World War Two Diary

Getting home was the next battle.

Editor’s Note

In honor of Pearl Harbor Day, I have decided to go slightly outside our normal publishing parameters and add this article to our November issue. It took months of research and interviews to tell one of the forgotten stories of World War Two. I hope you enjoy.

After nearly 70 years stored in an attic the wartime diary of Donald Schober was uncovered along with a cache of photos and letters from the era. The diary tells the remarkable story of the men who went to Truk Atoll in the days after the war ended.  It is the tale of a group of men who needed to complete one of the last jobs in the Pacific Campaign all the while wanting desperately to go home and begin their lives. 

Truk Atoll, November 1945

Eighteen-year-old seaman third class Donald Schober stood on the heaving deck and could not figure out what he saw in front of him.

His Landing Ship Tank (LST) churned the water and ground its way from Samar to Truk Atoll through a southern Pacific storm.  Rain poured out of a steel gray mist and the rolling sea slapped the hull with bone rattling waves that knocked the crew and anything else not lashed down bouncing around the 328-foot-long amphibious craft.

Through the heavy cloud cover and pelting rain he could see the massive dark green shape of Moen Island in the Truk Atoll.  He was puzzled. No matter how long he squinted or stared through the storm he still could not figure out what he was seeing.  He saw an extensive network of irregular white lines that stretched across the mountainous terrain of the island. The thin distant streaks reminded him of something he had seen while steaming under the Golden Gate Bridge, in that case what he saw were the distant streets of San Francisco.

Finally, after a few minutes of staring and wondering the curtains of rain and heavy mist hid Moen and left him puzzled and was for a time still a mystery.

In the next few hours, the storm died and the clouds finally cleared as ship crawled toward its landing spot. The next things he could make out were very close to shore. Downed Japanese warplanes, barely recognizable, were lying on the ground in shattered, burned metal heaps.

In the lagoon he could see other planes that had augured in.  Nothing but the tail sections of those fighters, sticking straight up out of the shallow warm water, remained.

Through the heavily palmed foliage the men on the LST and LCIs could also see dozens of bombed out buildings or ragged craters where a building should have been. All signatures of a battle zone.

Then the ship stopped and hit land and all at once the first mystery of the day was solved. Now close enough to see them clearly the true identity of what these curious lines were dawned on him. He realized that what he was looking at were the terraced gardens that had been created by the Japanese that had until recently held the island.  The contrast between the beauty of the gardens against the bleakness of the battleground immediately struck him.

Those gardens overlooked a landscape of destruction brought on by a sea and air battle that had raged for days and then, as quickly as it had arrived, was gone.  The fight was over leaving behind a civilian waiting for liberation and defeated soldiers wondering about their fate.

That night, November 28th, 1945, he scribbled the first lines in his diary to describe what he saw.

“We made it through the reefs early this morning.  The islands are small. This place has been bombed to Hell.”

At first glance and after an equally rough crossing Samuel Florman, an engineer with the 29th Seabees, thought that the only thing missing from the scene was gorgeous actress Hedy Lamar in a sarong. “It was like something out of a Hollywood movie,” referencing the long sandy beaches, thick palm trees, and tropical foliage.

Then he saw the damage that had been done to the facilities. “The concrete bunkers had been smashed and the airstrip had been bombed to rubble.” The structures on the island had been roughed up badly.  This was a stunning turnaround for a fortress that had been a major Japanese naval anchorage.   

 An Island Fortress                               

Early in the war any attack on Truk Atoll had been considered a suicide mission. It was well staffed and armed with battleships, heavy cruisers, and aircraft carriers. But, by late 1944 the command staff of the Imperial Japanese 4th Fleet knew they were losing in the Pacific.  They were staggered by allied sea air and land victories and pulled out their heavy combat ships as well as significant aircraft in an effort to consolidate their forces. 

Just twenty-four months after being perceived as impenetrable. The defenders of Truk were outnumbered, outgunned, and on their own.  Worse yet, they knew a battle was on the horizon.   

United States Naval Task Force 58 was assigned the job of eliminating any existing threat left by the Japanese anchorage at Truk. That task force included the carriers Essex, Intrepid, Yorktown, Enterprise, and Bunker Hill. The battle group steamed south and attacked on February 16th, 1944.  For two days, carrier-based aircraft hammered the island defenses and bombed them into combat ineffectiveness. 

Not only were the airfields and military infrastructure smoldering ruins but the hulls of dozens of combat and merchant transport ships, including the light cruiser Katori and the auxiliary cruiser Akagi Maru lay at the bottom of the lagoon. The Akagi’s 788-man crew had the luckless fate to be rescued only then to perish when their rescuer the Katori was sunk by the guns of the battleship Iowa.

According to an account of the battle written by Lieutenant James D. Ramage fifty years after the engagement, it was clear that after two waves of attacks   that the task force had done its job. His assessment was the same as his commanding officer Rear Admiral Reeves who said, "I think we have run into the law of diminishing returns," and then cancelled the remaining raids with the exceptions of combat air patrol and sea-air rescue.

Upon the conclusion of the raids Truk was then bypassed and the 49,000 military men and 9,000 civilians were left to survive on their own until the atoll was formally surrendered to the United States on the decks of the U.S.S Portland on September 2, 1945. 

The day of the surrender of Japan was a Sunday. Schober started the day as he did every Sunday by going to church and then settled in after lunch to read a book.

“Went to church this morning and then received a communication. The peace terms were signed today aboard the battleship Missouri. Read a book “Dr. Killdare” and went to see a movie tonight.”   

Base Chaplin Charles Lindquist, who had once joked that God had stuck him on an island surrounded by men who were only interested in beer and the native women must have been pleased that in the diary Schober mentions going to church before the surrender.

In the days after the surrender the diary mentions possible locations of their next deployment including Japan and China. One particularly optimistic officer, Lieutenant Shapiro, even suggests that it is likely that the whole battalion will be home by November.

A November homecoming and a Christmas with family was not to be. Rather than Japan or China or home the 29th naval construction battalion would be heading to a small bombed out tropical atoll.   

Schober’s entry on December 25th, 1945, reflects the contrast between having a good meal and the recognition that they were still far from home.

“Slept until 8am. Went to church, received communion at 10am. Had a fairly good dinner turkey, ice cream, etc. and even went to a show. Hope Dad had a wonderful Christmas.”

The story of the men in charge of the mission begins over a year earlier in Endicott, Connecticut. At that time, the 29th was between deployments and training new recruits.  After a strong first deployment the battalion was a mix of experienced veteran volunteer civilian construction men and drafted recruits. After six weeks of training at Camp Endicott in Connecticut the entire battalion was herded onto a train for a bumpy weeklong trip to Port Hueneme, California. 

Once in California few knew of the ultimate destination.  The official history of the 29th naval construction battalion notes that on the 27th of January 1945 the men of the battalion, “loaded onto the USS Sea Scamp and the 29th CB, 95 CB, and CBMU 621 departed from Port Hueneme, California for an unknown destination.”

Over a thousand men and officers had crammed on the Liberty ship for a month long journey through an active war zone with no idea where they were going.  

As Schober remembers it “It was not a feeling of being afraid.  It was exciting because we did not know where we were going. We were kids. We were in a group and our group got a command and we did it.  No one tells you where you are going you just go.  War was going on lickity split.” 

The first stop for the group was Samar in the Philippines for a ten-month deployment.

 Then the battalion moved to Truk Atoll. According to the History of Yards and Docks and the Civil Engineering Corps, “at Truk Atoll, the 29th Construction Battalion took over details at the end of November and arrived at Moen eight days later. At Moen, they built an airstrip, ramps for LST's, and all the buildings and roads necessary to maintain such activities. Part of the battalion moved to the island of Truk to carry on construction and repair work.” The dry lifeless bureaucratic language of the history leaves any reader unaware of the actual magnitude, in human terms, of the task that was completed.    The once impregnable Japanese fortress of the 4th Fleet was now an American occupied island.  It needed to be transformed into a working American military base.

Admiral Reeves decision to halt the raids could have saved the naval construction battalion some headaches. It was not to be, with the exception of the four airstrips, everything from fuel dumps, to wells, to hospitals would be built from the ground up. All remaining Japanese buildings and ground works would be raised.  

 The psychological impact here cannot be overstated. After the Philippine deployment many thought that they would stay put or even head home since the war was over.  Now they would be deployed again, and they were assigned even further from the United States.

The Seabee Way

It turns out that the Seabees were the right unit for the job. The Seabees had a blueprint for success that had been used on all across the Pacific Theater for just such a task.   Experienced construction workers and foremen were matched up with younger draftees that had demonstrated technical aptitude.  One Seabee remembered how it worked. “The old guys could eat and sleep plumbing. We didn’t know nothing. My first day on the detail I was asked to go get a four inch flange and did not even know what that was. They showed us and took the time to teach us.  We appreciated it because they really respected us.”

This blueprint would be challenged by the geography and the timing of the operations.  In the fall of 1945 and spring of 1946 the Navy was demobilizing men quickly and sending them home.   The men that went home first were the men with the highest number of points. At one point the 29th was divided into two groups one with more than 40 points and one with less. With the men above 40 points went their experience. 

The History of the Yards and Docks indicates the scale of the change in numbers. “In the nine months between August 1945 and May 1946, the number of construction battalions overseas dropped from 122 to 15. The total number of officers overseas dropped from 6,033 to 431; enlisted men, from 194,334 to 13,032.”

The task of the battalion was to put the former Japanese fleet anchorage back into working order regardless of staffing or material problems.  Upon arrival the first task that needed attending was set up a camp. Aside from tents, mess equipment, and immediate rough framing of buildings there were more routine jobs. These included setting up water tanks, plumbing, and digging trenches for piping.

Complicating things even further was the lack of tools.  Shortly after disembarking from the LST and moving into camp the first priority of the men was to stage the worksites and that meant organizing tools and materials. Unfortunately, those tools and materials were in as short supply as men.

Schober mentions the challenge a January 5, 1946, entry.

“We are eating C-Rations. Spent all day looking for plumbing tools. Got four batteries from the compound. “  

Once the tools and materials were located there was still the big problem of manpower. There was help to come and it came from an unexpected place.  Captured Japanese soldiers were in integral part of the mission. These men were assigned to the Seabees as manual labor.  Both Schober and Florman worked extensively with the former soldiers.

It became immediately apparent to both Schober and Florman that language was a serious barrier.  “We did not know how to speak to each other. No way of getting across what we wanted. We tried a couple of things but after a time we learned to use hand signals to communicate what we wanted and it worked out pretty good,” said Schober.  However, more than just simple tasks were communicated between them. Often even subtle things such as rank and command could be figured out by actions rather than words.

In his Jan 12, 1946 he describes that phenomenon.  

“Had the Japanese tighten the bolts on the roof of the water tank and then had them do the same for the second tank. One of them asked me if I was the “master.”  I guess they saw that I was in charge.” 

Later in reflection Schober noted that he thought that “they were not much different from us. They were a bunch of guys that just wanted to go home and get on with their life.”

Some of the tasks that were assigned to the battalion had nothing to do with construction, but their unique skill set allowed them to complete tasks others could not. However, inexperience and lack of training did not always allow them to get things done on the first attempt.

Florman remembers one assignment was particularly important, preparing a Japanese plane for transport back to the United States.  He happened to be walking by the operation when disaster struck. It was a windy day a nearly intact “Zero” Mitsubishi A6M was being prepared to be lifted up by a crane and moved. Unfortunately, crane operator was new and inexperienced. Those two traits of the operator borne of the shrinking of the battalion led to disaster.  As the plane was hoisted up the wind picked up and the Zero began to spin tangling the cables and changing the center of gravity. The crane heaved over and collapsed. As the crane swooned in a smooth arc to the ground the young operator jumped to safety. The plane did not have the same luck. It crashed to the ground in a crumpled mass of metal.

That airplane was a total loss and no longer had value to the military. After some searching another A6M was found and shipped back to the United States. With the job completed Florman though he had seen the last of the plane.

The story did not end there. Florman said, “Some years ago I was contacted by a volunteer working for the Paul Allen Museum collection of Flying Heritage Collection of fighter planes in Seattle.  The volunteer somehow found me, and I was able to identify the plane and send some photos.” In the end, the replacement plane was partially restored and on display in Seattle.   

 A Giant Job and Down Time       

The airstrips were a complicated task. Building the runways required an enormous amount of stone. That proved a problem at the beginning of the building process because not enough was available. That problem was solved in a way that is inconceivable today, the engineers of the 29th literally moved a mountain.

Pictures from the island show massive cranes carving off the top of a ridge off and then and dropping the stone into the ocean to extend the runway. The runways needed to be long enough to accommodate the B-29.  It took five months to complete but by April 1946 the runways were open for business and Schober was there to see it. On April 19, 1946 he wrote:

“I left the job early and went down to the airstrip to watch the first official plane land on the runway (a Ventura Bomber). The edges of the runway was just lined with guys.” 

Despite the size of the project every man had days off and each man also worked a shift. So, there were chunks of downtime each day. Earlier, when the 29th was stationed in the Philippines the war was still raging.  Those days off in the Philippines then included the possibility of a horrific prolonged death as men routinely were invited or snuck onto bombers doing runs on Japanese held positions.

“On Sundays we would be asked to go along,” said Schober, “I thought about it but never did. I had friends that did. But I did not need that kind of excitement.”

On Truk Atoll there was a different kind of excitement.  After Mass on Sunday mornings the men of the 29th did the usual actives.  At this point of the war first run movies such as Janie (1944), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), and Laura (1945) often were on Pacific Island bases less than three months from a stateside release date. That was faster than Netflix delivers streaming video seventy years later.

The movies were welcome and a regular leisure time activity throughout the armed services. All through the navy movies were traded between ships and passed around the fleet. It was part of the routine. Movies were shown in the rain, scorching heat, and even in the middle of the punishing storm encountered during their journey to Truk from Samar. Flormann remembered one ill-fated attempt, “it was comical we when we tried to show movies at night.  We had a screen set up in the front and the movie would go high in the air (as the ship lurched through mountainous waves) of the storm and then drop as the ship bottomed out.” Still men attempted to see new films as they made it to the ship.  

They also explored the island.  The caves around Truk had been built into significant fighting positions.  Now that those positions were abandoned, they were magnets for souvenir hunters looking to send trophies back home. The positions were in deep caves with Arisaka rifles, whose receivers were crested with the imperial chrysanthemum as a reminder of who they fought for, were lined up in rocks on the walls. Next to each rifle was a sword.  The sword would only be used when the ammunition ran out and there were no other options.

Larger artillery guns were on tracks and the Japanese could roll both the artillery and shells into position when needed. The success of the air raids and the momentum of the battles of the Pacific drove the war away from Truk.

 Few of these positions were ever used in combat. The weapons stood at the ready in the dim caves. Most were taken by the jungle rather than platoon sized American units. Some were to be found by the casually interested serviceman looking to send home a memento of their time overseas.  Others were abandoned and never seen again. It is likely that they would have more archeological than military value as they sat in mute testament to a land battle that never happened.     

Going Home

As early as September 1945 the men on were beginning to wonder in earnest about when they were going home.  The point system had been established and it was understood.  By the time January 1946 rolled around getting home was one of the most regular topics of conversation. On February 26th 1946 those conversations went from theoretical to reality. In his diary entry that night his words reflect the mood of the unit.

“After 15 months overseas `Tex’ went home on points today. Few on the team felt like working. I have 22 ¾ points.”

That short four-line entry in Schober’s diary reflects the two emotions felt by members of the service at that moment. They are joyful for the man going home. Then the realization that they are down a friend and experienced worker sets in. The even worse feeling is the one that comes at night knowing they are still waiting  

By late June 1946 the delirious parades celebrating the end of the Second World War had been over for almost a year.  Despite the end of the war men, were still in theater.  Getting home was a slow complicated process based on a system of points. There were lifelines though. Letters to and from home were as strong as a connection after VJ Day as they were during the war.

Schober had a specific purpose for his. “I was trying to convey to my father, who was worried sick, what we are doing so he would not be worried.” But no amount of letter writing could prepare the young noncommissioned officer for the final cost of the war on his single father.

“I wanted to surprise my father, so I did not send word exactly when I was going to be home.” He got off his ship San Francisco and took a train across the country. Upon returning to Buffalo, New York he took a bus to his east side neighborhood and walked down his street the in the late afternoon.  He was stopped cold by a sight just a few steps away from his destination.  His attention was grabbed by a light in his kitchen window.  “There was my dad sitting alone at the kitchen table eating by himself. And I was really struck by that, and I thought how many times over the last couple of years that he sat all alone easting his meals. It must have been terrible.  I felt really bad about that because my brother and I were gone oversees. We wanted to get home and get on with our lives. Now I could see all at once what it was like for him. “

The long deployment for the men of the 29th Naval Construction Battalion was over.  For men like Donald Schober, Sam Florman and hundreds of thousands that served it was a time to look to the future and away from Truk and the experiences of war.