L. Boyd Porter

              Eric Walz History 300 Collection
L. Boyd Porter- Life during WWII
By Melinda Porter
January 19, 2003
Box 2 Folder 12
Oral Interview conducted by Melinda Porter
Transcript copied by James Miller December 2005
Brigham Young University – Idaho
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MP: What years were you in the service?
BP: 42’, 43’, 44’, 45’, 46’, but those aren’t complete years ya know.
MP: Did you enlist or where you drafted?
BP: Drafted.
MP: Oh you were? Were you drafted into the Marines or could you choose?
BP: Come over here. < interruption> Okay, ask me again. Yes, I picked the Marines.
MP: Why did you pick the Marines?
BP: Well, I probably… they were sharper looking. I hadn’t studied about them a lot. The name of Marines made me feel like something I could get into.
MP: Where were you when Pearl Harbor was bombed?
BP: Home, I heard it on the radio.
MP: What did you think?
BP: Well, thought it won’t be long until I’ll be goin’, ‘ cause I was already the age, 18.
MP: So, where did you go for boot camp?
BP: San Diego.
MP: How long was it?
BP: Six weeks.
MP: Was it hard?
BP: Yeah.
MP: Was it as hard as they always say it is?
BP: Turn that off just a minute. ( Went to go get journal that he kept while in the service. He starts reading:) “ In my boot camp training I was assigned to platoon 872 which included 54 men. After about two weeks of basic we went to rifle range Camp Matthews,” now you can read all this but it takes quite a while to read it. “ On Nov. 23, 1943 we graduated from boot camp which meant the breaking up of the platoon. The following were turned ( unintelligible) to different categories. Myself I was transferred to Camp Elliot shown by the intelligence section to be qualified for it you had to have at 3
least two years of college and one year of graduate. I had neither but the sixty men at boot camp, he said you had the brains to get ahead so I did and went through school with flying colors. My average at the end was 97%, the best in class. The schooling consisted of math grading, total work, sketching and petroleum and shrapnel. On Jan. 23”— do you want to read all of that?
LP: No, we want you to read it. This is exactly what she needs to know.
BP: But this is in the middle of my program see.
MP: It’s amazing, I can’t believe you were able to do that and you had no college?
BP: Nope. See this training that I trained for was frogman, seals, intelligent men, you can call them most anything you want to, but that’s the kind of training I went in to.
MP: And what did they do?
BP: Blew up the mines before the boys went on in the “ Higgins boats.”
MP: What are Higgins boats?
BP: Higgins boats were the small boats that the front opens up and you run onto the beach, that’s what I was trained to do. It will probably tell you in there [ the journal]. I trained in Ocean Side, CA, and after I graduated from that I went to Saipan, Guam, and Hawaiian Islands. Now Hawaiian Islands was our training headquarters. That’s where we trained and pick up the new guys after combat. So we would be ready to go again to the next campaign.
MP: How many places were you at?
BP: Oh boy, you mean campaigns? Ah, six I guess.
MP: What were some of the ones you went on?
BP: Oh there was Saipan, Guam, ( unintelligible) and Japan on a ship
MP: I think you remember really well! It [ his journal] says “ We had two raids on us the night of the 15th and 13th, a moment a guy never forgets.”
BP: Now that’s, that is a raid of bombers coming in, we called them raids, those bombers see we, the island had been taken where we were stationed at.
MP: And you were in a tent and were being bombed on the whole night?
BP: Mm- hmm. These are the Japs coming in
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MP: Wow, scary. What does “ 2 ½ miles by 5” mean. It says “ on the 15th of Feb we left to the island of Iwo Jima, 2 ½ by 5.”
BP: That’s the size of Iwo Jima.
LP: So you went to Iwo Jima? Was this before the atomic bomb?
BP: Iwo Jima was just a small island. Mount Suribachi was on one end which was 270ft in the air, and the other was just bare but they had trees, strip sights that we needed for our bombers going to Japan and that was suppose to be about, that we only 150 miles from Japan. So that’s why we took that. And we lost more men on that island than any island in the Pacific.
MP: Really?
BP: And it was the smallest one.
MP: And it was because of the raids?
BP: No it was because they were underground. They had that island for 51 years that island and they dug it all underground from Mt. Suribachi to the other end. We could hear trucks going underground at night.
MP: Their trucks? And you were on top?
BP: Yeah, that’s…
LP: But you took that island though.
BP: Yeah.
LP: That’s amazing.
BP: We took it, let’s see, it must have been about a month taking it, three weeks something like that.
MP: What is the rock; it says “ We arrived at the rock.” Is that Saipan or Iwo Jima?
BP: Yeah that’s Iwo Jima, that’s the time we arrived there.
MP: So you had to storm the beach
BP: ( Barely audible) Yeah.
MP: You had a disease in your mouth?
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BP: What?
MP: It says “ I spent two weeks in the hospital with some kind of disease in my mouth.”
BP: That’s after the campaign, I had…
MP: What was it?
BP: I don’t know, it was some sort of disease. I went all the way back to Pearl Harbor I lay in the hospital.
MP: So you went back to Pearl Harbor for treatment?
BP: Yeah, went back to get ready for another occupation.
MP: So did you spend time in the hospital?
BP: Yeah, you have to board ship back to Hawaii
LP: So on each of these campaigns did you have to, you had to swim out to the mines ahead of time?
BP: I had to blow the mines up. The mines on the beaches were ( unintelligible) two ft in diameter and had two horn sticking up with contained putric acid and it runs down 6 feet down six feet down and catches the Higgins boat as they came in ( unintelligible) and roll those Higgins boats and it gave the Japs time to set the artillery up and clog up the next row of ships coming in, Higgins boats. So some were in series, some were parallel. If they were in series the whole beach would blow up, if they were parallel only certain areas would go. Each guy had to blow up, oh 15 feet to 20 feet then he took care of about, oh four mines and had to get them wired.
LP: Oh so you’d wire them all and then blow them up ahead of time.
BP: Five pounds of TNT.
MP: So you would wire them up and drag the wire then…
BP: Well it’s quite a process. You go in on a rubber boat, you blow these up at night, when no one’s around see, and you blow the mines up and the next morning the troops come in and land on the Higgins boats. And that’s how it works.
MP: How far away were you when they would blow up?
BP: Well, we were allowed so many minutes and to get back to our rubber boat you generally swim about 200 yards and you leave your rubber boat, swim in, set the mines 6
off, and you have so many minutes to get back to your rubber boat. Some of them don’t make it… by artillery flying in there, shrapnel, and mortar.
MP: What’s mortar?
BP: They are little deal that goes off, shoot up in the air, come down and lands, goes up about 200 feet in the air and just sails through the air; you don’t have much control over it but they shoot ‘ um.
MP: And they explode?
BP: Mm hmm, shrapnel.
LP: You must have been an amazing swimmer.
BP: Yeah, you’d have to be. You only got so many minutes to get back to your rubber boat, and then from your rubber boat to a Higgins boat or submarine whatever, they assign you to.
MP: So you were on a submarine?
BP: Yes, number of times.
MP: What was that like?
BP: Just like going in to a room and shutting the door and just zooming away. Smooth ride.
MP: I don’t think I could handle it. So a lot of times you were on a submarine?
BP: Just when we were going to the islands, never afterwards. If we went on to or transferred on to an aircraft carrier, or destroyer, or something like that to head back, but we never stayed on. Our job was quick and get in there. ( unintelligible)
MP: So you guys were the first ones on the scene?
BP: First ones to land, but not the last ones to leave, they never knew us, never even seen us ( unintelligible).
LP: So when you went back after detonating the mines did you have to go on shore with the other guys?
BP: No, our job was to detonate the mines and get back to our ship.
LP: They saved you for the next time so you could be there for the…
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BP: See, our biggest problem was maneuvering the mines, we knew they were on the island, we had photographs. But we never knew whether they were parallel or a series and that’s what got us in trouble. We knew how many mines there were.
LP: How many were in a team that went?
BP: In our team we had 50 of us… sometimes only 5 would get back, depending, it was only 5 once, out checking for a series over the beach ( unintelligible).
MP: What is this inventory you did of the bombed out areas?
BP: 23rd of what? ( Looks at the journal) “ On the 22 of September I left the battalion ( intelligible) do some inventory of the bombed out areas of Hiroshima, that was just the general, just selected three of us to go on a mission after the bomb landed, the atomic bomb.
LP: So you went in right after and saw?
MP: What did it look like?
BP: Hiroshima was… nothing to it. There was nothing bigger than that. You know it was just flattened. When we go there the Japs were in there digging for their dead. It was about 5 miles in diameter and it was just flat. There was nothing and outside of that there were some bigger, you’d see a tree now and again but in that 5 miles there was nothing bigger than that and there was big cities. Nagasaki was a different bomb, the bomb went off in the air and Hiroshima went off on the ground. And so Nagasaki it just pushed everything down, just when wham. It was a different set up.
MP: Was that planned to have happen, to go off in the air?
BP: It was decided by Roosevelt, the bomb went off so high, and I don’t know how high, there were two different types.
LP: So did you go to Nagasaki after also, wow I didn’t know that.
MP: So what did Nagasaki look like?
BP: Well it was bigger, it wasn’t smashed and you could see.
LP: How long after the bombs went off did you go in and survey it?
BP: I think there was, Hiroshima was five days.
MP: It says “ the Japanese girls were far and in between, most were still in the hills hiding.” Did you have to question people?
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BP: No, our job was just to go in and pick up samples, from the center of the ( unintelligible) and every 100 yards try to pick up a sample and work our way out. And we never saw no girls, the whole time I was there. They were still in the hills.
LP: That is amazing that you were there, I’ve read some books about it and I just can’t imagine.
BP: I have a lot of pictures of that; I could show you of that.
MP: We’d love to see that. It says that in Nagasaki you saw the surrender plane.
BP: Where we at? Oh, ( journal) “ Nagasaki I was lucky enough to see the surrendering plane and we ran on to the first Jap that spoke English, a Major in the air corp. I spent about an hour talking to him, this fellow about Japan and general. He was quite a fellow.” And the “ 10th of October we received word to come back to Fusible, one of the islands in the Philippines. On 21st of Oct. we boarded the USS ( unintelligible), Fusible the 26th ( unintelligible), marines and during the process we somehow got on the wrong ship. One of our groups was going directly to the states so at 12 o’clock, the 25th night we unloaded the ship and went back to Fusible, the naval village where the marines were.” Evidently we got on the wrong ship. We were trying to go back to the states and they didn’t want that.
MP& LP: We’re going home!
BP: “ Working in the office until the 22nd I received orders to move to Peru, a city about the size of Fusible. We traveled by rail, we only took one trip today. We leave the army there. I remained to work in the ( unintelligible) section and I took over section T. Again I was with 26th marines. On the 20th of February we cleared and we broke up to go home with the 45 point boys.” We got out of the Marine Corp by points. The number of points you had, that you got 5 points for every combat you was in and 2 for the silver star, and stuff like that. That you got out by points.
LP: How many points did you get?
BP: “ I was then transferred to the region S2 section where I took over the chief of the section there. On the 26th of Feb.” Looks like I quit [ my journal] ( laughs).
LP: So how many points did you have to have to get out then? Do you remember?
BP: I think it was about 46 or right around there, but I stayed for a little longer ‘ cause I was in Hawaii and had a big job there as the captain, ( unintelligible) so I stayed a couple weeks longer but I don’t remember what the day was that I got out. I’d have to look it up.
MP: How was the food?
BP: Depended on where you were. 9
MP: How was it on the submarine?
BP: Oh it was pretty good; you ate a lot of beans, stuff like that ( laughs). Yeah, food was generally pretty good except maybe when you had a combat or something like that.
MP: How much did you get paid?
BP: Hmm, not much. I, a lot went to my mother. It doesn’t seem like I got too much, seems like. I don’t remember, $ 25 maybe.
MP: Did you get a lot of letters from your mom?
BP: Yeah, about once a week.
MP: Really, that often. That’s great. The mailing system was pretty good then.
BP: Yeah, see a lot of country.
MP: What was you highest rank; did you move up in rank?
BP: Yeah.
MP: What were you when you left?
BP: I was a staff sergeant when I left, which is the best ranking outside of being a lieutenant. It’s the best rating. You was free to go on your own and do things you wanted. The next move up would have to be a lieutenant and you took charge of guys and combat.
MP: You didn’t want that?
BP: I didn’t want that.
MP: Are you still in contact with any of the men you served with?
BP: No, there all pretty well gone, Carl Rasmussen was the last one I remember ya know.
MP: Where was he from?
BP: He was from Mount Rose, Colorado. He was a ( unintelligible) scout and he could throw a knife 30 feet straighter than I could shoot a gun. He was quite a guy. Saved my neck more than once.
LP: Throwing his knife?
BP: Yeah he was good.
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MP: So how long did you keep in touch with him?
BP: Oh, last I heard from him, oh it’s been four or five years since I heard from him. He was pretty much up in age and having problems ( unintelligible).
MP: How old were you when you went home?
BP: Probably pretty close 22, something like that. I might have been a little older.
MP: Wow, that’s my age.
BP: Even though I say I lost the four best years of my life. Four years of outside of being educational as I went along but it was a loss of four years.
LP: Do you think you gained anything, what were some benefits that you got from serving in the war?
BP: Benefits? Oh just… I guess just to know how to take care of myself, probably about the best thing it taught me
LP: Be self disciplined?
BP: Defense, whatever to keep me a live. I tell ya, it’s a tough job. They teach you to, you can’t goof off. You have to keep yourself morally straight and clean. First time you goof, you’re in the dog house and…
LP: That’s great, best training then?
MP: The hard way.
LP: Well, we also know that you got the Purple Heart.
BP: Yeah, I got shrapnel one time. And they had to take it out and they had to report it and…
MP: How did you get shrapnel?
BP: I just wasn’t swimming fast enough. They told me to swim faster and I thought I was, but I couldn’t make it. I got it in the rear end ( laughing). But it’s educational; I mean there’s a lot learn you see a lot.
LP: What’s one of the most memorable things that you would want to share with us about your experiences?
BP: I don’t know that of anything I want to tell. I think the thing I remember being as young as I was going in was that when I landed in Hawaii, that’s where I met this 11
Rasmussen guy ( unintelligible), we landed there in the middle of the night and I guess it was 4 o’clock brought from the ship, and got in the truck and we drove and drove up the hill, seemed like we were climbing the whole time, which we were. And we got to the top of this island and they let us out. I knew we was high because I could look down and see lights way off in the ( unintelligible). Anyway the colonel walked up to us with a flash light ( unintelligible), put a map on the table and he says, “ Here we are right here,” ( pointing at the map). He said now “ your camp is right here in the corner,” ( pointing to the corner of the table). He says, “ I want you to pair up in twos, and get there.” And it was dark, black, dark we’d never seen this place before. And I remember this guy next to me, this Carl, I said, “ Holy macarole!” And they took everything off of us…
MP: You didn’t even have a flashlight?
BP: No light or anything. He says, “ Okay, you can get there anytime you want, the quicker you get there the quicker you get to go to bed.” Well, everybody took off, and I said to Carl, and he smoked. And sitting there and he said, “ Well I’m not going to leave until I finish this cigarette.” I said, “ Well I’ll wait and go with ya. There’s no hurry I guess.” I, and I remember we took off and it never dawned on me, but he looked at the map and he’d seen this trickle of water that fell right down next to the camp, a crick, and he says, “ We’ll take off and we’ll head right down that side and we’ll hit a crick and we’ll follow that crick. Some of those guys hadn’t shown up for two days. ( Laughing) They went in opposite direction and go lost. You just got to know what to do.
MP: You got with the right person.
BP: Um hmmm. Another time he saved my life was [ when] we were practicing swimming and we had to jump off this tower on an LST and swam ashore. You never been on an LST, just a flat boat about three feet in the air and then you have a platform and take two guys go off at a time stand on top and jump off into the water and swim ashore. The ocean, this is in the ocean see, it was a mile to shore. Oh wow, I remember and three or four jumped off before me and this Rasmussen come up behind me and I said “ Holy macarole, you don’t have time to smoke a cigarette today, we got a long ways to go.” And he laughed and he says, “ Don’t worry; when the right wave comes I’ll holler and you just take off swimming like whole hell for Lexington.” I remember him “ this is the one we want, now get ready to go,” and I turned around and took off and he was right behind me and just a paddling and he says, “ Boyd, pour it on, keep in front of this awhile,” and we did and that wave just picked us up and rolled us, just rolled us and we roll right up onto the shore ( laughing). I never drank so much ocean water in my life.
LP: He was quite a guy.
BP: He was, he had a reconnaissance boy for the ( unintelligible) and they discontinued it and he’d come in the office. He was a hard guy to get to know he was. < interruption>
MP: You’re on tape now.
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BP: Well… that answers all them questions.
LP: Say that tells us a lot we didn’t know before, that is really interesting.
MP: Let’s see, did you know about the Nazi concentration camps?
BP: Well just through reading.
MP: How much did you know?
BP: I just read in the papers. I knew about the Japs treating prisoners rough as far as the concentration camps with the Nazis that was just what I read through the papers. And they’d show you pictures, you know stuff like that.
MP: Who was the ruler of Japan?
BP: Who Tito [ Hirohito]?
MP: Was there a lot of things you knew about him, or his regime, was he a dictator?
BP: Was a dictator, just like Bush is. He was the same thing; he was the president ( emperor) of Japan. What he said they did. These young guys were just like you and I, and everybody else. They went to war because they had too; a lot of them were good.
MP: How many hand to hand battles did you do?
LP: Did you have any, because you were frogmen?
BP: No not really, I got into it different places.
MP: So that time you were faced with that guy, you have his sword?
BP: I have this picture too, the whole works. Blaine had his sword that he killed himself with wrapped up in his flag. He lost that.
MP: He killed himself?
BP: No Blaine lost it, the sword, the hari- kari knife.
MP: So this guy stabbed himself?
BP: Yeah, well see when they committed hari- kari they hit their stomach like that ( showing on him while he talks) and come across like that. That’s the hari- kari, that’s the way they take their own life.
MP: Why?
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BP: Well they believe that, they believe in dying for their country, so he wasn’t by an American and went down to the last strong hold and they commit hari- kari.
MP: I can’t imagine doing that.
BP: And that’s why they always carry that little sword, about that long ( holds his hands up about seven to nine inches apart) Blaine lost it ( laughs).
MP: How did he lose it?
BP: Deer hunting, he lost it twice, in fact I picked it up once. It came in a fancy case. And I got the flag money, a lot of money, he was a colonel, a Japanese colonel and just the sword I have ( unintelligible) I took everything off of him, had a watch…
LP: So you just came upon this scene, this was one of those hand to hand combats or you came after?
BP: No he was, oh it was during the battle, I was on patrol ( unintelligible). It was them or us.
MP: Can you think of anything else Mom?
LP: Well, just when you came home how were you received when you got back home to the states after being in the war?
BP: Well, I come home and went to Lewiston and my mother married so there wasn’t much for me to do on the farm, so I just kind of lived there and then went to work for a neighbor down below me.
LP: Were you pretty well respected for having served in the war, and people looked up to you?
BP: Well I don’t think they looked up to you but [ they were] just glad to see you get home in one piece.
MP: Did you feel like you had accomplished something?
BP: Ya thought the only thing we fought this was for a free country to live in.
MP: And staying alive?
BP: Yeah. ( laughs)
LP: That was a huge accomplishment.
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BP: Just like all these guys going to war now, young boys. What future they gonna have? I mean there going right into a death deal and gas, and they have no lungs left on ‘ em. Down on the ground, those up in the air are all right but those on the ships…
MP: It’s good to know now we have better technology.
BP: Well, ya see back when WWII you had the navy and all the Marines board the ships and you’ve seen all those fights they have ( unintelligible to end).