Through the Eyes of the Cape Fear--Voices

Interview of Leslie Brady
Transcript Number 048

This is the World War II Veterans' Oral Preservation Project at the G.V. Barbee Branch Library on Oak Island, North Carolina. Today is April 25, 2001. The time is 2:05 p.m. To be interviewed today is veteran of World War II Leslie L. Brady. The interviewer is Steve Heffner and we'll now commence the interview.

INTERVIEWER: Mr. Brady, would you give your address please?

BRADY: 635 Magnolia Drive Southwest, Sunset Beach, North Carolina.

INTERVIEWER: How old are you, Mr. Brady?

BRADY: 79.

INTERVIEWER: What's your date of birth?

BRADY: 11/19/21.

INTERVIEWER: Where were you living about the time World War II broke out in Europe in 1939, 1940, around that time?

BRADY: Northwestern Pennsylvania, Warren County, Pennsylvania.

INTERVIEWER: Were you single?

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Were you living with your family?

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Going to school or had you finished school?

BRADY: No, I was already out of school.

INTERVIEWER: And before you went into active service, had you had any prior military experience?

BRADY: Only with an organization called the CCC camps which was paramilitary as I recall.

INTERVIEWER: Did there come a time when you enlisted in the service or joined the group?

BRADY: I joined the National Guard.

INTERVIEWER: What National Guard was that?

BRADY: Company I of the 28th Infantry Division and I don't recall the regiment.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, according to your discharge papers, this was January 22, 1940, is that about right?

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: That's after the war....

BRADY: No, that was when we were inducted into active duty.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, when did you join the National Guard unit, about how soon prior to that?

BRADY: Oh, sorry, sorry, according to that, I believe you're right. I went in, that's when we were inducted into active duty, January, I had been in about a year prior to that, six months to a year.

INTERVIEWER: And did you train with your National Guard unit?

BRADY: Yes, on a weekly basis and much like they do now as I understand. Once or twice a year, went to two weeks camp somewhere. I made one of those encampments in northern New York in 1939 I believe it was and then before another one came along, we were activated.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, now when you went to the National Guard unit for training, did they give you instructions in weaponry?

BRADY: Yes, close order drill, weapons, assembly and disassembly, all such as that, bayonet training.

INTERVIEWER: This is in the two weeks of regular training that they gave every year?

BRADY: That was just more and more intense than the weekly training sessions.

INTERVIEWER: Was this unit a specialized unit of the infantry or was it just a general...

BRADY: Just an infantry company.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, and did you have rank in the National Guard at this time?

BRADY: No, just a private.

INTERVIEWER: Okay and according to your discharge papers on February 17, 1941, you went into active service, is that correct?

BRADY: That's when we were activated.

INTERVIEWER: The whole unit was activated?

BRADY: The whole division.

INTERVIEWER: And your company?

BRADY: Right.

INTERVIEWER: All right and did you have to report to an Army facility?

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Where did you go to?

BRADY: Indian Town Gap, Pennsylvania.

INTERVIEWER: Is there an Army base there?

BRADY: There was an Army base there, a new Army base.

INTERVIEWER: Did your whole unit go there?

BRADY: The whole division went there

INTERVIEWER: What was the purpose of going there? To be sworn in or to undergo basic training?

BRADY: More rigid training. That's all I know. It was more pronounced. It was strict. We couldn't go home every night. We were there. We were treated just like regular Army.

INTERVIEWER: How long did that last about? Was that the usual six weeks basic training more or less?

BRADY: No, no, we were there until...when we were activated, we were activated, well as it turned out, until the war was over.

INTERVIEWER: I understand that, but how long did you stay at this particular base?

BRADY: I was in Indian Town Gap apart from a couple of excursions for the whole division or most of it anyhow, to other parts of the country for maneuvers at various times, field maneuvers. I was there for about a year and then the whole division then transferred to Louisiana, Camp Livingston, Louisiana.

INTERVIEWER: That was the second Army base that you were at?

BRADY: That was an Army base there, yes.

INTERVIEWER: What was the purpose of going to Louisiana? Did you receive any different kind of training there?

BRADY: Yes, general warfare training.

INTERVIEWER: In Louisiana?

BRADY: Yes, tropics, more tropics, far more than what we were in Pennsylvania.

INTERVIEWER: By this time, World War II had broken out and the United States had been at war with Japan since December 7, 1941.

BRADY: Well we were already in Louisiana prior to that.

INTERVIEWER: Before Pearl Harbor, is that right?

BRADY: No, I'm wrong.

INTERVIEWER: It had to be after because they wouldn't change jungle warfare unless we were at war with a country engaged in that kind of warfare.

BRADY: 1941, we were on maneuvers in North Carolina and we were over in the vicinity of what is known as the sand hills around Hamlet and Rockingham, over in that area. In the fall of 1941, before...as a matter of fact, we were on the way back to Indian Town Gap when word came that Japan had been bombed or that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.

INTERVIEWER: Okay and then...

BRADY: That was in December so we'd been on maneuvers all through the fall.

INTERVIEWER: Then they sent you to Louisiana.

BRADY: Then after we went home and we were given a short leave in the midst of which they called us back to camp before our leaves were up and we were shipped out to Louisiana.

INTERVIEWER: How long did you stay at that camp in Louisiana approximately?

BRADY: During that time, I transferred into the 39th Infantry Division and I was there, as a result of the transfer, I was in Louisiana until I shipped out right after Christmas of '44 or right after the first of the year, '43, '44.

INTERVIEWER: So you stayed in Louisiana quite a considerable length of time.

BRADY: Yes, yes, it was all tropical, our training was geared toward the tropics.

INTERVIEWER: Okay and you say you shipped out to the Pacific theater sometime in '43, '44. How did you ship out?

BRADY: We trained and then went to New Orleans and shipped out of New Orleans through the Panama Canal.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of ship were you on?

BRADY: Troop ship, that's all I know.

INTERVIEWER: Was it just your division or was it several divisions?

BRADY: I don't rightly know. The ship was loaded. I don't know how many men were aboard. By then, we were close to wartime strength which was, as I remember, if I remember right, 200-250 men to a company and that would make 86,000 upwards of 86,000 men to a division and there weren't that many aboard that ship. The ship was loaded with our gear and personnel and we shipped out, went through the Panama Canal to the Hawaiian islands.

INTERVIEWER: Anything unusual happen on that troop ship or just a normal crossing?

BRADY: No, nothing on that one.

INTERVIEWER: According to your discharge papers, it says you shipped out on January 3, 1944, arrived at your destination January 14, 1944, does that sound right?

BRADY: Well I thought it was a little longer than that. No that's wrong. Something's wrong there. The reason I say this Steve is because between the time we shipped out and the time I arrived in the Hawaiian islands, my baby daughter was born. I didn't know it until I arrived in the Hawaiian islands and received mail. She was born on February 9, 1944.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, so it took a little longer to get overseas, to get over to Hawaii from Louisiana.

BRADY: No, let me get my dates right.

INTERVIEWER: You say you got married, so this is sometime while you were in the service you got married.

BRADY: Got married March 4, 1943.

INTERVIEWER: While you were at the camp in Louisiana?

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: And you had a child in February 1944, and you arrived in Hawaii...

BRADY: Hawaiian islands directly, oh, sometime around that date, I didn't know that my daughter had been born until I arrived at a base where we could get mail.

INTERVIEWER: Was the first stop Pearl Harbor?

BRADY: I think we went into Pearl Harbor, yes.

INTERVIEWER: Is that where you disembarked in the Hawaiian islands?

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Did you go to an Army base there?

BRADY: Yes, we went to, I don't remember the quarters, but we weren't too far from Hickam Field, we weren't too far away. We trained and we trained and we trained there for six months.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of training?

BRADY: Jungle warfare.

INTERVIEWER: Again jungle warfare?

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: By this time, you had had extensive training in jungle warfare, both in Louisiana and now in Hawaii.

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: For years.

BRADY: Well quite a lot.

INTERVIEWER: Were you still a PFC at this time?

BRADY: I never rose above the rank of corporal.

INTERVIEWER: Well you must have, you just forgot about it because your papers say that, your discharge papers say that you made corporal.

BRADY: Well I say, I never rose above the rank of corporal.

INTERVIEWER: And what was your specific job in the infantry? Any kind of special weapons?

BRADY: M1 rifles, 45 automatic pistol, Thompson's submachine gun, Brownie automatic rifle, bipod mounted light machine gun, tripod mounted heavy machine gun water cooled, and 81 mm and a 60 mm mortar, had to be qualified on all of them.

INTERVIEWER: And were you?

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: So you weren't a specialist in any particular weaponry or any particular job in the infantry, just a soldier doughboy.

BRADY: In the training to and from the drill fields and so forth, I was ? bearer for the company.

INTERVIEWER: What's that?

BRADY: Well it's a company pennant with the company insignia or letter indicating I Company, K Company.

INTERVIEWER: You carried it?

BRADY: Yes, I carried that. My position there was, I can't remember if it was immediately behind, to the right or the left of the company commander.

INTERVIEWER: Wasn't that an honor to be the flagbearer for your unit?

BRADY: No, it was just cause I was as tall as I was (laughter).

INTERVIEWER: (Laughter), okay, it was because of your height, no honor.

BRADY: They didn't want a little guy carrying that, they wanted a six footer.

INTERVIEWER: How long did you stay in the Hawaiian islands after you got overseas?

BRADY: Six months or so.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, now we're well into 1944. What was the next stop after Hawaii?

BRADY: We boarded ship, one ship and set sail for New Guinea. We didn't know where we were going, of course, the rank and file. Now I don't know how high up the line people did know, but we wound up in New Guinea.

INTERVIEWER: New Guinea was the first island that you went to from Hawaii?

BRADY: Yes. The only stop we made in between was due to a volcano on one of those islands out there somewhere. There were hundreds and hundreds of square miles of area covered by a thick ash from the volcano and our ship ran into this and consequently couldn't see, you couldn't see across the ship. Forget seeing from one end to the other, you couldn't see across it.

INTERVIEWER: Was that because of the dust in the air or the ocean?

BRADY: No, because of the dust in the air.

INTERVIEWER: What about the ocean? Did it have any dust on it?

BRADY: Oh sure, yes, and they ran aground.

INTERVIEWER: Who ran aground?

BRADY: One of those ____. Now I can't sit here and prove this, but I had at one time in my possession a record of it that was in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, I think was the paper. One of my buddies, we were together at the time when this happened, sent me this copy that was in the paper, recorded in the paper of this event and I forwarded it to another friend who was in the process of keeping a lot of these records and events that happened to us along the way and in the meantime, now he's died and I don't know whether I could get those copies or not. But I'm sure it can be gotten from the Dispatch if somebody wanted it.

INTERVIEWER: So the volcano's eruption caused your ship...

BRADY: The volcano's eruption caused the dust storm over hundreds of square miles and the ship had to slow down to just creeping along and they ran aground. That's all I know. We were sitting at an angle. We had to almost hang on to stay on board. It was quite an experience and we were there some 48 hours and it's been a puzzle to me all my life since...how they found, how our people found us and the Japanese didn't.

INTERVIEWER: When you say "our people"...

BRADY: People that came to extricate us from that predicament.

INTERVIEWER: Was that a Navy ship you were on?

BRADY: No, that was a troop ship. I'm not sure, I don't know the name of the ship. It was just a troop ship. It wasn't an ocean liner that had been made into a troop ship, it was a troop ship.

INTERVIEWER: With Navy personnel on it or was it all Army?

BRADY: No, it was Navy personnel aboard manning the guns, etc.

INTERVIEWER: Was it your division or additional outfits who were on the ship?

BRADY: Again I think it was just part of our division because there was no way that a ship could carry 86,000 troops plus all their gear and so forth.

INTERVIEWER: And you say that another ship had to extricate you from the....

BRADY: They sent maybe as many as a half a dozen different vessels. I don't remember what kind of vessels they sent, but they...and I don't remember just how we got from the ship we were on onto the vessels that came to take us off.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, you had to leave the ship?

BRADY: Yes, we had to leave the ship.

INTERVIEWER: That was run aground?

BRADY: Yes and if I remember right now, I couldn't swear to this, when they took us all off and all our gear, the ship floated.

INTERVIEWER: When you got off?

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Did you see any signs of enemy?

BRADY: Not then, I didn't.

INTERVIEWER: Not then, not on this whole trip on two ships from Hawaii to New Guinea, I assume it was just two ships you were on?

BRADY: Yes, I think there were more than two ships came to get us, but I just went from the ship I had been on onto the one that rescued me and my associates right there and I think there were smaller ships and that's why there were more of them.

INTERVIEWER: So aside from the volcano and the running aground, there were no incidents that you recall in the voyage from Hawaii to New Guinea?

BRADY: None whatsoever. Just ocean and ocean and more ocean.

INTERVIEWER: No signs of aircraft of enemies, or submarines?

BRADY: No, we went into a place called Oro Bay in New Guinea.

INTERVIEWER: That was where you landed?

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: And you disembarked there?

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Where did you go?

BRADY: Inland a matter of 15 or 20 miles from the immediate coast and the coast as I remember, was much like the coast here in that there were inlets and waterways and swamps and marshes and so forth.

INTERVIEWER: This is sometime in '45?

BRADY: No '44, late '44.

INTERVIEWER: New Guinea was occupied by whom at this time?

BRADY: Both the Japanese and the allies.

INTERVIEWER: The Japanese were still there that late in the war?

BRADY: Yes, yes.

INTERVIEWER: They hadn't been extricated by McArthur or anybody else?

BRADY: Pretty much. There were pockets of them in, as I remember, a place called Hollandia which was I don't know, some distance up the coast from where we were and I remember hearing of bombing runs and raids and so forth And then our unit, our company I know was involved because I was involved in it myself. Excursions south, we're on the northeast coast of New Guinea at this time.

INTERVIEWER: That's where you landed.

BRADY: Yeah, we were only 15 or 20 miles inland and we made several mop-up excursions south toward Port Moresby which is on the south coast next to Australia.

INTERVIEWER: Port Moseby.

BRADY: Right, we made several excursions over the Stanley Mountains to mop up and find Japanese, you know whatever, that's what we were told we were doing anyhow.

INTERVIEWER: That was your job, to mop up enemy positions still left on New Guinea?

BRADY: Right, right. Most of what I recall finding were our own troops dead and left in the jungle, what was left of them.

INTERVIEWER: You mean on your excursions, that's what you found?

BRADY: Yes, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Did you have occasion to engage the enemy in combat?

BRADY: Not my own, I don't recall engaging the enemy myself or my immediate men with me, but there were units, there were squads and platoons in other areas not too far away that did engage little pockets of the enemy on these missions. Most of what we did was pick up watches and rings and dog tags and gear where they were left on the bodies What we found were skeletons.

INTERVIEWER: Of United States servicemen?

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Army or Marines or both?

BRADY: As I remember, that division that fought the most bitter battle of the Owen Stanley Mountains was the 32nd Infantry Division. I'm not sure of that, but that's my recollection.

INTERVIEWER: United States Army?

BRADY: Yes and also if I recall, those boys were out of Michigan. That was the Michigan National Guard. I could be mistaken about that.

INTERVIEWER: So your duties were really mopping up ...

BRADY: In New Guinea, yes. Because by then, like you mentioned, most of New Guinea was back in allied hands, but there were pockets. That's a big island and there were pockets of resistance elsewhere. We didn't take anything for granted.

INTERVIEWER: Did you have occasion to see any Japanese army soldiers while you were in...

BRADY: Only in prisoner situations.

INTERVIEWER: In New Guinea?

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: What about other allied forces? Were the Aussies there or anybody else?

BRADY: The New Zealanders and Aussies.

INTERVIEWER: Australians and New Zealanders were also on the island and you had occasion to see them?

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Any joint operations with them?

BRADY: They were just there. They seemed to have a better understanding of the terrain and getting along with the indigenous people that lived there, the natives that lived on the island so they were there, there weren't large units of them. They were there in small units more as a help to us, to help us with what we were trying to do.

INTERVIEWER: How long were you in New Guinea all together? Was it a matter of months or weeks?

BRADY: We were in Hawaii six months or thereabouts. We were in New Guinea some three or four months I think.

INTERVIEWER: Does anything stand out in your mind as an event of significance that you'd like to tell us about during your stay on New Guinea besides unfortunately looking at these dead American servicemen.

BRADY: Well, I don't know if it's interesting to anybody - when we got to our place where we were going to be stationed, we had to build our camp and you know yourself what a pyramid pen is - well we went in the jungle and cut logs and carried them on our backs to the place where our squad was going to build a tent here. Our squad cut the logs and carried them on the squad's back to the place where we were going to build a pen and we put this framework of logs up and stretched the pen on it and that was our house, squad pen.

INTERVIEWER: So you camped out in the jungle?

BRADY: Well it wasn't in the jungle without a big open....but the whole regiment was there.

INTERVIEWER: And you had to build your own quarters?

BRADY: Yes, mess hall, company headquarters, the whole deal, the whole deal, we built it all.

INTERVIEWER: Why does that stand out in your mind?

BRADY: Well it was quite a feat to me. I was just an old Pennsylvania farm boy. I had never done anything like that before.

INTERVIEWER: Oh you mean the fact of erecting this massive complex, the men and quarters?

BRADY: Yes, yes, it was quite a feat.

INTERVIEWER: Any experiences with any jungle physical problems like malaria?

BRADY: Yes, malaria was...

INTERVIEWER: Did you get it?

BRADY: No, I never contracted malaria, nor did I ever get what was known amongst us as jungle rot.

INTERVIEWER: What's jungle rot? Some kind of skin condition?

BRADY: It's a fungus that gets around your fingernails and in between your fingers and up close between your legs and between your toes and I've seen men have it so bad, they'd make a fist and the pus would squeeze right out of their hand.

INTERVIEWER: This was prevalent in jungle conditions?

BRADY: With certain people, mostly light complexion people or red-headed people, freckle faces. Now why that sticks to me, that information, I was blonde almost as Marilyn Monroe when I was young. I'm gray now. I had a couple of buddies who were red-headed and freckle faced and they got this jungle rot something fierce, just everywhere.

INTERVIEWER: Very debilitating? Required them to go into the hospital ward?

BRADY: Yes, oh yes, they sent them back to the Hawaiian islands for a while.

INTERVIEWER: That bad?

BRADY: Yeah, one fella never did come back, but I don't recall for sure.

INTERVIEWER: And you didn't get jungle rot?

BRADY: I never got it, nor malaria.

INTERVIEWER: Did you take quinine pills to prevent malaria?

BRADY: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Was that standard issue?

BRADY: Yeah, they had a pill that they issued that we'd drop in our canteen and it was called, I don't know how this is spelled, I forget, Atabrine or Adabrine.

INTERVIEWER: For what purpose?

BRADY: That was to stave off malaria. I'm sure it was quinine, it was just a trade name, I'm sure.

INTERVIEWER: So you didn't contract any diseases?

BRADY: I never...No...

INTERVIEWER: Those months that you were in New Guinea, you were in good health?

BRADY: I never got any of those diseases.

INTERVIEWER: Never saw any combat with the enemy?

BRADY: Not in New Guinea, not outright, I didn't.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, and eventually there came a time when you shipped out of New Guinea. Where did you ship out from and how?

BRADY: We shipped out right out of Oro Bay.

INTERVIEWER: Same place you came into?

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Same kind of troop transport?

BRADY: Troop transport, same - just different ship.

INTERVIEWER: And where did it head toward?

BRADY: The Philippine Islands.

INTERVIEWER: Was that your next stop?

BRADY: Leyte.

INTERVIEWER: That's quite a distance between New Guinea and the Philippines.

BRADY: Went into Leyte D plus 1.

INTERVIEWER: What does D plus 1 mean?

BRADY: D-Day for any combat that you're told that your invasion time, day, so forth.

INTERVIEWER: Oh I see, it was an invasion force?

BRADY: Yes, D-Day for the Philippines for us was on a certain date and we went into Leyte.

INTERVIEWER: In 1945?

BRADY: I'm not sure, either late '44 or early '45.

INTERVIEWER: Was this the first liberation of the Philippine Islands?

BRADY: This was my first excursion into the Philippines. The allied forces were already in there somewhere. We weren't the original wave, we were D-Day plus one or two days.

INTERVIEWER: But very soon after the first wave?

BRADY: Yes, when we went into Leyte, the Japanese bombed us on the way in, our convoy.

INTERVIEWER: While you were at sea or ...

BRADY: While we were going in, getting in close enough where we could board a landing craft to get in.

INTERVIEWER: Was this the first time you'd come under enemy fire?

BRADY: My first time under direct enemy fire.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, but the landing took place without any casualties or did it?

BRADY: No, they came in the morning out of the morning sun with their dive bombers and whatever they were flying and they came out of the sun and they were on us before anybody saw them.

INTERVIEWER: You were still on ship?

BRADY: On board ship.

INTERVIEWER: In the gulf or the bay?

BRADY: Out in the gulf. We could see land, but we couldn't get to it. You do everything by the numbers you know. That ship unloads and when they get unloaded, that ship unloads, you know. This was the way it was supposed to work, but they came on us, came down on our convoy and I had been assigned as an ammunition helper with the naval people, each of us had been given a job and I had been assigned to help with the ammunition on a fantail gun on the rear of the ship and I think they called it a five inch rifle. It was a five inch shell and it was my job to help get the ammunition from the ammunition hold to the gun.

An occasion that I remember there and I don't recall the whole deal, but the gunner on that ship was a Navy boy and he had gotten a hold of some Kentucky moonshine from some of those Kentucky boys that they made down in New Guinea in the jungle. He'd gotten a hold of some of that moonshine and had a little too much the night before this excursion with the Japanese and he's the head gunner on this gun. I remember him hollering "Fire" and the round that he hollered fire for dropped about 100 yards into the water in front of the ship behind us instead, the Japs dropping the water out there...

INTERVIEWER: Were you under attack by the Japanese bombers?

BRADY: Yes, we were....

INTERVIEWER: They dropped bombs?

BRADY: Yes, they dropped bombs. One was on purpose or couldn't help himself, brought his airplane down on the nose of the ship right behind us in the convoy.

INTERVIEWER: Did you see that?

BRADY: I saw that.

INTERVIEWER: Did they explode?

BRADY: Oh my yeah, right down on...

INTERVIEWER: You say nose, you mean bow?

BRADY: Boy, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: The very front part of the ship.

BRADY: Right, right.

INTERVIEWER: A lot of damage?

BRADY: Well I was what 100 -150 yards, more than that, we weren't that close together.

INTERVIEWER: So the flames...

BRADY: Flames, smoke, explosion, men in the water.

INTERVIEWER: And this is right off the coast of the Philippine Islands?

BRADY: Yes, you could see the land.

INTERVIEWER: And, of course, our ships returned fire.

BRADY: Yeah, like I say, I don't know whether he was what they called a kamikaze pilot or whether he had been hit and couldn't maintain his airplane or what, I don't know.

INTERVIEWER: Your ship wasn't hit?

BRADY: No, the ship I was on was not hit.

INTERVIEWER: And did this engagement last just one day when you were...

BRADY: Well we went in and finally got on land and we were on the island of Leyte until it was secured. I don't remember, it might have been 2-3 weeks, seems like. Then we boarded ship and went to Luzon.

INTERVIEWER: Let's stay with Leyte for a while. You disembarked at some point in time and set up camp somewhere, didn't you?

BRADY: No, we lived in the jungle. We lived in pup tents.

INTERVIEWER: Just like in New Guinea

BRADY: No, well these were pup tents.

INTERVIEWER: Smaller tents?

BRADY: Two men tents, just so high, enough to crawl in on your hands and knees.

INTERVIEWER: You and a buddy?

BRADY: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Slept two to a tent?

BRADY: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: In the jungle?

BRADY: In the jungle in Leyte.

INTERVIEWER: Any signs of the enemy at this time or not?

BRADY: Not much, it was pretty well secured.

INTERVIEWER: After that?

BRADY: After a couple of weeks, we embarked and went to Luzon.

INTERVIEWER: Another part of the Philippine Islands. How did you get there?

BRADY: Another troop ship and another convoy.

INTERVIEWER: Anymore enemy action at sea?

BRADY: We went in on the north end of the island on Luzon in the Philippines and I can't remember the name of that bay or beach, I can't remember the name of the beach, but there was a main, what was known to them as a main road from the city of Manila north to this area. Most of it was dirt road as I recall.

INTERVIEWER: No sign of the enemy?

BRADY: We went in and it was expecting heavy resistance and we were inland a day or two before we hit any resistance in the jungle and for whatever reason, they had withdrawn from the beach area. We could see when we were getting close that our forces and I think the U.S.S. North Carolina was one of them, our forces, battleships were standing offshore firing over us as we went in.

INTERVIEWER: To engage the enemy?

BRADY: Yeah, we were going in to engage the enemy and they were, the battleships and whatever whoever else were standing off further firing over us to...

INTERVIEWER: Soften them up.

BRADY: Soften them up in the jungle, absolutely in the jungle.

INTERVIEWER: Was the infantry alone or did they have support from the Marines at this time?

BRADY: No, as far as I know, it was just infantry. There weren't any Marines that I was aware of.

INTERVIEWER: And your unit engaged the enemy in the jungle?

BRADY: About a day or two inland from the beach.

INTERVIEWER: Did you engage the enemy?

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Did you see the enemy?

BRADY: I saw the enemy, I shot the enemy, I was shot at by the enemy.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of fire are we talking about, small arms?

BRADY: Small arm fire.

INTERVIEWER: Mortar, machine guns, what are we talking about?

BRADY: All of it, machine gun, mortar fire. They didn't have mortars like we know mortars, like we knew mortars then.

INTERVIEWER: What were you firing?

BRADY: I had an M-1 rifle and also packed a .45 on my hip.

INTERVIEWER: And where was the enemy ensconced? Were they in caves, were they in open jungle, were they in trees or were they all over the place?

BRADY: They weren't entrenched there, it was just jungle warfare. It seems for whatever reason they had left the beach area where we made the beachhead where there were some fortifications and I can't recall, we didn't linger long to see what they consisted of. They weren't there, so we kept moving south. By the time we reached them and caught up with them, it was kind of hit and run. As I remember, they had a few tanks. I remember seeing one or two demolished, pretty well demolished. They were in the jungle and we had to dig them out, just ferret them out.

INTERVIEWER: And you engaged enemy in gun to gun combat.

BRADY: Yeah, no hand to hand combat.

INTERVIEWER: No hand to hand, and it was not an Army of great strength, more like stragglers.

BRADY: Not there, no.

INTERVIEWER: Did there come a time when they were of great strength?

BRADY: Well I thought so.

INTERVIEWER: On Luzon in the jungle or somewhere else?

BRADY: No, on Luzon. We proceeded south through what I remember being called Zigzag Pass. It was called that because the road was crooked, that's all I remember.

INTERVIEWER: Jungle scenery?

BRADY: Jungle on either side and we proceeded, spread out along this dirt road clear to the outskirts of the city of Manilla.

INTERVIEWER: Which is on Luzon?

BRADY: Yes and...

INTERVIEWER: Were you there to liberate Manilla?

BRADY: No, that comes later.

INTERVIEWER: That comes later. So you're heading through Manilla through the jungle fighting the Japanese tooth and nail all the way.

BRADY: Tooth and nail all the way.

INTERVIEWER: They're retreating and you're advancing.

BRADY: They're retreating, being killed whatever. And another time in the melee, we were assigned, now I don't know, you see like our company, but I'm not sure, was assigned the duty of guarding a big water supply, what they called the Manilla Watershed.

INTERVIEWER: On the outskirts of Manilla?

BRADY: Up in the mountains outside of Manilla and we had to scale these mountains, they weren't maybe that high, but they were terribly steep, probably maybe some of them were 6 or 7,000 feet. I don't recall, but seemed like they went up forever because they were so steep. We had to haul all our gear up there on our backs.

INTERVIEWER: And protect the water supply?

BRADY: We were stationed around this reservoir.

INTERVIEWER: Did you come under enemy fire?

BRADY: Cause they wanted, the Japanese wanted that water supply if for no other reason than to taint it or poison it. This...these were things that we were told and...

INTERVIEWER: Did you engage the enemy?

BRADY: We engaged the enemy there a lot.

INTERVIEWER: Jungle?

BRADY: Jungle, all jungle, all jungle.

INTERVIEWER: And you saw the enemy?

BRADY: Saw the enemy.

INTERVIEWER: You shot at the enemy?

BRADY: Face to face.

INTERVIEWER: Face to face, you could actually see the Japanese soldiers.

BRADY: And lots of times, they'd shoot at you and you couldn't see them because they were in a bamboo thicket or something or they'd be up in a tree. This went on for days and days. My company commander, there was a ..., my company commander was a Kentucky school teacher.

INTERVIEWER: Lieutenant?

BRADY: No, he was a captain at that time. Name was Byrd Sargend.

INTERVIEWER: Sergeant like the rank sergeant?

BRADY: No, I think it was Sargend.

INTERVIEWER: What happened to him?

BRADY: We were there on that ridge near that reservoir in the evening before sundown and just sitting around the small campfire drinking some coffee or just ballyhooing and all of a sudden, he keeled over and he'd been shot right here.

INTERVIEWER: Sniper?

BRADY: Sniper.

INTERVIEWER: At night?

BRADY: No, it was before sundown, maybe 4 or 5:00 in the evening.

INTERVIEWER: Did he die?

BRADY: No. As a matter of fact, I visited him in Merit Island, Florida, a number of years after the war.

INTERVIEWER: Really?

BRADY: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: He was your company commander throughout the Pacific theater of battle or just on this particular island?

BRADY: I was transferred out of his company into another company during the...somewhere in there, so, but I, by then he had made battalion commander so I was associated with him as you know, enlisted men and officers, how they associated in those days. But I was associated with him and knew him and respected him greatly for the man that he was.

INTERVIEWER: He was wounded.

BRADY: Yeah, I don't think he saw anymore combat. He might have, but if he did, he went to another unit afterwards. I never saw him after that until I went to visit him.

INTERVIEWER: You went to visit him when? During the war or after the war?

BRADY: No, after the war in Florida.

INTERVIEWER: Long after the war?

BRADY: Well that's what I was trying to think, 1976 I think.

INTERVIEWER: Oh some 25 years after the war, 20 years after the war.

BRADY: By then, I had gotten into the trucking industry and I was down there in Florida on a truck and I had made it my business to keep a line on numerous...

INTERVIEWER: Did he remember you?

BRADY: Oh yeah, sure, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: You were in his unit?

BRADY: My wife and I went and I called him on the phone and he said you come to a certain place and he'd meet me there and we would go to his house.

INTERVIEWER: Do you recall other incidents of people that you know being wounded or killed in battle?

BRADY: Yeah, I had a pretty close friend, he got shot right between the eyes.

INTERVIEWER: Where was this, Luzon?

BRADY: Yep on Luzon and I had another man who I was in the pup tent with one night when there was some kind of a fracas and I don't remember what was going on, but maybe somebody gave a false alarm, but all of a sudden, there was gun fire and hand grenades and explosions of different kinds and this fellow in the tent with me was a big fella name of Morgan from Morgantown, West Virginia, and he was screaming bloody murder, "I'm hit, I'm hit, I'm dying". Well he was a big old coal miner and as it turned out, it was just a superficial scalp wound. A piece of shrapnel had hit him and his head was so hard, it wouldn't go through anything but the skin.

Anyway there weren't any lights, you couldn't have lights so we couldn't see. I knew he was hit though cause there was blood all over. I could feel the blood, but ....

INTERVIEWER: He was in the same tent as you.

BRADY: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Is that the closest you came to getting hit?

BRADY: No, no, I at another time had a superficial hand wound. It was enough to get me off the front lines for a short time.

INTERVIEWER: Let's go back to the watershed duty in Luzon. What happened after that? Did you enter the city of Manilla or didn't you go to Manilla at all?

BRADY: Yes, the war was winding down pretty much by then.

INTERVIEWER: You're still in the Philippines?

BRADY: I'm still in the Philippines on Luzon not far from Manilla, but the watershed was pretty much my last, getting toward my last mixing it with the enemy There were a couple of patrols that I went on after that scouting out enemy positions and so forth, but I notice your paper there has something about the point system. You don't want to talk about that now?

INTERVIEWER: No, let's wait until the end on that. Just tell me about what kind of engagements you engaged in.

BRADY: Well there was...on the Easter Sunday 1945...

INTERVIEWER: Okay that's April.

BRADY: April or late March I guess, my company I think, the whole company, I'm not sure, but at least my platoon, the platoon I was in was assigned the awful, awful (crying, breaking down)...

INTERVIEWER: Okay, okay, take it easy. Would you like to take a break, Mr. Brady? Would you like to stop for a while? We can turn it off.

(machine apparently was turned off)

INTERVIEWER: Okay, Mr. Brady, we'll start again with what kind of duties you were assigned while you were in Luzon and after the watershed incident. You said you were sent out on patrols at various times.

BRADY: Had several patrols, two, three or four, one incident on this Easter Sunday of 1945, my platoon, I think it was my platoon, was assigned the duty of going out of foxholes, 14 to 18 men who had been bayoneted and shot, killed and left in their foxholes, they'd been overrun at night some 10 days prior to when we got to them. We had to pull them out and take their rings and watches and personal effects and dog tags and wrap them in sections of pyramid tent which we'd cut up and put them on ambulances and they were taken to some place and buried.

INTERVIEWER: Were these soldiers part of your outfit?

BRADY: No, they were completely, no, we didn't know who they were or anything about them and I've always wished that I had been in a position at the time to made a record of some of their names and something about them where I maybe could have contacted their people, but I never did and I've always regretted that.

INTERVIEWER: And this is one of the more unpleasant...

BRADY: To me, one of the worst aspects of the whole war. Another time I was on patrol and I'm sure that the Japanese from their aspect of the war, from their outlook toward it, I don't the words to use, I didn't think about it then, but since I've thought. I'm sure that they miss their dead too just like we do. But we were on a patrol, I believe this is somewhere around the Manilla watershed though, somewhere up in the high country. From a position on the edge of the jungle, we could see across a vast field, an open area, it wasn't a field as we think of fields, but a vast grassland. With binoculars we could see people went over there 1000 yards or more...

INTERVIEWER: People or soldiers?

BRADY: They turned out to be Japanese soldiers.

INTERVIEWER: What were they doing?

BRADY: And our platoon commander sent some of us over there to investigate and he wanted us to bring back prisoners, but they didn't want to be taken prisoners. They wanted to fight and they were all killed.

INTERVIEWER: Did you engage the enemy then?

BRADY: We engaged the enemy then.

INTERVIEWER: You personally?

BRADY: Yes, personally, I shot at least one. I think two. But it was just, those were times when you shot or got shot.

INTERVIEWER: And you spent the entire remainder of your tour of duty overseas until the war ended in the Philippines?

BRADY: Well the war ended when I was on the way home.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, but your last assignment was the Philippines?

BRADY: Yes, yes.

INTERVIEWER: After these various skirmishes, there was no combat to speak of?

BRADY: No, the war, by then the war was winding down. This was going into the middle of the summer in '45 and the war was winding down. We didn't know it. Between then...

INTERVIEWER: The Japanese surrendered in September of 1945, early September.

BRADY: The Japanese, I thought it was August.

INTERVIEWER: Well August is when we dropped the atomic bomb.

BRADY: Okay. After V-E Day, I can recall me and some of my buddies talking about it and the company commander, who was another lieutenant, a Jewish fella, Lieutenant Kahn, kind of briefing us about things and talking with us. Now let's get busy and finish this up over here.

INTERVIEWER: All right, so you're in the Philippines.

BRADY: Now it's done over there, now let's get busy and get this done over here.

INTERVIEWER: So there came a time toward the end of the war that you hopped on a ship and went someplace else.

BRADY: No we were on Luzon and I left from Luzon to come home.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, was the war over then?

BRADY: No, you said peace was declared...

INTERVIEWER: Well we dropped the atomic bombs, the two of them, in mid-August. The last one was dropped around the 14th of August 1945, and the Japanese surrendered two weeks later in Tokyo Bay.

BRADY: Well that kind of pinpoints it a little bit for me cause I wasn't too sure. I put the latter part of August, but I didn't know, we didn't have calendars with us and I didn't know dates or that sort of thing. All I knew was that somewhere along the line they let it out that ...now this point system.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, you had a certain number of points you could be discharged.

BRADY: You could come home.

INTERVIEWER: Did you have enough points at this time?

BRADY: Points were based length of duty, how long you had been in the service, length of combat and there might have been some other things, I don't remember. But in my company, I was I don't know, third or fourth.

INTERVIEWER: In number of points, that entitled you to be discharged.

BRADY: Yes, yes, so the war was still on and I was on board ship going home.

INTERVIEWER: On a troop ship again or a Navy ship?

BRADY: No, it was on the S.S. Brazil.

INTERVIEWER: Which was what?

BRADY: Big super liner for those days that had been overhauled and put into military service for troop carrying, but it was a huge liner for those days. We left out of probably Manilla Bay, but I'm not sure, probably...

INTERVIEWER: But you said you never got into Manilla. All the time you were on Luzon?

BRADY: No I was in Manilla, but not fighting. I saw no combat in Manilla that I can recall.

INTERVIEWER: Like on leave.

BRADY: No, I was in Manilla and then I saw some of the town, but it was a shell like you see pictures of Berlin or something like that - a big city that had been shelled. Even though McArthur didn't want it, it was done, shelled and bombed. Had to to get them out of there.

INTERVIEWER: The Japanese?

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Right until the end, they were .....

BRADY: Pretty much, pretty much.

INTERVIEWER: This S.S. Brazil heading back to the States, at some time you hear that the war had ended.

BRADY: Sometime out in the middle of the Pacific, we had to run at night without lights, so I know the war hadn't ended yet and sometime, somewhere out there in the Pacific, word came that the war was over, peace had been signed and after that, we could have lights at night.

INTERVIEWER: Where did the ship land, west coast somewhere?

BRADY: Yeah in San Francisco, went under the Golden Gate Bridge and oh my, if you haven't been there, there's no way to describe it to you.

INTERVIEWER: That's the first time you'd seen the States since you left from Louisiana?

BRADY: Yes, absolutely.

INTERVIEWER: Okay and where did they send you?

BRADY: I was in California for a few days to probably run through some sort of a medical checkup to see that we weren't bringing back something. I don't recall for sure, but I was only there a matter of a few days. This is not a unit thing, this is not my company now. I was one of a half a dozen out of my whole company that had the points to afford this. So I'm there for less than a week I'm sure. Had a brother living in Palo Alto at the time and I called him and he came up and we visited for a few hours.

INTERVIEWER: Came all the way from Pennsylvania?

BRADY: No, Palo Alto, which is not as far south as San Francisco.

INTERVIEWER: You're still in the service now?

BRADY: I'm still in the service. Then we boarded a train for the east and I wound up in Camp Gordon, Georgia, and I record in there, Steve, from the middle of August or late-mid August to late September, I say there, took me to get from the Philippines to Georgia. Then I noticed though my discharge says the 14th of October, I was thinking it was the first week of October.

INTERVIEWER: Right back to your home in Pennsylvania?

BRADY: No, by then I had married this girl. She was from Greenville, South Carolina and Camp Gordon was not that far from Greenville and she came down, brought my little baby daughter down who was 22 months old at that time. I had never seen her and we reunited. I didn't know what I wanted to do I was mustered out, made the choice of getting out instead of staying in which many times I regretted, but it's too late now.

INTERVIEWER: And that's where you settled, went back to Pennsylvania.

BRADY: We saddled up, packed up and took all our belongings and went up to live among my people, but it didn't suit me, didn't suit all the way around. I'd gotten away from snow and dairy farms and I didn't want to ever shovel any snow ever again so I settled in Greenville, South Carolina. Lived there until 1989. In the meantime, my then wife died in 1986 and I have since remarried and reside in Sunset Beach.

INTERVIEWER: Let's go back a little bit. At one point you told me that you had received a superficial wound somewhere.

BRADY: In the hand, right here.

INTERVIEWER: Where was that, in the Philippines?

BRADY: Yeah, in some kind of engagement. I can see in my mind's eye the terrain I was on.

INTERVIEWER: Jungle?

BRADY: It was jungle, it was an open area, but it was in the jungle, jungle all around us, but there were open areas and kind of rocky. There was a little bit of grade and we're trying to make our way up this upgrade, not steep, just all of a sudden this explosion right in front of me. All I got was a flesh wound.

INTERVIEWER: Oh shrapnel, it wasn't a bullet from enemy soldiers.

BRADY: No, shrapnel wound. It caused that, it cut or damaged that nerve or something because just a little bit, my hand swelled up. So they sent me to a big hospital, what's that big air base that they had to close down because of...they sent me to Clark and took care of my hand. I was there until they were satisfied that I was fit for duty. I don't remember how long.

They asked for an interesting or humorous or sad, probably the saddest experience was pulling those boys out of those holes. Another time was seeing the huge trenches they were digging with bulldozers. They'd dig these huge trenches, 20 feet wide and so deep. They'd scoop all the dirt out of it and then they'd line these poor little old Filipinos up along the side of it and whoever else they wanted to kill, the Japanese would line these people up and machine gun them and they'd fall down in there and they'd cover them all over with dirt.

INTERVIEWER: You saw that?

BRADY: We saw the partially filled trenches where they did that. I've seen two of them like that. I'm sure somewhere somebody had to go through that and dig some of those people out. I didn't have to.

INTERVIEWER: While you were in the Philippines, did you have occasion to interact with the civilian population?

BRADY: No, no, no, like any other time of combat, you have to be very careful, you don't know who you're talking to.

INTERVIEWER: So you didn't have much interaction with the civilians. What about in New Guinea, any native population.

BRADY: No, the natives down there, again, you don't know who you're talking to. They couldn't speak English and they couldn't understand, as I remember. As a matter of fact, we were warned, some of us, didn't pay any attention to it, we wanted to see it happen I guess, don't offer them a cigarette. But you know, you used to do that. They told us, don't do that with these natives down here because they'll take the whole pack and if you confront them about it, before you can say Jack Robinson, they'll stab you with something or something. And your Zippo lighter, don't hold that out either cause they'll take it too. We were told that they think when you hold this out to them that you're giving it to them.

INTERVIEWER: The natives in New Guinea?

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Who were Aborigines?

BRADY: Aborigines.

INTERVIEWER: All right, Mr. Brady, I'm just going to read over your discharge papers.

BRADY: Now the other, there was a humorous thing I wanted to relate. I can't remember what it was.

INTERVIEWER: Well maybe it will come to you. I just want to read from your discharge papers to make sure we covered everything, okay? According to your discharge papers which are dated in October 1945, you were in the Company G of the 149th Infantry and your rank was PFC.

BRADY: Right.

INTERVIEWER: You were separated from the service on 14 October 1945 at Camp Gordon, Georgia and your occupation at the time you went into service was farmer, general.

BRADY: Right.

INTERVIEWER: It says date of enlistment was 22 January 1940 which is probably when you joined the National Guard unit.

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: And the date of entry into active service is 17 February 1941.

BRADY: Right.

INTERVIEWER: And the place that you entered service was Warren, Pennsylvania.

BRADY: Right, right.

INTERVIEWER: Was that the first base you were assigned to or just the induction center?

BRADY: No that was, Steve it's like if you were going to join the local National Guard, you'd go to Wilmington or the closest unit, wherever there's a unit and that would be your base of operation until you were mobilized. Then you'd go to wherever the state, you were a member of the state National Guard and then if you're mobilized, you're sent to the whole, your company, the mixed one over in Wallace or wherever it is, they're all sent together at one central point like we were...I was sent from Warren, there was another unit in Bradford and there was another unit in Philipsburg and all around all over the state there were different companies of different kinds and we were all sent to Harrisburg.

INTERVIEWER: Okay.

BRADY: In this case.

INTERVIEWER: Okay and it says as far as your military occupation, you wore infantry badge combat, M1 rifle.

BRADY: Right. That was our main weapon. That was our main line of defense, that old trusty M1.

INTERVIEWER: As far as your military occupation, they have you listed as a scout. You told us you did do a little scouting, but it wasn't really what you did.

BRADY: Yes, scout, I was for quite a period, I was the front scout in the rifle squad. I have that pin on there too.

INTERVIEWER: As far as your battles and campaigns, it lists New Guinea which you told us about and also San Philippines Luzon, those were the two combat areas.

BRADY: I didn't know that they considered New Guinea as a campaign. I didn't know, I forgot. There was enemy in that area. We didn't know where they were, we just knew they were somewhere on the island. I guess that's why.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, as far as decorations or citations, it says you received the American Defense Service Medal, the Philippine Liberation Medal in 1945 and the Purple Heart for the shrapnel wound you told us about and the Asiatic Pacific Service Medal and they said you received that wound that you told us about on 22 March 1945.

BRADY: I didn't remember that.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, now you do, which was right before that Easter incident. That's when you got that wound. Talks about the shots you got for small pox, typhoid and tetanus and it says that you served in the United States for two years, 11 months and 15 days and overseas for one year, 8 months and 13 days.

BRADY: That's, you put the dates together when we were mobilized to the date I was discharged, that won't add up that way, will it?

INTERVIEWER: Well we'll figure it out later, but it looks like the total service was almost four years.

BRADY: I was thinking it was closer to five because see I was in two outfits. I went in in the 28th division and later transferred to the 39th division and that's what my discharge papers show.

INTERVIEWER: You're right because your service in the States was almost 3 years, 2 years, 11 months and 15 days and a year and 8 months overseas so that's 4-3/4 years.

BRADY: That's right.

INTERVIEWER: The highest rank you attained was corporal and it says that you...the reason for separation was convenience to the government which means, that's how all the soldiers got out when they were discharged. Here's your amount of service, it says longevity for pay purposes, 5 years, 8 months and 23 days. That includes your service in the Guard too.

BRADY: Yes, that's probably what I was thinking about with the five years there.

INTERVIEWER: They gave you mustering out pay of totalling $300.

BRADY: Right.

INTERVIEWER: $100 when you got your discharge papers and effective date of your discontinuance of your allotment was the end of September 1945 signed by First Lieutenant Arthur H. Walker and you applied for veterans' benefits of some sort or service readjustment allowance in December of 1945. I guess there was some kind of bonus soldiers got.

BRADY: Yeah, yes and then there was the state of Pennsylvania had a $500 if you served in combat, they had a $500 bonus and I was awarded that or I qualified for that.

INTERVIEWER: I notice among your papers that you wrote to the Army Department January 26 of this year, just about three months ago, asking them what medals you were entitled to.

BRADY: And to what's the word, reinstate or reissue them, because in the ensuing years, like I said, my wife died and I had to rebuild my life which is a whole other story, but all those things, all those got lost somewhere along the way.

INTERVIEWER: You mean your medals?

BRADY: Yes, so I have asked for a reissue of them.

INTERVIEWER: They haven't answered you yet?

BRADY: No, but they told me it would be anywhere up to six months.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, now we're just about finished Mr. Brady. If there is anything else you want to say about your service or anything else, you could say it now. All in all, your experience in the service aside from those incidents that disturbed you, was pretty good?

BRADY: Yeah, I notice here drinking and drugs a problem? No. There were scattered incidents of...

INTERVIEWER: Drunkenness.

BRADY: Drugs, well most of the boys drank. We usually drank beer.

INTERVIEWER: We're talking stateside or overseas?

BRADY: Any place they could get it (laughter), but a lot of times overseas. In New Guinea, it wasn't available. In combat area, in Leyte and Luzon, it wasn't available. Occasionally if we were in a reserve position, the way they worked it a lot of times was there were three platoons, three rifle platoons to a company and a heavy weapons with the one company making four platoons. Two platoons would be in a combat position, one in reserve. Now whether they worked that way all over the Pacific, I don't know, but that's the way they worked it where I was.

So if we were in a reserve position, we might be issued a little bit of beer, not enough for any of us to get drunk. The way we cooled it, if we could swipe you know what a jerry can is?

INTERVIEWER: You tell us.

BRADY: A jerry can is a...the gasoline cans that they carried gasoline in for their vehicles, we would swipe one of those or borrow it and put our bottle of beer on a string and drop it down in that gasoline inside there and we could put several bottles of that down in there and we'd let it set for awhile and when we'd take it out one at a time, it was cool. And that was the way we cooled our beer (laughter). I'm not kidding.

INTERVIEWER: Is there anything else there you'd like to tell us?

BRADY: Drugs weren't a problem. I remember one man in all my military experience being court-martialed over drugs and I don't know the particulars, I just remember he was court-martialed and the word was amongst us - Fort Leavenworth - which you might as well go to hell. That was the way we saw it.

INTERVIEWER: This happened stateside, not overseas?

BRADY: I can't remember, I think it was stateside, I think so. Do I dare mention homosexuality?

INTERVIEWER: Did you encounter any in service?

BRADY: There were a few that we knew of. I knew of one in my whole regiment.

INTERVIEWER: Stateside or overseas?

BRADY: He went overseas with us. We just more or less ostracized him, we put up with him. We didn't hate him, we didn't buddy with him, we just put up with him.

INTERVIEWER: Tolerated him.

BRADY: Tolerated him.

INTERVIEWER: No ugly incidents?

BRADY: Not to my knowledge, not to my knowledge. Nobody liked him outright and he might have been an otherwise likable sort of a joker, I don't remember really. Discrimination, we didn't know what...I don't know that I ever heard the word discrimination.

INTERVIEWER: Did you serve with any black soldiers?

BRADY: No.

INTERVIEWER: They were in a separate unit?

BRADY: There were separate units. There was one black fellow at one time and I don't remember the circumstances. He was in a quartermaster unit and he wanted to see some combat so he went AWOL from his outfit and came up front with us. I don't know where he acquired a rifle, I don't have any idea, but he spent maybe a week or two amongst our troops. He was a crack shot.

INTERVIEWER: Do you remember his name?

BRADY: No, I don't remember his name. I remember he was a big fella, a big husky fella, broad shoulders, pleasant sort of a guy, but I don't remember his name and we got, as I remember this long afterwards, we almost felt like he could smell the Japanese. He'd pick them out of a tree 150 yards off. We'd seen him do it. But as far as discrimination, yeah, there was discrimination, but it was between you and me, if you follow what I mean. You're the same as I am, but how you come from Timbuktu and I come from Kalamazoo and it was better over in Kalamazoo.

INTERVIEWER: Just friendly banter.

BRADY: No, I've seen men get right up and fight each other almost tooth and nail over the town they were from. I've seen those Kentucky boys, one with a bayonet and another with a sockful of .50 caliber ammunition bullets down through the company, I mean fighting.

INTERVIEWER: Anything else in that list over there?

BRADY: Well they ask about hardships and shortages, no.

INTERVIEWER: You had enough food?

BRADY: Had enough food.

INTERVIEWER: Enough clothing?

BRADY: Yeah, well I'll tell you, clothing and web equipment, belts, gun belts, you remember the leggings we used to wear, what we'd call them, backpacks, pup tents, I've seen piles of it bigger than this building torched.

INTERVIEWER: Burned?

BRADY: Burned, torched.

INTERVIEWER: By whom?

BRADY: Our people.

INTERVIEWER: Why?

BRADY: Didn't want to leave it behind.

INTERVIEWER: For the enemy?

BRADY: For anybody. I saw this in New Guinea. They'd unload ships off, that was one of our duties in New Guinea was to unload the ships as they came in. They'd transport it by truck down there to the pier and we'd unload the ships out on the pier with whatever, they didn't have forklifts, they used...

INTERVIEWER: Cranes?

BRADY: I'm talking about when they'd get it onto the pier, I can't remember how they run it, but the pier might run out into the water 100 yards or more, 150 yards out to the ship, as close as they could get the ship from the land. They didn't have forklifts back in those days like we know forklifts today. I can't remember how they moved that from the ship to where they wanted it on the shore. Maybe they used jeeps, I don't remember. But we'd be down in the hull of the ship getting it out and we'd appropriate Coleman lamps and cans of peaches....

INTERVIEWER: When you say appropriate, you mean swipe?

BRADY: No, I said appropriate. We called it moonlight requisition (laughter).

INTERVIEWER: Okay (laughter), whatever.

BRADY: I'm not going to admit to swiping anything.

INTERVIEWER: Well it's 60 years ago, statue of limitations has expired. What else is on your list?

BRADY: That's how we lit up our company's streets over in New Guinea, not only the enlisted men, the company commander had one. Now he didn't swipe it. He didn't appropriate it. Some of us appropriated it and gave it to him (laughter) as a gift. No I wasn't a prisoner of war.

INTERVIEWER: You saw prisoners of war though, didn't you?

BRADY: Well I saw prisoners and I also in Manila, I forgot about this, I...why was I in the hospital? I only had that one wound.

INTERVIEWER: Maybe a little dysentery or infection...

BRADY: They sent me to the hospital in a place called, in Manila, after Manila had been liberated called Santo Tomas.

INTERVIEWER: That was the name of the hospital or the name of the location?

BRADY: That was the name of the hospital. It had been a big university I think and it was full of Japanese or allied prisoners that the Japanese had held there. When I got there, here are these skeletal people wandering around, their arms just bones with skin hanging on them.

INTERVIEWER: These are the Bataan survivors?

BRADY: I don't know who they were. They were...some of them were Philippines and some of them were maybe Aussies, some of them were our people, all I know is they were there and maybe I...I didn't get malaria. I never got malaria so it had to be dysentery or something, I don't remember why I was there. I don't remember and I was only there a short time, a week or less. But I do remember being there and some of them that felt and were able to express themselves a little bit, their gratitude in having been extricated from what they had been subjected to, came to me, not just me, but some of us would be sitting around talking and they'd come to us and talk to us. I don't know why most of that episode kind of escapes me right this minute.

INTERVIEWER: What else?

BRADY: It asks here "What did you know about the general war situation prior to entering the service?" Well I was already, when I went in, in 1940 in the National Guard, we went to, I mentioned there that I saw one summer encampment and it was upstate New York somewhere around Ogdensburg, New York, and I can't remember the post, the Army post.

INTERVIEWER: Camp Drum?

BRADY: Maybe, I'm not sure.

INTERVIEWER: That's way up.

BRADY: Way up, this was right near the Canadian border. We could see across the river into Canada. We were there for summer encampment and I remember while there, probably when camp was over, or it was going to break up and we were all going to go back home, President Roosevelt came and viewed the troops from a dais, a platform. I saw him. I'm the guidon bearer.

INTERVIEWER: That's the banner.

BRADY: That's the banner. I'm walking, I'm marching, I think it was...I'm immediately behind him just to the right on the, if we're four abreast, if the GI's are four abreast, I'm in front of the foremost GI on the right front corner of the column, a pace or two ahead of the first rank.

INTERVIEWER: Closest to the reviewing platform?

BRADY: No the reviewing platform is on our right as we march past it and here's the President, oh he was several yards away, I don't know 50-75 yards away, but you could see him you know, he had his hat on.

INTERVIEWER: Did you ever see any other famous brass while you were over there?

BRADY: I saw McArthur once.

INTERVIEWER: Where did you see him? In Luzon?

BRADY: Yes and I can't remember the circumstances and I saw General Krueger who, if I remember right, he was second in command to McArthur in the Philippines. They asked about any celebrities, I saw Joe DiMaggio play ball in the Hawaiian Islands. He was in the military and he was just there playing ball and I had dinner one night, one evening with Deborah Kerr who was a well known, back in those years, a well known movie actress.

INTERVIEWER: Why did you have dinner with her?

BRADY: Well they came through the company and she was going to be there and she was going to have dinner in our mess hall and they wanted to know who wanted to be involved, who wanted to sit at her table and I said, I'll sit with her at her table. I mean they just didn't ... like that, chose me.

INTERVIEWER: You volunteered?

BRADY: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Was this a USO entertainment troop?

BRADY: No, no, she may have been a member of an entertainment troop. I don't recall. All I remember is her and a couple of her entourage, I don't know who they were and she didn't speak to me directly or anything. I just sat at her table and the food was better there (laughter).

INTERVIEWER: I think that question is do you feel that your training was adequate that you got stateside. You said you trained hard at jungle warfare, right?

BRADY: Well the Indian Town Gap training was just training, drill, drill, drill, this was before war was declared. But the war clouds were gathering. I didn't know it. I'm just an old Pennsylvania farm boy. I didn't know. You know a lot of them looked kind of unnecessary in what I'd been taught by my elders, a lot of government. I didn't realize, but I had a company commander who at that time, his name was Donovan. This was in the 28th division. His name was Bill Donovan. He later became battalion commander, but he was still pretty closely associated with my company, the company I was in. Captain Donovan was one, he was a World War I veteran so he had a little age on him even then. But he would talk, him being a captain and maybe he was already a major, I'm not sure, he was way above me. I was his guidon bearer and he would talk to me and others around in the company headquarters place there and his idea was, as I remember, that sure enough within a certain length of time, I don't know whether he said a year, maybe two, not very long, we would be at war.

INTERVIEWER: He predicted it.

BRADY: Yes, he seemed to have a grip on things and know what was going on and sure enough. It asked about, it asked here, I can't find it now, oh about the general war situation prior to ending the service. I didn't know anything about such things. The reason I went in the National Guard was there wasn't any work. This was Depression time There wasn't any work and I had a friend who was a little bit older in the neighborhood, the general community there who was a sergeant in the local National Guard company and I used to pal around with him some.

He was 3, 4, 5 years older than me, but I was 16, 17 years old. He'd get prodding me, "Come on Brady, you'd like it", so when I was 17, I joined. My mother didn't like it. I don't remember my dad saying much about it, but my mother didn't like it. She didn't much like him for one thing, this fella, because he drank beer and smoked cigarettes, kind of a roustabout. Anyhow, I joined more out of something to do to begin with. There wasn't any work and this paid a few bucks every month. I forget now just how it worked, but it put a few shekels in my pocket so I could date my girlfriend or whatever.

INTERVIEWER: You mean the guard pay.

BRADY: Yeah, the guard pay.

INTERVIEWER: They only paid you when you were on duty.

BRADY: Well we went to duty every week. I mean you got paid, say it was 3 or 4 hours every week. Monday night as I recall.

INTERVIEWER: At some armory?

BRADY: In an armory in Warren, Pennsylvania.

INTERVIEWER: You got paid for that?

BRADY: You got paid for it.

INTERVIEWER: You got paid when you went to summer camp for two weeks.

BRADY: And I got paid two weeks summer camp.

INTERVIEWER: That was it.

BRADY: But that was better than sniping butts off the street.

INTERVIEWER: I got one final question for you, Mr. Brady. By the time you were shipping out from Louisiana overseas, you had a wife and you had a child.

BRADY: The child was due.

INTERVIEWER: Right, couldn't you have gotten an exemption from service based on family hardship?

BRADY: Now somebody asks me that (laughter).

INTERVIEWER: I believe at the time the war broke out...

BRADY: I don't know.

INTERVIEWER: If you had dependents, children...

BRADY: We married, I'm in uniform when we married...I'm already in uniform. I went in '40, we were mobilized in '41, I didn't marry until '43.

INTERVIEWER: Was your pay shipped back to your wife?

BRADY: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: You didn't need money where you were.

BRADY: Not much, enough for cigarettes and shoe polish and so forth. Matter of fact, there was an allotment went home to my wife and in all the years that I was in the military, there was $11 a month, I think it was $11 a month, went home to my mother and dad.

INTERVIEWER: Really? Pretty much cover everything?

BRADY: About that, I don't mean that as a ...they're gone now.

INTERVIEWER: No, we understand. You're not patting yourself on the back, that's what was done then.

BRADY: That's what was done.

INTERVIEWER: If you had family home, you sent the money home to them. You had a wife, you had parents.

BRADY: The newscaster Tom Brokaw writes this book, two books about the greatest generation.

INTERVIEWER: Yes, that's your generation.

BRADY: I don't think so.

INTERVIEWER: Let's face it, no one went through the things that you guys went through.

BRADY: I don't think so. My outlook on it is for whatever reason, for whatever reason, whether the higher echelon people, Roosevelt and whoever was over in England in charge and around the world, whether they made great mistakes or did great dastardly deeds on purpose or whatever, by the time it came down to me, and people like me, same as you, there was a job in front of us that had to be done. Now are you gonna do it or are you gonna welch? We just chose to do it.

INTERVIEWER: Amen. And with that, Mr. Brady, we'll conclude this interview with thanks to the library.