Renzo Casciani

Renzo Casciani, U.S. Navy, Ships Cook, 2nd Class

These pictures; were these your girlfriends?

Yeah. You know that when you are in the service, you always brag and show the girls that you were out with. Now this one here was the queen of Zamboanga.

What was her name? Do you remember?

No I don’t remember any of their names, to tell you the truth.

They are all really cute.

Well, not really. (laughs). At that time, they were beautiful. You know, it was funny because when we go to a dance, the boys or the men are on one side of the floor, and the women are on the other. Then, when the music starts, everybody congregates in the middle, and if you are lucky you pick out a girl. Mostly there are more men than women, and most of the guys don’t want to dance anyway so it’s a pleasure that they are not picked. That’s the way it was. They had a few musicians over there.

What they are really famous for is cock fights, and people raise these roosters for training. The fight hardly lasts any time at all. These two roosters go up in the air, and they have a sharp razor on one of their claws. When one of the roosters gets cut, the fight is over because it draws blood and they are afraid of blood. That’s the end of the fight. It is so quick, but these people bet on it. I’m telling you it is unbelievable.

So did you grow up In Chicago?

I was in Chicago until I was five years old, and then we moved to Cicero.

It was four blocks called Grant Works. Now listen to this. This is very interesting. I don’t want you to miss this. In that four blocks, there was so many taverns, it was unbelievable. There were three Catholic churches. One was Saint Attracta which was Irish, Italian and, what else, mostly Irish and Italian. The Poles had their church, Saint Valentine, and then the Lithuanians, we used to call them the Lugans; they had their church, and they had a big following. So like I said that within those four blocks, we had three churches and God only knows how many taverns we had. During the Depression, everybody had some kind of a little store. They would buy a lot of cans of soup and so on and so forth, and they would put them up for sale. Anything to make a penny, and there was one women who was very good with dill pickles, you know these cucumber things? For two cents you would get a pickle about this big, and it was the most tasty, terrific tasting pickle. It was just great. They would break a pack of cigarettes and charge you a penny a cigarette. It was really a wonderful time.

Even though it was the Depression?

You know everybody sat outside, and you knew your neighbors. The people that were on relief didn’t get any money from the city or the town. What they did was give you provisions like potatoes, sugar, flour, coffee, stuff like that. They were all stored at the fire station. So these people that were on relief would come with a wagon at night because they didn’t want anyone to know that they were on relief. It was a sin to be on relief. Everybody was proud. Everybody had four or five kids because they didn’t know how to prevent.

Everybody shared, and everybody had these gardens where they grew vegetables. We played in the alley, and if the ball went in the yard, we wouldn’t even go after it because they didn’t want you tramping on their premises. It was something . . . terrific.

Isn’t that funny how sometimes the worst of times can be the best of times?

Yes, especially when everybody’s got nothing, and when anybody gets something, they share it. It was really great.

So, when did you go into the service? Was it 1942?

This girl was going to be 16. Anyway, we had a party for her and invited all her friends which were mostly from Saint Anthony. When the party was over, the older sister says I want you guys to come over and help clean up. Some of us went, and I was one of them that went. We put the radio on to listen to the Cardinal football team. The announcer said, “We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin. Japan just attacked Pearl Harbor.” We said where the hell is Pearl Harbor? We never heard of Pearl Harbor. We never thought that we were going to war, but it was eventually leading up to that. The next day we just listened and found out where Pearl Harbor was, and then the President declared war. I figured that since I was a senior no matter what happens, I’m going to graduate. That’s what did happen. It was getting close to graduation, and I knew that I was going into the service. I didn’t want to go into the Army, and I figured what’s the safest place to go. I didn’t want to go into the Army because my chances of getting killed are very good, so I don’t want that. And I sure as hell didn’t want the Marines. So what was left? How many ships are sunk? Hardly any, any at all, so I figured that was the safest spot, so I volunteered.

It was a strange thing because a friend of mine, he wanted to go into the Air Force. The people from the Air Force were in this area, and he was in that area. The next thing I know he was coming toward the Navy side where I was, and I was glad to see him. I figured he changed his mind, so I figured we would be together. Well, I went to Great Lakes, and they sent him to Farragut, ID. So, what are your chances? They weren’t too good. Anyway, I enjoyed the Navy; I grew up in the Navy. I went in, I weighed 145 lbs., and when I got out, I weighed almost 190 lbs. so I put on 45 pounds.

Well, I was the ship's cook. It was funny because when you go to Great Lakes or any naval station, after so many months they try to place you in what you are best fitted for. I was a little less than six foot, and I had pretty good weight. The guy who was interviewing me said “How would you like to go to New London, CT?” I said, That’s the submarine base? He said yeah. I said, Is that voluntary? He said yeah. I said I don’t want it. So, he looked over and said we have a school . . . how about cooks and bakers? Cooks and bakers, I’m a macho guy. What an insult this was. He says we have a school here at the University of Chicago that‘s 16 weeks. I said Yeah, put me down, put me down.

Then, I went home on leave I’m telling everybody that I’m going to be stationed in Chicago. I went back, and I never made it to the University of Chicago. They put me on a train and sent me out to Tanforan, California. It’s a racetrack. That’s where they had the Japanese civilians encamped over there. They condemned the place so they moved them out and the Navy took over and put different schools in there. They put schools for cooks and bakers and a radio school, all kinds of schools. So that’s where they sent me, and I was there 16 weeks. In the meantime they were starting to pick up a group to take care of the PT boats, so I was funneled in there. I was in the states for at least six months, and then they sent us out into the South Pacific with these PT boats. It’s funny because on these PT boats were mostly young kids, 17 and 18 years old. They had two officers on the boat, and they had about 12 men. All they would talk about was how fast the boat was. The first time we went overseas, we saw these PT boats, and they were all painted up beautiful, black and white and they were having races. It was unbelievable. The nurses and everybody was over there to see. I said this is the outfit I’m going to be in! Thank God I was on the base, and all these guys would talk about was how fast their boat would go. It was a good group, but those boats were only good for what they were built for, for scouting and stuff like that. As far as fire power, they had two torpedoes and the biggest gun was a 20 millimeter, and you couldn’t kill flies with that. They did a good job.

How old were you? You were 17 or 18?

No I was 18. By the time I got out of there I had spent three years overseas. For the people who got a leave, it was the craziest thing. Let’s say you are going on leave, they give you a certain amount of money and you go wherever you want to go. The only place you could go was New Zealand or Australia, because we got our food and stuff from those places. So you would catch one of those boats to go to New Zealand or Australia and then you would have to catch a boat to get back. So, your leave wouldn’t start until you hit your destination, and it may take you six months to get to your destination. It was unbelievable.

These pictures remind me of McHale’s Navy. Wherever they were stationed, the nurses and soldiers were always entertaining themselves and having contests.

That’s the way it was. Really. I was a ships cook and let’s say you were going on patrol. The officer would give you a chit, and say go over and give it to Cass (nickname) and tell him to give us a nice piece of meat. I treated everybody the same. The person who was going out on patrol thought I was doing something special for them, but actually I treated everybody the same. I would take that piece of meat and cook it and they would go out on patrol at about 3:00 in the afternoon. They would go out and stay out and come back about in the morning at about 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning. So in the meantime whatever I cooked up the person would heat it up and make sandwiches and stuff like that. Usually I would cook up a nice piece of beef. I would have someone from the boat stay with me and I would cut it up. I knew the skipper of the boat anyway because they were all young guys. They always would say come out on the boat. I made one trip on the PT boat to pick up the mail, and I was scared shitless. These guys would come in and say my boat went this fast, but they were all nice guys.

So where was the kitchen where you were cooking? Was it on land or was it on a big ship?

No, I was on the base. We had all the modern conveniences. When I was helping the butcher, and we had hot cakes or French toast, everybody had to come on duty. We had a bunch of grills and we would put the batter for the hotcakes here, here, and here. It was a great job, and the fact that I was a cook was terrific. When the girls in the Philippines found out you were a cook, you could have anyone you wanted. You were a king.

So how many were on the base? How many did you cook for?

You know, it all depends, because the officers had their own mess. We would just cook for the crew. The officers had their own cooks. Everybody treated everybody the same, and it was a good time.

Was there ever any combat on the base?

The first base we were on had 45,000 Japs on the island. What happened was that we had these people in that place, and the Japanese didn’t try to get out because they would have encountered the Americans. They stayed in their own place. I remember one of our famous aviators was an ace. Well, this idiot was flying down and started opening up on them with a machine gun. He didn’t have any bombs. Somehow he got hit, and we got notice to go pick him up. The newspapers said that he was downed by a Japanese plane. He never got the plane off the ground. He got careless and he got hit by friendly fire. I called him up one day when the war was over, and he said don’t say nothing to nobody.

Was this the really nice part of the Philippines where you were?

Actually, that was the best part of the Philippines because they were the most educated people. The university was there, and all these girls went there for their nursing.

What was the name again?

Zamboanga. I was there a good period of time. I spent most of the time on this one island called [Emeru]. We were patrolling an area where there was 45,000 Japs.

Now is that on this map too?

Let me see. (Looking at map) See this one island called Polillo. We were near there. Funny, I can’t find Zamboanga. Oh, here it is. They were patrolling the North Sea.

Today Zamboanga is the worst place to be with a lot of criminals. The reason why I say that is where I live there is a church and they have a lot of car washes and all from that church. Anyway, I got to talk to some of them, and I told them I did some duty in Zamboanga. Today, Zamboanga is one of the highest crime areas in the Philippines.