balach, steve interview

8/7/2019 Balach, Steve interview

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Oral History Interview withSteve Balach-veteran of the USS Paducah (WWII Vet)Born 1923, Duluth, Minnesota

Interviewed byDaniel HartmanProgram Director of Veterans Memorial HallOn June 13, 2007

Transcribed byKarin SworProgram Assistant of Veterans Memorial HallOn October 16, 2008

DH. I would like to start this interview by asking you to state your

name and spell your last name.

SB. My name is Steve Balach. My last name is spelled B-A-L-A-C-H.

DH. What year were you born?

SB. 1923.

DH. Were you born in Duluth?

SB. Yes, I was born in Duluth, Minnesota.

DH. OK, then we will start asking other questions. I take it you wereborn in Duluth; were your parents born in Duluth as well?

SB. No, I am a first-generation American.

DH. Where were your parents from originally?

SB. Both of them were Serbs fromwhich was under the AustrianEmpire at the time. They migrated to America, my father in 1906, mymother in 1910.

DH. They came at different times, but they came from the same area?Did they know each other prior?

SB. Families generally, thats all.

DH. But they were of the same ethnic background. Growing up, was


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their ethnic background pretty dominant with you?

SB. Absolutely, that is why I know how to barbecue lambs, smokesausage, and do many things.

DH. Did you influence your children with that as well?

SB. Absolutely, all of my children are college graduates, and they haveall gotten some of that cultural background.

DH. That is great. What are some of the things your parents taught youabout their culture growing up?

SB. Our family was a big family. We learned how to plant a garden,raise pigs, milk cows, and survive without ever being on thegovernment payroll.

DH. I take it you didnt live in town, growing up?

SB. Well, the western part of Duluth, in a rural area.

DH. Where exactly in west Duluth?

SB. Gary New Duluth.

DH. How big a property would you say your parents had?

SB. We had one home, and beyond that we had gardens. During theDepression days, nobody cared where you planted. The pasturebelongs to somebody, but we had two cows. That was part of survival.

DH. You grew up most of your childhood in the 1920s. How was itgrowing up in the 1920s in Duluth?

SB. Very difficult, tough days. I was born in 23, and I was privy to thewhole Depression era, where we had little or nothing, so it wasinteresting to get a job, like in the Naval Reserve, where they paid$2.00 each time you went to a meeting.

DH. In the 1920s when you were a kid, what did you do for fun?

SB. We made our own fun, I guess. Baseball. We knew how to trap,hunt, and fish. These were things that were necessary; they werent ajoy at the time. If we caught fish, we had a fish dinner at home, or if weknocked a couple of partridges off with our single shot .22, we had apartridge dinner.

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DH. Where did you do most of your hunting and trapping?

SB. Right in our area.

DH. In Gary?

SB. Yes, that is very rural.

DH. How young were you when you first learned how to trap and hunt?

SB. I had two older brothers that were experts. I must have been six orseven at the time, and I would go in the woods with them.

DH. In relation to the rest of your family, howwere you the youngest,oldest?

SB. Middle son: two older, two younger.

DH. Your parents had five children?

SB. No, no eight. Three girls too.

DH. OK. You grew up with a fairly large family then, too. Did you alsohave a lot of children like your parents?

SB. Six.

DH. Could you describe a little bit of Gary back in the 1920s? What isdifferent now compared to then?SB. It was all ethnic groups, like Slovenians, Italians, Serbs. They allhad their own ethnic background and their own social clubs and so on.Nobody had any money; however, it seemed that they still survived. Itwas very difficult in those days going to school with proper clothingand so, because nobody had anything.

DH. Even in the 1920s before the Depression?

SB. It was very difficult.

DH. Earlier you mentioned that you played some baseball. Was thisyour favorite sport growing up?

SB. Oh, absolutely. In fact, if I ever got a penny, I bought a Toppsbaseball card that had chewing gum on it. I had 1934 World Series

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baseball cards for both teams. My mother somehow got rid of them.They are worth about a half million dollars today. I had the complete:Leo Durocher, Dizzy Dean, Bill DeLancey, Frankie Frisch from theCardinals, from the Tigers, Schoolboy Rowe, Hank Greenberg, Jerry Jehr[?] I had them all.

DH. Were there sports that you played in the winter?

SB. We didnt have skis, we would borrow skates. We were very limitedwithyou know, with the necessities that the kids have today when theyparticipate in winter sports.

DH. Did you ever play some backyard hockey?

SB. Yes, we did all of that. We never had a hockey stick, but we would

find a piece of willow and make hockey sticks.

DH. You still found a way to play hockey. What was the puck?

SB. No, we never had a puck. They would cut a piece of birch wood offround, and that was our puck.

DH. Where would you play, would you play on Lake Superior or on thebay?

SB. No, no we had the river and we had a skating rink around. The

community had a skating rink. They would flood it and we would godown there and play.

DH. The community still had rinks?

SB. Right, we used to argue about who is going to flood it and who isgoing to maintain it, between the county and the city. It was a differenttime; nobody had the financial ability to spend tax dollars.

DH. Quite a few people I have interviewed in your era were skijumpers. Did you ever try that?

SB. No, we didnt have skis, but I knew a few from the other end oftown that were ski jumpers. We had a big hill in Fond du Lac, whichwas quite famous. Torgo Togo skied there in 1940 or 1939. But in orderto have the proper equipment was skis. Among our group skiing wasnotfootball and baseball were more our sport.

DH. In the 1920s compared to the 1930s, was there much of a

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difference in the eras to you to your family? When the Depression hit,could you tell that it hit?

SB. Oh, absolutely, It was worse during that time. We had a placecalled the city dump. They threw canned goods up there, and we would

go up there every day and eat off the dump. Why should we go homeand eat beans and potatoes (that is all we had) when you could go andopen a can of peaches or Italian plums or what have you? They wouldthrow that stuff away, and we would wait for the truck to come upthere and grab it off. It was amazing how much they threw away, andthe people were hungry. We survived that way, right off the dump.

DH. Were there a lot of families who did that?

SB. Quite a few.

DH. When you were growing up in the 1920s, what did your parentsdo, or what did your father do to make a living?

SB. My father worked in the plant. He was in management since hecame to the country.

Being a foreigner, he became a citizen when he was 22. But, duringthe tough days he only worked one day a week. We never went onrelief. I asked my father one time, "Why we dont have oranges?" Hesaid they get them from the government. I said, "Why cant we getsome?" He said, "We dont want any," but we knew rose hips is the

same as vitamin c, and on the rocks above Gary there are all kind ofwild roses. I never knew why we would eat the rose hip but it has 100times more vitamin C than oranges. That was something we didautomatically growing up.

DH. So you guys are actually quite creative in finding food?

SB. Absolutely. My older brother, my father, said, "The king does notown the deer in America," and we were great poachers. My olderbrother would poach deer, shoot one, then wake my brother and I upat 11 oclock, and we would go and haul it. He knew where every game

warden was.

He ended up being an infantry officer in the Battle of the Bulge and ledhis six people out; they were all wounded but they survived. I feel thereason he could do that: game wardens never got him. He was like anIndian, big clumsy guy, like an Indian in the woods.

DH. Which brother was this?

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SB. George.

DH. George.

SB. 99th Division, Battle of the Bulge.

DH. How many of your brothers were in the war?

SB. Four, in World War II, all overseas at one time. The fifth one theywent and sent him to Korea. All five Balachs fought in the war. Four inWorld War II, one in Korea. All overseas, not some base job.

DH. Where were your four brothers stationed?

SB. George, was B+4 in Normandy, and then he fought throughout the

Battle of the Bulge and so on. Joe made 57 missions as a bomber pilot,B26 Pilot; he bombed the bridges on D-Day, the famous bridges at D-Day. He went on the bus with Karin [Swor]. He light curl. He is my olderbrother. My brother Melan, who is a lawyer in town, he is dead now, hewas gun tour captain on the U.S.S. Wilkes Barre, which was a lightcruiser. Knocked the hell out of the Japanese steel plants with the 3rdFleet. And I, of course, was on both sides, I went to the Pacific after D-Day and Normandy. Bobby, I tried to save him, but they shipped him toKorea anyway.

DH. Did your father have any service?

SB. No, he was a foreigner when he came over here, he was in camp,and he was a dedicated American. Happy, came to America at age 13,survived by himself. His relative in Columbus, Ohio, was dead when hegot here. He found friends from the same area, and he survived. Hesaid, "Never go to the state of Arkansas." You learn English veryrapidly. He said, "The state of Arkansas has nothing but tornadoes,nothing to eat, and it is those straw tooth telephone poles."

They traveled with groups. He came here when they were building thedam in 1911 as a young man, then they started building the steel plant

so he stayed.

DH. Did he work for the steel plant most of his life?

SB. Yes, yeah.

DH. Did he continue to have his job during the Depression, too?

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SB. Yeah, but only one or two days [a week]. He had a chance to go toChicago as a promotion, but he had too many kids, and two cows, andhe didnt feel it was safe to go down there. So he stayed here.

DH. In the 1930s, this is kind of when you were in your teenage years.

What did you do in your teenage years for fun in the 30s?

SB. Almost the same. We never went to dances, we didnt havedances. We had a community club where we learned how to do a littleboxing. I was in Scouts, anything the Scout troop leader had for us, hehad hot chocolate for us, and that was a big treat to get involved insomething like that. So I was a Scout for many years.

DH. So what did you do in the Scouts beside drink hot chocolate, orsome activity?

SB. All the activities were camping or so on. It was nice to havesomebody have all that for you, because we had very limitedresources.

DH. Where did you guys usually go camping at?

SB. Fond du Lac. We had all kinds of wooded areas outside of the GaryNew Duluth area that was all wooded area.

DH. You wouldnt travel real far, then?

SB. No, no. You didnt have to go far. It was there: trout streams,fishing at Birch Lake, which is by Fond du Lac, we walked there everyday to go fishing. We swan at the waterfall, where the new highwaygoes up to Becks Road. There is a place called the waterfall, we swamthere, in fact, one time we got a railroad push car, one of these, itwould go like this, and we "owned" it all summer, we would hide it inthe brush. We would go up to where Arrowhead Blacktop is now. Therewas a place called Stone Crusher Lake. We used to swim in there, jumpon the pushcart, and go back 2 miles, throw it in the woods. Theyfinally caught us. Finally got it back, but that was part of our life. Thecity dump was very valuable to us. At the age of 7 or 8 I knew the price

of copper and brass. All the metals. We were survivors.

DH. When you were a teenager, did you have a job anywhere in town?

SB. When I was 16, well, when I was 12, I was setting pins. You aresupposed to be 16, but I lied, my age, in a pool hall.

DH. So you were actually setting pins in a bowling alley?

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SB. Yeah, we had two alleys there. When I was 16 I worked for DavePersha as a stock boy. We also had a shoeshine parlor with a black kid.We were partners in the pool hall in Gary because he knew more aboutit than I did, and he was my friend. He ended up owning half a dozen

drug stores in Chicago, he was a pharmacist.

DH. Yes, I heard about him earlier.

SB. This is his younger brother. One was an orthodontist, one was apharmacist. We grew up together.

DH. What was his name?

SB. Thomas, first name Roscoe.

DH. Roscoe? This is kind of a personal question: Did you go on dateswith people, and if you did, where did you bring them?

SB. There was no dates in those days. I never went on a date until Ihad a uniform in the Navy.

DH. Really.

SB. No, there just wasnt that atmosphere. We didnt have dances, wedidnt have things like that like they have today.

DH. You hadI am sure that you tried to see girls.

SB. Oh yeah, but that was different. When you were 16, finally youstarted holding hands maybe. It wasnt as it is today. I had to watchmy kids: I couldnt believe the difference in this area.

DH. But you had an interest in girls?

SB. Absolutely, I am a six-kid father.

DH. Back in those days it was somewhat common for families to hook

their children up.

SB. The social group would have been around the church. I amOrthodox, and we have a very strong religious affiliation. We haveseveral holidays. You didnt mix too much with the girls, but you hadan eye on that. Not until after the war did I have a great interest.

DH. You grew up Orthodox, I imagine your parents were as well?

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SB. Absolutely.

DH. Were they constant church-goers?

SB. Yeah, helped build the church in Gary.

DH. They actually helped build the church?

SB. Absolutely. We have the finest collection of David Ericson paintingsin our church that our fathers . . . The whole icon screen is . . . whenDavid became a famous Duluth artist. Our icon screen is worth morethan the whole church.

DH. I am fairly familiar with David Ericson.

SB. David Ericson the painter. We have the biggest collection of DavidEricson art in the St. George Serbian Orthodox Church in the city ofDuluth. UMD has some.

DH. I used to work for Glensheen, and Glensheen has a collection.

SB. Oh, yeahUMD has come out and helped us keep our pictures inshape.

DH. Were you familiar that during World War I, David Ericson actuallypainted

propaganda posters for the US Army?

SB. No. I do know he was killed in Paris. He got run over in Paris.

DH. During the war?

SB. No, later. Our old timers hired him to paint, he worked for StGermain's,to paint the icons. You know what an icon screen is in the Orthodoxchurch? All the saints, he painted everyone of them. Twenty-fourpaintings in St George were painted by David Ericson. Are you not

aware of that? If you are knowledgeable about David Ericson, we havethe finest collection. I think UMD has more, or some banks have some,but we have one of the finest collections.

DH. I am not kidding, I am going to go check this out.

SB. Well absolutely, Dan, anytime, we would be happy to show you atany time. I am an officer in the church, in my old age. I am a past

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president but I am on the board.

DH. Actually, I am Catholic.

SB. Thats okay, you will enjoy our church.

DH. No, I went to Greece a couple of years ago.

SB. Then you know the Orthodox.

DH. You guys have beautiful churches.

SB. The only difference is we consider your pope as a bishop of Rome.Not as a pope. He is the same as the bishop of Alexandria, Antioch,Constantinople, and Athens. He is one of equals, but not above, theearly church.

DH. Otherwise we are very similar.

SB. We will not re-baptize a Roman Catholic. He has already beenbaptized. Very much similar.

DH. I enjoy a lot of the traditions you have, because we have a lot ofthem too. Anyway, a totally different subject.

SB. I will give you one story: My daughter was very active in Boston.They bought the French Roman Catholic Cathedral, one mile from

Harvard University, for two million. They needed it for those damn sixpanels they got. The Protestants and the Episcopalians wanted it, butthey gave it to the Serbian Orthodox. My daughter was on thatcommittee. They said when you consider how we treat abortion, howwe treat these things, we are not going to give it to those that dontagree.

OK, you are the interviewer; I dont want to be the interviewer.

DH. I need to keep track of where I am.

A lot of young men during the 1930s, especially in this area, were partof the CCC.

SB. My two older brothers were in. I was under age, they would not letme in.

DH. Could you describe what was it like? Were they happy to have it?

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SB. Yes, it was a great thing for those guys, my brother Joe and mybrother George both. My brother George was a famous tree planter inHovland. He made $45.00 a month instead of $30.00. My brother Joefed the bears in Spruce Lake. The dentist, he always had picturesfeeding bear up there.

DH. Really, Joe?

SB. They are both CCC Camp recipients. Those were tough days, theybrought money into the home.

DH. So you were?

SB. I was the oldest son left.

DH. Now, when the presidency switched from Hoover to FDR, was

there a feeling of optimization, like verbal, like a feeling of help?

SB. It was very difficult. Every dirty word seemed to be with PresidentHoover, although he wasnt responsible as much as they made him outto be. The mortgage memoriam act he wrote it up. Which saved a lotof houses, but he never got credit for it because everything went bad.He made his mistakes, he gave $50 million for the Maginot Line, butthe Germans walked around it. And he wouldnt take care of the troopsin Washington when he sent MacArthur and Eisenhower.

Roosevelt appealed to the masses, and we needed something.

DH. Do you feel these programs helped?

SB. Well the WPA built roads would never been built. They did theGeological Survey, every piece of land. They took a bunch of civilengineers who didnt have a job. You look at the maps today from theWPA, they have never been revised. They did a lot. They saved thecountry at the time.

DH. The CCC was another example?

SB. They did all; they did the work to build the parks. The country wasnever in better shape.

DH. The common person was really happy to do this?

SB. You got a meal, you got $30.00. $5.00 went to his family. I meanhe got $5, and his family got $25.00. It survived, the nation, that iswhy we were proud to go to war. Those kids in the CCC Camps never

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questioned their country. They went. Look at how many went, 16million.

DH. Another famous part of FDR was his fireside chats. Did your familylisten to them?

SB. Absolutely, there was nobody that didnt listen to them.

DH. I have also heard that it was common to have a photo of thepresident in their house.

SB. Absolutely, it is like the blacks. I had a black neighbor that had abig picture of President Lincoln, you know why?

DH. Yeah. FDR was pretty common then.

SB. Absolutely, they felthow do I say this?they were first-generation immigrant families, and they knew how bad it was inAmerica was better than where they came from. and Roosevelt made itbetter.

Oh, another thing, let me quote another thing. Qhen the war started,somebody asked President Roosevelt, "Where are your sons going tobe?" You know what he said? "They will be on the front lines likeSerbian King Peter." He and his three sons fought in World War I on thelines. "My sons will be there."

I had the occasion to see Franklin D. Roosevelt on the destroyerMayrant, you know, in Brooklyn, New York. He was an executive officeron there. Every one of his sons served. Very important, it wasimportant to all the rest of us.

DH. Oh yeah. Then Theodore Roosevelt's sons served, too, anotherfamous story.

SB. But Franklin D., all of his sons served, fought.

DH. There was a time when FDR made a promise to the country that

we would not enter the war.

SB. Well, we were conserved as a nation, we were isolationist, and wedidnt think we needed it.

DH. Did you believe it at the time?

SB. When I saw the British Battleship, Malaya, come into Brooklyn, New

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York, in 1940 with a big hole in the side from German torpedoes, Iknew eventually we would be in the war. When, I didnt know. I sawthem ready the 50 destroyers or the Eastland destroyers, are youaware of that? We saw them. Our Paducah group saw them gettingthose destroyers prepared to give them to England. They needed

them; their back was against the wall.

DH. Let's bring it back to Duluth in the 30s again a little bit. Somethingthat other people have mentioned, that the theatres were very popularin the 30s; there were dime theatres, nickel theatres. Did you go tothese?

SB. Yes, we had a theater right here in Gary. State Theater.

DH. State Theater?

SB. But you had to have a nickel.

DH. What were some of the more popular movies that you guys wentto see?

SB. Tim McCoy, the Indians are coming, Tom Mix, most of that type.

DH. It was a pretty fun place?

SB. It was a great thing to go to a movie, but you had to have a nickel.You might have to save scrap all week to get the nickel.

DH. But you would do it?

SB. Absolutely.

DH. Was this a common place for you and all your friends?

SB. Yes, as many as possible would go. Then the Catholic Churchopened a movie, too.

One of my friends said, "I have 10 cents, shall we go to the movie? If

you are under five you do not have to pay." So we went there and said,"Two please." He said, "How about her?" "Well, sir, she is under five."She said, "No, sir, I am seven," so I didnt go. Remember that story.

DH Now I will move a little bit ahead into the future. You obviouslyenlisted in the Navy. Why the Navy?

SB. I had some trouble in school in Morgan Park, so I went to Central.

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Duluth Central. Some guys said, "There is a good deal, you get $2.00each time you go to this meeting, and you get a nice uniform that thegirls like." I was 16 years old, mind you. I was working for Dave Pershaon Saturday, 10 hours for 2 1/2 dollars. He owned the city markets.The forerunner to Jeno Paulucci.

They said you had to be 17. Well, I wasnt 17, but I had a Serbianbaptism [certificate] written in Cyrillic, so I brought it down there, andthe dummyyou cant tell if it is June or November or what the hell. Isaid, "June 22," so they swore me in (but my birthday is November 22)but he swore me in.

In July, we had a two-week cruise, in the middle of July, on the GreatLakes. We went to Bayfield, Wisconsin, and the Apostle Islands.

DH. What year was this?

SB. 1940, July 1940.

DH. Just for the records, who was the guy that did your enlistmentpapers?

SB. I dont know. I mean, Wes Harkinsbut he just got them fromsomeone who swore me in, thats all.

DH. But he still did your papers?

SB. Yeah.

DH. So you joined in July 1940, then?

SB. No, June 1940. In July I went on my cruise. I got a uniform

DH. Oh thats right. Why did you pick the Navy over, say, the 125th?

SB. Because somebody told me you get this money and it is a gooddeal.

DH. You didnt know about the 125th at that time?

SB. No, I had no idea. A couple of my friends, older than me, went in tothe 125th about the same time.

DH. Would it be fair to say that the two largest local units at the timewere the 125th [and the Navy Reserve]?

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SB. The only two, absolutely. A dozen guys from my neighborhoodwent to the 125th, and a dozen went to the Navy.

DH. You guys actually trained together in the same Armory Building.

SB. Absolutely!

DH. Now, there is a little bit of confusion in this question. You trainedat the Armory, but there actually was a Park Point [Duluth, MN] basefor the Navy Reserve, correct?

SB. Yes.

DH. At the Minnesota side of the point.

SB. Right.

DH. Where would you describe that location today?

SB. About 13th and Park Point. They had the ship there, they had aboat house there, the YP and the Paducah both moored there.

DH. Ok, I ask only because Commander Erik Isaacson didnt know itexisted at that point.

SB. Isaacson?

Oh, yeah, I remember it very well.

DH. Ok, was that base there for quite some time before then?

SB. Yes, eventually from the early 30s when they brought the ship up.

DH. Do you remember much about the actual militia? When you joined,were you part of the militia or were you actually part of the reserve?

SB. I think 49 and 50 were reserve divisions; that is the one we wereat. The Minnesota Militia was, I think, prior.

DH. Ok, I have asked this question before, but: Do you rememberanything about the canoe boat races?

SB. All I know is Tom Woods was famous for the races on Park Point,rowing.Not canoe, rowing.

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DH. So you dont know any of the stories behind the canoe boat races?

SB. No

DH. We found several trophies, and we think they date back from the

1920s in the Militia. Do you have anyone off hand you know or canthink of that might know a little bit about the militia history?

SB. If anyone would know, Wes Harkins would know, because he wouldknow from reading it.

DH. OK, you said you joined primarily because of the money per monthand the uniform. Was that the primary reason?

SB. Yes, there was no war on. How would I say? It was a new endeavor,it's like the CCC Camps. It was something I could do and get paid for

doing it. Jobs were limited.

DH. Had the war been on, would you still have done it?

SB. I wouldnt doubt it, I probably would have.

DH. I have yet to interview anyone who joined because they had afondness for the Navy. Did you have any shipping experience before?

SB. Not at all. I was probably one of the youngest chiefs in the wholeNavy who came up from the bottom and made chief. I was only 21

when I made chief, all the way from apprentice seaman.

DH. When you first started training on the Paducah out in LakeSuperiordo you want to describe that experience a little bit?

SB. I learned how to scrub the deck.

DH. I hear that was kind of cold.

SB. Yeah, as an apprentice seaman you had all the dirty work. You didit, it wasnt that difficult. I had grown up in a family where I had to hoe

the potatoes and the beans, milk the cow. It was nothing.

DH. I heard you guys slept in hammocks?

SB. Oh yeah, for a long time. They were comfortable sleeping.

DH. Not a problem then. What if someone slept too long in themorning, what happened?

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SB. Nobody slept too long; they went around and hit you with apaddleboard on the rear. You got up.

DH. Someone else told me that if you slept too long they cut the line,

and you fell on the ground.

SB. First they would hit you on the rear end, then they might cut theline. Master at arms would do that.

DH. A pretty good awaking, I imagine?

SB. Absolutely,

DH. You didnt have any fresh water on the boat, all the water you hadon the boat was from the Lake.

SB. Well, Lake Superior is fresh.

DH. But COLD

SB. It was no problem. It was when we went on active duty and ran intosalt water then we had the problem. I was the engineer.

DH. Were you an engineer from the start?

SB. No, no.

DH. How long did it take you to get into that school?

SB. I got a black gang before, in Chicago, on the way to active duty.

DH. OK. We will start this journey, then. In 1940, shortly after you wereinvolved, the Paducah was activated, correct?

SB. Yeah, the Paducah was moved to Chicago after our summer cruisethat I was on. They took it down to Chicago. When they ordered ourunit on active duty, we took a train to St. Paul, and then on to Chicago

to board the Paducah.

DH. Do you remember what day you were put on active duty?

SB. November 3, 1940.

DH. What were you thinking at that point?

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SB. We marched down Superior Street. We were only going to be gonea year for training.

DH. Did you actually believe it was only going to be a year?

SB. There were clouds on the horizon, but Roosevelt was smart enoughto prepare the nation. We had the trained CCC Camps, believe it ornot. We had 180,00 [?] sailors when we went on active duty. In thewhole fleet, imagine that. Thats all. That is all that were called up.

DH. Were a lot of you guys talking about going to war?

SB. It seemed like it was back in the distance, not on the front burner,so to speak.

DH. The crew didnt talk about it?

SB. We didnt think it would be our war for a while. We really didntthink it was our war.

DH. I guess, follow me through your journey, your activation duringthat first year. You went to Great Lakes, I imagine?

SB. No, we never had any training at Great Lakes. Our whole crew wasalready trained.

DH. I thought . . .

SB. NONE OF OUR GROUP WENT TO GREAT LAKES TRAINING STATION.WE WERE TRAINED IN DULUTH, MINNESOTA, WENT ON THE SHIP ANDTHAT WAS IT. We learned from one another as time went on. But wedid not go to Great Lakes. None of our Paducah group went to GreatLakes. Unless they were stationed later.

We went from Duluth to Chicago and boarded the Paducah, and wewere set to sail, but we could not sail because four or five lifeboats, oreboats, were sunk on the lakes. And duck hunters, 50-some duckhunters were froze to death in northern Minnesota. Biggest storm in

history, November 11, 1940. So we were tied to the dock in Chicagowith cables. It sunk all the ships in the harbor. A big liquor sign onRiverside Drive crumbled from the storm. So two days later, I think, wesailed, November 13, 1940. We took off.

DH. Where did you go?

SB. All the way through the lakes, all the way through Cornwall on to

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Montreal. We stopped in Detroit for one night because the Dubuquewas going with us, our sister ship. Then we proceeded, we saw NiagaraFalls, and we got to Montreal, I had liberty in Montreal.

A Canadian destroyer in the gulf challenged us because we had no

radar, no sonar or radar at that time. They had to make sure; youknow, they were at war, as you understand. They challenged us in theSt. Lawrence Seaway. Then we proceeded. We got to Brooklyn, NewYork, December 7, 1940. Dont you think that is significant? December7, 1940, we got to New York, Brooklyn Navy yard.

DH. Your journey through the Great Lakes, was this something that youreally enjoyed? Was it kind of a neat view?

SB. Fine, but rough storms. When we got into the St. Lawrence Seawayit was terrible. We were an old ship. We were an old ship.

DH. Were a lot of these guys pretty sick from the storms?

SB. Oh, sure.

DH. Were you sick?

SB. Yes, I learned how to quit smoking there. I got seasick, but I servedon destroyers and I learned how to overcome that.

DH. There were a lot of rough storms; did you ever enjoy part of the

journey?

SB. Oh, yes, Cornwell, Canada, and see Niagara Falls from a distance,to see the mist, fog in the sky from the falls. Then Montreal, Canada.We had liberty there. That is where we stole coconuts and put them inthe crows nest.

DH. How was the city of Montreal, was it pretty fun?

SB. Oh yes, terribly fun for young guys going ashore for the first time.

DH. Describe your first liberty city event. Like Montreal, what did youdo?

SB. Well, we didnt, somehowlet me see. I dont think I got in toomuch trouble in Montreal. I will never forget: they had good Frenchpastry someplace. We were too young to drink.

DH. You didnt drink anyway?

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SB. Well, I would have if I could have gotten some, but we were tooyoung to drink. Let's see, we had different floor shows and theyhad . . . of course, I was too young to get involved at that time, notthat I didnt later on in my time. Remember I was just 17, I had just

turned 17 around that time.

DH. And drinking age was . . . ?

SB. Eighteen or 21, depending on where you were.

DH. In Canada it was 18?

SB. Eighteeen, yes.

DH. Things dont change a whole lot.

SSB. No.

DH. December 7, what were you thinking the day of? Do youremember where you were?

SB. '40 or '41?

DH. Oops, I just skipped a year, didnt I?

SB. Yeah.

DH. So let's talk about Brooklyn?

SB. Well, we got into Brooklyn Naval Yard December 7, 1940. Brooklynwas quite a place, a naval yard, a lot of ships. They were building twonew battleships, the USS Washington and the USS North Carolina. Thefirst two authorized by congress, battleships, since the early days ofAmerican Naval History. They were being built there, we saw them. Wewere tied up right near them.

DH. Were they supposed to be sent to England?

SB. No, no. They were our battleships. For our future, they werentready yet. Lord Henderson, the British Foreign Minister, we all watchedhim come aboard and check them out. They were being built for thefuture and probably then the war was on the horizon.

DH. Yeah, Then when you got to Brooklyn, was war becoming moreoblivious?

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SB. Very much so, especially when we start reading the destroyers forLease- Lend and the battleship Malaya, she got torpedoed in the NorthSea, and she came in for repairs in Brooklyn. There were big fights onSand Street. Sand Street is the wild hang out at the Navy yard. Some

British Marine got in a fight, hit some sailor with his belt, fights all overthe place. We werent in love with the British at that time. We wereallies from a distance, let's put it that way.

DH. Now at the same time the British were very well know for theirnaval superiority, was that part of the reason you didnt blend realwell? Because America was pretty proud.

SB. I think that they felt they owned the sea, and they did at that time.We trusted them to patrol the Atlantic but they were falling shortbecause the Germans were doing their job and the Japanese were

doing their job. We were no longer the country safe on both shores, asyou know.

DH. Correct. You said there was kind of a wild hangout, was it wildbecause of the fights?

SB. Bars up and down, 25-cent girls up in there. There was an oldstory, a woman would raise a second story window, "Hey sailor, comeup here, I will give you something that you never had for 50 cents,"and one sailor looked at the other and said, "She must mean leprosies,they had everything else," was the story!!!

DH. So it was pretty wild?

SB. Then there was a YMCA, where I used to play basketball, right inthe middle, I used to play basketball there and that is where I learnedhow to dance. They had girls come there, and it was a very for uschildren, guys, very good because we could have gotten in all kinds oftrouble. I learned how to dance there, play basketball there, handballthere, YMCA, I will always remember that.

DH. How long were you in Brooklyn?

SB. About 6 or 7 months.

DH. You learned how to dance in Brooklyn at the YMCA?

SB. Yeah. I saw floor shows in New York. I didnt have money to go butone of my sisters sent me money. "Tobacco Road," "Hells A Poppin'","My Sister Eileen." Those were famous stage . . . that was important,

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those were important, Fred Waring, Radio City Music Hall, those wereimportant for us, coming from that generation, to see that.

DH. Floor show, describe what a floorshow is exactly, is it like atheater?

SB. Yeah, a stage play.

DH. You were in Brooklyn for 6 or 7 months, when you first arrived. Iimagine it was pretty impressive to be in New York?

SB. To seecoming into New York, down the Hudson Riverit wasmagnificent.You see all the big buildings, the Empire State Bldg.

DH. For most of your crew that was the first time that they'd seen it

too?

SB. I would say 99%.

DH. People just didnt really travel as much as they do today.

SB. No, not at all.

DH. Skipping ahead a little bit. 6 -7 months, what happened afterBrooklyn?

SB. They did some repair on the ship. Put 5 guns on here. Maybe itwas 9 months. We did shore patrol off New York and then we went toStaten Island and we were stationed at Staten Island for about 6months. We did inshore patrol duty up and down the coast, for what Idont know, we couldnt fight submarines if they wouldnt attack them.We werent at war.

DH. You were still on the Paducah?

SB. Yeah, then we got orders to go to Norfolk, Virginia, at Little Creek,they had a base there. And we started to train, they started to mount

guns on merchant ships, and we started to train the armed guard,which would go on these merchant ships. Now this was before the war,just before the war. We were in Norfolk when Pearl Harbor wasattacked.

DH. Do you remember where you were when it was attacked?

SB. It was in Norfolk, Virginia, tied to the dock. Sunday, I was on watch.

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I came out of the engine room, and they said the Japs had attacked.

DH. What were you thinking, immediately?

SB. All these people who dont like us in Norfolk, their sons and

daughters had to prepare for war. They hated sailors; you cant blamethem. When the fleet would come in to Norfolk, a quarter million sailorswould storm the city. They hated sailors with a passion. We called itSh-- City. And they said, "No sailors or dogs allowed." But the warbrought us all together.

DH. It changed overnight?

SB. Yes,

DH. Before that the city of Norfolk, as a city, fought with the sailors all

the time.

SB. Oh, they couldnt stand the sailors, relationship was very bad.

DH. What did sailors call the city again?

SB. "Sh-- City," and they had signs, "No dogs or sailors allowed." Thenthere was a city hall auditorium where 1,000 sailors would come forthe dance, and there would be 8 girls.

DH. Eight?

SB. They didnt like sailors, and a few of them from the USO wouldcome. We were there for about a year-and-a-half. 2 years. Guys weregetting transferred. We were experienced; we were all gettingtransferred sooner or later from there.

DH. We talked about this earlier, after December 7: the city began toenjoy your company.

SB. Absolutely, because we were at war, and their sons were beingdrafted, you know, it changed completely.

DH. At this point, many of the men that you originally got on the shipwith, I imagine they are not there anymore.

SB. They are still there, up to this point, few would have gone.Somebody went to flight training school; somebody got a chance to goto a commission somewhere and so on; but the majority were stilltogether until they started needing us on different ships in the fleet

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after the war.

DH. What happened after December 7, what was your new duty? Didyou have any new duties?

SB. Yeah, we trained armed guards, which was very vital. We had adifferent crew every week, come in, take a crew, fire up theChesapeake Bay, come back in and take another crew. They would beassigned to merchant ships and so on.

DH. This was still on the Paducah?

SB. Yeah.

DH. So you guys were part of the permanent crew when you have yournew job?

SB. We would take on probably 50 guys at one time, they would blurtout a fire, learn a little bit because they were going on Merchant Men.

DH. Merchant, like in Merchant Marines?

SB. No, as sailors manning the guns on a Merchant Marine ship.Independent-- they were not getting Merchant Marine sea pay, theywere still in the Navy, but they manned the guns. The Navy had theguns on the Merchant ships, and we trained that bunch.

Bill Carlson was one of them that was sunk on that. He left and went onone of them, they shipped some of them, after 1941 more and moregoing. I, not being a deck hand, Red Erickson and I; Del Forsyth; wewere shipped to Syracuse to the General Electric factory they werebuilding; new turbo electric ships for the destroyer escort to convoy,for convoy escort, and that is where we went, later '42 I think, end of'42.

DH. Okay, how long did you continue training this armed guard?

SB. I left the end of '42, and I think they trained for another full year or

so.

DH. You said you left in '42, where did you go?

SB. I went to Syracuse, to the General Electric factory, where theywere building new turbo electric steam destroyer escorts.

DH. This is where your engineering experience helped?

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SB. I went on a sister ship, I went on a squadron, Del Forsyth was withme, who was on the Paducah earlier. He was a chief on the Newman, Iwas a chief on the Liddle; we had six ships in our squadron. We went toshake down in Bermuda. First we went to Charleston to put them in

commission, and they were built in Charleston, South Carolina. That iswhere I saw who Francis Marian was, that is where I saw Sumter,where the Civil War started, historic area of Charleston, beautifulhistoric area. We went to shake down--shake down means to practiceeverything--to Bermuda, and then we got sent, I think the first convoy,we got sent to New York, and we were bringing a bunch of troops toEngland. We had a battle ship with us, in the middle, because thatGerman battleship was running around the North Sea somewhere. Webrought troops to the first one in Swansea, Wales. Forsyth and I wenttogether, same squadron.

The next convoy, we went to Gibraltar and back, and the next convoywe went to Bizerti and back.

Well, we were on that convoy, that is when they hit Normandy, as Irecall. Our squadron, all six, when they hit Normandy, we were in theNorth Sea for awhile, then we went back to the States and we got a 30-day leave. They converted us to destroyer transports, the conversionmeant this. We put LCD B boats, four of them, and they were highspeed, 'cause we had a lot of speed, we had good gun power. Webecame an APD, destroyer escorts, which were worse because wehauled troops in on invasions, but I will get to that.

DH. Which ship was this, the Liddle?

SB. Yes, the Liddle, but it was converted APD-60.

DH. You said that was a destroyer transport?

SB. Destroyer. She ended up being a destroyer transport, she was adestroyer escort. She was high speed for running convoys. Submarineswere scared of us. We threw many dept charges out. I dont know if wegot any kills, but we threw a lot of them out.

DH. Keep talking, if you want, about the APD-60.

SB. Okay. The APD-60. Our whole squadron went, I think in September,through the Panama Canal.

DH. So you actually went from England all the way down?

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SB. No, excuse me, I jumped ahead. When we got converted we wentthrough the Panama Canal, to Bora Bora, Finch Haven, New Guinea,Hollandia, New Guinea, that is, the Pacific. When we came back fromthe European Cruises we got converted. Then the Pacific starts; wewent through the Panama Canal.

DH. You went to Europe first, and then you went?

SB. Yeah, that is, on both sides, I fought on both sides. Many of ourgroup did.

DH. How long were you in Europe?

SB. Well, I ran all those convoys, maybe a year, year-and-one-half. Ihave African, European African award, pre-Pearl Harbor and all them.Then I have the Asiatic Pacific awards, too, because I went to China

and all over after.

DH. You just skipped through Europe like nothing, so we have a lot totalk about in Europe.

SB. All we did was run convoys. Swansea, Wales, was destroyed by theGermans, there was nothing left there. Do you know what abrachbrewer [?] is? In Swansea, they had cables with big balloons andstraw on the beach. A low flying plane would hit those cables, and thestraw on the beach was to light on fire for the German invasion. Peopledont know this. England had its back against the wall. You never knew

when there was going to be an attack. Swanseathere was not onebuilding standing in Swansea, Wales. We brought troops, they had builta base there, but that was the first trip.

Then we went to Gibraltar to unload troops, convoy ships. Then wewent to Bizerte [Tunisia] to help. They were fighting [illegible] in theAfrican Campaign. I went to Tunis from there, I saw Ethel Merman onthe beach, USO, in Bizerte.

DH. When you did these convoys, escorts, you did stop in the cities alittle bit?

SB. Stop where?

DH. In the cities a little bit?

SB. Not too often. Tunis we got, Tunis and Bizerte, they warned us, "Becareful of the Arabs. If you eat and go to a French home or an Italianhome, watch out for the Arabs."

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DH. What was the reasoning?

SB. They were anti-American at that time. The same ones that are stilltoday. No different, no different, they were Muslim, and they hated

Americans at that time and still is.

DH. The Navy warned you about that.

SB. Oh, yes.

Now we go to the Pacific.

DH. What did you think of Tunis, was it a neat city?

SB. Oh, yeah, I had shore patrol in Tunis, I will never forget. Do you

know what a casbah is?

DH. Yes, but for the record tell us.

SB. The casbah is an underground marketplace. I had shore duty there.I had a .45. They said, "Dont take your gun out unless." I had my gunout cocked, walking around. It is a crazy place. I said, "I am not goingto walk out of there, I am going to walk out, and someone else is goingto get it."

Arabs running [illegible]. Its a funny thing. I seen two things I will

never forget there. Let's say in the market place you have this scarf$3.98 or $2.00 American. You hold it up, you're going to buy it, threeother merchants would run with the scarf, the same kind, to try andchisel this guy down. I never saw anything like this in my life.

Another thing on the beach, Bizerte: I saw a 5-year-old, probably, and a7-year-old, a 5-year-old son, he had an American cigarette. He wouldpuff the cigarette, blow the smoke in his sisters mouth, and she wouldinhale it and blow it out.

They would steal American stuff. You would see an Arab walking down

the street with "Joe Butts USN," serial #. They would steal anythingthey could get their hands on. That was Africa, French Africa.

DH. I have heard that a lot about French Africa.

SB. That is all I have to say about Europe. Then after D-Day my warcame back to the states.

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DH. Before we go any further I am going to.

DH. This is part two of an interview with Steve Balach. OK, lets talkabout what happened after D-Day and your European adventure.

SB. Okay, our squadron was converted to destroyer transports, knownas APD. It included our whole six squadron. We went through thePanama Canal, I believe in September 1944, went to Bora Bora our firststop, Finch Haven, New Guinea our second stop, and then we arrived inHollandia, New Guinea, which was in preparation for the invasion ofLeyte Gulf.

Prior to the invasion, we had one task. We ran convoy to Peleliu, andtorpedo bombers, had these torpedo bombers attack. I will alwaysremember.

DH. Was this your first time under attack?

SB. Under Japanese attack, yes. The commander, I mean the executiveofficer, of my shipserved on the U.S.S. Dubuque. which was the sistership to the Paducah in the Chesapeakehe was my executive officer,his name was Cunningham. He said, Well, we have seen our firstJapanese war planes. Let's go back to the Chesapeake.

DH. What did you guys think when you saw these planes, did you get alittle nervous?

SB. Very much so, it was a different type of war. A different type of warthan Europe.

DH. Would you describe what was so different?

SB. Being attacked by torpedo bombers. There are some high flyingGerman flight in the Mediterranean, but no bombing attacks like that.But anyway, after we went to Leyte Gulf, I think we were D+2 in theinvasion force of Leyte Gulf, which was the main hit in the invasion ofthe Philippians. It seemed that we sat there quite a while just keepingour guns blazing whenever enemy attacks came and so on. Then we

went to, let me see, Leyte, we made quite a few invasions, I am tryingto think. We went to Medora [?], southeastern Luzon, Legazpi, wemade that invasion.

DH. In these invasions were you under attack?

SB. Oh yeah, in both of them, we would bring the troops in.

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DH. Did you kind of get used to getting attacked?

SB. We would unload the troops, we had firepower, and we would getout on the picket line and fire at enemy aircraft or whatever. Then wethe major, one of the major invasions, that was so prevalent. We

made others.

We went to Ormoc Bay, which was the end of Leyte Gulf, and in OrmocBay the Japanese were reinforcing the area. That is the invasion we gotkamikazied, but the U.S.S. Ward, which fired the first shot, was sunk. Iwatched her go down, in that battle, the battle of Ormoc Bay. TheLampson was sunk, and three or four other ships were sunk.

Our whole bridge was cleaned off. They killed 70% of all the officersinstantly. On my ship. They killed aboutI believe there were 60 menkilled altogether, another 60 or 70 wounded. We managed to stay

afloat, put out the fires. We had no steering, we steered from aft. Wehad a towing bar. Do you know what a towing bar is? A towing bar theythrow in the stern of another ship and it leaves a wake.

We followed that wake back to Leyte Gulf. It took us about a day to getback, because enemy aircraft were searching, it was a major battle.When we were unloading troops, the Japanese were unloading troops.We caught them on the beach, and we beat the hell out of them. Thatis when their air force came in, kamikaze. We survived and got back toLeyte Gulf, took off our dead, buried them all in the Tacloban cemeteryin Leyte.

DH. So you actually buried your dead on land?

SB. Yeah, we had guys come in and pick the parts up, too. It was aterrible thing.

We cleaned the ship up as much as we could. We went to Annawetock,Hawaii [Eniwetok, Marshall Islands?]. They had already prepared, wewere under power with repair work. We got back to San Francisco, theyput a new bridge on, and three or four months, we were back in action.I thought I was going to get transferred, but we were back in action, I

cant think of what invasion we were on, I think it was Palnia [Palau?].

DH. You were still on the same boat APD?

SB. I always smelled the death on that ship.

DH. So it was pretty hard to stay on it then?

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SB. Yeah, but I had crews and some shipmates that were still alive. Allof us in the engine room were very lucky. They killed some of the guysin the #1 engine room, but mostly topside was destroyed.

DH. I am sure you knew some of the guys topside, too.

SB. Yeah, they got it, it hit the bridge directly, but we werent the onlyones. They were hitting others.

DH. Were the kamikazes more of a threat then the torpedoes from theJapanese planes?

SB. Absolutely, because they were one-trippers. They were going toget you and not miss. You had to hit them and destroy them beforethey hit you; otherwise they were going to get you. If you hit themusually you would get them.

After we were hit, the gate glasses in the As room that were notbroken, a Betty came off our fantail (that is, a [Japanese] twin-enginebomber) tried to get us. And somehow we had some 20mm stilloperating in the rear (mechanically not electrically), shot her down,and when she blew up off our fantail, every gate glass that wasntbroken before was broken.

DH. Your ship went through a lot?

SB. Yeah, we had many, we went back to several invasions. I just have

to tell you how important it was, few people will know this: We gotback to the Philippines and we made one invasion, I think it was Palauor Mindoro, then we went down to Majura, East Indies, and we pickedup the Australian 9th division that had fought Rommel in Africa. Oursquadron escorted them to the invasion of Dutch Borneo. We made theinvasion of Dutch Borneo, Australian troops, we landed them there, theJaps had very little fire power left: they had the 13th Air Force from thePhilippines knock the hell out of them, but we shot down whateverthey had training, training planes, and we shot them down pretty early.

Then we went back to Majura and we picked up Australian troops

again, and we went to British North Borneo, which is Brunei Bay.(Remember in the assault, the Brunei gave $9 million to the contras?)Sarawak and British North Borneo, these are the biggest oil centers inthat whole area. Oil fires were so high in the sky there, we wereinterested in recapturing to stop the oil supply from the Japanese.

So we did, the Australians did all the fighting there. I saw MacArthur forthe second time there. He flew down and got on a seaplane, and we all

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saw him.

DH. Did you ever meet him, or just see him?

SB. Saw him; saw him in the Philippines once, same thing. But we

made both of those invasions.

DH. What did you think of the Australians?

SB. Great fighters, they fought Rommel all over. They had beenfighting since '39. Sergeant Major _______ became a great friend ofmine. He gave me two Australian pennies, I still have them today. Itaught him how to drink coffee; he came in my engine room all thetime. He had fought '39, '40,'41. They fought three years ahead of us.

DH. Did you ever go to Australia?

SB. No, we didnt get there, but I often thought about it. They weregreat people. I have great admiration for them.

DH. How would you compare them to the British?

SB. I think they are much more like Americans, they are not highfalluting, they are more like common people, a good people.

DH. So generally the Americans got along with the Australians?

SB. Very well, very well, and they appreciated that we saved theirnation because the Japanese were not far from there at all.

After the invasion of Borneo, we got back to Subic Bay and went toOkinawa. April 1st they invaded Okinawa, that is when we went toBorneo, so we did not go to Okinawa for the invasion. We came there30 days later or so, I was on the picket line in Okinawa and pretty closeto the end of the war, kamikazes came in until they threw the [atomic]bombs. We were there when they threw both bombs, Okinawa.

Then they ordered us to a place called Gunsan, [today, South] Korea.

Which is Najin [today, in North Korea], we went there with a battlecruiser and the ordered us to go to Diran, Manchuria, that is where theJapanese sunk the Russian fleet in 1905. The stacks are still stickingthere. We went there to pick up prisoners of war.

Going up there we had a mine sweeper that would cut the mines andexplode those he would see during the day, and those he would cut atnight we would explode the next day. I thought, "This is a lousy war,

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surviving the war and these damn mines." There were British mines,American, everybody had mines there.

So when I came back, we had a hospital ship go up there with us topick up the prisoners, went back to Korea and back to Okinawa. They

said, "You are high- point man, they are waiting for you. The Texas isgoing back--the war is over, mind you, a week now or so--they aregoing back to the States. I jumped on the Texas, rode her to Hawaii,went on the battleship Iowa in Hawaii, rode her back to Seattle, andthat was it, except I made 4 cruises in the Reserve after the war.

DH. We kind of skipped over a couple of things I would like to talkabout.

SB. Go ahead, you do the questioning.

DH. When Hitler died, did you hear about it that day, and was it muchof an impact?

SB. It didnt make much of an impact because we were over there.

DH. I imagine you had to be a little happy on V-E Day? Were the guyscheering?

SB. Oh, absolutely, because when they broke through the bulge, wethought we might be losing the war. That is what Tokyo Rose kepttelling us: "The Germans killed all your troops and swept them in the

ocean." The Japanese had their backs against the wall but she said,"We have 20,000 kamikaze waiting for you, you will never get home."Thats before the bombs were thrown.

DH. So you listened to Tokyo Rose?

SB. Oh, God, everyone listened to her. She played beautiful music forus, she said, "Wouldnt you like to be dancing with your girlfriend backhome?" When you are 20-21 years old it makes an impact. We wereyoung guys.

DH. Did her persuasion actually ever do anything, or did people justpush it off to the side?

SB. It scared us a little, at least it scarred me a little, because we haveto get this . . . I had a brother flying, and one in the infantry over there,and you didnt know what happened. So it had kind of an effect on me.

DH. So you guys didnt receive updates from the U.S. on what was

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going on?

SB. We would, but [not?] instantly, maybe a day or two later. Not liketoday. Not like the communication of today.

DH. Did you have communication between your brothers at all?

SB. Very rare, because if I got any mail it was sparse and few and farbetween. Well, I saw the Wilkes Barre pass by one time, and my kidbrother was on the Wilkes Barre.

DH. Did you write letters to your parents?

SB. Oh yeah, I had written, yes, but it took time, where it went, it hadto pass it on the ship going this way, and so on. It was a very slow,slow way of communication. But they got them. We would get letters,

we would catch a ship and they would say, "Hey, we have mail for thesquadron," and finally we would receive it.

DH. When we dropped the bombs and they surrendered, I imagine thiswas a bigger day than VE Day was?

SB. For us, from which I understand, we were "Oboe 1" or "[Oboe] 2,"which was going to hit southern Kyushu in an invasion. We were goingto haul troops in for an invasion, I guess October or November of thatyear, we were going to make the main[land?], I think October, and Ithink we were assigned to "Oboe," that was the code name. We were

going to go into Kyushu and it would have been . . . The Japanese weregoing to fight to the end, and we were going to lose a lot of people.

DH. Do you believe the bomb saved a lot of Americans?

SB. Definitely. No doubt. You cant talk to one specific soldier that willsay otherwise. Maybe 5% out of the whole works.

DH. So if the bombs would not have been dropped, you would havebeen over there, for sure.

SB. Sure, and you dont know if you would have survived. We know wekilled a lot of Japanese, but they would have killed a lot of Americans,because they had a lot of kids. You had everybody worked up, youknow, hitting the mainland, you know, it would have been a disaster.No doubt about it.

DH. Ok, I would like to skip ahead a little bit. You said you came backand did four cruises in the Reserve. How long were you in the Reserve?

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SB. Until 1951.

DH. Did the reserves go through quite a change from when youoriginally joined?

SB. Not the first four years, no. Pretty much I went down the engineroom. I rode the Wisconsin from Bayonne down to Panama, I took thePervis to Santiago, and you know where they were building those pensfor the submarines, Russians? I was in that town in '48.

DH. Didnt the reserve base receive a brand new facility in '49?

SB. Yes, it was a new, down there, a new fieldhouse building.

DH. Was it a pretty big deal, were people pretty excited for it?

SB. Very nice, I am amazed that they had the audacity to get rid of ithere, because we used to train all those sailors from North Dakota,South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin out of here. This was naturalfor that. But maybe they dont need the Navy the same anymore, Isuppose, so they abandoned. I told Isaackson, maybe if we had known,we could have done some political work on it. I would have--I knowsome congressmen, I know senators, I would have [been] happy towork on it.

DH. We could have easily. I would have as well. Is there anything else

you would like to talk about re: the reserve base after WWII?Commander Isaackson was under the impression that after WWII, thereserve base wasnt training people out on Lake Superior.

SB. They werent, they were shipping us out. Let me tell you one of thereasons I was being shipped out. They would take maybe two men outof the reserve to go on the USS Wisconsin out of Bayonne, New Jersey,in February, leaving Duluth, Minnesota, going to Panama--what couldbe nicer?--for two weeks. One of my executive officers on one of myships was commandant at Great Lakes, and I think that is why. I willnever forget Lock Perkins, who is a lawyer here in town, was a

commander down there. He said, "Damn, are you going again?" Theywould only pick two, and I was only one of them. There was no reason,except that he had known me. I enjoyed going. I went on a destroyer, Iwent on a battleship. I took one cruise out of Duluth on the YP, withCommander DeMoore, we went to Toledo and back. The Maumee Riverin Toledo, they have five bridges, I dont like to go there. By the timethey are opening one bridge they have to close the other.

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DH. That is in Toledo?

SB. Yes.

DH. I guess this is my closing question: Is there any closing statement

that you would like to make before the interview is done?

SB. Only this, I was surprised to see that they took out some of theseships, the firepower, and the battleships in the last war, the Gulf War. Isuppose the Navy doesnt have the same responsibility, but I thinkthey will always need the Naval Air Force and the carriers, becausethey can move around the world in an awful hurry. I saw the might ofthem in World War II.

It bothers me that we dont keep our armed forces up to shape. Itreally does!!! Because I'd seen how important it was at one time. We

survive the nation; we still had a fighting course. Now we dont evenhave enough people, it seems, to man the responsibility of protectionof the nation. It bothers me immensely, when you think at that time wehad 16 million men under arms to save, fighting both sides. It wouldnot surprise me, I am not against a draft, but if they do impose a draftit would never bother me. I think these young kids in the country thatdont have any direction, I think it would never harm them.

balach, steve interview

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