In Memory Walter Seale passed away on
March 10, 2002. He was very proud of his country and WWII service.
As a recessional at the funeral his wish was to play America the
Beautiful.
Overseas
I volunteered for the Army on
October 6, l942 and was sent to Fort Leonard Wood, MO for basic
training in the 29th Engineer Training Bn., Co. A. About New
Years of 1943 I was transferred to H & S Co., 87lst Airborne
Engineer Bn., at Westover Field, MA. Westover is near
Holyoke and it is now a National Guard Base. We trained on
how to maintain our equipment and how to load it in C-47's and in
gliders. It was winter and we thought we were being trained
for Alaska!
Later, when we landed in New Guinea we had wool
clothes.
We were sent to Camp Stoneman CA and left Oakland
on April 30, l943 on the USS President Johnson. US was very
short of shipping. The construction plate on the Johnson
noted that she was built in Newport News VA in 1904. She was
very slow and broke down a couple of times.
In addition to the 87lst Engineers, on
board were the ground echelon of the 500th Bomb Gp and the
565th Signal Air Warning (Radar) Bn.
We were thirty one days enroute to
Australia. We made landfall at Townsville
and then went to Brisbane
for repairs to the ship. About a week later we sailed again and
arrived at Port
Moresby, Papua New Guinea a couple of days after
that.
Port Moresby, New Guinea
At Port
Moresby we uncrated our equipment at the 27th Air Depot and camped
at the 17
Mile Drome (Schwimmer). We stayed at Moresby until July
working on an assortment of construction work at the air
depot.
An Airborne Engineer Battalion consisted of 501
enlisted men and 29 officers. (I remember that exactly
because I typed it every day on the QM ration report)
Originally there were ten battalions, some at Westover, some at
Bradley Field and some at a field in Missouri (perhaps the name
was Wakeman?). The battalions were originally numbered from
871 to 880. All of the equipment we had would fit into a
C-47 or a glider and was limited in weight to about 4500
pounds.
Our first mission was up to Tsilli-Tsilli
in the Markham River valley. We were to build a dirt runway
as an emergency fighter landing strip . All of the 87lst and
all of our equipment was flown over the passes in the Owen Stanley
Mountains. This was wild, uncharted, territory. The
C-47s of that era were not equipped with sophisticated
navigational instruments so they flew only in clear weather.
They just cleared the mountain passes by a little bit but they got
us there.
Tsilli-Tsilli
During most of the Tsilli
Tsilli operation I was left in Moresby with the rear echelon to
air ship the supplies of food, fuel and engineer materials needed
on the job. Our section alternated first on the rear echelon
and then to the forward echelon. I got to fly over to Tsilli
almost every day on the near-last plane load to get instruction
for the following day.
The Australian 7th Division was holding the area
and the Japanese were on the other side of the hills at Saidor and
Wewak. For a while the 5th Air Force command was afraid if
the area fell to the Japanese it would be the butt of joke and
propaganda because Tsilli Tsilli is pronounced silly -
silly. They re-named the site "Marilinan"
The first thing the 871st did there was to
mow a fake airstrip nearby. This was to fool the Japanese
and make it appear like the base was bigger. In reality it
was only mowed kunia grass. The 87lst was bombed on August
15th. Captain Kieth Munro, our chaplain, was
killed.
Australians - Bully Beef & Tea
The Australian 7th Division was a tough
lot. They had been in Lebanon, Greece and North Africa
before being sent back "home" to protect their homeland in
1942. They lived in foxholes and under two-man shelter
tents. They were armed almost entirely with Enfield rifles
that looked like WW I issue. They had little or no
equipment. They walked! Every day they ate bully beef,
hard tack biscuits and drank tea.. That was the menu.
Often we would trade with them. We had some things we didn't
always use up or need, such as dehydrated potatoes and canned beef
stew that we called coagulated transmission fluid. I still
have an Aussie hat insignia and a division shoulder patch they I
got in a trade.
On the subject of food - the army
food was not good, the air corp food was better and the Navy was
the best. We always tried to trade for better
rations.
Dirt Strip for Emergencies and P-39's
The 871st worked 24 hours a
day building, expanding and repairing at Tsilli Tsilli. The
first thing they did was make a rough dirt runway so that any
strays or cripples could make emergency landings. We got
P-40s, B-25s and P-39s that had been hit or had fuel
problems. The air corps mechanics would fix them up so that
they could get back to their home base. We worked on
finishing the dirt runway and some hardstands for parking
planes. It soon became fighter base for P-39s from the 8th
Fighter Squadron. The P-39s were being phased out at about
this time in favor of P-47s an P-38s but the P-39s had a cannon in
the nose and were good for strafing. As I remember, we did
not leave any wrecks or junk there. The field was later
abandoned when Gusap was developed.
Nadzab
On September 7th we had a new
assignment to build the airfield at Nadzab,
above Lae in the Markham River Valley. Two days before on the 5th,
paratroopers had assaulted the area. The road to Lae was not
operable, because there was a big swamp between Nadzab and
Lae.
I remember there was a German building at Nadzab,
either a mission or school. The blackboard had writing in German,
and the date on the board, the day of our attack. I guess they had
been evacuated that day by the Japanese, and left everything the
way it was.
I was in the "forward echelon" sent out ahead to
Nadzab. The other part of our unit was behind, and coordinated
sending equipment forward. At Nadzab, we first built a dirt
Runway. By this time, our equipment was pretty well beat up from
constant use. The only relief came from heavy caterpillar
equipment.
There was a gold mine at Wau
from the 30s. There was another at Dobodura.
The Australian mining operators flew in their equipment in Ford
Tri-motors. They disassembled the equipment into small
enough pieces to load into the planes with a gin pole and then
would unload and re-assemble it at the site. They were
expert at this. Our supply line fund some Caterpillar D-4
model tractors and these were disassembled into pieces and flown
to Nadzab where they were reassembled and used to supplement and
replace some of the worn out airborne equipment. Our
mechanics also used the same procedure on four-yard scrapers and 6
by 6 GI trucks. It took five plane loads for a D-4 and three
loads for a truck. It was a lot of work, and probably very
costly, but it worked.
Fitting a Bulldozer in C-47's
All our
equipment would fit into C-47's. For example, it would take five
C-47 to bring one of our 'dozers: 1st carried the engine, 2nd, the
tracks, 3rd the motor, 4th the final drive, 5th the blade, five
planes in all!
We also figured out how to send the 2 1/2 ton
deuce & half type truck. We would send one with a canvas cab,
cut the frame in half behind cab. Add a dolly wheel under front
end, put that in one plane. Take frame body in the second, and
Send the tires in a third. Three planes in all.
Gusap
While we were at Nadzab, doing
rather routine earth moving and grading, the Australian 9th
Division landed north of Lae and the US Army (I think the
41st Div) moved up from the south until the Allied forces
controlled the area. A road was pushed through the swamp, by
US engineers who had landed at Lae, to connect with the Nadzab
site. We were relieved and our next move was to Gusap,
northwest of Nadzab. The airborne equipment was flown, as in
the past. Rather than disassemble and reassemble the trucks and
the D-4s it was decided to convoy them overland. The area
was without roads.
The convoy was for a considerable distance.
I seem to recall that it was about fifty miles. Without
roads, the convoy had to break a trail through the kunai grass,
find places to ford the streams, excavate fording ramps, get
across the stream and then winch all their equipment across.
It took ten days or two weeks, or so. We lost one man, Cpl
Heacock, a Medic, who drowned in a swollen stream.
At Gusap we, again, quickly built a 3500 foot
emergency runway and then began to expand it. About this
time the Fifth Air Force reevaluated their situation and decided
to move their base up to Nadzab and to make Gusap an advance
base. The road to Nadzab solved the supply problem from the
port at Lae. Gusap remained without a road connection.
As time went on the 312th
Bomb Group (A-20s) and the 41st
Fighter Squadron (P-47s) moved up to Gusap, as did two other
airborne engineer battalions (I think they were 872 and 873) The
runway was graded and stabilized with sprayed emulsion mix,
taxiways and hardstands were built and at least part of the runway
was covered with steel matting. The requirement to transport
all the materials by air limited what it was practical to
do. We built a tower and an operations building. The
building was a pre-fab unit made in Australia. The sections came
folded up. When erected, it had a metal roof, burlap and
screen wire sidewalls and a gravel floor.
Fuel for airplanes, and for everything
else, was shipped up in 55 gallon steel drums. The
drums were recycled, by welding, into culvert pipe needed for
drainage. It rained so much at
Gusap! It was horrible. Your spare shoes would get
moldy. Everything got rusty. Your wash wouldn't
dry. We were there in the rainy season, I guess. The
"other season" would have to be the "wet season", and there
is no "dry season".
Flying A-20's and P-47's
At Gusap we
were encouraged to hire native help. The ANGAU (Australian
New Guinea Administrative Unit) would arrange for natives to
assist us. The natives were thrilled because they looked on
the Americans as the friendly fatted cow. There was a story
that the Aussies would offer a cigarette for a certain job, The
American army would offer a couple of cigarettes. The Air
Corps would offer a pack and the Navy a carton and a
T-shirt! The natives mostly did manual labor like unloading
planes and cutting brush. There was also a native Papuan
Infantry Battalion who acted something like a native police force
and tracking scouts for the Aussies. They wore navy-blue
uniforms that looked like old wool bathing suits from the turn of
the century. When we were
relieved at Gusap we were returned to Lae. At the port area
we got all our equipment together for the next move. I think
some of our companies went to either Finchhaven or Hollandia but I
was left behind again with a detail to clean up and ship
out.
Owi - Lindbergh, Coral and Typhus
The
next job that I remember was at Owi.
This is a coral island off of the coast of Biak
The US 4lst Division landed on Biak but was met with strong
resistance. They needed air support. They couldn't
control Mokmer strip so we were sent to build another fighter
strip on Owi that would be able to cover at Biak. We loaded
on to LSTs and were taken to Owi. It proved to be solid
coral and as hard as can be. The airborne equipment just
couldn't do very much. The D-4s were only a little better.
We hacked out the basic 3500 feet and were soon reinforced and
later relieved by a regular aviation engineer battalion (864th?)
and a Seabee battalion (60th?).
Owi also had little or no fresh water. The
natives wouldn't live there because there were chiggers that bit
you up and transmitted typhus. Later the Fifth Fighter Command
moved its HQ to Owi. We put up some prefab buildings.
It was there that I saw Charles Lindbergh. He was then a
consultant for Lockheed or Allison and was engaged to show the
P-38 pilots how to get better range. He was in one of the
buildings we had erected. He was signing autographs for some
soldiers. In passing the pencil, he dropped it and it rolled
right along the floor and out of "our" building. He laughed
and asked who had built this job! We said nothing.
The planes could take off at Owi, fly about four
or five miles, drop their load and return the four or five miles
back home. That was a "mission". We could see the
bombs drop and hear the explosions.
Sick Leave in Australia
While I was at
Owi I contracted typhus fever. So did many others.
Previously, in New Guinea, most every one seemed to have gotten
dengue fever. We were all taking Atabrine. We all had
yellow colored skin. Sickness was quite a problem. I
was sent to a field hospital for treatment and, after recovering,
I was later sent back to Australia on sick leave.
I flew to Brisbane and then was sent to
Coolangatta (phonetic spelling). Coolangatta was about like
Atlantic Highlands NJ but at that time there was nothing to do but
drink beer and eat french fries. I remember that the bars
had weird hours, like 9-noon; then 1-4 and then closed for
dinner. We had trouble knowing the schedule. Food was
very good, though, and very cheap. A very nice breakfast of
steak, eggs, tea and toast served on a white table cloth with a
linen serviette (napkin, thank you) cost the equivalent of 32
cents US.
We had to be careful because not everyone
appreciated the Americans and their pay scale. Many
Australian soldiers, in Australia , resented us sometimes. On
comparable ratings we made as much in a week as they made in a
month and we had been saving it up for a long time.
Washing Machine Charlie
While I was
away the 871st moved over to Biak. We were at the north-most
airfield. I think the name was Serrito (phonetic spelling,
While we were there we were drawing new heavy equipment and we
lost the designation of "Airborne". We got brand new
equipment from the states (like Christmas) and we started to
expand our roster to about 800 men.
At this stage of the war Japanese air power in
this area was through. At Tsilli-Tsilli it had been regular,
less at Nadzab and Gusap, and at Owi , even less. The
Japanese often did reconnaissance on us at night with a "washing
machine Charlie". On one occasion some of engineers
were working with flood lights on and failed to hear the air raid
warning. They didn't turn off the lights and they were
saluted by the Japanese with a stick of bombs. Some of our
people were wounded but no one was killed. They worked 24
hours a day. We had three line companies and each worked an
eight hour shift unless we were in some emergency situation. In
emergency situations they just worked and worked.....and worked.
No union rules here.
At Biak the bombers were flying very long
missions, sometimes 12-14 hours. A typical mission from Biak
would happen like this. They made incredible noise just
warming up. The bombers (B-24s) would leave before daylight,
perhaps 4-5 am. By 6-7 am the fighters (P-38s) would follow
them out and catch up before the bombers got near their target.
The fighters would be back by 2-3 pm and the bombers an hour or so
later. When the pilots had landed they were so tired that
their crew chiefs often parked their planes . There
were some accidents at landings, said to have happened because of
the crews being over-tired. They were flying missions to Borneo
and later they were flying support mission to the southern
Philippines.
Philippines
We did not go to Leyte.
We were still being re-equipped and expanding at Biak. Our first
mission in the Philippines was the landing at Lingayen Gulf.
We got there about a week or so after the initial invasion.
We landed at San Fabian on Luzon. The beach head was still a
mess with equipment and supplies all over and just behind the
beach. We worked on a few "local" jobs, including some work
at Dagupan. Our first "move up" was to Clark Field for
repairs to the landing areas. This was a pre-war air base
which had been lost in 1942. The Japanese had used it until our
re-invasion.
We, at first, had some trouble with un-exploded
munitions in the ground. These may have been planted as
booby-traps or they may have just been routinely unexploded bombs
dropped by both sides over time.
Later, while we were creating
a borrow pit (for fill) the dozers unearthed trunks full of rifles
and bayonets. These were all well oiled and neatly preserved
and were probably buried to hide them from the Japanese.
Some of our men ground the US off of the bayonets and sold them to
the Navy and the merchant marine sailors as "genuine
Japanese " souvenirs.
Del Carmen
Next we were sent to Del
Carmen. This was the "old name" that no one used in our
time. Del Carmen was a strip started by the 803
Aviation Engineers in 194l. Many of them were lost after
their capture , the Death March and years in prison
camps.
Del Carmen was a Spreckels "sugar central"
located near Florida Blanca and we always used "Florida Blanca" as
our location. We started to build an enormous runway and air
field installation there. All of our supplies had to be
hauled by truck from Manila 62 miles away. We were told that
it was to be a B-29 base but after the successful invasion of
Siapan and Okinawa it was by-passed.
It was used later for B-32s which were similar in
size to the B-29s. The B-32s could reverse their props and
"back-up" into a hardstand. This feature fascinated us and
everyone would stop to watch!
When the end of the war was announced I happened
to be in Manila. Every ship in the harbor fired their antiaircraft
guns in celebration. Of course what goes up must come down.
It rained shrapnel most of that night and we had to stay indoors
and under cover.
We came home on the "point" system. I went
to the 29th Replacement Depot and came back on a Liberty
ship. We had been overseas 2 years, 8 months and 20
days. I was discharged on January 2, 1946 and was enrolled
in college about a week or so later. Total service - 3 years, 2
months and 27 days; in which I "grew-up".
After the war, Mr. Seale attended SUNY
Farmingdale He then worked for New York State Department of
.Agriculture and Markets for 16 years. Then, for the State Fire
Fighters Academy of Fire Science. He retired at 55, as the Albany
director of field fire
training.
