Please Note: This blog post is an account of World War II, including violence, illness, death, and other themes that may not be suitable for younger readers. While these stories are an integral part of history, some of the following content may be slightly graphic in nature.
The following is an excerpt from “Never Forgotten: Stories by Scott County, Minnesota, WWII Veterans” by Tom Melchior. This is the story of Navy veteran Gerald Anderson, who earned a Baker Third Class ranking. As part of the Commissary Branch, bakers were responsible for all kinds of baking, operating ovens and other baking equipment, and setting up field ovens when ashore.
Gerald shipped out to the South Pacific, namely the Solomon Islands and what is now Papua New Guinea, aboard the USS Perida, after going to boot camp in Farragut, Idaho.
I remember watching my country slowly disappear while standing on the fan tail and wondering, “Will I ever come back?” We had no idea where we were headed and, of course, no idea what we were headed into.
Davy Jones Locker
We crossed the equator with the “initiation ceremony,” which included being washed with old dirty oil, going through a line of paddles, and given salt-water soap to clean up. Salt water soap did not remove the oil. It just spread it out more and would burn. You had that oil on all parts of your body, but mostly on your butt. You tried to scrape it off, but finally it just wore off. This treatment was given to officers and enlisted men alike. After all this, you were an official member of Davy Jones Locker. I crossed equator in October of 1943 aboard the Perida and again in November of 1945 on the USS New Kent.
Guadalcanal and the Russell Islands
We arrived at Guadalcanal and unloaded supplies. We were locked down in our lower compartments because of an air raid. This was my first look and feel of war. Then we sailed to the Russell Islands, south of Guadalcanal. When we pulled into the bay, a ship already there had been blown up. There were many lives lost and the ship sank. We reversed our engines to get away from the burning ship and the burning oil on the water. Later that night, we were unloaded over the sides on nets and into landing crafts and headed for shore. It was raining like crazy. We were led to an area in the jungle and told to set up our pup tents. We carried everything on our backs, including clothing, rifles, food, and half a tent. The Russell Islands were used as a stepping stone to get to Bougainville.
My assignment should have been on an aircraft carrier, but we lost both the Lexington and the Yorktown in the Battle of Midway on the Coral Sea. The only carrier left was the Bunker Hill. An air strip had to be set up on the islands. This was also why the air strips were built on Bougainville. The area was cleared and what looked like two foot x ten foot strips of metal mesh were laid down by the Sea-bees. This kept the vegetation from growing. Also, when they were damaged from shelling, they could be replaced. These strips could handle fighter planes, Corsairs, and light bombers, such as B-25s. We had room for 25 planes. When the bombers came back from a mission and hadn’t used all the bombs, they dropped them on the hills behind us where many Japanese were living. When the war ended, there were more Japanese up there than we ever numbered on the bay, but the Japanese’s supplies were limited due to the difficulty of getting them on shore.
On the Russell Islands I was assigned to the Acorn 15 unit. We stayed there a few weeks. This is where John F. Kennedy’s PT boat sank, and I’m sure he was part of our camp for a while. Ours was the only galley, so I’m sure he ate some of my baking. No one knew him then and everyone is equal in war.
We had not been on the Russell Islands very long before some of the men figured out how to make “booze,” called Raisin Jack. The man who made it was Jack Raisin. They drained the torpedoes of their alcohol which was the firing material. Then they came to us in the bakery, and got two loaves of bread. They ran the alcohol through the bread slowly. This removed the “pink lady,” which was the lead in the alcohol. The men ended up with small amount of 180-proof alcohol. They mixed coconut milk, sugar, water, and yeast. It fermented in three days. Then they added a small amount of the 180-proof alcohol to make a drink. We also used the alcohol for cigarette lighter fluid.
Tragedy
We were on the Russell Islands for several weeks. Then we were loaded onto LSTs to go to Bougainville. It is here that I experienced one of the horrors I have been unable to talk about until now. Our LST was sunk in a battle and I ended up in the water. I did manage to crawl into a breakaway (life boat). Some of us pulled guys into the boat. There were six of us in the boat. When we realized three of the men were dead, we slid them into the ocean. They and the dead and dying in the ocean floated right along with us. I was on this raft for three days and two nights. I think I vomited all the time. We were picked up by another LST and brought to Bougainville, where the invasion was still in progress.