Pearl Harbor Survivors Association
Rio Grande Valley of Texas Chapter 11

Vivian Francis Scribner's Story

When I was five years old we moved to the Panhandle. There wasn't hardly anything out there then, and in 1930, after I graduated from high school, we moved to The Valley during the Depression for four or five years. 

Then later, about 1935 I moved to California. A bunch of us old boys were hanging around the airport. We'd like to be flyers. Six of us decided we'd join the Navy, but they wouldn't take us as flyers because we didn't have a college education. 

Then we all enlisted, joined the flight outfit, to be aviation mechanics. I wanted to be an aviation mechanic and so I went to San Diego for training. 

One morning they came out, got about 200 of us and hauled us out to sea on a barge, towed off out there about out of sight of land.   

About eleven o'clock, here came the USS Lexington with an escort, and they pulled this barge up alongside and we disembarked: and they put a bunch of airplanes that crashed, had been out of exercises, put on that barge and they hauled it in. 

I went up to San Pedro and they put me on the USS West Virginia. That was about February of 1940. I went in November of 1939, one of those six-year suckers. And then in May we went to Hawaii, became the Hawaiian Detachment. 

Well, that's the way they do you. They promise you everything and you have to be what they need. 

When the choice came, they came out and said, "Well, you're going to get your choice now. We want a radioman or bed pans." That means hospital. 

So naturally, I took radio and it was a good thing too because I used it. After I got out, I got a job with the highway department in the signal light crew. 

That came along about five years later, I went into the two-way radio business which they turned over to me. I installed the whole system in south Texas from La Feria to Laredo, south to Brownsville except Corpus Christi, and maintained it for 22 years. So my Navy training came in good, see. 

Now we can skip all the cruising around Pearl and training I guess, before Pearl Harbor? 

Well, there's nothing to it, just in and out. Course we'd get weekend liberty, stuff like that. But the morning of the 7th, I finished breakfast and I was shining my shoes getting ready to go on liberty when the attack started. 

And there was an explosion or bombs falling on Ford Island where we were tied alongside. You've seen that picture and they sounded Fire and Rescue on our ship. That means they were going to send out a party and go fight the fire. 

So naturally, everybody wondered what it was. The radioman compartment was up above the main deck, and we could look out the porthole. I ran over there and stuck my head out. There came Jap planes, torpedo planes from . . . well, we called it the sub base. That's the only place they could come in long enough to drop the torpedoes and hit a ship.   

The only two they could hit were the West Virginia and the Oklahoma. The Oklahoma capsized and we started to and someone counter flooded the wee vee and she settled flat on the bottom.   

I saw a Japanese torpedo plane coming. I stood there and looked at it. Yes, I saw that first torpedo drop in the water, here it came, and it almost hit a liberty boat full of chiefs and first-class men.   

The torpedoes made a great big splash of water, looked like it went a hundred feet in the air, of course it didn't but it was very high. This liberty boat came right through that and the water came right down on top of them and everybody started hollering, "Haw haw, look at them." "See the first-class!" I was only third-class.   

{We weren't afraid then} we didn't know what it was. We'd been having training exercises with so-called enemy planes.   

But when that plane dropped his torpedo and the water came up like that, I said, "Man, it sure looks real. They even got Jap marking!"   

I was that dumb see and he was just barely missing our mast, like that. And about that time, when I said that, a little man pushed me out of the way. His name was Kobeck {and} he got killed. He stuck his head out the porthole and about that time that torpedo hit. I'd walked back across the compartment.   

And that whole ship mind you, rocked over like this, a battleship, that water came through that porthole and squirted two-thirds of the way across the compartment, a big 16-inch stream. About that time they sounded General Quarters. You've heard of General Quarters: that's all battle stations. So I ran to the transmitter room, my battle station.   

{My station} it's down below the armor deck aft. The deck, which covered the whole fantail, I would make it on deck below. Then there was a deck above called a boat deck. And here's the main deck and we were underneath that.   

Of course the lights went out just as soon as that torpedo hit. It went in the engine room, killed everybody down there. We got eight torpedoes and all of them went off, except one and it was sitting in the engine room when they put it in dry dock.   

And when all the power went off of course they were strafing up above too, you know. They killed our skipper and a bunch of men on topside. They sounded "abandon ship" by word of mouth.   

I happened to be standing in the door of the radio room just about like that, and {I had a flashlight, one of those electric lanterns in my hand), and I said, "Well, that's good enough for me." I laid that thing down and started running to the escape ladder.   

I'm talking about the armored hatch above the ladder. Here came water WHOOOOOSHHhhh just like a river. Like that and this fills the whole thing. See about like this. Eventually I could tell you what. The ladder was around here about an arm length from the door. The ladder was maybe ten feet and I went up that thing and was starting to climb, was in Gook Country at that time.   

The floor was linoleum and it had been waxed so that I couldn't stand up on it. So I sat down and pulled my shoes off. And these other guys were scrambling by too, out of our room. I jumped up and caught the combing of the hatch. A combing is a ledge built around so that water doesn't splash in it, grabbed that and went just like Superman Easy.   Topside was all aflame. The fire started by a bomb that hit Standbury's plane. He was with us there in that plane fuel flew all over the whole afterdeck and set the whole thing afire. And of course that paint was burning too. The big ventilator there right beside me, the heat was so intense that the paint {hadn't been painted since 1923, I guess) was oozing down, looked like elephant's hide. 

And it wasn't that far from me, still burning over that side on in. Here, the OD's office was just about eight or ten feet from that patch. He just walked out of there, a young ensign; didn't say a word. We walked over to the side and walked on the armor. 

Now that ship is sitting like that, see. We walked on the armor which is fourteen or sixteen inches and we walked forwarded. The USS Tennessee was alongside us, an as we got up front there's a little punt down there, tied alongside. A punt is a king of a boat-like thing, flat bottom, flat sided, just for scraping and painting on the ship side. It was there, so I said to this officer, "Shall we take the punt Sir or swim for it?" And he didn't say hello, go, or nothing, see. He just hauled off and jumped. And his hat, I remember his hat floated away. 

I sat down and I took my pants off. I wasn't going to be hampered by any clothes, and I had under shorts on. By the time I jumped in, he was gone. I don't know where he went, never saw him again. 

I swam around the Tennessee to the beach, which was Ford Island. Around the back, it was about a hundred yards, there was this great big rock, about the size of three or four automobiles I guess. It's not there now; I checked the last time I went there and it is gone.   Anyway, the rock had about a three-foot gap. I crawled in there, good shelter, and I sat there for a few minutes and directly the USS Arizona blew up. It made the biggest noise you can imagine and it shook the rock, I thought it was going to crush me. I ran out of there and ran up on the back. And you could look up and hear those bombs coming down like raindrops. Just flop, flop, flop, flop. They didn't fall straight like this: |||||||. They fell like this: /////. And one of them hit in front of me, wasn't four feet from me like that, and didn't go off, all I could see was dust coming out. SSHHHHHhhhhooofff! Superman didn't have anything on me. 

Along the edge there, about 200 feet (away) ware barracks for the BOQ; they call it bachelor officers quarters. I ran through there and there's a street out in front and I knew there was a bomb shelter at the north end of the island, so I went up there. And all the time these things were falling all around, I guess off the Arizona. 

I remember they had a golf course along there too. A piece of metal about three times as big as that door came down and hit one of those greens edgewise. BOINNGGG!!! And it stood up. Yeah. I picked up a cold chisel, big old cold chisel, that big around, and that thing's so hot it burned my hand. I kept on running, I didn't pick up anything else. 

I went into the shelter and a lot of people were in there, and all the officers' wives and kids. So I went through there, kind of embarrassed you know, half naked. I had my shorts and socks. So I went out, walked down the beach where the ARIZONA was and sat down in the beach and watched the whole show for the rest of the battle. Planes flying everywhere. 

I remember one plane came down, I think it might have been a photographer, another guy thinks he saw the same plane. The guy in the back, it was so close to me, I could have shot him with a double-barrel shotgun. The guy in the back had every tooth solid gold. He was grinning like heck and I could see his gold teeth. 

Then what happened? After the attack everybody started carrying guys off the ARIZONA. Some of them were dead and looked alive; some of them alive looked dead, and they carried them down to a boat dock where they could get the little boats to take them to the hospital. 

I went back to the BOQ there and stole some guy's pants and shirt and shoes. I couldn't find a belt so I got a great big old purple cord out of his bathrobe and tied it around me. 

When I went on down there they thought I was an officer. They kept "Siring" me around there because I was helping them, see. 

I guess we must have carried away a hundred-fifty, 200 men back and forth you know, going to the hospital. And opened up the commissary and gave all of the guys clothes that didn't have any, and I got some Marine khaki pants and shirt. I still have that officer's shoes. 

And (we) didn't lack anything. We had a little meal of sandwiches around there, and that night I slept in one of the buildings over on the west side of the island. 

The next morning we went back aboard the West Virginia to fight fires. There were several of us there, still blazes going on. I don't know where we were getting water. I don't know whether it came off the West Virginia or a tug alongside. Anyhow we were fighting the fire and put it all out. 

While we were there I went up in the mast, where our skipper got killed. And up there in his, what would you call it, little room he stays in when we are underway, there were some blankets and I got two of them. And several hundred of us slept on those seats out there waiting for reassignment. 

About three weeks later I got into a PT boat squadron. I got assigned to the PT 21 after about three weeks; well my last choice. I was waiting, trying to get an aviation group but they never did send in the request. So trying to wait them out.   

So then these khakis I told you about (which was all I had) got me in trouble over there. One of the officers, every time he saw me he'd chew me out. And one day I'd had about all I could stand of it and I went back aboard the PT 21 grumbling. Chief Torpedo man said, "What's the matter with you?" I said, "well he got me again." So he went around and bought me some dungarees. Had been later in the war I'd probably jumped that officer. Thank heaven it wasn't.   

(The stores didn't have clothiers.) There wasn't any. (The Navy) was not that organized yet. I didn't have any money and they didn't have small stores around there. I don't even know where they went and got them, probably over at the sub base. I didn't need a record -- no name, no money.   

(My job was) radioman, and we ran around the harbor and locks, stood watch, chased subs. We sunk one, right off the entrance to Pearl Harbor. 

Our duty was, when the big ships came in and out, we'd go out there and run around and like this, just make all the noise because there are two or three boats. 

This first picture I think released to the public during the war was our aircraft carrier coming out of Pearl, and a couple PT boats that are coming alongside, and they wrote out the numbers. I was on one with the note. But the idea was to make so much racket submarines couldn't get under that ship and come in the harbor underneath. They operate on their audio phones and sonar .... would mess them up. 

Several times we went out there and dropped depth charges. And one time we got some brooms and sticks and bashing stuff. We don't know whether we sunk them or not. That's their favorite trick, you know. If you get too close to them, they shoot that stuff out through the tubes. You've heard that story. But we got some of them, the evidence whether it's down or not. 

Then we went around to Kaneohe. That's on the northeast side. That was a seaplane base. We were around there one day anyhow. We stayed about a week, I guess. And we went out, the Skipper and I he was a flyer and I didn't know it we bummed a ride on a PBY. They were patrolling antisubs. Patrolled back and forth on the north side of the island, just back and forth. 

So about coffee time we'd already had coffee, I guess, the skipper of the plane and I guess a copilot, he came back to the front and he says, "Come up here and take over, we want to get our coffee." 

And my skipper went up there and sat down and here we go. I sit over there in the co-pilot's seat, all strapped in. When we went aboard the skipper asked us where we were from, he told them "PT outfit." Well it didn't dawn on the, PT boat. He thought it meant primary trainer so I guess, but he never did say.   

So the skipper, he'd fly down to the island, we'd turn around and he'd say, "Put your feet on the pedals." Get on yo-yo and here we go. 

You know guy, that's the way I ought to fly them. Why them guys back there didn't notice it, I'll never know. Anyhow, when we came back the pilot says to the skipper, "What outfit you say you're from?" "PT boat." "You guys are not flyers?" "No, I flew civilian," or something like that. He said, "Well you keep your mouth shut about flying this plane." 

It wasn't long after that we got word that the Japs, we had broke their code, about the invasion of Midway. That's common knowledge. And we went out there, took all eleven boats in the squadron, a month before it started. 

We rode them out there and rode them back; in a storm coming back with 15-foot waves. I was seasick five days. Well, out there we didn't do anything but we lined up along the beach during the attack, and our fighter planes and bombers would come down through.... 

See the Marines here, and we were out here, lead boat that would be forty-four guns. And out pilots had run out of gas or ammunition or whatever, they learned to fly down through there and they'd shoot the Japs off of them, see? One guy cleanly went through there three times. 

Anyhow the Japs were flying everywhere, and chasing every poor plane that was out of ammunition. Some of them flew up in the clouds and jumped out in a parachute. And here they came down and the Zero would stay around there and shoot them when they came out in the parachute. That made everybody mad! 

The Marines on the beach would see them out there. They were just jumping up and down like that. And I'm satisfied that started a lot of the inhumanity that we saw later in the war, just that stuff, that cruel. Those people are cruel. Even Chinese are. 

Then that night, they....see a lot happened. Oh, yeah. We went outside and tried to pick up a few flyers. 

That night they put ten barrels of gasoline on each side of our boats, and eleven of us took out after that fleet, tried to catch them--the Japs. They had turned after they took their licking and were heading for home. We thought maybe we could catch them. Thank goodness we didn't. We had not gotten rid of that gasoline, but if we'd a ridden into them, they'd a blown every one of us out of the water.   

We just left a trail of those barrels. Every time we pour one in, we just dump it over and just a whole trail of barrels across the Pacific. 

We got out there the next morning and the only thing we saw was, I think it was cruiser burning. Big smoke, you know, like one of our packing sheds. And just before we got there, I guess it's two miles away, she went under. And later I saw a film taken off the Argonaut, showing the very thing that we were standing there watching before she went under. And later the Argonaut got sunk--all hands.   

But on the way back we ran into one of our task forces that day. Prettiest blue sky I ever saw, and pretty clouds, pretty water. And here came that aircraft carrier. It's cruisers and tin cans. There wasn't a battleship but that aircraft carrier had a battle flag on it. A battle flag is about a 50-foot flag, and the thing is sitting up there just like that. Chasing the Japs they were wide-open, flank speed. 

We wouldn't have seen nothing if we'd been aboard that ship. At least we're sitting out there in the open. 

Earlier that morning the Japs had search planes out and one of them bombed one of the boats crushing behind us. It didn't hit him but they got hit right in the back end, about a 500-pound bomb, just blew a big geyser up, and the skipper wouldn't let me call them. We saw them coming, see. I was sitting up there in the canopy with my radio, said, "Skipper, you want to warn them?" "No, we can't break radio silence." So that Jap just came right on up and dropped his bombs and those guys were corking off, good old American corking off, you know; got a lotta guys killed but it was a good thing his aim wasn't any good. But I bet they woke up after that.   

After that we went back in and did a lotta searching around Midway, trying to find pilots, and Japs floating everywhere. One of the tin cans found some--there was one boatload of them, about two dozen Japs in it, just a flat boat about 30' long. They brought them in. They wanted to interrogate them, see, and there's one officer in the bunch. And he wouldn't even let the guys sit close to him in that boat.   

And they got him up on (the) tin can there in the dock, and they made them all sit down, you know, and they tell him "Sit down," and he wouldn't do it. He said, "I'm an officer. You can't tell me what to do," and that kinda stuff you know.  I can't remember whether they made him sit down or not, but they had a big argument with him. I remember that. See, we were tied up right alongside there.   

Saw them all, saw the boat. Those guys stunk, just like a bunch of monkeys in a zoo. They'd been out there a week or ten days, I guess. I don't know what they lived on, probably nothing. But he wasn't having nothing to do with them guys around him.   

Then we came back to Pearl. That's when we had that storm, seasick five days. Everyone of us swore we'd never get on that thing again. Got off on the dock there at the yacht basin. That's where we tied up. Then we were all just like a buncha drunks. That dock wouldn't stay still at all.   

It wasn't three weeks 'till we were on the way south again, that same buncha PTs. We went to Falmyra, which is about 900 miles south of Hawaii. We stayed there three months. They had a little airstrip there and we stayed close to it. We were to keep the subs chased away from there so they could not come up and shell the base. Also we had to run around and catch the flyers that fell in the water.   

We got a lotta planes, just trying to ferry them to the Solomons and Espiritu Santo. They couldn't find nothing. One day there were six B-26s. They're supposed to come in and not one of them came in. None of them made it. All went in the water. Lost them all. We went over to Kingman Reef. I don't know how far it was out there, three or four-hour run.   

Good fishing country. Old Roosevelt went down there one time on a cruiser, fishing. They weren't out there. That's the only other place they could have landed. They couldn't land, they might have swam there.   

In three months we were on the way to the Ellice Island group.   

Well, this is a side story. Our commander was an eager beaver named Cluster, Alvin Cluster. Now Nimitz came through there on day. I think it was Nimitz, one of those big bad ones, and they, 'course they were all over to the officers mess eating and Cluster went up there and told the admiral he'd like to be sent on to the Solomans. Well, in a few days here comes this transfer and he was my skipper, see, and I got a new skipper. That was at Palmyra.   

Then we went on to Funa Futi in the Ellice group, which is another name now but I don't know what they changed the name to. It was a British, what you call it. Protectorate, yeah. Had a British overseer. Some of those islands around there had French and British. Therein lays another story. We had to buy every palm tree we knocked down there to make a runway for our fighters and B-24s. When we went there the natives would do anything for a cigarette and when we left, we couldn't even get our clothes washed for a five-dollar bill. Those little gals over there had fruit jars full of money and they wouldn't even wash your pants for five dollars.   

(You wash clothes when you're on a PT boat) in a bucket and soap and salt water. The only fresh water we had was when it rained. We'd get all soaped up and it quit, and we had to rinse off the salt water.   

(Drinking water came) from the base or in Seabee camps. We didn't carry hardly anything. Even our food would be something for the night or something like that, and we'd get our food off the base. We had our tender with us, the HILO. It belonged to a rich family. They were tin heirs. I guess it's a good name, Leeds. And of course they gave it to the Navy, or whatever they do.   

And their commander was a Lieutenant Commander I believe, a Reserve, a barber from San Francisco. I knew him well because he wouldn't take me out fishing with him. He'd go out fishing; he had enough tuna and kingfish for all his crew and all four of us PT boats as part of a squadron. Yeah, we were there I think eleven months.   

Then we went on the Espiritu Santo. That's where the old COOLIDGE, can't think of it now. One of our big old merchant ships was sunk there on the harbor by a mine. Have you any stories about Espiritu Santo?   

Well, it was quite a supply base to start with. Anyhow our boat there, they found out the keel was broken so they surveyed it. They sent all of our crew up to the Solomons. We rode a tanker up there with a hundred-0ctane aviation gas on it. Life jackets night and day, no smoking.   

Of course I didn't smoke anyhow. That ship was full was about this much water running over the deck and the catwalk from the bow to the stern.   

The bow, you know how they're built up high on the front and so is the stern. That's the way they carried their gasoline. Of course a bomb would hit it, it'd blow up. But we got up there to Tellegie and there was Cluster and oh, a lot of the gang we knew. And they were taking a PT boat, one of the old ones, and making a gun boat out of it. They made about three of them--this was PT 59. 

They took the torpedo tubes off, put a 40 millimeter on the bow and the stern. And I believe there were five mounts of twin-fifties on the sides with a little bit of armor which wouldn't have done any good.  And right on the dock there were a bunch of brand-new radars, the first ones to be built for PTs.   

At Pearl Harbor my skipper had bummed one off a PBY there on Ford Island and I put it on our boat but it wasn't worth much. You had to turn the whole boat so you could use it, but it would work out there ten, twelve miles usually. So I started helping these guys put the radars on and put my own '59, and they assigned me and four others I guess of my original boat to it. 

We worked and worked and worked on the thing and finally got it ready to go. So we went out to test it and the next day or two here comes Jack Kennedy. He just got out of the hospital after tearing up his boat and they assigned me. Already had two officers but they assigned him to the "59. I guess by request, I don't know.   

(Kennedy) was a nice guy. I liked him and that Cluster too, "Course wasn't nothing about politics in those days. We (were) just old GIs. Curious guy. I admired his attitude. Everything was going on he was interested in. Didn't make any difference if it was down the engine room working on the engine or what. But as far as personality was concerned, I really liked him. We rode with him about four months, went up the Slot they called it, this gunboat. Our job was to chase barges.   

(We ran into some), Yes. The big ships had chased all the big stuff out up there in the upper part like Bougainville and that area. Choiseul? So the Japs started using these smaller barges to carry personnel and supplies. And here we go with the radar and by the time we got up there I got to where I could use it pretty good, and particularly on Choseul. Had a long straight stretch there. 

We always patrolled at night and you could see it on the radar. Just a string of them barges off the beach. We got up close enough to them and tried to sneak up, shut our mufflers off but they'd hear us. We sounded just like airplanes, see.   

And on my radar I could see them just turn in to go up on the beach. they'd run up in there and all them Japs ran out in the brush. We couldn't get that close, see. We had about I'd guess a five foot clearance. 

One morning we'd saw a bunch of them and where they wanted to stop, there's daylight, see what we could do, and we couldn't find a single one of those things, but we did find a little bay back in there. I tried to get him (to) go back in there but he wouldn't do it.   

Came back up here and there's a little native village there so he had the guys on those 40 millimeters just shoot the place up. 

Later the coast watch said they came upon sixteen Japs in there. We don't know whether that's true of not but that's what they reported.  Where all of it was shot down was a bunch of shacks and trees. One of those shells had hit a palm tree and that thing just disintegrated where it hit, and the whole tree'd go down like that.   

Let's see, where'd we go from there? We were patrolling out of Velia Lavella, near a place called Lamu Lamu. And we'd go up and Patrol off the coast of Bougainville and Choiseui. That's a little longer than that, I guess. You may have to get a map to get it (the correct spelling). It's kinda like French-Chousieel- or something like that.   

Then, let's see. we had two boats up there, gun boats and they try to send one out with a patrol every night, even to leader being in the back. And one time, it depended on who the skipper was, who was in front, whether senior or what.   

Well, one time the other boat was out of commission and we'd had to go every night. And here's what happened; for seven nights straight, the leader in lead, they bombed the tail boat. And if leader on rear, it bombed the bow--front boat, seven nights straight. Well, nothing ever did. We started counting after we noticed what was going on, see. We finally got the other boat where it could run and we got this, went every other night then.   

The Japs were out every night too; old planes looking for anything it could to bomb. Later they moved us to another squadron over to the Treasury group Islands, which is up near Bougainville, southwest I guess you'd call it, a group of islands.   

We were having a movie there one night. Name of it was "Mr. Leeds Goes to Town" I think. or it was "...goes to Washington" or "... Goes To Town" and right in the middle of the movie here we have a big alert. It wasn't really one but everybody thought it was. So we cranked up the PTs and I guess he was a Lieutenant Kelly. Did you ever hear of Kelly? No, it wasn't him. (Colin Kelly).   

This guy, I don't know what his first name was. He was with Buckley in the Philippines when they brought Macarthur out. After they got to Australia, they sent him back to the states. And they came through Pearl and gave us a speech before we ever left there, all about, what they've done.   

He told about bringing Macarthur out to Australia and how everything had got shot up in the Philippines. Pretty good story. But this guy Kelly, by this time was crazy. Well, everybody called him crazy because be acted like a maniac. Bawled everybody out. there wasn't a kind word coming outta him, see. Anyhow. we went out there , two boats of us. And what it was is two Japs had escaped after shooting an Aussie, from the north side of the island in a native canoe, just paddling away, one of them outriggers.   

And these two boats went out there and shot them up, just blew them all to pieces, and was swinging around to go back in, I didn't shoot my guns, somebody else did. They were tied down, and we had to tie them down and leave them locked on account of sometimes a shell would be in there, and it gets hot and goes off. Hot run they call it. So when we swing around this thing went off, and happened to be a tracer and it went right towards the beach. PPPEWWWwww.   

Old Kelly saw it and he thought the beach was shooting at him and started on the radio, raising cain you know, cussing and everything else, telling "Army so-and-so, cut out shooting at us."   

We got a little farther on and I probably shouldn't have done it but I told him "Sir, that was a Hot Run off our boat and nobody's shooting at us from the beach." And he said, "Well, for heavens sakes," which is almost blasphemy coming from him. "Be careful. Won't you be careful?" or something like that.   So we got almost around defenses again and he said, "Let me speak to your skipper." So he got my young buck ending on there and just chewed him out for no reason in the world. That's the reason they called him crazy, see. It hadn't soaked into him yet that no one was shooting at him.   

(While) We were back there, Kennedy got relieved there at Lamu Lamu before we moved up to Treasury. I was on the deck watch that day; he'd been down to the hospital. He came right back at noon and a guy had brought him up there in a boat and he was crying, and I held my hand down and helped him up. And I said, "What's the matter Skipper?" He said, "Oh, Pappy, they surveyed me." We had two Pappy's on that boat, one a mechanic about 45 years old, and I was older than all the other guys, radioman, so I was Pappy Sparks.   

And the Navy term, survey means they kick them out or get rid of him, so he was sent home, put in the hospital and they operated on him.   

About a month later me and my gang had come off the '21, we all got a relief and went down to Tulagi. I bummed a ride on a PBY. This is the first aviation I got into, except for little flights around Pearl. And there I believe was perhaps 20 men on the plane. I don't know where they were sitting but it was overloaded and when it hit the water, we hit something a log or a crocodile, nobody knew. But it ripped the whole back end out of that plane. They come in a little heavy like that, you know.   

Everybody started yelling and skipper looked back and he crammed the throttle and turned it right, towards the beach. And we got jumped out and swam a little ways to shore.   

We sat out on the beach about two hours and finally they sent a boat over from Tulagi and took us to the bay. 

That's one of those times when the whole world went by just like that. You've heard of that story. Cuz I thought, "Yea god, the whole war and now I'm gonna get drowned in a plane crash". 

They sent us on over to Guadalcanal. It was all cleared around there by then. Had a kind of a receiving ship over there which was a big old tent, where the guys were staying til they could get a ride outta there, and the officers got all the planes so we couldn't get a plane. So finally, one day an old tramp steamer-like thing came in there. "Hey, ship leaving everybody", someone said. where's it going?" "I don't know but I'm getting on it." So about 150 of us ran down there and got on that old junker and they said. We didn't know where we were going. 

Guess where we wound up? Noumea, New Caledonia. About a thousand miles south. That's south of the east coast of Australia and we couldn't even get outta there til about a month. I was in that place in a P.O.W. camp now, mind you.   

They built it for that. The walls were fences, 15 feet high with all that stuff coiled on top, you know. Couldn't even get outta there. No liberty or nothing. 

Finally a big old President Line ship, one of those big boys, came in and everybody got on there. There was eight holds in that thing and one hold of able-bodied men. The rest of them either crazy or sick or something wrong with them. In this one hold we had to run the whole ship. I had the stand radio watches up in the superstructure. My buddy was a first-class gunners mate. He was in charge of discipline and all that stuff. 

Some of the guys died on the way. They brought them down to the locker and froze them till we got to San Francisco. 

It took us 12 days to come home at 21 knots. Can you imagine that? That's a long stretch of water. 

Yeah, the cabin next to me had three nurses in it, pregnant, and Marines on the doors for guards. Each door had Marines standing there with a rifle leaning with fixed bayonets on them. 

Had to walk by them every time I went to watch. Anyhow, we finally got home. I don't know what in the world I was wearing. Must've had some dungarees or something. I lost all my stuff again on the plane. Didn't have much but when I got to San Francisco they gave me what they call a Survivors Kit, to go over to the Small Stores and just draw a whole new bag. Where I got it I don't know, but I had some money too. They must have given me some money too. I don't know how much. But me and my buddies went down and ordered tailor-made uniforms. That's what it was, all that fancy stripes and all, and then we came home.   

Went (on) 30 days leave and four days traveling time. Went home to McAllen, where my girl friend was. We got married. 

I went on to Rhode Island, ran into a Lieutenant that I knew in Pearl Harbor, a Chief, and he put me out in a radar shop and there I stayed for the rest of the war.   

(I came home in ) February of '44 I guess. (Stayed) in Rhode Island 19, 20, 21 months, something like that. 

Here's what happened there. I was the radar instructor there. I taught the officers and the quartermasters and we had a lot of personnel there. 

Had big bands coming there like Kay Kayser and that bunch, and this Vox Peps program came there one time. Did you ever hear of that? They advertised Bromo-Seltzer like: Bromo-Seltzer, Bromo-Seltzer. Remember that train light? Anyhow they went around and interviewed a bunch of guys and I got on that. They gave me a trip for my wife to come up there, a carving set, three pairs of nylons, and an electric razor. I guess I can't think of anything else. I don't remember. Anyhow here she comes, see?   

We went over to get a place, me and my buddy in a Navy housing unit. "Oh, we're filled up. We haven't got a thing in the world". And of course, we had our uniforms on. they could see what we're wearing. It was for enlisted men and then, just as we got to the door, one girl says, "How many points have you got?" Which didn't mean a thing to me. I was regular Navy, see. We went over there and she started asking me, this, that, and the other, and I think if I'm not mistaken, I had 154 points! 

That put me ahead of the whole list. I got an apartment, the only one they had. My buddy didn't get one so he lived with me a month til he got one. That's one time. I never got a break down there ( in the war) except for staying alive and being lucky. When I got back to the States everything just clicked like that. I never saw anything like it.   

I didn't even get any leave or vacation down there. After the war was over and I was out, they sent me a check for $700 or $800.00, for the leave I didn't get. Oh lord, that's a gold mine. 

  Back in this shop were we're teaching these guys, one thing I remember, I had a lotta fun with it. These new Squadron Commanders we were training lasted about three months. I could tell when it was about time for them to go out, when their squadron came up looking for this rate and said, "First class, huh?" "Yes Sir, How'd you like the have Chief?" Oh, good, good, good." "Tell you what. If you go to the Philippines with me I'll give you Chief."  I'd say "Oh, no, no, no," I'll stay here. I'll stay 1st class. I don't know, there must have been somewhere between seven or eight officers that pulled that. It got to be funny to me.   

I could tell when they were leaving when they start sidling up like that. Let's see, what else happened? I was getting ready to go to what they called Advance Radio Materials School at Dearborn, Michigan. I took and exam and passed that. 

That's before the war was over so I got 18 days leave, and by this time I had a little baby boy, to bring my wife and boy home in a car, and we got to Philadelphia on VJ day. We were right in the middle of town and you never saw such a mess in your life. Took us six hours to get through that town. People just, went crazy. The traffic was stopped. You couldn't go anywhere. 

People would get up on top of cars and run across the tops of cars to get to the other side. They finally cleared it out I guess close to dark. And we came on down home. 

They told me, "You're gonna have to re-enlist for three years I think they said, if you want that school. "No, no, I got three months to do, I'll go home."  "Well in that case, we're gonna send you down to Norfolk," or somewhere. they're commissioning a new carrier, the FDR. I don't want that, that would be a hot ship. You know that." now that the war's over. By hot, means regulation. I mean spick and span. You know, He said, "Well, you'll have to stay till they close the base then." Okay, I'll close the base." 

We boxed up all that stuff. I went down and got me a train ticket and transfer to New Orleans to get out. Couldn't get out; too big a crowd there. They had a whole supposed to be working too, cause I could type. 

One day I was standing around there and a guy walked up, had a shoe box full of records. Everybody knows what a record looks like in those days, in a brown folder. "What have you got there?" "I got the high-point men." Says (I), "Mine in there?" I hadn't heard a call or nothing, see. "and so, what's your name?" "Scribner." "I've been looking for you a week. Where you been?" "Hiding out under the lumber pile." 

So he gave me my record and some kind of a paper, and he said, "Go down that row there and tell everyone of them guys (to) sign. and that's what I did.  Got myself transferred and didn't know it, and out. And they gave me a transfer and a ticket over to Houston, to an Army base there. The Navy was using it and I came over there and got discharged. 

 This is an interview (1/19/1990) titled Oral History Memoir conducted by Margaret Cawood, American Airpower Heritage Museum of the Confederate Air Force.

REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR and KEEP AMERICA STRONG!

back to top