Memoirs
You know, life in Japan was really quite pleasant, and besides, I made contacts with many people
Dave Parker, as I mentioned, and Colonel [George] Bixby.
who showed up later in my
Colonel Milner, Hottenroth, of course, and Colonel Vandenberg and Don Eister were there.
Can you tell me a little more about the construction on Guam?
A ..
We had a
battalion at the time with us. Two battalions built that B-29 airfield, now
Anderson Air Force Base. That took the whole battalion, practically. We did a few odds and ends.
I put a road in up Mount Santa Rosa, which was quite an expedient engineering feat.
Q .. In what sense?
A .. There was a signal corps unit on top of this mountain. Because there was only a very circuitous
trail to get there, they wanted a new, straight road. I was given the job to build it. The problem
was how to get there. There were no maps of the trail, and adequate survey equipment could not
be taken from the airfield. So we devised a little system for drawing a map, which turned out
quite well. I used a plane table, a straight edge, a compass, and a soldier with a couple of
coconuts.
I would orient the plane table with the compass. This enlisted man would count the paces along
the line of sight until he had to turn. Then he would put down a coconut and yell out the number
of paces. I would then convert the paces to a distance and draw a line from the last point to his
new position. I would then realign the plane table over the next coconut and send him off again.
Finally, we got to the camp some 12 miles away. Then we connected point A where we started
and point B where we stopped with a straight line and took a final compass reading. I said, "Okay,
that's the line we're going to build this road on. Hope it comes out at the camp on the other end!"
And it did.
Later, the
my second battalion, started another field called Northwest Field. It was never
finished.
I was still in Guam when the war ended. All the B-29s and P-38s and everything else were
dancing around up in the sky, buzzing the airstrip, and other celebration antics.
Q .. What was the climate like on Guam?
A .. It was nice weather, except when the typhoons came through, and the frogs. There were frogs all
over. Of course, the jungle was just full of frogs and rats. You knock down the jungle and all
these things run out. Lizards also.
I never saw so many rats in my life as in that jungle. Deer also. The frogs would come out at night
onto the warm asphalt roads. You couldn't miss them because there were so many. Guam was a
pretty decent place once the war ended. You know, Guam is where Japanese soldiers kept turning
up in the jungle years and years later.
Q .. What would you say was the greatest engineering challenge in constructing North Field?
A .. Well, of course, we built on coral, and I recall excavation by blasting as the toughest on
equipment and men. The coral made a good, solid base. We also had problems acquiring grade
and aggregates for asphalt plants.
Q .. Was Northwest Field-which the second battalion built-very close by?
A .. It wasn't far away. I'd say five to ten miles from North Field.
Q .. That commendation from Casey, about when was that?
A
I don't want to make too much out of it.
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