Interview with Roland Vandale by Lisa M. Lysik for the World War II Oral History Project, Center for Oral History, University of Connecticut, November 6th, 2001

 

Lysik: Okay, I guess let’s start from the beginning, when and where were you born?

 

Roland Vandale: I was born right here in Danielson, right near the railroad tracks, the corner of.  I was born there and I went to St. James School for a while, Catholic school.  And we moved to Norwich, and I went through Falls School, which they called it.  Falls school is a...a public school and I went through there in 7th and 8th grade, then Norwich Free Academy after that.  That was the end of that deal.  Then I started going into the National Guard, and I went to trade school and learned to be a carpenter.  I went there to learn to be a machinist.  And I worked as a contractor, and I worked for a lot of contractors in Thompson, Thompson...really good contractors.  Excellent.  And I worked for them and I was in business together with John Navaro, who was a wonderful contractor here.  I went to...we were in business together.

 

LL: How about your parents? What were their educations?

 

RL:  That’s something that is pretty vague to me.  My mother died when I was about seventeen, maybe sixteen.  We were living in Norwich, and she died then.  My father, I left my home then…I came to live with my sister, who was living in Balouville, CT, up around near Dayville someplace, and those places.  And I went to trade school and like I said I went to be a carpenter and I joined the National Guard.  After that, I think I was 20 years old and the National Guard was getting ready to leave.  I think they were getting their troops together and we left from there.  We used to train here in Putnam.  We used to do calisthenics right here over near the town. [Laughter]  Had an old barn for an armory and that was about two weeks.  On a Sunday we left.  We went to Florida…Kent…Fort Belvier.  Oh, not Belvier, not Ft. Belvier.  Kent Landing and…[pause] we were federalized, which brought us into the regular army from there and in fact when we first went down there, we were federalized.  And we were units.  They gave us our uniforms and our weapons.  And we were using uniforms and weapons of the First World War when we first [laughter] went there.  The rifles, [laughter] were all first war, world war vet rifles and the uniforms were all the old tunics you’ve seen that button up here [gestures to ½ the way up his neck] and breeches [pause]… It’s the old World War I uniforms till and after that then they started changing.  You know, changing the uniforms over?  And then we went into maneuvers from there.  We were in different maneuvers of Louisiana [pause], Louisiana, Carolina [pause], and uh, Texas [pause], and then let’s see…from there…then…before, then, I went to Mississippi…camp…Mississippi, regular camp...fort, I don’t know, Ft. California…I forgot the name of the camp.  We were there for a while then.  And from there I went to school, officer school. [Pause]

 

LL: Were you drafted, or did you enlist?

 

RL: No, I enlisted.  I enlisted in the National Guard and I worked my way up through that and I went to officer school.  You had to go before a board of different armored force, engineer’s infantry.  They all had hearings like it’s a...they call them boards, but they were actual hearings, and you appeared before them and they select the ones they want to go, they think should go to officer school.

 So, I left from there and I went to Ft. Belvier, Virginia [pause] training, and we were known then as a candidate.  First thing they did when you were moved in there, came into Ft. Belvier, they ripped all the insignias off your sleeves.  You were nothing, but a candidate then and had no other...talked to…addressed you as a private, or corporal, or whatever it is, sergeant, there’s just plain candidate.  And from there you went to training school for 90 days and that’s what they used to call 90 Day wonders.  And that was an engineer outfit.  And in those days they used to have…square divisions.  Well, maybe I am getting ahead of myself, but then we went there for nine west, and that was what they were running those places like…finer arm, like WestPoint.  In other words, you ran around one place to another.  They dumped a mattress and the blankets, and the pillows on your back, and you ran with them. 

And we used to go to different training classes; map-making; infantry tactics, and we had dabbled in engineering.  We ran into heavy equipment machinery.  You had to learn how to run everything.  And, let’s see…map-making, then artillery…we had to learn a little bit of artillery.  So in other words, they stuffed everything into you in 90 days.  And you were on different maneuvers with them, and the biggest test they had was a 48-hour problem, I guess.  And you marched for forty days…forty-eight hours, I guess steady, nothing to eat, just a little soup.  That’s how they weeded out some of the ones that couldn’t make it [laughter].  And we got through that and I was commissioned and …uh…June twenty-fourth, June Twenty-fourth, 1942.  I was 2nd lieutenant.

 

LL: How did your wife feel about you entering?

 

RL:  Well, I was single when I entered the National Guard, and federalized.  I got married after I was commissioned, in fact, two, three days after I was commissioned we were married.  And she traveled with me, when I was in the states.  We went to my first station; it was in Neosho, Missouri.  That was my first station.  That was not a camp.  We set up camp there, and you trained in the desert.  And we did road construction there and everything.  We built hospitals.  We did the road sections over there, the building of the roads, and the barracks, we did one for the hospitals.  And my wife traveled with me.  She came with me to the graduation, of course.  And then she came with me to… let’s see, the first time was [unclear], Missouri.  In fact, she stayed in Neosho, Missouri, if I remembered it right.  And also, other places in Missouri.  In those days, it wasn’t like it is now, you know.  They didn’t have all these big highways and everything else.  And from there, I was getting ready to leave, to go to see the…some of the scenes…well I am getting ahead of myself. 

We trained in the desert, had to live out there and flying in the mountains.  And after we got through that, we came east.  I guess it was.  There was a sign through the [pauses], oh let me into myself, now when we were first commissioned on what they used to call square divisions in those days.  Now, everything was in the squares in those days.  Now after I was commissioned, we were there for a while, they changed it to what they used to call triangular divisions.  There were 3 units: regiment, battalion, and company.  And we were assigned, and that’s when this came about [shows me a book of his operations].  Then, my unit, which was a battalion in those days, was assigned as a battalion, when all the battalions, and this is our insignia here [points to the cover of the book], a griffon.  We had to design it, get it approved in Washington, and everything, so that we could have a patch on our shoulders. 

 

LL:  How did you pick it?  How did you pick the griffon, do you remember?

 

RL:  Well, we had a, one of the officers in the outfit was a schoolteacher, one time an art teacher.  And he’s the one that did the artwork in it.  And then it had to be approved of course, and that was where we got our name.  We made them up patches.  That was our unit after that, griffon.  Then we were combat battalions at that time, before that we were general service.  Am I going to fast for you?

 

LL:  Oh, no.  The tape will get it all.

 

VL:  All right.  We were in general service.  I was just, like I say, a square division.  After, we got to a triangular division.  We were assigned as combat engineers.  Now, the duty of a combat engineer was that during an operation, you landed with the troops.  And you were in combat for a while.  In fact, we used to handle shore party.  Have you ever heard of that red, white, and blue beach?

 

LL:  Yes.

 

VL:  Okay, those are what they call shore parties.  And you handle one of the beaches.  I handled three of them.  That was three separate operations.  And, let’s see [unclear].  So anyway, where was I?

 

LL:  The shore parties, the three operations.

 

VL:  Yeah.  We were a shore party.  But what that involves, is when a company lands, or when a regiment, or division lands, you establish shore parties.  A shore, such as red, white, and blue beach…[pause]…you established your beach, you had a navy working for you, single core, and you had your own officers working with you.  I was a first lieutenant for the first one.  And I was made captain for the other two, and you worked together.  In other words, when a ship comes in with troops or supplies they would have to go through each beach; red beach, blue beach, and then have to land it.  And we would take them in and camouflage them.  There were troops, and we would send out many of the wounded with it.  And those that had been wounded would have to go back.  And, we took supplies.  We took heavy equipment, bulldozers; everything that landed through that place came over to our beach.  And we established what we used to call dumps in those days, like supplies, our ammunition, things that we moved to different places.  And anybody that had heightened material came into us.  We’d assign them.  The many troops that came in with it, they were colonel, the general; they took orders from the captain of who was in charge of the beach.  He couldn’t go over his head at all.  In fact, a lot of the times, one time, I chewed the colonel’s ear [laughter] for how to [unclear], to try to figure out on the beach, but we had the navy with us.  And they would call in the ship, you know, to send in whatever it is; the navy was a young naval officer digging foxholes in the beach.  And they would hide themselves in there with their radio, and we’d tell them, well, you know to send somebody else in.  And the signal, of course, worked for the army.  They all had their stations on one of each beaches, There would be the assignments and…

 

LL:  What were the beaches, the names, do you remember?

 

RL:  No.  All I remember them by is red beach, white beach, and blue beach.  France and everything called it Omaha, or something like that.  But we didn’t have names like that.  These are all islands.  And, so that’s why they never assigned any one a name.  But, that part ended.  Then we reverted to rebuilding bridges.  And we assigned to for instance, to reinforce bridges, ‘cause that’s one of the things they taught you in school, is how to figure out how big of timber you’d have to have to use tanks over a certain bridge.  Now you could reinforce them, or you could rebuild them, so that the tanks and heavy equipment could go through.  So, that was our assignment. 

After the troops had landed, and after that, we’d revert to different things; patrolling, and stuff like that, as well.  I was gone one time for 48 hours, just drinking coconut juice, and things like that.  Then we came in.  We’d be out there patrolling about the islands. The 1st island we ever landed in was Guam.  I’m pretty sure that’s it.  That’s the one here [Mr. Vandale points to Guam on the map in his book].  We landed in Guam first.  First, we stayed in Hawaii for a couple of months.  We staged, that’s what they called staging, because when you got there, you used to get all the equipment you needed.  And you assigned your troops and all that [unclear].

 

LL: Was this after the attack on Pearl Harbor?

 

RV:  Right after Pearl Harbor.  In fact, I had an officer, a friend of mine that was in Scofield barracks.  He was Captain Lutz.  I don’t know if he’s alive today or not.  He lived in California and worked for the state also.  And it was right after that we landed in Guam, which is over here [Mr. Vandale points to Guam on the map].  And from there we went through all the other islands: Philippines, Okinawa, IE Shima.  It was island hopping.  It’s all listed here [Mr. Vandale refers to the book].  You’ll see an arrow on these places.  And after that, we were there for quite a while.  And we were, I think at our power, headquarters in [unclear].  That was our battalion headquarters.  And we were all there when the war ended in Japan.  We were at our headquarters, and everybody was shooting all over the place.  The navy was out in the port.  They were shooting things up into the air.  It looked like a big fireworks display.  You didn’t dare go outside.  You’d get hit with things coming back down again [laughter].  You’d stay in.  But, after that it was cleaning up, and well doing the operations wasn’t it.  Some of the islands, we used to build.  In fact, you’ll see the pictures in there [Mr. Vandale points to book].  We used to build roads, and we didn’t use any material on some of them in the beginning.  We used to use coconut logs and lay them cross way because of the mud, and keep going through them.  We used to call them corduroy roads because there were logs placed down opposite sides.  Parallel, not parallel, but opposite in the direction they were going.  But, you had to because of the mud.  Because this equipment would come in from the water, when they dumped something heavy.  But, when they dumped that from the ship, they didn’t come up to the shore to let them off.  They dumped them out in the ocean.  And they’d come in the water loaded with [unclear] equipment, in fact all of it.  They used to call it fireproof, not fireproof, waterproof.  Then, all the vehicles that came in…where the vehicle could actually run in the water.  They disconnected everything; fly wheel, fan belt, and everything else.  And everything was sealed and the exhaust would be…[pause] and the pipes sticking up out of the water.  And [laughter] you’d see them coming in through the ocean water, and all you’d see was the pipes sticking up, and sometimes you’d see the guy’s head on top of the water.  And he’d drive that thing underwater until he came ashore.  He wouldn’t land it until the place was secured. 

And we’d used to see a lot of Jap planes there, when we were on the beach.  We used to see them flying by.  In fact, they’d fly so low where they’d shoot at us, that you could actually see the pilot in the airplane.  And we used to shoot down some of them.  And, in fact I have a piece of the plane.  [Mr. Vandale leaves the room to retrieve this piece].  It’s a letter opener.  The word Guam is printed on the side [Mr. Vandale shows a part of the Japanese plane that has been made into a letter opener].  A school teacher/ officer, used to take wax and put them on the handles, and then carve it out, and then put acid on them.

 

LL:  And did it come from the plane, the Japanese plane?

 

RV:  And, it came from the Japanese plane.

 

LL:  Was it a plane that was shot down?

RV:  Yeah, we hit it.  The Japs were a funny bunch of people when we were fighting.  They were, this isn’t the right word to use maybe, but they were a dirty bunch of people.  They used to fight dirty.  They’d hide in caves, and dig themselves in.  You ‘d have to go in after them [unclear].  In fact, they used to dig tunnels, and they’d take, they had homemade ladders going into the opening of the tunnel.  And they’d crawl underneath the ground.   And we used to have to throw hand grenades down there.  And we’d get them all, either that, or we used to have fire throwers in those days, like an oil combination with something else.  And we’d light it, and it’d shoot out a stream of fire about from here to the road over there, [Mr. Vandale motions to the road outside the window] I guess.  And you’d shoot that into the holes, or the tunnels, or the caves where they were hiding in.  And you’d get them out that way, one way or another.  And then, some of them used to leave all kinds of booby traps.  They used to take 500 lb bombs and bury them in the ground.  And they’d leave three little whiskers coming out of the ground, on the end of it.  That’s all you saw was the three whiskers in the ground.  You had to be careful where you walked and everything else, until it was all secure.

 

LL:  Did a lot of people step on them?

 

RL:  Some people did, yeah.  But, after you’d been there a while, you were trained to watch for all that stuff.  In fact, you were out the front somewhere, and you’d string wires around your perimeter, hitting all kinds of [unclear], or hand grenades, or [unclear].  They’d hit the wire and go off, wake everybody up.  You’d have to have perimeter behind you at night.  You’d always set up a perimeter.  And I was assigned one time; I forgot what island I was on.  After the three operations, I was moved up to the staff, as what they used to call the assistant division engineer in those days.  I used to represent the colonel at the regimental headquarters.  You were always assigned to a regiment as far as battalions go.  And whenever we came to an operation, I used to have to drop all my equipment, and take a couple of men with me, and hike up to the regimental headquarters.  And from there, I’d send back messages, passwords, and things like that.  And that was my memories: running around the jungle up there.  It was all jungle.  Sometimes, you’d walk on an area in training, and you’d walk up on roots -and you’d walk halfway up the trees before you’d knew you were off the ground.  The natives always carried…[pause]…they’d always had a bunch of goats on those islands.

 

LL:  Would they run around free, the goats?

 

RV:  Well, the natives were gone, but the goats were still there.  And they used to be lousy with fleas.  We used to get all the fleas they had [laughter].  The fleas would crawl all over you.  I guess it is funny, but then…after that, let’s see…everybody was going home anyway.  They had a point system there.  It started while, if you been there a certain length of time.  If they could relieve you, they’d send you home.  Depending on how far the point system went, I wasn’t moving.  So, everybody else in my outfit was leaving.  The officers were going, and I wasn’t moving.  So, I went down to the headquarters to find out why.  And they said, “You should’ve been gone a long time ago!”  What the problem was that the colonel wanted to go, and he wanted me stay and take his place.  That’s why I wasn’t pushed to go, and see I had my points.  I left.  I left then.

 

LL:  What year was it?

 

RV:  About ’46, I guess.  I was commissioned in ’42, and I was a major in ’46.  Oh, after that I got home a while.  Of course, I went into carpentry and things like that.  We moved into an apartment and had a child by then, a boy.  And during and before that my wife traveled with me everywhere.  She’d find a place to live in town somewhere.  And she’d stay in Ft. Kent, Virginia Beach.  She’d stay a while, even when she was pregnant. 

 

LL:  Would you have a lot of contact with her when you were on the islands?

 

RV:  Overseas, she never came with me.  This is the States.  Overseas…no.

 

LL:  Would you write back and forth?

 

RV:  You could write.  Although, your letters were all censored.  In fact, we used to have to censor them, and then in the company’s letters.  You’d block off everything in the letter you were not supposed to say, or tell anybody.  You’d block them off with those pencils they had.  We’d block it with those pencils.  And you had to do that because some of them would tell everything.  They’d tell you where they were and everything else.  They weren’t supposed to.  But, you could write.  You’d get letters.  And, on Thanksgiving they had for you, the celebration on Thanksgiving and…[pause]…but I remember one time, we had a big Thanksgiving Day dinner.  And everybody got sick because the turkeys were bad.  Everybody got sick and had to go to the hospital…oh jeez…So, I don’t particularly care for chicken.  I didn’t eat any because I didn’t like it.  I didn’t like chicken or turkey.  So I was all right [laughter], but they were all sick.  Then they used to…[pause]…a lot of the time, like in Hawaii, it’ll show a picture in there somewhere [points to the book]. 

When we first got into Hawaii and Guam, when things were secured, I was a carpenter naturally.  I was the man of the company.  But, I’d build a tent; we used to have [unclear] tents.  You know those angular tents you see?  But, I ‘d build a frame, see?  And we’d put the tent on top of it, the pole in the middle of it, and that way there we could sleep on the floor after we were secured.  We wouldn’t have to sleep on the ground.  And all of my officers were sleeping with me under the tent, and I had one incident.  I had a little Philippines man, a Philippino boy.  He used to come in and take care of my section of the tent, or take care of my stuff, my equipment, shine my shoes, everything else.  And he’d sleep next to my bed, cot upon cot, back when we had secure areas.  And he’d sleep there, go and catch some fish out there.  He’d bring fish in so we could cook it.  One morning, I got up after quite a while.  I got up in the morning and he wasn’t there, and all my equipment had disappeared.  He took everything I had, [laughter] my pistol, my rifle, everything.  He took everything with him.  But that’s just how it went.  You have any questions you want to ask me?  I’ve been rambling on here, I don’t know if you got anything out of it.

 

LL:  Oh, a lot out of it.

 

RV:  A lot of things I left out because it’s been so long.  But in fact, one of the islands I was on, IE Shima, was the island Ernie Pile, do you remember him as a reporter?  He was a war reporter in those days.  He used to travel with all the troops.  He got killed right behind my command post.  It was a flat area.  It was like a plateau.  And in the middle of it was like a [unclear].  And there was a sand dune all the way around it.  We landed, and we were on this side of the sand dunes [points to a side].  We hadn’t gone into the flat areas yet.  He wanted to go right around the perimeters on the inside to see what was going on, and to take pictures.  They told him to “keep you head down”, you know?  But, he didn’t and he was shot.  So, that was it for him.  He used to have a piece in the paper all the time, an editorial about the war, Ernie Pile. 

And sometimes it was pretty rough trying to make any headway.  But most of the time…[pause]…I don’t know, it never bothered me, see?  That’s the point.  When you ask the question, “were you scared, or were you this or that?”  It never bothered me.  I didn’t have time to get scared.  It was only once.  Once, I got scared.  We were on some island somewhere, and I was up on the [unclear].  When I was in this foxhole in the middle here, there were a couple of other majors on each side.  And the Japs used to throw water shells.  This one, they had like a tube.  They’d drop a shell in there and it’d take off.  They could regulate the range of it by the defense of powder.  Powder used to come in like a strip of paper, a cloth, a stiff cloth.  Depending on how many of those they’d put around, it would regulate the powder, the shells and they would tip it.  They used to bracket.  They’d shoot here, and everybody would run here, so then they’d shoot there.  And they used to bracket themselves in the middle.  And one night, they started in on us, and I got scared.  I was laying with my face down into the dirt, my helmut over my head, and my teeth were chattering so much, that I just couldn’t stop.  I was so scared.  Two guys were shot and killed on either side of me.  And I was really lucky, I guess.  But, a lot of them used to collect souvenirs, you know during an operation…

 

LL:  What kind of souvenirs?

 

RV:  Oh, sabers, the officers, the Japanese officers all had sabers on each side.  And they used to collect them, and they’d see if they could find them somewhere.  They’d run in these caves sometimes, and somebody was waiting in there for them.  But I’ve seen people get…[pause]…sometimes the higher up the Japanese Army, the officers would get saddles, beautiful saddles.  Some of them they’d find, and they’d send them home.  A lot of guys would send home a Japanese rifle.  And we got ready to leave, and there was a big boat waiting.  So, they made me in charge of the hole, which is a part of the order they’d put you in on the ship: 1st hole, 2nd hole, whatever it is.  A hole was an area.  [The end of side one]  And immunization, records, everything, whatever shots you got, went forth.  That had to follow you all over.  And I remember one time; I boarded all the troops I had.  And I had a big pile of those things in my hands.  And I had a big suitcase, and they were all razzing me up because I had to carry everything [laughter].  I walked over to the edge of the water, “if you guys don’t shut-up I’ll drop it right in the water”, and they all came off the ship.  It’s funny a lot of times. 

We were in some kamikaze raids once.  The ship would be travelling from one place to another in transports, and kamikazes hit us.  The kamikazes would dive right into the ship.  And one time, the ship finally was carrying the staff.  They were all having a meeting at the bridge, the officer’s bridge down there, and the kamikazes came down and it cut the bridge right in half.  Just by landing on it.  So, they had to reorganize the division before they could come in. 

Then when you landed, you trained a lot.  We trained with the Marines in North Carolina.  When you get into an operation on the boats, the front would drop down.  And to get down to there, you used to have to walk down to the cargo.  I don’t know if you know what the cargo is.  It’s a big rope thing.  It’s made out of rope.  It’s all squares about that big [motions with his hands] and all tied together.  And that’s what you had to walk down with all your equipment.  And sometimes a ship would go up, and you’d be up higher in the water.  Then, the boat was way down here.  Then the next time, the boat would be up higher so you had to give the right time to drop into the boat.  And, you landed in these flat boats.  You landed in waves.  Each wave had a…[pause]…you used to go quite a ways out in the ocean, used to be a big circle: 1st wave, 2nd wave, 3rd wave, and they would circle in the water.  That was the worst part of it, flat-bottom boat.  The water was rough and everybody would get sick.  Then when it came your time and your turn to go in, they’d call.  Your boat would take off and there’d be a [unclear] on the back end of it.  He’d drive it in.  Then, he’d show up towards the shore and he’d drop the front end of the boat down flat [unclear], and everybody would run off.  Well, sometimes they didn’t get too close.  By the time everybody dropped the anchor and had to go, and would find the waters deeper than they figured [laughter].  We were deep into the water up to our necks.  But, that’s how they used to get you to shore. 

After it was secured a while, they used to have LCI’s, Landing craft Infantry.  And it was a good size ship.  And on each side of it, they had ladders that used to drop down.  That’s when the place was secured.  They’d come in and they used to drop an anchor way back, bottom of the ocean, and come in.  And they’d drop two ladders down to everybody to come down the ladders.  Then, the reason for the anchor is, they’d back themselves out against the anchor, and the anchor would pull it back out again.  Used to have a lot of Liberty Ships, we’d have in those days.  It was a ship they built years ago in the war.  It was fast.  They built them fast.  And the doors would open this way, from the front.  In fact, they’d come in…they’d stay so far then, they’d come in halfway through the boats.  You’d take people in a truck, and we used to go and get the equipment in the water.  Then, the boat would go back out again.  Then they had these big Amtraks.  It was actually a ton and a half truck with a large cleated tread around the side, steal.  And they would come in.  In fact, they would float on the water.  And when they got on shore…these things…in fact, they used to travel on the water with those things.  They’d keep running and propel themselves forward.  And when they got ashore, those things would be like a tank.  Had a lot of those coming in, too.  The island I think I was on was Okinawa. 

After we came there, we used to build piers out in the ocean.  We used to do it with coconut logs, piles under the ocean.  We had these piles of the stuff, and they’d build a pier right out in the ocean, as far as they could go.  And then the ships would come in along side after it was secured.  And for every coconut log we cut down, we had to pay those people for everyone.  They used to mark all their coconut trees.  After the war, we had to pay for all the coconut trees we used.  And we used a lot of them [laughter].  That’s all they had was coconut trees. [unclear] 

And just before the war ended, I was in charge.  The reason the colonel wanted me to stay, was because he wanted to take the battalion to Japan, because he wanted to go home…because that’s when we were going to invade Japan.  I was in charge of landing a ship, a big ship, LST.  You had to load it backwards.  You had to load it all on paper before you could load it on the ship.  You had to know exactly where everything was going to be.  And the reason for it being backwards was because you want the stuff you want right away in the front.  It had to be the first thing that came to you.  It had to be in the position it had to come off.  Nine times out of ten, everything was loaded backwards.  The last thing off was the thing you least needed.  The important stuff was all in the front.  I was loading a ship when I left.  We were getting ready to leave and the war was ended.  That was the end of that.

 

LL:  Did you ever go to Japan?

 

RV:  No.  I was supposed to go.  I wasn’t too anxious to go because that’s where our next operation was, Japan…a lot of people there, a lot of them.  A lot of times they’d land in these islands.  You never knew who you were fighting anyway.  Really, some of them, they pitched in with the natives so much that they blend in.  You never knew.  You had to be very careful.

 

LL:  How did the natives feel about you being there?

 

RV:  I think they were glad to see us, as far as the landing there was concerned.  Because none of them were mistreated like they were by the Japanese.  Like I said, they were a very cruel bunch of people.  They were mistreated by them a lot of times.  When we came of course, we gave them blankets, food, stuff like that.  In fact, some of them would make anything you wanted them to make. 

In the Philippines, I had some of these knives that we used. We used to take the old springs off a car, an old wreck, or something, the springs underneath the body of a truck, or whatever it is – that’s how you would steal pieces.  And they’d make knives out of them.  And I had two of them, a little six-inch one I kept for my son.  And they’d make these [unclear] out of mahogany pieces.  [unclear]  It was all wrapped together with these little braids they used to make.  The little kids would always be running around.  They’d make these little chains.  They’d use that.  It was very strong.  I had two of them.  One of them was about that long [motions with his hands to about 8 inches], and the other was about that long, [motions with his hands to about 6 inches] I got from a kid.  I brought it home, and I don’t know where it went or who got them.  [Laughter] I dumped a lot of my stuff.  I don’t know who got the knives.  The only thing I have was the knife.  I had it with me in combat.  My brother made that years ago at Electric Boat, when I was overseas.  I’ll show it to you.  It’s made from an old bayonet, an old World War II bayonet.  And I carried that all the time, with everything else.  [Goes and retrieves the knife]  My brother made this for me when I was overseas.  It’s made from an old World War II bayonet [shows me the knife].

 

LL:  Oh my gosh.  Wow.

 

RV:  Yeah, an old bayonet.  That I carried with me all the time.

 

LL:  Was your brother in the war?

RV:  No.  He was at Electric Boat.  I had two brothers that went in, but they got out.  I was the only one who went overseas.  I went overseas, and they got out.  They were in the National Guard, I think [unclear], but they got out.  I stayed in there.  That’s all braided; well it’s braided now [points to the handle of the knife].  It was unbraided then…used to tie it around your neck, like the old westerns. 

 

LL:  What about the morale?  Was the morale high?

RV:  Well…[pause]…it would be fine, but some people would do anything to get out of going over there, you know?  They would…I’ve seen times when they would shoot themselves in the foot before you got aboard ship, just so they wouldn’t have to go over.  I saw a man shoot himself in the knee.  Now, that’s foolish.  It will never be right for the rest of his life.  And I had a company clerk.  In about two days his hair got very white.  They had to ship him back home.  But as far as our troops were concerned, the majority of them I never had any problem.  In fact, many men in my company at the time were all friends of mine. 

Another thing I forgot to tell you is that when I was on the east coast, my wife was with us.  I was in charge of surveying all the eastern coast because you had eastern defense in those days.  We were stationed with the Red Infantry outfit on the east coast.  And I had a bunch of jeeps, some men and my company.  And some would go out, about five jeeps.  They’d go up and take one of the maps of the east coast.  And they would follow the roads to see if they were actually there and by name.  So they would know where the roads were and correct any error in the map or make any changes they had to make because the headquarters at that time…I had a man and all he did was stay there all day long and make corrections on the maps.  And I had five J boats.  It’s a flat duckbill boat and you had to enter like this.  And they could go very fast.  I had 5, 4 of those, I think.  I had them stationed up around the east coast.  I used to have to make arrangements for them to board them somewhere.  We had posts all over the place… board them in private homes, and get their supplies, stuff like that. 

I was in one of these operations here…used to build roads out there with coral, had mountains of coral.  And we used to dig the coral out.  They used to crush it.  You’ll see a picture of it in that book.  Used to have three different levels so the trucks could come through.  You’d pick up a shovel and dig it out and throw it in the trucks.  And they would drive off and another would drive off.  And every night they would blast the hill to knock it down and bring it all up.  And then they’d dig it up.  They’d get that and roll it on the roads and water it.  That would become as hard as cement because it was lime, actually.  We built a lot of roads like that, main roads in the Philippines, Okinawa.  I remember that.  We used to have to keep charts on all the stuff we took out of there, all the coral we dug, and everything else. 

You had to be careful because a lot of times, a lot of these hills would be where the natives would bury their dead.  They had a funny way of doing it.  Every place where they buried their dead, there was two walls that came out.  It was supposed to be that when they died, they would go back in where they were born, like the womb.  And they’d go right back in.  That area was supposed to simulate that.  And, they’d put their dead in a jar, big urns, and leave them in there until they were all bones.  And then they’d take them and bury them.  You had to be careful you didn’t cut them down because it was pretty sacred to them. 

Out in the desert…[pause]…it was a bunch of jumping around now.  Used to put [unclear] marks in the desert for training.  And each one used to carry some food on his back, grapefruit juices.  Concentrated grapefruit juices, was the item they used to always feed us with, give you to drink.  And it was awful.  You got up to the top of the mountain there and it was so high it was a benchmark there.  You know what a bench mark is?  When they make maps, they have a central area they are surveying from.  It established a point in elevation and they would mark it with a metal disk and a rocker.  And it would be marked on there, the elevation where they were at.  Whenever they did any surveying, they would establish appoint, that was an established point, and they would start from there.  Maybe, they could establish another one later on down further, but they were always originated from that one. 

You get up to the top of that mountain, anyway…and all I had in my backpack…the guys were playing around, there was a bunch of rocks in mine [laughter].  I thought they were putting in something to eat, but they were putting in rocks.  So, we had a good time anyways.  And we stayed out in the desert for a while.  That’s when my wife was living in [unclear], Missouri, she lived Yuma, Arizona, and I left.  I wanted to go home, my wife was having a baby.  We were taking a shower, a homemade shower.  And I said to the colonel, “Colonel I want to go home”, he said, “ What for?”  I said, “ My wife’s going to have a baby!” [Laughter].  He said, “Vandale you don’t have to be there for the launching, anyway, you have to be there for the landing, but you don’t have to be there for the launching”.  The launching was the last part.  And that was the end of that.  I could go home.  But, he wouldn’t let me go home.  I couldn’t go home yet.  She had the baby and then I came home to the states.  [Interruption, wife walks in].  

 

LL:  What about censorship, did you have a lot of that during the war?

 

RV:  Anytime you were overseas you had censorship, not in the states, overseas you did.  That’s why you had to open their mail.  They couldn’t seal it.  It had to go through you.  And whatever you thought in there was detrimental to the outfit you were in, then the operation would block off.

 

LL:  Were you ever wounded?

 

RV:  No.  The only thing I ever did, I got the bronze star.  Why, I’ll never know, but I got it.  [Laughter]  It’s up here on the wall somewhere [laughter, and motions to the wall], the bronze star.  And a ribbon with three operations stars on it [unclear].  I say it’s because I ducked faster than they could shoot, I guess.  They used to have snipers all the time and hide in the trees.  And we used to, whenever we could, try to get comfortable and sleep, you know?  And one time, we had shelter made out of a ditch in the forest with steel drums.  The sniper opened up on us and the bullet hit the drums.  The bullet was ricocheting from one drum, all away around.  Everybody was pig piling towards the bottom of the ditch.  You had to watch what you were doing.  But, they were miserable.  I see some of them…[pause]…when we were advancing; they commit suicide, rather than let us catch up with them [unclear].  [Interruption]

 

LL:  What about your religion?  Was it affected much by the war?

 

RV:  No, no, no.  You always had Chaplins with you.  And when I was in the states, before I went to school, I was the orderly for two Chaplins, both colonels; one was Catholic, one was Protestant.  That took care of that. 

In fact, when war was declared, I was on Daytona Beach.  We had a nice big Packard, and I was driving around.  We were riding up and down the beach in Daytona when war was declared, at that time and we ate dinner.  And we went back to our area…but nothing ever came, not amongst the troops…you can always have your chance to go to mass, though, if you are Catholic, or whatever.  In fact, I was a Catholic.  And the colonel was a Catholic, friends with the Chaplin, Colonel McGuire.  He came to see me when I got back to the states.  Yeah, the Parish, I think Pawtucket?  Anyway, he came to see me.  He was a big guy, and was very chummy with him.  In fact, he’d shoot craps with him.  He’d set up a hammock and play craps.  And, he’d be right out there with him [laughter]. 

But, as far as the war affecting the morale, I don’t think so.  Because I used to set up…[pause]…we’d go around setting up masses, places where they could go to mass, different alters.  We used to drive tent pegs, which are pieces of wood about that long [motions with his hands] and drive it into the ground, set a wood block on it, cloth on it.  We used to call it an “alter of stone”.  We’d always have an alter stone, couldn’t say mass without it.  I’d set him up on that and he’d say, “Roland you going to serve mass this morning”?  “No sir, that’s it.  I set you up, you get somebody else to serve mass”.  I would never do it.  In fact, I have a book somewhere, all masses.  I guess that one of them gave me, when I was back in the barracks. 

But the funny thing you know, I had a hard time getting used to the food they’d give me.  I was a little fussy.  If you were on an operation and you were going to be there for 48 hours, they gave you a box of candy, or a couple bags of candy in your bag.  That was it.  But then, they had K rations, which was a cardboard box, like a Cracker Jack box, exactly what it looked like.  And they were waterproof.  They were covered with a cloth and it was all waxed in there.  There used to be some crackers, with a little can, sometimes it was an apple, apple chips, or something like that, somebody would have.  Someone would have different kinds of food.  It was food that would keep.  It wouldn’t get bad on you, and you would eat it cold.  Or, sometimes you could warm it up a bit, but it didn’t taste any better.  And, used to have K rations.  And after a while, you’d end up with C rations, which is a little can, about that high, that big around [motions with his hands].  That was beets, beans, stuff like that.  We had fat.  We used to put it on it.  When I got back, what did I weigh?  A hundred and what?  [He asks his wife, Kay Vandale]

 

Kay Vandale:  Twenty-seven.

 

RV:  127 pounds [laughter].  There were pictures of my outfit and everything.  I looked like a doughboy [laughter]…not much to you, light; I was white, very blonde.  In fact, I had it down at the desk, Mary-Anne, her [points to his wife] trying to figure out who I was in the pictures [points to pictures in his book].  Because I was so small anyway they couldn’t find out where I was sitting.  No, no, religion never came in then because they always had a chance to go.  There was always a Chaplin around.  Some of them got shot, and some of them there…[pause]…they never argued amongst each other about it.  I never remember hearing anything like that at all.  Religion didn’t play much of a part.   

 

LL:  How about the information you knew?  Did you know a lot about the campaign you were doing at the time?

 

RV:  Not the important stuff.  We were given orders, but then we followed the orders that were given to us.  That would come down from the division to regiment, battalion to company.  The company commander, regimental commander, and the battalion commander would put you into a meeting and tell you what it is about, but that was overseas.  Now, in the states, once you got ready to leave, they wouldn’t tell you where you were going.  Just got there…you just got there, got on a boat, and when you got there you found out where you were.  But, the word just got around once you were in the water.  You had a meeting with your battalion commander and he’d tell you what it is going to be.  But then in the outfits, you’d have a meeting with your company, and tell them what was going to happen, what you were going to do.  And they’d assign you different sectors to defend in case there was an attack or something; you’d know exactly where you were going.  And there was always a password, stuff like that.  In fact when I used to go up to the regimental headquarters, when I was in the Assistant Division Engineers, I was responsible for sending the password down.  They didn’t have their password; they wouldn’t be able to move.  I used to have to send them down the password.  And when it used to change, you had to know it.  I used to ked around  [laughter] with them, “Come and get it yourself” [laughter], and some of the officers used to kid.  Ask me some more questions…I’m rambling from one place to another.

 

LL:  How about in Europe?  Did you know what was going on in Europe, in terms of the concentration camps?

RV:  No, no.  We had an idea what was going on.  In fact, there was a newspaper during the war that used to circulate; I forgot the mane of it now.  It was a small newspaper.  We used to get that, and tell you something about that.  But you didn’t know too much about concentration camps in the war.  I never got into the European theater.  So, we used to find out the troop movements in the Pacific, that’s where I was.  I didn’t get out of the Pacific.  The only thing you knew was what you were going to be, where you were going to be, and then he’d tell you as a company where you were going to be, what you were defending, and you had a meeting with your company and assign them to an area.  [Unclear]

 

LL:  What about today’s new war, America’s new war today?  Does it compare to Pearl Harbor and World War II at all?

 

RV:  Somewhat to the islands…because the islands were rough.  It wasn’t like in Europe, when you landed in France, big tunnels or stuff like that over there.  It wasn’t like that.  You’d land in the mountains, the valleys, things like that, similar.  And of course the people were fanatic, some of them.  Like I was telling you before, you never knew who was on the good side or the bad side, sometimes.  You had to take your chances.  A lot of the time you used to get your assignment and bring back data from areas, bring it back.  They all kept their hands in their kimonos, you know?  And you had to be careful because some of them would hold a grenade inside their kimono and then they’d walk like that.  You never knew.  When you got them, you had to make them take their hands out of their kimonos and put them down at their sides.  If they didn’t do that, you’d shoot them…because you had to.  [Interruption and tape ends]

 

LL:  What was running through your mind during the combat?

RV:  To keep from getting killed, I guess.  That’s not the only thing.  When you’re at a company command, you had to keep your eyes open, your ears, and then you had to watch whose in front of you all the time.  Think your mind was on that if you were the company commander.  [Interruption]

 

LL:  You weren’t scared, though, for the most part?

 

RV:  Not really, no.  In fact, when I left the [unclear] said, “Just another day for Vandale” [laughter].  It’s just another day.  It never bothered me, except for that time I told you about.  It never bothered me too much.  I don’t know why.  For the most part, you had a job to do and you did it.  You’d do what you had to do and did it.  Once you got landed, sometimes you’d land…[pause]…one operation was in Guam, the marines landed ahead of us.  [Unclear]  One time there before we landed, they gave the orders to come down and take us out and have us land all the officers in the outfit.  That was a stupid move; I don’t why, but anyway.  We all landed and looked around.  The biggest operation was the ones with the marines.  And some of them were so scared because it was the first time they were there.  Just all the officers, the company officers in the regiment and the battalion officers.  They put us in the boat and brought us to shore.  But we got out of it all right.  We even had a doctor with us.  He was so scared, he was sick, he got sick so much…we just threw him on top of the deck where the [unclear] was and where the rest of us weren’t [laughter], which he was so sick, he couldn’t do us any good.  When you were in those flat boats…[pause]…it was awful.  I used to go in that flat boat and sit on the floor, way at the end of the [unclear].  I’d put my hands over my knees, close my eyes because I knew I would get sick on the boat.  You’d be there sometimes for a ½ an hour, ¾ of an hour, maybe longer than that, waiting for the word to go in.  And that’s how come I didn’t get sick.  I used to do that every time.  And when we got there of course, they would drop the front down.  You probably seen that in pictures and TV, they used to.

 

LL:  How about the men under you?

 

RV:  What do you mean, about what?

LL:  Were they nervous, scared?

RV:  Oh, I imagine some were.  I guess everybody was scared to a certain amount.  Although some were scared more than others, that’s all.  Once the ramp dropped down, you didn’t have time to be scared.  You were just in a hurry to get on shore and hide somewhere, because you were out in the water.  You’d get to the shore, the beach.  Then you’d find a place to…[pause]…then it was our job, as officers, to make sure you were all together.  That you knew where they all were, not all together, but you knew where they were along the beach, so you could get together again.  Oh, I imagine we were all scared.  Anybody that wasn’t didn’t always…I look at it this way, if you weren’t scared when you got there is when you got hurt.  If you were scared a little bit, you didn’t get hurt because you were watching out for yourself.  Those that were gung-ho, that didn’t car about anything, a lot of times they didn’t come back.

 

LL:  Were a lot of your friends wounded?

 

RV:  Well, my jeep driver got killed.  I know that.  His name, what was his name? Young fellow.  Hit and killed.  Well, I know some of them got a purple heart, but I don’t know who they were now, their names or anything.  It’ll probably tell you in here somewhere [points to the book], some of the one’s who got purple hearts, or bronze stars, or whatever.

 

LL:  How about when you came home?  How were you received by the nation?

RV:  They just told us to get off the ship [laughter], get off the ship and that was it.  We didn’t have any big party waiting for us [laughter].  No, I remember that.  We landed out west, out in California somewhere, I think.  No, we just got off the boat, and they told you to get on the train and we came east to Camp Devans.  That’s where we were discharged from…not discharged, officers were never discharged, they’re separated.  But that’s about it.  There was no party.  Later on they threw a party for us in the town of Killingly, but…[pause]…it was all right, I guess. 

When we got back, came east to Camp Devans, they got everybody in a big hall, like.  And the officers got up and they spoke to us.  They said…[pause]…the GI Bill.  That came on, the GI Bill, at that time.  I never took it.  Lot of them did take it and became lawyers, and stuff like that.  They used to discourage you from taking it because it would cost them money.  So, you got up there and said, “With the GI Bill of Rights, ten cents you can get a glass of beer anywhere” [laughter].  That’s what they told us on the stage.  A lot of them, I guess, others went for it.  In fact, when I built my home when I got back, I never bothered with that either, GI Bill, anything.  I never took it.   They had another one they use to call 52-20.  They used to give you $52 a week, for twenty weeks.  I never took that.  I went to work ‘cause I had a family.

 

LL:  Do you think the war brought about new jobs?

RV:  From Second World War?

 

LL:  Yes.

 

RV:  Oh, in those days it did, yes.  Oh yeah, an awful lot of jobs.  It was all defense plants, which before that you never had really.  It was only during World War II did they start all the defense plants, and started making aircraft and everything else.

 

LL:  Did you notice it when you moved back to Connecticut, when you came back from overseas?

 

RV:  Well, whether you were in the service or overseas it didn’t matter much when you got back and went for a job, it didn’t matter too much.  It was just another, one other job, that’s all.  It really didn’t matter than that.  In fact when I got back, I hadn’t done any carpentry work for quite a while, and first contractor I went to I said to him, “I’ll take a dollar an hour, I’ll take a”…see it was not worth more than that and that was the biggest mistake I made.  Because once they get you settled at a dollar an hour, they are not going to let you go again [laughter].  That was the biggest mistake I ever made.  You figured, the people at least acknowledge when you came back the fact that you did something.  You know, you were defending their life.  But it was different in those days.  Nowadays, it’s a big thing. 

So, when I got back…[pause]…when we came back into the war, her brother [points to his wife] came and two other friends of mine, a major and a captain at that time.  We wanted to join the National Guard to have fun, two weeks training every year with the National Guard.  We’d go to Camp Edwards.  And we wanted to have fun with a bunch of guys.  So, we all went to Hartford.  Went before an examining board, with a general there, couple of generals.  And had ourselves denoted down to first lieutenants, legally.  So, we did join the National Guard, ‘cause you couldn’t join with any rank above that because they didn’t have a place for you.  So we got ourselves denoted, all four of us, through the 1st lieutenants.  We did join the National Guard. 

So then we were at one camp, one time, that’s just before Korea was coming in.  They were talking about Korea.  So I wrote a letter to attorney general in Washington, army general, requesting my status in case war was declared in Korea.  ‘Cause the outfit we were assigned to after we had ourselves denoted was infantries.  And that’s bad news.  So they said, “As far as we’re concerned”, they wrote a letter, “your rank will be 1st lieutenant Infantry”.  I resigned right away [laughter].  I got out of that.  That’s the end of that.  Later, I was assigned to an outfit; you know where Brennan Field is in Hartford?  They used to have an engineer outfit there.  And I was assigned there as a major to a unit that was there, engineering outfit.  But then I didn’t want to travel to Hartford all the time for training and all that.  So I resigned, got out of it.  That was the end of it.  I think I was about 26 years old, something like that.  [Laughter] I figure I would earn my living honestly for a change.  That was the end of that.  It was about enough.  The thing is that we didn’t cry about it too much, when we got back, you know.  We got back and that was it.  It was like we went there and that was it. 

And, Vietnam and Korea, there was so much publicity about it.  The TV had men out there in the field.  The only thing we ever saw, Ernie Pile.  And they’d send in the Red Cross.  That’s the only thing we ever saw.  I never did see an USO show.  We were over there and that was it [laughter].  I knew they were around I guess, but we didn’t have a chance to go see them.

 Red Cross nurse, I don’t know what they did.  They used to give you a little bunch of junk that you didn’t need, like when you left.  When you left the states to go overseas, they used to give you a canvas bag.  They used to call it ditty bag; toothpaste in there, tooth brushes, and a comb, and stuff like that.  We didn’t need that stuff [laughter].  I think I still had the bag at my house, but I threw it out finally.  It was a little bag, a little cloth bag with a drawstring.  That’s what they [laughter] gave us overseas. 

When we got back, I went to work as a carpenter.  Worked there for quite a while.  Later, what I used to do was contracting.  We did a lot of work at Jacob’s Rubber Company in Danielson.  Work was kind of scarce, so plant manager said, “Do you want a job?” I said, “Yeah”.  So I stayed there for 17 years, maintenance man for 17 years.  I was maintenance and then I had a couple of men working with me.  After that, I got out of that.  I had to sub at a machine shop.  I went to trade school to learn how to run machines.  I ran machines at a machine shop.  I had two, three men with me then, a while.  I was a machinist.  After, I was working there as a machinist.  I was in charge of the machine shop.  My wife came with me, went to Worcester to buy machines, big machines, machine shop stuff [unclear]. 

And while I was there, I applied for a job with the state [unclear].  Deputy Commission called me up while I was there and said, “You got the job”.  I said, “ I didn’t expect the job, no more than I expected to be overseas commissioned as an officer.  I just went for the heck of it before these boards.  I didn’t intend to go to school to be a commissioned officer” [laughter].  “Well”, he said, “you got it”.  So I had to go to work for the state.  I was investigator for the consumer division for weights and measures.  [Unclear]  I used to check all the scales, gas pumps, trailer trucks, [unclear], cordwood [unclear], and I was there for about 20 years, I guess.  I retired from that.  I got out of it. 

I built my own house [unclear], mostly all by myself.  But I didn’t have the GI Bill, I never did.  Well, in those days if you went to the bank, if they knew you, they would give you the same rate just as the GI Bill.  So, you didn’t have to worry about going through all the paper work of the GI Bill, they’d just give you a little mortgage.  That’s all that bothered me.

I’d go back on my spare time on the weekends, when I was a machinist.  We were living in a village, probably few tenths of a mile, and go to church on a Sunday, and then when I worked.  So in the afternoon…during the week I’d come home from working in the plant, I’d have supper and go over there and work.  One day, I needed a bag of cement over there.  So, I the kids’ bicycle, put a bag of cement on top of the handlebars, of the bicycle.  The bag of cement was [unclear] pounds.  I couldn’t pump that bicycle.  You couldn’t go anywhere [laughter].  I had to push it all the way.  I built that house, and we lived in it for how long?  How long did we live there now? [Asks his wife]  Forty years?  Yeah, about forty years, I guess.  Until, we moved here.  Raised all our kids in there.  Had [unclear], boys and a girl.  Their pictures are all up there [points to the wall].  That’s the rose gallery there.  Yep, they’re all there.  They all got good jobs today.  They come down once in a while.  One lives in Stonington here, one lives in Woodstock – a daughter, other son, lives in Shelburne Falls.  Ever been up there – Mohawk Trail?

 

LL:  Is it near New York?

[Interruption]

 

RV: No, it’s in Massachusetts.  They have sightseeing places, falls and stuff.  Well, he lives right near there. He lives on top of the hill, [unclear] falls on the bottom.  He works for a laboratory for a nuclear power plant.  He started about [unclear] years ago, they don away with the plant, and he’s still there.  He works in the laboratory.  He has to ship out all the stuff they bring out of there.  They bring it west somewhere and bury it.  He’s still there.  Every time I call I s