Ralph Myers—US Army Infantry
“In Yokohama, there was a lot of damage—building after building was waylaid.”
On Ralph’s eighteenth birthday, December 16, 1944, the Battle of the Bulge began. He received his draft paper on December 29, 1944. After being processed, he was sworn in at one of the military sites in Indianapolis. He was to have seventeen weeks of training, but he had only six weeks. One of his brothers was a medic during the Battle of the Bulge, and Bob remembered his brother talking about how he saw his commander killed. The replacement commander ordered them to “Move back. We can’t dodge bullets and do any good.” So they moved back, or Ralph feels his brother would have been killed as well.
Did you have other family in the military?
Another brother, also took part in the Battle of the Bulge. His brother was in the tank division. One night four of the United States tanks were surrounded by the Germans. They called the American Air Force for help. Their air strikes the next morning, enabled them to escape. The Germans probably didn’t know how few of them there were or they would have been killed. A third brother, also in the army, didn’t serve overseas because he had a disability. He worked in a military warehouse in Maryland.
Japan
Ralph was home on delay in route, Camp Croft to home to Camp Livingston, Louisiana, when the bomb was dropped. He spent a year in occupation in Japan, from October 1945 to October 1946. He remembered spending time in several cities but remembered Yokohama the best. He and some other soldiers tried to climb Mt. Fuji in April 1946, but when they got about three fourths of the way up, it started snowing. It was cold and they hadn’t taken warm coats. So they all went back down without reaching the top.
His job in Japan was in the motor pool. First he was in charge of straightening up the filing system. So he made files and organized it. While he was in Japan, he met a lieutenant from Boonville, Indiana, a neighboring community. He was sent to another place to work. His next job was to do some schooling on motors. He was raised one rank, from a private to a T5. He was in charge of one of the landing boats.
Ralph lived in a Japanese barrack and they said: “If it ever catches fire, you better be out in five minutes. Well, one of them did catch on fire. It took longer than five minutes, but not much. One reason was when they cleaned the floors, they used diesel fuel. It was all soaked in there.”
The next project lasted three or four months, and was along the Adzuki River. “Our job consisted of loading gravel into railroad cars to be used for the building of an airstrip in Tokyo Bay. I operated draglines, bulldozers, and backhoes. I could load seven of the cars in thirty minutes. I know this because, we got our first radio when I was ten years old. I developed a love for country music. There was going to be a country music program on the radio, and I wanted to listen to it. I knew how much time I had to finish the job.”
Did you ever go to Nagasaki or Hiroshima?
“No, but I saw pictures, and all there was a chimney here or a chimney there. And why would I want to see that?”
When you were in Japan, did you talk to any of the Japanese people?
“The Japanese told me that it was not them that wanted to fight, it was our leaders. We had two girls there, and they were as nice as any girls as you would want to meet. They did our laundry for us for a little money. One day they came and picked up our laundry, which was in two big bags. I thought I would help them out and carry the bags for them. Well, they put the bags on their shoulders, and they were on their way. I had to stop, even though I thought I was in pretty good shape! Before we left they went to a school teacher, who helped them write us a letter. I don’t remember all it said, but it was real nice.”
“I went to Tokyo and took a ride in a rickshaw, just to say that I had done it. I had read where Tokyo had been bombed, but where I was at, I didn’t see it. Now, in Yokohama there was a lot of damage—building after building was waylaid.”
“I was sent to Yokohama to work in a warehouse. Because of my experience in operating heavy equipment at Adzuki River, experience that the others hadn’t had, I was put in charge of the operation of heavy equipment. One of our guys asked me if he could go to town. I told him I didn’t care, but he better ask the company commander. He didn’t and went to town with the postman. He was court marshalled. In September, it was hot in the warehouse where we were working. So some of the men took off their shirts. Well, they were told to put their shirts back on. A colonel came in to listen to all the gripes and the next day, we could take our shirts off again.”
Shortly, Ralph was told he was shipping out tomorrow. “They put me on a ship going to New Jersey and some camp in Illinois. I had an order to go to St. Louis and another order to go to New Jersey for discharge. Each set of orders had me assigned for KP duty. When I got on that boat, I had them scratch my name off night duty. I went to KP duty for the day, but they didn’t call my name. I saw that my name was scratched off. I hid in my bunk each day until KP duty time was over, then I got up and roamed the ship like all the other soldiers. After being discharged from Camp Beale, California, he went by Trailways bus to Salt Lake City, Cheyenne, Omaha, St. Louis, and then home.”
Do you think the United States should have dropped the bomb on Japan?
“Well, if they hadn’t, then I wouldn’t be here today. Like I say, I was set for training in Louisiana to go into Japan. When they dropped the bomb, then I didn’t have to go.”
Ralph closed by saying, “I have asked the good Lord to keep me going until he wanted me, and He has been doing a good job. I thank Him all the time.”
Robert Pedigo – US Army Air Corp
“My big experience in WWII was close encounters with dictator, Adolph Hitler, anti-aircraft cannon fire, and the German Air Force.”
Bob was the special speaker for Veterans Day 2015. He is a very colorful man who enjoys telling stories about the war and the men who meant a lot to him. Bob, who was ninety-three years old as of this writing, is very well spoken and eager to tell the younger generation about WWII. He was dressed in a US Army Air Corp A2 brown leather flying jacket and an army tie. On the day of this interview, Bob spoke to a sixth-grade class and a fourth and fifth-grade Gifted and Talented class, which was about forty-five children. This took place on December 8, 2015, and Bob tied in the seventy-fourth anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
After talking for about thirty minutes about his thirty bombing missions and experiences in England, the group asked questions about the war. Their questions were very thoughtful and relevant to the discussion. During the presentation the children were very attentive, and evidently many were listening closely.
Were you wounded?
Bob said, “a piece of flak came through the waist window of the airplane and hit me in the forehead.” He pointed out a scar on his forehead.
Did you fly any more flights after the thirty that were listed?
Bob explained his group was supposed to do only twenty-five missions, and then they could go home, but they were asked to do five more. Bob flew thirty missions during the war, from May 22, 1944, to September 8, 1944. It was amazing that they could accomplish this and not be shot down. The children were not aware how dangerous it was to fly thirty bombing missions over France and Germany. There were ten or eleven men who flew in the B-24 Liberator. Bob was positioned in the nose of the plane. He said, “I was the first one to the target and the first one home” (quoted in the Indianapolis Star, September 3, 2009).
One of the missions starred on his list of thirty missions was number thirteen. When asked why it was starred, he said, “It was to Berlin, and we did a lot of damage in Berlin. It was the most heavily defended city in WWII. It was important to us and the war effort.”
What were your feelings about dropping the bombs?
Bob said, “After the third mission, I was numb.” He said he went into a hospital after being discharged for combat fatigue. Being children, the audience couldn’t understand what an accomplishment flying thirty missions m
eant to the war effort and at what cost it was for the men in the war.
During his talk at the school, there were several other questions about the Nazis and Hitler. On the last question, a sixth-grade student asked, “Should Hitler have been killed another way instead of shooting himself?” Bob said, “I would have cut him to pieces, because he was a terrible man who was filled with hate!”
How old were you when you volunteered for the army?
“I was nineteen years old and volunteered with my brother.” His brother washed out, but Bob had to serve for over three years. He said he often thought about his brother sitting at the kitchen table at home while Bob was bombing the enemy!
Military Service
Bob was a master bomber and flew in a B-24 plane called Silent Yokum. The plane was named for a character in the comic strip Li’l Abner. Bob was nicknamed Red due to the color of his hair. He was the youngest of the ten-man crew.
Bob was awarded four Air Medals, a Distinguished Flying Cross, four Bronze Campaign Battle Stars for the battle and four campaigns [Normandy, D-Day, Northern France, Rhineland, Air Offense of Europe] the American European ribbon, and the Good Conduct Medal. He did his basic training at Bowman Field in Louisville, Kentucky; pursuit fighter plane armament in Denver, Colorado; and aerial gunnery training in Ft. Myers, Florida. Bob graduated and was given his wings and promoted to a sergeant. Then he was assigned to a A-24 dive bomber group at Meridian, Mississippi. It was a two-man dive bomber. Bob was the gunner and co-pilot.
Jimmy Stewart
One of Bob’s favorite topics is that Jimmy Stewart, the actor, was his briefing officer. Colonel Jimmy Stewart said, when they were readying for a mission that would take them over Sweden, “Anybody caught with skis and yodeling will be frowned on!” (Stevens Point Journal, Friday, August 10, 1990). Stewart made brigadier general by the time he retired from the air force.
In 1987 Bob met Jimmy and Gloria Stewart in Palm Springs, California, for a reunion. Bob also said, “Jimmy Stewart is just as nice as everyone thinks he is!” When Bob told Jimmy this, he was visibly touched by the comment. Bob said that Stewart went home on the Queen Mary while the rest of them flew back.
Stewart took the men in small groups out into a wheat field on the day before the D-Day invasion. He told them, “We got a big mission in the morning. You guys get your rest!”
Bombing the Messerschmitt factory
Bob spoke about the bombing of the airplane factory that built Messerschmitt Me 262 planes. Thirty-eight new German planes were all lined up outside the factory, and Bob and the other pilots bombed them. “These jets needed to be taken out because of the great damage they were doing to our bomber formations.” The next day Operation Valkyrie occurred. A German officer, played by Tom Cruise in the movie, Valkyrie, tried to kill Hitler by placing a briefcase containing a bomb near him. The assassination attempt failed.
Harold Pettus—US Army, 788th Field Artillery
“You see ‘em, we hit ‘em.”
Harold, who was ninety-one years old as of this writing, works with bees and gives his honey away mostly. He said his son was interested in beekeeping and was mainly helping him now.
Harold, born in Slaughters, Kentucky, left Evansville, Indiana, to enter the US Army, arriving in Indianapolis for a week. Later he took a train to Ft. Hood, Texas, then Ft. Lewis, Washington, for another training. Next he rode a troop train to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, where he took heavy artillery training and learned how to use the equipment. There was also training in Camp Shanks, New York, and then he was sent overseas. He went to Congleton, Cheshire, England; La Havre, France; and then Belgium and Holland after the Battle of the Bulge, on the HMS Pasteur. He was involved in heavy artillery until the war ended.
The only thing that scared him was bombing from the planes. He was shelled by the 88s many times, but that didn’t bother him too much. He was most fearful late in the afternoon, when the B-17s and B-24s would bomb Germany. He was leery of being outside without a helmet because of falling iron (shells). He said they were shelled and strafed, and “what goes up must come down.” If you were under it, then there was danger. It had to come down somewhere.
Harold’s job was as a powder man. He loaded the powder in the canons—eight-inch howitzers and two-hundred-pound missiles. They could shoot a short range or several miles. There are pictures of the guns he shot.
On Sunday, January 21, 1945, he was on an LST 317, leaving England and going to France. Harold’s job was to destroy “a portable bridge and knock out any places the Germans could hide and shoot at us.” That might include a chimney, barge, church steeple, or smokestack or any place the enemy could use as an observation point along the Rhine River. His unit stayed behind the infantry, as the large gun was cumbersome to move, so it stayed in position for a day or so before moving. He said the recoil would dig a hole in the ground when the gun was shooting.
The motto of his battalion was “you see ‘em, we hit ‘em.” They cleared out twenty 88s at Brunninghausen and bombed some of the Heinie rail-mounted 88s. The Germans would mount their guns on railroad cars.
Many of the soldiers “found” things they brought back or mailed back home. Harold carried around a saxophone for a while. He said, “It was beautiful.” He used to wake up his buddies with it. He got “a cussing too, every morning.” He left it there; however, he did bring back some binoculars from the war. He slept in barns in the Ruhr valley.
How did you feel about the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan?
“How soon we forget. Now we welcome [them] with open arms and buy [Japanese] autos. Lots of innocent lives were lost, but we saved our American lives too.”
Harold said his brother-in-law was found in a coal mine in Japan when the war was over. His brother-in-law hated the Japanese, because he was in the Bataan Death March.
Harold has many pictures from the war. This is a picture of his unit with the words “Here we are, Hitler.” It’s so amazing that even in the midst of danger, these guys could have a sense of humor.
Robert Reed—US Army
“There were a lot of brave men over there. There were a lot of brave men that lost their lives.”
What did you think about Pearl Harbor?
“In 1941 I was twenty-one years old. It was a surprise, and lots of guys were killed.” He went to Pearl Harbor in 1988. “I think if you were there when it happened, you would remember it all your life.”
Did you have other family members in the military?
“My brother, Walter, was an MP in the army. Most of Walter’s tour of duty was in Europe and Africa.”
On November 10, 1942, Bob was drafted into the army at Ft. Harrison, where he remained for ten days. Then he took a train to White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. He and his unit were stationed at the Greenbrier Hotel, a very fancy hotel in its time. “The US Army had converted it into a military hospital known as Ashford General Hospital. Soldiers were treated and recovered from surgery at this facility,” according to Greenbrier.com. “Wounded GIs were sent there if they were being rehabilitated from their injuries.” He worked in an office in the hospital/hotel because he was on limited duty due to a bad eye.
“When we arrived the waiters from the Greenbrier served us our meals. The Greenbrier, at that time, would cost you twenty dollars a day. Before the war twenty dollars a day was a lot of money. We thought, Wow, we are living high on the hog, and we are getting all this for free. It was good. I was in the receiving office when I came in. I interviewed the guys when they came in about where they had been and where they were wounded.” Bob went on to say, “I was down there for about two years.” He had a good time while in White Sulphur Springs.
When did you go overseas?
“When I got married, well, I was sent overseas.” He was married to his wife, Dot, on January 9, 1945. Shortly after their honeymoon, he was transferred to Indian Gap, Pennsylvania, to get ready to go overseas. “We left from New York on the Queen Elizabeth, which was one of the bigg
est ships afloat at that time.” He thought there were about twenty thousand troops on the British ship, which was converted into a troopship and ferried Allied soldiers for the duration of the war. Bob said, “I remember passing the Statue of Liberty on the way to Firth of Clyde, Scotland, as we zigzagged all the way, because there was a danger of enemy submarines in the area. It was a fast ship, and faster than anything that Hitler had.”
Firth of Clyde, Scotland
From Firth of Clyde, Scotland, Bob and his unit boarded a train to go to a town in England and across the channel. “At that time London was still being bombed, and they had to stop the train two or three times to turn the lights out. There were warnings of enemy planes in the area. It made you feel a little funny or weird. We were only in England a night and a day before we got on the ship and went across the channel. The Germans sent buzz bombs across the channel at the Allies.
Normandy
“We landed in Normandy [in] about 1945. The war was still going on, and they sent guys to fight in Japan.” Hitler was close to winning the war at the Battle of the Bulge. Many of the guys who worked in the office were put on the front line because they needed guys to fight in the war. “Overseas, I worked in the office for the medical corps. Then I was assigned to ordnance. I was shipping supplies to the front. Semis would come in at night, and we would ship them back. It was a pretty good job. The German people were working for us at the depot. We paid them, so they liked the job. It was the same in Belgium.”
Belgium and Bremerhaven, Germany
Bob was overseas about fifteen months. He was in Belgium for about seven months and then went to Bremerhaven, Germany, for five months. “The war was over, and everything was pretty safe then,” said Bob. “On Sunday a group of GIs got a six-by-six truck and went out to look over the country. We would go different places over the weekend. It’s beautiful country. All the countries had a lot of damage.
WWII Heroes: We Were Just Doing Our Jobs Page 17