- Collection:
- Veterans History Project: Oral History Interviews
- Title:
- Oral history interview of Geston D. Holland
- Creator:
- Marr, Christine
Holland, Geston D., 1916-2011 - Date of Original:
- 2003-10-08
- Subject:
- World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American
World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Pacific Ocean
World War, 1939-1945--Medical care
Atomic bomb
Truman, Harry S., 1884-1972
United States. Army. Engineer Boat and Shore Regiment, 542nd. Company C
Matson Navigation Company
LCM (Landing Craft, Mechanized) - Location:
- Philippines, Leyte Island, 10.95, 124.85
Philippines, Negros Island, 10.0206764, 122.977113156079
United States, Alabama, Calhoun County, 33.77143, -85.82603
United States, California, City and County of San Francisco, San Francisco, 37.77493, -122.41942
United States, Florida, Franklin County, Camp Gordon Johnston
United States, Florida, Franklin County, Carrabelle, 29.85326, -84.66435
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383 - Medium:
- video recordings (physical artifacts)
mini-dv - Type:
- MovingImage
- Format:
- video/quicktime
- Description:
- In this interview, Geston Holland recalls his history in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was drafted in 1943 and objected to serving in the Navy because he wanted to be with his friends. His training camp was in Florida, because the Army wanted to simulate conditions of battle in the Pacific. Holland describes it as being full of snakes, alligators, and mosquitoes. They trained day and night, including calisthenics, rifle training, crawling, and digging foxholes. He remembers that it was rough to leave his wife and child and ride in a boxcar to San Francisco. He discusses a trip across the Pacific in a Matson liner to Australia and finally New Guinea. He describes New Guinea as hot and rainy; they were warned not to bathe or wash their clothing in the water. He did it anyway and contracted jungle fever. After his recovery, he was made a coxswain on an LCM (Landing Craft, Mechanized). His duties were to pick up troops from the big boat and take them to shore along with ammunition and supplies. He reports that his was the first craft on the beach at Leyte Island. He describes the first day as one he doesn't like to think about much; Japanese planes came in swarms and his later duties were to pick up the dead and wounded and take them to the hospital ship. He recalls that night as being "as miserable a night as I've ever spent." Later, as he was training to invade Japan, the atomic bomb was dropped. He expressed his admiration for President Truman because he believes millions of lives were saved by his decision to use the bomb. Next, they were tasked to go to a small island because there were some Japanese who wanted to surrender. Instead, the Japanese fired on them, killing half the crew. He details the circumstances of the day, including the blood flowing in the ship, the heat and the terrible odor. He recalls that they traveled at night to avoid Japanese Zeroes, and that they used a compass to arrive at their planned destination. He remembers that the "bullets didn't sound too good" whizzing by his head. He had to live on bananas most of the time; they had been supplied with canned food from Australia and he wasn't able to keep it down. He would trade the canned food for bananas. They had no time off and would collect water in rain barrels on the ship for bathing. Mail from home took about two weeks to arrive. After the war ended, they congregated on Leyte Island waiting for transportation home; it took a week on an old freighter. He contracted pneumonia and spent a week in a hospital in Oakland (Calif.). He concludes the interview by stating that he has tried to forget a lot of memories, that "to have your buddy killed right beside you, it's rough."
Geston Holland was in the U.S. Army in the Pacific in World War II.
GESTON D. HOLLAND WWII Oral Histories October 8, 2003 Atlanta History Center Transcribed by Joyce Dumas [Tape 1, Side A] Interviewer: This is Christine Marr at the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta, Georgia, interviewing today Geston D. Holland on the eighth day of October, two thousand three. Mr. Holland, would you please introduce yourself and tell me where you were born and your birthday. Holland: I'm Geston David Holland. I was born near Dallas, Georgia. I was born June the twenty-sixth, nineteen and sixteen. I'm eighty-seven years old. Interviewer: Thank you. Can you tell me how you came to join the U.S. Army? Holland: I was drafted. Interviewer: In what year? Holland: Nineteen and…what was it? Forty-two or forty-three? Forty-two? Three? Nineteen forty-three. Interviewer: And once you were drafted what occurred? Holland: Well, when I was drafted I went to Addison, Alabama. I took my examination. They wanted me to go in the Navy, but I didn't want the Navy. I objected, which I was sorry of many times. Interviewer: Why did you prefer the Army? Holland: Well, because I had several friends in the Army and I thought we'd be in the same outfit, which we wasn't. But I was sent down to Caraville [phonetic], Florida. Did six weeks of training out in the swamps where the alligators, rattlesnakes and mosquitoes just absolutely tortured you to death. We had some deodorant, but it didn't faze them. Six weeks later, we came back. Interviewer: What was a training day like in Florida? What did you train to do? Holland: Trained to go to the Pacific where they wanted it as near like the same conditions after we got over there as we would have when we got there [sic]. Interviewer: Did you train for a specific function within the Army? Holland: Well, I guess I did. Interviewer: Could you provide some details on what a training day was like? Holland: A training day? Well, we done a little bit of everything. We almost trained night and day. They put us on guard duty. We did calisthenics. We would practice shooting with a rifle. Just a little bit of everything. Get out and crawled. Dig foxholes. Interviewer: How old were you at the time? Holland: I believe I was twenty-seven. Interviewer: And how did you feel at the time when you were going through this training knowing the war was coming up? Holland: Well, I felt like I was just wasn't no better going than nobody else [sic]. I wanted to serve my country, so I didn't dodge the draft. I went on. Of course, it was rough to leave a wife and a child. But I did it. So, we got that six weeks training. We were shipped on a old railroad boxcar to San Francisco, California, which took us a whole week. Then we were put on a [inaudible] liner, one of the fastest ships they had and sent to Australia. Well, we went from Australia to New Guinea, where the war was about over in New Guinea when I got there. Interviewer: What was it like when you arrived? Holland: In New Guinea? Well, that's just a terrible country. It just rained every day. Hot. Everything contaminated. They told us not to…whatever we do, not to wade or wash your clothes in the water there. But I thought they didn't know what they was talking about, so I go down and wash my clothes in a pretty little…looked like a clear creek and it gave me the jungle fever. So, as soon as I got up from that I was sent to the ship to the Philippine Islands, to invade the Philippine Islands. I was assigned to a boat. I was what they call a coxswain on the boat. I drove an LCM. Interviewer: What does LCM stand for? Holland: Well, it was a landing barge. We picked up the troops out of the big boat out to sea and carried them in to shore. And when we landed the troops, we also then carried in ammunition and supplies to them until they got a foothold, taken over. Then we move on and hit somewhere else. I was the first boat that hit the beach in Layte Island when the Philippines was invaded. Interviewer: Tell me more about that day. Holland: Ma'am? Interviewer: Tell me more about that day, please. Holland: That day? Well, that's a day I don't like to think about much. It was rough. There were many people killed because the Japs come out in swarms that night after we landed and killed a lot of our troops that we had landed there on the beach. Well, the first night then, I was assigned, my boat, to go in and pick up the dead and wounded off the beach, carry them back out to a hospital ship, which was out to sea a few miles. That was, I guess, as miserable a night as I've ever spent. But, we finally got everything taken over there. And then we went to several more islands and carried troops in, made landings, take them over. Well, we were training to go to Japan when they dropped the atomic bomb, ended the war. That was the happiest I ever was in my life and I've always admired and loved Truman for doing that cause that was gonna be a dangerous thing to land troops on Japan, on the [inaudible] beach. But we got a call from some little old island where they had a…was supposed to be a bunch of Japanese cut off, no supplies. Nobody lived in it. It was an uninhabited island. We got a call to come pick them up. They wanted to surrender. So my boat was assigned to go pick them up. We picked out a crew of about six, eight of us to go pick them up. Interviewer: Did your boat have a name? Was there a name? Holland: No, there wasn't no name. Just LCM landing craft. So, we went to pick them up. About fifty miles away from the base where we were. Interviewer: Do you know the name of that base? Holland: Of that? Interviewer: The base? Holland: Bay? Interviewer: The base where you were based out of? Holland: Oh, it was on Layte Island. Interviewer: Okay. Holland: Of course, I stayed on the boat all the time. I wasn't a…I was on the boat. Lived on the boat for two years. Interviewer: Okay. Holland: I wasn't a…just…if I went on the beach, it was just to pick up dead or wounded or something like that. Right back off. But my home was on that little old boat. But I was saying, we went to pick up them troops, prisoners. We got there, we pulled our boat in on the beach and they cut loose firing at us. Killed about half of our crew. Well, we backed off, but we done had about our crew dead. We had them on the boat. Put them in the bottom of our boat there and blood was flowing. And it was hot. Over a hundred degrees hot. Took us about two days to get back our base. And you talk about something, that was the worst odor that anybody could imagine. It's a dead human being out in the hot weather. That was one of the…I guess, one of the worst experiences that I had while I was over there. So I guess that about covers my activities over there. Interviewer: Well, where did you go after the Layte Island? Holland: Well, we to Nichols Island. We went to several of them islands, I didn't even know the name of them. We just got our orders to land troops such and such a place and they'd give us our readings to follow the compass. We usually traveled at night cause we were afraid to be out in there and the planes would bomb us, you know, if we were out in the ocean out in the daytime. So we traveled at night and they'd give us a reading with the compass and we'd have to follow that. And it'd carry us right to where we wanted to go. Interviewer: And why did you travel always at night? Holland: Always at night we traveled. Keep the planes from bombing us. The Japanese had them little old zero planes [sic] and they'd come down. It'd sound just like a bomber. Luckily, they never did hit our boat, but they hit some of the big boats. They'd go right down the smoke stack. Interviewer: And then after your work on Layte Island and Nichols Island, what came next? Holland: Well, as I say, several islands that we went on I don't even know the names of them. There's many islands over there. Interviewer: And you were…what were you doing at each of these islands? Holland: We'd carry troops into them from the…capture them, take them over. A lot of them, it wasn't much to it but some of them it was. It was rough on Layte. It was rough on Nichols Island. Some of… Interviewer: How was it rough? Holland: Well, you had the Japs a shooting at you. Just…and bullets didn't sound too good, whistling around your ears. Interviewer: What sort of food did you all eat there? Holland: Well, I had to live on bananas for most of the time because they give us that old Australian food, canned food. It was all we had on the boat. And that stuff wouldn't stay on my stomach. I'd eat it and right up it'd come. So I'd take a case of it in to the beach and swap it with some of them natives for a stalk of bananas and put them on the boat and that's what I'd mostly eat for nearly two years. Interviewer: And what about recreation? Did you all ever have any time off that you and your crew members… Holland: None whatsoever. Interviewer: No? Holland: We had a barrel out there on the boat. We caught rain water to bathe in. It's the only thing we had to bathe in. Barrels of water we caught rain water in. Interviewer: And I understand that you saw McArthur at some point? Holland: I what? Interviewer: Did you see General McArthur? Holland: Yes, I did. But it was out at sea about, oh, fifteen or twenty miles on the staff boat out there. And I went right up around him. I never did get on the boat with him but I've seen him standing out on the deck. He didn't get close in where the shooting was going on. Interviewer: What are some other vivid memories of your experience? Holland: Well, one of my experiences when we worked in New Guinea…they told us there were headhunters on the island. They said, “Don't go out anywhere away from the camp without carrying your rifle”. Well, I thought that was just a fairy tale. So I strayed off down there to a coconut grove. And one of the worst looking things I ever saw come up on me with a…and of course he couldn't talk English. It was some kind of jabbering with a big old long spear in his hand. And he took out after me. I've never run as hard in my life. I outrun him [sic] but it scared me to death. Whoa. Interviewer: Did you find out anything more about the indigenous people there while you were there? Holland: In New Guinea? There wasn't nothing there but, you know, natives there that couldn't speak English. They were terrible looking people. They said one of them lived to thirty-five years old. That was old. Their teeth rotted out while they were just children. It's a country I don't think no civilized person would want to live. Interviewer: And were you able to communicate while you were away with your wife or your family back at home? Holland: Well, none whatsoever except maybe we'd get mail from them. Maybe it took two weeks to get there. And we could write letters and carry it in and leave it on the shore. That was after we'd get a beach head made. There'd be times for several weeks that we had no way whatsoever of communicating. Couldn't write no letters or nothing. But when we'd get an island taken over, we could write some letters and we'd get a little mail once in a while. But we wasn't supposed to tell where we was [sic] or what we were doing. Cause it might give the enemy some information. Interviewer: Did you befriend anybody in particular that is important to you in your memories of World War Two? Holland: Well, there was several but they're practically all dead now, I reckon. I don't know another one of them that's living that was in my outfit. Interviewer: Were these men that you met at training camp or that you met later? Holland: Well, most…some of them was at training camp. We went all the way over there together, you know. That's one reason I ended up in that outfit because I didn't want to go in the Navy, I wanted to stay with my friends, people I met, knew. But… Interviewer: Who in particular? Could you give me some names/ Holland: Well, one of them was named J.H. Holland. Interviewer: A relation to you? Holland: No relation, just same name. But wasn't no relation. I can't remember the names. I'm very poor at that. Interviewer: That's okay. Holland: I did communicate with some of them a while after coming back home. But it soon played out. Interviewer: And…um…how…how often were you paid? Holland: How often we paid? Interviewer: Yep. Holland: Well, somewhere around once a month. I'd draw twelve dollars a month. Course, I had an allotment going back to my wife and child. That's where most of my money went to. But I'd actually draw twelve dollars a month. Interviewer: And when you returned home, tell me about when the war…after you were complete with your mission on the islands? What happened then? Holland: Which…when we started home? Interviewer: Yes. Or when you heard that the bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. What happened then? Holland: Well, we was uh…congregated on Layte Island and we was waiting on transportation to come in and pick us up, bring us back home. It was less than a month. They put us on an old freighter. And where it took me three days to go over there, it took a week to go back. And when we changed over climates, they supposedly gave us shots to keep us taking pneumonia, but I took pneumonia. And I come into Oakland, California. I had to be put in the hospital with pneumonia. So I had to stay there about a week or ten days before I could out to go home. And that was a miserable time. Interviewer: Did your wife know? Holland: Yes, she knew. Interviewer: What other memories do you have of your World War Two experience? Holland: Well, a lot of them I've tried to forget. [chuckles] It was a rough time. I had some bad experiences. When you have your buddy to get killed right beside of you, it's rough. So, it was a miserable experience to be…what I went through with it. I don't talk about it much. I don't like to think about it. So, I believe that's about all I have to say. Interviewer: Would you like to share those photos? That's a photo of you when you enlisted in the Army? Holland: Right. Interviewer: And would you like to show the next photo? Holland: Well, this is a group of the outfit that I went in. This was taken after our basic training was over. Interviewer: In Florida? Holland: In Florida. Caraville [phonetic], Florida. Interviewer: The medals that are on your uniform, would you care to tell me about those? Holland: Well, I never did go for medals. I was instructed to go down and receive several medals that I never did go get because so many of these soldiers never go to nothing but basic training. You go down to the commissary you can buy them, any kind you wanted and all kinds. And they just fill there uniforms full of them. So for that reason I just didn't want none. Interviewer: Is there anything you'd like to add to the story? Holland: I don't believe so. Interviewer: Thank you very much. Holland: Yes, ma'am. [end of tape] - Metadata URL:
- http://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/cdm/ref/collection/VHPohr/id/214
- Additional Rights Information:
- This material is protected by copyright law. (Title 17, U.S. Code) Permission for use must be cleared through the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Licensing agreement may be required.
- Extent:
- 23:14
- Original Collection:
- Veterans History Project oral history recordings
Veterans History Project collection, MSS 1010, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center - Contributing Institution:
- Atlanta History Center
- Rights:
-
