Don Huebner ONE MARINES ADVENTURES IN WWII
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Pearl Harbor As supportive income we mowed lawns in our area for twenty five cents, carrying newspaper routes and any other odd jobs to help feed our family, usually on about five dollars a week. We had normal house keeping chores as well, washing dishes, tending a small garden and so on. World War Two crept up on us slowly like a distant line of dark clouds heading our way inexorably. We felt it meant that we all would have to join the military eventually. |
 Don Heubner 1940(?) His first store bought suit, not a hand-me-down. paid it out at 50 cents a week at Stiens |
As Pearl Harbor blasted its way into prominence as the 'Day of Infamy' we were not really surprised but very angry at the enemy attack without warning. Fresh out of high school I was working for the Western Electric company doing simple wiring procedures installing a new telephone exchange in Aldine, a Houston suburb.
On this memorable Sunday noon we were sitting in our cars around the new office, eating bag lunches and listening to the music of Glenn Miller when it was interrupted with news of the sneak attack...in Pearl Harbor... where ever that was.
This shocking news immediately changed our youthful direction and many went off to join the service, including my older brother who joined the air corps. I was under age to join without parental consent and it took many months to con my mother into signing a release for me. She was not thrilled about my desire to join the Marine Corps!
I grew up as an introverted loner always hearing the beat of a distant drummer and had no desire to meld into the masses of wall to wall khaki uniforms parading down Fifth Avenue. I felt the numerically smaller Marine Corps may allow some degree of individualism.
After the first eleven months of demoralizing defeats and setbacks of the Pacific war a November issue of Life magazine featured a two page spread aerial photograph of Guadalcanal. From high above the photo was most impressive as it revealed massed ships unloading Japanese troops on the far right and our few supply ships on the far left. We knew the beleaguered Marines were somewhere in the middle.
My mother finally gave in and went with me to a notary public to sign the release for my entry into the Marines. As she stood with pen poised over the paper she said, "I'm signing your death warrant, you know!" Just sign the paper, Mom! About a year or so later when a bullet whined close by I heard words come back to me vividly and I lowered my head more than necessary.
I joined the Corps on November eleventh 1942 and was off to boot camp soon after. Through boots and on into advanced training we formed up replacement battalions to be sent overseas.
The Guadalcanal veterans were recuperating from their ordeal in Australia around Melbourne and were sorely in need of new men to fill their depleted ranks.
My unit was called the ninth replacement battalion and we boarded a converted luxury liner, the Mount Vernon, at San Diego where we soon got under way alone...no convoy for mutual support. Land based aircraft herded us out beyond potential submarine danger area in coastal shipping lanes and then wagged wings to depart and leave us alone on that vast Pacific Ocean.
To us 'flat land touristers' this endless vista of water was mind boggling....not a tree in sight! Strange sensation. Our human cargo numbered about 7,000 military personnel of all branches of the services. Feeding this mass of humanity was a full time job and we spent most of our time lined up in chow lines for as one meal ended it was time to get in line for the next one.
Bathing was a miserable experience since only salt water was available for the masses and it does not lather and shampooing was a gummy glob that would not rinse out. As we neared the equator it began to get miserably hot and humid below in our assigned quarters so many of us slept topside. During the hot daylight hours the decks were swarming with sweaty men elbow to elbow.
We had noticed that there were a dozen or so nurses up on the promenade deck and we snickered at the cluster of officers posturing and posing among the females.
One miserably hot day we all watched a storm front moving our way directly in our path. As it grew near rain was visible under the dark clouds. Inspired, several hundred men ran down below and stripped to return naked on deck with soap and shampoo. They all leaned toward the coming rain apprehensively and we heard feminine giggles from the upper decks. The ship plowed into the wall of heavy rain and the men scrubbed furiously working up thick lathers on hair and body in the super soft rain water.
At mid bath the ship pushed ahead on out of the rain cloud and into instant bright tropical sunlight leaving clear blue sky ahead. The upper deck giggles tumbled into howls of laughter as the men slipping and sliding back down the wet stairs to go below and rinse off in that obnoxious salt-water shower.
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