Minos Armentor: Jason Theriot; Hewitt Theriot

-Starts with when Armentor remembers Pearl Harbor and brief summary of his service
-Was practicing law and was above the draft age but finally did enlist as an officer
-Went to New Orleans to the Naval Officer Procurement with another man, Wilbur Allain
-Armentor went to the Pacific as Allain went to the Atlantic
-Did training for a seaman in Tucson, Arizona and in Fort Schuyler, New York
-Then in Panama he got on an oil tanker and eventually to Okinawa (end of 1944)
-Never was in battle but hit 2 typhoons; lost a lot of men

-While in the Pacific gave out information; the big joke at the time was that they'd see the "Golden Gate '48," in that by 1948 they'd be able to see the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco again

-President Truman then dropped the 2 bombs and that was the end of the war
-So instead of getting back in '48, Armentor got back in the first month in 1945
-they were prepared to stay another 3 years and attack Japan
-Kamikaze planes would come over them in Okinawa Bay and they'd turn off all lights so then they couldn't crash into just one ship or any ship if they couldn't see

"Question: Where did all that oil, gasoline and petroleum your tankard had refuel for cargo?" (5:23)
-Had Panama oil tanker come and fill them up; some had enough for the fighter and merchant ships
-A lot of the oil came from the west coast, Alaska and Mexico
-Louisiana was not a part of the oil

"Question: When you were commissioned as an ensign, what month and year were you on the cargo vessel?" (7:45)
-May 1943 joined the Navy commissioned and then training
-Tucson was going through shortage of water so they could not go on ships
-Fort Schuyler was too close to the rocks to do anything except study
-At Panama for 3 months, on fishing vessels to protect the canal from the Japanese
-controlled the traffic from the Atlantic and Pacific

On the oil tanker (10:29)
-By the end of 1943 Armentor was commissioned to the oil tanker and was on there from 1944-1945
-It was a liberty ship tankard with really thin armor and had machine guns and depth charges
-Armentor was the stores and commissary officer and took care of the supplies and helped loading
-Ships would pull up aside to be refueled; aircraft carriers were the hardest

Back to Okinawa (14:24)
-Aircraft attacks from the Kamikaze; they wanted either ammunition ships or the tankards
-No escorts when travelling to be protected
-supply ships took different routes than the fighting ships or the fighting was finished before they reached there

The tankard (16:38)
-Armentor's cargo ship was a liberty ship called the Kangaroo, just oil
-100 crew member, 10-12 officers
-Could go 10-12 knots, real slow; had radar (maybe got it during the war)
-Was never attacked or ever saw battle; only ever fought was the winds and rain of the typhoons
-Many ships sunk from the typhoons

Route to Okinawa Bay (20:47)
-Left U.S. with fuel and stopped in Tulagi and then New Guinea and then Okinawa

"Where did you tank again?"
-Other tankards met them in midocean; they would just anchor and everyone else would come to them to refuel
-Hard parts were the hosing and cranks of the big pumps
-Okinawa was the final spot and if Truman hadn't dropped the bombs, they'd have gone into Japan
-Would follow the fleet

Talking of the careers of others, the people that have passed and retirement (24:20)

Back to the war (26:36)
-The bombs are dropped and Armentor was loaded onto an aircraft carrier on the tankard
-Had been at sea for mostly 2 years; only made one trip back home to be married
-On the way back (from leave) at San Francisco went on another ship (The Chotouk) to the other tankard
-Heading home (at end of war) went above the Hawaiian Islands and came down to San Francisco; the Arctic Circle more or less
-Took a plane or a train home can't remember

Talking and retracing his route again (31:00)

-Talking about Theriot's work and people interviewed (33:20)
-Someone's story about dealing with a bazooka
-The interview with Dr. Harry Bernard
-Telling of one of his stories of his rescue by submarine (pilot rescue)
-Talking about people they wish to interview or had interviewed
-Remark on a few people that had interesting interviews but do not go into detail

Cuts off into silence (40:24)

Meeting his friend (40:42)
-Met up with a buddy from Houma during the war
-He had heard that he was fighting in the mountains of Peleliu and Armentor wanted to see him
-Somehow he was able to come out of his post and waded out to the water and Armentor walked towards him
-Parted and he watched him go back to his post
-Then noticed a clam that was about 3-4 feet in length open (feeding), so he put a stick in its mouth to shut it before it got his legs
-Shocked Armentor that there was something that big and how close he got to having his legs snapped
-Friend was Bruce Hebert and was a good catcher for the baseball team

Ends Armentor interview; after is another interview on the bazooka story and a personal note (47:08)

Transcription:

Minos Armentor
Born Nov. 18, 1914
Interview 10-15-2001

LT. (j.g.) M. Armentor served as officer aboard oil tanker in Pacific.
He entered the service in May 1943.

I was practicing law at the time. (Beginning of WWII) I was above draft age. Finally the draft improved and I was ready to go into service as an officer, which I did. Wilbur Allain, from Jeanerette, and I went to the Naval Officer Procurement in New Orleans and we were both commissioned as ensigns. Wilbur went on to the Atlantic and I went to the Pacific.

Before that I spent 60 days of training in Tuscon, Arizona and 60 days of training in Fort Schuyler in New York. I trained for seamen ship, navigation, and all the things a naval officer should know. Ironically, Tuscon had a severe shortage of water. We hardly had enough water for showers. We really didn't have any ships to train with there. It was the same thing in New York. At least in New York, at Fort Schuyler, we were close to the water. While I was there I was able to ride the subway, and go to the Commodore Hotel on weekends. That was while we were off, the rest of the time we were studying to become officers.

Then I went down to Panama for about 3 months. I was stationed on the West Coast of Panama. We were assigned to fishing vessels; protecting the coast from the Japanese. They (Japanese) wanted to capture the Canal. Who ever controls the Canal controls the traffic from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They (Japanese) had plans in the works to attack the Panama Canal. So, we had a bunch of these fishing boats. There were two officers and about 14 sailors per ship. And we would go up and down the coast, about 15 miles from the Canal Zone. We had a machine gun on top, depth charges, to drop in case we came across submarines.

And then I got onto an oil tanker. Actually it was a liberty ship tanker- The Kangaroo. Very thin armor. There were about 100 crewmembers and about 10 or 12 officers on board. Those liberty ships were slow, only about 12 knots. We had machine guns in the back and depth charges. It was a tanker that would supply oil and diesel fuel to the fighting ships. We went down to the Solomon Islands. We were anchored off Tulagi. We were refueling those ships that were fighting the Japanese right there. And ships would come along side while we were anchored and we would fill them up. I was stores and commissary officer. I was in charge of loading all the supplies on board ship; food and every thing else, including the beer!

Tulagi was very popular place. We were able to get off and have a few drinks at the officers club there on the island.

From there I went to Treasure Island in the New Guinea area. Finally I ended up at Okinawa. Up until that I had not been in any battles or any danger. At Okinawa we had two Typhoons that we ran into. We lost a lot of lives. I had a good captain on the ship that I was on. And he kept our ship anchored, double-anchor, all throughout the Typhoon, against the wind of course- to keep from having our anchor line broken. Many ships capsized and a lot of sailors drowned. We were never attacked by the Japanese- only by Mother Nature. Of course that was just a few years ago. (Jokingly)

All the while in the Pacific we jokingly said, 'Golden Gate in '48.' We were hoping to get back to the Golden Gate (Bridge) in San Francisco in 1948.

I was able to come home on leave to New Iberia for about a week. I was married at that time, but when I got back to San Francisco, I was assigned to a new tanker-The Chotouk.

From Panama on into Guadalcanal, we had huge oil tankers come and fill us up, sometimes in mid-ocean. Some of those big tankers would have enough to fill up the fighting ships and merchant ships. We were a merchant ship more or less. A lot of that oil came from Alaska and Mexico. All of that oil came to merchant ships, commercial ships. Merchant tankers were loaded down with oil. It was crude oil, more or less. But others carried gasoline and diesel. This is the main reason why the Islands (Aleutian's) in the North Atlantic were so important. We had storage areas for oil all over the place: East Coast, West Coast, Panama, Midway Island, etc…

Aircraft carriers were hard to fuel up. We fueled up destroyers, cruisers, and landing craft too. We used hoses, cranes, and big pumps to distribute the oil to those ships.

We had no escorts. We traveled alone.

If President Truman had not dropped those two bombs on Japan we would have made the invasion of the home island. See we would move up as the fleet would move up. We would have lost thousands of American lives. But we were prepared to attack Japan if it came to that.

We had these Japanese Kamikaze planes come over where we were in Okinawa Bay. And we had over a thousand ships in this huge bay. Finally we all got smart enough to figure out- the hell with the Kamikaze- we will just put all of our lights out. When we got notice of the Kamikaze coming we put all of our lights out (aboard ship) and tend our battle stations. The next thing you know, the Kamikaze didn't know where to hit us, because they were coming to hit an individual ship. It was a personal thing with them (Kamikaze pilots). They were giving up their lives for this.

Thanks to President Truman, when he dropped those two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When he did that, it was the end of the war. We were then able to get back. I got back to the states, instead of 'Golden Gate in '48'; I got back in the December of '45.

To come home, I got on an aircraft carrier. I came into San Francisco Bay. I took a plane home from there.

I'll tell ya, us youngsters 84, and old timers 86, we're lucky we still hanging around.