Bill Kimmick’s Memoirs – WWII
April 26, 2008 – 6:00 pmMy Memories WWII
By Bill Kimmick
I am writing this somy children and grandchildren and great grandchildren will know what it was like during World War II.
I would like to thank Alice Hunt for typing this for me.
This is dedicated to my grandson, Sean Lipsey, June 1998.
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I was talking to my daughter Deb and she said Sean would like to know about my time in World War II. Just a little background about why I joined the Navy.
If you read history, you would know that in 1938 and 1939 and 1940 things were not looking good in Europe and that it would be amatter of time before there would probably be a war.
In 1940 we had some kind of a R.O.T.C program at high school that met at night. I went to that for awhile, thinking I would learn something about military life and then join the Cavalry. I learned one thing that I did not like to march. And the way things were going there probably would not be any Cavalry. By a matter of figuring things out I felt there must be a better way of carrying a rifle. A lot of my friends did join the National Guard and you guessed it. The horses were out and mobile units were in.
Sometime in 1941, they sent the unit I was thinking of joining to the Philipines. From the letters we got back things were not looking good.
On August 1, 1941, there were four of us that decided to take a trip and see other parts of the country. I was still living on and working for Mr. Stephens on his ranch. I was getting room and board and $25 a month.
Leslie Stephens had gotten a job at Santa Rita, and had bought a used 1937 Ford 160 HP.
The four of us, Leslie Stephens, Marcele Biebelle, Don Sifford, and I planned a two-week trip. Marcele was still in high school so he had to have his parents’ permission to miss a week of school.
We took the trunk lid off of the 1937 Ford and built a chuck box to fit in it. It was high enough for us to put our bedrolls behind it and the back of the car. We had the chuck box stocked very well. We had pots and pans and things to eatout of. We also carried enough water so that we could make coffee. We made campfires and did our cooking.
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We left Silver City,New Mexico and went into Arizona. When it got dark we would find a place where we could get off the main road. There we would make camp 400 or 500 feet from the road. One morning in Arizona when we woke up we found we had camped a short ways from an Indian campsite.
Wewere surprised and so were they. It did not take us too long to break camp and get back to the main highway.
I know we spent one night in Bryce’s Canyon. Another night was spent in Zion. Another place that we stayed was Salt Lake City. We went through the capital, also to the Mormon Tabernacles Grounds. There were having service so we did not get into the church itself, but about 50 years later Freda and I went and heard their music.
When we entered Salt Lake I was driving. Compared to the dirt roads we had, I though it was the biggest street I had ever seen. We did get a motel or some place where we could take a bath in warm water. Up until now we would find an irrigation ditch or a reservoir or a creek with some water in so we could kind of wash up and have water to cook with and take sponge baths after dark…not ideal but it kept us clean enough to be able to stand each other.
The next place I remember is Yellowstone Park. There were not many people there in September of 1941. We just got off to ourselves and made camp. We spent two or three days there looking around. We enjoyed the park.(Information—Freda and I were there fifty years later and nothing looked the same, almost like a city.) Back to our trip. The next place where I remember we stayed was Thrompolis, Wyoming. We followed an irrigation ditch a way out of town so we would have water to cook with and clean up with.
One of our meals was chip beef and gravy. We could all four eat for about 25 cents counting the bread. We spent a couple of days there and took in a rodeo there. Don Sifford met a girl there and went back and married her two or three years later.
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One place we left the road in Wyoming, when we got out of the car there were so many little round cactuses that we couldn’t find a place to put our beds, so back into the car. We found a place to put our beds, I’m not sure where.
From Wyoming to Colorado. In Colorado we camped along streams. Then through Denver to Farmingon, New Mexico where Les Stephen’s uncle was a forest ranger. I think Les slept in the house. We slept in our bed rolls in the yard. But we sure enjoyed some good home cooking for a day or two and home to the Stephen’s ranch. You can tell from this it was a wonderful trip. We did this for less than $100.00 for the four of us.
September 1941. Back to the story for Sean. By this time, they were starting to draft people on their 21st birthday and we could see that our time was coming. So Les and I went to the Navy recruiter in Silver City and said we wanted to join the Navy and see the world. When I was young, about six years old I came to California with my Granddad Davis to Aunt Mary’s and Uncle Leonard’s. They took me aboard a Cruiser. Thinking back to when I went on the Cruiser I thought this would be a good way to see the world.
Les and I both had to get our parents to sign for us because we were not 21. I had to get a birth certificate because what I had only say boy Kimmick since I was born on the ranch where my dad was born. The doctor came at a later date. Things like that was done without too much fanfare. My grandmother and Mrs. Eby and her daughter did the job. Her daughter was probably sixteen at the time and she was the one who helped fill out the paperwork so I could get a birth certificate. When it came I was able to start joining the Navy.
We had all the paperwork done and was set to leave for El Paso then San Diego on December 9, 1941.
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On December 6, 1941, Les and I went to Las Cruces,New Mexico, to tell his aunt and uncle and to tell our friends that were going to college there, goodbye. We were out at the school about 5:00 P.M. when one of our friends asked us if we had heard any news today and we said no, and that’s when we found out that Pearl Harbor was bombed, and I knew right then that my Navy career probably would not be going around the world seeing countries like I had planned.
Les and I came home that evening. There was a big dinner and a farewell party planned for us on December 8, 1941. Our families and some friends were there at the Stephen’s Ranch. We said our goodbyes to family and friends.
December 9, 1941. Mr. Stephens drove Les and I out to the highway where the bus from Silver City stopped to pick us up early that morning.
We were taken to the Navy recruiting station in El Paso, Texas,and given a little bit of physical. We met some more people from Texas and New Mexico. We were the first bunch of sailors to leave El Paso after the war started. It was quite an experience to come into Los Angeles with everything blacked out. We changed trains inL.A. and went to San Diego and were met at the train station and taken to Naval Training Station. It was late at night and they took us to a barracks and we had to find a bed that was empty. Of course,there were just a few night lights, but I managed to find a bed. At daylight we got up and had breakfast and then the task of getting checked in to the Navy. My doctor friend in New Mexico said my blood pressure was a little high and had given me two or three pills. He said if you can figure out when they are going to check you, take one, but no more or I wouldn’t have any blood pressure. When they called for the physical I took one pill and flushed the other down the toilet. I went through with flying colors until I had to read a color blind chart. The medic took me to different windows to try to help. Finally he said, “How did you make it this far?” I said the guy at the recruiting station just took his finger and drew it out. I looked at him and said, “There are several of my buddies and they are making it through the physical and you know I’ll have to go somewhere and I picked the Navy.”
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He looked at me and said, “Since you put it that way, probably won’t make any difference”, and checked me through. That night of December 11 about 10:00 P.M. I was sworn into the Navy. Went back and found the barracks where I had left my stuff and went to sleep.
The next few days was just a blur. We got haircuts, new clothes and a sea bag, a mattress and everything we needed. Went and took all our regular clothes off, put them in a box and they were sent home. I was putinto Co. 160, so was all the ones that came fromEl Paso with me. That night when we were allin the Navy, and we went to bed and all lights were turned out, I think as I laid down, that night was the loneliest night in my life. But 5:30 or 6:00 A.M. came quick and things started to fall in place.
We were to learn how to march and that was a disaster for me. A friend of mine of about four days was assigned to a special detail and he said to me, “You can’t march any better than I can. I’ll talk to the chief and tell him they need another person on the detail”, so I got the job. We had the job of keeping the lines straight going through the chow lines. When that was over we would go to the area and issue brooms, soap, or whatever was needed. One night I looked out on grinder or marching field and they had a bunch of sailors with one of their legs tied to the one in back marching. Probably would have been me if I hadn’t gotten the job I had. About all I learned in boot camp was that there was a right way to hang a towel and how to roll clothes so they would fit in a sea bag.
On December 31, 1941, I was all through with boot camp. On January 1, 1942, they sent our Co. on different assignments. There was a group that was sent to a Pharmist Mate school, but it did not start for two or three weeks and they were given leave to go home if they had the money. So we put our money together so they could show it to a clerk so they get their leave papers. After everyone got their leave papers we all got our money back and they could get out the gate and hitchhike home.
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Then they called up a group for a seaman guard unit and I was in that. I only had tocarry my gear about half a block and that was my new home for awhile. And you guessed it. I ended up carrying a rifle up and down the beach and other areas of the base. The way it worked out we got 48 hours off every so often and I would hitchhike to Laguna Beachwhere Aunt Mary, Uncle Leonard, and cousin Leo lived. Boy, did she have some good treats. I always bought a bus ticket back so I would not be late.
Les was sent to a cook and bakers school on the base and made third class in just a short while. He said, “I’ll put in a good word for you, and you know enough to become a good cook or baker.” That’s another lesson I learned. People do not like to be bypassed. I was out in the back of the barracks and someone said tome, “Is your name Kimmick?” I said yes. “Well, here are your papers to be transferred to Baker’s school in the trash.
Then I had another cousin from New Mexicocome in 1942. Aunt Mary and Leo would come to San Diego and take us on a picnic. Also Mrs.Stephens came out to San Diego to Les and I.
In May of 1942 they put a note on the bulletin board saying anyone with months or more could put in for any of the schools that were listed. I looked at submarine school because it paid a quick $50.00, but something seemed to say to me “you can do better than that”. There was an electrical school, and I thought, “here is my chance to learn something.” WhereI came from we only had coal oil lamps, but I did have a fair background in math, so with that going for me I put in for it and was with the first two hundred sailors to go to Ames,Iowa, for college. In four months I finished a third class elect with a 3.3 grade. Not too bad for a boy who was raised where we had no electricity where we lived.
I was given a leave and I went from Ames,Iowa to Des Moines to catch a train to New Mexico. I was home for a few days, went back to Ames for reassignment. By this time the ground or grass was covered with frost and we were out there doing pushups. There was about 30 of us assigned to the Amphibious Force. None of us knew what that was. We were put back on
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a train to Cincinnati, Ohio and on to Virginia. We ended up at a Amph. Base in Little Creek, Virginia.
From there I was sent to a gyro compass school in Norfolk,Virginia,for a month.
We went to school for about eight hours a day learning how compasses were supposed to work. When we were through with the class, we were taken to a room and shown a bunch of different kinds of compasses. I remember the instructor pulling the cover off of one of the gyros saying “Where you are going you will probably never see this”, and covered it back up. You guessed it. When I got my ship,that’s the one we had.
Then back to Little Creek, Virginia, where we were loaded on a cattle boat and shipped to a base on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland to a staging area to be assigned to ship crews. We landed there. The sun had been shining on a frozen bank that we hadto go up. It was trying to thaw. As we left ship you picked up a sea bag and gear and took it to a building. When everything was unloaded and you found out where you were going, you grabbed your sea bag and went to your new home.
This is where my crew was started. We had all kinds of rating there and when they called your name you were assigned to a ship. After that, we met with your ship number. Mine was 459 LST. The first day, there was about 10 of us called. Seemed like it took about a week as they brought new people in, for us to get most of our crew.
From there we were transferred toVirginia where we went on an LST for training. This was where I first learned or knew what kind of a ship I would be on. I know we were on the ship Christmas 1942.
I remember asking the electrician on the ship where something was and he said he had only been on the ship about three days. Maybe we could find it together.
From there we transferred to a train to be shipped to Portland, Oregon to pick up our ship. I remember there was snow from East Coast to West Coast. We went the Northern route. I know we went through Montana.
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I did come home from Portland for a few days in January, 1943. When I got back, the elect. crew from our ship which was four of us, had to go to a big warehouse where all the spare parts were for your ship. Since there were other ships ahead of us we were missing some things, but there were parts labeled for ships that came after us, so what was missing from our spare parts we just took out of the ones that were being outfitted later. I often wonder what was left for the last ship that was built there inVancouver, Washington.
When we got our ship there was a lot to learn in a hurry. The Gyro Compass had to be started up and put in operation.
I was the only one on the shipthat probably had seen a gyro. It’s kind of like driving a car. They allwork, but the controls are a little different. So the operating manual and Igot to know each other quite well.
On our way to San Francisco our steering gear went out and we had to steer the ship by hand. It took two sailors on a big crank to make it work. Going straight was not too bad. Seemed like they were running the crank for one hour on and one hour off out of four. I believe it was Hunter’s Point where the repairs were made. The steering gear was one of the weak points of an LST. The bearing would go out on the big electric motor. I had to change them a couple of times.Once when we were on the beach on a landing, I know we had it done before we had to pull off the beach. We were all busy trying to learn how to do our job and keep the ship going. I think there were maybe ten people who had been to sea before. Some of them were fishermen in their civilian life.
Our crew was made up of people from all these states and I will try to name some: New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Washington, California, Florida, Alabama, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Kansas and West Virginia. Since there were only about 100 of us, the states were very well represented.
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From the San Francisco area we went to Long Beach. There I got off the ship and hitchhiked up to LA to see a cousin, Jim Davis. So happened a cousin of mine was off the Indianapolis (cruiser) which was later sunk. It delivered some parts or maybe the atom bomb to where the B29’s were so they could drop the atom bomb.
He was also a elect., and showed me how to make a test lamp, which I did. Our ship was DC (Direct Current) and 110 or 220 volts. I used to just dampen my fingers to test if there was any electricity there.
From Long Beach we went to San Diego. It seems like at each one of those stops there was something that had to be done or loaded onto our ship. Like getting the disguising set up. This was an elect. cable with nineteen separate wires in it. This was to keep the mines away. I know there was nineteen separate wires because we got hit and the cable broken. We had to order a piece of cable so the electicians could take the bad part out and splice a new part in. This cable was about the size of a 2 inch pipe.
I am not sure where we loaded a LCT on top of us. I think it was 105 ft long and 35 ft wide on top of our deck, with its crew, and I think about eleven men and officers.
Sometime in March of 1943 there were four or five LST’s and we sailed to American Samoa.
I remember I went ashore and one of the first sights I saw was people with elephantitis. This was where parts of their bodies were swelled up about five or more times bigger than they should be. I must have been a sissy. I looked around a little in Pango Pango. Tried not to touch, eat or drink anything and caught the first small boat back to our ship. I do not know why we stopped there. The next stop we made wasWellington, NewZealand. We were there for a short time.
Therewas a bar or pub close to where we docked. They served hot beer and they had abig tub filled with water. They would take a glass when someone finished, swishit around, and fill it up again. That didn’t seem like a very clean operationso we left and caught a cab into town. In the first place there was a womandriver. I wondered about that and when she started driving down the wrong sideof the street I thought sure we would be hit, but I found out later the wrong side of the street for us was right for them.
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We went into a restaurant and looked at the menu. Everything was in English except prices, and it was in shillings. Whatever they called their coins and bills. We finally asked the waitress what that meant in American money and she said about 75 cents.
We were there a short time and loaded up a load of Marines. Some of us went to the Church of England in New Zealand.
Our next stop was Sydney, Australia. We unloaded the Marines. One of our men was a Mormon and several of us went to church with him. When the service was over some of the ladies, I thought were probably 45 or 50 year old ladies, stood at the door and said “Sister, take this sailor or service man home for dinner”, which was quite a treat. They had to wait a certain length of time before they wrote a letter home to our families saying we had been in church and was well. It did make our parents feel good.
Our next stop was toBrisbane, Australia. Enroute there, was the captain changed where we slept because an LST in a convoy a day or so ahead of us got hit in the crew’s quarter and they lost quite a few people. I don’t know what other ships did, but since there was three different sections our skipper put one section in crew’s quarters, one section on starboard side mid-ship, and the section I was in on the port side forward. It worked for us. None of us were hurt.
We were anchored out quite aways in Brisbane and had to go in by small boat. I did go ashore once but remember very little about it. I know our first class elect. got really drunk and was going to throw the engineering officer out of the boat. Just as he got up he passed out. We had to lower the boom and put him in a cargo net to get him aboard ship. When he had his executive trial they wanted to take a rate away, down to second class, but the ship’s captain said no, but restricted him to the ship for thirty days.
That really didn’t mean too much for we were at sea most of the time. I think we launched the LCT that was on our deck at Brisbane, but not sure.
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From there we went toTownsville, Australia. I did get to go ashore there. It was a real small town, but had a nice long beach. It seems like all the streets were dirt. People seemed very nice. Note this was the first staging area.
It was here we loaded up for our first landing. It was a night I will remember.
We did get hit, but by one of our own ships. It almost knocked a life raft off and put a hole on the starboard, or right, side. We stuffed life jackets in the hole to keep the light from shining out. When we go back to Townsville this was my first elect. repair job, getting things or fuse box put back together.
After that we made lots of night landings getting supplies in to troops on different beaches in New Guinea.We would have trucks loaded with supplies for the troops on the beach. We had a group of soldiers that would drive the loaded trucks off and try to get an empty back to ourship because we treated them good and had good food.
The first daylight landing I remember making was close to Christmas Day, 1943. I know we picked up several wounded, and had them just laying on stretchers on the tank deck. I have pictures of our ship on that beach. After that we got equipment for an operating room and I got the job of hooking it up so we could have an operating room aboard ship. We also got nine Corpsmen and one Chief Corpsman and two or three doctors. After that, within an hour or so from the time the first wave hit the beach we had wounded aboard.
We had a baker who had cooked in a logging camp in Washington State.When we started loading troops he would go to the one in charge of their cooks. Our breakfast on landing seemed to be scrambled powdered eggs, but he would stay up all night and with extra help make sugar doughnuts. This was something he always tried to do, and the Mormon cook we had kept the 40 gallon coffeepot full. He said “I want any mother’s boy that can get to our ship to be able to get all the coffee he wants”. That seemed to be the attitude of most of our crew. I was with part of the crew from probably October 1942 to May 1945. Ourship was 327 feet long, 50 feet wide. I don’t think I was off it
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overnight more than fifteen nights from February 1943 to May 1945. We were really quite busy so time went by quite fast.
Someone from another ship did research on operations his ship had been in. There were three LST (LST 459 was one of them) being one in 24 or 25 operations.
We hauled Japanese prisoners several times. I remember we had a couple locked in the paint locker. Some could talk English. We asked him who was going to win the war and he said nobody.
We also picked up several Indians from India which the Japs were using for slave labor. The same time we picked up a missionary and his wife, also another man, American I think. Not sure what he was doing there. An LST next to us picked up some Catholic nuns. Do not know what else. On one of our landings we brought a native woman aboard who was hurt real bad. She died aboard ship and we buried her at sea. We only had injured on board two of three days and the service men that died on our ship were taken back to a staging area and given to the proper people.
Here are some of the D days that I made that maybe you can find on a map;
Leyte P.I., Lingan Gulf P.I., Zamaboanga P.I. and the last one I made was on an island close enough to see Borneo. On our last landing a mine sweep ship was sunk near us and we picked up several of the sailors and took them back to Leyte.
When we got back to Leyte P.I., I was given orders to report back to the Western seafront which was Treasure Island, San Francisco.
From there I went home. Reported back to San Diego for further assignment. When I checked into the base in San Diego in 1945 it was dark. The next morning when I woke up, one of the sailors we had picked up was in the same room as I was. It took a little bit to figure out where our paths had crossed. All they had was what they were wearing because their ship went down in about five minutes. We shared some things and took them back to Leyte P.I., the same place I left the ship. From there I was sent to a school close to
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Williamsburg,Virginia. I was going to an advanced elect. school. While I was there I got to see some of the East Coast.
I went to a town by train near Wheeling,West Virginia to visit one of my shipmate’s family. His dad was mayor of the town so his sister came down in a police car to pick me up. She didn’t have too hard of a time finding me since I was the only sailor to get off. J.J. Cooper got there next day and did we have a good time, and his mom really cooked some good meals. I did not see J.J. again until 1987 when Freda and I stayed a couple of nights with he and his wife.
I went toNew York with a sailor I was going to school with. He went to see his wife and I just looked around the city. I also looked up one of the sailor families that was on the ship and told them their son was fine when I left the ship in May 1945.
The only place I could find to sleep was the railroad station inNew York. They had a section closed off for service people. They gave you a sheet and a pillow and for 50 cents you could sleep for four hours, then they would wake you up so someone else could get some rest. The next day I went out to the sailor’s home and his wife fixed up a good dinner. Then we had to catch a train back to the base. I got to go to Richmond,Virginia and Washington DC a few times.
Whenthey dropped the atom bomb it shortened my Navy career. In about four weeks, Iwould have been on another ship back to the Pacific, but instead I was transferred to the destroyer San Diego base to be discharged. I was discharged November 8, 1945 and stopped in San Pedro,California and L.A. to visit aunts, uncles and cousins. When discharged, I had to sign up for the draft. I had enlisted in the Navy and had never signed up.
In L.A. my cousin Jim Davis said “What are you going to do when you get back to New Mexico?” and I said I didn’t know. He said, “I can get you a job with the city of L.A. where you have vacation and sick time. All you have to do is pass the test”. Soon November 16, 1945 I went to work for the city of L.A. In March, 1981 I retired from the city of L.A.as a traffic signal supervisor over construction in San Fernando Valley and the Loop and Boom truck crews city wide.
Attached is a sheet of my Navy record with a little more detail.
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