Oral Historian: James Edward Thompson

Interview Date: 17 July 2008

Interviewer: John McQuarrie

Alright, sir, I have a few preliminary questions-just for the record. What is your date of birth?

May the 17th, 1925.

In what war, and in what branch of the service did you serve?

Navy. WWII.

Were you drafted, or did you enlist?

Drafted.

Did you choose to join the Navy? Was that your first choice?

They asked me, "Which is your first choice? The Army of the Navy?" I said, "The Army." He said, "[SLAMS FIST] You are now in the Navy." That's what he done. He asked me which was my choice. I said the Army, he stamped it down there: you are now in the Navy.

Well I'm sorry for you sir, but I think you lucked out with that. Where were you living at the time when you were drafted?

Route 2, Box 97, Scottsville, VA.

When you were drafted, how old were you at the time?

Well…

Let's see. I was born the 17th of May, 1925, and I was drafted November the 6th 1944, so…

So you were drafted in 1944, and the war had already been going for about three years at that point. Growing up in Scottsville during the first three years of the war that you were not serving, what were you…

Right here?

We was raisin' hogs and cattle-dairy cattle. We would dress hogs-sell some undressed, but sell some of them dressed too. I was doing probably as much there to win the war as I was after I went into the Navy. I got kind of disgusted because my brother-in-law had one child and was expecting another one, and they drafted him so I didn't feel comfortable. So I quit, and then in about two weeks they called me. I knew they would. It was about the same as enlisting.

What were you impressions about Scottsville at that time, during the war? What I mean by that is, how did the war change the kind of activities that people were doing? Did you get a sense that there was a substantial homefront effort in Scottsville to do scrap metal drives or plant gardens to…

Of course, everything was rationed.

Papers…anything to help out with the war. Practically everything was rationed. You couldn't hardly get any gasoline.

Is that right?

Okay. So you were nineteen when you were drafted. Did you have any other plans or did you think you would continue to do farm work around Scottsville?

Of course, after they drafted me, I didn't really have no plans, I guess.

What was it like-leaving Scottsville-for you at nineteen years old to join the Navy?

It wasn't fun.

No?

Of course, I had never been away from home. I don't know whether or not I'd ever spent the night away from home or not.

Some of these questions I may not be able to answer because it's been a long time.

Well, we'll do the best we can. Where did you go after you were drafted? Where were you inducted?

I had to report to Palmyra. From Palmyra, we caught a bus at Palmyra-a special bus-and took us to Richmond for an examination. Of course, I passed the examination. A physical, I mean. Then they took, from there, to Great Lakes, IL. Great Lakes training center.

What kind of things did they have you doing there?

Boot camp.

Just boot camp?

All kinds of things. After nine weeks of boot training, they put us on a troop train and sent us to California. We went to…well I arrived at Shoemaker, CA, but they've got on here that I was at St. Bruno. I was at St. Bruno. They took us from Shoemaker, CA to St. Bruno, CA.

And what was in St. Bruno?

Hm?

What was in St. Bruno so they took you there?

Well, they took us there; they had us attached to a freight division, and they gave us training on operating winches aboard the ship.

As a re-supply division, or something like that?

Hm?

Were you working as a re-supplier?

I was just taking training mostly there on how to…we took a lot of training on how to tie knots, making eyes-you know, in ropes-splicing ropes. We was attached to a freight division, and then from there, they loaded us on a ship one night before it got dark, and gave us our supper, or dinner (whatever you want to call it) and I think back in them days, they mostly called it supper.

But anyway, they fed us, and after dark then we went to be. We woke up-the next morning when we work up-all we could see was water. We didn't know where we was going.

I'm sure that was quite a change from these beautiful woods around here.

So then we wound up at Pearl Harbor.

I'm sorry, where did you leave California from? You left from St. Bruno?

No, I believe we went from St. Bruno to Treasure Island. Treasure Island is where I believe we left from, I think.

Okay, and that's in the Los Angeles area?

I really don't know. It's been so long.

I understand.

But anyway, when they loaded us on that ship, we woke up sometime during the night. That thing was reeling and rocking. You couldn't see land nowhere.

Was that the first time you'd ever been on a ship?

Oh yeah.

Do you remember the name of the ship?

No, I don't. I guess I knew at the time, but I don't remember what ship it was. I don't believe it's in any of my records.

If we could backtrack just a bit, what did you think about the training you were going through. Was it easy? Was it difficult? I mean, going from boot camp to St. Bruno and learning how to work as a winch operator? How was that for you? How was that transition?

Well, it was different. Of course, I had operated right much equipment down on the farm here.

Right.

A tractor, all kinds of stuff. See, the training we took wasn't actually on the ship. They had set up stations, stationary winches, so I took training on giving signals and operating a winch aboard ship. When we got to Pearl Harbor, we stayed there for a while and took a little more training. They took us at first and put us in a fenced in place in tents.

This was at Pearl?

Uh-huh. At Pearl Harbor.

And what was your assignment there, at Pearl Harbor?

Actually, there, I don't think we was even assigned anything, because we were going aboard ship. Thirty of us-thirty of the crew-went aboard ship and went down to where the fighting was. We were supposed to have caught the next ship. What we were supposed to do was to haul cargo. You know, ammunition and all that stuff back and forth to the fighting zone. The thirty that left, they was gone three months, and out of the thirty, didn't but three come back. And this one young man, he had real nice, red hair, and when he come back three months later, he had almost as much grey in his hair as I got, and just as nervous as he could be. And when he 'd talk about it, tears rolled down his cheeks. I asked the officer, he was a young lieutenant. I said, "How come we didn't ship out?" He said, "Well I can't tell you that." So I said, "Don't tell me then." He was a nice little guy. He didn't do much of that saluting and all that stuff.

Anyway, they took us then, took us up on the hillside away from Pearl Harbor. I think it was the road going to Honolulu, and it was-I don't remember if it was anymore than two Quonset huts up there or not, but that's what they put us in, in them Quonset huts. And they issued us a truck, and for the rest of the time I was there, what we done was, they tell us to go to such and such a ship at the dock. You know, at whichever dock they'd go to, and we'd either load or unload that ship. Sometimes we'd have to unload the cargo off the ship and put it in a big old warehouse. Sometimes we had to get out of the warehouse and put it aboard the ship. Most of the time, my job was operating the winches.

Right.

Sometimes I'd have to give 'em…you most always had to signal somebody because they couldn't see the dock.

Okay.

And they'd just have to stand there. And of course, there'd be other men in the outfit down on the dock, moving that stuff and putting it in the warehouse.

So you were operating the winches aboard the ship to load or unload from the dock? Is that correct?

Yeah. The boom would stick over there, and you'd drop it down. Sometimes you'd come in there, and there'd be a ship almost loaded with jeeps, and command cars. Sometimes you had to take that off and set it down there on the dock.

How was that?

Well what they would do when they got there was double up them booms. Double up the rigging, and then you'd have to use two…I believe you had to have two operators then. You had to double up to handle that heavy stuff.

And where did you go after that assignment?

We worked at that until the war was over. After the war was over, they put us on a little…well they put me on a little docked tug-tugboat. Our job was, they'd give us a call and tell us what dock to take this barge to. It was just a small little tugboat. We'd load; we'd hook up to that big old barge and take it to a dock, or somewhere or other. We'd take it to a ship docked out in the bay. So I stayed on that until the rest of the time.

So then you were discharged after you left that assignment?

Mm-hmm. I had enough points, by my age, and I had a dependant-my mother. Most of my time was overseas duty, and that gave me extra points. So when they turned me loose, I headed home. Of course, they brought me back to Shelton.

Okay, and uh…what can you tell me about…?

Oh, let me tell you how long we worked.

Okay.

Like I said, we'd be on that open…they called it 'the bus' I think. It had canvas on top and seats in there. We'd uh…I forgot what I was going to tell you.

Oh, we'd go aboard ship, wherever we was going to work: 6:30 in the morning, until 6:30 that afternoon, for fourteen days, and then we'd get two days off. Then the next shift, we'd go to work in the afternoon, and work until 6:30 the next morning, and get two days off. Sometimes we'd be, like I said, unloading jeeps or even loading them on the ship to go somewhere. Sometimes they'd have us working in the cold storage. When we done that, we'd work thirty minutes on and thirty minutes off, for twelve hours. We'd go in there, man, and we had them big old flight jackets on and thick gloves to work in there. And you'd come out, and of course, it was hot. You'd almost burn up.

Yeah. I imagine so.

Come out there, and the temperature average was 88° year-round. That was the average.

What can you tell me about, just your day-to-day life in the military? What was the routine like? You kind of gave me an idea of the hours, and the work you were doing, but, can you tell me about the accommodations, the food, the men you were with?

Well…

How was the food?

Well, some places was better than others, because you know how your mother always cooks.

Right.

So there was a big difference there. And when we went to California, what time we was in California, we had sunny side eggs, bacon, sausage, something like that. They fed real good down there. When we got overseas, the food wasn't bad.

You said that at first you lived in tents when you first arrived outside of Pearl Harbor. How long were you living there and what was that like?

Come again?

You said you lived in tents when you first arrived…

Oh. Well, we didn't stay there for too long because the purpose for us living in them tents and being fenced in: they didn't want us to leave because we was fixing to ship out.

Okay. Okay.

We was fixing to ship out to Okinawa or Iwo Jima. We were going to fight, and they didn't want us to leave. So, everyday we'd pack up and have our gear out there ready to go, and we kept that up for I don't know how long. Finally, they took us in there and put us…gave us this truck and had us in there loading and unloading ships. Either loading or unloading ships that come in.

I see. So you were supposed to ship out to combat, and you lucked out and got to stay.

Yeah. Right. That's right. This friend of mine said they was on board the ship there, and these Japanese planes would come over, and it would be like hail, and they killed all the crew. They put our crew in there, because we hadn't had but one day of anti-aircraft training, and some of us didn't even get to shoot then. I didn't. I never did get to shoot. Anyway, this one boy knocked one plane down before they got him. Now of course, I didn't see this. This is what a friend was telling me.

Right.

But boy, he looked a whole lot older when he came back after three months. Nervous…just as nervous as he could be. When he'd talk about, tears just rolled down his cheeks.

That's something.

You see, we had been together since boot camp. We were just like brothers.

Right. Well, it's not very easy to transition from that story… After you avoided having to go to combat in the Western Pacific, you were moved to Honolulu where you were working…

I was moved between Pearl Harbor and Honolulu. Of course, when we was loading and unloading ships, sometimes the ship would be in the Honolulu docks, and sometimes it would be in the Pearl Harbor docks.

Okay. So Pearl Harbor is on Hawaii, the main island?

It's on Oahu.

Right. I'm trying to remember my Hawaiian geography.

I think that's the way you pronounce it. Anyway, Honolulu was on that island. So we tried to get the Commander to let us take the tugboat and go over to the big island, but he wouldn't let us go. Because it wasn't really a seagoing tug.

Yeah, probably not.

It was small, but it wasn't too small. It could move them barges. Most of the times we had two of them. There was two of them: two tugboats. Sometimes we'd have to blow the horn and get the other tugboat to come and help up pull the barge. The operator of the tugboat was a uh, he re-enlisted so they sent him back to the States on leave. Anyway they out another little guy on the tugboat. He grounded it several times. Tore the front of it once. I got to fooling with it. I wasn't supposed to drive it, but I got to fooling with it away from the docks. The Chief come by and caught me, caught me operating it one day. He said, "No wonder this thing has been grounded and run into the dock so much." I said, "Uh-uh. I didn't put a scratch on it." And this little boy was going to sign over too. Also. He was going to re-enlist. He said, "We're going to give you the job, since you're so good at it. We're going to give you the job operating that tugboat." I said, "There's no need, I'm leaving here in thirty days."

Alright!

There was one time when we was loading and unloading cargo from the ship to the warehouse. The Petty Officer got sick and had to go to the hospital-or sickbay, they called it. And this officer-a big old guy, a real nice guy: he'd really look out for us, but he was rough if we didn't do our job. He could get rough. But anyway, he told me, he said, "Thompson, I want you to be the foreman in that hatch. I want you to be the hatch foreman." I said, "Man, I don't want to be no hatch foreman." "Yes you do. You know as much or more than any man in this outfit." So he put me down there. So I had to write up some of my best buddies because they wouldn't work.

So what was your job as hatch foreman? What duties did you have to perform?

Some of the cargo that you was handling would be back up underneath the deck, and you'd have to set up rollers. You'd have to set up rollers to get back up underneath there. Sometimes, one night in particular, right before I took the job, they had the hold there-what we called the hold-they had metal pipe. I'd say 4" metal pipe, loaded in the hatch, and we had to bring it up. One boy down in there, he didn't know how to tie the knots to bring it out of there. Boy, I thought it was going to knock the whole bottom of the ship. Things were going everywhere.

Pipes flying everywhere?

Well I was pretty good with those knots; I didn't lose one. I fastened them in, so we brought them out of there.

So you were only the hatch foreman for a short time.

Right, until he got out of there. See, all of us didn't want…didn't any of us have a rate above Seaman First.

Is that what you were at the time?

Yeah, Seaman First. Of course, in boot camp I was an Apprentice Seaman. I believe that's what they called it, or a Second Seaman-Seaman Second, and then Seaman First.

And you were discharged as a…?

Seaman First. And that wasn't too bad, because I wasn't in there long.

Until…

And what was the discharge date?

I was discharged March, the 18th, 1945.

Wow. That was a pretty short trip, huh?

It was long enough for me.

It sounds like it; yeah.

But once they took us off that detail-loading and unloading cargo off of ships-they out us on that little tugboat, and we moved barges. And that was real good duty. We just sat around the office and ate toast, butter, and coffee, until we'd get called.

So is that, you would probably say, your favorite assignment that you had while you were overseas?

Yeah, I guess it was. Well, what time was in California was pretty good because…part of the time they had us on KP duty. We'd come in-I forget what they had us doing in the mornings-I think we'd come in at five o'clock, and we'd have off until the next morning. I think I went to San Jose one time. Anyway, in my traveling, I went under the Golden Gate Bridge. And of course, when I came back, I went under it again. And I also went across it.

You still got me on there?

Oh yeah.

We'll I won't tell this then…what I was gonna tell.

Now that you say that, I think Treasure Island is in the San Francisco Bay.

I think it is.

I think that's right. I think I've driven by it, maybe once. So you mentioned that you had access to go see movies in your down time. What else did you do?

What's that table game?

Well, we played pool…

Ping Pong?

Ping Pong. We played Ping Pong a lot. We played pool some, and we'd go swimming.

I liked it alright.

Oh yeah.

Where we was staying, it was a little…I don't know whether it was a little hill, or they called it a little mountain. It would be a little mist of rain, and you would see the prettiest rainbow across there. Another thing: the sun would be shining as bright as it is now, and it would be pouring down rain. Of course, it wouldn't do that for a very long period of time, but…

Right, right.

And he didn't give us much satisfaction, so I found some in the warehouse. I don't know whether I want to say this or not. But we got some mosquito nets.

"Somehow or another?"

Yeah, somehow or another we got some mosquito nets. The officer claimed there wasn't none on the island, but I tracked them down and found there was some on the island.

And then there were some in your Quonset hut.

There was just stacked in the warehouse, so I helped myself to them. The officer told us though, "If you find any, a good sailor doesn't ask for what he wants." I don't what they'd've done if they caught us getting them. Give us a court martial, I reckon. That's what they was there for. They just didn't…issue us any. Of course, what we slept on was those wooden, plane, canvas cots, with a little thin mattress on it.

Another thing I forgot to tell you: when we went to work loading and unloading cargo, they had us attached to the Seabees. We was still in the Navy, but they had us attached to the Seabees, and we wore those green…

…work uniforms, dungarees.

If you could pick a pretty memorable moment that you had…something that you thought was funny, or any interesting anecdote, could you think of anything?

No. Just getting them two days off every fourteen days, you didn't have too much time. We had to work, and we was pretty worn out at the end of them fourteen days.

Wigley and Turner. Wigley was from Indiana, I believe. He was from Indiana. And Turner was from Alabama.

You said Indiana?

I'm pretty sure it was Indiana.

Were you in the Navy with anyone from around here?

My brother-in-law was the only one I seen from the time I went in until I was discharged.

So you didn't run into anyone?

I ran into a man from Richmond, but I didn't know him. He was a guard on the warehouse where I get the mosquito nets.

He said...I'd say he wasn't too good. I hope they don't check up on me and make me pay for them mosquito nets. Them things were probably worth a dollar and a half back in those days.

I think the Museum can cover that if you get in trouble for participating in this study. What'd you think of the rest of the men in your unit? You seem like you were pretty close with them. Was that fair to say?

What now?

What'd you think of the rest of the men that you served with? Did you get along with them alright?

I got along with 95% of them, at least. They were just all like brothers. I didn't have any problems with them really.

What kind of communication did you have available to you with home, your family, and Scottsville?

I'd mail a letter.

Was that difficult? To be that far away?

No. Once in a while I'd get four or five letters at one time. Wouldn't get none for a day or two, and then get maybe a handful at one time. Pretty regular…

So you did have pretty regular, steady contact with…?

Yeah, uh-huh. My brothers and sisters. I had a girlfriend at the time that would write. She'd write everyday.

Do you recall the day your service ended?

Mm-hmm.

And what was that like?

It was like: "Oh Boy! I'm going home!"

And you were in Hawaii? Did you know when you were getting out?

Yeah, I come from Hawaii to Shelton, VA, where I was discharged.

How was the voyage on the ship back and forth? It seems like that was…

Well it didn't bother me, but one poor old boy-a little guy, a small fella-he stayed in the, back in behind the fire hose, practically the whole seven days going over.

That's a pretty short trip.

I don't remember seeing him until after we got over there. I didn't think he was going to make it; he stayed sick the whole time.

Seasickness is pretty awful.

I got so-I used to smoke then-I got so I didn't want no cigarettes for about two weeks until after I landed over there.

Just because the feeling of smoking on the ship didn't sit well with you?

Somehow I think the…I wasn't really seasick, but just to the point where I didn't want no cigarettes.

So you sailed from Hawaii to San Francisco again?

Mm-hmm.

Back to San Francisco? Then you boarded a bus, I would guess?

No, it was a troop train, and they…instead of dropping the…marching the sailors, the service men, off the thing, they just dropped the whole car off. They had them lined up for the capitals, the major cities of each state, and they just dropped the whole car off.

That's interesting. I'm sure you didn't like that as much. You had to stay cooped up on that train the whole time.

We came from somewhere in California. I know we come through Richmond.

How long did that train trip take you to get across?

I believe it took us about seven days.

And you said they dropped you in Shelton, VA?

Mm-hmm.

How close is that to here?

Well that's somewhere around Norfolk.

Around Norfolk? How'd you get back home?

One of the sailors being discharged, his wife and his brother…his wife and his brother come to Shelton and picked him up, and they gave me a ride to Richmond. I had a sister living in Richmond, so I spent the night with her, and then the next day, I boarded the train and come to Scottsville.

How'd you feel to be back home? How was that?

Kind of hard to describe it, I reckon.

Well, I got back on the 18th of March. That's one thing I wasn't looking forward to: leaving that hot weather and coming back here.

Was it difficult to transfer from the rigidity of military life and the scheduling that you were on to just being back in town?

Yeah, it was somewhat difficult. Trying to find a job, and another thing, trying to find an automobile… Automobiles you see, man…cause they didn't make any from '40…the '40 model, I believe, was the last one they made. You couldn't hardly find a car.

Right. What did you do for work when you got back?

Well, the first job I had was, I went to work for Reynolds Metal Company, in Richmond. I worked there for a while doing different jobs. I worked there for about a year.

Did you ever consider taking advantage of the GI Bill to go to school?

Well, I thought about it, but I never did.

Did you get the sense that that was something that was easy to do? To get access to classes, and things like that?

Well, what little the government paid you…you know, they paid you very little. And it was hard to find a job where you could make anything, you know. See, a lot of them had already come home when I got home, so they'd taken some of the jobs, and I didn't have any trade. What they trained me to do aboard ship; I'd got enough of working aboard ships.

Loading and unloading ships…probably not very helpful around here, right?

I might've could have went to Boston, or Norfolk, or somewhere like that and got a job maybe, as a winch operator, or a stevedore…they call it a stevedore in civilian life.

But I'd done traveled enough. From Great Lakes, we took a troop train from there to California, so I've been through right many states. Then went over seas, and came back form that and went from there to Norfolk.

That is a fair amount of travel for never having left home, to…

Yeah, I know. I think I had been one night away from home. I went to Zion Crossroads and worked for a man on a Saturday, and he brought me back Sunday.

So one night away from home…

As far as I know, that was the only time I'd spent away from home.

Not very much. That's interesting. Did you join any veterans' groups or anything like that? Did you make any attempt to stay connected to the friends that you had made in the Navy?

No. My friends? No, I had fully intended to keep in contact with some of them, but somehow, I never did. I was with some, a few from Virginia. There was one guy from Staunton, one guy from Mt. Crawford, VA, and one guy from Richmond, but I didn't know him but through the Navy.

The guard?

I met him when I was being discharged…bummed a ride from him to Richmond.

How would you summarize your experience in the Navy?

I think these batteries are getting weak. I can hear you, but…

No, no, no. It's a difficult question to phrase. How much did your experience in the Navy-for the year, or maybe not even quite a year that you were in it-how much did that impact your life, would you say? Do you think about it often?

Yeah, I thought about it. I won't too thrilled over it. One thing I did like about it was you always had a friend, or you always had friends. Most of the servicemen were friends, almost like brothers. I don't remember having any problems with any of them.

Are there any final thoughts that you'd like to leave me with?

No, I don't think so.

No? Oh, I remember the one question that I wanted to ask you. This is a little bit out of order, but I still would like to hear your thoughts on it. You obviously were in Pearl Harbor; the timing of this is probably right around the three-year anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor-when you first arrived there. Is that about correct?

Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Let's see…they bombed it December 7th? 1941? Well you could see big places in the asphalt where it'd been patched. Of course, I didn't have no way of knowing exactly what everything looked like, because I'd never been there before, but it… And then you could see ships sitting out there, that had been damaged, in the ocean, or in the bay there.

How much do you think Pearl Harbor had recovered in those three years?

I don't know, that's kind of a hard question to answer.

Did you have a sense of it? Did it seem like they were still trying to get back on their feet?

Oh yeah, I would say they were pretty much back on their feet.

I ask, because a lot of the men who I've spoken to in doing these interviews and things like that, one of the things that they talk about a lot is the production levels that America had during the war, and how many goods we were producing, and how much we were sending overseas. So, I was interested to hear your perspective of one of the bigger disasters of the war, certainly, and how far they might have come in those three years.

I don't know how to answer that. See, anything I had any dealings with, anything that I had to buy, there was always the ship store. So anything you needed to buy, you could get that through the ship store real cheap.

So it sounds like, in a lot of ways, Pearl Harbor had recovered.

I would say…

Fairly well? In those three years?

Yeah. Of course, they had…they raised sugarcane and lots of pineapple, and bananas. The one thing we thought was outrageous was that we had to pay ten cents a pound for bananas. That seemed awful high to me because, you know, everything was so cheap back in those days.

Right.

Like I said, you could get most of the things you could buy in the ship store. So I put in, I put my name in for a watch, and I won. I think it cost me $17 for the watch. It was a pretty good watch.

Is that it?

This is not it, but…

You seemed to indicate that it might have been. That wouldn't been impressive.

They didn't have but that one right at the time, and I forget how many it was that put in for it.

And you lucked out…

It was the one thing that I won, because I had the opportunity to buy it. Well, while I was…when I first got over there, my parents-my mother knew that I didn't have a watch-a wristwatch-and they sent me one, and the band come loose on it, and it dropped down the side of the stairway, and dropped three floors. Boom, boom, boom, down the side of the stairway-three stories.

Did you get it back, or did you lose it?

I got it back, and this boy wanted to send it home to get it repaired, so I sold it to him, and that's when I put in for this other watch, and got it for $17. I think I got enough money out the other one to pay for the one from the Navy store. It wasn't a fancy watch, but it was a good watch.

Alright sir, well thank you very much for speaking with me. I'll turn the tape off now.