Wilbur is involved in the US Submarine Veterans of WWII, of which there are only fifteen left in Indy, as of this writing. He is the past president of the organization. Many of the remaining artifacts are at the Indiana Military Museum in Vincennes, Indiana, which is located in southwestern Indiana.
John Miller—US Army
“At ninety-three, all my friends are dead now.”
When John was sixteen, he quit high school to farm. “They were talking about war, so I joined the home guard at sixteen.” The home guard commander was Jack Biggers, a WWI veteran. On June 2, 1941, at age eighteen, John joined the army and did basic training at Camp Wallace, Texas. He was in Midland, Texas, training for war when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. John was assigned to the 197 Coast Guard artillery. After the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor, “[we] loaded everything on a train and went to New York City to protect the harbor.”
After six weeks in New York, he was assigned to the 237th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment and sent to California. He left for the South Pacific aboard the USS Monterey, a luxury ship. There were five thousand troops on the ship. They started toward the Philippines. Japan had taken the Philippines, so the ship was sent to Western Australia. After forty days on the ship, they arrived in Townsville, Australia.
“Most of the island around Australia had been taken by the Japanese. They sent General Douglas MacArthur there to build the Sixth Army to fight their way back to the Philippines. The Japs were bombing Townsville. They loaded the unit on an LST ship, and they took Port Moresby, New Guinea. It was about two hundred miles from Townsville, Australia.
“After that was secured, we were sent to Lae, New Guinea, with the Sixth Army. When Lae was secured, the 237th, with the Sixth Army, was sent thirty miles inland, to where the Japs had a good airstrip. The 237th, along with the 513 Paratroop unit, took the airstrip from the Japs. When that was secured, the Sixth Army and the 237th unit was sent to Wadke Island. They were getting close to the Philippines and were sent to Dutch New Guinea to get ready to take back the Philippines. October 20, 1944, the Sixth Army invaded Leyte, Philippines.
“On December 13, 1944, one of our LST ships was hit by a kamikaze Jap plane, and they were sunk. Our unit got an another LST and went with the invasion December 15, 1944. On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1944, the Japs tried to take the island of Mindoro, Philippines, back from the Sixth Army. They fought all night, and the US Navy came back and helped them. So, with the help from the good Lord and the US Navy, they kept the island!”
“After the invasion of Leyte, Philippines, General Douglas MacArthur came wading ashore. He made the statement, ‘I have returned.’ The 237th unit, along with the Sixth Army, on December 15, invaded Mindoro, Philippines. It was only about three hundred miles from Manila, Philippines. There was a good Jap airstrip on Mindoro, so they took that. We did a lot of praying.
About this time John contracted dengue fever, malaria, and jungle rot on his hands and feet. He was sent home on temporary duty, as he was supposed to return to the Philippines. In thirty days, on May 12, he returned to the United States.
“The war was over in Europe, and I was sent to Camp Atterbury. The army had started the point system to discharge the soldiers. If you had eighty-five points, you could get out of the army. I had been overseas for forty-two months and in the army for four years. I had a hundred and twenty-eight points, and I was the third man out of Camp Atterbury on the point system. I caught a bus to Cave City, Kentucky, and hired a taxi to take me home to Temple Hill. I thanked the good Lord for being home.” In 1957 he earned his high school diploma.
While doing some shopping in Glasgow, Kentucky, he met his future wife. “She winked at me, and I got a date that day. I thought she was the prettiest thing I had ever seen. I hadn’t seen anybody but New Guinea natives for nearly four years!” They dated for four months; then he and Christine were married. They were married for nearly sixty-seven years, until Christine’s death in 2013.
John and one other soldier are the only two still living out of 236 soldiers in the 237th unit.
Dick Negus—US Navy
“Even though I wasn’t in combat, I saw men die.”
What were your feelings about Pearl Harbor?
“I was thirteen years old at the time of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. That evening my dad was called up to go to the coast to look for Japanese ships. They didn’t see any enemy ships or subs.” In the 1940s, before or around the time of the Pearl Harbor bombing, the area where he lived was a ranch, but now it’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, located nine miles northwest of Lompoc, California.
Two weeks after Pearl Harbor, some soldiers went down to San Luis Obispo to mount thirty-caliber machine guns on the coast, near where Dick lived. There was a fear that the United States could be attacked on the West Coast. A classmate of Dick’s saw a sub off the coast and came to school the next day to tell everyone.
In April 1945 there was a shipwreck and several of the Sea Scouts, sixteen-to seventeen-year-olds, were called to help. Dick was a member of the Sea Scouts. They were called out of high school to help with the shipwreck because all the soldiers from Camp Cook were gone fighting the war. Apparently this LCT, or landing craft tank, hadn’t negotiated a landing and had come up to the sand dune and landed on the rocks. An LCT is a smaller LST; this one was commanded by a young ensign and his crew.
“It was up on the rocks, and you could see under it,” said Dick. They had misjudged where they were. No one was hurt in the incident, but they needed help unloading the LCT. The Sea Scouts helped by taking things off the ship.
Someone handed Dick a box to carry. He slipped on seaweed or something and dropped the box. Everyone became quiet, and someone told him not to do that, as the box contained ammunition—live twenty-millimeter shells. He could have blown up!
Military Service
In 1946, at age eighteen, Dick enlisted in the navy. He had wanted to join at seventeen, but his mom wouldn’t let him and refused to sign the papers. He went to boot camp at San Diego and served aboard the USS Benner DD-807 destroyer. His ship started to head to Hawaii but was called back. The military had a shortage of fuel, so they had to return to San Diego.
“We were targeting at San Clemente, near San Diego, California. Even though I wasn’t in combat, I saw men die.” He went on to explain about a plane incident. A group of dive bombers were there when one bomb hit an airplane. Due to friendly fire, he saw people fall from the sky.
Dick received a World War II Victory Medal for participation in service. These were given in the armed forces from December 7, 1941, through December 31, 1946.
Howard Norlin—US Navy
“Don’t want to hear it. Heard it too much during the war.”
Howard Norlin, born in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1923, graduated from high school in June 1941. On December 7, 1941, he and girlfriend, Connie, was at a toboggan ride; when they returned to the car and turned on the car radio, the announcer said Pearl Harbor had been bombed. For the next six months, he paced the floor. He was working, and all his buddies were in the military already. In the spring of 1942, Howard joined the navy and took the train down to Minneapolis. His military career would span mid-1942 until December 1945.
He took a train to Farragut, Idaho Naval Base, near Spokane, which took four days. Later he went to work in a hospital in Seattle, where he stayed downtown in a rooming house. He went to x-ray school and completed six months’ training in Bethesda, Maryland. He mentioned seeing FDR coming out of the elevator at the hospital every other day.
He was assigned to the USS Goshen, [Marine Troop Carrier] a ship out of San Francisco, California. Howard saw lots of casualties, as he was one of six medical techs aboard. They went back and forth to and from Hawaii to pick up troops. “Our ship fed them with more men. We were involved in twenty to twenty-five invasions.” There were about three hundred marines on a ship, who were unloaded onto landing boats from a front hatch when attacking islands.
Celebrations
/> Some of the highlights of his career were a deck party where an all-black female group performed and another Southern black group performed Porgy and Bess. Some of the soldiers and officers were prejudiced at first but changed their attitude after getting acquainted with the performers. There was also a crossing the equator ceremony where they had to crawl across a deck to get through this thing full of garbage. There was a big party afterward.
An incident that might not be considered a highlight was when Harold and four or five other sailors were drinking rum and Coke at a nightclub, Trader Vic’s in Honolulu. Apparently Howard made a comment about marines. They took him outside and beat him up. All he remembered was being put on a bus. He spent a week recovering in the hospital. There was always a lot of teasing among the sailors and the marines, such as, “You wouldn’t get there without us.”
Bethesda Naval Hospital
Howard described himself as a “greenhorn” technician. During an exam on a WAVE, (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) while he was assisting the doctor, an error occurred. The exam was for a lower GI barium enema. Well, it was dark in the room, and Harold was supposed to insert the enema in one orifice and mistakenly got it in the wrong opening! The doctor threw him out of the room.
War Is Over
When the war was over, Howard was assigned to another ship, an LST. They sailed from South China to San Francisco in thirty days, after making a stop in Hawaii. There was a storm that lasted all night. The crew had to tie themselves onboard to keep from falling off the ship. The LST was standing up on end, at a forty-five-degree angle. If he had stayed on his original ship, he would have been on the ship with the Iwo Jima soldiers who hoisted the American flag in the famous picture.
On July Fourth, we don’t think about the sounds of the firecrackers and big booms of the fireworks going off outside—but Howard does. He said, “Don’t want to hear it. Heard it too much during the war.”
Did you meet any famous people?
“Different baseball teams would come to the bases, and I talked to Pee Wee Reese.”
After the War
Howard and his wife, Connie, lived in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Cincinnati, Ohio; Columbus, Ohio; Evansville, Indiana; and several other places during his work for GE. His navy x-ray training and experience, gave him the start to his forty-year career with General Electric.
Connie worked in Washington, DC, for the State Department in 1942 to 1945 while Howard was in the navy. She made $1,400 a year. Howard saw FDR, and Connie used to see Eleanor Roosevelt often going to lunch but never talked to her. Connie used to room with girls from Minnesota and is still friends with the ones who are still living. She said she enjoyed those friendships so much.
Connie and Howard Norlin
When Howard was working at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland and Boston Navy Hospital, they would meet in Boston or New York for the weekend. They were married in the chapel at the hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.
Harold “Pete” Palmer—US Army
“As a general, I thought he was pretty good.”
Veterans’ Day 2016 - Harold’s daughter, Sheryl Palmer, recounted these stories about her father and uncle.
How did Pete get his nickname, since his given name was Harold?
“As a child, he was a rascal! A neighbor called him Snagtooth Pete from Kalamazoo, and everyone started calling him Pete after that.”
Early Life in Rushville
Pete lived in Rushville, Indiana, on a farm. At age twelve his father died, and Pete became the head of the family; he got a job and quit school at sixteen. There were six children left to raise when Pete’s dad died. Being very poor, his mom had to get by as well as she could. She did not remarry. “She took in washing and ironing to help the family survive,” said Sheryl. “Later she worked at the International Furniture Factory. Actually Pete worked at the same factory when he got married and was able to build the bed for he and his wife at the factory.
Military Life
“Dad received his notice to report for his army physical on September 2, 1942,” said Sheryl. “My older sister, Sandra, was born on September 11, 1942. He was there for her birth but not for very much longer. He was inducted into the army at Ft. Harrison.”
Pete was sent to Oregon for basic training. While in Oregon he was a sharpshooter trainer before being sent overseas. Someone said, “Why are you so good at shooting?” Pete replied, “Well, I had to feed my family. Bullets cost money, and you had to hit what you were aiming at.”
While Pete was in Oregon, his wife, Bessie, took a train out to be with him. She stayed for a month. Before she left, her father pinned a Masonic pin on her and said, “People who are Masons will see that and will watch out for you.” She got off the train at one point and went into a restaurant. A man came up to her and asked about the pin, and she said her dad was a Mason. He said, “Well, I am buying your lunch.” Paying it forward was happening in the 1940s too!
Pete was assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers. “They would clear the land and use it to build bridges,” said Sheryl. “According to my dad, they had to blow up the bridges after the Allies used them, so the enemy couldn’t use them.” Pete was in the Philippines, working in Manila and on Guadalcanal, doing construction on buildings and bridges. He was not involved in combat, just construction. He was on Bataan and saw the mass graves of the death march. It was hard for him to talk about some things. He didn’t talk a lot about the serious things.
Homemade beer in the Philippines
He did talk about the funny things, though. “At one point they were in the Philippines and were making homemade beer,” said Sheryl. “They had different tents, and they had made some beer. Suddenly they heard there was going to be an inspection. They threw the evidence under one of the other platoon’s or company’s barracks. So they didn’t get in trouble—the others did!
“He was supply sergeant several times. My dad didn’t like to be told what to do, and so he had some problems with some people who told him what to do. So he was demoted several times. However, he was restored to sergeant.
Did Pete ever see his brother who was in the navy?
“One time on Guadalcanal, my dad and some other men were up on a hill cutting trees on a workforce. They looked down toward the road, and there was this sailor walking down the road. So they started harassing this sailor by saying, ‘Did you lose your ocean? Or your ship? Or are you lost?’
“Well, this sailor shouted back, ‘No, I heard down the road that there was a dumbass Hoosier that I should be talking to. I’m looking for him now.’ It was dad’s younger brother, Earl Wayne Palmer. They spent several hours or a couple days together on Guadalcanal.” Sheryl said, “They also got to drink several beers together during the course of their reunion.” She wasn’t sure how Wayne knew where Pete was located. Maybe through letters from home. Wayne was six years younger than Pete. Pete’s mother had had to sign for him to enlist, since he wasn’t eighteen when he became a sailor.
“While [Pete] was in Manila,” said Sheryl, “another company found a Japanese soldier holed up in a cave. That Japanese soldier became a prisoner of war, but he didn’t make it off the island.”
General MacArthur
“He was in Manila when General MacArthur landed, and they were up on a hill when they saw MacArthur get off the little boat he was in and walk onto shore. Suddenly he turned and walked back out into the water. Apparently the cameraman for the army was taking a picture of him.”
Pete’s youngest daughter, Holly, interviewed her dad for a 1991 term paper. Pete said, “As a general I thought he was pretty good.” Pete went on to comment, “MacArthur earned the nickname Dugout Doug, as it was rumored among the troops that he was not a front line soldier.”
Pete was very depressed and frustrated after the war’s end. He would be assigned a ship to go home, then it would be cancelled from some reason. “They would be told to get everything ready, they would get things ready, and then it would be
changed,” said Sheryl. After being away from home for so long, he was eager to return to Indiana. By Christmas he was home!
Sheryl said, “Dad was really upset when they were coming home on the ship. One of the other soldiers had smuggled a puppy onboard the ship. Which was not the right thing to do. The captain found the dog and threw it overboard. My dad was so upset!
“Since the war in Europe was over so long after the war in the Pacific, the soldiers who came back from the Philippines felt like it was old hat to people. The soldiers returning from Europe were met with crowds of people and parades. Pete felt like his homecoming was just an afterthought, and there were very few people to greet them. He felt like people just wanted to get on with their lives. So he knew how the Vietnam soldiers felt.”
Homecoming
“He hitchhiked home on Christmas Eve, so that he could spend Christmas with his wife, Bessie, and small daughter, Sandra. A friend in Rushville took him back to Camp Atterbury, so that he didn’t have to hitchhike back for his discharge. He was discharged December 27, 1945. In 2011 Pete died in Indianapolis, Indiana. Sheryl ended the interview by saying, “I always thought my dad was so good looking, somewhat like a dark-haired Van Johnson.” What a compliment for a life well lived!
James Pike—US Marines
“Bob Hope told them to move to the back and let the soldiers up front.”
Jim was sitting at a table eating watermelon when I first met him. I sat down and had a slice of delicious red melon with him. After he finished his melon, we went out to the lobby area of his retirement home to talk. After the following interview, we went up to his apartment to see his war picture. Unlike many of the vets I have talked to, he has only one picture of his war days. Riding up one floor in the century-old elevator, I was hoping we wouldn’t have to finish our visit stuck in the tiny cell!
WWII Heroes: We Were Just Doing Our Jobs Page 10