Through the Eyes of the Cape Fear--Voices

Interview of John Robertson
Transcript Number 068

Today is July 17, 2001. It is 2:10 PM. To be interviewed today is John Robertson, who served as a sergeant in the 1st Cavalry during World War II. The interviewer is Steve Heffner.

INTERVIEWER: Now Mr. Robertson, would you please give your full name and address.

ROBERTSON: Right now, uh, I live at 120 South West 22nd Street, Oak Island. My full name is John Carnahan Robertson.

INTERVIEWER: When were you born Mr. Robertson?

ROBERTSON: February 20, 1923

INTERVIEWER: Where were you born?

ROBERTSON: Philadelphia.

INTERVIEWER: Pennsylvania?

ROBERTSON: Pennsylvania.

INTERVIEWER: There's one in Mississippi too.

ROBERTSON: I know that, there's one in Ohio too.

INTERVIEWER: How old were you when World War II broke out on December 7, 1941?

ROBERTSON: I was 18 when the war broke out.

INTERVIEWER: Where were you?

ROBERTSON: Home in Philadelphia.

INTERVIEWER: Living with your parents?

ROBERTSON: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Going to school or finished?

ROBERTSON: Ah, no, I still had a semester left in high school.

INTERVIEWER: Okay and how did you become aware about the beginning of the war? How did you hear about it? Do you recall?

ROBERTSON: Oh, yes, I was listening to the Philadelphia Eagles and the Washington Redskins game on Sunday afternoon and they broke in to make the announcement about Pearl Harbor.

INTERVIEWER: The football game?

ROBERTSON: Football game.

INTERVIEWER: Professional football game?

ROBERTSON: Uh huh.

INTERVIEWER: And there came a time subsequent to that that you either were drafted or enlisted into the service? Which was it?

ROBERTSON: Well, I had wanted to enlist right away, but my mother was against it. She wanted me to at least finish high school. So after the summer of '42, in October, I went down to the customs house in Philadelphia and I enlisted.

INTERVIEWER: In what branch?

ROBERTSON: Cavalry -- army.

INTERVIEWER: Was that where you were inducted or were you inducted somewhere else, sworn in?

ROBERTSON: I was sworn in in the customs house, on October 8th.

INTERVIEWER: Of what year?

ROBERTSON: 1942.

INTERVIEWER: And where were you sent?

ROBERTSON: We were sent first to Cumberland, Pennsylvania at the reception center.

INTERVIEWER: Was there an army base facility there?

ROBERTSON: I think there was just a small reception center.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, how long did you stay there?

ROBERTSON: I'm not sure, about two weeks maybe. Three. I got home, I think, the second weekend.

INTERVIEWER: You mean back home?

ROBERTSON: I had a leave to go home.

INTERVIEWER: Was that just for like processing paperwork or was there any training done over there?

ROBERTSON: There was no training. It was all processing. Anyway, when I went home I, on return to Cumberland, I told my mother "I'll be back next week". I didn't get home for three years.

INTERVIEWER: Three years?

ROBERTSON: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, so where did they send you after that first processing center?

ROBERTSON: I was assigned to Fort Riley, Kansas. It was a cavalry-training center.

INTERVIEWER: United States Army?

ROBERTSON: U.S. Army. Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: And you took your basic training there?

ROBERTSON: Basic training on horseback.

INTERVIEWER: Really? You had horses that far into the war? For what purpose did we need horses during World War II?

ROBERTSON: Well, looking back on it, there was no purpose at all. It was stupid. We knew then the Polish cavalry had been annihilated by the German tanks two years before that.

INTERVIEWER: But this was a cavalry outfit and they took the term cavalry literally?

ROBERTSON: Literally? What's that?

INTERVIEWER: Did you know how to ride a horse before you.....?

ROBERTSON: Never been on a horse in my life.

INTERVIEWER: Did you learn how to ride a horse?

ROBERTSON: Finally, yes.

INTERVIEWER: It was part of your training? Of course you trained on weapons too, I assume?

ROBERTSON: Oh, yeah. We had all our weapons training there.

INTERVIEWER: What was that? The M1?

ROBERTSON: The M1? No, we didn't have an M1 then. We had an O3 Springfield. Now, I'm sharpshooter on that. We trained on the old -- what was the one they used in the Boer War, for heaven's sakes? The Lee-Enfield Rifle.

INTERVIEWER: Okay.

ROBERTSON: ....and machine gun training -- Colt 45 -- well, I made sharpshooter on that too. On everything else, I was a marksman.

INTERVIEWER: And did you receive any specialized training at this time in Kansas or does that come later?

ROBERTSON: No, that was all weapons and horse training.

INTERVIEWER: Alright -- that lasted six weeks more or less?

ROBERTSON: 13, 13 weeks.

INTERVIEWER: Thirteen weeks of basic training?

ROBERTSON: That was the whole 13 weeks during a tough winter in Kansas.

INTERVIEWER: What was your rank?

ROBERTSON: Buck Private. Not even first class. Basic training, I was as buck as you can get.

INTERVIEWER: Any experiences that you recall, good or bad, at that Kansas basic training outfit?

ROBERTSON: I remember the terrible time I had learning to ride.

INTERVIEWER: You were a city boy from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

ROBERTSON: City boy, never been on a horse. It was cold, snow on the ground, the horses slipped. We learned to ride with feet out of the stirrups. So you just sat there like a sack of oats bouncing around. But, I'll tell you one experience that almost got me out of the cavalry.

First day we jumped. I was on a particularly mean horse. And I knew that when we came to our obstacle that that horse was going to stop and try to throw me. So, I was really geared for it. Well, he got to the obstacle and he went over perfectly, then he stopped. And I went over his head into a tree and I was knocked out completely. Next day the troop commander had me in the office saying: "Robertson, we think you should go in the Signal Corps." I talked them into letting me stay.

INTERVIEWER: Why did you want to stay in the cavalry if you were not that happy with horses?

ROBERTSON: I was very happy with the horse. I wanted to learn to ride. They pointed out that I had enlisted and they said I could have my choice of service. So that did it.

INTERVIEWER: So, it was your idea to go into the cavalry?

ROBERTSON: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: ...even though you didn't know the first thing about a horse?

ROBERTSON: That's right. I had very glamorous ideas of the cavalry. I watched too many cowboy pictures, I guess.

INTERVIEWER: And at the end of the 13 weeks basic, do you know how to ride a horse?

ROBERTSON: Uh, huh.

INTERVIEWER: Without falling off?

ROBERTSON: Oh, I was good. I really did it. I learned how to ride a horse fine. The saddest day I had there they were passing a review and the colonel called me over and said: "You looked really good on the horse, Robertson." And I don't think he was being sarcastic.

INTERVIEWER: Did he know about your prior trouble? He singled you out.

ROBERTSON: I don't know why he singled me out.

INTERVIEWER: I'm sure some of the others soldiers, the boys from the west, knew how to ride from day one -- and well too, right?

ROBERTSON: Maybe he got the word.

INTERVIEWER: Okay.

ROBERTSON: I was in with a bunch of cowboys and jockeys and farm boys who knew horses. Sure.

INTERVIEWER: So after 13 weeks you knew how to fire a rifle and you knew how to ride a horse?

ROBERTSON: Right.

INTERVIEWER: And how to say ''No, sir and Yes, Sir"

ROBERTSON: I knew all about that.

INTERVIEWER: ...when appropriate. Is there anything else you learned in basic training?

ROBERTSON: No, but I'd like to mention a word about Junction City, Kansas which is the smallest, uh, nearest town we had to Riley. And I remember walking in there on Christmas Eve...

INTERVIEWER: What year are we talking about?

ROBERTSON: We're talking about 1942 still, December.

INTERVIEWER: Okay.

ROBERTSON: Snowy evening, I got leave, went into town, went to church, heard all these good stories, how people take lonely soldiers in, and you know, invite them to dinner and all that good stuff. I'll tell you something -- nobody said one word to me -- not even a Merry Christmas.

INTERVIEWER: Were you in uniform?

ROBERTSON: In uniform.

INTERVIEWER: Showing your outfit and everything?

ROBERTSON: Just a nice kid, you know. That just left such a bad taste in my mouth.

INTERVIEWER: Were you the only one?

ROBERTSON: Well, I was by myself that night. But in defense of Junction City, it's a small city in Fort Riley which is one heck of a big post and they were probably sick of soldiers. The other incident in Junction City -- a week before I went to a jewelry store there and I bought my mother a beautiful brush, mirror and comb set. I still remember that thing. It had blue backing with silver enamel on it. She wrote me about a month later and she said the whole thing had fallen apart, just paper inside of it.

INTERVIEWER: So much for this town in Kansas.

ROBERTSON: That's right. I was glad to leave it.

INTERVIEWER: Alright. Where did the army send you after basic training at this point?

ROBERTSON: Fort Bliss.

INTERVIEWER: Where is that?

ROBERTSON: El Paso, Texas. That was an old, old, old cavalry post.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. And there you received specialized training presumably.

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: In what?

ROBERTSON: Well, first on horseback and then regular infantry training after we dismounted. They took the horses away and said you're now dismounted cavalry.

INTERVIEWER: Which means you're an ordinary infantry soldier.

ROBERTSON: That's exactly what I said, I think we're infantry.

INTERVIEWER: And you had no specialized training either on a B.A.R. or something?

ROBERTSON: Oh yeah, we had all that regular infantry training. They had a course called Little Tokyo -- crawled on your stomach with live ammunition firing over your head. So we had pretty good training there.

INTERVIEWER: Was this the 1st Cavalry?

ROBERTSON: This was the 1st Cavalry.

INTERVIEWER: At this time, what army was it?

ROBERTSON: Well, I don't know that the 1st Cavalry then was assigned to an army.

INTERVIEWER: It was an independent unit?

ROBERTSON: Yeah. I think when we went overseas, then we became part of the 6th Army.

INTERVIEWER: How long were you at Fort Bliss?

ROBERTSON: From middle of January to May 29th.

INTERVIEWER: What year?

ROBERTSON: 1943.

INTERVIEWER: That's about 4 or 5 months.

ROBERTSON: Yeah. Uh huh.

INTERVIEWER: And you just received basic infantry training and nothing specialized?

ROBERTSON: Nothing specialized.

INTERVIEWER: What rank were you at the end of this?

ROBERTSON: Buck Private.

INTERVIEWER: Still a Buck Private?

ROBERTSON: Not even PFC, I don't think.

INTERVIEWER: Any specific incidents that stand out in your mind at Fort Bliss, either good or bad?

ROBERTSON: No. I loved El Paso. The people there were charming.

INTERVIEWER: You like the Texans better than the Kansans.

ROBERTSON: I liked the people of El Paso better than anybody I've ever met. They were great, very nice, at least to me. I've met some very nice families there.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. Besides that, no incidents good or bad that you can pick out in your memory?

ROBERTSON: No. The post itself was a beautiful environment. The only time I've ever heard TAPS played every night.

INTERVIEWER: Live or on record?

ROBERTSON: I think it was live.

INTERVIEWER: Bugler?

ROBERTSON: Bugler, very impressive ceremony.

INTERVIEWER: The lowering of the flag?

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: And the soldiers had to assemble?

ROBERTSON: No, not all of us. No. No.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. You're still in the cavalry and now you've finished several months of infantry training. What is the next stop?

ROBERTSON: Next stop is get on the boat to Australia.

INTERVIEWER: Alright. What boat and where?

ROBERTSON: It was an old Hawaii pleasure cruiser called the 'Maui', but it was no longer a pleasure to be on it.

INTERVIEWER: Was it converted into an army troop ship?

ROBERTSON: It was a troop carrier. Oh, yes. It stocked 5 deep and a mile long chow line, and it was just filthy dirty. Twenty-one day trip.

INTERVIEWER: Where did you debark from?

ROBERTSON: Uh, we left El Paso on a course to Mexico and Arizona and California, to Camp Stoneman, a little bit north of San Francisco.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, so they moved you by what, train?

ROBERTSON: Train. Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Train from Fort Bliss in Texas, El Paso, to Fort Stoneman, you said.

ROBERTSON: Camp Stoneman

INTERVIEWER: Camp Stoneman, which is outside of San Francisco. How long did you stay in Camp Stoneman? Or was it just a couple of days before you got on the ship?

ROBERTSON: Couple of weeks

INTERVIEWER: A couple of weeks.

ROBERTSON: A lot of paperwork, I remember that.

INTERVIEWER: That you had to fill out before they shipped you overseas?

ROBERTSON: You know, shots. Things like that.

INTERVIEWER: Processing kind of stuff.

ROBERTSON: Processing. Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: And you're still a Buck Private.

ROBERTSON: Still a buck....I was a Buck Private for a long time. I was not a good soldier.

INTERVIEWER: I was just going to say. Don't you sort of make PFC just be being there so long.

ROBERTSON: I don't know what I made. I made PFC and corporal very quickly. When I made PFC, I made corporal very quickly.

INTERVIEWER: But you were Buck Private for a long time.

ROBERTSON: Oh, for a long time.

INTERVIEWER: Why do you say you weren't a good soldier?

ROBERTSON: I was not good at anything mechanical.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. Well could you assemble?

ROBERTSON: I could...I could...I had a terrible time field stripping a gun.

INTERVIEWER: I was going to say, could you assemble and disassemble your rifle?

ROBERTSON: Given enough time, but I couldn't do it quickly.

INTERVIEWER: Were the sergeants always on your back? Telling you, "Robertson, you've gotta move fast otherwise you're gonna be a dead injun"!

ROBERTSON: I do remember one time at Fort Bliss, we had to pull out with our piece, our rifle and I had mine and had not assembled it. So I just thought I'll stay behind here in the tent. Well, they didn't miss me until I backed into a mess kit and with a loud clang and fell to the floor until the sergeant came rushing in. He said: "Okay, you're on troop duty".

INTERVIEWER: Is that punishment?

ROBERTSON: Yeah. KP and all that stuff.

INTERVIEWER: So you went into the service because you liked horses and you didn't do too well on the horses at first and then they put you in the infantry and you're not too great at taking apart your rifle and putting it together again.

ROBERTSON: I was a good shot. (laughter), but I didn't have to take it apart.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. Let's get back to the Hawaiian ship now. Eventually you got on it with several thousand other troops in your outfit or different outfits?

ROBERTSON: I think mostly it was 1st Cavalry.

INTERVIEWER: 1st Cavalry, and you say the crossing was not too great either.

ROBERTSON: The crossing was absolutely horrific!

INTERVIEWER: Three weeks I think you said, 21 days.

ROBERTSON: Twenty-one days and we debarked in Brisbane, Australia.

INTERVIEWER: Well, let's not debark yet. When you say it was miserable, you mentioned chow lines. Was it rough weather? Did you get seasick? Anything untoward happen?

ROBERTSON: It got a little rough. I didn't get seasick, a lot of people did. Guys were pretty miserable, but the worst part, the mess lines were too long. The water that we cleaned our mess kits in was filthy. It was a wonder that people didn't get sick from it. You would clean your mess kit and you just had a layer of grease on the bottom of it. A bit disgusting, but we survived and we were very glad to get off that ship.

INTERVIEWER: And you got off in Brisbane, Australia.

ROBERTSON: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Alright, now this is what month and what year are talking about approximately?

ROBERTSON: Well that would've been the middle of June...end of June.

INTERVIEWER: Of 1943.

ROBERTSON: 1943

INTERVIEWER: And you landed in Australia because that is about the only place we had a foothold in Southeast Asia at that time. The Japanese had driven the allies....

ROBERTSON: They were in New Guinea which is darn close to Australia.

INTERVIEWER: Was General MacArthur around when you got to Australia or you don't know?

ROBERTSON: I don't know, and he didn't ask for me.

INTERVIEWER: That's for sure. (laughter).

ROBERTSON: I did see him one time when.....

INTERVIEWER: What did you do when you got to Australia?

ROBERTSON: Well, we set up camp and started training again mostly, amphibious training.

INTERVIEWER: Amphibious? Learning how to get off a landing craft and jumping on a beach.

ROBERTSON: Go down the landing nets on the landing craft. Now at the same time, I was.....I have to go back a little bit.

INTERVIEWER: Go ahead.

ROBERTSON: When they took our horses away, we became infantry. Well they said: "What are we going to do with Robertson?". Oh, put him in the motor pool.

INTERVIEWER: Wait, stop....you said you weren't very mechanically oriented.

ROBERTSON: That's right.

INTERVIEWER: Didn't they know that? You knew it.

ROBERTSON: That's all I'd been thinking. Not only that, I had never driven a car. So the motor pool didn't work out too well. So when they um.....less than a week before we got on ship -- I was transferred to the 8th engineer combat squadron.

INTERVIEWER: Squadron did you say?

ROBERTSON: Squadron. Now we're talking cavalry.

INTERVIEWER: Not airplanes.

ROBERTSON: Squadron. I was a trooper in a squadron, not a soldier in a regiment.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. So how did the engineers work out?

ROBERTSON: Okay.

INTERVIEWER: What was your job?

ROBERTSON: I was never an engineer. As soon as we got to Australia, they looked up my records and said you're going to message center school. You're going to be a radio operator. And that's what I became.

INTERVIEWER: Radio operator.

ROBERTSON: For the rest of my term in the army, I was a radio operator.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. What does a radio operator do? Receive or send?

ROBERTSON: Send, both. On voice radio and on Morse code.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of instrument are we talking about? And what size?

ROBERTSON: Oh, we operated a lot out of weapon's carriers with radios mounted in them, but then it could be voice or Morse code with a key. I could do either one of those.

INTERVIEWER: Like a computer key?

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Keyboard?

ROBERTSON: ...deet deet, deet deet, deet deet ( tapping sounds )

INTERVIEWER: Oh, like Morse code. Dot, dot, dash, dash.

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Was this a self contained unit like a portable computer, laptop?

ROBERTSON: It was on a weapons' carrier

INTERVIEWER: A weapons' carrier.

ROBERTSON: If that's where it was. Yes. Now, other times it was just on the base some place.

INTERVIEWER: And you used it in connection with both, on the weapons and on the base by itself?

ROBERTSON: Pardon me.

INTERVIEWER: How did you use it? On a base or....

ROBERTSON: Oh, I used it both.

INTERVIEWER: Attached to a weapon?

ROBERTSON: No, a weapons' carrier.

INTERVIEWER: Carrier?

ROBERTSON: Do you know what a weapons' carrier is?

INTERVIEWER: No, explain that to me.

ROBERTSON: Oh, I'm sorry. I forget now if it's a 3/4 or a 1/2 ton truck. And the radio would've been mounted on the back of that truck.

INTERVIEWER: By itself or attached to something?

ROBERTSON: Attached to something.

INTERVIEWER: And you would be in the back of the truck?

ROBERTSON: I'd be in the back of the truck operating the radio.

INTERVIEWER: Pressing the keys to send messages?

ROBERTSON: The keys are used and a voice mike.

INTERVIEWER: A voice mike or pressing keys. That is for sending messages. How would you receive them?

ROBERTSON: The same way.

INTERVIEWER: Did you have earphones or something like that?

ROBERTSON: No, it would come over the radio. Then we would copy the message down. Normally, you'd encode of course.

INTERVIEWER: You transcribed the messages in code. Did you decode them or was that somebody else's job?

ROBERTSON: No, we could decode them. They were simple codes.

INTERVIEWER: And how did you learn how to do this?

ROBERTSON: We went to a school.

INTERVIEWER: Where was that? In Australia?

ROBERTSON: Yeah, uh huh.

INTERVIEWER: How long?

ROBERTSON: Oooh, long. It was a continuing process of education really.

INTERVIEWER: Several months.

ROBERTSON: I'd say it lasted that long. Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: And did you get the hang of it right away? Or did you have trouble?

ROBERTSON: No, I was good at that. I remember one of the tests we had would assess your capabilities. They would play a series of sounds and you had to identify them. Does this sound the same as the one prior to it? Was it different? They could tell pretty well if you had an ear for that sort of thing. With Morse code, there is a definite rhythm to it that you get or you don't get. If you get it, you're going to be good at it.

INTERVIEWER: Is that what it basically involved, Morse code or something similar to it?

ROBERTSON: It was more Morse code than anything else.

INTERVIEWER: So you had to learn all the dots and the dashes?

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: And you did.

ROBERTSON: Oh, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: And you did well in it?

ROBERTSON: I did really well. Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Did you get promoted this time or were you still a Buck Private?

ROBERTSON: No, I got promoted to PFC and then Corporal.

INTERVIEWER: After you had finished your training on the radio?

ROBERTSON: Yeah, I didn't get promoted until I got to the Philippines.

INTERVIEWER: Let's stay in Australia for awhile.

ROBERTSON: Okay.

INTERVIEWER: Now you're a radio operator and a good one. Assigned to your same units since you've been with since day one which is basically an infantry unit even though they call you cavalry.

ROBERTSON: It was the engineers attached to the cavalry unit.

INTERVIEWER: Okay.

ROBERTSON: With every division there's an artillery unit, a signal corps unit, an engineering unit -- they are all part of the division. In other words, we wore the 1st Cavalry patch.

INTERVIEWER: And you were assigned to the engineers. Any particular number company or just engineers?

ROBERTSON: The 8th engineer combat squadron and we had 4 troops and I was in headquarters troop for awhile and A troop for awhile.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, and now you are a radio operator and you're a corporal.

ROBERTSON: No, not yet.

INTERVIEWER: Still a Buck Private.

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Why are you in Australia and how long were you there, all totaled?

ROBERTSON: Not quite six months. Just about six months.

INTERVIEWER: And the war was not going too well for us at that time.

ROBERTSON: No, not real well. In fact, the Australians were still afraid of being invaded.

INTERVIEWER: They were. The Japanese were as far south as New Guinea.

ROBERTSON: That was a great fear then, when we were there, the papers were full of that because they were close and that they had the means to get there. That north coast of Australia is kind of wild. It's not well populated and they could've got a foothold there.

INTERVIEWER: And the Japanese were very close, just across a body of water into New Guinea. Correct?

ROBERTSON: Right.

INTERVIEWER: We're going to leave Australia now so is there anything else you want to say about your experiences there that we haven't covered?

ROBERTSON: Only that the people were lovely.

INTERVIEWER: You liked the Australians?

ROBERTSON: Very fond of the Australians. We met some lovely families there. I corresponded with them for the rest of the war.

INTERVIEWER: They were hospitable to the Yanks?

ROBERTSON: They were. Soldiers weren't too happy with us. The ordinary people liked us.

INTERVIEWER: The Aussies and the New Zealanders?

ROBERTSON: The Aussies were not real happy with us.

INTERVIEWER: Because you were on their turf and looking at their women?

ROBERTSON: Yeah. We had more money than they did.

INTERVIEWER: Just like the British and the American soldiers.

ROBERTSON: Overpaid, oversexed and over here. That old story.

INTERVIEWER: Same thing in Australia as it was in Britain.

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Anything happen good or bad besides those memories that you told us about?

ROBERTSON: No. We had interesting amphibious training in a place called New Castle which was south of Brisbane. And what was interesting there was that we were on an Australian ship. What I remember about that, besides the training, is that every morning, every morning for 10 days, we got stewed tomatoes for breakfast. I just thought that was the oddest thing.

INTERVIEWER: Just stewed tomatoes?

ROBERTSON: Just stewed tomatoes. Yeah and coffee or tea. Lunch and dinner were fine, but I thought that was very peculiar.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. Alright. Where do we go from Australia and when?

ROBERTSON: Just before Christmas.....

INTERVIEWER: Are we still in 1943.

ROBERTSON: This is '43. We went to New Guinea.

INTERVIEWER: Where there was fighting?

ROBERTSON: There was fighting, but we never had any part of it. We were there for less than two months. And again it was......I don't even know truthfully, I don't remember much about it except it was hot, humid and full of bugs and strange animals. It was all training. We never saw any combat.

INTERVIEWER: In New Guinea.

ROBERTSON: In New Guinea.

INTERVIEWER: Do you remember where in New Guinea specifically.

ROBERTSON: A place called Oro Bay.

INTERVIEWER: On the south coast, on the north coast, east coast, west coast?

ROBERTSON: It would've been the east coast central, I would guess. I looked it up on a map one time, but I forget.

INTERVIEWER: Is the terrain jungle or coastal.

ROBERTSON: It was all jungle and mountainous. Wet.

INTERVIEWER: And you say you received more training there?

ROBERTSON: The same type of training.

INTERVIEWER: Amphibious, beachhead landing, that kind of stuff? Only this time you have a MOS as a radio operator.

ROBERTSON: I'm still operating a radio.

INTERVIEWER: And you're able to send and transmit and receive the way you are supposed to? Everybody is happy with you now.

ROBERTSON: I think so yeah. I think that they're happy with me.

INTERVIEWER: Your fellow soldiers?

ROBERTSON: Oh yeah. They were good people.

INTERVIEWER: Non coms? Got along with them?

ROBERTSON: We were a very tight knit group in the radio section. It was almost like a cavalry within a cavalry. A lot of good spirit there.

INTERVIEWER: No trouble with the noncoms or the officers that you can recall or the enlisted men?

ROBERTSON: No. We were all good buddies.

INTERVIEWER: So you spent a couple of months training in New Guinea.

ROBERTSON: I'm trying to think back on one where we had some trouble. I shouldn't even mention his name. I think it was in Australia, I'll go back there if you don't mind.

INTERVIEWER: Go ahead, what kind of trouble?

ROBERTSON: Uh, there was one bully. I'm not going to give you his name. Short squatty fellow, had been a former prizefighter and he used to bully everybody, but he didn't bully me, for some reason he liked me, but he would particularly pick on this older man. He was probably only in his thirties. Thirty was old to us. And he just bullied him unmercifully. One day the older man picked up a rifle and shot old Roy right through the heart.

INTERVIEWER: You recall that?

ROBERTSON: I recall that. He just couldn't take it and I think he got what they call a section 8 and got sent home.

INTERVIEWER: Because of the mental problems. Did you know both of them?

ROBERTSON: Oh yes well. Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Were they in the unit, your outfit?

ROBERTSON: They were in the same troop I was in. Even with four troops -- that's not a whole lot of people and you know everybody really in the other troops.

INTERVIEWER: Okay.

ROBERTSON: Other than that I don't recall any trouble among any of the men. I think everybody was glad to see the victim where he was. I forgot about that until we just got started talking.

INTERVIEWER: Alright, we're on New Guinea, but we're going to leave New Guinea now.

ROBERTSON: We left New Guinea and went to the Admiralty Islands and that's where we had our first combat.

INTERVIEWER: Do you remember when you left New Guinea approximately?

ROBERTSON: No, but I know that it was about February 4th when we landed on the Admiralty.

INTERVIEWER: 1944 now?

ROBERTSON: 1944, early February.

INTERVIEWER: Where on the Admiralty Islands, in relation to.....

ROBERTSON: They're up the chain, north from New Guinea.

INTERVIEWER: North New Guinea.

ROBERTSON: Yeah that's where we first ran into MacArthur. He was on the boat that we came in on and was supposed to be what they call the RIF -- reconnaissance in force. They had a lot of Japanese on this island of Los Negros.

INTERVIEWER: In the Admiralties?

ROBERTSON: Yes and it was strategic because they had a very fine airfield there -- the Momote airstrip. So MacArthur wanted us to go in. He got us holding it at least for the night. Now I didn't go in that way, but the troops that went in held it and the next day he said to send the rest of the boys in and make sure they stay there. So we all came ashore the next day and that was our first day seeing kind of combat.

INTERVIEWER: When you say came ashore, was it an amphibious landing that you had been training on?

ROBERTSON: Yeah. Same type of thing.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of ship did you take to get from New Guinea to the Admiralty Islands?

ROBERTSON: LST.

INTERVIEWER: Landing craft.

ROBERTSON: Landing ship tank. Designed to carry troops and tanks -- heavy equipment.

INTERVIEWER: Did you have to carry your radio equipment or did you get that afterwards?

ROBERTSON: No, that came separately.

INTERVIEWER: You never had to lug around any heavy equipment other than what a normal soldiers do?

ROBERTSON: Only your rifle and your pack.

INTERVIEWER: You got the radio stuff when you debarked?

ROBERTSON: Right.

INTERVIEWER: Disembarked. I made up a word -- debarked. Now you say this is the first time you came under enemy fire?

ROBERTSON: That was the first time any of us did, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: As you were landing or subsequently?

ROBERTSON: No, no. The landing was easy. We controlled, the troops that had gone ashore the first day they controlled the beaches. It was my first view of dead Japs and there were heaps of them.

INTERVIEWER: From the army?

ROBERTSON: No, these particular Japs were Imperial Marines which were considered the elite of the Japanese fighting force. They were big boys, they weren't small Japanese. They lost a lot of men just in wild charges.

INTERVIEWER: Did you get involved personally in any skirmishes with the enemy?

ROBERTSON: No, never fired a shot.

INTERVIEWER: Then or ever?

ROBERTSON: I never, ever fired a shot. I was in situations where I could have -- things had happened, but I never fired a shot in anger.

INTERVIEWER: But you came under fire?

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: And the first time was the Admiralties?

ROBERTSON: The first time was the Admiralties.

INTERVIEWER: This particular island you mentioned?

ROBERTSON: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Where you landed? How long did you stay on that island?

ROBERTSON: We were in the Admiralties from February to October.

INTERVIEWER: That long? This one island that was held by the Japanese? Did it take that long to mop up?

ROBERTSON: No, it didn't take that long to mop up, maybe a month.

INTERVIEWER: So why stay there so long?

ROBERTSON: Cause of further training.

INTERVIEWER: Training again?

ROBERTSON: There was constant training.

INTERVIEWER: And when you say training, you say most often amphibious landings? Artillery radio training?

ROBERTSON: Radio training -- if you were an engineer, you had to have engineer duties to train in. Mines disposal. Bulldozing. Building. Bridge building, all that stuff that engineers do.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. And you specifically -- radio?

ROBERTSON: Now what they did with the radio people -- for instance I might be in Troop A -- maybe the 8th cavalry regiment squadron -- going into action. They might assign two of us to the 8th cavalry regiment squadron. So we could go as radio operators with a completely new outfit.

INTERVIEWER: Okay.

ROBERTSON: I know two of our boys went in the first wave of the Admiralty Island -- they both got medals out of it.

INTERVIEWER: For what reason?

ROBERTSON: I forget, but they did some outstanding work.

INTERVIEWER: Work involving combat or .....

ROBERTSON: They were in combat.

INTERVIEWER: Did you see any live Japanese or just dead ones on this island?

ROBERTSON: No, they were all dead when I saw them.

INTERVIEWER: No prisoners taken during your period there?

ROBERTSON: No. Prisoners were hard to come by. Intelligence wanted prisoners in the worst way, but they would not be taken alive. Not until late in the war did they start to surrender.

INTERVIEWER: When you mentioned MacArthur before, did he physically go on to this landing invasion with your outfit?

ROBERTSON: He came ashore the second day.

INTERVIEWER: Did you see him?

ROBERTSON: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: What was the contact? Was he walking on the water (laughter)?

ROBERTSON: No, we expected him to (laughter). No, he waded ashore like an ordinary old GI.

INTERVIEWER: From the landing craft?

ROBERTSON: From the landing craft. I saw him on shore -- his aides and other generals. They didn't stay long. They looked around.

INTERVIEWER: You saw him personally?

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Not close enough to salute him or anything?

ROBERTSON: No, not enough to say 'Hello, General', but he was a sight to see.

INTERVIEWER: Did he have his corncob pipe or anything like that?

ROBERTSON: I think...I tell you at that time, I think he developed a very special liking for our division.

INTERVIEWER: How so?

ROBERTSON: He favored us all through the war.

INTERVIEWER: McArthur did?

ROBERTSON: Yeah. He liked the 1st Cavalry division, he really did and when we later became the first troops to enter Manila, that sealed the bond you might say.

INTERVIEWER: Alright, so you're on the Admiralty Islands from February to October of 1944, mostly training.

ROBERTSON: That was an island with just native people on it.

INTERVIEWER: So there wasn't too much civilian contact?

ROBERTSON: No civilians. There weren't any civilians there. There weren't any towns there -- just native villages and the women were bare breasted, had their hair cut short just like the men. Except for the bare breasted you wouldn't even know they were female.

INTERVIEWER: Did anything happen that you can recall good or bad during your 10 months on this island?

ROBERTSON: No, it was just further training. We did have some Australian contingents with us who came later.

INTERVIEWER: To train with you or to train you?

ROBERTSON: They trained there too as I recall. What I remember about them was they always took their 4 o'clock tea break no matter what they were doing that is, a tea break at 4 o'clock. We never did learn the native languages or anything. We really had no contact with the natives.

INTERVIEWER: On this island?

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Were you a corporal by now? I forgot....

ROBERTSON: No, not until I got to the Philippines.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, you're still a Buck Private.

ROBERTSON: (laughter). I'm still a Buck Private.

INTERVIEWER: But you're doing a good job on your radio? No complaints?

ROBERTSON: I thought I was doing an excellent job.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, when and where did we leave -- and how did we leave the Admiralties?

ROBERTSON: Oh, we left the Admiralties for the invasion of Leyte on October the 20th, again on an LST.

INTERVIEWER: Now we're heading for the Philippines.

ROBERTSON: Yeah, and this was the first time I've ever seen a real armada of ships going up in a huge convoy -- stood offshore in the morning while the Navy just bombarded with violence.

INTERVIEWER: Was this the invasion of the Philippines when McArthur returned for the first time?

ROBERTSON: That's it.

INTERVIEWER: And you were part of the invasion force, your outfit and many others?

ROBERTSON: Oh, yeah. I forget how many there were -- we all had the, you know, you're assigned landing places and your objectives are to take a town called Tacloban.

INTERVIEWER: Where is this in relation to the Philippine islands?

ROBERTSON: Well it was on the island of Leyte which is one of the more southern islands.

INTERVIEWER: Was there a big battle in the Gulf of Leyte?

ROBERTSON: Yes, there was.

INTERVIEWER: Was that the battle that you were part of?

ROBERTSON: Well that was a naval battle.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. Army didn't have too much to do with it?

ROBERTSON: Not with that. We didn't even know about it until it was over. I'll tell you one thing is that if the Japanese had won that naval battle, it would have turned the tide on the whole thing. We would have been outnumbered by that time. We would've been in very sad shape if the Navy hadn't won that battle. As it was, Leyte was very, very tough fighting.

INTERVIEWER: Where did you get your beachhead -- establish a beachhead? Your outfit I mean. Did you land any place in particular?

ROBERTSON: A place called Palo, which is just a few miles south of Tacloban which was the objective.

INTERVIEWER: Under enemy fire or was it a peaceful landing?

ROBERTSON: I thought it was pretty peaceful. The battleships had provided a lot of cover. Now we didn't have much air cover. I don't remember any at all. The heavy guns of the ships did it -- and the rockets. Now, not when I went ashore in the first wave -- I always thought that as the safest way to go in because the bombardment does it's' job you can just walk ashore practically. For later waves, the defenders that rallied and they were in a better position to fight, but we had a pretty peaceful landing. I don't remember any casualties at all.

INTERVIEWER: 1st Cavalry?

ROBERTSON: 1st Cavalry. Now how the other divisions made out, I don't recall, but we had a pretty easy go of it. Now as we got further inland, they met much tougher resistance.

INTERVIEWER: How about you?

ROBERTSON: In what way?

INTERVIEWER: Did you come under enemy fire?

ROBERTSON: Only from aerial bombing.

INTERVIEWER: While you were on the Philippines?

ROBERTSON: Well, we were still........now, I was in a weapons carrier there -- doing radio work - coordinating units and things like that.

INTERVIEWER: In the back of a truck?

ROBERTSON: In the back of the weapons carrier and we were very close to the beach, but not on the beach. The single most thing that I remember afterward of my whole Army career was that bombardment on the beach.

INTERVIEWER: Aerial bombardment or ship bombardment?

ROBERTSON: The Japanese had air control then and they sent these so-called
'Betty Bombers' over and at that time the beach was full of oil drums, gasoline drums and tank supporter masters. We had to move inland and there were some terrible explosions on the beach.

Now I had a camera and I did a terrible thing really. I left the weapons carrier and ran down to the beach thinking I would take some pictures even though they were exploding all around us. That's when I saw a soldier running down the beach and he said, "Hey Mac, there's a wounded soldier back there on the truck". And I didn't think at the time, "Well, why don't you do something".

As I was saying, I wondered why this soldier didn't do something about the wounded soldier. I went down and there he was sitting in his truck, his arm blown off, almost up to the shoulder. He was fully conscious -- in shock. He said: "You got a cigarette, buddy?"

INTERVIEWER: Did you?

ROBERTSON: No, I didn't smoke. I said, "I'm sorry, but I think you ought to go to a hospital". So I took him up over my shoulder and carried him to a field hospital. I'll tell ya -- there were fires all over the place.

INTERVIEWER: Didn't they have medics or corps men on the beaches?

ROBERTSON: No. If they did, I didn't see them, but there was a field hospital anyway.

INTERVIEWER: How far did you have to carry him?

ROBERTSON: I don't remember.

INTERVIEWER: How did you carry him?

ROBERTSON: I just put him over my shoulder.

INTERVIEWER: Was he part of your outfit or a different one?

ROBERTSON: No, I imagine he was with the quartermasters, he was a truck driver -- that's why he was in the truck.

INTERVIEWER: Do you remember what rank he was?

ROBERTSON: Heck no.

INTERVIEWER: Do you know if he survived?

ROBERTSON: I don't know whether he ever lived or died and I've often wondered. At least several times a year I think about that and wonder if he did. But anyway we got to the field hospital and that was the end of that. When I got back to my unit, I was just drenched with blood.

INTERVIEWER: His blood.

ROBERTSON: Yeah. I remember it. All the guys rushing up to me saying, "God Rob, you've been hit?" And I said no and told them what happened. I got called in to the first sergeant the next day. I said, "I'm going to catch hell", but I didn't -- I left that weapons carrier and I shouldn't have -- I just went down to the beach almost on a lark.

INTERVIEWER: To take pictures you say.

ROBERTSON: Yeah, I was excited by all this stuff. I wanted to see.....

INTERVIEWER: Excited by all the artillery and the bombs exploding?

ROBERTSON: I wanted to see all this.

INTERVIEWER: Whose bombs were they? ...and rockets?....and shells?

ROBERTSON: There weren't rockets and shells. They were just aerial bombs from Japanese bombers.

INTERVIEWER: Bombing your .....

ROBERTSON: The rockets I mentioned were from our ships.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, so the Japanese Air Force was bombing.

ROBERTSON: They had control of the skies at that point and they were bombing the beaches and wherever they could bomb.

INTERVIEWER: Bombing the invading forces?

ROBERTSON: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Trying to dislodge them.

ROBERTSON: Sure. Now where was I? Oh, I thought I was going to catch hell. Instead the first sergeant said they're going to put you in for a Bronze Star. That's crazy.

INTERVIEWER: For helping that soldier.

ROBERTSON: I guess so. I don't know. You know, units liked to give medals out, it makes you look good. Actually if I'd had any rank, it probably should have been busted, but they couldn't bust you as a Buck Private.

INTERVIEWER: Okay.

ROBERTSON: So it was October and in August the organization, they finally got me a medal and I shook hands with the generals. It was nice.

INTERVIEWER: You got the Bronze Star?

ROBERTSON: I got the Bronze Star.

INTERVIEWER: For this particular act of bravery?

ROBERTSON: I don't think it was very brave in this situation.

INTERVIEWER: You have a citation that recites what you did?

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: You didn't bring it with you, did you?

ROBERTSON: I didn't bring it, no.

INTERVIEWER: In general, does it describe what you told us about helping this wounded soldier to get to a field hospital?

ROBERTSON: Well, I think the clerk corporal wrote it up. It was basically accurate, but he made it sound as if I had gone down there for that purpose which of course I had not.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. So tell us.....

ROBERTSON: Some armies, they would have said I deserted my post.

INTERVIEWER: You were never supposed to leave your uh.....

ROBERTSON: I was on duty. I had no right to go down to that beach.

INTERVIEWER: Unless somebody ordered you to.

ROBERTSON: Well I hope that it turned out that it saved a man's life. I don't know if it did or not.

INTERVIEWER: It doesn't give the soldier's name on the citation?

ROBERTSON: Oh, no. We don't do that and we moved on the next day.

INTERVIEWER: Where did you move to?

ROBERTSON: I couldn't tell you. Probably up past.....into Tacloban by that time.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, Tacloban. Did you eventually, your unit, take that city?

ROBERTSON: Oh, yes, yes. Now I don't know what the strategic importance of it was, but that was the town that we had to take.

INTERVIEWER: Okay.

ROBERTSON: Like most of those, it was just a leaping off place for the next town. In those days, we were on the move all the time.

INTERVIEWER: And were you called upon to use your radio to do various things?

ROBERTSON: Yeah, uh huh.

INTERVIEWER: This time it wasn't training, this was the real thing?

ROBERTSON: Oh, this was the real thing. Well it was the real thing on Los Negros too, the Admiralties. We used it there.

INTERVIEWER: But you told me there was no more fighting after the first time you got there.

ROBERTSON: There was fighting, but I wasn't involved in it.

INTERVIEWER: Okay.

ROBERTSON: It took about a month to mop it up.

INTERVIEWER: And the rest of the time...

ROBERTSON: Meanwhile the engineers were disbursed doing this and that and we kept in contact by radio.

INTERVIEWER: But on the Philippines you had to use your training in actual combat situations?

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Mostly in the truck or the other type of radio work?

ROBERTSON: If we were in one place long enough, we would set up inside a tent.

INTERVIEWER: Otherwise it was in a truck?

ROBERTSON: Otherwise we would operate out of a truck.

INTERVIEWER: As the troops were moving forward in battle. Okay. What happened next? I mean where else did you go in the Philippines besides this city that we've been talking about, that town?

ROBERTSON: I'll tell you what. You turn that off; I can read you the list of the towns we went to.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. Are you reading from a letter that you sent to your mother while you were in service?

ROBERTSON: Yeah and I'm telling her that we had reached Tacloban -- from then on until we reached the present camp life, it was just a succession of moves. From Leyte, it was Tacloban, Santa Rosa, Carigara, Tunga and a lot of various names I forget. Shortly after Thanksgiving I went over to Samar, that was an island adjacent to Leyte, and roamed around there until January 2nd, living in places like Calbiga, _____, Catbalogan, the capital and other towns. Catbalogan was one of the prettiest, cleanest cities I've seen. My Christmas was spent in Hinabagan, New Year's at Calbiga.

INTERVIEWER: New Year's 1945?

ROBERTSON: Yeah. That was -- I think I mentioned January 2nd, and very soon after that we invaded Luzon where the capital of Manila was.

INTERVIEWER: You mentioned that you never had to fire your rifle in all these engagements or you never did fire your rifle?

ROBERTSON: Now there were several times when I was on detached duty, I went on patrols and I was reading one letter on the Inland of the Manus in the Admiralties where I'd been on patrol with another guy from my unit for six days. Nothing ever happened, but we were in a situation where we could have been fired on or had to fire, but we didn't run across any. Now why we were on patrol, I have no idea -- we were obviously detached to another unit that was in combat, it was strange.

INTERVIEWER: How many men in the patrol?

ROBERTSON: Usually six to eight.

INTERVIEWER: Led by a noncom, corporal or sergeant?

ROBERTSON: Corporal or sergeant.

INTERVIEWER: And you're still a buck private?

ROBERTSON: No, about this time, I think it was on Leyte, I finally got PFC and then a corporal very soon after that, but then I got busted back to private again because we had some friends in the village -- this is in Luzon now, Lucena. This was when things had really calmed down and we were even showing movies at the squadron theatre. We had some Filipino friends at a place called the Victory Bar and Café in Lucena.

INTERVIEWER: Where was that, in Lucena?

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Which is on the islands...

ROBERTSON: That was in Luzon.

INTERVIEWER: Luzon

ROBERTSON: The capital... Anyway, I had taken the jeep out of the motor pool, unauthorized, gone to Lucena, picked up three girls, brought them back to the camp, let them see the movies, took them home, came back and the sergeant major was waiting for me. I made it so there was a big spotlight on me -- and I was back to troop duty -- digging ditches under the hot tropical sun.

INTERVIEWER: And they broke you in rank?

ROBERTSON: Oh, yeah, right down to buck private again.

INTERVIEWER: From corporal down to buck private?

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Back to where you started?

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: And what was the punishment beside the demotion?

ROBERTSON: Doing manual labor and I was out of the radio section temporarily. See the great thing about being in the radio section was it got us out of all the manual labor. We were just always on the radio doing that kind of work so to be busted down and to be back on manual labor was pretty rough on me I'll tell you.

INTERVIEWER: What did manual labor consist of?

ROBERTSON: Digging ditches and things like that. It's very hard manual labor. There is always some kind of work to done around camp that is nasty. After two weeks they put me back in the radio section. My punishment was over.

INTERVIEWER: Alright and the unit eventually moved on.

ROBERTSON: Well we were in Luzon from January up until the very end of the war. Now we were again in very intensive amphibious training because we thought we were going to be on the Japanese invasion. The war was winding and there was nothing left almost between us and the mainland of Japan. That's where we were headed next.

INTERVIEWER: You mentioned that you were one of the first to enter Manila to liberate the city. Tell us about that.

ROBERTSON: There was a great race between all the divisions to see who could get to Manila first. The 43rd and one of the airborne divisions were sliding their way along the roads, fighting and I think it was our General Chase said, "Men, we're going load up all the vehicles and just barrel down the highway -- we're not going to stop for anything!" and that's what we did, It took two days to get to Manila. Could have been ambushed, but it didn't happen.

INTERVIEWER: Was this under enemy fire or was it peaceful?

ROBERTSON: It was fairly peaceful. They had some skirmishes along the way, but nothing serious so we were the first troops down in Manila.

INTERVIEWER: The 1st Cavalry liberated Manila?

ROBERTSON: Yeah. They also liberated Santo Tomas where they had a number of prisoners of war.

INTERVIEWER: That was an allied prisoner of war camp?

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Did you see any of the prisoners of war?

ROBERTSON: No, I did not. I met some later though. They were in pretty bad shape.

INTERVIEWER: Were these the original Bataan and Corregidor...?

ROBERTSON: Some were -- not Corregidor. A lot of them, well there were some Russians there. I never heard the full story of why they were there.

INTERVIEWER: Russia didn't enter the war...

ROBERTSON: No, these were women, Russian women. They were some missionary people ever since the war began at Santo Tomas.

INTERVIEWER: So, you, uh....

ROBERTSON: That's a great story, if you ever get a chance to read about it -- The Liberation of Santo Tomas. It's a story in itself.

INTERVIEWER: Is there a special book about it?

ROBERTSON: I've read it somewhere. There is a book about it, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: And that's where the concentration camp was, for allied soldiers.

ROBERTSON: Right.

INTERVIEWER: And the 1st Cavalry liberated them?

ROBERTSON: Liberated them? Now I had no part in that. It was one of the other squadrons of the 1st Cavalry that did it, but it was still the division credit.

INTERVIEWER: What were you doing while they were liberating?

ROBERTSON: Oh, the same old stuff, radio stuff.

INTERVIEWER: And now again you are in training you said?

ROBERTSON: Yeah, we were in training...

INTERVIEWER: There's no combat involvement with the enemy at this point in time?

ROBERTSON: Oh yeah, there's still a lot of fighting going on in Luzon.

INTERVIEWER: But not you particularly?

ROBERTSON: Not me particularly, not the 8th engineers in particular. 1st Cavalry was involved in it. That's the division. Now I want to tell you what happened on part of the amphibious training. It was interesting.

We were on a U.S. Navy vessel practicing coming down the rope ladders and on the landing craft type of things that we had done a dozen hundred times before, but we used to get our news over the loud speakers from the Navy personnel. They used to play a lot of jokes on us, you know. They had stories that would get us all excited, you know.

So one day in August they told us about this huge bomb that had destroyed a whole city in Japan, Hiroshima and we said, "Oh, yeah sure. The war is over, yeah we believe that!" Of course we didn't believe it, we knew that was a Navy trick, but then the next day we did hear it over the Armed Forces radio. We really didn't think that had to be the end of the war.

INTERVIEWER: Now this is August of 1945?

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: All this time from January til August you were in the Philippine Islands?

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: And you ended up in Manila or ...?

ROBERTSON: No, we entered Manila in February of '45.

INTERVIEWER: What did you do in August?

ROBERTSON: Trained.

INTERVIEWER: In Manila or different places?

ROBERTSON: Oh no, no. Manila took a ....we entered Manila, but there was still months of fighting in Manila. Manila at the time was the most heavily mined city in the world. There had been some in Italy that used to say that Manila was; the Japs retreated and mined every street and that's what the engineers said. Go sweep those and remove the mines. Very, very dangerous work which I had no part of. I had my little radio. The guys in our 8th engineer combat squadron had a lot to do with it -- removing those mines. In return, the squadron got a presidential unit citation. That's something to be really proud of.

INTERVIEWER: Was that your squadron?

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: And you got that too?

ROBERTSON: I got it because I was part of the squadron.

INTERVIEWER: But you weren't involved in the mine work?

ROBERTSON: No, but it was still part of the liberation of the Philippines.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, so now you got a bronze star and presidential citation.

ROBERTSON: A bronze star is worth 5 points which is toward rotation which was the big thing with me, not getting the medal, but 5 points worth. I just thought that was great, it would get me home earlier.

INTERVIEWER: But the war ended?

ROBERTSON: Yeah. The war ended and I didn't get home earlier.

INTERVIEWER: And when the war ended in August/September of 1945, where were you?

ROBERTSON: Still in the Philippines and then we -- as I told you earlier, we sailed to Japan and we were outside of Tokyo in the bay, Tokyo Bay the day they signed the surrender documents.

INTERVIEWER: Did you see the U.S.S Missouri in Tokyo Bay?

ROBERTSON: I couldn't identify it. Now I would like to read you a part out of my letter because I savor the selection.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, we'll start.

ROBERTSON: I mentioned these letters to my mother -- leaving the Philippines with a convoy --heading to Japan and we had to turn back at one point because of word of a typhoon somewhere off Okinawa. We steamed back to Subic Bay, just above Manila, and from Leyte out until Friday morning.

Then I write:
"We entered Tokyo Bay in the morning of September 2nd and commenced preparations for unloading. As we lay at anchor in these hostile waters, surrounded in great part by the American Pacific fleet, the squads and the B-29's splintered above us, then another and another. Still more. (I'm a little embarrassed at this writing here, but that's the way I used to write). Those silver giants at whose memory Japs will tremble for years to come. From another direction, planes from Navy carriers roared over us, ripping what was left of the early morning quiet into blithering shreds.

We began disembarking the afternoon. At 5 o'clock, I clambered over the side of the ATA-119, descended a swaying rope ladder, dropped into a waiting LCM. LCM's use partitions of their landing craft large enough to hold two jeeps or a truck or about 50 men. This particular one carried the S2 jeep and trailer and six men. I'm attached to S2 as radio operator for this operation. The water of the bay was dark, muddy, brown and choppy. The gray angry sky glowered over us; swollen, frowning clouds promised rain before the day was over.

It was cold. I was glad I had worn my undershirt. I was wishing I had a field jacket. Our craft wasn't riding the waves very well. It would hang for a moment on the crest then pull off with a solid thump that sent a shower of salt water flying over us. Another LCM bearing American officers and two grinning Japs sped by heading for one of the battle wagons. The nips were eating American K-rations. Grimaced Walsh, standing next to me, 'I hope they make the bastards seasick!' Walsh doesn't like Japs.

Ahead of us was the first of two large concrete breakwaters. They extended from both sides of the bay with a gap of perhaps about 200 yards in the center through which shipping passes. A red round tape room signal tower, 50 or so feet high, marked the right side of the channel -- the white one on the left side. The lamp on the white tower winked three times at us as we coasted under it. Entering the channel brought us into what might be called the anteroom of the Yokohama harbor district. Another mile flowed under us, egging us through the last breakwater, providing us with our first close study of the Japanese mainland.

Burnt out skeletons of factories and warehouses stood gaunt and bare against the shore. Dead companions of the blackened shells of the Japanese ships dotting the Bay's dreary water. Captain Long, Sergeant Byrd and I drove all over Yokohama and made so many trips back and forth between that city and the squadron disbursal area that we didn't get to bed until 3 in the morning. We had to rise at 5, but even a two hour sleep was refreshing."

I mentioned the 1st Cavalry as part of the 8th Army now the 6th Army is going to occupy Southern Japan.

INTERVIEWER: Okay.

ROBERTSON: That's the way it looked then. That was September 2nd and I was in Japan until October the 10th.

INTERVIEWER: When did you get your rank back? Before or after...

ROBERTSON: I forget when I made corporal and I didn't make sergeant until just, oh, I think it's...just before we left Luzon.

INTERVIEWER: The Philippines?

ROBERTSON: Yeah so I didn't hold it for very long -- but enough to put sergeant on my last letter.

INTERVIEWER: Now, um, how did you get from Japan back to the States?

ROBERTSON: On an APA boat. We left on October the 10th.

INTERVIEWER: Of 1945?

ROBERTSON: Of 1945.

INTERVIEWER: What did you do for that month that you were in Japan?

ROBERTSON: I wasn't there a month, we were there, uh, ....it was a month, yeah. September 2nd -- October 10th. What I remember about that -- it was cold, wet and dreary.

INTERVIEWER: Did you stay on the ship or....?

ROBERTSON: No, we stayed in a....seemed to me.....in a warehouse. We stayed in a warehouse.

INTERVIEWER: What city?

ROBERTSON: With cots. That was in Tokyo. We had landed in Yokohama, but moved to Tokyo. Now Manila we put up the famous sign, "You are entering Manila, courtesy of the 1st Cavalry" which made all the other divisions absolutely hate us.

INTERVIEWER: Did you see MacArthur in the Philippines?

ROBERTSON: No. We never got a chance to see him say: "I have returned".

INTERVIEWER: You took an APA troop transport back to the States from Tokyo?

ROBERTSON: Uh huh. From Tokyo back to Camp Stoneman.

INTERVIEWER: Same place you had...

ROBERTSON: Same place we had left.

INTERVIEWER: Now how long did you stay there?

ROBERTSON: Too long because I missed one train back because I was in the PX when I should have been waiting in the barracks so I didn't get back to Pennsylvania until November.

INTERVIEWER: Where were you mustered out of the Army?

ROBERTSON: In Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania.

INTERVIEWER: Is that the same place that you were processed in?

ROBERTSON: No, that was Cumberland.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, but back home...

ROBERTSON: Geographically they are very close.

INTERVIEWER: And you were discharged on?

ROBERTSON: November the 13th.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I got your discharge papers here and it refers to T 4, is that the sergeant...

ROBERTSON: That's sergeant, technical sergeant.

INTERVIEWER: Technical sergeant was the rank that you had when you were discharged?

ROBERTSON: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. And it says here you were with the 8th Engineers Squad, 1st Cavalry Division. Date of separation was 12 November 1945.

ROBERTSON: Twelfth...I was a day off.

INTERVIEWER: And it says that you were inducted on October the 8th of 1942. I guess that's right, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and your occupation in service was radio operator and that you received the following recognition, medals and citations: the Bronze Star medal; Good Conduct medal; Philippine Liberation Ribbon with two Bronze Stars; Asiatic Pacific Service medal with four Bronze Stars. Were all these unit citations except for the Bronze Star that you told us that you got individually?

ROBERTSON: No, the stars on the ribbons are campaigns.

INTERVIEWER: Okay and the battles: the Philippines Islands; New Guinea; Bismarck; Archipelago -- where is that?

ROBERTSON: That would be the Admiralties.

INTERVIEWER: And then Luzon. Those are the four that are listed. The date of separation you told us about. The period of service was two years, four months and 25 days.

ROBERTSON: Should be three years, I also figure three years, one month and five days.

INTERVIEWER: Service schools attended was signal corps, message center school (six weeks complete). Which one was that?

ROBERTSON: That was in Australia.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. The signal corps was part of the United State Army?

ROBERTSON: The signal corps operated the school.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see, but you weren't in the signal corps.

ROBERTSON: No.

INTERVIEWER: Okay.

ROBERTSON: Could've been. I was offered.

INTERVIEWER: Alright Mr. Robertson, is there anything else you want to tell us about your service or experiences that we haven't covered?

ROBERTSON: Like a lot of people, I was glad I was there, but I wouldn't do it again.

INTERVIEWER: As far as the training you received at these various locations, would you say it was adequate?

ROBERTSON: Do you mean my military training?

INTERVIEWER: Yes and your specialty training.

ROBERTSON: The specialty training was, but I don't know about the cavalry training. On horseback I was.....

INTERVIEWER: Whose fault was that? (laughter). You or the horse?

ROBERTSON: (laughter). I think it was the war department.

INTERVIEWER: They put you in the wrong place.

ROBERTSON: That they would even have horses in 1942! You know a lot of people don't believe that, as late as that. They actually trained soldiers on horseback and old fashioned cavalry charges.

INTERVIEWER: Did you retain your affection for horses after you left service?

ROBERTSON: Oh, I love horses. I love them.

INTERVIEWER: To this day?

ROBERTSON: I rode only once after I got out of the Army. That was just to impress my girlfriend.

INTERVIEWER: Okay.

ROBERTSON: Whom I later married.

INTERVIEWER: And did you use any of your service experience in later life, any jobs, any radio experience or did you go into another line of work?

ROBERTSON: There wasn't much call for cleaning out stables.

INTERVIEWER: That's the horse part...

ROBERTSON: (laughter). Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: What about the radio part?

ROBERTSON: No, I never did anything with that. It was fun. I still remember Morse Code and every now and then, I'll look at a newspaper headline and just give it the "dit dot".

INTERVIEWER: Didn't they stop Morse Code officially about a couple of years ago or a year or so ago?

ROBERTSON: No, they still use Morse Code.

INTERVIEWER: They still use it?

ROBERTSON: Sure they do.

INTERVIEWER: As a method of communication for ships at sea or in general?

ROBERTSON: I think it is still in use worldwide for a lot of things.

INTERVIEWER: Do you still remember it?

ROBERTSON: Yeah, sure.

INTERVIEWER: Did you retain any contacts with your fellow soldiers over the years?

ROBERTSON: Over the years, but not -- it's been years since that stopped. I'd say for the first 10/15 years, we maintained some contact.

INTERVIEWER: With friends in service.

ROBERTSON: With friends in service and after I got out of course, then the GI Bill of Rights kicked in and I went to college and later to law school. Much later to law school.

INTERVIEWER: And when you returned home you lived with your parents for awhile?

ROBERTSON: With my parents while I worked, yes. That was Philadelphia and in 1956, I moved to Baltimore.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. I think that about does it.

ROBERTSON: Okay, good.

INTERVIEWER: Thank you for coming down today. The interview has concluded at 3:30 pm on July 17, 2001.