Interview of Milton Blake
Transcript Number 052

Today is May 7, 2001, my name is Ray Wyche. Today we're talking to Milton Blake who served in the Pacific Theater in the U.S. Navy Seabees in World War II.

BLAKE: I served in the 107th Seabee Battalion, and we served in the Marshall Islands, the Marianna Islands, and, uh, we were on our way to Tokyo when the war ended. 

INTERVIEWER: When did you join the Navy, Milt?

BLAKE: I joined the Navy when I was eighteen years old. I was fixin' to be drafted and to make a choice I decided to join the Navy.

INTERVIEWER: And, uh, did you request the Seabees?

BLAKE: No, they put me in the Seabees 'cause I was partially color blind.

INTERVIEWER: And, uh, what kind of work did you do when you joined?

BLAKE: When I joined I was working shipyard.

INTERVIEWER: You had been to school in Chadbourn.

BLAKE: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: And, uh, where did you take your training?

BLAKE: Up in Bainbridge, Maryland, and took my boot training there, and then they sent me to Camp Perry, Virginia, and I took my Seabee training at Camp Perry, Virginia, which now is an FBI, uh, for training the FBI men.

INTERVIEWER: And were you trained on heavy equipment there, at Camp Perry?

BLAKE: No. I was trained on heavy equipment when I got overseas.

INTERVIEWER: And, uh, how long before you went overseas after you joined? What year did you join? What month and year?

BLAKE: I don't remember. It was, it was probably in '70, I mean the last of '42.

INTERVIEWER: And when did you get overseas?

BLAKE: Probably in '43.
INTERVIEWER: Did you go straight to, where?

BLAKE: We went straight to Hawaii, to Honolulu.

INTERVIEWER: And, uh, did you stay there anytime?

BLAKE: Yeah, we had to rearrange. It was so rough when we left, uh, Port Hueneme that the ship was rockin' so bad goin', leavin' out going over to Hawaii that the heavy equipment had broken loose and had moved to one side of the ship that was carryin' that heavy equipment that we spent three days in Hawaii moving equipment around in the ship so it set level.

INTERVIEWER: Uh, and you helped move the equipment?

BLAKE: Yeah. And all the heavy equipment men helped move the equipment and all the rest of 'em got to go into Honolulu.

INTERVIEWER: And from Honolulu where did you go?

BLAKE: We went to Marshall Islands.

INTERVIEWER: Do you remember the name of the island you landed on?

BLAKE: Uh,Ebon.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. And you took more training there?

BLAKE: We went to work there.

INTERVIEWER: Building what?

BLAKE: Building a sea plane base. Ebon is next to Kwajalein, Kwajalein, Atoll, and uh 

INTERVIEWER: Okay, just go ahead.

BLAKE: We left from there and went to Beyenid Island in The Marshalls.

2nd INTERVIEWER: What was the name of the island?

BLAKE: Beyenid.

2nd INTERVIEWER: Okay.

BLAKE: And, uh, we built a recreation center there for the battleships and aircraft carriers and stuff to come in and play baseball and get their feet on the ground after being at sea so long.

INTERVIEWER: And from there, just tell us where you went and what you did.

BLAKE: We left there and went to Tinian and were in the invasion of Saipan and Tinian..

INTERVIEWER: How long after the invasion before you went ashore.

BLAKE: I went ashore the day they had the invasion. 

INTERVIEWER: And what was your job at that time.

BLAKE: I was a heavy equipment operator.

INTERVIEWER: Bulldozers? Drag lines?

BLAKE: Yeah, yeah.

2nd INTERVIEWER: Were they shootin' at you?

BLAKE: Well, they didn't shoot at us because they, they went from Saipan, they took Saipan and then they left with the fleet to invade, the landing craft to invade on the north end of Tinian and uh, they sat there until the Japs all moved to that end. Then they went around to the other end and came in from behind the Japs. And I ran into a boy who was in the Marine Corps that was from Chadbourn. His name was Hewitt. His daddy worked on the railroad there in Chadbourn, and he was in the Marines. And, uh, I went back and talked to him a little bit, and he was on the next invasion and he got killed on that island when the Marines invaded.

INTERVIEWER: How long did you stay on Beyenid?

BLAKE: We stayed there about a year and a half. 

INTERVIEWER: And that's where you built the air base?

BLAKE: Yeah. We had, they sent a thousand B-29's to bomb Tokyo at one read from there. It would take 'em just about all day to take off. They had seven runways where they were takin' off. They were takin' off just as fast as they could take off.

INTERVIEWER: And what did, what did you build those runways out of? Was that a Coral Island?

BLAKE: Yeah, Coral.

INTERVIEWER: You broke the coral up, crushed it.

BLAKE: They dynamited it, and the way they dynamited it was crushed.

INTERVIEWER: You had a rock crusher there?

BLAKE: No, we didn't have a rock crusher. They did it with dynamite.

INTERVIEWER: And, just ...

BLAKE: We had a, we had a chief who was from Pennsylvania, a coal miner. He was the dynamite man. He was one of the best. He could do anything they wanted to with it, you know.

INTERVIEWER: You scooped that up, did you drag line on a dump truck?

BLAKE: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Dumped it and what, rolled it with a roller?

BLAKE: Yeah, they rolled it with rollers.

INTERVIEWER: And uh, you know how long those runways were?

BLAKE: They were a mile and a quarter, I think.

INTERVIEWER: A mile and a quarter?

BLAKE: Yeah.

2nd INTERVIEWER: And there were nine of them, did you say?

BLAKE: Yeah.

2nd INTERVIEWER: Wow!

INTERVIEWER: How many, B-29's rotated in there then?

BLAKE: I imagine there was 1500. Because they didn't all take off, you know. Some of 'em were under repair and other things and stuff.

INTERVIEWER: And, uh, you built barracks and mess halls?

BLAKE: Yeah, we built, yeah. The carpenters in our outfit built mess halls and barracks and hospitals.

INTERVIEWER: But you were the heavy equipment man on anything they had, bulldozers,
BLAKE: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Drag lines?

BLAKE: There was other heavy equipment men besides me though.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, you were the, and did you ever get a day off? Did you work seven days a week?

BLAKE: We worked seven days a week, and twelve hours a day.

INTERVIEWER: Twelve hours. Were any of them working at night?

BLAKE: Yeah. They rotated the night. We'd work one month day and one month night. 

INTERVIEWER: And, uh, you didn't leave the island for the whole time?

BLAKE: No.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of quarters did you have? Tents?

BLAKE: We had tents.

INTERVIEWER: How about food? You had a field kit?

BLAKE: Oh, we had the best cooks in the, on the island. They were better than the officers. All the pilots would take their bars off and come over and eat with us. We had a cook that was the head cook of a big restaurant, I mean a hotel in Miami, and the other head cook was a big chef from a hotel in Chicago, and they could make Spam taste good.

(Laughter.)

2nd INTERVIEWER: Did you have any fresh food, like fresh fruits?

BLAKE: Yeah, we had fresh food.

2nd INTERVIEWER: Did you get your turkey on Thanksgiving?

BLAKE: Oh, yeah. When we first went over, we had tablecloths on the enlisted men's tables and the Army guys got to complainin' about it so much that we had to quit using 'em. We only used 'em on Sundays.

(Laughter.)

BLAKE: Our commanding officer was Jim Ritter, and he was Tex Ritter's first cousin. And, uh, he had been overseas before, earlier, and they made him commander of the outfit. And, uh, he, uh, was good. One day it'd take Commander Ritter and the admirals were talkin' to a bunch of us and when they left, I asked Mr. Ritter, the commanding officer, uh, what would, how much rank did you have to have to get a Seabee to salute you? He says, "I don't know." (Laughter.) We mostly wore dungarees and we didn't wear shirts and things. We just wore short pants and the army they had to go full dress and everything.

INTERVIEWER: Well, you didn't stay in formations much over there.

BLAKE: No, we didn't. Our commanding officer said we went over there to work.

(Laughter.)

INTERVIEWER: Well, did you have any other kind of airplanes over there at all?

BLAKE: They had a fighter, uh, strips, a couple of fighter strips, but I don't know what, uh, I don't know what the make of the planes ...

INTERVIEWER: You, did you stay on Tinian 'til the war was over?

BLAKE: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: And, uh, you said you did not see the Enola Gay take off with the first bomb.

BLAKE: No, we all went to see it when it got back. They wouldn't let you go see the plane for three or four days 'til they were sure there wasn't no radiation or nothin' left on the plane.

INTERVIEWER: So you didn't get to see it until three or four days?

BLAKE: That bomb was, they had to build the bomb bay doors, they had to be widened out on that plane to get that atomic bomb in there.

INTERVIEWER: You didn't know anything about that?

BLAKE: Nah, I was on the dock on the night the destroyer brought the bomb in there, and the only thing I noticed about it that night, after thinkin' back, was there was more admirals and generals and stuff on that dock that night than I had ever seen.

INTERVIEWER: Did you help unload the bomb?

BLAKE: No. I didn't unload the bomb.

INTERVIEWER: But you were down there?

BLAKE: I was on the dock.

INTERVIEWER: Did you have any idea what was goin' on?

BLAKE: I had no idea what was goin' on. They had a special pit that they put the bomb in until they got ready to load it, and I didn't know nothin' about it until the bomb had been dropped. It was a well kept secret.

2nd INTERVIEWER: How did you hear? What did you hear and how did you hear when the bomb was dropped? When did you first find out about the bomb being dropped?

BLAKE: We heard it the next day. I mean as soon as it had been dropped, they began to tell us about what the bomb would do.

2nd INTERVIEWER: You mean Armed Forces Radio, or?

BLAKE: No.

2nd INTERVIEWER: Word of mouth.

BLAKE: Yeah. 

INTERVIEWER: There were a lot of admirals and generals standin' around watchin' them unload it.

BLAKE: Yeah, but I didn't know why they were there. Course I knew that there was a destroyer escort in there. Destroyer, whenever they brought it. They brought it in there on a destroyer and that was the only battleship that had been in that port. 

INTERVIEWER: Because the island was secured at that time.

BLAKE: Yeah. The Japanese sunk that destroyer after it left Tinian.

INTERVIEWER: You don't remember the name of it, do you? And, uh, you don't know how many days after it came ashore that they dropped it, before the carrier.

BLAKE: Oh, it wasn't very, probably, maybe wasn't over a couple of days and it might not have been that long. That was 50 years ago. That' hard to, over 50 years ago.

INTERVIEWER: I believe I read somewhere that they had to dig a pit to put the bomb in and put the plane over it. It was so big they couldn't get it under the plane. You didn't know anything about that?

BLAKE: No, I didn't. I didn't help load it.

INTERVIEWER: Were the runways, did they have any concrete at all there?
BLAKE: No.

INTERVIEWER: Made it all out of coral?

BLAKE: When the planes would take off at the end of that runway, it was about 40 or 50 feet above sea level, and they'd be so loaded that the tail gunner in the B-29 would, I heard 'em say that they would say to the pilot, "How about pullin' up. My feet's getting' wet back here," at the end of the runway. Another friend of mine from Chadbourn was in the Air Force, Billy McCleeny. I knew Billy and Donald McCleeny in Chadbourn. Well, Billy was in, he was in the Air Force right across the street and he was a pilot. He used to come eat with me every Sunday, and they wanted me to go with 'em on a raid, but I decided I wouldn't go. I figured I saw too many of 'em crash.

INTERVIEWER: Well, now, a lot of them did come in with no fuel or shot up.

BLAKE: Yeah. They had uh, destroyers and stuff sort of lie out so they could pick up the pilots and stuff.

INTERVIEWER: And you saw a lot of 'em come in and crash land.

BLAKE: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Did you people have anything to do with cleanin' 'em up after they crashed.

BLAKE: No. The Army, I mean the Air Force did that.

INTERVIEWER: And, uh, you said you just heard about it by word of mouth.

BLAKE: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Never an official announcement when we dropped the atomic bomb. And did the second bomb go from Tinian too?

BLAKE: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Well where were you when you hear the Japs had surrendered? I know you were on Tinian, but do you remember what you were doing?

BLAKE: No, I don't remember exactly what I was doin'.

INTERVIEWER: Was there a big celebration or anything.

BLAKE: Yeah, we had a big celebration.

INTERVIEWER: How did you celebrate.
BLAKE: Well, they, the fellows did a lot of shootin' and anything they could get to make a noise.

INTERVIEWER: Well, did they break out the beer for you?

BLAKE: No, they didn't break out no beer. 

INTERVIEWER: At that particular time, you were still building runways, patchin' runways, were you?

BLAKE: Well we were, yeah, we had, at that time we were packin' up, getting' ready to move to another island, when they. You know they were plannin' on invadin' Tokyo, and we were getting out right quick, but, uh, if it hadn't needed to repaired and stuff, getting ready to move out to Tokyo.

INTERVIEWER: They hadn't trained you for any kind of amphibious landing on Japan, had they?

BLAKE: No, we didn't ...

INTERVIEWER: But you hadn't loaded any of your equipment?

BLAKE: No, we were rebuilding, you know. Some of it was, if it needed any repair or anything.

INTERVIEWER: Was the 107th, you landed with them on Tinian?

BLAKE: Yeah. There was other battalions, other Seabee battalions on Tinian besides the 107th. We didn't do it all, and they had some, uh, black engineers, uh, engineers, Army engineers that were ...

INTERVIEWER: Well, you did all your own hauling yourself, with your trucks.

BLAKE: Yeah. Well the Army, the black Army engineers, they hauled some. They, uh, ...

INTERVIEWER: Well, have you ever worked heavy equipment over here?

BLAKE: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Before the war?

BLAKE: No, no, I never did work in heavy equipment. I was a welder in a shipyard. I welded in the shipyard in Wilmington and Savannah, Georgia. I was sixteen years old.

2nd INTERVIEWER: What did they pay you by the hour? Do you remember, in those days?

BLAKE: Yeah, I got $1.75 an hour. 

2nd INTERVIEWER: Top wage, top wage.

BLAKE: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: A lot of money then.

BLAKE: When I went to Wilmington and they found out how old I was in Wilmington, they released me from down there on account of my age.

INTERVIEWER: Too young!

BLAKE: Yeah, but it took 'em all day long to release me down there. In the meantime, the, uh, head man at Wilmington, head of the Wilmington shipyard, was callin' Washington and tellin' 'em that, uh, they needed to let some of the - you know you couldn't work unless you were 21 old in a shipyard. So they got the age reduced down to 18 so you could work at shipyards on that account, 'cause men were scarce, ya know. Everybody was in the Army.

INTERVIEWER: That's right. Well, what did you do, go to Savannah. 

BLAKE: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: You were still to young to work, weren't you?

BLAKE: Yeah, went to Savannah and went to work in the shipyard there, the next day. Well, it was on Friday. Monday morning I was working in the shipyard in Savannah.

INTERVIEWER: They didn't check your age?

BLAKE: And, uh, I didn't weld in Savannah. I was a ship fitter, uh, a second class ship fitter in Savannah. 

INTERVIEWER: And that's where they were about to draft you.

BLAKE: Yeah, that's where they drafted me. I could've stayed in Savannah and worked, but all my friends were in the service and I decided I'd get out and go to service.

2nd INTERVIEWER: What's a ship fitter do?

BLAKE: A ship fitter? Well they put the doors in the ships, and the, uh, and the cabins on the ship, deck houses on the ship, and the bows. They had built the bows separate, upside down, then they took cranes and turned 'em around and put 'em down. Wilmington was known as the fastest ship building in the country at the time of World War II. They would produce better, faster. I think they got down where they could produce one about every six days, five days.

INTERVIEWER: When you went in the Navy did you have any idea you were going to be in construction work? You didn't know ...

BLAKE: No, no.

INTERVIEWER: They asked you what you was doin' and you told 'em. 

BLAKE: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: So they put you in the Seabees right then? But you never actually trained on heavy equipment 'til you went overseas?

BLAKE: Then when I came back home I bought heavy equipment and made a livin' all my life using heavy equipment.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, well did you, what did you people, how long before you left Tinian after the war was over to come home?

BLAKE: It was, we were the first ones that left the island, that, uh. Half of our outfit left one mornin'. The other half, got, we got on another troop transport. Part of us landed in San Francisco, and the last half of the outfit landed in Seattle, Washington.

INTERVIEWER: Where were you?

BLAKE: I was at San Francisco.

INTERVIEWER: Did you bring the equipment with you?

BLAKE: No, we left all the equipment on the island. And, uh, they uh, ran it, they carried it over to what they called Suicide Cliff where the Japanese would jump over, and they carried it there and ran it over into the ocean.

INTERVIEWER: But you didn't have anything to do with that?

BLAKE: No, but one of my, uh, lieutenants in our, my company had to stay there until it was all cleaned up.

INTERVIEWER: Do you remember how long it took you to get home, Milt?

BLAKE: I don't know. About a week.

INTERVIEWER: And, uh, while you were on Tinian there, you people kept on building runways and repairing runways?

BLAKE: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Uh, did the planes mess 'em up if they crash landed and you have to go ...

BLAKE: No, I didn't, but there was crews that went there and fixed 'em and everything.

INTERVIEWER: Did they have those steel mats that they parked the planes on or not? Just on coral?

BLAKE: No, they didn't have to use a mat. That coral packed just like our marl in this area would do. But it was a volcanic material.

2nd INTERVIEWER: When the second bomber, carrying the second bomb took off, did you see the plane leave?

BLAKE: No, I didn't see it leave.

2nd INTERVIEWER: Did you know that there was a second bomb?

BLAKE: Yeah.

2nd INTERVIEWER: How did you know that?

BLAKE: Just the word gets around, ya know.

(Laughter.)

2nd INTERVIEWER: No secret on an island, is there?

INTERVIEWER: But you didn't know there was a special bomb on the first one?

BLAKE: No.

INTERVIEWER: And you didn't see the second plane take off?

BLAKE: No

INTERVIEWER: But you saw the first one come back?

BLAKE: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Did they park it away from the other planes?
BLAKE: Yes, they parked it away and, uh, kept it guarded. I don't know, about a week, I reckon, before they'd let anybody go ...

2nd INTERVIEWER: Is that what happened to the second plane too?

BLAKE: Yeah, probably did.

2nd INTERVIEWER: Parked and guarded away from ...

BLAKE: They didn't really know what nuclear, uh, you know effect it would have.

2nd INTERVIEWER: Right.

INTERVIEWER: Milton, after, uh, well, it wasn't long after the war's end before you started home?

BLAKE: Yeah. And then after I got home, uh, I was put on the, uh, a destroyer's escort 'cause I didn't have enough points to get out after I got back home.

INTERVIEWER: Where did you, where were you stationed then?

BLAKE: In Charleston, South Carolina.

INTERVIEWER: Did you sail much?

BLAKE: Yeah, we uh, but uh, when I was in Charleston, there was a Hanson boy from Chadbourn that was, soon as I got into Charleston, I heard over the speaker they called Milton Blake to report to headquarters, get there immediately. And, uh, this boy was uh, lived out, one of the Hansons who lived out on Peacock across from the road ...

INTERVIEWER: Yeah ...

BLAKE: And they uh, he uh, told me that he was in charge of puttin' you in - what area to stay in on the base. So they sent me to Citadel. They had the Citadel barracks and the Navy had those uh, rented to keep the men in. So I got to stay at the Citadel for about three months.

INTERVIEWER: Well, did you do much ...

BLAKE: Elroy Bailey was in school ...

INTERVIEWER: Elroy ...

BLAKE: He was in school at Citadel while I was in the Navy.

INTERVIEWER: Alright, well did your ship sail much from Charleston, or did you stay ...

BLAKE: Yeah, we left Charleston and we went to, uh, around Cuba on the east side, and uh, then we went into the Panama Canal and it took us a week inside the Panama Canal. There was so much traffic and they had to get through there by seniority and so it took us a week on one side and a week on the other side of the Canal. When we got out, there was a merchant ship in Chile that had lost, uh, their engine power, and it was fixin' to wash ashore. They sent that destroyer down there to, uh, help keep it from washin' ashore, and just as we got in sight of 'em they got their engines runnin' so we didn't have to ... we turned around and went back. We left from there and went back to San Diego, went into dry dock there. They worked on that destroyer. The destroyer was Orly, 886 Orly was the name of the destroyer.

INTERVIEWER: It was destroyer escort.

BLAKE: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Now where did, you ended up in San Diego?

BLAKE: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: And, uh, from there where? Did you get out there? Where'd ya go from San Diego?

BLAKE: I came back to Chadbourn. I came back to be discharged at a base in, uh, Virginia. I was at a little base in Virginia.

INTERVIEWER: Do you recall what time that was, what year it was?

BLAKE: That was in '44, last of '44.

INTERVIEWER: Pretty late in '45 probably.

BLAKE: Yeah. And when I got there, as soon as I got there I heard that over the loud speaker. They said Milton Blake, report to Headquarters Company immediately. I said, Lord, now what do they want? It was Al, Jr. Brady who saw my name on the list. He was checkin' the ones who came in to get out, from Chadbourn, and he just wanted to see me. (Chuckle.) He just give me kind of a steer.

INTERVIEWER: And you were discharged up there in Virginia.

BLAKE: Yeah. I was discharged in uh, Charl ...

INTERVIEWER: They sent you back to Charleston.

BLAKE: Yeah. 

INTERVIEWER: How long were you in altogether, Milt? 

BLAKE: I really don't know.

INTERVIEWER: And, uh, but you had never messed with heavy equipment of any kind 'til you got overseas? And you made it your work from then on, free training.

2nd INTERVIEWER: How come all you folks from Chadbourn got in the Navy? There's not much of an ocean around Chadbourn, is there?

BLAKE: It's not by the ocean, it's just better to ride than it is to walk.

(Laughter.)

2nd INTERVIEWER: Would you tell me about that clipping, that newspaper clipping. Whose picture is that?

BLAKE: That's Admiral Hendren. His two sisters was, Miss Macey Hendren and Miss Rochelle. I think Miss Macey Hendren was a piano teacher who taught in Chadbourn, piano all her life, and, uh, her sister, Miss Rochelle, taught in the classroom in Chadbourn. There was three boys that lived in Chadbourn, the same time left Chadbourn and went to the Navy. One of them was Russell Bailey, and he was a submarine captain that went into Tokyo Bay during the war. And, uh, he had made a movie of that, uh, of him slippin' in to Tokyo Bay underneath the net, and he was underneath one of their ships that went in. And they sat there and watched 'em play baseball. They'd run up the periscope and watch 'em play baseball. But, uh, he told me about it after the war.

INTERVIEWER: Was he captain of that ship?

BLAKE: Yeah. I think he made, before he was, uh, more than a captain.

INTERVIEWER: He's dead, isn't he?

BLAKE: Commander, I think he made commander. Yeah, he's dead. And then, uh, and then, uh, uh, there was Admiral Calsey who was in the Navy. He went, the three boys went to join the Navy right after they got out of high school - went and joined the Navy. Then they went to uh, uh, the Calsey man worked on the mosquito control unit. He was some kind of doctor that worked on the mosquito control unit. He was workin' on the Panama Canal. They had such mosquito control work down there. He was one of the main ones that did that.

2nd INTERVIEWER: So three boys from Chadbourn, and all three became Admiral, am I correct? But they didn't make you an admiral, did they?

BLAKE: Heavens no!

2nd INTERVIEWER: Well that's a mistake, isn't it? Anything else you'd like to add? 'Cause I've got one more question for you, but I'll wait until you've had your say.

BLAKE: Well, I think not, unless there's anything y'all want to know.

2nd INTERVIEWER: Well yeah, I've got a question. I want you to look right in the camera. Now you're gonna be talkin' to your great-grandchildren, or your great-great-grandchildren. I want to ask you something. What did you learn about being in the war. What lesson did it teach you.

BLAKE: Well, it taught me how to operate heavy equipment and I came back home and made a livin' for, up 'til I retired, with heavy equipment. I built roads for, loggin roads for Georgia-Pacific, 26 or 27 years. I built 'em all the way from, loggin' routes, all the way from Florida to the Virginia line. That was property of Georgia-Pacific.

2nd INTERVIEWER: Was your country worthwhile fightin' for?

BLAKE: Oh, yeah. That's why I volunteered.

INTERVIEWER: When you went in, you were 18. You didn't have to have your parents' permission, did you, at 18?

BLAKE: They were drafting them at 18 years old.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, that's it.

2nd INTERVIEWER: Well done!

INTERVIEWER: You'd have had a colorful career in the Navy, but you didn't want to stay in?

BLAKE: Not at that stage.

Mrs. BLAKE: And so, that group gets together every year.

INTERVIEWER: Well that's a good idea.

Mrs. BLAKE: It was in Plymouth, Massachusetts, this past year and next year it'll be in Texas. When it was held in San Diego. this one guy came to the meeting and he hadn't seen Milton since he got out of the Navy. You talk about a reunion, those guys had one. But he told me, he said on Saturday when they'd get off, if Milton had any time off at all, said he'd put on his best uniform, cock his hat and stand out there, put his foot up and smoke his cigarette like he was downtown Chadbourn.

(General laughter.)

INTERVIEWER: Lookin' at the Pacific.

Mrs. BLAKE: Yeah. But he said he always looked like he was just so relaxed and so comfortable.

INTERVIEWER: Milton, you didn't have a whole lot of time to kill over there. You went to sleep when you got off work.

Mrs. BLAKE: You didn't get to dress up many times, did you?

BLAKE: No.

2nd INTERVIEWER: I've got somethin' to ask. Uh, I would love to borrow this, take it to the university, duplicate it, put it into the file for everybody to see, and return it to you.

INTERVIEWER: You've got more records than usual.

BLAKE: I betcha I got ...

Mrs. BLAKE: He's got shoe boxes full of pictures one of the guys gave him at the Myrtle Beach reunion two or three years ago that we haven't even been able to go through and put order.

INTERVIEWER: No ones knows who the people are. You'd better write on 'em who they are.

(Laughter.)

Mrs. BLAKE: Well that guy was pretty sick at the Myrtle Beach reunion and he brought all these pictures to Milton.

BLAKE: See, I was one of the youngest ones in the outfit.

INTERVIEWER: I reckon you were. Weren't most Seabees kind of ...÷

BLAKE: Yeah, they were. You know that during the last of the war, the 42 year old's left, and uh, and uh, I thought half of the outfit was gone. We had one guy that he told 'em, he was an electrician. We called him Pop Gallagher. And, uh, he went around and pulled all of the gold teeth out of the Japanese's mouth. Used his electrical pliers, ya know.

(Laughter.)

INTERVIEWER: Well he made him some money, didn't he?

BLAKE: Yeah, he had a mayonnaise jar full of 'em.

Mrs. BLAKE: That was weird.

INTERVIEWER: Well, they were dead. Milt, you, y'all ran into a few bodies over there, I reckon.

BLAKE: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: What did you do, bury 'em?

BLAKE: We'd take the bulldozer, dig a big trench, and lay them in there nice and easy.

INTERVIEWER: But you did bury them?

BLAKE: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: So you were there while the fightin' was still goin' on? Well, did you ever lose any equipment or shells or anything? Did you ever lose any equipment to the war, the bombers or anything?

BLAKE: No, the Japs came in and dropped bombs underneath our water tanks.