actually discharged?
Gilbert: Yes. I was in --
HURST: You were in North Carolina?
Gilbert: In North Carolina, and they told me I was going home,
and they gave me -- they give me $300 and put me on a train, and
I had to stand up all the way to Connecticut, and there wasn't
much -- there was a -- the train was loaded with -- it wasn't too
many interesting things going on.
HURST: Was it all troops that were on the train, or --
Gilbert: Mostly troops, and --
HURST: Was the war over at that point?
Gilbert: Yes. Yes. The war ended when I -- when I came back, I
went to Camp Devens going back. They sent me there to
Washington, Camp Belvoir in Washington for the only reason, there
was transportation. We only stayed there like three or four
days, and that's when the war ended, and then they sent me down
to North Carolina. Why, I don't know. They didn't discharge me
from Camp Belvoir.
HURST: Where were you when you heard that the war ended?
Gilbert: I was in the restaurant in Washington somewhere. I
can't right remember what kind of restaurant it was, but it was
sort of a bar thing -- bar, and the place was full of smoke, and
the -- and all of the sudden somebody -- the war ended. You
know, it was a big celebration, so that made us late getting back
to camp.
HURST: Did you get in trouble?
Gilbert: You know, actually, no. We had to -- we were on a bus
going back, and some of the fellows got sick, so we had to get
off the bus and walk, and so it was quite a ways, and here comes
a Jeep with two officers in it, so they gave us a ride back to
camp. Never said a word.
HURST: Well, the war was over. They were probably --
Gilbert: Yes. They didn't care. They wanted to go home.
HURST: What did you do immediately after the war when you got
back to Connecticut?
Gilbert: Well, let's see. I really didn't do much of anything.
I was quite sick with the malaria, and of course then I had to go
look for a job, and I worked in the -- before the war, 1940, I
worked at Colt's Manufacturing on the 50-caliber machine gun, and
of course they -- they had this old story was, you know, you go
in the service, you know, your job will be here when it comes
back. But when I come back, the plant was closed, so no job.
HURST: So what did you do for work?
Gilbert: I went to work in a lumber -- retail lumber company.
HURST: Where?
Gilbert: In Hartford, Connecticut, and it was an old outfit
which is not -- not there anymore. They went out of business in
1966. I worked there 20 years.
HURST: What was the name of it?
Gilbert: Edwin Taylor Lumber Company, and there was an old
company that had been there for years and years and years.
HURST: You worked there for 21 years?
Gilbert: Twenty years. And then when they closed, I went to
work for a new lumber company that just originated -- it was
General Building Supply in East Hartford, and, in fact, they --
they'd only been open a few years, so I went to work there, and I
was there 20 years. So it was 40 years I was piling up lumber.
HURST: Wow. What was your job at the lumber company?
Gilbert: I was sort of a -- I was in charge of, oh, window trim
-- trim work, windows, doors, and deliveries.
HURST: Did you join any veterans organization?
Gilbert: American Legion. American Legion, Post 23,
Wethersfield.
HURST: Post 23?
Gilbert: Twenty-three.
HURST: When did you join? Right after the war?
Gilbert: 1947, '8. I've been there 55 years, I remember.
HURST: And do you still attend meetings and everything?
Gilbert: Every month.
HURST: What are some of the activities that your American Legion
post gets involved with?
Gilbert: Oh, Boys Town; Girls Town; baseball, American Legion
baseball.
HURST: Did your military experience influence your thinking
about war or about military in general?
Gilbert: Yes. I talk about it once in a while, but World War II
was so different than today, you know. I was so anxious to get
into it. I'm not sure they are today, although I think they're
much better trained than we were, now. We have a well-trained
military.
Of course, you know, they took us off the -- in
World War II none of us had any war experience. They
just took us out of the grocery stores and everywhere
and put us in the Army, give us a gun. The Japanese
and the Germans were well trained. Well trained, like
our Army is now.
HURST: How do you think your service affected your life?
Gilbert: I don't know. Seems like -- I don't know. I think I
was the same. I don't think it upset me too much, but I -- when
I was discharged, I was -- I was so anxious, and they give you an
opportunity to sign up when you get discharged to go home and
have a rest, and then if you wanted to come back, you could, and
I said, no, no, not me. Said, well, I don't want no part of it.
But then years after I thought, you know,
something -- it might have been a good idea if I
stayed in and made a career of it, you know, but when
they told me that they -- was no more amphibious
craft, then I said, well, what could I do? But then
eventually they reformed it. Now they have a 532nd in
California, and they have --
HURST: Amphibious craft?
Gilbert: And they have reunions. Of course they -- they have
craft, but they don't have the landing craft we had. Now they
got real fancy ones, you know.
HURST: Do you think that you could drive a landing craft again?
Gilbert: Today?
HURST: Yes.
Gilbert: I don't know. By the looks of them, I don't know.
HURST: Could you drive your old one if you got it back today?
Gilbert: I think I could. I bet I could. I liked that boat. I
got to like it, and, you know, I was kind of proud that I could
pass the training on them, you know. It was -- especially the
little LCV. It was hard to back those things up and land them
and get off the beach. You know, sometimes you get stuck on the
beach.
Going back to the experience -- and I keep
thinking of these things -- and at Romblon two of our
landing craft went to a distant island to pick up some
resident -- Filipinos that had been stuck there for a
couple of years to bring them back. So we landed on
the beach, and some rocks and stuff, and so we got the
people on the -- had an awful time getting them onto
it. They're slow.
Oh, my gosh, we'd get them on the boat, tell
them we're going to take them home, and the other
fellow got -- he got off the beach, and in the
meantime here I am waiting and chewing my fingers.
The tide goes out, see, and here I am stuck, so the
other boat tried -- threw me a rope, tried to pull me
off.
No way. So we had to stay there until the tide
at the same in, which was in the middle of the night,
and pretty scary because we didn't know what was on
the beach, and them people got real scared because
they're sitting in my boat, and we had to look out for
anything that -- maybe Japanese or somebody. So we
had -- all we had was our -- our three guns on the
boat. We had three 50-caliber machine guns, so I told
the crew, just be ready for something because we
cannot get off here, so we had to wait. When tide
come off, he finally pulled me off, and we went --
HURST: That other boat waited for you, though?
Gilbert: Oh, yes.
HURST: Would you wait out in the --
Gilbert: He waited out in the -- so we were lucky, so we got the
people back to where they belong. That -- see, that's what our
outfit did, which actually, you know, nobody knows what we did.
We taxi, you know, different islands, you know. There were
dangers, and some of them were dangerous; some of them were not,
but -- and like I say, very few people knew that we were Army.
You know, everything was Navy, you know. We were on the water;
we're Navy.
HURST: Now, you told me earlier that when you got out of the
service -- you were out of the service for six months and you got
married?
Gilbert: Yes. Yes. And -- yes. I came home in October of '45,
and I got married in June of '46.
HURST: And you just celebrated which anniversary?
Gilbert: Fifty-eighth.
HURST: And do you have children?
Gilbert: Two. Two daughters.
HURST: Two dogs?
Gilbert: Two daughters.
HURST: Two daughters?
Gilbert: Yes, two daughters.
HURST: Well, Ed, I'd like to thank you for coming today and
telling me your story. Is there anything else that you would
like to add that we have not covered? Any other things that you
can think of?
Gilbert: I don't think so. Only about my -- my wife is still
working. She won't quit, and she works for White Publishing, and
she -- she's in advertising. She sells ads for a local
newspaper. I don't know if you ever heard of it. Newington
Life, Wethersfield Life, Rocky Hill Life. I think they have 40
towns, but she works just Wethersfield, and she works a couple of
weeks and then she rests, but she won't quit.
And my youngest daughter works for the
Connecticut Humane Society. She's been there 23
years. She loves animals but not children. My other
daughter works for the state, and she's got two boys.
HURST: How would you feel about seeing your grandchildren go
into the military?
Gilbert: I think it would be up to them. Personally, I don't
think it would bother me too much if I thought they would like it
or -- if that is what they wanted to do. And I had two brothers,
but only one in the service because we lost him, and he -- he
died two months before his 21st birthday.
HURST: Where were you when you heard about your brother?
Gilbert: I was in -- let's see; where was I? I think I was in
Leyte, in the Philippines. I'd already been overseas a couple of
years, and he was stationed at Walkie (ph) island, and I think
some of our boats eventually got to Walkie (ph) island, but I
never got that far.
HURST: Had you been in touch with your brother since you had
gone overseas?
Gilbert: In the service?
HURST: Yes.
Gilbert: Oh, yes. In fact, when he died, for some reason I
received some of his belongings. I don't know why, and they sent
me a stack of letters about that high, and evidently he must have
had the letters. Instead of sending them home, I got them. I
don't know. And a bunch of letters on there that said that he
had been -- he had died, so actually I knew it before my parents
did.
HURST: Really?
Gilbert: But I never understood why I got the letters instead of
my parents. And, oh, another thing: I lost the letters in Leyte
and that was another bad experience, come to think of it. They
had a typhoon, a real bad typhoon, and the Navy lost a lot of
ships. They were way out to sea, but we were in a bay, and it
was so strong that it ripped the top of the -- we had a canvas on
top of it, and it ripped that off and we were tied to a dock, and
it broke the ropes, just, you know, so we had to go in the bay
and keep our motors going full blast into the wind so it wouldn't
tip us over.
And I lost everything. I lost everything
except my rifle. My mail, my clothes, everything just
blew right off the -- so the typhoon, it's funny;
after a while it settled down and got quiet and we
were just getting relaxed, and it turned around and
come back the other way. Blew again. We didn't lose
any men, but it was scary.
HURST: So all your brothers' letters flew away?
Gilbert: Everything. I lost everything. And I had them in a
box, and I had them in my pilot house, and somehow or other they
got blew out of there, but I held on to my rifle, but you had to
hold on. Then I had to hold on to the wheel too. Otherwise it
would blow you overboard.
HURST: Have you driven a boat at all since you got out of the
service?
Gilbert: A few friends -- my wife has a cousin in Stonington,
and he has a boat tied up to his back door once in a while, but
otherwise -- I often wonder why I didn't get interested in it.
HURST: Right. You never bought a boat or was interested in
owning one?
Gilbert: No. Well, I was more interested in -- I don't know. I
was more interested in hobbies at home. I just got away from it
all, so I turned out to be a good wood worker and working in
the -- for a lumberyard, I got interested in wood, you know, and
all that sort of stuff.
HURST: Well, I'd like to thank you, Ed. Any last stories that
you want to add?
Gilbert: I don't think so.
HURST: Well, I thank you for your time.
Gilbert: Very good.