ww2letterproject

On April 1, 1943, the 37th departed the Fiji island of Vita Leva aboard troop ships and rendezvoused at sea with three destroyers.  As the convoy headed west, the ship’s decks were crowded with GIs, many glancing back at the Fiji island where they had spent the past ten months. The convoy sailed for four days, 1100 miles, and reached the island of Guadalcanal before dawn on April 6.  At 0800 the transports drifted within 1500 yards of tropical white, sandy, sun drenched beaches and set anchor.  Scramble nets were thrown over the sides.

GIs climbed down the nets “hands on vertical, feet on horizontal” onto barges.  As the barges approached the beach, the troops encountered scenes of bomb craters, shattered trees, beached vessels, wrecked tanks, and skeletons of Japanese troops.  The major battles on the island had ceased six weeks earlier, but the nearness of the war became a stark reality when a Condition Red was sounded at 1920.  Five IJA planes arrived and dropped bombs.  The All Clear was sounded at 2050.

The first major foe the 37th faced on Guadalcanal was the Anopheles mosquito.  Malarial rates among Army combat forces in the South Pacific reached 50% for some Divisions. The standard defense against malaria was quinine, but the Japanese controlled over 90% of the source. Therefore, a chemically manufactured drug named atabrine was used.  The symptoms of those who took the drug included ringing ears, rashes, vertigo, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. NCOs stood at the head of mess lines to make sure the yellow pill was taken when issued.

On April 8, the island came under an IJA 98 plane aerial attack.  The attack force included 40 Zeros and 58 bombers and dive bombers. An Allied Corvette, a tanker and a destroyer were hit.  Thirty-four IJA planes were downed; the US lost seven planes.  During the month of April, there were 120 air raid alerts.  Even though the IJA planes primarily targeted ships, a drive to sell life insurance resulted in 100% of the GIs of the 37th holding policies with the maximum death benefit of $10,000.

With no major towns or cities on the island, the troops of the 37th created their own entertainment.  Movies were screened three nights per week per battalion and played to capacity audiences who sat on logs.  There were soft ball and volley ball games.  Swimming in the ocean was popular.  Cigarettes were issued at one pack per day per man.

Bill recalled once that an aunt promised him $100 if he could serve in the Army and not take up smoking. Bill never smoked, but he did like to gamble.  It is likely that he used his daily allotment of cigarettes as “chips” in many poker and craps games.

In May, the torrential rains diminished the IJA air raids.  Patrols of interior of the island lasted up to five days but encountered no enemy.

Beginning in about 1950, Dad drove a truck for REA Express, making deliveries throughout the city of Dayton.  Dad was a Teamster Union member.  He worked a daytime shift, five days a week with Sundays and Mondays off.

My dad liked movies.  When I was about age seven, one Monday afternoon Dad and I left our house on Colwick Drive and walked a few blocks to a city bus stop.  We waited a few minutes before an electric powered, two-toned yellow bus arrived.  The banner on the front of the bus read “Ewalt Circle”.  We climbed aboard, dropped coins or tokens into the fare box behind the driver and sat together on a two-wide, brown vinyl-covered, bench seat.  About 20 minutes later we stepped off the bus and into downtown Dayton.  I strolled next to Dad on the wide city sidewalks.  His presence made me feel safe and secure. 

We approached a movie theater, reading the marquee to determine the title of the movie “now showing” then resumed our walk.  A few blocks later another movie theater marquee came into focus, and again we noted the movie titles.  After checking a few more marquees, we were done shopping; it was time to make our selection.  We were comfortable about entering a movie in progress.  In those days, a paid admission allowed you to stay in the theater until it closed.  That meant if we entered and watched the second half of a movie and liked it, after a short break, we could stay and watch the first half.

The big downtown Dayton movie houses were former burlesque houses that had been built decades earlier.  By the 1960s they were faded versions of their former glory, showing mostly second run, and often second rate movies.

Our movie choices were likely either a WWII war themed action movie or, my dad’s favorite, a horror movie.  We entered the darkened theaters and found seats.  No talking, that was rude.  I often closed my eyes during “scary” scenes or perhaps asked Dad for coins and headed to the snack bar.

I don’t know why we didn’t check our morning newspaper to determine movie choices and times but this was Dad’s method.  Dad was not a planner and very much “lived in the moment.”  Looking back, I’ll admit that his way of movie shopping was an adventure, spontaneous and fun.

The men of the 37th spent most of their time on Guadalcanal involved with salvage operations and training.  Most units quartered along beaches facing the Florida Islands and the tropical sunsets and a view of Iron Bottom Bay, so called for all the naval battle wreckage.  Attacking IJA planes passed over Antiaircraft batteries on Tulagi Island to the west, and on clear nights, tracer fire alerted all to an the upcoming air raid.

On June 16 in the afternoon, there was a large IJA air raid.  The IJA lost 102 of the 130 planes in the attack.

The 37th which had been overseas for over a year was about to head into the front lines.