| Summary: | (7:39) Mr. Shockley describes his Coast Guard service in the Pacific during World War II.Florence-Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Paul W. Shockley
January 27, 2010
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Clint Alley and Rhonda Haygood
Clip 3
Clint Alley: You told me a story the other day when your, when you met your cousin over there—
Paul Shockley: Yeah.
CA: —about a couple of Japanese prisoners y’all took.
PS: Yeah, yeah. They had two Japs that come down out of the jungle and got in the chow line and, and got them something to eat, too. And they was watching them and they let them go ahead and eat and then they took them into custody and took them in and interrogated them. But they was starved to death, skin and bones, but I thought that was something. But that was quite often that that happened, you know. They, they’d come down and, and give up and, and get in the chow line with the rest of them and get them something to eat. That was unique. And we had what they called a torpedo, a two man torpedo submarine, the Japs did. And they would run against the American ship and blow it up. And I guess these two decided they wasn’t ready to die, so they just run up on the beach while we happened to be tied up in Hollandia and we went over and I was one of the first ones to get over and then, of course, they got out of the sub. It was a very small room. One of them had to sit in the lap of the other one, that’s how much room there was. And they got out and they bowed to us and on their hands and knees, you know, and just kept on bowing, bowing and we told them nothing was going to happen to them and all and then they took them in custody and interviewed them and I don’t know what happened to them. But they sent an ordinance team down and defused the bow of the, the torpedo. It actually looked like a torpedo and it was larger and they defused the end of it where it wouldn’t blow up and then of course all the Americans had to go down and look it over, you know, being nosey like all of them are. They even wrote a paperback book, years later, about that submarine coming up on the beach at Hollandia.
CA: Um-hm.
PS: I used to have it, but I don’t have it anymore. But I saw it when it actually come out of the water and went up on the beach. I was there.
CA: That’s pretty neat. You were, let’s see, you mentioned Iwo Jima a little while ago. Were you there when the fighting was happening?
PS: Oh, yeah. We, we was carrying dead down to Frenchaven to be buried. You can see by the picture of my ship that I had two cargo holds; we had them full.
CA: Oh, yeah. So y’all were, y’all were mainly doing that, y’all weren’t, y’all didn’t have any big guns or anything you were firing?
PS: Yeah, we had, we had a .40 mm gun on the fantail and we had two anti-aircraft fifty caliber machine guns onboard the ship. I was a gunner on a fifty caliber, twin fifty caliber machine gun; that was my job.
CA: And that’s, that’s your twin fifty caliber up there in that picture isn’t it?
PS: Yeah, you can see it. On the starboard side right there, you can actually see it.
CA: My goodness, that’s a big gun.
PS: If you get up close you can see it.
CA: Well, can you tell us, what was it like living on the ship? Did you, ah, did you enjoy living on the ship and sleeping in the bunks and all that?
PS: No, it’s horrible. Rough sea, round bottom boat and when there was very little waves our ship would rock and roll. I mean, it was rough. Seasick most of the time. I mean, it’s, it was a horrible, horrible tour of duty. Just about as rough as you can imagine.
CA: Well, did y’all—
PS: And then we had plenty of rough seas and you can imagine, you didn’t know whether you were gonna sink or not because we’d turn halfway over and just inch or two more would capsize.
CA: Well, did y’all go through any typhoons or anything?
PS: Yeah. In, in 1945 that, the worst one that’s recorded in history it sank an awful lot and we was in a convoy and they just cut us loose of the convoy because we couldn’t keep up.
CA: Um-hm.
PS: I mean, we wasn’t making any, any speed at all, so they just cut us loose and said, “You’re on your own.” And that’s mostly the way it was when we was with other ships and we couldn’t keep up. But most of our duty was by ourself, you know, going from island to island. See, MacArthur, when the Japs invaded Australia, he felt it was time that he invaded the Japs, cause they had taken the islands all the way down to Australia. And that’s where he’d moved his headquarters to and he said, “We’re not, we’re not having this. We’re fighting back.” So he took whatever he could get. Which he didn’t have—they didn’t furnish him no soldiers or anything hardly and he just took whatever he had available and went to fighting the war back and we run them out of Australia very shortly. And then he would take every other island, or every other port on New Guinea. I speak of New Guinea cause that the largest island in the Pacific and the, it’s got many, many ports. Amelia Ehart, Earhart even landed on, ah, Lae or Milne Bay or Oro Bay, one of the ports there, but he would take every other one. And what that did was cut the supply line of the Japs off. But, we had to be careful and know which one that, that had been taken because we could pull into an island or inlet and it might be the one he missed and the Japs would be waiting on us. So, when it happened one time, we pulled into this place, was gonna rest awhile and fish and swim and it just so happened that particular port hadn’t been taken yet and they, they opened fire on us and we got out in a hurry. And we’d dropped one anchor and we just let it, chain run out and dropped the anchor and let it go to the bottom of the sea and we took off, backed out and took off as fast as we could. The islands was the same way, there’s an awful lot of small islands and the Japs would have, ah, troops, you know, and guns and all on them and if they didn’t take that island then they would be waiting on us, so we had to be careful in that particular area or you could get in a lot of trouble right quick.
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