John Boudreaux, Jason Theriot, Hewitt Theriot:

-Was hanging out at the Estarge Drugstore on Main St. when they heard about Pearl Harbor on the radio
-Most of them at the time were 17-18 years old and they didn’t think too much about it at the time
-What really changed their views was when they heard stories from other friends in the National Guard (1941)
-Boudreaux decided that he wanted to at least be able to shower while serving, so he joined the navy

-Joined the navy with Claude Patout in New Orleans in November 1943
-Was sent to San Diego for basic training
-Then went to Memphis to radio school for the dive-bombers (TBF's)
-Boudreaux didn't want to fly so when testing to see if he could stand on one leg and then close his eyes, he failed it on purpose and was sent back to California

-Eventually sent to Pasco, Washington (Walla Walla) for 6 months; training pilots
-Trained pilots by having them take off to the Pacific Ocean and the practice bombing the airport (just like the Japanese attacking a carrier force or island)
-Those on land would track them with radars and then send out fighters to meet them

-A big dish was a on a truck with a large antenna on land, but on the ship the antennas were smaller
-The wavelength on the radar would show whether it was a friend or foe
-Americans had IFFs while Japanese had nothing
-Could catch these wavelengths about 100 miles out which would give them enough time to send out carriers to protect the convoy--the destroyer’s job

-At the end of 6 months the navy decided that the Japanese were not coming back to the island the navy was readying to invade and take so Boudreaux's unit of 250 men was disbanded

Time at Washington state (12:00)
-On the weekends they could go into Walla Walla for mass
-At Pasco they'd work at a factory that made crates/boxes to earn a little extra
-On the base all they did on weekends was stand watch around the clock; sometimes it could be all night (funny story 14:00)

After being disbanded (14:50)
-Everyone wanted to go overseas to fight
-They were sent back to California and then over to Pearl Harbor to be reassigned and get on-the-job training for radar surface
-Stayed there for about a month and then assigned to a Destroyer Escort the "USS Abercrombie"
-12 men as the radar operators for one ship
-Sat 4 men at a time at the radar for 30 minutes and then they all stood guard for 4 hour shifts

-Left Pearl Harbor to the Pacific to fight the Japanese; always inside at the radars when fighting
-First battle was at Okinawa; they arrived 4 days early of the invasion (April 1945)
-They would take control of 5-6 small islands and create a harbor out of the escorts for other ships to be protected
-They were only escorts, Destroyer Escorts, they would surround an island for about 8,000 yards and patrol
-They were the first line defense for the bigger ships in the navy

Okinawa (23:51)
-Shot down 3 planes and knocked out a few ships
-One of the sister ships was sunk midway by a Japanese fleet
-Kamikaze (suicide planes) did damage to the navy;
-They would circle around at night dropping bombs and around 3-4 in the morning would start dive-bombing--one way ticket for them

-When they made the first invasion of Okinawa there was no resistance
-Japanese did not show up until a couple days later; stayed on the island for 72 days
-Once Okinawa was secured they left to the Lingayen Gulf, Philippines
-Escorted transports of troops to the island
-Details of invasions--Lingayen Gulf, Leyte Gulf and Okinawa

Escorted 2 Army Tankers to Jinsen, Korea (36:40)
-Then went to Japan for occupation duty for 2-3 months
-Landed at Wakayama and were the first Americans there; Japanese were friendly and spoke English

Jumps to stories of time in the navy and after (38:26)
-Looking for pilots
-Initiation rituals
-When the news came that the war had ended over the radio
-Ships he escorted and travel time
-Returning to California and seeing friends in the navy (Carol Lapyouse)
-A time he came home on leave and drove from Texas to Louisiana
-Standing guard stories
-Meeting girls/people they know

(1:04:20)
-Boudreaux remembers praying at Okinawa, they were so scared they'd get hit
-The ship was never hit or damaged and they never lost anyone
-Mostly afraid of the Kamikaze; seeing them on the radars wondering if they'll get hit
-Sometimes the Kamikaze would drop aluminum foil to confuse the radars into making it look like a fleet of planes was coming

Transcription:

John Boudreaux 9/27/01
Born: November 25, 1925
Radarman/Destroyer Escort-USS Abercrombie DE 343

On Pearl Harbor Day, as usual I was hanging out at Estarge Drugstore. That was on Main St. right across from the Evangeline Theatre. We'd hangout outside the drugstore, about 25 of us. That's where we heard about Pearl Harbor, on the radio, and from people down the street. We were all mostly 17, 18-years old. We didn't think much about it at the time. I guess we really didn't realize how serious this was. But I knew about the conflicts overseas and I knew where Pearl Harbor was.

A lot of the older guys had joined the National Guard in '41, before Pearl Harbor. We had a group of guys that would go down to the Sports Center and play pool: JC Upton, WJ Trappey, and Slappy Rouso and them. These old guys would come in on leave from the Army and the Marines. They would tell us about how they never washed their cloths, never took a bath, and how they lived in a foxhole. I decided that's not my bag, I wanted to get in the Navy. Water to drink and a shower to take a bath, that's exactly what I had. It might have been a small shower, but at least it wasn't in the mud.

So Claude Patout and I went to join the Navy together. About two or three weeks before we turned 18 we went to New Orleans to join. We joined in November 1943. I had graduated from highschool the year before and I had gone to Southwestern for a year. JC Upton and I were working that summer for a shooting crew out of Johnson Bayou. We were making big money-forty four cents and hour, living on a quarter boat and working in the swamp. The mosquitoes were terrible, and we had to wear a mask and a helmet with a screen to work in the swamp. We worn coveralls and the mud buggy would get stuck and we'd have to walk back to the quarter boat. But the snakes were about as big as your arm. That's when I said, "Well the Navy can't be no worse than this. I'm gone!"

So I joined and went to boot camp in San Diego. They sent me to Memphis to radio school for the dive-bombers, the TBF's. When I got there I saw where they were going to send me and what I was going to be doing. I didn't like the idea of flying a torpedo bomber. We found out through the grapevine that if you couldn't stand on one leg and close your eyes they wouldn't take you. So that's how I got out of that, and they sent me back to California.

I was sent to Pasco, Washington for six months on a land based Seabee outfit. We were training pilots there in the mountain valley. The pilots would take off and fly to the Pacific Ocean and come back to practice bombing the airport. We would track them with radar, and send fighter planes to intercept. Just like the Japanese. The idea was to train these pilots to intercept Japanese planes that might attack a carrier force or an island. I really enjoyed it.

In Pasco we had a big dish mounted on a truck with a big antenna up on top of a hill. On the ships they were much smaller of course. Depending on the wavelength, we could identify friend or enemy on the radar screen. If Americans would have their IFF on you knew it was American plane, but if no wavelength came in on the radar you knew it was a Japanese. And you could catch them out sometimes as far as 100 miles. And this gave us enough time to get to our carriers to protect them, which is what the destroyer's job is.

We stayed on the base during the week and we had weekend passes. But somebody would have to pull guard duty at night or on weekends. See this radar was something new and we were right there close to the Pacific Ocean, you never knew about the Japanese. One night I was pulling guard up on top the hill, guarding the radar station and I heard a noise. So I said, "Halt!" And I heard no reply so I chamber a bullet in my rifle. I walked out and it was a dog-on cow! I was really nervous though. You never know, people were nervous about the Japanese.

After our six months stay in Pasco, the Navy decided that the Japanese were not coming back to the islands that we would invade and take. We had about 250 of us. So they disbanded us. We were glad. We wanted to go overseas and fight the Japanese.

They sent us back to California and I was sent on an aircraft carrier to Pearl Harbor. It was just a transport for us. I didn't know where I was going. They were sending us to Pearl to get reassigned. They sent us to radar surface school there. I met Roland Breaux and Allen Breaux there; they were from New Iberia. So they assigned me to a Destroyer Escort-USS Abercrombie. It was built in Orange Texas. There were 12 of us radar operators on the Abercrombie. They assigned us four to a watch. We sat at the radar for 30-minutes at a time, because they didn't want us to damage our eyes. We pulled shifts on the scope every thirty minutes and then we'd stand guard on four-hour shifts.

We left Pearl for the Pacific to fight the Japanese. I never saw outside because our job was to watch the radar. I'd hear the guns going off, but I never saw the planes.

We went to Bouganville, Manus, and Saipan. We mostly trained for combat. Our first battle was at Okinawa. We arrived off the coast four days before the invasion. That was in April 1945.

The Destroyer Escorts were just that, escorts. We would patrol about 8,000 yards, back and forth from the coast. We were the first line of defense, before the Japanese would get to the big ships.

I did go up top, on the deck one night and you could swear it was Christmas with all the lights on account of the bullets (tracers). For the rest of the invasion I was stationed below deck.

We shot down three planes. And we knock out a few ships. The Navy really caught hell at Okinawa on account of the Kamikaze (Japanese suicide planes). A lot of these Japanese dive-bombers would start their runs in the evening and they'd dropped bombs all night. And the suicide bombers, well they would have their funerals on the island before they would take off. It was a one way ticket, a suicide mission for most of those pilots.

I had some buddy's who were radar men on the USS Roosevelt. The radar stations were targets for the suicide planes. If I'm not mistaken they took a direct hit and the ship might have sunk.

The whole island was surrounded. When we first made the invasion, the Marines landing did not have any resistance. The Japanese didn't show up until a couple of days later. We stayed on Okinawa for 72 days. We slept in our clothes, and when the alarm went off we had two minutes to get our shoes on and get to battle stations.

Eventually we went to Saipan for dry dock. There was a floating dry dock there. We were painting the bottom of the ship and doing maintenance. We were there for about 4 or 5 days and then they sent us back to Okinawa.

Once Okinawa was secure we went to Lingayen Gulf, Philippines. We were escorting transports of troops to go to the island. Then we went down to Mindanao and Leyte Gulf.

(The invasion of Lingayen Gulf was on January 1945, Leyte Gulf was on October 1944, and Okinawa was in April 1945. Did your ship go on the invasion of Leyte Gulf first, then Lingayen Gulf invasion, and they to Okinawa?) Yes

We caught a typhoon and the ship would list (tilt) forty-degrees. The antennas would all most touch the water. I got seasick.

When Japan surrendered, we were escorting battleships and cruisers and carriers. The radio came on and they announced that the war was ending soon. We stayed up all night listening to the radio.

We escorted two Army tankers to Jinsen, Korea. Then we came back to Okinawa and then we went to Wakayama, Japan for occupational duty. We stayed there for two or three months. We were the first Americans to land on in that area of Japan. The Japanese were friendly; they weren't hostile. They spoke broken English. And they would trade with us. The Japanese men would stop to relieve themselves walking down the street with his family behind him. His wife was always walking behind him.

I made it back in November to San Pedro, California. When I got back I saw Carol Lapyouse's ship coming in, the Nassau. I borrowed somebody's binoculars and I took a peak at the ship and I picked him out, I saw him on his ship. And he knew it was my ship too. He saw me looking at him. I'll never forget that. Carol and I went out to eat the next couple of nights and we had a good time. Carol was "Mr. Transport." We talked about home. When you ran into somebody you knew from home that's what you talked about- if you heard from this girl or from that guy. We talked about home, not about the war.

I borrowed my uncle’s car and drove it to Louisiana. We busted a piston on the way home.

We were most afraid of the suicide planes. That's what worried us the most. And I could see them on the radar, hitting our ships. One time I saw a plane and a few seconds later I saw a whole bunch of planes. This was three o'clock in the morning. So I woke everybody up and come to find out, this Japanese pilot had dropped aluminum foil out of his plane to confuse the radar. When the radar would hit that aluminum it would appear as an enemy plane.

We talk about things like that when we have our reunion every year.

When I went into the Navy during WWII, I wasn't attached to anybody. It was just my parents and myself, I wasn't married and didn't have a girlfriend. I had the idea in my mind going in that if a bullet had my number on it, no matter who you are; you can be as safe as you wanna be, but when the Lord says it's your time, then it's your time. That's the way I saw it.

I can remember praying at Okinawa. We were so scared that we would get hit. Our ship was never damaged and not one life was lost. Thank God.