Interview of Clyde M. Robinson
Transcript Number 036

INTRODUCTION: This is Stephen Heffner of the World War II Veterans Oral History Preservation Project. It is Tuesday, June 20, 2000. It is now 2:55 p.m. I am going to interview seaman first class Clyde M. Robinson who served in the United States Navy during World War II. This interview is being given at the Barbee Branch Library in Oak Island, North Carolina.

INTERVIEWER: And now Mr. Robinson, I'm going to ask you some questions. Mr. Robinson, what's your date of birth? 

ROBINSON: November 16, 1921.

INTERVIEWER: And where were you living at the time that World War II broke out?

ROBINSON: I was living near Salisbury, a little town called Faith.

INTERVIEWER: In North Carolina?

ROBINSON: Oh yes. 

INTERVIEWER: Were you single or married?

ROBINSON: I was married.

INTERVIEWER: How old were you when the war broke out?

ROBINSON: Let's see when the war broke out, I was 20 years old, born in '21.

INTERVIEWER: Were you working at the time?

ROBINSON: I was working in a textile mill.

INTERVIEWER: Besides your wife, did you have any children?

ROBINSON: Had one child, a little girl.

INTERVIEWER: Do you remember what you were doing on Pearl Harbor Day and how you found out about World War II?

ROBINSON: Yes, I had bought me another car and I was trying it out on a Sunday afternoon and I was going up a road and making sure the radio was playing and I heard the news and I just pulled over to the side of the road and stopped and I sat there and listened to that news and it disturbed me because I said, man, this means the war is right here. Yes I remember well that Sunday afternoon.

INTERVIEWER: And how long after the war began did you enlist?

ROBINSON: Well I volunteered first in 1942 and I was turning down in Raleigh, North Carolina and the two people that wanted me to go with them, the three of us decided we'd just join the Navy because we rather have the Navy. So we took off up to the recruiter and signed up and went to Raleigh and they turned them down right away and I thought I was the only one going and they had talked me into it.

INTERVIEWER: Why did they turn you down the first time? What was wrong with you?

ROBINSON: Heart murmurs.

INTERVIEWER: Heart murmurs. And the second time that you tried to enlist.

ROBINSON: The second time I was drafted.

INTERVIEWER: Oh you were drafted.

ROBINSON: So there wasn't no problem that time.

INTERVIEWER: Drafted into what service?

ROBINSON: The Navy.

INTERVIEWER: The Navy was drafting in World War II. So they drafted you and did they know about your heart murmur.

ROBINSON: They didn't say a word about it. 

INTERVIEWER: When were you drafted, do you remember?

ROBINSON: I was drafted December 13, 1943.

INTERVIEWER: Two years after the war. And what did you do between Pearl Harbor and the two years when you finally went into service. Did you continue to work and live at home?

ROBINSON: Question again.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. Pearl Harbor was December of 1941 and you were drafted two years later. What happened in these two years, did you work or live at home?

ROBINSON: I worked. After I was turned down in Raleigh for the Navy, I went back home and worked until I was drafted.

INTERVIEWER: What did you do?

ROBINSON: I worked in the textile mill. I did spend 6 months in a naval shipyard in Wilmington, North Carolina.

INTERVIEWER: As a civilian?

ROBINSON: I stayed 6 months, got tired of it and went back home.

INTERVIEWER: You knew you were going to be drafted?

ROBINSON: Well I felt like I would.

INTERVIEWER: Even with your heart murmur?

ROBINSON: Even though I thought they might turn me down because of my heart murmur, but they didn't even mention that.

INTERVIEWER: Now you got your draft notice at the end of 1943 and where did you have to report to.

ROBINSON: _______, South Carolina I think it was and then we went from there to Bainbridge, and then between that time I spent about 3-4 months in Newport, Rhode Island and that was in March and April.

INTERVIEWER: Of what year?

ROBINSON: 1944. And then I went into the Philadelphia Navy yard and went aboard the U.S.S. Wisconsin battleship, BB64.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of training did you receive at these various bases that you just said you were at?

ROBINSON: Well when we was at Bainbridge, we had to pass tests like swimming and I was not a very good swimmer and I had to jump off of a tower. And I crawled up on that tower the first time and I looked down at the water and it looked like there was a mile until that water and they told me I had to pass that test before I could get liberty or anything. And so I come down off there a time or two and I just stayed in the barracks at night. It was cold up there. But one night I went up there and I decided I'm going to pass this test and I'm going to jump off this thing if it kills me. And I jumped off of that thing and I hit that water and I hit the bottom and everybody told me I'd never hit the bottom and I wondered how deep it was, but I hit the bottom. And I swum around it three times and then they told me I could have liberty. I had passed the test. So I just took general training like that you know.

INTERVIEWER: No specialty, no radioman, or anything like that.

ROBINSON: I ended up as a lookout in the L division and I was up in the superstructure watching out across the water with binoculars you know looking for ships and other enemy aircraft or anything laying in the water like a mine or anything that might blow up the ship or anything like that.

INTERVIEWER: So you were trained just general seaman's duty. You learned about the Navy and about its ships and about the men in the service, the officers, enlisted men and what rank were you when you were at these various bases?

ROBINSON: They promoted me to seaman first class.

INTERVIEWER: When was that?

ROBINSON: That was after I was in the service about a year and I was already aboard ship then out in the Pacific when they promoted me.

INTERVIEWER: Let's go back to Philadelphia. That's the first time you say you saw a ship, is that right?

ROBINSON: Yes. We commissioned the ship in Philadelphia Navy yard.

INTERVIEWER: What was the name of the ship?

ROBINSON: U.S.S. Wisconsin.

INTERVIEWER: And what class ship was it, battleship, aircraft carrier?

ROBINSON: BB64, a battleship.

INTERVIEWER: Was that one of the major battleships?

ROBINSON: Right, it's just about 2 foot longer than the North Carolina and about 2 foot wider. We just squeezed through the Panama Canal.

INTERVIEWER: And the ship was being built while you were in Philadelphia?

ROBINSON: Being completed then, yes. I had a bunch of information I could have brought along, but I didn't bring it.

INTERVIEWER: Were you assigned to that ship as your first shipboard duty?

ROBINSON: Right, right. I went on it before it slid down the ramp.

INTERVIEWER: And when was it launched, do you remember?

ROBINSON: No I don't, I got that date, but I didn't bring it with me.

INTERVIEWER: Sometime in 1944, is that right?

ROBINSON: Yeah, it was probably about May. Then we took it on a shakedown cruise, took it to Norfolk and had it demagnetized so the mines wouldn't blow it up and we went down in the Caribbean Sea and went to this little island and fired every gun on it at that island with no inhabitants on it, no people.

INTERVIEWER: Did you have a battle station assigned to you?

ROBINSON: I was assigned to the Lookout Division and I was up in the superstructure, way up on the top, just above the big 16" guns, which is why I don't hear today. Didn't have any ear protection.

INTERVIEWER: Did you have binoculars to help you look out?

ROBINSON: Right, look out to see anything we could see. We were to report anything that we saw in the water or the sky.

INTERVIEWER: Looking for submarines?

ROBINSON: Anything that we could see, anything sticking up out there, we were supposed to report it.

INTERVIEWER: When you say "we", did you serve alone?

ROBINSON: There were several of us up there looking in every direction all the way around.

INTERVIEWER: So you served with several other men?

ROBINSON: Oh yes.

INTERVIEWER: It wasn't just one lookout in one superstructure on the Wisconsin?

ROBINSON: Just one superstructure, but it was round, had four holes, look out those four holes, one looked over here and one looked over here, all the way around. I guess there were probably a dozen people there looking with binoculars.

INTERVIEWER: Where did the Wisconsin sail for its first duty?

ROBINSON: Well after we went back to the Philadelphia Navy yard, we went back up there, they did some more work and done some things to it. Went to the canal zone.

INTERVIEWER: The Panama Canal?

ROBINSON: The Panama Canal and then on out to Honolulu, Hawaii, stayed there for a couple of days. That's the most beautiful place I've ever seen.

INTERVIEWER: Well you saw it about three years after Pearl Harbor, 2-1/2 years after Pearl Harbor.

ROBINSON: Yes, it was in '44 about June when we were at Pearl Harbor. Then we went out in the Pacific. A sad thing happened on the way out. We had a man that died in our division. We buried him at Pearl Harbor.

INTERVIEWER: Why did he die?

ROBINSON: Pneumonia. And I wondered why they didn't send him back to the States.

INTERVIEWER: For burial or while he was still alive?

ROBINSON: He just died with pneumonia and so we buried him over there on a hillside, put a little cross up and his name is on it. So we went on out into the Pacific then to fight the war.

INTERVIEWER: Did you know the man personally?

ROBINSON: Oh yes, he was in my division.

INTERVIEWER: Do you remember his name?

ROBINSON: Right now, I can't think of his name.

INTERVIEWER: Was he a seaman?

ROBINSON: He was from Virginia, I know that. He was just a seaman like I was.

INTERVIEWER: Did he take training with you?

ROBINSON: His name was Ragsdale, I forget his first name.

INTERVIEWER: How did he contract pneumonia?

ROBINSON: I don't know that. He just got sick and got sicker.

INTERVIEWER: Okay after Pearl Harbor, where did the Wisconsin sail?

ROBINSON: After Pearl Harbor, we went out and joined the 6th fleet, Halsey's 6th fleet and sometimes they would refer to it as the 3rd fleet and I don't know why they did that. But it was the 3rd fleet and all these task forces with aircraft carriers all around. There were three task forces and they had 3 or 4 carriers and had 1 or 2 battle wagons or battleships and they'd have a couple of cruisers and probably 15 destroyers in a task force group. And then they were so loaded, they'd come off and just go down like that into the water, too loaded. 

INTERVIEWER: Too loaded with what? Guns? Bombs?

ROBINSON: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Stop a second. What was the first action that the Wisconsin saw with the enemy?

ROBINSON: Well I'm not sure, I don't know the date or anything like that, but we were off the Philippine Islands and kamikaze planes come and dive on the ship. They have one trip and that's to land on a ship.

INTERVIEWER: What was your battle station during battles?

ROBINSON: My battle station at times when I wasn't on the lookout, I was passing out ammunition. 

INTERVIEWER: What kind of ammunition, to what kind of guns?

ROBINSON: 40 mm.

INTERVIEWER: Not the big 16 inch guns, 40 mm is anti-aircraft isn't it?

ROBINSON: Right. 

INTERVIEWER: That's what you did some of the time during battles? You didn't go on the lookout during the battles?

ROBINSON: No. You had four hour shifts and when I was off, I went to the gun station, but if I was on watch, I would be up there in the lookout place.

INTERVIEWER: How many battles did the Wisconsin engage in, do you remember?

ROBINSON: No, I sure don't, a lot of them.

INTERVIEWER: And you served your whole tour of duty on the Wisconsin until you were discharged?

ROBINSON: I was on it, I got off it in California and they flew me home after the war.

INTERVIEWER: So your whole tour of duty at sea was on the Wisconsin?

ROBINSON: No, just some. They were on the point system. You had to have enough points to get out. Of course, some of them were signed up for four years. But I was just signed up for the draft.

INTERVIEWER: Did you spend your whole tour of duty in the Navy on the Wisconsin, only on the Wisconsin, that's the only ship you served on in World War II?

ROBINSON: Yes, that's right.

INTERVIEWER: Do you remember any other big battles that the Wisconsin was involved in with the fleet?

ROBINSON: A lot of big battles. We'd launch those aircraft planes up in the air and I have pictures where the sky was full of planes and they were going on a bombing mission. Sometimes it was Okinawa, sometimes it was in the Philippines, sometimes it was some other island. Just all around the place.

INTERVIEWER: The Wisconsin didn't have any aircraft on it.

ROBINSON: Only two.

INTERVIEWER: Only two, it was a battleship, not an aircraft carrier, but it had two reconnaissance planes?

ROBINSON: Reconnaissance planes. 

INTERVIEWER: That was the only aircraft on the ship?

ROBINSON: Right.

INTERVIEWER: And when it engaged in battles, it fired its big guns at the enemy I assume.

ROBINSON: Oh yes. One morning we went up to Hokkaido in northern Japan. They were supposed to have had ammunition places where the Japanese built guns and all kinds of stuff and we could see 13 pipes sticking up. It looked like sticks up on the horizon. But they were boiler rooms I reckon, you know the smoke things. And we knocked all 13 of them down that morning. We just completely destroyed that place. Then the aircraft went in to keep any Japanese suicides from getting up. We had 120 20 mm and the Marines, there were about 300 Marines on our ship and they manned 20 mm so we had a guy that had been captured on one of the islands and he trusted the Japanese and so the Japanese laid him down and they stabbed him in the back and he said he would never trust another Japanese and so the day one of the suicide planes come over, they shot the plane down and he bailed out of the plane.

INTERVIEWER: Who bailed out, Japanese or American?

ROBINSON: He was trying a suicide, trying to come out to....

INTERVIEWER: A Japanese, kamikaze pilot.

ROBINSON: Right. And so he bailed out of the plane after the plane started down so he bailed out and they shot him which was against all kinds of war crimes, but they riddled him with bullets as long as they could see a spot in the sky. And the Marines is the only one shot at him and just one Marine started the whole works started which was wrong, but I understand the Germans also shot our men in Germany that landed in parachutes in trees. By anyway, that was wrong, but that's what they did. They said there wasn't anything left of him, they shot him to pieces.

INTERVIEWER: Would you say you were in a half a dozen battles on the Wisconsin, more or less.

ROBINSON: Oh yeah, we just had one battle after another. We'd furnish protection for those aircraft carriers because I couldn't believe that anybody would come out in an airplane and try to land on your ship or fly down your smoke stack and destroy your ship. I didn't believe people would just commit suicide. But I found out that they will. They were so dedicated to the Japanese government I guess that they would actually do this. I had trouble believing it, but I saw it happen.

INTERVIEWER: Did you ever see the Wisconsin get hit by a Japanese kamikaze plane?

ROBINSON: Never, never.

INTERVIEWER: Did you ever see any other ships get hit?

ROBINSON: Oh I saw an aircraft carrier hit.

INTERVIEWER: Do you remember which one?

ROBINSON: Let's see, I think it was the Franklin, I'd have to look it up and see which one it was, I believe it was the U.S.S. Franklin. But that aircraft carrier burned the greater part of the day, just billows of smoke and they knocked three engines out, but they got four engines and they got one of them running in about an hour and they were just barely cruising along at 2-3 miles an hour. But they guarded that ship all day and so they got it back to Pearl Harbor to repair it and it went back in the Pacific.

INTERVIEWER: The Wisconsin was never hit while you were shipboard?

ROBINSON: We came within about one block of getting hit one evening with a suicide. How that suicide got in among all those ships, no one knows, but those things are coming out of the sunset, low on the horizon and I guess radar didn't pick it up and it was right on us. And everybody was shooting at that thing and we were bound to be shooting at each other, it looked like it. It's a wonder we didn't shoot each other, but I never heard that anybody was hurt. That was close, that scared me cause it looked like it was going to land right on our deck right where I was standing and I just was standing outside of a hatch door handing out ammunition. It looked like they were going to land right there.

INTERVIEWER: Did you ever see any of your fellow shipmates wounded during the war?

ROBINSON: No, but being a battleship like we were, we took on a lot of people that were wounded, some even on islands.

INTERVIEWER: You mean Marines?

ROBINSON: Well the Marine that I was speaking of had been wounded at Pearl Harbor, he'd been at Pearl Harbor for several months recuperating in the hospital. But people that would get hit by mines and get their arms messed up. I have pictures of those men in the ship's hospital. Some of them were dead and they put them in body bags and take them on the back of the ship, side of the ship and just about stopped in the water and lifted it up and slide them off. And that made you think, that was some mother's son. And I couldn't understand why they didn't try to make some effort to get them boys back.

INTERVIEWER: American boys?

ROBINSON: Yeah. I just couldn't figure out what they couldn't fly some of them back home rather than bury them in that ocean out there. They tell me they put weights in those bags to make them go to the bottom, but that was a heartbreaking thing to watch some of that going on.

INTERVIEWER: But nobody you know on your ship was ever hurt or wounded?

ROBINSON: No not on our ship, but the Emergency Room hospital ship, they worked on a lot of people that had been on other ships that had got hit, things like that.

INTERVIEWER: Do you know how many men were aboard the Wisconsin with you?

ROBINSON: I have all that information at home, I should have brought it. I think it was 2900 enlisted men and about 700 officers and we had 300 Marines.

INTERVIEWER: Who was the skipper? The captain of the ship, do you remember?

ROBINSON: No I don't remember his name off hand, but he was a good one. He kept us informed. Many times he would come and he would say all hands, and he would make an announcement where we were going, what we were going to do and he would tell us, we've all got to do our best and he would just give us all the details and he would say we're 600 miles from such and such an island, northeast, whatever, at such and such a speed and we will arrive at such and such a place at, they used hundreds, like 500 in the morning and we'll be there and we'll start bombarding such and such an island at such and such a time and we expect the enemy planes to come out and it will be our job to get rid of those planes, shoot them down, whatever. But anyway, he kept us well-informed. And same thing is true when the war ended. When the war ended, they announced it, told us all about it. And when they dropped the bomb, immediately just in minutes, we knew about it. I guess the big wheels, maybe the captain knew all about it the day before, I don't know. But anyway it was announced to us. That captain really kept us informed. 

INTERVIEWER: Where were your quarters on the ship? Below decks?

ROBINSON: Below deck, just below the first deck.

INTERVIEWER: What were your quarters like, did you have a hammock or a bunk?

ROBINSON: Yes, just bunks along the wall, I think I had the third one.

INTERVIEWER: And what did you do between battle actions? What was ship life like? What did you do?

ROBINSON: What did we do, well we had cards, we had books, we had a library on the ship. We had a barbershop on the ship. Done things just like around the house, need a haircut, go get a haircut. Things like that. But when the battles started, your haircut was over. You went to your battle station right then.

INTERVIEWER: Where did you have mess? What did you eat?

ROBINSON: Oh we had pretty good food. I know a lot of people said no, but I gained about 13 pounds when I was in the Navy. When I went in, I weighed 110 and when I come out, I weighed about 123 and of course I went on up since then. The food wasn't bad, it was good.

INTERVIEWER: How did the officers treat you?

ROBINSON: They treated me good, very good. I had no problems with any of them. We had a big old bos'n mate that had been busted a few times for knocking out lights and do things like that, but he'd always build himself back up to his rank, but I don't know what they did with him. He was so tall and so big, he was one of the biggest fellas I about ever seen. He was a good guy, but he just decided if he was going to get drunk and he'd get drunk. 

INTERVIEWER: How was morale on the ship?

ROBINSON: Morale, it was good. Most of us in there realized what was going on and knew our lives could be at stake, although we felt more safe maybe than if we would have been in the Army or something on the battlefront, but I think the morale was good. Sometimes people would feel down and out when they'd get a letter from home or things of that nature, but it was good.

INTERVIEWER: Did you ever get any shore leave while you were in the Pacific?

ROBINSON: No leave, not out there. When I got my last leave, it was before we went out there and we got about a week I believe it was. And we were at Norfolk, they said we could have three days if we could go home, but if we lived over 100 miles, we couldn't go.

INTERVIEWER: That's before you shipped out.

ROBINSON: So I took my chances and went about 250 miles and I was AWOL because I went to sleep on the train and didn't get off at the right place. Anyway I served a little for that, but that didn't make me mad. I was supposed to be on the ship at a certain time and I wasn't there.

INTERVIEWER: You said the ship went to Hawaii, didn't you?

ROBINSON: Oh yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Didn't you have shore leave in Hawaii?

ROBINSON: Oh yeah. We had 2-3 days there. Waikiki Beach I believe is the prettiest place that I've ever been. That water had so many different colors. I don't know, it's just a beautiful place. They played beautiful Hawaii music and I'm a music lover. I love music. And we went up to the little old park where the hula girls was at and we watched them and listened to that music and we just had a ball while we was there. It wasn't long, but we still had our minds on home and wondered if we'd ever get back there again, but we did and I'm one of the lucky ones that came back.

INTERVIEWER: How many months did you serve on the Wisconsin?

ROBINSON: I think it was in May that we went on the Wisconsin and came off it around the first of December the following year. 

INTERVIEWER: So from May of 1944 until December of '45.

ROBINSON: No I went in in '43, a year and a half I was on the ship. I served 2 years right to the day.

INTERVIEWER: Do you remember when you were discharged?

ROBINSON: On the 13th December, 1945.

INTERVIEWER: After the war ended. And you went into the service in...

ROBINSON: December 13, 1943.

INTERVIEWER: So you served two years to the day.

ROBINSON: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of commendations or battle awards did you get?

ROBINSON: Oh I got five battle stars and a Philippine liberation, should have brought those, anyway I got 5 battle stars.

INTERVIEWER: Does that mean you saw duty in five of the Wisconsin's battles in the Pacific?

ROBINSON: Yeah, yeah. I don't have any planes we shot down, we got a bunch of them down.

INTERVIEWER: But you didn't do any shooting?

ROBINSON: No, no, no, I just passed the ammunition. I'd be up there looking to see what was happening.

INTERVIEWER: Did you ever spot anything when you were looking? Did you ever see anything?

ROBINSON: Oh yeah, I spotted objects in the water that we didn't know what they were and we'd send somebody out to check them out. 

INTERVIEWER: Was the Wisconsin ever torpedoed by a submarine?

ROBINSON: Never.

INTERVIEWER: Did you ever see any enemy submarines in the area?

ROBINSON: No, just aircraft.

INTERVIEWER: No ships either, no Japanese ships, by that time there was no more Japanese Navy, is that right?

ROBINSON: No I seen a movie a couple of years back, a movie that they made out there and that thing looked so real, I thought they made it off our ship. It showed aircraft carriers launching planes, it showed the sky full of planes and it showed us running into a big typhoon where the waves were 20' high and the wind was 180 mph. Our ship was in the task force that come out of the South China Sea. We went down there to hunt the last Japanese battleship that we were told they had and so we never did find the battleship. Evidently it must have been sunk sometime and didn't realize it had been sunk. We went through the strait of Okinawa and Philippines and went down in there. When we came back out, we had to go face into a, they called them typhoons out there, hurricanes here, and we went into that there typhoon and boy was that wind blowing. That's when I ate my first K rations because you couldn't eat in the mess hall because the tables were going this way and the other way, chow was going this way all over the floor. You was lucky to get out of there without a broken leg and so we ate that for a couple of meals until we got out of that storm. That was a bad storm. Three destroyers were sunk. They didn't have any fuel and we tried to fuel them and we couldn't get them. They put water in their tanks and only a few sailors were saved. So I guess I saw some pretty rough times.

INTERVIEWER: Do you remember when that was, that typhoon, was in '44 or '45.

ROBINSON: '44. 

INTERVIEWER: During the war?

ROBINSON: Yes, and it could have been in the fall of the year.

INTERVIEWER: And the war ended in August of 1945 and where were you and the Wisconsin at that time?

ROBINSON: Just off of Tokyo Bay and they chose the Missouri to go in and sign the peace treaty and I was hoping it was us. 

INTERVIEWER: So you stayed with the fleet just in the bay?

ROBINSON: Yeah, we just stayed around out there just riding around running in circles waiting on them to get through signing and all of it and then we got some liberty.

INTERVIEWER: Where?

ROBINSON: Tokyo and we went in...

INTERVIEWER: Right after the war?

ROBINSON: Yeah after they signed the declaration and went in and tied up for a couple of days there and we looked around, saw Japanese eating out of garbage cans. It was pitiful. And we saw that in the Philippines. We had a little bit of liberty in the Philippines. 

INTERVIEWER: So you did have one liberty during the war besides Hawaii, you went to the Philippines during the war, right?

ROBINSON: Right, and then we had to go one time...See we were at sea 66 days one time, never saw anything that looked like land. We was at sea 63 days one other time and didn't see anything that looked like land. But one time we went to, I think they call it the Carolina Islands, and we loaded up ammunition, we loaded food, all that stuff and they gave us a couple hours liberty, you know. We went over on the beach there and they had beer parties and one thing or another and went swimming and just relaxed for probably a half a day. We all got a little shot of that and enjoyed it.

INTERVIEWER: What did you do from the end of the war until you were discharged in December? Where were you then?

ROBINSON: Oh man, when that war ended, they announced the war had ended and they dropped the big bomb. Everybody was happy so we went into Tokyo Bay after they signed the treaty, had liberty and came back to Honolulu, Hawaii and we stayed over 2-3 days there. Then we come into the Golden Gate Bridge and passed under it and it was...lined with people waving.

INTERVIEWER: It was a good feeling?

ROBINSON: It was wonderful (crying). But anyway after that we went anchor and took on new recruits. Some of them that had enough points, they let them go home in alphabetical order so I ended up with an "R" so that meant I was way down the line so I didn't get to go home for a while.

INTERVIEWER: Did you stay on the west coast?

ROBINSON: I stayed there about a month.

INTERVIEWER: In San Francisco?

ROBINSON: Yes, and then they took on, they said they were going to go to San Diego and some of these new recruits that we took on, we went out under the bridge again and down the coast of San Diego and these new recruits all got sick. Man we run into a storm out there, it was pretty tough. But we got into San Diego and anchored. It was terrible when you go to the bathroom on that ship because they were down there and boy they were letting it go. That's the new recruits now. And so we got to San Diego and I was discharged from there and they flew me home. Some of the people that they let out in California, San Francisco, they sent them home on trains and buses, I beat them home. They got me down to San Diego, they let me off ship and put me on an airplane and I flew home so we got home about the same time they did. They drove 4-5 days on trains. 

INTERVIEWER: Where did you fly to?

ROBINSON: Norfolk, Virginia.

INTERVIEWER: And from there?

ROBINSON: They issued me out and gave me some money to get home on, wished me well, tried to get me to sign up again, but I told them no, think I'd go home and see my daughter.

INTERVIEWER: What about your wife?

ROBINSON: And my wife, wife and daughter. I got home and that's when they started telling me I couldn't hear.

INTERVIEWER: Is that where you developed a hearing problem in the service?

ROBINSON: Yes, sure was, but I never got anything back because I waited too long.

INTERVIEWER: What do you think did it, the guns firing on the decks?

ROBINSON: Yes, those are big guns, 16" guns. Those shells weighed 2500 pounds. They shoot those shells 25 miles. We had fired those guns and knocked down smoke stacks 25 miles away and it takes a lot of power and a big boom to send a shell that far, that's power. And so like I said when we went up to an arms factory in Hokkaido, Japan, there were 13 sticks, looked like sticks, they were smoke stacks actually from factories. It looked like a stick way out there, knocked all of them down that day, every one of them. Wasn't none standing up. And Japanese suicides come out, but we shot them down as fast as they come out.

INTERVIEWER: Did you have any buddies in the service that you kept after service, that you saw after service?

ROBINSON: Oh yea, as a matter of fact, when we were drafted, there were a bunch of people, I'd say about 100 people drafted the same time and we all went on the same ship so there was 4-5-6 people on ship that I knew many years before.

INTERVIEWER: Did you keep in touch with any of them?

ROBINSON: Oh yeah, oh yeah, a lot of them dead now and I saw the news the other day where the World War II vets were dropping off, I don't remember what it was, but a bunch of them every day. 

INTERVIEWER: Are any of them still alive that you keep in touch with.

ROBINSON: No a lot of them went years ago, I went to their funerals.

INTERVIEWER: What was your rank, your rating when you were discharged.

ROBINSON: Seaman first class.

INTERVIEWER: So you stayed a seaman first class through your whole service in World War II.

ROBINSON: No, I went in as a seaman, then I made second class, then first class.

INTERVIEWER: How would you describe your experiences in the Navy? Were you a good sailor and a happy sailor?

ROBINSON: Yes. I was proud to wear the uniform and that's why I volunteered, but they turned me down and they took me again and I didn't try to get them to turn me down. I didn't say a word. I wanted to go. I think back in World War II, people were more cooperative. They felt like they owed something to their country and it seems today that many people think their country owes them something and so that's just how I felt. I was glad to do my job. 

INTERVIEWER: And what did you do after service? Did you go back to work in the textile mill?

ROBINSON: Come back and went back to work in the textile mill. Then I did take a little radio course at the time and I worked on some radios and then television came out and so I took a course in television. I built a television and worked on them. But I gave that up and went back to the textiles and made it good there and they treated me right and I come out of textiles in the Research and Development Dept as an overseer so I did all right. I knew where my bread and butter was going to be coming from and I got me a job and I stayed with it. But I did try a few things just like most people do, but they just didn't work out and I decided radio and T.V. was not for me because you had to have a pretty good stock of supplies or you had to run somewhere and get it and I decided, man, I don't have that kind of money. I better get out of it before I get too deep in it and can't get out, so I got out and stayed in textiles until I retired.

INTERVIEWER: Are there any things that stand out in your mind about your training that you can remember, maybe humorous events or sad events while you were stateside? Anything good or bad happen while you were in the States?

ROBINSON: No, no, except one morning in Bainbridge, Maryland, we laid in those bunks at night and we talked. When we were supposed to be asleep, somebody was still talking and one night somebody got to telling some jokes and everybody got to laughing at them and so it got reported by somebody and here they come and give us a pretty good lecture that we were going to have obey the laws and rules and so the next morning about 4:00 we had to get up. And they took us out and was it cold in Baltimore, Maryland, well Bainbridge, Maryland. And it was so cold out there that morning and they dragged us out there and we marched down that field round and round and round for about an hour and a half. Then they sent us back to our barracks for time to go chow. But yes I remember that night. I wasn't guilty, but I served as if I was guilty. Everybody had to go, you know.

INTERVIEWER: When was this, what year?

ROBINSON: January 1944.

INTERVIEWER: Anything funny happen while you were overseas with Hawaii or in the Philippines or even on shipboard, any humorous incidents?

ROBINSON: Well kind of hurts your feelings seeing people eating out of garbage cans where they had nothing to eat.

INTERVIEWER: That was in Tokyo you said.

ROBINSON: Yeah and the Philippines too. I saw it both places and seems like that would get next to me. I've always had a timid heart I guess so I couldn't, it hurt me to see people doing that, I'd think good Lord, don't they have nothing at all to eat. Evidently they didn't have. It's hard to believe the conditions in the world until you go and see it. No way I can fix in my mind that a person would be so dedicated to his country that he would get in an airplane and land on a ship to destroy a ship and his own life for his country. Now that didn't make no sense at all to me. But believe me they come out there to do just that.

INTERVIEWER: You're talking about the Japanese kamikaze pilots.

ROBINSON: That was their purpose. That was their only purpose, to land on a ship and destroy that ship. That was their only purpose. When they left base, they meant not to ever come back. How could people be that way? I don't know.

INTERVIEWER: Okay Mr. Robinson, thanks very much.

ROBINSON: Well thank you.