Interview with Clarence E. Spradling [2/15/2002]

Tom Swope:

This is the oral history of World War II veteran Clarence E. Spradling. Mr. Spradling served with the U.S. Army. He was with the 64th Antiaircraft Gun Battalion, D Battery. He served in the Pacific theater and is a veteran of Pearl Harbor. I'm Tom Swope, and this recording is made at Mr. Spradling's home in North Olmstead, Ohio, on February 15, 2002. Clarence was 81 at the time of this recording.

Clarence E. Spradling:

Well, there was four of us had a party and four guys that been drafted. And I was in Blacksburg, Virginia, if you know where that is. And we had a steak dinner. I was working till 12 o'clock, so they had a dinner -- a steak left over when I got there. And we -- this friend of mine was a short-order cook, so he cooked -- he cooked the steak for me. And, of course, they were all winoed up by the time -- by the time I got there. And so I had this steak and this guy was being drafted; and they said, "Let's all go; go with the Army." And that was spring of '41, of course.

And so, "Okay, we'll go." And we hitchhiked, after dark -- I mean, after 1 or 2 o'clock, 2 o'clock, probably -- to Roanoke and enlisted, the whole bunch of us did. And it came up time when -- where we could go to Philippines, we could go to Hawaii. And there was a time when, Where are we going? You know. And we -- my friend and I, we said Hawaii, we want to go to Hawaii, we don't want to go to Philippines. But the other two guys wanted to go to the Philippines. So we flipped a coin to see where we go; and thank the Lord, we got the one to Hawaii.

So about six weeks, we were in Hawaii, doing our basic training there. And so the basic training was a six-weeks thing; and there not many guys you talk to that got basic training in Hawaii, though, that was very unusual. And I wound up in Fort Shafter. My friend was -- My friend and his brother went in the Air Force, and their friend -- not my friend, but he was their friend -- went in the same outfit I did. Well, he was -- he was a real alcoholic, so he took up cook. And, you know, they're on 24 hours and they off four days, you know.

And so we had our basic training, and then turned to duty, and then we went -- The best time of my whole life was six weeks we were on 3-inch guns, antiaircraft battery, and we went to the most beautiful beach on all Hawaiian Islands. That's where we put up tents and we lived there for six weeks, firing those -- firing 3-inch. We was 15 miles from our guns, but we was right on the beach. Nanakuli Beach is the name of the beach. If you ever go to Hawaii, you want to go there. You want to get away from the beach. That's knee deep -- the water's only knee deep, but that's a big one over here. Everybody thought Waikiki Beach, you know. The water, you're lucky if you can get water to your waist in there.

And also somebody got diarrhea -- We were supposed to go back to our battery and do our regular things, and somebody got diarrhea. So they put us in Pearl City and that was our battle position. We moved our guns to Pearl City and was there for six weeks because of diarrhea. And the guys would get -- you know, you -- in ten days, if nobody got diarrhea, you could go to a normal thing. But somebody got diarrhea, you there another ten days, you know. So after that we went back to Fort Shafter, is where we were at. And Fort Shafter right on the edge of the city of Hon- -- Oahu -- Honolulu. And, I mean, you took a bus ride out and that was the end of the line. That was Fort Shafter.

Before you got there, you could make a left turn and go on around the island and went to Hickam Field and John Rogers Airport. And Pearl Harbor was right there. By the way the crow flies, I would say it's 4 miles; Pearl Harbor is 4 miles from Fort Shafter. I mean, if you get a map and look at it, you'll see that that's -- the flight would be only 4 miles, if it was a little airplane that went to them. And my friend was in Hickam Field -- was stationed in Hickam Field. That was the Air Force. And so --

Tom Swope:

What was Hawaii like back in 1941?

Clarence E. Spradling:

Oh, it was wonderful. Of course, we're away from home for the first time, and you start marking the calendar to -- You know, we had to be over there two years. We was going to be in for three years, but two years in Hawaii. And you can't describe -- you'd have to get a book and read what it's really like over there or live over there. And I was there for over three years. It's a wonderful, wonderful experience, it really is. The only thing is, it's so far from home, you know. We supposed to get a pass -- supposed to get a furlough every year, no, we don't get no furlough.

We're going to be there for two years before we get to go home. And everyone, all the guys that -- there was 12 or 13 of us that took basic training together, and they put a tent out -- a tent out in the gravel there, and we couldn't associate with the regular Army then. We were recruits and we stayed out there -- out there in tents. And only, only got to go to Honolulu one time before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The rest of the time was recruit, you didn't get no passes, you didn't get nothing.

And so -- And the outfit I was in, there was a guard duty once a year, and it was for a whole week, seven days, guard duty; and that's all you did. You was on -- four hours on and eight hours off, four hours off on and eight hours off. And you had to look -- look your best. So it took -- You were off eight hours. It took two hours to get your uniform so you could go guard duty next time; but we moved into -- We moved all of our battery and moved to a guard shedding. So we went on guard duty Friday, relieved the people that was there for a week.

We relieved them, and we was on Friday nights, Saturday, and went back on Sunday morning. And by that -- even that -- You were wore out by that time. I mean, you didn't get enough sleep. For a whole week -- you -- you'll be just laying down when you got a chance, and it's hard to stay awake on guard duty, too. It was real serious that you stay awake, because it was a corporal of the guard, a sergeant of the guard, an officer of the day coming around to see that you were awake, see.

And so a quarter till eight, about a quarter till eight, December the 7th, we -- the corporal of the guard took us all to post. And on the way -- Now, this is a quarter of eight, no matter what history says. We were marching to our post at a quarter till eight, and the bombs -- I mean, the antiaircraft from the Navy was bursting up in the air. We saw planes diving in and we thought it was a maneuver. And we talked -- The corporal of the guard was from my battery. And he said, "Those are 8-inch shells." And I made the remark, "I don't think they're 8-inch shells, I think they're four," or three, whatever, you know.

And, anyway, I disagreed with the corporal of the guard and I was a recruit. You didn't do that, see. {Laughs} So he put me on the worst guard post, and it was the next one. We were marching the next post. And this post was walking around, I would say, a couple hundred tents, the big tents that six men or eight men could sleep in. But there was nobody in it. It was a big tent city, if you want to call it that, and there were nobody there. They had did -- These guys had did their training and moved out. There was nobody in those tents.

And all the time now, this is the Pearl Harbor being attacked, see. We didn't know. We thought it's a maneuver, a surprise maneuver. A little something else I want to throw in before we -- On Saturday -- Saturday morning, the whole battery -- I mean, the whole Fort Shafter was alerted. This is something you will never hear. And these people -- And I was laughing because I didn't have to go and draw a 3-inch ammunition. You had to go to the crater and they picked up these guns and went to Pearl City with them and set the guns up, ready for firing, and they was trucks. Now, these guys, there's so many gone out after ammunition and there's so many taking the 3-inch guns to set them up.

It's a deal. This is like a carnival being set up. I mean, you got to have cables from every one of them and the guns -- So half of them went to get ammunition, never had did that before in the history of their life, never had got ammunition, real ammunition. So they set these guns up; and I'm on guard, boy, oh, boy, I'm laughing at these guys because that's really work. After they get the guns set up, then it's a restful thing, see. And so they went and set the guns up and they were over there a couple hours; and they said, everything -- take the ammunition back to the crater, take the guns back to Fort Shafter, and that's what they did. They brought the guns back.

And I was on guard duty and I saw what was happening, talked to them and, oh, everybody running. It was like they were going to be attacked; it really was. And that's something you ain't going to hear. That's something history ain't going to tell you. And I can't find out -- I can't find out why we didn't stay in Pearl City in our battle position, you know. Here's Fort -- Here's Pearl Harbor and right here is where we're at. We would have been ready to -- And we did a little better firing than a ship gun out there.

We were sitting on the ground, see, 50 caliber machine guns, we had, and 30 caliber machine guns and, of course, small arm fire would have been a lot. If they had just -- and we would -- those guys would have enjoyed just staying there, because we liked Pearl City -- I mean Pearl -- Pearl City, because there was a lot of things over there that we didn't have in Fort Shafter. And so -- I'll go back --

Tom Swope:

But it was just the one day alert then?

Clarence E. Spradling:

One day alert. And they put their guns back in Fort Shafter, set them in Fort Shafter, opened them up, ready for firing, leave them there; but they were sitting out, kind of like for inspection, you know, is all it was after that. And then they gave everybody passes that wanted to go on pass. {Noise} If you wanted to go on pass, why, you could.

And, of course, they had worked their tail off, you know, to set the guns up and then pick them back up and come over there and in -- and the whole island -- I thought the whole island was alerted when Fort Shafter was completely alerted, everybody there was alerted. But we were antiaircraft, so they maybe would have alerted us and not alerted anybody else. And I don't know if the Navy was alerted or not. I really don't. And I'm going to ask some of them if they were on alert on Saturday.

And so I got up. This all is excitement over here, you know. I'm seeing this all -- just the Japs going in and bombing and the ships on fire. I'm a dumb recruit. Is this the way they operate, you know? But this post I had was on the side of a hill and I went to the highest place. And Hickam Field and John Rogers airport and Pearl Harbor. Hickam -- It was John Rogers airport and Hickam Field and then Pearl Harbor. And I could see it, the whole thing. And I saw them shooting at my buddy. My buddy's in Hickam Field, and I saw them going in with planes, and the barracks were all on fire.

And I stood there awhile -- I mean, all at once, two shells hit on my post. Now, I got to report this, see? I mean, one of them hit on the hill. If it had -- if it had went off, I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be talking to you. And one hit up in the field and it went like a sled. I don't know how big a shell it was. But the one that hit in the hills, it dug the hill out and hit in the hill I'd say 20-foot from me, knocked dirt back to me. Oh, I got to report this. I started hollering, "Corporal of the guard." I didn't hear nobody -- I'm supposed to say, "Corporal of the guard." And the next post supposed to say, "Corporal of the guard, post so-and-so wants you." "Sergeant of the guard." I'm going to go upstairs, you know. Officer of the day. I'm excited about my post.

I got to report this. So I go walking down through there. It's about, I'd say, quarter mile down and back around this post. I was a quarter mile here and just a little ways and back up another quarter mile, and so probably around a mile, I walk this post. And there was a Major running up through there, coming to meet me. And I went to port arms and halted him. He wouldn't halt. I had to get in front of him. And he says, "Leave me alone. The Japanese are attacking Pearl Harbor. Can't you see it?" Why, sure, I could see it; but nobody else had told me that, see. So I said to this Major -- Now, a Major was almost -- pretty close to God, you know. A captain's -- I mean, a Major was big. And I said, "Do you think I could go get ammunition?"

All I had was five ball -- lead ball ammunition and five blank. And I had a blank in the rifle, and that was in case something happened, that I could alert people. I could fire three rounds, and they come running if you fired three rounds, if this wasn't happening. Because this happened, you could have did anything. They ain't going to come and talk to me. They're getting these guns, trying to get back to Pearl Harbor, Pearl City again.

And so I said, Yeah, yeah, I'm going to -- He said, "Yeah, go, yeah, get ammunition. You're no good without ammunition. The Japs is liable to land," you know.

He told us that he was going there to get a .45. He had a .45 hid there. And so I ran to the battery. The battery was, I would say, a mile, maybe a little less; and I ran all the way down there. I'm leaving my post, too. You know, this was on my mind, too. I'm leaving my post. I ain't supposed to do that, but nobody's going to come and help me. Nobody's going to come and say get -- go back to the battery. You ain't going to be a guard no more.

So I went to the battery, and when I got to the battery, there was boxes of 30 caliber ammunition sitting all over the battery area. One 30-caliber machine gun, water cooled, M-O water-cooled, was setting up and ready for firing. And a friend -- a guy -- he was a corporal, I think, was a pretty good friend of mine; and he said -- I said, "I'm on the post." He said, "You get back to that post. You should be there," you know. Oh, okay.

This a corporal, this is a lot -- got more authority than I. And I got four bandoliers of 30 caliber ammunition, and I loaded -- I could put 50 rounds here and 50 rounds in my belt. And I got four -- Bandoliers had 50 rounds. So I had two -- four times 50, plus 100 rounds on my belt. I could barely waddle back to my post, but I did get back and got to fire at the enemy.

I know that these were Japs. I could see the guys. I could really see them, just before they went into Pearl Harbor, of course, Hickam Field, John Rogers airport. Every plane they had, they were blowing them up, I mean. And I was -- I was not in harm's way, except those rounds that hit on my post, and I never did report them. I never did report those rounds that hit my --

Then I stayed up there. You know, you don't leave your post. You wait till you're relieved. So I stayed up there without water, without any food till 10 o'clock at night. And I decided, Hey, they don't even know where I'm at, you know. So I went back to my battery, and the guys were still there in a battle position. They had put sandbags around and they're saying that the Japanese are landing on the other side of the island.

And I says, I -- Where can I get anything to eat? I had been up there without any food, without any water all day. And they told me a place that had food. And it was -- You could throw a rock from this place where they had the food and the Tripler General Hospital. And they was -- There was people stacked up and out in the yard at Tripler General.

And nobody had any lights. The place, the mess hall where I'm going to go get -- I'm meeting people, we're bumping into each other. It's dark. And ordinarily there's streetlights in Fort Shafter. You could go anywhere, it's like daylight; but there's none. And I'm stumbling, you know, running into each other on the way. Finally, they told me how to go. They said, You ain't gonna see no light, so they pointed out -- the closer I got to the mess hall, they could point out to me where it was at.

I went in there and they had baloney sandwiches, is what they had in that mess hall. There wasn't nobody cooking. There was some cooks in there making baloney sandwiches, and you put mustard or whatever you want on them, and that's all there was. So after I got filled up with baloney sandwiches, I went back to the battery.

And I am completely -- I feel like it's laying down, almost, I just barely can go, by this time, because the guard duty itself had wore me out, plus staying up there all day wore me out. And so I told Pete Barowski (ph) -- he was -- maybe he was a sergeant then. And I told him, I said, "I'm going to go lay down. I'm real tired." So I went and laid down on my bed.

About 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning, he came woke me up and said, "The Japs are coming over the Pali." They're coming over the mountain. So I went out there and got in the middle -- old 1903 rifles, and got out there where they had sandbags around the place, sitting there. And the 30 -- I mean, the machine guns were firing all back in the hills there. There's nothing back in them hills, but they -- and they got tracers, and it really was fireworks, you know. Every fifth round is a tracer. And there was 50 machine guns firing back in those hills.

I don't know why {laughs} to this day. And so after a while the machine guns quit firing, and I didn't say nothing to anybody. Now, there's 300 bunks in there. I'm not going back to my bunk. I went and got in somebody else's bunk. The thing that woke me up was the sun shining in my face, because they didn't have no walls on the barracks there. They only had 4-foot walls and everything else was open.

You had mosquito netting for your bunks, you know. Then, they came and sent me to guard their tunnels over there. All those mountains over there -- If you ever go to Hawaii, you see those mountains up, the Army's got them all tunnelled out. There was five stories high, there was -- for the officers' families, and I was going there to guard the officers' families. They had a hole, you went right out in the algarroba patch, and there was a hole so air could circulate in these tunnels.

I was there for about three or four days, guarding these. And the worst -- guarding the women from going out. Some of them got claustrophobia, and they want to get out of there. They didn't want to be in that tunnel. And the hardest thing -- and they had to put some of them in chains, had to put -- so they couldn't get out of there. It was a real sad thing, too.

And the little kids would come out there and want to go out, and we couldn't let them go out. There was only two of us out there. One slept while the other was on guard out there. We just laid down there with a blanket and slept. And then they sent me back to my battery after about three days, and we were out in the worst -- The guns never got to Pearl at all -- Pearl City at all.

The civilians, when this happened, they all got in their cars and blocked the roads to Fort -- to Pearl Harbor. And they went through cane fields and through everything, but they just -- they didn't have the equipment when they went through the cane fields. These big trucks just sank down and completely couldn't go any farther. And there was -- We called it algarroba, the name of a little tree over there. We had to cut them out. And the guns were set up and pup tents, we were sleeping in; and they wanted to send us to a dump.

And our battery commander come in and said, Just take my stripe, I'm not taking my battery to a garbage dump. They'll be sick -- there'll be more sick than there is well. And so they sent us to Ala Moana Park. If you ever go over there, make sure you go. We took that park over, put barbed wire around that park. We had a beach out there in front of the battery. They had cut a canal out there, so that these big boats could go up and down. It was on the other side of that -- there was coral that was like Waikiki Beach, see. But between it, there was 300-foot, real deep water for the big boats to go up there. And they cut that out especially. And we had a beach there which was 40-foot wide and just nice deep water that we could go swimming in.

Of course, we were never satisfied, because we were thinking home, we want to go home. And we were there till the invasion of Guam and the Marianas. When that invasion come, yeah, we got 90 millimeter guns, too. They got rid of our 3-inch, we got 90 millimeter, which was much more accurate, and we got radar and we could shoot planes down then. We really could shoot planes down. I mean, the only planes I ever shot at was a little drone plane, you know. They sent it over, we'd knock them down every time they sent them out. Of course, that's a lot different than a Zero, you know.

We could have knocked them Zeros out if we'd had that equipment. So we went into the Marianas. When the Marianas -- When they took the Marianas, I went to Guam and was there the rest of my career. I was there for a year; and then they said, "You want a pass? You want to go home?" And you're gonna come back, see? I went home, and from the time I hit the States till -- And my leave was all of 58 days, and back to Guam again. And when I got back to Guam, all the regular Army men -- all them boys, that battery, was a regular Army -- they were gone.

They had been sent home and went home for good. When I went -- came back, I was over there 51 months without any -- And the first year I got -- I want to say this, too. The first year was terrible. They didn't trust the radar in the first place. We had radar, but nobody trusted it. And alert, alert, a plane coming in from the States, B-17, B-24. Of course, they're beefing it up and sending a lot of planes. Alert. Get out on those 90 millimeters and sit on them 90 millimeters. Okay, the alert's over. We go back. So we just took our blankets and slept on the guns. We wouldn't even go to sleep before there'd be another alert. For one year it was like that. And then we got to leave. The Japanese are being defeated down there after a year, a lot of it, you know.

Tom Swope:

So that one year you're talking about, that was in Guam? When they didn't trust the radar, that was in Guam or was that at Pearl Harbor?

Clarence E. Spradling:

One year?

Tom Swope:

You were talking about that one year. I wasn't clear --

Clarence E. Spradling:

I was one year in Guam.

Tom Swope:

That was when the radar alerts were happening?

Clarence E. Spradling:

No, we didn't have anything.

Tom Swope:

You were talking about when you were at Pearl Harbor, they didn't trust the radar?

Clarence E. Spradling:

That's right. For one year -- We were in this park. And for one year, we didn't trust the radar; and, also, we just -- we slept on our guns, is what we did. It was terrible, you know.

Tom Swope:

That's why that story about the supposedly seeing on radar, the Japanese planes coming in at the radar installation --

Clarence E. Spradling:

That's another story. No, that was -- When the Japanese got out there and got in their planes and were coming in to Pearl Harbor, they were training people for these radar. We were gonna get radar. We haven't got it yet. Antiaircraft didn't have radar yet, but they had some up on the hill and we're teaching people about them. And they got to teach people how to run -- operate these things before -- they don't even know we had them until we know how to operate them. And these guys, Sunday morning, they decided to go up there and practice with them. The radar really intrigued them, you know. So these guys, I don't know what time they got up. They had to get up before daylight and went up there. That was not a training session for them. That was Sunday; they was supposed to be off. But two guys went up there and was playing around with these things, and they saw these blips coming in on the screen and was tracking them. And they called and said, "Hey, there's aircraft coming in, a lot of them," you know. They saw the whole Japanese people coming in. And they said, "You! What are you doing up there? You get back to your battery and get away from there." If they'd listened to those guys, the ships would have been ready for them, if they had just listened to them, but they did not listen to them at all. That's what you were thinking about, see.

Tom Swope:

That's what I was thinking about, because it was always --

Clarence E. Spradling:

This is before the Japs are coming in, see?

Tom Swope:

And history is more often than not, you hear these guys were there working on the radar, not just goofing around.

Clarence E. Spradling:

No. No, they were goofing -- not goofing.

Tom Swope:

But practicing.

Clarence E. Spradling:

They were practicing. They didn't have nothing to do.

Tom Swope:

You can see now, when they reported back, you can see why the guy said, "You shouldn't be up there."

Clarence E. Spradling:

You're right. I don't know why they were up there. I don't know why they were up there that early, 'cause breakfast is, you know, served in the morning and maybe they were early guys getting breakfast, and they want to get up there and play with radars, all they had to -- they had keys to get in and that is what they been doing, I don't know how long; but, anyways, one guy, they made him staff sergeant right away and sent him back to the States for more training -- to train. I mean, these guys are -- And when they start yelling at them, they says, "Well, we wanted to practice," you know. "We wanted to get good so we knew the radar," you know. So they sent those guys back. And they were buck privates, made them --

Tom Swope:

{Laughs.}

Clarence E. Spradling:

You know, a sergeant was a big thing. It was a lot more money, you know. So there you are.

Tom Swope:

Those shells that hit on the hill, were those antiaircraft shells?

Clarence E. Spradling:

That's all the Navy had, of course. And I feel like a -- I really feel like -- There was a lot of the Navy on leave also. I think you've heard this already. And I really believe that there was people got on those guns that didn't know what they were doing, and they just put {noise} a round in and pulled the lanyard and, boom. I really think that, because I don't care what you hear, somebody told me that the Japanese attacked the city of Honolulu. They did not attack the city of Honolulu. But the Navy shells, the same thing that hit on my post, went into Honolulu and did the damage in Honolulu. I don't know if anybody hurt or nothing.

Tom Swope:

I've heard that story, yeah.

Clarence E. Spradling:

There was only one guy killed in Fort Shafter, and one of those rounds got him, one of those rounds. And there was a big hole through the barracks. When I went back, they said, battery so-and-so -- I forget -- one guy was killed. Said, Look at the big hole. Went over there and looked, it just went through, didn't explode either. See, these guys were not artillery men. You got to set that fuse to go off, or else you got to put a round in that will go off when it hits, and most of -- antiaircraft was set so the plane would come in there and so many yards away from us, you set those shells to go off at, and then the flack goes on bursting, see. But I wouldn't be here if those shells would of burst. If they had been one when it hit, it would have exploded. But the Navy, most of it is antiaircraft, you know. Of course, they didn't fire no big guns. They didn't fire no 16-inch or anything. That would be stupid to fire a 16-inch gun at an airplane. Hell. So it was all -- Probably 8-inch probably was antiaircraft that's on the ships. The battleships, you couldn't move without bumping into a gun. You been on battleships, ain't you?

Tom Swope:

I didn't get on one. I've seen them.

Clarence E. Spradling:

Well, there's one down in North Carolina that we went on down there. So if you're ever down there...

Tom Swope:

I plan on going back to Hawaii. I have been to Hawaii.

Clarence E. Spradling:

I don't want to go back.

Tom Swope:

You don't want to go back? You didn't want to go back to the 60th anniversary? Too many bad memories?

Clarence E. Spradling:

Too many. I went to that movie and I cried all the way through it, so what would I do over there? Anyway, my friend, the worst -- my biggest worry, and I'm up on that post and where the best friend I ever had in my life was in Hickam Field and that thing is all burning down, and I see this Zeros going in, and they -- every plane we had -- was only two or three got off, and the fight was all -- I mean, the war -- They had quit attacking, really.

I guess they did shoot at a few of them, but there was stragglers only, the Japanese stragglers was the only thing, I'm sure; but if they moved the planes, boom, right away the Japs were right on them. That was a big thing, is to get our planes shot up, destroy our planes.

And my good friend's brother was -- is at Wheeler Field. That was all fighter planes over there. And that was one of the first places they hit, was Wheeler, and they didn't want -- they wanted to get rid of them planes first. Then after they got no planes -- Oh, antiaircraft, that doesn't mean nothing to the Japanese, December 7.

They went right in, and you would think they ain't going to come out of it. When they went down, they were either dropping a bomb or was a machine guns shooting those -- Those Navy men, those are the guys you should be interviewing, those Navy men. I can't understand why you are even fooling with me, an old Army man.

Tom Swope:

I talked to some Navy men. I want to get everybody.

Clarence E. Spradling:

I mean, that's a thought, see.

Tom Swope:

I talked to Richard Paul and Frank Kluska, and I've already talked to them.

Clarence E. Spradling:

Paul?

Tom Swope:

He was on the Nevada.

Clarence E. Spradling:

Yeah, I know.

Tom Swope:

You sat up where you could see the whole attack?

Clarence E. Spradling:

Oh, my aching back. If you ever go to Hawaii -- Now, they built a new hospital up on -- right where I was at on that hill. If you ever go to that hospital, and you will see they built that far enough back on the hill, so I would say the front yard of the hospital. That's the only reason I would kind of like to go back, to see where Tripler General Hospital is. And, you know, they -- the Navy didn't have much of a hospital. Tripler General was the biggest and the best hospital on the island over there, so everything was -- all these bodies were being taken to Tripler General. Fort Island, I think, was a little hospital there, but that was kind of like a first aid station, you know, for the Navy. And each -- each -- each one of the ships have a first aid, you know; but if you got appendicitis, Tripler General is where you would go. That's where the doctors were where they could operate, you know.

Tom Swope:

Did you see the Arizona go up?

Clarence E. Spradling:

I saw them -- every one go. I mean, I was up there and saw every -- every ship sink, that's how close I was. I saw them do this, you know. And I didn't have no field glasses, but you didn't have to be -- But there was so much smoke that nobody really could see anything. And the thing about it is -- that's so sad, as far as I'm concerned, I knew what was happening on those ships. I knew what was happening over where my best friend is. And all I did was stand up there -- sit up there all day and cry. Honest to God. I mean, even after the attack was over. Remember, I told you I was there till 10 o'clock, and I saw everything going on afterwards. And you could tell -- I could tell there was a lot of casualties over there, and there was. And my friend's brother -- when I say my friend's brother, he and I never did get along -- he got a Purple Heart, so he was wounded, a little bit anyway. If you went to first aid, you got a Purple Heart for December 7; and that's what I think he did. {Laughs} Fell down and run a nail in his foot or something. But we all -- every one of us got back home, though. Both those guys in the Air Force. And the drunk that was in another battery -- There's four batteries in each battalion. He was a cook, and they wanted cooks for Europe. So, oh, boy, he gets to go home. We got together, and we said, "Hey, Marty got to go home." And here we still are stuck over there, you know. He went to Europe and got killed. He's the only one of the four of us that got killed. And if he had just straightened up and flew right, they wouldn't have set him on a battery. That's -- When you got sent out, you were usually -- somebody -- an officer was angry at you. And we got it -- if they wanted a man -- And all the old Army people were sent to different things. There was -- those batteries over there were guys that stayed there. They had wives there, and there was no such thing as us getting a rating. Maybe if you was really sharp, a PFC, at the most; but from corporal on up, those guys had been in the battery -- the battery 20 years, gonna retire, and they ain't gonna do nothing. They're -- they're who's running it. We were just their little slaves, really, you know. {Laughs.}

Tom Swope:

So how long did you -- were the officers' families up in those caves? How many days?

Clarence E. Spradling:

I don't know. I really don't know.

Tom Swope:

You were only there for three days?

Clarence E. Spradling:

I was only there for three days and guarded them for three days. And if the Japanese had attacked them --

Tom Swope:

You would have saved them?

Clarence E. Spradling:

When they did come over that mountain, that's where they were at. Come over that mountain, they would have wiped us out. That's a lot of ifs. If they had came in with assault -- with a force, they would have took the island over. That's how we were not prepared for it. We didn't have -- we didn't have -- A real Japanese assault invasion, we would have lost. We would have lost the Hawaiian Islands, too. But they were afraid to do that, see. They were afraid.

If they would have knew it was going to work out the way it did, they would have, but they went to the Philippines instead. They took the Philippines over and probably -- The Philippines so much closer to Japan, see. That's probably the reason that they took the Philippines. And you know those guys were awful. Treated terrible. They went on that march --

[END OF TRACK ONE; BEGIN TRACK TWO]

Clarence E. Spradling:

Wainwright is the guy, and he was on that march. Weaver, I don't know what -- but he had one star. He was one of MacArthur's people, you know.

Tom Swope:

What was the feeling toward the Japanese people on Hawaii in the days after the attack?

Clarence E. Spradling:

What did I think about them? I tell you what happened to that. I'm glad you said something, because they saying, "The poor Japanese." They were catching them all over that island with the little radios, talking to those ships. And that's the reason Roosevelt said, "We will straighten this out. Put them all -- get them all on ships and take them back to California."

That's exactly what happened to them. Because there was Americans that got their education in this country and had lived here for years, that had little radios, and they were -- caught them talking; and they weren't -- they weren't no Japanese that came over three months ago. They were Japanese that was -- lived in Oahu and was there all their lives.

But they wanted the Japanese to do their thing, see. And he -- The old Japanese, their daughter, I went out with one of the girls, and only for one leave, but I had -- we were gonna see each other again. And the most beautiful body I ever saw. Looked like -- her face looked like my hand, no nose, but she was a beautiful girl otherwise. And so I spent a whole day with her at Waikiki beach, just laying on the beach and touching each other, you know; and I had a date with her.

When the Japs came, I couldn't find her anymore. But she was American born. She was American. But she went -- I'm sure she went back to California. And the only one time you go with somebody, you don't really learn them. But her mother and dad didn't want her going out with us. She said, "We got to sneak to do it," you know, "If I see you, I can't let my mom and dad know."

So they were from Japan, see, and they didn't -- they hated us, see. Don't want my daughter marrying any of these guys. That was the way they felt. So how can you say they're Americans? You know. They weren't American. There was people that was born and raised over there. And some of them still -- their dad and mother kept pounding it into them.

And that's why Roosevelt sent them back, and I never heard that before. I did not hear that. But I saw them all. They loaded them on those Army trucks, no cover over them, and they had a whole truckload after truckload taking them to the ships. I saw that happen. And my question was, Why are they doing it, see? And this is the answer. They caught them with short-wave radios talking to the enemy, see, and Roosevelt said, "Well, we'll fix that. We can't trust none of them." He got a real bad rep over there and probably was a bad rep, too.

Tom Swope:

Go ahead.

Clarence E. Spradling:

But getting them off the island was his main thing, see.

Tom Swope:

Any idea how many were moved?

Clarence E. Spradling:

No, I don't know, but history tells you how many it was. They all were moved. All the Japanese were moved. And they treated them -- didn't treat them too good. If they had businesses over in Oahu, they lost their businesses. That was one of the big things. They got a little -- They paid them so much. You probably know that about history.

Tom Swope:

Paid them a little bit.

Clarence E. Spradling:

A few years ago --

Tom Swope:

Right, right.

Clarence E. Spradling:

-- they paid them some money. But -- And it was a sad thing, too, you know, that we couldn't trust our own citizens, you know. They were citizens, and they did go to Europe and fought in Europe. There was an outfit that went over there and fought in Europe and was really super soldiers. The Japanese were good soldiers, I'll tell you that right now. When we went to Guam for -- We went in with the Marines, just -- the Marines was just ahead of us, but we went in with the Marines. We got -- captured one Jap, that's all we captured; and it rained all the time. And there're Japanese everywhere.

The Marines didn't get them all. And so we dig fox holes. The fox holes filled up with water. So we had to get out of the fox hole because we -- it was like getting in a bathtub, you know. And when -- then the Marines, they took the -- they drove across that island after we got there. We had our battery position, and it was right in the jungle. You couldn't fire a 90 millimeter gun to save your life. And computer -- the computer is -- we dug a hole in solid coral to put that thing in underground. That computer goes, we ain't got nothing, see. So we buried it. If they'd attack, they would have never got our computer.

The radar is sitting right out there where everybody can see, but the computer is the main thing for the -- it computes everything for the -- And that's the first computer. That was the first computer. And so after we dug that out, it took us three weeks to dig that thing out, dig a hole for it. We had to have more guards. We're working night and day on it, too. We had to have more guards than we did guys working. I was in charge of a digging crew, digging those things. We're down on a hole. And the Japanese had had a little Cat without a blade, and this coral, it's like rock, you know; and we would -- we took that little Cat and made a skid, and we'd load our stuff on there and pull that stuff out. So I would say because of that, we dug that hole a week quicker than we would have if we hadn't had it, if we had to carry that stuff out. And then the battery commander came to me --

Now, we could work day and night on digging that hole. We got to shoot -- cut all them trees down so that 90 millimeter can fire here. And I mean, they was mahogany like this, honest to God they was. You wouldn't believe the trees that was in there. There was some that had thousands of roots on it. You went in there and started cutting. And the first thing you know, you look back and where you cut, that one that was like -- it went like that, it had dropped a foot. And we're working all day on that one tree. We got to cut the thing. And we can only work during daylight hours. We can't work at night out in the jungle, and we had guards protecting us then. The Japs were everywhere.

And so, you know, the Marines, when they went through, there were all kinds of explosives, all kinds. Now, I ain't kidding you, there was explosives that had a core that would blow up, dynamite, and then they had a stuff that looked like putty for windows, you could misshape that any way you wanted to. And I said to the battery commander -- After one day, we hadn't even touched anything, you know. We went out -- We didn't have no chain saws. We had cross-cut saws and a double-bitted axes. I mean, today with our chain saws, we could do a lot, see, but the old cross-cut, cutting trees down like that -- I went to the battery commander -- I don't know how I got that detail. I really don't know. But back in Ala Moana Park, I had a garden. We hauled dirt from the top of the mountain down for a garden, and I was in charge of that garden, see. I had a T -- corporal rating, see. And go back -- And I saw all this, and I took jungle training.

And I learned how to blast things, use all this dynamite and stuff. And in the corps, I learned how to use it all in jungle training. That was the worst thing I ever did in my life was jungle training. I lost 30 pounds the first week in jungle training, that's how tough it was. That was back on the island of Hawaii -- Oahu. So I went to the battery commander and I asked him, "Can I use dynamite to blow these trees down?" I said, "We're never gonna get them done, you know. You better get the whole battery out there and start clearing." He said, "Yes, go ahead. You have my permission." So I went -- the little trees like this, I'd wrap the cord around it, and I had one guy that had the climbers on, you know, like the telephone men use. They don't do it no more, but they used to

Tom Swope:

Right.

Clarence E. Spradling:

I had one guy from New Mexico -- I'd sure like to see him; he's still alive, too -- and had an old auger with a stick on the end of it, and he would go up and drill holes in them trees and blast it. We worked all day, it's almost dark, and we got to get out of the jungle at dark. And I set one charge off, first charge off, and it shooked the whole island. Man, was that a blast. I put -- A half a stick of dynamite is all it took to cut a tree like that down. He cut it and we put this cord in and then we put the dynamite -- a little part of a stick of dynamite into that and then we keep running this, and this one cord was -- set the whole thing off, the one big boom. Well, boy, they said, no more of that shit.

They thought the Japanese had got their ammunition and blowed us up. So after that I had to go down to the battery commander and tell him, "Call them people and tell them we're ready to blast." That's the only way I could blast after that. That's how I cleared the whole jungle. And all the way around, I mean, we had to go back. We had to cut the tops out of trees to Loraine Road up there, see, because you had to have it so the plane -- I mean, the guns could fire anywhere, see. And it took us about a month to clear the jungle some ways, and here are these great big mahogany logs laying out there. He came and told me, "Do you want to go -- Do you want to go home for a pass?"

Well, absolutely. I'd been over there 41 months. Sure, I want to go. And I said, Oh -- Now, this battery commander was a lawyer from Chicago, and he was no GI captain. He was a lawyer, you know. You could talk to him. And I said, "You know something? If we had a sawmill, there's enough lumber out there, laying out there, that we can build anything we want. We don't have to live in those" -- Because we had had shanties in Oahu. And I said, "We don't have to live in them stinking tents, you know." And it rained all the time in Guam. So -- And I said, "Get your rifle. Let's take a walk out there. I'll show you." So I took him out there and showed him. I said, "Find out if they got a sawmill, and here is all the lumber you need. Mahogany. You can build shanties -- sheds out of mahogany." Oh, boy. So I don't know what happened at all, because I went on my leave. When I got back, there was shanties for everybody. Mahogany shanties. Really and truly. I tell you a little something else. We went on patrol every day. The stragglers, the Japanese, were all over the island; but the Marines had already went through and they're gone. So we got to clean the island up, and I really liked going on that patrol. But I hated guard duty. Always before, until I made a corporal's rating, those corporals had never pulled any guard duty. But down there, they had to pull guard duty.

And I hated that. Oh, my. It just tore me apart to do four hours guard duty. And I would trade my guard duty, and it was guys that hated to go on those patrols. Well, it was like hunting animals, is really what it was like, it was hunting parties. There was 12 to 15 of us went out every day. And I went at least four days a week. I went on those. And when you went on patrol, you did nothing else but patrol. That's all you did. And we were out there in the jungle, and I got one guy still alive to prove what I'm saying right now.

We had a black outfit over there, and they had got a whiskey still -- made a whiskey still, had it all set up and had it out there. They didn't have the mash so they could run it off yet, but they had it out there. And I said to them, Hey -- I realized what it was there. Just seeing them, we came right up and they were out there working. I said, "Everybody, when I fire, everybody fire." They were {noise}, you know. Those black guys tore the jungle down getting out of there. They thought the Japs were attacking them. We went and got gasoline cans, all their mash, poured all their mash in gasoline cans, took their still, stole their still and put it right outside of my battery area and I made booze.

When they said to me -- They said to me, "Clarence, you want to go home?" That was after the war was over. I mean, I got more points than anybody. I'm the only regular Army man in the battery. Regular Army got -- regular Army got paid before the draftees, and I got number one in the line for paying. I was the only regular Army man. And so, yeah, I want to go home. Well, you know, I had it figured -- There was two guys driving truck, hauling stuff from those ships. They could get me a whole truckload of sugar. There was no way checking up on it. You took it -- took a load of sugar over there and all the fruits, like peaches and prunes and stuff like that, they gonna bring that stuff to me, and I had a carpenter making me boxes. I couldn't get wooden drums. And I was gonna make booze, and they were gonna sell it for 50 cents a pint and I was gonna get a quarter. I never did make any for selling, but I would have been a little rich boy if I'd of stayed over there.

Tom Swope:

{Laughs.}

Clarence E. Spradling:

You ever get about four, five gallon of 85 proof from 55 gallon, see. And can you imagine, four, five gallon, at a pint, 50 cents? I mean, I really had it set up. And he said, Do you want to go home? Oh, yeah, I want to go home. They took me all the way to the other side of the island. And I'm waiting for a ship there, and I happen to think about my booze back there, you know. I mean, my still back there. And it's ready to go, ready to run. So I go back to the battery and I got a blow torch. You know what a blow torch is? It's the thing you burn gasoline.

I got a blow torch and filled my still up and run one gallon of that stuff. There was peaches. There were prunes. There was all kinds of fruit and sugar. The guys had got sugar. You had to have sugar to make booze. That's the strongest booze you ever heard of in your life. And I took that -- I took one gallon at first. Now, that's the strongest alcohol as there is, you know. You can make four gallon at 85 proof. The first gallon is as pure alcohol as there is. I took it back, and it was Coca Cola day and beer day. Well, I still had Coca Cola and beer coming to me.

And I went to the kitchen and I got great big pots, great big ones, five-gallon pots; you know, the kitchen had a lot of them. And I poured a gallon of booze in there, and I had a lot of friends that brought their Cokes, and I traded my beers for Cokes, and we had a party. And I completely passed out, completely passed out. I knew what was going on, but I couldn't move. And I told the guys, I got to get back over there, I'm going home. I want to get back over there. And the motor -- the guy that was in charge of the trucks -- By this time I was in there four years and eight months in that one battery. Remember, everybody is my buddy there, you know. We're like brothers, I mean.

I said, "Get Layshak (ph) over here," to the guys, "Go get Layshack, I got to get back to my barracks," where I'm supposed to be shipping out. So Layshack came with a Jeep and they put me in a Jeep, tied me in. I was -- I never will forget this. And when he got over there, he put me on his shoulder. I thought he was a great big guy, but I saw him later and he wasn't a big guy. And he carried me around. He had to go up to the office to find out where my bunk was. A bunch of tents over there is where I was at. He found my bunk and he took and throwed me on my bed, my bunk, and said, "Good-bye, you damn hillbilly."

I never will see this guy again, that's what I'm thinking. So went to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for a Pearl Harbor survivors -- You know, we all get together, you know, and there he is. I'm a son of a gun. Boy, that was some convention, I tell you. Really, really good to see that guy. And you know something? They put us on a ship and sent us to the south end. We were in the jungle over there. Hundreds of tents, waiting for a ship. My battery that I was in, the guys that was in it, they broke the unit up, completely broke it up and sent them back, and they beat me home. I was in that jungle waiting for ships for four weeks. And they were breaking all these units up because they don't need them no more, and they were sending them back before us, see. So there we are sitting on there -- So I was in four years and eight months. And, you know, the guys today, they're in a year, in combat area for one year. And I hear them griping they shouldn't have had to do that. In the Navy, right today, the Navy's coming back with two months or something now.

Tom Swope:

Right. Exactly.

Clarence E. Spradling:

But that's good. That's -- I mean, it's sad that we had to do what we had to do, and nobody realizes that we had to spend so much time, you know. And it wasn't -- We weren't in harm's way in Hawaii. We had a -- we should have been thankful and we should have been -- I said, this is wonderful, because the Marines are going down there and there's a lot of them; the Army, too, they're getting killed. Like down in Saipan. There was a General Smith in the Army and there was a General Smith in the Marines, and they assaulted the Phili- -- I mean, Saipan; and because they were so trying to beat each other, both of them got so many guys killed, it wasn't funny. If you read the history of Saipan, you will see that there was more people killed. It's because of those two generals. The Marines wouldn't let the Army beat them out and the Army wouldn't -- and the Army -- They went in together in Saipan and they lost a lot of men. That's the reason why we went in; we had to go help the Marines in Guam because they had lost so many men, you know.

Tom Swope:

How soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor were you able to get word to your parents that you were okay?

Clarence E. Spradling:

I would say six weeks. But they wanted us to write, you know. But it was at least six weeks before our parents knew. But our parents, they didn't realize how much harm's way we were in, you know. You know, they all know after the attack, it was -- there was -- they told us about it, how much -- how many were killed, you know. And probably the guys were killed, their parents were probably notified a lot more -- a lot quicker than six weeks. But the worst thing, I mean, I saw those sailors getting blasted. And -- But I saw my friend over there, the best friend -- Hickam Field getting tore all apart. And that, in my mind, was over there, sadness. That guy was like -- I thought more of him than I -- I have three older brothers. I thought more of him than I did my brothers, and he's -- he was over there. And I knew that he was in harm's way, really in harm's way; but really and truly, I was not in harm's way. I was not. After them two shells that hit my post, and the Japs are gone -- Of course, the Navy could have throwed more over, like the Navy did get -- You know, one of my favorite people in the Pearl Harbor's survivors -- he's dead now, he died of a heart attack or -- I told him that the Navy killed that guy on Fort Shafter and about the shells. "You're a liar," that's what he told me; "You're a liar." And I said, "Oh, Joe, I wouldn't lie to you." "No, you're a liar." He would not admit that the Navy did that. And that's the way it was, Joe. And that guy in Fort Shafter, they got -- all of his equipment was glassed in. The guy's helmet and his rifle and all -- everything he had is there yet. And the Navy killed him. I don't know if history says that that's what happened, but I know that that's what happened.

Tom Swope:

Sure.

Clarence E. Spradling:

It's a good thing those shells weren't one of them blast off when they hit contact, you know.

Tom Swope:

Any other particularly vivid memories come to mind or you think you covered everything?

Clarence E. Spradling:

Huh?

Tom Swope:

You think you covered everything?

Clarence E. Spradling:

Well, you know, I can't go day for day.

Tom Swope:

No other vivid memories?

Clarence E. Spradling:

No. No, no nothing. I would say going out on that patrol is a -- that probably was in harm's way more than anything else. We did -- we never did take no more prisoners. We shot a lot of them. But we did not take any prisoners. If they even stood up and act like they were going to fire at us -- We had Japanese that laid down on hand grenades, blowed themselves up. And you would see 50 of them laying out there in the jungle. We go hunting the live ones that are still out there. There's 50 laying there in one place. I don't know if they ever went back and picked their bones up or not.

Tom Swope:

What did you hate most about guard duty? You said you really didn't like it.

Clarence E. Spradling:

Well, oh, I'll tell you right now. It was four hours of hell.

Tom Swope:

Boredom?

Clarence E. Spradling:

It was my mind. I mean, they're all around me, you know. I mean, when it's really dark and you hide behind a tree, your post is there, and you're hiding behind a tree -- And one of the worst things that happened to me on guard duty was, we had cleared 50 -- 50 yards we had cleared, it was nothing but lawn, you know. Because of that, we had barb wire around the battery, and we were out there. A lot of -- we had to have a lot of guard because they were sneaking in and -- the Japanese were coming in and killing a bunch of guys just for the food that we had, you know. So we know that the Seabees over there got killed, another outfit got -- these stragglers, Japanese stragglers is what I call them. And that's in your mind. And one night I heard -- sounded like 150 crawling across that field. Dark, I couldn't see my hand before me. Wearing my mosquito net, too. You had to do that to keep the mosquitoes off so you could see, that's how many mosquitoes over there. And it came. It took -- I'm there behind that tree. My rifle, I took the safety off. And I'm -- When they touch that barb wire, I'm going to start shooting. As far as I'm concerned, there's 100 Japanese attacking in my mind, you know. And I heard them, snap, crackle and pop. I heard them coming across there; and had a full moon, but the clouds were up there. And all at once, they were right there, you know. I could almost -- I could see movement right there. When they touch the barb wire, I'm going to wake the whole battery, because I'm going to start shooting. And the moon, an opening come in the moon. It was a herd of buffalo, water buffalo. {Laughs} Oh, Lordy, that was -- I lived. I got killed. I'll tell you. I knew that this is it. I'm going to die. They gonna take me. But, oh, was I happy about that. Guard duty, I hated guard duty, really and truly did. Some guys -- Some guys didn't mind it. They'd rather go on guard duty than patrol.

Tom Swope:

Yeah, it's scarey. How many guards would be around that gun?

Clarence E. Spradling:

Huh?

Tom Swope:

How many guards would be around the gun? Would it be on the gun?

Clarence E. Spradling:

They wouldn't be on the gun.

Tom Swope:

I mean, around the perimeter?

Clarence E. Spradling:

The guns, they didn't worry about that. They had -- The whole battery. See, there's four guns.

Tom Swope:

How far away from the other guard would you be if there was another guard out there?

Clarence E. Spradling:

Oh, 20-foot. We had a lot of guards. We didn't want them sneaking in and killing the people sleeping, see. So there's a lot of guard duty, but they also was ten or 12 men went out patrolling. And all those guys, they didn't want to go on patrols, absolutely not. There was usually the same ones went on patrol, because they didn't want no guard duty. We had one guy, his name was Oakley. I'm not making this up, either. We're out there in the jungle and there's this chicken over there. And Oakley, {noise} knocked his head off. What the shit? He has glasses that thick, looked like pop bottles. And I said, What a lucky damn shot, you know. Wasn't too far from there, there was another. Ping, he did it again. And, I mean, them chickens were away from him. That ain't luck, that guy can shoot.

Tom Swope:

I guess.

Clarence E. Spradling:

I tell you something else, too. This is -- How about a cup of coffee?

Tom Swope:

Sure, all right.

Clarence E. Spradling:

Barb wire around them. And a bunch of wild dogs there. When the islanders -- when we attacked Guam, we took islanders and put them in a fenced-in -- fence them all in, and brought -- took tractors over there, teach them how to farm with tractors, you know. And so this one time is wild dogs, what I would call them. They wouldn't bother you at all. They run from you, you know. But I didn't know it was wild dogs. I heard them snap, crackle and popping, you know. And I had one tracer bullet in my clip, like a fire, and I could see things, see, know where anything was; and I heard these dogs coming in. They were hunting for food, I think, right close to where I was at. Well, I saw one and I only -- like a ghost, you know, and I fired. I emptied my rifle at him. Well, it woke everybody up. Okay. I'm a corporal, you know, I'm a big shot. But the next day I got cleaning the latrines. I took a tractor and they were slip treads. We had a thing built over the top of this hole, and we'd take a truck or that little Cat I was telling you about, and pull them off; and we'd put 15 or 20 gallon of fuel oil in there and we'd start picking and putting wood and stuff in there and we'd burn them out. About once a week we had to do that. I got that duty because I fired. If I would have hit the dog it would -- I wouldn't have got the duty if I had hit the dog, but I missed the dog.

Tom Swope:

{Laughs.}

Clarence E. Spradling:

Well, old Pearl Harbor survivors ain't going to be around long, you know that.

Tom Swope:

I know. I understand that.

Clarence E. Spradling:

We went to Texas.

Tom Swope:

You guys all seem to be pretty good. I've talked to five of you guys now. You're doing okay.

Clarence E. Spradling:

There'll be some around for a while longer, but... I just went to a convention in Texas. And that was the best convention I ever went in my life. They got all the Pearl Harbor survivors' addresses and they invited us to come down there. And it's out in the hill country of Texas. I can't remember the name of the town even. But, anyway, we went out there, and we had a gift. We went down to register, to tell them we were there. We had to pay for our motel room. When we went to register, they gave us a gift. I'd say if you bought it, it'd probably cost ten bucks, the stuff that was in it. The company that made it, give it. And there was a company south of where we were at furnish those big buses, not school bus-type thing, but a big -- bigger than the city buses over here. And every 15 minutes, there was one. You left your car parked. Then you had a little tag to tell them you were a Pearl Harbor survivor, and they would take you everywhere. And the first night after we got there, they had a Texas barbeque, a real beef barbeque, real Texas, you know. Didn't cost nothing. I mean, all you wanted to eat. And they had a band playing and it went half the night. They went home and another one came in, and they didn't stop, you know, how most of them stop and have a little --

Tom Swope:

Take a break.

Clarence E. Spradling:

-- a little break, they didn't have no breaks. They went right straight through. And we were in a parade -- had a parade, and we were in the parade and they built -- they had old Army trucks, the kind we had when we were in there and had them all camouflaged. Now, they're all camouflaged.

Tom Swope:

Right.

Clarence E. Spradling:

They had it all fixed so we could walk right up a ramp and into those trucks, back of those trucks. They were afraid we couldn't get in those trucks anymore. That was a 5-mile parade, and they went down -- The streets are real wide in that city, in that town. They went down there, two and a half miles, turn around and come back. And there wasn't room to stand along the road. That's how many people were there to see that parade.

Tom Swope:

Wow.

Clarence E. Spradling:

I go to parade once a year in North Ridgeville over there, I belong to the VFW, very few people out to watch us -- watch that parade anymore. But there in Texas, out there --

Tom Swope:

That's nice.

Clarence E. Spradling:

-- oh, man, did they have a parade.

Tom Swope:

You go to the convention every year then?

Clarence E. Spradling:

No. No, this was because --

Tom Swope:

The 60th anniversary?

Clarence E. Spradling:

Some of the guys -- you probably talk to some of them -- went to Hawaii.

Tom Swope:

Just one of the guys went to Hawaii. The other guy -- I think Richard Paul wanted to go to Hawaii but he couldn't go this time. I talked to Richard Paul, Frank Kluska, Jim Workman and --

Clarence E. Spradling:

Workman is a Navy man.

Tom Swope:

And John -- Jack Fickel?

Clarence E. Spradling:

Fickel. He was an Army man.

Tom Swope:

Yes. He was there. Like you say, you get all that history stuff.

Clarence E. Spradling:

I go to high school the last four years -- four, five years. I been going to high school once a year. And there's kids that call you and inviting us to come. And I talked -- There was a senior this year, a girl.

Tom Swope:

Right.

Clarence E. Spradling:

And she asked me -- World War II veteran is what she was after.

Tom Swope:

Right.

Clarence E. Spradling:

And I told her that I was -- saw the battle of Pearl Harbor. She'd never heard of it.

Tom Swope:

Really?

Clarence E. Spradling:

I was really surprised that she hadn't heard of Pearl Harbor.

Tom Swope:

Was that before that movie?

Clarence E. Spradling:

After; no, no, it was this year, it was this year.

Tom Swope:

You think a lot of the younger people after that movie would be aware of it.

Clarence E. Spradling:

You know, she's a senior, so she should have been to see that movie; but she never heard of it.

Tom Swope:

Oh, yeah.

Clarence E. Spradling:

Who knows about the Alamo?

Tom Swope:

Right. Or the Maine.

Clarence E. Spradling:

Yeah.

Tom Swope:

Remember the Maine. {Laughs}

Clarence E. Spradling:

Who remembers that? Only historical buffs, the people that want to --

Tom Swope:

Right.

Clarence E. Spradling:

-- keep history alive, you know.

Tom Swope:

Right. I'm doing my little bit.

Clarence E. Spradling:

But I would like to say this: The Japanese came over there and surprised us. And the Japanese did not shoot at civilians. That is the difference in this and the day of New York City. That's the difference. They killed civilians. If they had attacked some Army base, it would have been different, see, because that's what the Army's for, the Navy's for. But this is the saddest thing that has ever happened to this country. And like the Maine and the Alamo and Pearl Harbor, they're so second small, it ain't funny up aside what happened. I said to them, Watch that, that was a sad day for me, too. Right now. But we will never -- They can say they're going to get rid of all the people, because we have had our own people born and raised in this country that did.

[END OF RECORDING]