We
rode the train to Chattanooga, Tenn., then went by truck to Ft.
Oglethorpe, Ga. About the third day we parted ways and the next time
I saw Lloyd was in January 1946.
I shipped from Ft. Oglethorpe, Ga., to Atlantic City, N.J. Living in a large hotel in Atlantic City I went into basic training. We walked the Boardwalk to get to the parade ground. I had just as soon been elsewhere as we had to keep the room spotless with four men to the room. After about three months we shipped to Drew Field, Tampa, Fla. I was assigned to the Signal Corp and I went to Air Warning School (Radar). We went through all kinds of training plus school. We camped several places around Tampa while doing training. Most of the time we spent at Drew Field. In Dec. 1943 our Company was with the 551 Signal Air Warning Battalion. I was in Co. B, 1st Platoon. We were attached to the Army Air Corps. We took a troop train headed northwest but of course, no one knew where to. We traveled to Nashville, Tenn., on to St. Louis, Mo., then headed west through Missouri, on to Denver, Colorado, on to central California. We finally stopped at Camp Stoneman, California. It was across the bay from San Francisco. We were there only a few days. They loaded us on a ferry to cross the Bay to the pier at San Francisco.
We were loaded on a troop ship and left dock before Christmas, 1943. We waved goodbye to the Golden Gate Bridge and to the U.S.A. There were about twenty-five hundred men on the ship. After about three hours out there were lots of sick men, including me. I was sick for about three days, but after that, things went smooth. Our boat ride lasted 30 days and landed us on Guadalcanal Island, Solomon Islands in the South Pacific (Jan. 1944).
We lost no time setting up the Radar Unit and started operating. The U.S. had repaired an air strip there and were flying missions and bringing in supplies. They hadn't cleared the Japanese Army off all the island, just off what they needed to operate an airfield. They had to have border defense all around the area. It was rough for the men on patrol. We set up camp on a river bank next to ammunition storage. At this time most of the air combat was away from our island. When we landed on the canal it was only our Platoon, about forty to fifty men. The other platoons were assigned to other places. We were to ourselves.
There were very few Jap planes over this island at this time. The border patrol was quite busy with the Japs still on the island. We were a non-combat group but were on alert at all times. We took tablets each day for malaria fever, but very few cases broke out. Fungus was bad because of the climate. We worked three shifts a day seven days per week. Each week you changed shift. There were five men to each group. We rotated jobs on the hour. The electricity was furnished by a generator on the job. There were men to take care of maintenance.
One platoon served for a time on New Georgia Island in the Solomons. The war was moving west so we went by boat to Bougainville Island. This was about the same condition. They had built an air strip and were flying from there. After being in Bougainville for a time, we went on west to Green Island. This was a very small island. It was a coral island in a crescent moon shape but had a good deep channel coming in to it. All the time we were moving toward Japan. This place had a short air strip and could only land twin engine planes and fighters. Most of the flights were escort or bombing runs. The fighters were flying two to three missions each day. The target was to the far north. There was a Company of Seabees (a construction unit) stationed near us. They used this island to store ammuniton and other supplies. Also there was a Navy unit of Patrol Torpedo (P.T.) boats near our Radar site. P.T. boats patrolled the island all the time plus Pontoon Patrol Boat airplanes which were used for rescue service. There were no Jap troops on this island and very few natives. Coconut was the principal crop on these islands. Of course, there were other fruits also, but no real farming. This island had no place for ships to dock, so everything was unloaded with small Ducks, a sea-land unit that could land on a beach.
Working in shifts we would have a day or day and half off at times. This wasn't free time; they always had things to do. Guard duty was one of them. There wasn't much to do on the islands or places to go. To get to the airstrip you had to ride a barge. It made two trips each day, picking up mail and supplies. We would go over and watch planes come and go.
We were on Green Island through December 1944 and had a wild pig barbecued for Christmas dinner. It was an improvised barbecue so the meat was tough, but good. Providing whiskey for the cook may not have helped any.
After a few months we loaded on a freighter (ship) and headed out from Green Island to another location. They had no quarters for the men so we lived and slept on the deck. The good part was that we had no duty--just played cards and ate K-rations. (No cooking facilities for us.) We were seven days moving north to the Phillippines Island of Mindanao. This was the southernmost Island of the Phillipines. When the ship came near the port of Zamboanga, the natives came out in small fishing boats to meet us. These were the first civilized peoples we had seen on any of the islands. What they wanted was for the G.I.'s to throw coins in the water so they could dive and catch them. They didn't miss many. It was better than being met by Japs.
We set up our Radar unit but there was very little air traffic (1945). The Jap Air Force was now no threat, nor was the Army or Navy. We had more free time, but nothing to see. While we were here they paid us in Phillipine money (occupation currency). The Japs had destroyed what little the people had, including the electric plant. The city of Zamboanga had no electricity or waterworks now. There were plenty of boat people. It was a sight to see them all in the dock. All was very simple and the boat was where the whole family lived and made their keep. Dried fish was the main food. They had open markets (and it was open). It offered fresh fruit.
This area was being used as storage for men and materials, airplane parts, motor vehicles, ammunition, gasoline and all else. The Army food was some better here. We did some work opening roads and building bridges, trying to help the people. While here the Chaplain wanted a chapel for worship. So they asked, or told me, to oversee the work. They hired natives to do the work. This was a way for them to make money. With the Army machines and local labor we built a nice simple chapel.
It was real interesting to see the way they worked and the tools they used. The women and children came along to help. All materials came from the forest, except for a few nails and canvas for windows. The seats were logs; the floors were of packed dirt. This was standard (dirt floors) for most homes I saw.
We were here when the war ended, August 15, 1945. When our time came to leave, we left all our equipment there. We went by plane to Manila's famous Clark Field. We were there about a week and had some time for sightseeing but there was little left to see in war-torn Manila.
We left Manila by ship headed for home. This was about Dec. 3, 1945 on the U.S.S. General Brewster. They loaded all that could get on. The good part was no duty, no air raids or such drills. About five days out we hit stormy weather and for three days it was real rough--warm and windy.
We sailed for seventeen days before reaching the Golden Gate Bridge at San Francisco. It was just before Christmas 1945 and there were so many troops coming in that they couldn't process them fast enough. We had to stay on the ship. All we had were work clothes and Phillipine money. They gave us $10 and a coat so we could go ashore. We stayed on the ship till after Christmas. They let us go ashore each day and return at night. This was in San Francisco, California. We could get money exchanged at the beach. We rode the cable car and ate lots. Al and I were together all the time overseas. He lived at nearby San Jose, Ca., so he knew his way around town and we made it fine. The people were real nice to the men returning. Finally we left the ship by ferry back to Camp Stoneman across the bay. As soon as they could run us through, I was headed for Camp Chaffee, near Little Rock, Arkansas.
At Camp Chaffee they made me a free man again. I left there by bus to Memphis, Tenn., then on to Jackson. At Memphis I met Bill Robley, a neighbor from Malesus. I got off the bus at Rileys Store. Papa and Rachel were there to meet me. Maybe others don't remember Jan. 1946 but for me it was celebration time. On Feb. 14th Rachel Weir and I were married at the Malesus Methodist Church.
-- Paul H. Watlington
Paul Hammond Watlington (b. 1923) was a soft spoken member of the family, easy-going and modest. Taller than several of the brothers, he played a good game of basketball in Malesus High School and in his senior year of 1940-41, the boys team was the runner-up to Spring Creek for County Championship. Carl Young, Woodson Hall, Franklin Day and Raymond Love were team mates with him that year. Within a few years each of them were in military service around the globe.
Paul was nicknamed ``Duffy the Irishman'' by his father as he grew to be a strong quiet young man. (We had plenty of Irish blood through our Mother's family.) You could count on him to be there and do more than his share of the work. He learned from Papa to use a ditching spade well and also an axe and hammer. About Fall 1939, Mr. H. A. (Gus) Thompson asked that Paul come to live on his adjoining farm and help with the farm chores for his room and board and a few dollars a month. Paul was willing to do this and the family permitted it. This gave him some ready cash, independence, and responsibility at an early age. He cared for the two horses, a few cows and the chickens, which became a commercial operation for the Thompsons. Mr. Thompson was a cabinet maker/carpenter with the Piggly Wiggly Furniture Co. in Jackson, Tenn., and he and Paul built a modern hen house for the chickens and then incubated their own eggs for baby chicks. (The Watlingtons had always let the hens do that job.) After graduation from High School in May 1941, Paul went to work at Piggly Wiggly factory also as an apprentice carpenter on the recommendation of Mr. Thompson who appreciated Paul a lot. Later that year Camp Tyson was being built at Paris, Tenn., and they were paying good wages. Mack, Sam and several neighbors were involved in the project so Paul ventured into this new outdoor construction work. From there he went with brother Mack and Sam to other military construction projects in Alabama and Florida until the time of his induction into the Army in March 1943. These years were a great apprenticeship for him in the construction trades.
According to Paul's memory record, he was inducted March 5, 1943 at Ft. Oglethorpe, Ga. and after processing was sent to an Atlantic City, N.J., hotel along the boardwalk for basic training and orientation to Army life. He was then assigned to the Signal Corps and sent to Air Warning School (Radar). Besides learning to operate the needed machines their basic training continued around Drew Field, Tampa, Fla. They learned tent living here though most of the time was study time.
He became part of the 551st Signal Air Warning Battalion, Company B, 1st Platoon, attached to the Army Air Corps. The platoons were trained to operate separately where needed, including the operation of a diesel powered generating plant for the electricity needed for their radar. The radar equipment they used was made in England, and as they shipped overseas equipment went along with each platoon of the Battalion.
During this time at Drew Field, Paul was able to visit Sam and Mary at their quarters in Bartow, Florida, occasionally. He never had a furlough or a delay in route to visit the family in Tennessee during his three years of service with the Army. Upon finishing their training at Tampa, the Battalion went as a unit on troop trains to Nashville, Tenn., St. Louis, Mo., Denver, Colorado, and on to Central California and the Port of San Francisco. They went by ferry across the bay to the pier in San Francisco and loaded on a troop ship with about twenty-five hundred men in all. They sailed before Christmas 1943 for a still unknown destination across a wide ocean. After thirty days on the water his platoon's destination was Henderson Field, Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands.
After some weeks on Guadalcanal the enemy air traffic came to a halt so the platoon was moved to a new location on Bougainville Island where the Marines had established a beachhead and airfield in Dec. 1943. Another platoon which had been located on another area of Guadacanal moved with them to Bougainville. The planes from the airfield on Guadalcanal were now on the offensive and were making bombing runs on Rabaul, the center of Japanese plane and ship movements at this time. The Bougainville location made it possible to monitor better movements out of Rabaul, on New Britain Island.
After some months on Bougainville, the first Platoon was sent even closer to Rabaul, setting up on Green Island, which lies N. W. of Bougainville and nearly directly east of Rabaul. The Allied Forces had decided to skip over Rabaul and not try to take it by force, but they needed to neutralize it as a military supply port for Japanese troops in the area. And there were a lot of Japanese troops on Guadacanal, Bougainville and areas around them but if they could not renew supplies they were no longer a threat to the area.
Green Island may be on your map but not carry a name.
It is the second of two larger unnamed islands northwest of the
northern tip of Bougainville Island. To the west of it is the
southern tip of New Ireland Island, and further to the west is New
Britain. It was captured by the Japanese on March 30, 1942 and
retaken Feb. 15, 1944 by New Zealand forces. It served as a war
material storage place and an airfield for small bombers, fighter and
observation planes although there was no deep water port there. The
First Platoon continued there through Christmas of 1944. By that time
Rabaul had become useless to the decimated Japanese Navy and was
effectively bypassed as the war moved north and west toward the
Philippines and Japan.
On Guadalcanal and Bougainville there were many Japanese troops at the time Paul and the First Platoon were there, but on other parts of the Island. They had to stay on the alert but were not in a fire-fight with enemy troops in either place. Green Island was so desolate and rocky that no Japanese troops were left on it when their radar installation was there. The New Zealand troops had retaken Green Island in February, 1944, only months before their unit moved there. The First Platoon was the only Signal Corps operation on Green Island and stayed there through Christmas 1944.
In the first months of 1945 two platoons of the Battalion and their equipment were put aboard a Dutch cargo vessel headed for the Philippine Islands. They had no troop accommodations but the 70 men were given the open deck and K-rations and by this time knew how to care for themselves. They were eight days and nights traveling northwest to Zamboanga, at the southwest tip of Mindanao Island. They set up their radar outfit there also outside the town but by this time there was very little enemy air or surface sea traffic in the region. The action had moved past Mindanao on toward Japan with the landings on Leyte in October 1944 and the Invasion of Luzon Isle Jan. 9th, 1945.
Japanese soldiers still controlled parts of Mindanao but had concentrated their forces in the eastern part of the Island where they continued until V-J Day and afterwards. The First Platoon thought they had gotten back to civilization after so many months of isolation. It was here that they began to use their time to help rebuild the destruction of the war. Paul helped plan and supervise the construction of a chapel here for the unit which could serve the community also. It was a thatched roof, bamboo sided chapel with open windows protected by the over hanging roof. Located at lat. 6 deg 54' N, open air was an important defense against the heat. Green Island had been at lat. 4 deg 12' S, so it had been hot and humid also.
The Battalion was at Zamboanga when the War ended suddenly, on August 15, 1945. The unit left their equipment at Zamboanga as opportunity came later that year to return stateside. They were transported by air in a C-47 to Clark Field, Manila and about the 3rd of December loaded aboard the U.S.S. General Brewster to return stateside. They arrived at San Francisco December 23rd but still had to stay a week aboard ship as more troops were coming home than they could process properly.
Getting home, getting married, and going back to work at Piggly Wiggly Furniture factory made 1946 look like a good year. But the Atabrine tablets taken to avoid malaria fever had given Paul the ``look of the Tropics'' and it took some time to regroup his healthy ``Irish'' look.
Following up on Paul's life it is good to note that he found satisfaction in staying close to home base and as opportunity permitted he purchased a lot in Malesus next door to George and Betty Morris. There he was able to serve as his own contractor and supervise the building of a home which has served his family for forty years.
Paul worked several years at Piggly-Wiggly and became a fine finish cabinet maker. When Watlington Bros. Construction Company began to expand and needed more foremen, Paul was invited (persuaded) to work with them. He supervised many jobs for them, especially in buildings at the University of Tennessee at Martin, Tenn. and in public housing centers in various places. One major job was with the building of a water processing and storage plan for the city of Jackson, Tenn.
Rachel continued to work at Western Union Telegraph office for many years as they started their family. Her mother and others helped care for the little ones. Afterward she worked some years in the offices of Watlington Bros. until her health failed her. They have three children and six grandchildren.