Interview Transcript
Donald McCorkindale

00:00

Aaron: This is Aaron Lynn and Ethan Hansen interviewing Donald McCorkindale, who resides in Chatham Massachusetts. He was in the Navy during World War 2 between 1944 and 1945. So where did you live before you got to Cape Cod?

00:20

Veteran: Oh Holyoke Massachusetts. H-O-L-Y-O-K-E

00:26

Aaron: How did you get to Cape Cod from there?

00:29

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00:35

Veteran: Oh, we came down on the Mass Pike. Then we came down whatever that rout is, is it rout 6? Something that, I think its rout 6, gets us down to the canal and over.

00:56

Aaron: How long have you lived here in Chatham?

1:00

Veteran: Since, ah, since 1994.

1:04

Aaron: Oh alright yeah, that was the year I was born.

1:10

Ethan: Did you know your wife before the war?

1:18

Veteran: Yes my wife. Yes I did.

1:21

Ethan: Did you guys get married before or after the war?

1:25

Veteran: We were what?

1:27

Ethan: Did you get married before or after the war?

1:32

Veteran: After the war in 1950.

1:37

Ethan: How do you feel about the war in Iraq? Do you believe that the soldiers should be there?

1:42

Veteran: Oh, regarding the Iraq war, diffidently a mistake.

1:52

Ethan: Yeah I agree.

1:54

Aaron: You don’t agree with Barack Obama sending like 30,000 troops over there?

1:59

Veteran: That’s, well that’s a different, you talked about first, the Iraq war.

2:04

Aaron: Yeah.

2:06

Veteran: Oh, Barack Obama, ah, um, basically I don’t, I don’t agree with Barack Obama’s military build up. I’m not in favor of it, because I think it’s a lost cause.

2:34

Ethan: How did you feel when Barack Obama bowed to the emperor of Japan?

2:39

Veteran: Say that again?

2:41

Ethan: Um, how did you feel when Barack Obama bowed to the emperor of Japan?

2:47

Veteran: What did he do with the emperor?

2:49

Ethan: He bowed to him.

2:50

Veteran: He what?

2:52

Ethan: Bowed to him. Like bowed.

2:53

Veteran: O bowed to him? Oh, that’s ok, I guess, just a curtsy.

3:08

Ethan: Um, did you have a chance to go to college before you went to the war?

3:14

Veteran: Yes I did. I went to Dartmouth college and I graduated and…..

3:25

Ethan: What did you get your major in?

3:28

Veteran: My major it was, it was psychology and then it was Business school business school I suppose would be the major.

3:39

Aaron: Ah that’s cool. What kind of occupation did you do after that?

3:44

Veteran: Oh, I went to Boston, from Holyoke, for medical treatment but I worked for an industrial supply company which sold power transmission equipment.

4:07

Aaron: Ok, how long did you work there?

4:09

Veteran: 2 years.

4:14

Aaron: Um, did you a join the military, or a were you drafted into the military?

4:18

Veteran: I joined it.

4:20

Aaron: What influenced you to join?

4:23

Veteran: What’s that?

4:24

Aaron: What influenced you to join?

4:27

Veteran: Oh….. Well I wanted to, I wanted to give my contribution I guess to the war efforts. We were in tough shape then. We, we needed, I mean I guess, I don’t think it was a draft at that point, but, I knew I had to serve in the military, and my father advised me to go in the navy, better chance of coming out alive.

5:02

Aaron: Um, how old were you then?

5:13

Veteran: Oh, I think I was, (19 40 43 20) about 19.

5:32

Aaron: O alright that’s pretty young. What did your family think about your choice to join, did they agree with that you should have joined or were they worried……

5:41

Veteran: Oh yeah they were, they were in favor of it. Yeah, my father especially wanted me to go in the navy. He thought he had a better chance of surviving.

5:52

Aaron: Were any of you’re a, was your father or like your grandfather or any of your siblings in previous wars?

5:59

Veteran: O yeah my father, my father was in the navy, um, in World War I.

6:10

Ethan: Um, did any of your friends or anyone you know join with you?

6:16

Veteran: Join with me?

6:17

Ethan: Yeah any of your friends?

6:21

Veteran: Well, certainly friends and acquaintances, we, we went to Notrodame for the basic training and it was a lot of guys from the college that I knew that went to the same school for our basic training.

6:51

Aaron: Um, what was the training like for you like what did you guys have to do there?

6:57

Veteran: Mostly go to classes. It was on, it was, had to do with um, well I say maybe um, aquatints with ship board experience. You know we had to drill you know and, and but we had quite a lot of, um, of classes about, life onboard the ship and so forth. It was an orientation for people going into the navy, I eventually ended up with sub chases with some other guys and ended up on destroyers or amphibian, strictly amphibian um, vessels yeah.

8:17

Aaron: How long was your training each day?

8:21

Veteran: Training there?

8:22

Aaron: Yeah.

8:22

Veteran: Probably about three months I think.

8:26

Aaron: Do you feel the training that you got like basic training before war was sufficient to like help you for war?

8:35

Veteran: Well yeah I think so it was very good. Yeah be, yeah, see they didn’t give you, it was sort of orientation training to the navel life and, I think they stressed that we weren’t supposed to fraternize with the, with the, the um, people that weren’t in the officer. Officer grave, we were not, we were to maintain a distance between ourselves and the group.

9:20

Aaron: Was there any physical training you had to go through?

9:28

Veteran: They certainly had us march around and drill and, and they had us play sports, I suppose those, they use to, they use to march us up and down quite a bit, yeah.

9:56

Ethan: What was it like the first time you fired a weapon?

10:02

Veteran: What was it like? Well, the only time I’ve fired a weapon was I, I went to the sub chaser training center in Miami Florida and, you know we were all, at some point we were all, sometime we were, we were issued 45 automatics, pistols, and, one time they took us out to a firing range, and had us practice with this, this revolver. I don’t ever remember you know, myself firing a 20mm. um, 20, see we had on the sub chasers which, I will tell you about if you want me to, there were two 22mm. canons. We also had a 40mm. canon and, but I didn’t practice them except there was a, I had to go to San Francisco and rather than just sit on my dove, which I was doing, I applied, this was to get special training, on the types of weapons that were going to be used on the sub chaser, and that was um, the 20mm. machine gun and the 40 mm. gun which is a bigger gun and, maybe we had some practice with the other weapons, or I went to a special training school because I was sitting on my dove waiting for a ship to go over the south pacific. So I, I ah, I was, I was supposed to be in charge of some of the men firing these guns on board ship.

12:54

Ethan: Um, how long were you at basic training before you went off to the war?

12:59

Veteran: I think about 90 days; they called us 90 days wonders. Maybe 3 months.

13:09

Ethan: When you were heading over to Europe what were you thinking? Like what were your thoughts?

13:17

Veteran: Oh, well I cert….. At one point they said I was going to be in a special squadron of little fast little boats that were supposed to, I don’t know do something with, something with the gunner. I don’t know I got mixed up. Um, we, see we let, I didn’t have to much training on the, on the, the weapons that we had on board the ship, when we went to the Mediterranean, but when I had time, waiting for a ship, I came back to the United States after the Mediterranean experience, and I had some time I was at home, and I went to San Francisco and waited for a ship, and at that point I said, I want to get some more training so I applied to the local gunnery place, which had um, weapons there that they were training men on, and I knew these same weapons were going to be on board the 110 foot sub chaser, wooden sub chaser, that I was going to join, when I was in the Mediterranean, I was on the same type of ship.

15:25

Aaron: Where in Europe were you stationed? You said a lot about the Mediterranean, were there any other places?

15:32

Veteran: Well, let’s see, we, are home base for these ships was in North Africa, I’m trying to think, was it Bizerte? There was a home base in Africa for our ships and, then we went from there to Naples, Italy, and that became our home base. And from Naples, we went up the Italian post line to Anzio, which was a beach town right on the Mediterranean, and that was you know that was where they sort of made a end run and threw a lot of troops in there, because the Germans were way south of there and they were trying to cut them off, so that was the idea of going into Anzio, to cut the Germans that were south of them off from the other, rest of their military.

Aaron: 17:13- Were you, were you involved in D Day at all?

Veteran: 17:16- No, haha, it's a funny thing because D Day happened June 6th while we, we were in the Mediterranean and, you know, it was a it was a it was a separate, separate war and we didn't when we were in the Mediterranean and preparing for the invasion of southern France... I think in that period of time D day, June 6th happened. So we, we didn't really know what was going on June 6th until later.

Ethan: 18:18- Um, how did you react the first time you heard enemy gunfire?

Veteran: 18:22- How did I react?

Ethan: 18:24- The first time you heard enemy gunfire?

Veteran: 18:26- I was scared be haha. See what, what we first, we came from ha, we came from Naples on board ship 110 foot wooden ship and we, we came off the Anzio beachead. We got there, and there was a... there was a, a, a British war ship that was active, actively firing into into the, into the land, um at some target so I dont know I was a little scared. And that was a, that was a, that was a first, although although we did while while I was in, while I was umm...prior to going to Anzio I, I was in um Algeria, and I was I Oran, O R A N, that's where we landed and I was a little scared when the... the Germans flew a bomber over the city and... maybe they bombed a little bit I was a little scared.

Aaron: 20:10- What was the most unbearable thing you had to go through during war?

Veteran: 20:15- Oh during the war? ... Well... maybe two things. One was... finding the body of a soldier in the war and and and where he came from i don't know but we got him on board the ship and somebody from the graves, to cover the graves, for the dead people came and got him. And um, the other frightening experience was, we were being attacked at night and we were being, it was a bomber um coming up from behind us and he, we started firing at him, or tried to, and our big 40 millemeter gun failed to function. And so he got beyond us and he and he dropped his bombs in the water and that was frightening when you think about it he can, he could've blown us up and I wouldn't be here. It was a very... it was perhaps the closest call I had to being, being killed.

Ethan: 22:19- Um, what was your most glorious moment of the war?

Veteran: 22:24- Glorious?

Ethan: :22:25- Yeah.

Veteran: 22:38- Haha, glorious........ well I was, I was pretty happy when I, whe I got news on the way home from the Pacific, this was later, that that Germany had surrendered. This was, and at that point of course we were still fighting japan. And that was a, that was August '45, was it? I think it was in '45 that... so I was pretty happy about Germany surrendering.

Aaron: 23:41- Um, did you substain any injuries, at all, during the battle?

Veteran: 23:45- Pardon Me?

Aaron: 23:46- Did you substain any injuries at all, during uh your time in the Mediteranean?

Veteran: 23:49- No, no I had no injuries.

Aaron: 23:51- That's good. Um, did you recieve any uh medals for your service?

Veteran: 23:59- No, no service but they allowed you... I think you got these battle ribons or these ribons and you could get a star or something that you could put, put on if you were, had been in a certain battle I believe. Yeah that's, I think that's right. So I didn't get any medals, or anything like that but you you could wear the ribbons which represented particular battles I believe.

Aaron: 24:40-Ok, um what did you think about um, the U.S. dropping the atomic bomb on Japan?

Veteran: 24:49- Oh, yeah. Well I... ok I felt sorry for the people who were killed, um particularly the civilians, but I... I was pretty darn happy when they dropped the bomb because I think that the Jape were so determined and such um fight to the death kind of fighters that a shock of that horrible just... that first bomb that, it, it seems as though Japan needed um... needed something like that beacuase they were a fight to the death nation and if we had to have gone in there with troops um... I think it the war would have lasted an awful lot longer because of the way they... um... their mentality was they would fight to the death in anything and battles that they, that they um fought with our troops were oh... probably the toughest toughest fighting that the United States has ever witnessed on the art of an enemy. Even the Germans they were, they were, they were so determined that um the atomic bomb was necessary for the emperor to realize that it was impossible to go on.

Ethan: 27:22- In all your time spend in the service...

Veteran: 27:24- Pardon me?

Ethan: 27:25- In all your time spend in the service...

Veteran: 27:28- Yeah?

Ethan: 27:29- What is the one event that will always pop into your mind when you think of World War Two?

Veteran: 27:33- Oh. Well... Well in my own personal experience was the time that the German bomber came over our ship, and our gun jammed and wouldn't fire, and I think he was just, he didn't have any machine gunner people on board but he did, well when he was beyond our ship, maybe 200 yards away, he dropped two bombs,and it was two bombs or one bomb and if he had dropped them on us I wouldn't be here! I, I mean... so that, that was, and another time was very frightening! It was a British... uh ship and I don't know if it was a sub chaser on not. They were in charge of the anchorage off Anzio and the Captain of the ship said to us, you gotta go get smoke pots. And why did he want that? Was because they, we were... while we were there, and I think it was most every day, there was a bomb raid early in the morning and and I think just at dusk and so... the thing that we could do as a small sub chaser would be to drop smoke pots. You pull a lanyerd and you you toss a can, which would float, in the water and the smoke would come up and in a sense it would shield the anchorage if enough of them... the the aiming of the German planes so that they perhaps wouldn't, wouldn't be able to see whereto, were to bomb. So anyway we, to make a long story short, we, they said go way inland and we and we went inland and on the way we had an air raid and we, we had to get out of the truck, and and race across the street and down a cellarway to, to save our ourself in case this, this air raid. Fortunately I think it was only one plane up there but then, then we got out in the country, close to the German line, where were supposed to pick up these smoke pots, which um and and the Germans threw fire to um um big shell that landed, I don't know, really close to us and was very frightening, haha and an awful, awful noise and um... uh that was that was the scary moment.

Ethan: 31:37- Um, how has the war impacted your life?

Veteran: 31:41- How has it, impacted my life? Well... it uh... ok I thought, I thought it was a good war so to speak, it was the right war and so i think it saved us from the Germans um, you know they were they were pretty close to conquering England... and we're luck to, you know the German, the German forces were defeated if they hadn't been, you know, how that would have effected the United States of America, I know it would have enialated England.

Aaron: 33:03- Well that's all the time we have for this video thank you very much, this is Aaron Lynn and Ethan Hansen interviewing Donald McCorkindale, so thank you.

(Veteran: 33:09- Well listen let me tell you, I wrote down some thing that might be.)- after video but recorded