Oral History Interview with William H. Gentry, October 25, 1988

JRH: This is Russell Harris of the Kentucky Historical Society. This is October 25, 1988, and I'm in Frankfort, Kentucky, talking by phone to William H. Gentry in Lakeland, Florida. Mr. Gentry, is it all right with you if we tape record this conversation and the tape be used by historians and scholars later on?

Gentry: Yes sir. You have my permission.

JRH: All right. Fine. That was a little legal mumbo-jumbo I have to go through. I'd like to go first back to the 1930's in Harrodsburg. 1:00Could you give me some idea of the reasons you joined the National Guard in the first place?

Gentry: Well, I always liked history when I was going to school and was always patriotic when I was a boy. I thought we had a great country. I joined when I was · in high school because I thought that was something I should do out of patriotism and, being a good student of history, I felt we were due for a war, that war was coming and, if it did come, I wanted to do my part. That's about the size of it, I guess.

JRH: How old were you when you joined?

Gentry: Eighteen. I was nineteen when I graduated from high school. When I was old enough to go to school, there was no seat for me, so I had to wait a year to start.

JRH: That was in 1936?

Gentry: Yeah, Guard I have the exact date I here someplace 2:00... Anyway, joined the National, it was 21st December 1936. I think it was on one of those pieces of paper I sent to Col. Kelly.

JRH: I believe I've read that.

Gentry: Yeah, here it is. I enlisted the 21st of December 1936. I was a junior in high school.

JRH: Were most of the man in the tank company about the same age?

Gentry: We had some that were quite a bit older, 3:00and they didn't allow them to go overseas. They were transferred out to other units at Camp Polk, because of their age.

JRH: Bacon Moore was one of those, wasn't he?

Gentry: Colonel Moore, Horace Cull, Davis Gritton (the battalion adjutant). Horace Cull was in headquarters company. Claude Gritton was another one. I'd have to look back to be sure, but there were quite a few that were not allowed to go because of their age.

JRH: Were the officers in this tank company businessmen or farmers or what?

Gentry: Well, they were businessmen, farmers, yes. Davis Gritton was an interior decorator. Colonel Moore was a lawyer. 4:00Horace Cull's father was in the lumber business. He later ran the lumber yard after his father passed away. They were all businesspeople or farmers, yes.

JRH: They were all pretty well-established citizens?

Gentry: Yes.

JRH: How did the townspeople treat the Guardsmen? Did they think they were silly or respect them?

Gentry: Well, when we would be drilling (Normally, 5:00we would drill on the street behind the courthouse. It was big, wide street and we would do our close-order drill there at night--also on Broadway, and on Main Street.) People going by would call us tin soldiers, boy scouts, silly boys, all kind of names--some good, some bad. We got lots of catcalls, I guess you'd call them.

JRH: Did you drill once a week?

Gentry: Yes, once a week.

JRH: For how many hours?

Gentry: For two hours.

JRH: At night?

Gentry: At night, yes. Occasionally, we'd be there on Saturday. We'd go to different towns for parades, and, of course, the strike duty and the flood duty and all the other things. We had quite a few other things 6:00going on other than just the night drills.

JRH: How much did they pay you?

Gentry: A dollar a night per private.

'JRH: That was a lot of money during the Depression.

Gentry: Yes, it was. At that time, you'd work all day hard in the field and you'd only get a dollar, a dollar and a half and for two hours drill you'd get a dollar. Going on an hour basis, that was much better than we were doing.

JRH: I guess that a big motive for a lot of the men who joined.

Gentry: Yes, it was. 7:00JRH: Was Harrodsburg in pretty bad shape during the Depression?

Gentry: People who lived in town had a hard time. People who live out on the farm didn’t because we raised our own food. Of course, when the banks were closed, we bartered for salt, pepper, sugar, things we couldn't grow. On our farm, for instance, we raised enough wheat that we could take care of all our families. We had at one time 8:00four families that lived on our farm. We put wheat for flour in the mill for our farm families. We killed twenty-five to thirty hogs a year. We'd have meat and lard.

Gentry: (We'd use lard especially to make the biscuits out of.) They'd can meat from the hogs and what not. No, we fared very well. We had to barter for clothes and things like that when the banks were closed. The banks were closed for about a year during the Depression.

JRH: But your farm was more or less self-sufficient?

Gentry: Yes. If you wanted some mutton, you killed a lamb. If you wanted some pork, you killed some hogs. If you wanted some beef, you killed a beef. If you sold the animals, you couldn't get much for them. In fact, one time we spent days digging ditches and killing hogs and putting them in the ditches for the government. 9:00JRH: Yes, I've read about that. That must have been hard to do.

Gentry: Yes, well, it was. But this was what they determined. The government destroyed tobacco and other crops, too. But people in the cities were starving.

JRH: Were people in Harrodsburg in those straits?

Gentry: No, I don't think so. For instance, our relatives who lived in town during that period of time could always count on us for food. We would always give them corn, corn meal, flour. My grandfather and grandmother lived in town. We always made sure that they had plenty to eat. That pretty much went for most anybody because anybody who lived in town had relatives that lived on farms. And we could take care of our own. I don't remember anybody being in dire straits in Harrodsburg during the Depression for food. Now they might have been a little short on clothes and things like that.

JRH: So, the whole community 10:00sort of pulled together during the Depression?

Gentry: Right. Well, they always pulled together pretty much on everything, even including politics (They were all Democrats.). A Republican had no need to run.

JRH: Do you know off-hand of anyone else who lived through that time in Harrodsburg that I could talk to about what life was like there at that time?

Gentry: Well, I think you've probably talked with most all of them, haven't you?

JRH: I've talked with the National Guardsmen, but I meant civilians or anybody who happened to be alive there at that time.

Gentry: I've been away from Harrodsburg so long; I don't know who's dead and who's alive. But I think any of the older men in town ... You could almost go on the street and stop one and talk to him. 11:00They could tell you about it. Of course, the people in Harrodsburg never knew the plight of the people in Chicago or New York City other than what they read in the paper. And there were various places in the United States that never knew the Depression was going on. El Paso, Texas, was one of them. Only thing they every knew about the Depression was what they read in the paper.

JRH: Why was that true in El Paso?

Gentry: Right at the start of the Depression, El Paso was starting to develop and due to the impetus of development, they went right on though the Depression and never knew it happened.

JRH: Oh, I see. There were spots across the country that weren't hit nearly as hard as others.

Gentry: That's right. Farm communities weren't hit as bad as others. Now, we did have trouble 12:00like making the payment on the farm. But we were able to survive it. You couldn't sell enough to hardly get enough money to make a payment, a down payment on the farm. Of course, you made only one payment a year on the farm. I can remember just one year when we couldn't make a payment. The bank said they already had so many farms they wouldn't foreclose, because our farm was up in good shape, and we were taking care of it. They just gave us a written-up receipt for another year. But that only happened to us one time.

JRH: Did a lot of your neighbors lose their farms?

Gentry: Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. In fact, during the Depression, we were able to buy a 2OO-acre farm for four thousand dollars 13:00that had been foreclosed and taken over by the bank and the indebtedness that the bank had o it was four thousand dollars, and we were able to take it over for that amount of money.

JRH: That's quite a price. You mentioned earlier the strike duty the unit had. Do you recall much about that episode in Harlan County?

Gentry: Oh, yes, I was up there. How do you mean?

JRH: What caused the strike?

Gentry: John L. Lewis called a coal mine strike for wages. And some of the non-union mines 14:00up there wanted to work and the union miners wanted to kill them. And all we were going there was to keep the peace, to try to keep them from killing each other.

JRH: From what I've read of that period, it seems that while the Guard was there, the violence stopped, but when the Guard left, it resumed.

Gentry: I think it did, to a certain extent. Happy Chandler was governor then, and he sent us up there and he told us to shoot and shoot to kill and holler "halt" second. That was our orders--don't take any guff and if you have to, use your gun.

JRH: You were there to protect the mine itself or the non-union miners, or what?

Gentry: In 15:00some places we escorted the non-union miners to work. We'd take them work, put them in the mine, and go back in the afternoon and escort them back to their house.

JRH: All the way to the house?

Gentry: Oh, yes.

JRH: Must have been some really dangerous times, there.

Gentry: Oh, they were. Yes, indeed. In fact, 16:00if you'll check with the people at Olive Hill, you'll find that the National Guard unit from Olive Hill had a pitched battle with the miners in the street. If my memory serves me about seventy-five miners got killed and quite a few Guardsmen got killed in that fracas. In fact, the company commander from Olive Hill was shot and almost died. I think the bullet went through his liver or something. I think he eventually pulled through, but they jumped on the wrong boys when they jumped on the ones from Olive Hill. They were just as tough as the boys from Harlan County. But we were there to keep the peace. That was our main job.

JRH: How long were you there?

Gentry: About six months. I wasn’t because I was in high school. I went up initially. 17:00After a week Colonel Moore said for everybody that was in school to go back and go to school. So, we went back and as soon as school was out, we went back up there in May. We were there for about a month, I was, for about a month or two longer. But many of the fellows were there for the whole length of time.

JRH: What happened after the Guard pulled out?

Gentry: Of course, the violence picked up again. Those people had violence before the strike. I guess they're still violent people, even today. There were some figures kicked around, or talked about, when we were up there on strike duty, that Harlan County, Kentucky, had a higher murder rate, or death rate, or shooting, than Chicago, 18:00Illinois. I don't know, but that was something that was always talked about.

JRH: Moving on, do you remember back in Harrodsburg the Founders Day celebrations? I guess the Guard had a parade or something. That was always in June, wasn't it?

Gentry: Normally, I think so, yes. Someplace I have some information 19:00on it, but I don't have it handy.

JRH: Do you recall anything about the last one before you were shipped to Fort Knox?

Gentry: No, not off hand.

JRH: Well, I read somewhere that in June of '41 the Guard unit held a display and encampment near the Old Fort. I just wondered if you had any memories of that at all.

Gentry: You're not thinking about the time we made a road march out of Fort Knox to Harrodsburg, and we camped at the fairgrounds? That was after we went ·on active duty. I don't think that had anything to do with the annual affair.

JRH: It might have been. It was in June of '41. You were on active duty by then.

Gentry: Yes, I can tell you about that one, because 20:00I was battalion communications officer by then and it was _my duty to pick out the bivouac area. Colonel Moore wanted to make a road march for practice. Since we had all these fellows from outside of Kentucky, we decided to show them central Kentucky. I thought we could get the fairgrounds, so I made arrangements so we could stay at the fairgrounds. We invited all the public out to see what equipment we had and see our unit and talk to the fellows and what not. 21:00And then we went over to Herrington Lake and bivouacked at what later became Darnell Hospital. At that time the state owned that property there and had a penal farm there. I went over there and talked to the fellow about bivouacking there and he said, "Oh, no." I said, "Don't you have a direct line to Frankfort?" He said, "Yes." I said, "How about me using it?" He said, "Why?" I said, "I want to talk to the governor : " And so I called and talked to Governor Chandler, and he listened to what I had to say. He gave us authorization to stay there. In fact, he had trucks bring water for us to have to wash and drink. And we stayed on 22:00that Darnell property about three days. And the fellows all had a good time up and down the lake and what not. Yes, I remember all about that. I organized it.

JRH: Yes, I guess you would remember all about that. think that was the last time your unit had a public function in Harrodsburg.

Gentry: Yes, I'm pretty sure of that. We also went on down to the Lincoln Memorial in Hodgenville. We also camped 23:00in Bardstown on that same trip.

JRH: Was that trip for public relations or what?

Gentry: No, just a road march to give the men some training in taking the tanks and vehicles on a long road march. Of course, we did a lot of that.

JRH: I apologize for skipping around so much, but there are some gaps in the information that I need. If we could skip to combat in the Philippines, I'd like 24:00some more information about the delaying actions you fought on the way to Bataan. There's a whole list of little hamlets and villages these actions took place at. What I need to know is whether there was any substantial difference in these actions or whether they were all pretty much the same. At Rosario, Sison, and Pozzorubio, Asaygnan, Tayac, Bongabon, Cabanatuan--do any of those stand out as particularly unusual or elaborate operations?

Gentry: Well, 25:00I joined C Company at Rosario. I had been battalion communications officer and we had lost a company commander at Rosario in C Company, so I was sent forward to join C Company to help Lieutenant Harold Collins. The first encounter after I joined C Company was at Pozzorubio. We were in support of the 26th Cavalry. The colonel of the 26th Cavalry thought the war should be fought on horses, and the Japanese were just cutting him apart with their tanks and what not. Now the Japanese had two regiments of medium tanks in there and they sent them down 26:00the east side. So, what we had in Company C was we had 90 percent of Homma's army chasing us, and we were trying to hold them back with one little tank company and the 26th Cavalry. now, we stayed with the 26th Cavalry until San Jose, and then they cut off in another direction, and we were up there all by ourselves. We had twenty-six miles of front and nobody else with us. Pozzorubio was the first place we encountered them. The colonel blew the bridge, and we couldn't get back across the bridge. We were down in there, milling around in the dark, shooting Japanese infantrymen that 27:00had crossed the river. Then at Asaygnan we had another battle with them, then at Tayug with the 26th Cavalry, then at San Quentin, again with the 26th Cavalry. Then at San Jose, which was further down the road, we broke off and took the east route through Bongabon. Then at Bongabon, we blew the bridge and set up a deal to gather information for somebody, because we had instructions to find out how the Japanese made an attack. So, after we blew the bridge, my platoon set up at crossroads there. 28:00We had our tanks camouflaged. So, we sat there as the Japanese infantry passed on through us. They were almost into Cabanatuan by the time we were discovered and pulled out. I was on the radio the whole time telling them what I could determine in the dark. You could see a silhouette and that was about the size of it with all the noise and Japanese troops passing by. I guess for about two hours they went on past us before the Japanese discovered our tanks. Then we put up a fight and pulled out and came back into Cabanatuan. In the meantime, some of the Japanese troops had broken off at San Jose also and had come down the road from San Jose to Cabanatuan. 29:00They had come around behind us. When I got to Cabanatuan, the Japanese were already in there and set up with their artillery pieces. We scrapped with them for an hour or so before we pulled out.

Gentry: By that time, we were getting low on ammunition and had to get going. So, we pulled south to a little place called Gapan. There we got more ammunition and joined up with the rest of the battalion. (I just had one platoon up at Bongabon). Oh, one thing was in your write-up--on page 14 of the copy you sent me--I commanded 30:00C Company, and I just led the attack. Collins was actually there in the town [Baliuag] at the time the attack took place. He just happened to be on the south side on the road leading out to intercept anybody that would come from the south.

JRH: O.K. That's easy to change.

Gentry: And then another place you said that I set up the ambush of the Japanese and really the other officers from the company were in on it, too. So, I think it wouldn't be doing 31:00justice to them if we didn't say the company officers, instead of just me, received orders to hold at all costs and that the company officers helped prepare the ambush, because we were all together in it.

JRH: Ok. Fine. I'll make those changes before it gets printed.

Gentry: Another place, I think you should say C Company was ordered to withdraw, not just me--the whole company was ordered to withdraw.

JRH: O.K. I'll be sure to take care of that.

Gentry: Another place in your manuscript--on page 15 the statement was made, the---each company had only nine tanks each after a certain point. Well, C Company had more than any nine tanks. 32:00In fact, we had twelve or more tanks.

JRH: Did every company have twelve?

Gentry: I thought they did. I don't know. I was with C Company all the time and really, I never got to see the rest of the battalion the whole time, except just on a couple of occasions. And exactly how many tanks the others had I have no idea.

JRH: O.K. I believe that figure came from General Weaver's report.

Gentry: Oh, did it? At the time he made that report, he wasn't just exactly accurate. I owe the old Gentry: gentleman every credit in the world, but he'd had just about all he could take at the time.

JRH: O.K. I'll make these changes. I want to be as accurate as I can.

Gentry: Because when General Weaver came to Harrodsburg, his voice was so weak that I had to listen to him and repeat what he said for the crowd.

JRH: He must have really gone through a lot. 33:00Gentry: Well, he was quite old when we went to the Philippines.

JRH: How old was he?

Gentry: He was probably in his early sixties.

JRH: It's surprising that they would let him go overseas.

Gentry: Well, he was a general officer. He was a full colonel, and he was a West Pointer and that does make a difference. He was promoted to Brig. Gen. after arriving in the Philippine Islands.

JRH: Yes, I guess it does. How did Weaver get along with his battalion commanders?

Gentry: He and Wickard got along fine. Colonel Miller had a chip on his shoulder, from all I could gather from people. Because Colonel Miller, and I think his book 34:00bears this out, thought he should be Provisional Group commander, because he thought he as senior to Weaver and senior to everybody and knew more than everybody else. He was the first over there and so forth. I only saw the man two or three times.

JRH: Was he all that knowledgeable?

Gentry: I couldn't say. I didn't know him all that well.

JRH: How did General Weaver get along with Wainwright?

Gentry: I would say very good. Because shortly after arriving at Fort Stotsenburg General Weaver decided that I would 35:00be his communications officer. He had to go to Manila to meet with Wainwright and MacArthur and he had me go with him. At that time, I was just a lieutenant, but I sat there and listened to them talk. I think they were pretty friendly. In fact, I think MacArthur asked for him.

JRH: So, Weaver and MacArthur got along all right?

Gentry: Oh, yes, as far as I know, I don't think there was any friction there whatsoever.

JRH: I'd read that old infantry and calvary men like Wanwright didn't understand tanks or how to use them and tended to interfere with what Weaver 36:00was trying to do.

Gentry: Yes, I have to agree with that from what I know. But I think as far as MacArthur was concerned, Weaver and MacArthur got along. Of course, I think Weaver and Wainwright got along fine, except on how to fight a war.

JRH: That's an important difference.

Gentry: Yeah, right.

JRH: What was your impression 37:00of MacArthur?

Gentry: MacArthur? I always thought he was a fine general. I thought he did what he had to do. I think most of the fellows who were over there felt the same way. Of course, there was poetry written about "Dug-out Doug" and so forth and so on, but GI's always do that. But I think most of us thought MacArthur did what he was supposed to do. But some of us thought there wasn't enough information put out. We in Company C could have sent back truckloads of water buffaloes, we could have sent back truckloads of rice. When the brought us up ammunition, 38:00the ammunition went into the tanks and the trucks went back empty. We could have loaded rice on it. We could have loaded it down with water buffaloes or something else. We didn't have information. Really and truly, we went over there with the idea that on Bataan there was a great, big wall, a huge fortress with guns sticking out of it in every direction. Now, this was done by different articles written stateside about all the defenses of Bataan and Corregidor. Nobody could take those places. When we got to Bataan, we couldn't find the wall, we couldn't find the guns, we couldn't find any of this stuff we'd read about. 39:00Of course, there's another part, too, to this. Congress had a whole lot to do with this whole thing because they failed to appropriate money. They hadn't appropriated any money to fight this thing. In fact, Roosevelt wanted this war to come off and the Congress didn't. There was some friction there, you know. When we arrived in the Philippines, we went to the quartermaster, and he had only a three-month's supply 40:00at that time. It would take more than three months to get food to the Philippines and Congress hadn't appropriated any money to buy any food any therefore, we were doomed to run out of stateside food before they could get any shipment to us, war, or no war.

JRH: Was that generally known among the troops?

Gentry: A few of us, sure. No, I don't think the rank-and-file knew, no. Because when the war started, they immediately cut us to a quarter-ration, and then we had to divide what food we had with the Filipinos. Of course, 41:00we could have fed them with rice--that was their main diet anyhow--but we burned [much rice.] Harold Collins and the officers set a big warehouse afire up there around San Jose. A huge warehouse, full of rice--burned it down. Burned up a lot of money in a bank. One bank--we went in there and blasted the door off the thing and set the money on fire, burned it up.

JRH: One man on the tapes told about pulling up to a liquor store and cleaning out their stock. 42:00Did C Company rifle any stores that you knew of?

Gentry: Liquor stores, yeah. They did that one time, but they discovered that if you looked at the label it might say Old Grand Dad or Old Forester or something, but down at the bottom in real little letters it would say "imitation." 43:00... Yeah, we picked up food and fruit or stuff along the way, depending on what we were doing. Like on Christmas Day, we were afraid to build a fire and the mess truck didn't come up. We had the choice of raw goat and uncooked rice. Only thing we did was gather up a few bananas and coconuts and ate those. That was all we had on Christmas Day.

JRH: I guess that Christmas dinner really sticks in your mind.

Gentry: Raw goat meat and rice--that was all we were offered. We didn't dare build a fire.

JRH: With all this withdrawing, did the tankers get more and more frustrated because they were retreating all the time?

Gentry: Yeah, 44:00because we were always told we would attack. We never discussed the matter of retreat. It was always attack and how you made the attack and so forth. At no time do I remember anybody saying anything about any rear-guard action or retreating or anything like that. It was always attack.

JRH: Had the tankers been taught that they were an elite fighting force?

Gentry: Well, we thought we were. In fact, we wore our caps on the opposite side of the head from anybody else. In fact, most people put their overseas cap on the right side of the head. We put ours on the left side. That's sort of like 45:00Green Berets and all the other units. This was the spirit we had. You could always tell a tanker of the 192nd by seeing what side of his head he had his cap on.

JRH: That was just the 192nd?

Gentry: Just the 192nd, yes. And also, we had leggings we wore over our slacks and we bleached those white. They were the army khaki color and we bleached ours white. We wore the white leggings.

Gentry: And we bleached out belts, so they'd be white. And we had all the accessories on the gun belt bleached, too. 46:00This was just something we did as part of the pride of the unit. We wanted to let everybody know who we were.

JRH: When you were at Fort Knox, it was after the Germans had sliced up France. Did they teach you much about how the Germans operated an armored attack?

Gentry: Not to my knowledge. Of course, the instructors we had may have obtained their knowledge from what they had learned about them. I don't know that we ever studied the Germans~ se and how they did it. It was just how we were going to do it.

JRH: Somewhere I got the information that, 47:00in the Philippines, before Clark Field, instead of giving lectures about the local geography and information you'd need to operate, they were giving lectures about how the Germans sliced up France. Did you encounter any of that?

Gentry: No, we were so busy trying to get our equipment ready, I don't recall we ever discussed anything about expediency or the geography of the Philippines. We only had eighteen days and we spent most of our time getting our equipment ready. We did know they were expecting a war with Japan at any moment, but they told us that before we got off the ship.

JRH: I think that would be evident to everyone at that moment. Bear with me a moment and I'll skip around some more. You were in D Company of the 192nd and C Company of the 192nd.

Gentry: And headquarters. 48:00JRH: And headquarters ...

Gentry: I went from D Company to Headquarters Company. And then in combat, I went to C Company.

JRH: I've drawn a blank--what town was C Company from?

Gentry: Port Clinton, Ohio.

JRH: What kind of town is Port Clinton? Is it a little town or a big one?

Gentry: It's a small town. There's an army post right there.

JRH: How did D Company and C Company compare in the way they worked together and cooperated?

Gentry: I 49:00guess everything was just fine. The only company we had trouble with at first was B Company, because they were from Maywood, Illinois, and they were all city boys and some of the words they used were words, we just didn't use in Kentucky, and it would create a few fights. We had a little problem with fistfights there at first between B Company and D. We finally got that straightened out. But as for C Company, they came to Fort Knox with very few people. They didn't have very many.

JRH: What was the cause for the fights between Band D?

Gentry: Well, at that time in Kentucky the word ‘son of a bitch,’ was a fighting word. 50:00And the boys from Chicago used it very--well, it was just a fill-in word. At first, D Company had to share a latrine with B Company. Man, I was over there every little bit trying to straighten out a fight going on because a man would come in and he'd use that word and, bang, someone would hit him in the nose. We just didn't use that word in Kentucky at that time.

JRH: I guess that B Company didn't have the cohesion that D Company did. They didn't know each other and hadn't grown up together. 51:00Gentry: B Company? No, Maywood is part of Chicago and it's a very big area. They didn't have the closeness that we had in D Company and C Company. And Wisconsin was a close-knit group, too. A Company.

JRH: In combat did B company perform any differently from the others?

Gentry: Oh, I have no idea, because I wasn't even around them.

JRH: When we talked on the phone earlier, you mentioned that you had a list of other people in the 192nd I could talk to. Do you have that list with you? 52:00Gentry: I have a group of them here if you'd like to talk with them.

JRH: Yes, I would.

Gentry: The first one off my list here is Col. Albert L. Allen, 1023 Woodland Road, Mansfield, Ohio 44901. He was a platoon sergeant in C Company, and he stayed in the service and retired as a colonel. The next one is Lewis Britton, and he lives at 1834-0S Kedzie, Homewood, 53:00Illinois 60430, and he was in Company B originally. He was in Headquarters Company during the war. 54:00Joseph Matheny, 596 Edgemont Road, Newark, 55:00Ohio 43055 (614)-323-2848. He was originally from B Company. Albert 56:00Allen has done a lot of research on the 192nd. He has been very active in that. He has sent me a lot of stuff. Another one is John E. Rowland. 181 North West Street, Westerville, Ohio 43081 57:00(614)-882-3493. He was selective service. He was in Headquarters Company. J.B. Merrifield, 3679 58:00Outpost, Lake Havasu City, Arizona 86403 (855-2450). Jack was my communications sergeant in headquarters, and he was later made a second lieutenant. 59:00Albert Bland Moore --I don't know whether you've talked to him already. He was a Company D man. He's in Cape Coral, Florida. Another one is Robert Martin, 1100 Marine Parkway Blvd., 60:00Bldg. C-102, Newport Richey, Florida, 34652. He was from B Company. In fact, he was in, he says, the platoon that originally met the Japanese 61:00at a place called Agoo, or Damortis. It was between Damortis and Agoo. I talked with . him just a few days ago. He was in the thing where he says they had a tank firing on them. It wasn't a tank battle, but they had a tank firing on them. His telephone number is (813)-848-8845. Another one you could talk to is Zenon 62:00R. Bardowski. 721 Estata Dive, Belton, Texas 76513 (817)-939-3204. 63:00Now, there's a Clyde Hopper, 24 Loydell Cove, Jackson, Tennessee, 38305. He was selective service, in Company D. He was a supply sergeant, 64:00and he was the only one I've ever heard 65:00say there was any controversy between the selective service and the National Guard. He said that some of the members of Company D didn't like it that 66:00he came in as selective service, and they made him supply sergeant.

JRH: I see. I picked up a little of that from Claude Likens. He was selective service. He said there was a good deal of resentment because the National Guard got the promotions and the best jobs and so on. Were there any others on your list?

Gentry: Yes, one other fellow and I think he would be a good source and he was selective service. James C. Thompson, 67:00better known as "Curly,'' Route 3, Box i83, Princeton, Kentucky 42445. He was selective service. He's been sheriff and county judge and alternating back and forth between the two ever since World War II, 68:00I guess. You might ask him about the feeling between the National Guard and the selective service because he was selective service. That's all I've written down. These are all people with sharp minds who remember a lot of details.

JRH: That's quite a list. That should keep me busy for the foreseeable future.

Gentry: You can always use my name as how you got their name. 69:00JRH: I'll do that. Sometimes the wonder. I need to skip around a little bit more, if you'll bear with me.

Gentry: O.K.

JRH: When you went to Davao, was it organized so that the Americans did all the job selection and the work assignments, and the Japanese would just give general directions?

Gentry: Yes, that's right. Their duty was to guard us and at Davao 70:00the idea was that we would provide food for the Japanese army. We vowed we wouldn't do that if we could help it and we didn't do much toward that in the eighteen months we were there. As far as they were concerned, it was a total failure.

JRH: Didn't produce much rice?

Gentry: That's right. We didn't produce much rice. We gave them all the pumpkins they wanted.

JRH: At Cabanatuan, there was a good deal of conflict between the senior American officers and the Japanese in trying to get that arrangement set up. At Davao, it was already in place when you got there. Is that correct?

Gentry: Yes and no. When the group from 71:00Cabanatuan went down there, we had a reorganization, but there wasn't any conflict whatsoever.· Of course, we had a group of eighteen or twenty lieutenant colonels in the group who wouldn't assume any responsibility whatsoever.

JRH: What would they do all day?

Gentry: Just go out and hoe potatoes, or plant rice, or whatever. Just like anybody else. There wasn't any distinction between private and lieutenant colonel.

JRH: You said on that earlier tape that you had a guard I assigned to you personally. Was that because you selected work details and supervised 72:00field work?

Gentry: Yes, right. The fellow I had at first was a Filipino. He had a little old gun about three inches long he carried in his pocket. In fact, he and I went all over the farm together until the Japanese took him away. I don't know what they finally did with him, but he left. When we got there, there was this Filipino engineer named Caberra, who had been there for a number of years. And a schoolteacher and two or three administrators from the Philippine Department of Agriculture, and there were about nine or ten Filipinos 73:00who were criminals in the work force there. That's all that was left there. Now, Caberra and myself [I] toured around all over the farm and he gave me a good orientation, told me just a tremendous amount 74:00about it, told me everything they did. I think saw it all. He and I went in a little trolley car to the farthest end of the railroad track, which would be about twenty-five miles away from the camp, really. He had a little radio, which we had hooked up to the twelve-volt battery on the trolley car, and we sat there all day and ~listened to the fall of North Africa. When they ran old Rommel out of Africa, we listened to it on the radio. They had reports on it all day long. We were picking up a short-wave station out of San Francisco called KGEI. 75:00JRH: On a day-to-day basis, would the Japanese, say, tell you to plant rice today and then you would select the work details?

Gentry: No, they would tell us what they wanted done. They wanted so many hectares of casava planted, and we worked the details out of where we were going to plant it and so forth. What we would do was what they wanted us to do, and we selected the men and the numbers and proceeded. Colonel 76:00McGee and Colonel McGuire--they were both lieutenant colonels and they were willing to accept some responsibility--they led the details in the rice fields. We had about sixteen hundred acres of rice under cultivation. They took some seven hundred men to the rice fields every day. Now, I only went to the rice fields, normally, when there was some trouble with the equipment out there. The rice fields were some ten to twelve miles away from the camp. They went out there on a little narrow-gauge railway every day.

JRH: What did the Japanese do when the rice production didn't meet their needs?

Gentry: Well, I guess they'd chalk it off to bad luck, because when we'd have it, all stacked up and when they'd try to haul or cart it away, it'd all be rotten. 77:00We'd sabotage it from the field to the bag.

JRH: About this matter of sabotage--was that true from the very beginning?

Gentry: Oh, yes.

JRH: Did it get more frequent as time went on?

Gentry: No. We were so determined, from the very beginning, that being soldiers, we weren't about to aid the enemy in any way. One of the things we did give them was all the rope they wanted, but we fixed the rope so it would come apart.

JRH: I read in some of the papers that you sent up here that 78:00some of the prisoners at Davao caught cobras by hand.

Gentry: Oh, yes. Herbie Wills--he was a lieutenant--did that. He'd get one, he'd tease the cobra, and fool with it, and play with it just like you would with a cat. Cobras never had a chance with that bunch. In the rice fields we had plenty of them. We never had the cobras in the vegetable patches--always out in the rice fields. And also, the pythons. They were always out in the rice fields. 79:00Of course, the rice fields were surrounded by jungle. It was just a cleared-out place in the jungle. It was only about seven feet about sea level, so it was really a swamp.

JRH: You were quoted in the paper as saying.

Gentry: By then, the boys were tough as well as hungry. They were not afraid of anything." Were the prisoners ever afraid of anything?

Gentry: Well, yeah, you were afraid you were going to be the next guy they were going to pick out to make an example of. You had that fear--you never knew from one minute to the next what they were going to do to you. 80:00But as far as being afraid of the Japanese in another way--we had a set-up on Davao where we could take the garrison. If push come [came] to shove, we'd just take them over. Sure a few people would get killed, but everybody had a job to do if the signal was given.

JRH: I guess by that point there's not much fear left.

Gentry: Yeah, what's the difference? You're half-dead anyway. Couldn't be any worse.

JRH: Did most of the prisoners feel that way--sort of fatalistic about whether they lived or died?

Gentry: Oh, yeah. We had a good number of them that would 81:00be fed up with the thing and would just take the Japanese on. We had a lieutenant colonel who took the Japanese on with a hitch pin we used to hook up the cars on the train. A big old iron pin about 1\" in diameter and about 12'' long. He killed one Japanese with that hitch pin. Hit him right over the head. He took his rifle. Unfortunately, the rifle didn't have any ammunition in it. The Japanese marched him off down the road and we heard shots and that was the last we ever saw of him. Oh, yes, a lot of that went on. One thing that was on the tapes that I told Colonel Kelly was about a lieutenant colonel 82:00who wanted to take them on. The only way to stop him was to work him over with my fists. To keep the Japanese from shooting him.

JRH: How long did it take a man to reach that point-where he didn't give a damn?

Gentry: Oh, within about six weeks after we got to prison camp that started, maybe sooner.

JRH: Didn't take long.

Gentry: No.

JRH: I noticed a letter to you in those papers from JRH: Morton Dieter. Was he the one that you force-fed rice?

Gentry: That's right. That was Morton. The first time at Cabanatuan, they put me in charge of a barracks of all first and second lieutenants and I had about seventy-five in the building and Morton was one ·of them. 83:00JRH: He said something about how he hoped he never got to the point again where selfishness was second nature to him. Was that selfishness typical of the POWs?

Gentry: Well, yeah, in certain ways.

JRH: What do you think he meant by that?

Gentry: I think he meant that he was selfish in not thinking about himself and not thinking about the other prisoners of war. You had people who were selfish. We had a Baptist minister 84:00who carried a little bucket around with him. He would visit the hospital and he'd say, "Why, son, you're not going to eat that rice. Just put it in this bucket." And he stayed nice and plump--fat.

JRH: I'll bet he was popular.

Gentry: Yeah, nobody liked him at all. But he’d go to the hospital and do all his praying and everything else and then he'd take their food.

JRH: What happened to him?

Gentry: I don't know. He was at Davao with us. In fact, he was one of the twelve in my bunk area. There for a while my bunk mates consisted of two Catholic for a priest, a Presbyterian minister, and a Baptist minister, and a Jewish boy. 85:00We had lots of discussions on theology. Father Vanderheyden was the barracks leader in that barracks.

JRH: Did you think that the prisoners showed more compassion toward each other or more selfishness?

Gentry: Oh, compassion. For instance, if a person came down with malaria, several people would immediately get buckets of water. We didn't have any quinine or anything to give him and we had to get the temperature own. Several people would get buckets of water and we'd strip all the clothes off him, and a medic would read his temperature with a thermometer (we did have those on 86:00Davao) and we sat here just washing the guy down, just keep putting water on him, trying to keep his temperature down.

JRH: It didn't make any difference if he was somebody you knew earlier, from peacetime, or not?

Gentry: That's right, yeah. It didn't make any difference.

JRH: Did you feel especially close in camp to other men from Harrodsburg or to other tankers?

Gentry: Well, we always looked out for each other. If there was anything we could do to help the other one, sure we'd do it. But we'd also do that for the other ones, too.

JRH: I just wondered if an of that tanker identity survived in prison or whether it tended to fade. 87:00Gentry: I think the spirit remained all the way through, as far as being a tanker, a fellow tanker. It didn't make any difference whether he was from the 194th or 192nd. It didn't make any difference to me. But, of course, other people were human beings, too, and I thought just as much of them as I did of our own. Maybe I never saw the person before in my life, but after all, he was a human being.

JRH: Sort of hard to make a distinction under those circumstances.

Gentry: Right. Now, on Davao we only had a limited amount of medicine and we had to make a decision that the young person would get it and the older person wouldn't. We had an age limit. We said the young person has a longer life to go than the older people. We had a lot of lieutenant colonels 88:00who were in their sixties. See, at that time, you couldn't retire until you were sixty-five if you were an officer. It didn't make any difference if you had twenty years, thirty years, or forty years. If you were an officer, you could only retire when you were sixty-five. Out of that eighteen or twenty lieutenant colonels we had on Davao, most in their sixties.

JRH: Were most of the other prisoners a lot younger? In their twenties?

Gentry: Well, in the National Guard units. The other units had selective service men who had been sent there. Had been assigned to the units in the Philippines. Now, other than that most of them were much older. They were regular army and some of them had been in there for twenty years. 89:00Some for thirty. Some were real career people. The army was a place to live.

JRH: It must have been a shattering experience for them.

Gentry: Well, yes.

JRH: I guess it was for everybody.

Gentry: It was. Of course, just before we got into Bataan, General MacArthur put out an order that anyone caught retreating in the face of the enemy would be shot on the spot. We had some that were going along there out of some unit in the regular army, and I said, "Where are you going?" They said, "Well, it's getting rough up there." I said, "Get up there and fight. 90:00If you don't, I'm going to shoot you right here. We're trying to do our best. How about you doing [do] yours?" He said, "We might get hurt. We didn't join the army to get shot."

JRH: A selective sense of duty.

Gentry: Well, believe it or not, prior to World War II, many people were in the army because it was a haven. They had murdered somebody, run off and left their family, the courts were looking for them, but as long as they were in the army, nobody could touch them. If you shot somebody, if you could get to the recruiting officer and get sworn in 91:00and enlist in the army, they couldn't touch you, unless the officers wanted to turn you over, which they wouldn't do because they wanted everybody, they could get to join the army.

JRH: Yeah, they needed everybody they could find, I guess. Well, that pretty well covers the questions I had. I really appreciate your taking the time to talk to me.

Gentry: Well, I'm delighted to do it.

JRH: Especially those addresses. That'll be a big help in the future.

Gentry: They all have good minds and have a lot of detail they could give you. Every person that you talk to is going to have some 92:00different thing.

JRH: that's what I've found out. It's like an enormous jigsaw puzzle. You have to put it together a piece at a time.

Gentry: Right. Because they were so scrambled up, spread out. I was with the bunch that went to Davao, and when I got back to Cabanatuan some were there who were there when I left, and some were there that weren't there when I left. I'm talking about our own outfit. Our paths crisscrossed. But with the hundreds of work details they had, everybody was separated, more or less, and everybody's experience was a little bit different.

JRH: I don't guess anybody will ever get it all straightened out. 93:00Gentry: Oh, no. I'm sure they won't.

JRH: Well, anyway, I appreciate your talking to me and taking the time. You've been an enormous help to me with this project.

Gentry: Well, I'm glad to do it. I think I sent you some copies of papers where I made speeches after the war. I did all of those things at my own expense.

JRH: Yes, I read all of those. You did a lot of speaking. You even spoke at Boone Day here at the Kentucky Historical Society.

Gentry: And I never asked for any honorarium whatsoever.

JRH: That was very good of you. Anyway, Colonel [Arthur L.] Kelly is here. I think he'd like talk to 94:00you for a few minutes if you're willing.

Gentry: Oh, yes. Sure.

ALK: What do you say, Bill?

Gentry: Hey, Colonel Kelly.

ALK: How are you doing?

Gentry: I'm sorry you had problems the other day, too.

ALK: I'm glad to hear you're getting along all right with ALK: your health.

Gentry: Oh, yes. It's much improved.

ALK: Is Katy doing all right?

Gentry: Oh, yes. Fine.

ALK: Give her my regards. I don't have many questions, but I would like to take you back to Cabanatuan / before the rangers made their rescue. George Vanarsdale--did he go by another name?

Gentry: Jimmy.

ALK: The reason I asked that was that Jack Reed told me that George Vanarsdale was at Cabanatuan before the rangers came in and that he died there, although we had him dying on the Oryoku 95:00Hell Ship. Was he there at Cabanatuan with you?

Gentry: Yes.

ALK: Did he die there?

Gentry: No, he went out on one of the ships.

ALK: That's what we had, but Jack Reed assured me that he died there.

Gentry: He could have, and I didn't know it, but as far as knew, he was there when I got back from Davao.

ALK: I pressed him pretty hard, and tried to get him to be sure that was the case, and that was what he indicated. And he called him Jimmy, and I thought he might have another Vanarsdale.

Gentry: I don't know why he had the nickname Jimmy. George A. was his name.

ALK: Ben Devine was there with you, 96:00wasn't he?

Gentry: Ben Devine? Yes.

ALK: He died there at Cabanatuan.

Gentry: Yes.

ALK: So, Jack Reed was there with you. And George Vanarsdale.

Gentry: And Charlie Quinn.

ALK: Charlie Quin. Did he get out?

Gentry: Yes, he was liberated at the same time.

ALK: Is he still living?

Gentry: Yes, I understand he's living in California someplace. And Gilbert Royalty--he was there, too.

ALK: Is he still living?

Gentry: I talked to a fellow yesterday who said he was dead. Last time I heard, nobody knew where he was.

ALK: Nobody knew where he lived.

Gentry: No. This fellow I talked to yesterday--Leo Russell--he was from Harrodsburg originally. But we lost him down in Tennessee. He went to sleep under a truck 97:00and the fellow drove over his head. Tore his ear off.

ALK: Good grief.

Gentry: They sent him to the hospital, and that's the last Gentry: we saw of him. He walked up here yesterday.

ALK: Did you know Jack Hentzel? He was a pilot, and he was at Davao. And Russell Hutchinson.

Gentry: Yes, I knew him. At one time I knew everyone in the camp. 98:00ALK: When they put that group together to load out on the Oryoku, I believe you told me you didn't go because you had dysentery.

Gentry: Yes, I was in the dysentery ward. If I had had leprosy, it would have been about the same to the Japanese.

ALK: What kind of dysentery did you have?

Gentry: Amoebic.

ALK: Did you get any medication for it?

Gentry: Oh, yes. The Japanese brought in medication for it. They didn't want it to spread. They wanted to keep it under control. Oh, yes. I was taking about five different kinds of medicine.

ALK: Before those guys left, did you get of them? What were they saying, 99:00to talk to any?

Gentry: They just thought they work detail were going out on another ALK: They didn't know they were going out on a ship.

Gentry: They didn't know if they were going or someplace on the island there. out on a ship.

ALK: Were most of them wearing long beards at that time?

Gentry: No. With lice and the bedbugs, those things crawling around on you didn't your face.

ALK: Have sent you got that little map there handy? of Camp Cabanatuan I want.

Gentry: No, I don't.

Gentry: I don't remember you sending me one.

ALK: I sent you one. And I sent you a map of the route you all took going out of there.

Gentry: I don't think I have that.

ALK: You don't have that? Well, I'll try to get you another copy. 100:00Maybe you had moved when I sent that, but I sent you a map of the route the rangers took going in and the way you went going out.

Gentry: I know the route we took going out.

ALK: I'll scrounge around and get you another copy of that. Anyway, you were talking about going to that culvert. Was that on the north or the south side?

Gentry: Right down the main road.

ALK: The Cabanatuan Road?

Gentry: Right.

ALK: The main gate was in the middle of the compound.

Gentry: Right.

ALK: Where was it from the main gate?

Gentry: _It was down on the road.

ALK: The main gate was right there on the road. As you go towards Cabu ...

Gentry: What 101:00you're saying main gate and what I'm saying main gate are different things .

ALK: This was on the north side, the main gate, on the Cabanatuan Road.

Gentry: No. We always called that the corner gate. There was another gate up on top if the hill. The gate up on top of the hill was the one we always went in and out of for work details. It was out on the far end, away from the main road, because the fields we cultivated were all to the rear, to the south.

ALK: But you were on the north side when that fellow came up and handed you a weapon?

Gentry: Yes, on the northwestern corner. The Japanese had a guardhouse on the northwest· corner. 102:00A road turned and went up the hill, going south. The barracks that I was in was only a very short distance from that corner.

ALK: Goodpastor--you remember seeing Roy Goodpastor there?

Gentry: Yes.

ALK: We also have him listed as dying at Cabanatuan, but Cecil Sims said he went to Moji, Japan. He saw him and talked to him, which would have meant that he was on the Oryoku Hell Ship, and he was also sunk on the next Hell Ship he got on in Formosa, and he was on that terrible 103:00voyage from Formosa to Japan.

Gentry: You've got a copy of that latest roster I prepared, don't you?

ALK: Yes.

Gentry: Where does he appear on that?

ALK: I don't remember. I'll have to look that up. Also, Judson Simpson--did you ever hear that story of him putting a gun to Goodpastor's head and ordering him across the Agne River? And getting the silver star? Do you know who might have a copy of that silver star?

Gentry: No, I don't.

ALK: George Chumley just recently died. He said that one of those platoons of D company 104:00got out. As did Ralph Stein. Did you ever hear anything about that one platoon that got out?

Gentry: Got out of what?

ALK: Got out of that trap up on the Agne.

Gentry: No, but I didn't think they lost all their tanks. That's why I was questioning earlier today that they got down to nine tanks a company. Because remember we only gave up two or three tanks.

ALK: Willard Yeast--at the Defenders meeting in Louisville I ran into a couple who were there, and I got to interview them. 105:00Have you ever read anything about that terrible ordeal at Palawan?

Gentry: Yes. In fact, I've talked with one or two who were there. Some of them got out.

ALK: Did I tell you about that book called Surrender and Survival? If I haven't, and if you're interested in getting an understanding of all the prisoners in the Southwest Pacific, in all these different places, that's a real good accounting of it. The fellow that wrote it is a writer, and his father was on the Death March 106:00and that's how he got interested in it, On training to operate those tanks, on the transition from the old tanks to the new tanks, the M-3s, did you all get some training on it? Was there much difference in the operation of it, and also, the gunnery aspects of it?

Gentry: Well, of course, the basic tank was the same, as far as the chassis was concerned. The only thing different was the turret. The turret and the 37mm gun.

ALK: Did you get some training on that?

Gentry: At Knox, we did. The officers did.

ALK: On that M3 tank?

Gentry: Yes. In fact, at Knox they had a thing that all officers would know how to fire all 107:00weapons and drive all vehicles and so forth. We had a doggone card we had to carry in our pockets.

ALK: Did you get to talk with Ben Devine before he died?

Gentry: No.

ALK: You don't know the circumstances surrounding his death, I guess. Well, I don't have much else to ask. I've got just about everything, I guess. When are you corning back to Kentucky?

Gentry: Well, I don't know. Maybe it'll be another year.

ALK: When you do, write me a little card or something and I'll try to get together with you.

Gentry: That would make three trips real[ly] quick. I lost two sisters and a brother.

ALK: My goodness.

Gentry: I've just about worn out one automobile running back and forth to Kentucky.

ALK: Was Gentry a pioneer name? Did the Gentrys come in with the pioneers, or do you know?

Gentry: We can trace our history back to 1400.

ALK: I mean at Harrodsburg. Did they come into Fort Harrod?

Gentry: Oh, no.

ALK: I think Vanarsdales did, didn't they?

Gentry: I don't know. Next time I see Carter, I'll ask him about it.

ALK: I think they did. What are you doing to pass the time?

Gentry: We sold our house, and we bought another house and I've been working on it.

ALK: Keeping you busy?

Gentry: Yes, I built another workshop, and I built a porch on and just a whole lot of things. I've been real[ly] busy.

ALK: I won't take any more of your time. I appreciate your sharing this information with us. And I'm really delighted to hear you're getting along well with your health. Take care of yourself, Bill.

Gentry: I'm in pretty good shape, now.

ALK: Thank you, kindly.

Gentry: And you get yourself all straightened out, there.

ALK: I'll do that.

Gentry: All right. We'll see you.

ALK: All right. Goodbye.

Gentry: Goodbye.