Oral History Interview with Herman H. Horn

“START OF TAPE 1. SIDE 1” Fugate: This is Tape 1, Side 1 of an interview conducted at the Kentucky Military History Museum on February 11th, 1992 with Herman H. Horn. You were talking about the, the breakdown of the 97th Coast Artillery antiaircraft at, at Pearl Harbor.

Horn: The 97th was made up of selective service personnel with the regular army cadre, Battery--I was in Battery H of the 97th, stationed at Fort Weaver. They was at, batteries at Fort Kamehameha, Hickam Field, and Schofield Barracks. Fort Weaver was a fort, had two sixteen-inch guns, Navy land-based guns operated by the regular army, the old, Fifteenth Coast Artillery. At the--they were based, they were quartered at Fort Kamehameha across 1:00the harbor. At the time of the raid, Battery Eighth of the 97th Coast Artillery was the only military unit at Fort Weaver. There was no other personnel around. We, now to, we were, Sunday morning, we was sleeping, and I got up, got me a bottle of milk and an apple, went back to bed. And then it started, our regular army cadre got us up, lined us, lined us up out in the company street, which shouldn’t have been [Chuckling]. They was, the Japs were coming in, they were dropping the bombs on Pearl, flying, we was watching them, 2:00they’d fly right over everything that moved, they were strafing as they went out. So after so long a time, they gave us thirty-five rounds of 30-caliber ammunition for our rifles, told us not to use them [Laughter – Fugate]. So we, we started going to our, another station, Fort Barrett. Fort Barrett had two navy sixteen-inch land base guns operated by the C-15th regular army. They had four three-inch 1917 model antiaircraft guns that were, they belonged to us. So we’ve--but we’d moved away from the harbor on the way on the back of the trucks we could see them dropping their bombs, coming and any trucks or anything that was on the road they would, they were strafing them. And I don’t know how long it took us to go to Fort Barrett, but we would hit the cane fields every time they would come in and, we on--we were lucky, we only had 3:00two men wounded, and until we went back to Pearl Harbor, I didn’t know we had lost First Lieutenant, he was killed.

Fugate: Oh, what was his name?

Horn: (Sylvester?), and I saw it on the marker in Pearl Ha…--at Pearl Harbor Base there, and he was the only person killed at Fort Weaver, because there wasn’t about a hundred and eighteen or twenty of us there. And we had two wounded, and then we ha…--also had a major trying to come across the harbor to us that was wounded in the arm. But we never did see him anymore and I had--we never did miss that lieutenant [Laughter – Horn and Fugate]. We didn’t [Chuckling] at, until we went back and I saw his name on the marker where he’d been killed at Fort Weaver.

Fugate: No one ever knew he was gone.

Horn: No, it see--we were a bunch of draftees, and we were new and they were changing officers, they were changing cadre all the time, and… Fugate: What do you mean by cadre?

Horn: The army, sergeants, first-sergeant, all of, all the, non-commissioner… Fugate: Non-commissioned officers?

Horn: …was a c…were cadre, 4:00and they, they was, we didn’t have any of our own people as of non-commissioned officers.

Fugate: Well I guess the next question I have is…you know when did you join the military?

Horn: I was drafted in June 11th, 1941, here in Frankfort, Kentucky.

Fugate: Okay. You know, can you remember…what you were doing, or, or where you were on February 11th, 1942, today’s date, fifty years ago?

Horn: I don’t remember, I might of, I might have been in a GI hospital, I had some bone fragments removed from an ankle, and, not as a result of injury.

Fugate: But in February of ’42 5:00you were still on Pearl?

Horn: I was still on Pearl.

Fugate: Yeah. Well, most veterans of World War II joined the military because of the attack on Pearl Harbor, or following the attack on Pearl Harbor. You were obviously drafted. As a draftee, how did you get lucky enough to end up at Pearl Harbor?

Horn: Hum. We were sent to, to…Louisville for induction, from Louisville to Fort Thomas, from Fort Thomas to Kentucky, to San Diego. There was a new camp for selective service personnel, Camp Callan right above La Jolla, California, and we stayed there for boot camp and then on September 26th, well they put us on the ship before that, on September 26th we landed at Pearl Harbor, and we were there and we were supposed to come back in Jun…--in January and be discharged in June. Our year was up. But it was three years, eleven months [Laughter – Fugate] and before I ever saw Frankfort again.

Fugate: Well that’s…you know, the…going back to the attack 6:00on Pearl Harbor, did you guys actually get any shots off at the attacking planes?

Horn: No, uh-uh.

Fugate: Never got a shot off, and were told not to fire your rifles so your… Horn: Not to fire our rifles to save our ammunition… Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: …we might it later.

Fugate: Well, after your…your duty assignment and station at Pearl Harbor was where again?

Horn: Fort Weaver.

Fugate: Fort Weaver. Now… Horn: It was for that--we were supposed to be guarding a submarine there for the navy.

Fugate: Okay.

Horn: The, you know, submarine that’s right across the entrance to the harbor.

Fugate: So the basic duty was to simply guard those nets and…defend… Horn: Actually we were killing time [Laughter – Horn and Fugate] ( ).

Fugate: All right, well after, after the p…after your, your…your duty’s time at Pearl Harbor, where were you stationed. 7:00I mean, when you left Pearl Harbor, what was your next… Horn: When we left Pearl Harbor, we went to Saipan as holding forces… Fugate: Holding forces at Saipan?

Horn: …after, after sup…Saipan was secure.

Fugate: What kind of activity did you get involved in at Saipan?

Horn: There was a bunch of alerts and a raid every once in a while, but no, nothing, and in the meantime, before they shipped us out, we got some new four-point-seven antiaircraft guns… Fugate: They upgraded those… Horn: …and with radar; we had never seen a radar [Chuckle – Horn and Fugate].

Fugate: They upgraded those World War I… Horn: Yeah.

Fugate: …vintage antiaircraft guns by then. Did you use those same weapons throughout the remainder of the war?

Horn: We’d, we, when we left Saipan, we went to Iwo Jima, as holding forces, and when I left Hiwo Jima, the guns were still on the beach.

Fugate: They were still on… Horn: They was, they sunk, they couldn’t… Fugate: They sunk in m… Horn: …sand, they couldn’t, well I was, I was only there ten days.

Fugate: Mm-mm. Were you there during the initial…attack on Iwo Jima, or… Horn: No, we went in as holding forces.

Fugate: Okay, as to holding force at Iwo Jima, what was your duties there?

Horn: Oh, we were supposed to be guarding the island with the, from anti air… from aircraft, but our, our guns were down on the, on the beach [Laughing] Fugate: On the beach 8:00[Chuckle – Fugate], you couldn’t get them up.

Horn: Couldn’t get them up.

Fugate: Well, I mean, was there, was there still a lot of--you were there how long after the, the island had been secured, after their… Horn: Huh, I left there; I don’t know when we went in, but left there in May of ’41--or ’45. I was only there ten or eleven days. There was a, there was twelve of us, because we got to be the, all the non-coms, and there, the old people were gone, and every time they got ready to go, the captain would ask us to go with him, and we’d--and said we will let you go home just as soon as we get there. Well, that didn’t happen on Saipan and we got on Iwo and they--some general, and I don’t even know his name. He had a son and, and over in Germany that had been there a long time, and he heard we were there and he put twelve of us on the mail plane and shipped us home.

Fugate: Huh! 9:00Horn: So that’s the reason we only stayed ten days, or eleven days.

Fugate: But you ended up coming back home from there? That was your last as… Horn: Came back here, and then was…we had enough points for discharge but the war was still going on. We got home on, on a…furlough. I got a call one day telling me to go--come back to Atterbury and that, then I got another one telling me to go on to Miami Beach rest camp. So we went to Miami and stayed two weeks, we got on troop training back to Atterbury and was discharged. That, that was in Ju…June the 11th I believe I was discharged.

Fugate: Mm, that’s okay. I noticed that you, you brought a souvenir of Iwo Jima with you here today. What did you--it’s a Japanese hand grenade that you picked up. Where did you pick [Chuckles – Fugate] that thing up?

Horn: I just picked it, I found it on the island, I… Fugate: Just on the island laying around?

Horn: We, we were stationed up pretty close 10:00to the airport, and…that, there was, there was everything laying there. I got a marine knife also, but souvenirs were easy to find, but I have to tell you, when we landed at Frisco, we flew back to Hickam Field and then we had to get a boat to--or a ship--to San Francisco. We walked in customs, we didn’t know they were going to search us [Laughter – Fugate], and had those booths, we walked up, you’re suppose to dump your duffel bag. That grenade roll, rolled across the table and thww! [Laughter – Fugate] and they took ever…they took my knife, took everything I had away from me, and told me they’d mail them to me.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: And oh about, oh, three or four weeks after I got home, they were shipped to me railway express collect.

Fugate: Oh, they actually 11:00mailed them to you.

Horn: They mailed them to me [Chuckling] Fugate: Well, that’s a rarity.

Horn: Yeah.

Fugate: Most times when they collect that stuff you never see it again.

Horn: That’s right, but I was surprised when I got them.

Fugate: What other kind of souvenirs were people picking up off Iwo?

Horn: Oh, they’d get knives and guns, anything. You could find those on any of those islands over there after they was…knives and guns and watches, they were getting everything.

Fugate: Yeah. You said you were at Saipan, you were mostly just killing time. What kind of activities did you do there, just to, to pass the time, what kind of things you… Horn: Oh we had drills and we--then we had an air raid every once in a while, just, well, no damage, would…they w…they would coming in, we would call out all, all hours of the night… Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: …man your guns.

Fugate: What kinds of planes were they? Or do you have any idea?

Horn: I don’t, I don’t have any idea.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: …there’s ah… Fugate: Well let’s see, you’re…you’re 12:00currently the, the president of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association?

Horn: I’m supposed to be installed at our May meeting.

Fugate: At your May meeting, well. As the president of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, what are you--what will be your, what will be your duties? What kind of things will you do?

Horn: Conduct meetings [Chuckling] two meetings a year [Laughter – Fugate] that’s a…and… Fugate: I know you’re going to be trying to bring one of the meetings here to Frankfort… Horn: Yeah, that… Fugate: …when do you think that will take place?

Horn: …meeting we’re try--are going to try to bring it here in October, of ninety-two.

Fugate: Of ’92.

Horn: Yeah.

Fugate: Well the, the military museum will definitely offer its support to the group in any way that…that they need us. Probably, one of the most interesting things for the Pearl Harbor survivors has been the, the fiftieth anniversary reunion at Pearl. Can you tell us a little bit about your experiences at the reunion?

Horn: Yeah, but…I don’t really know how to start [Laughing – Fugate and Horn] we was…we left 13:00on the third, third of December; we arrived on the third at, at Peal. Immediately after we got there, my wife took the flu.

Fugate: Oh boy.

Horn: [Chuckling] which was so, but we, we, attended meetings and we went to flag raising and went to--the flag raising was really impressive. We visited f…Punchbowl Cemetery a beautiful place, and I know--and I understand now that it’s, it’s…if you don’t have reservations, there’s no more plots available, but they will cremate you. But there’s no more plots op…the…everything is s…is already reserved, but it’s a beautiful place though, it’s… Fugate: Well, as a Pearl Harbor survivor, are you entitled to a place at Punchbowl, or… Horn: If, if it wasn’t full.

Fugate: Yeah, if… Horn: But it was open to all veterans.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: The, the one, one unit that impressed me that 14:00I saw buried there, a lot of them was old Japanese-Americans that were in that outfit, the most decorated unit in World War II.

Fugate: Right.

Horn: Well, there, there’s a lot of those buried in a row, right up along the walk Fugate: And you, you were talking about the trouble of getting around in Pearl Harbor, or at, on Oahu, because of the, the president being there. You were talking about your trip up to Punchbowl, that was sort of a… Horn: That’s… Fugate: …problem, wasn’t it?

Horn: Yeah, when they… well they started going at three-thirty. The bus had started going at three-thirty in the morning, for a seven-thirty program [Chuckling] and…then they were searching the--they’d notified us that they would be searching the women and not to bring any purses and the men to bare--bring bare necessities.

Fugate: Mm-mm, and that’s of it because of the security for the president.

Horn: Because of the security for the president.

Fugate: Yeah. Now, I know you guys had a favorite bar that you hung out in while you were at Pearl, during 15:00the war. Was it still there, and did you… Horn: I couldn’t find it [Chuckling] Fugate: You couldn’t find it. What was the name of it?

Horn: (Kamake?) of---it was a (Pago pago?) was a (Kamake?).

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: But, I didn’t have time to find it, actually.

Fugate: Oh. So where was the, you, you guys had a, a dinner meeting or something with… Horn: We had a dinner meeting at the Hilton Hotel. They had over twenty-eight hundred guests there. There was a. And then, another th…I c…tried to find Fort Weaver. Fort Weaver is no more. It is a navy housing. Fort Barrett has been completely wiped off, so that was ro…really wanted to see both places.

Fugate: So the, the two main places that you were going to see no longer exist at Pearl Harbor.

Horn: They no longer exist.

Fugate: Yeah. Well, can you tell me a little bit about, about life on the island before the bombing of Pearl Harbor? You… Horn: Well, before the bombing, when you went to town you was on a pass. It was full of sailors, soldiers and marines. 16:00It was… everything was peaceful. And you don’t see a uniform now. The uniforms are gone. Now remember the old YMCA and it, it’s been demolished. All, everybody go on pass, when they got ready--you met the bus there, but when you got ready to go back to the barracks, you always went and got you a malted milk and a grill cheese sandwich [Laughter – Fugate and Horn], and we looked for that and it’s been demolished, it’s no longer.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: So.

Fugate: The army food was that bad, or… Horn: No, we did--they, we just liked to stop there on the--eat on the way home.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: There was, there so many skyscrapers and the, the, when we was there, 17:00the Royal Ha…Hawaiian Hotel was probably the largest building there.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: And now these--and I was in the ro…Royal Hawaiian.

Fugate: Dwarfed by comparison now.

Horn: Yeah.

Fugate: Yeah. When was the last time you were at Pearl before this trip?

Horn: I came back through there in ’45.

Fugate: In ’45. Now, shortly after the bombing, I mean how long did it take to clean up Pearl? I mean, was you involved in some of the cleanup… Horn: No.

Fugate: …activities afterwards?

Horn: We were busy to, building the gun--we built underground shelters at Fort Barrett, and we…built the trenches, we really got ready for it. But, another instance I, I like to tell you about. I came down here and I couldn’t find anything from World War I, World War--except an old .30-caliber water-cooled machinegun that you have on the second floor. The night of the war in December 7th, 1941, they picked three of us and they had a .30 caliber water-cooled machinegun, and they took us out and set it on a brush pile. We were pretty close to Barber’s Point, they had a, have 18:00a, a Marine Corps base, airbase. So we had this sergeant come by, this regular army sergeant and he was, proceeded to show us how to load the piece, but, then we took it out and that night, they--how we was sitting there on that gun, they hollered “paratroopers landing at Barber’s Point, load your piece.” So I stuck the belt in the gun, pulled it twice like I was instructed. The next morning when they came by, why the sergeant said, “you didn’t load it.” And I can’t say what he said [Laughter – Fugate and Horn], but we tried.

Fugate: So you still don’t know how to load a .30 caliber water-cooled.

Horn: No, I never did, that was the last machinegun I ever, 19:00ever was around.

Fugate: So you were expecting the island to be completely overrun… Horn: Yeah.

Fugate: …after that first night.

Horn: Yeah.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: Oh, when they come in, and with the destruction they put out and, I don’t know, we, we never understood why they didn’t bring forces in. If they had they would, it would have been simple, probably be compared with Desert Storm with it be that fast.

Fugate: That quick a, put to an end.

Horn: Because when, when they attacked all the ammunition was in dumps, or ammunition dumps you’d--we hauled the ammunition all day on December the 7th, and that… Fugate: You were telling me a story about, about you guys carrying ammunition to your gun. Can tell me a little bit about that?

Horn: Yeah [Chuckling] we, we hauled ammunition all one day for those four guns, those three-inch 1917 model, and then when we got ready to ( ) some, we had the wrong ammunition, it wouldn’t work [Laughter – Fugate and Horn] so we’d take it back and hauled some more, but it was a, it was a mess.

Fugate: Yeah. Was that, I mean at the--I’m, I imagine there was a lot of confusion that was going on… Horn: Well… Fugate: …a lot of turmoil, a lot of noise, 20:00and background activities. Who actually was--took charge? I mean was there, was there officers there?

Horn: Oh… Fugate: …you said the lieutenant was gone.

Horn: No, yeah, but we ha… we had a captain and, and two, and two second lieutenants (on board?) and the reason we di…I didn’t miss this other lieutenant, we were, they were changing our officers all the time. We was getting the new ones all the time, and we had only been over there since September, and you didn’t know who you was going to have for an officer, but…it was a g…a good experience, but I wouldn’t want it anymore.

Fugate: Yeah [Laughter – Fugate and Horn]. Oh… [Pause] Fugate: Okay.

Horn: On the Arizona, there is a minute drop of oil comes up about every minute and you probably saw it.

Fugate: Yeah, mm.

Horn: Well, I got a picture of it. I, I took me a long time, but I finally caught it when it first, about that… Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: …in 21:00the--but I think that’s a, one of the best pictures I made while we were gone.

Fugate: Now they say that thing if going to continue to drip for what another four hundred years or something?

Horn: It’s been dripping for what?

Fugate: Yeah, fifty years now.

Horn: Fifty years, but it’s amazing how fast… Fugate: It de… Horn: …it all gets away, this quick, just what’s gone, and… Fugate: I can remember staying in there watching it and it was amazing to me to watch the oil just come to the surface and then quickly float away and then quickly be replaced… Horn: Yeah.

Fugate: …by another drop. I think someone mentioned that it was almost like watching the ship cry, in reverse… Horn: Yeah, they… Fugate: …teardrops were running up the hill instead of down.

Horn: They call it, say the ship is crying, but, I tell you, it get you an awful feeling to be standing on that thing, and to--you can see the outline of the ship below, you know that it’s a grave for those eleven hundred people, whatever it is on.

Fugate: Did you know any of the individuals who were on the ship?

Horn: No.

Fugate: Did you know anybody 22:00that, at the ti…at that time, did you anyone else on the island who was aboard ships, or did you… Horn: No, not on the Arizona.

Fugate: …on any of the other vessels, I mean, that were attacked?

Horn: No, not that…no, I didn’t, not from… Fugate: You pretty much stayed with the people that you… Horn: Yeah.

Fugate: …were associated at the time through there? Well, I, let’s see…I think we pretty much covered everything that I had to talk about. Do you have anything else that you can think of that might be of interest to anyone in the future?

Horn: That’s about all of it.

Fugate: Yeah. [Pause] Horn: And it looks like you could throw across 23:00the sub, but it’s, it’s farther than that. In Guam and Saipan and Tinian all right in one group, and it’s mountainous, rain right through the middle of it, everything.

Fugate: Mm-mm. Now, when you had your, our new antiaircraft pieces, where did you set those up? Did you set up on the beaches at Saipan… Horn: No.

Fugate: …or up in the hills?

Horn: We, we set up next to the airstrip.

Fugate: Next to the airstrip. I mean does, why were you set up so close to the airstrip when it would have been better to be a little further away from the strip maybe, or… Horn: I don’t know, but the old man made me put my tent right at the end of an airstrip [Chuckles – Fugate and Horn]. Bombers going out every morning at, they’d start warming up about two o’clock, about four they would start going to Japan, and then by eight o’clock at night, for about two hours, they’d be coming in.

Fugate: Those are B-17s?

Horn: Yeah--no the B-17s and the, the next one.

Fugate: Twenty-nines?

Horn: Yeah, and--oh no, it was twenty-nines, it was…it 24:00was after the B-17. But they would be coming in shot up, with parachutes hanging down, running along the, the strip and I wouldn’t go to bed until they were all in [Laughter – Fugate and Horn]. Lord, there is no way.

Fugate: A lot of people brought back photographs of the natives and things, did you encounter many of the native… Horn: No.

Fugate: …people on Saipan? How about with Iwo?

Horn: Oh, well they had those, Sumaro, Sumaros, or whatever they call them. They were…they had them enclosed, in an enclosure… Fugate: Okay.

Horn: …that was a, they, they, they didn’t have the run off the island.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: And they was, of course, we was feeding them, or the army and the navy was feeding them, and they had them all enclosed in barbwire enclosure.

Fugate: What, what did Iwo looked like when you first got there, when… Horn: Well, I was seasick [Laughter – Fugate], but it just looked like a bunch of glob, but 25:00when you got closer to it, it had a mountain range right through the middle of it, and a volcano. You could take your rations and bury them in the ground, oh six to eight inches, in two hours they were hot to eat.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: The, the, and every morning when you, when you would waken, the steam was, you know, coming out of the, forming clouds, coming out of the ground, it was ho…that was, the land was hot itself.

Fugate: When you got there, did they have most of the, the casualties of the battle… Horn: Yeah.

Fugate: …cleaned up?

Horn: Yeah, it was cleaned up when we got there.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: But we didn’t get there--and it was…on last April, first of May, somewhere there, but… Fugate: The, the flag on Iwo Jima was still flying, or they… Horn: No, I never did see it.

Fugate: You never did see it?

Horn: No.

Fugate: Didn’t know it was anything to look at, at that point, I guess.

Horn: No, we would, we would put trip flyers around our unit at night, and they were going off and all o…all night, and I mean they… Fugate: So there were still Japanese soldiers on the island?

Horn: Yeah, yeah, they, they stayed in caves and things. 26:00Oh Saipan wasn’t--when we left there up in the forty-five, there were still Japanese on the islands there. They would come out at night and steal food, but they didn’t try to harm you. But they would come try to steal food, because they was still in those caves, those islands is full of caves, but… [Interruption] Fugate: The, the trip home on, on board the ship coming back from Iwo Jima to Pearl Harbor and then back to San Fr…or back to California.

Horn: Well we flew from Iwo to Saipan, there was from Saipan to, to Hickam Field, and then we waited a week. We lost our priority, we had first-class priority and then we lost it, 27:00and we waited a week and got a ship. Of all, every time you was on a ship, we, we would form a convoy at Kwajalein going to Saipan. They got you up an hour or two hours before sun side--suns… Fugate: Sunrise.

Horn: Yeah, and then you stood on board the--out on the deck two hours before sunset, until after the sunset, because of submarines. You, everybody was out of the holes, you was on the deck, and… Fugate: They didn’t use you guys as subma…anti-submarine watch… Horn: No, uh-huh.

Fugate: …you just got there sunbathing.

Horn: No [Laughing] oh-oh-oh. And I, I’ve got chronic seasickness.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: I can’t, every time I get on a ship, I get sick, nauseated, and I just go to bed, try to.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: That’s the reason I was laying under a jeep on a LST when we went to Saipan, I was up on it, and I was vomiting and this sailor come by and told me to clean it up [Chuckling] you can imagine what I told him [Laughter – Fugate 28:00and Horn]. But, but anyway, when we, we stopped to, when we came back to Hickam, had a week’s layover, we got out, went on a glass bottom boat, the first WACs I had ever seen. A bunch of them were on there, and I, I was looking down the center of that boat, looking at the bottom, it was beautiful. And I got sick and hit the rail and those WACs, they--oh, it amused them, they, they thought it was awful that I was getting sick, you know [Laughter – Fugate] but we wasn’t even out of the harbor, thew!

Fugate: Well I imagine seasickness was a pretty big problem for just about everyone… Horn: Yeah.

Fugate: …you weren’t the only one for sure.

Horn: Noooo, uh-uh. I, it was, it was awful. 29:00Fugate: Well, from the, the, the boat trip back from, from Pearl Harbor back to, where did you land? San Francisco?

Horn: San Francisco.

Fugate: Yeah, you’ve stayed sick pretty much the whole… Horn: I stayed sick all… Fugate: …way back across?

Horn: …all the time.

Fugate: O… Horn: So that took about six days in those, then.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: And…yeah, I stayed sick and couldn’t, couldn’t get out. Then when we got to San Francisco, they put us on troop train and brought us across the country and they were stopping at different cities and letting the people off. Then they dropped us off at…Indianapolis and we, we, took us down to Camp Atterbury.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: And then from there, well, we came home then we went back to Atterbury was discharged.

Fugate: Yeah. [Pause] Fugate: I want to go back and talk about those 1917 antiaircraft guns that you guys were issued, were those already there, or did you bring those over with you?

Horn: They, they were stationed, well they wasn’t sta--they were semi stationed there. They were there at Fort Barrett, they was also four of them at Fort Weaver, but the, the cables 30:00had been cut and we didn’t get to use those, then, and we didn’t have any ammunition for them either. But those, those 1917 model guns had height finder the range finder, and then you had to be good at, at…arithmetic to do the rest of the figuring though, set the fuse, now all the fuses had to be set by hand, and…they wasn’t very effective, because we used to fire them at targets they’d pull targets around, we’d fire them, and they’d get up and get [Laughing] a round, but they wasn’t much force.

Fugate: What kind of targets, I mean, what, were they… Horn: They had drone planes and then they had targets, they’d, like a big…oh, it wasn’t plastic sleeves and things they would pull behind the planes, and you had to be careful not to shoot toward the plane 31:00[Laughter – Fugate and Horn] and everything was hand operated, it was… Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: …and then when we got our first radar, it was mounted on a truck, and there was a typhoon coming in, we had to dismantle it [Laughing] and to keep the typhoon from getting in the, the typhoon didn’t, didn’t get there. But… Fugate: So how many men were in the 97th?

Horn: Oh well, there was A, B, C, D, E, F, that, then the headquarters. I would say there was about a hundred and fifteen-twenty men in each unit, so.

Fugate: That’s a pretty good organization.

Horn: Yeah.

Fugate: How many guns per--were in each unit?

Horn: I’d, I’d really don’t, don’t know. After the war started, we didn’t have time to, to go around to the other units. When, they were scattered; see we had them at, we had them everywhere. They was, they was scattered. I got one friend who lives down here, Perryville that was at, he was Hickam Field, I got one lives over at Lawrenceburg, 32:00and one that lives in Glendale, Kentucky that was at Fort Kamehameha and I got one lives in Steele, Missouri that was with us. We still keep in touch, the, the ones that hadn’t passed on.

Fugate: So these were guys that were in your unit?

Horn: Mm-mm, some of them.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: Not the one in Lawrenceburg. He was, he was at Fort Kam. And the one from Glendale was at Fort Kam.

Fugate: And what are their names?

Horn: One of them is Roy H. Moore, and his son is funeral director down here, Harrods Funeral Home.

Fugate: Oh, okay.

Horn: And the other one is Garland (Harlow?) 33:00he lives in Glendale, he is a chicken farmer, or was, he said he is getting out.

Fugate: [Laughter – Fugate] he is getting out of the chicken business.

Horn: Yeah, and…then I have this friend, Dick (Howe?) who lives in Louisville, he was down here with me one day, we was looking around, and those people are close to you.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: We stay close.

Fugate: Well, they stayed with you throughout, they went over there… Horn: Yeah, part of them.

Fugate: …with you when you were drafted?

Horn: Yeah, yeah.

Fugate: They went through Saipan, and Iwo, and the whole bit?

Horn: No. We were the only outfit that went to Saipan. And we were the only outfit that went to Iwo, Battery H.

Fugate: Battery H?

Horn: H, there was the rest of them. Some of them they stayed on Oahu, they went to--and most of them stayed there. They went to different forts and… and I don’t know how come we, we were the only outfit that went out, but we were the only outfit who went to Saipan.

Fugate: You said you were credited with shooting down… 34:00Horn: No--oh, the, our unit after the left was credited with one.

Fugate: Oh, after you left, okay.

Horn: After we left Iwo.

Fugate: Which, which unit was that, that… Horn: That was Battery H, ninet…ninety-seventh.

Fugate: Okay.

Horn: And most of the draftees that were, we were from Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and Georgia. And I don’t remember any we had from Tennessee. But most of us was from the old Fifth Corps area.

Fugate: Okay. Are the…I guess the, the people that you were involved with the bombing there at Pearl Harbor have remained your closest friends throughout the majority of your life, so far?

Horn: Sure.

Fugate: You’re still highly involved with them on a daily… Horn: Yeah.

Fugate: …basis?

Horn: Well, yeah. We visit, we go, we got one over to Cincinnati, we go to see, and then of course we’ve lost several of them, about half of them, that twelve is gone.

Fugate: Are they…the…back to the…area 35:00at Saipan, you talked about it being a tropical island setting. What kind of activities again, did, might you have been involved in there to pass the time?

Horn: Well, a lot of those bought some Japanese rifles and made pistols out of them, and they would get those prep, props off those planes when they tear them up and they would work to them, make knives, make handles, and they would [Chuckling] Fugate: How did they make a handgun out of a rifle?

Horn: Sawed the barrel off and cut the stock off and they…we had a lot of people that knew a lot of things.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: And…yeah, they’d take those rifles and cut the barrel off and go around and work the stock over and make a pistol out of it. And there was ammunition everywhere 36:00and we were always getting Japanese ammunition, shooting, target practice, it was everywhere, and rifles was everywhere.

Fugate: The officers, the noncoms didn’t really give you any problems?

Horn: No, uh-uh.

Fugate: What was your rank at that time?

Horn: I was staff sergeant.

Fugate: So is a staff sergeant… Horn: Oh, on Saipan we…we were stationed up by the airfield, with no water. They had salt water, the water was, they had, they was running some water through a still, part of it was--they’d run it one time, they had a lot of salt left in it, then they’d get some drinking water, they’d run it through the, got most of the salt out. We wanted a, to build us a shower. So we went down to the dock, got this old chief petty officer and somebody slipped him twenty dollars and picked up one of those square tanks, or floats, and he put it on the truck for us, [Chuckling] for twenty dollars. We took it back, we set it up, air, on the hill. Down below we had a, we’d fill it up with water, get it filled up, we take charge, every, every night the, the old man, or one of the officers go down there and they’d stand on the valve, 37:00and you got in there, you got soaped up, they turned it off, and then, when you got ready to rinse they, every body rinsed at one time [Laughter – Fugate]. But that was the only way you had a good, to get a good shower.

Fugate: What kind of, what kind of uniform were you issued, or, at that time period?

Horn: Oh, they were green ODs, and fatigue hat was a big whole round, looked like a Mexican hat that was, they were, had a big wide brim on it, soft, and then they went to, to blue, where they had blue too.

Fugate: Sort of a denim?

Horn: They was blue at first, and then we went to green. They was, when we was in the recoup camp they were, they was…blue. 38:00And then me…after the war started, they went to green. But it still the same type of fatigue hat and…and always, we had, when we first got over in the islands, we had pith helmets to wear, on a, going on pass or anywhere, you could wear a pith helmet.

Fugate: Hum. The sleeping quarters, you said your tent was set up at the end of the runway in Saipan. What were your sleeping quarters like at Pearl Harbor, I imagine they were a little better, weren’t they?

Horn: No.

Fugate: They weren’t!

Horn: No. There was no buildings at, at Fort Weaver, and we had tents with the wooden floors in them. They was, and walls up so high. You could raise flaps but they had wooden floors and the, they were just temporary housing.

Fugate: And then when, I’d imagine it was the same way at Iwo Jima, the… Horn: Yeah.

Fugate: How did you set a tent up in the sand at Iwo, if, wouldn’t it catch your, your stakes on fire, or melt them, or… Horn: No, no it wasn’t that hot.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: It was the ground was warm and hot and the fog would come off of it, but it wasn’t--and you put your rations in, they would 39:00be hot to eat, I mean they was, all you had to do is dig your hole and drop them in and it was easily did, it was real loose.

Fugate: What--yeah. How was it, how was it like digging your gun emplacements or whatever?

Horn: Well, we didn’t dig them down there, we… Fugate: Did you set the gun up on the top of the… Horn: ( ) Fugate: Yeah. What about on Saipan, what kind of emplacement did you have there?

Horn: We had sandbag bunkers around them. We, we built sandbags. Another thing, we used to, we had water cans, five-gallon water cans all the way around the bunker, we [Chuckling] we used to get raisins and sugar and make raisins jack in those cans, because the cans were always supposed to be filled with water, and we would get out there sometime we would have raisin jack 40:00[Laughing] Fugate: And raisin jack is a form of moonshine, isn’t it?

Horn: Yeah.

Fugate: Yeah [Laughter – Fugate].

Horn: Yeah, but it’s a wine actually it’s made out of raisins.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: We’d put in anything in there we could get.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: And… Fugate: Well they, it sounds like you all had quite a, quite a bit of free time and opportunities to, to really enjoy yourself.

Horn: We did, well… Fugate: Yeah. I guess there really weren’t, there weren’t a, a number of oppor…of, of times after Pearl Harbor that you could say that you were really in a situation where you were very hectic and you were involved in a battle area?

Horn: Huh, no, not really, we…it wasn’t rea…it wasn’t as rough as you would think it would be.

Fugate: Mm-mm. Well, let’s say one morning those planes attacked on Saipan, what was, what was the duty? What was the routine? What would you do to… Horn: When they, when the sirens sound, you, you went to your gun emplacement and you got your ammunition ready and the radar trains in on them and if they got close, or got to where you thought you could anything, why they’d fire at them. But we… Fugate: What was your duty?

Horn: I was a mess sergeant.

Fugate: You were the mess sergeant. So you, your… Horn: And, but I was also on the gun crew.

Fugate: Right. 41:00Horn: Yeah, that was… Fugate: What was your duty on the gun crew?

Horn: Handing ammunition.

Fugate: You were a, a loader?

Horn: Ever, see, when you, on those four point sevens, when you set, drop the tail in it, set the, the fuse and everything is automatic, all you had to do was drop it in, then the gunner threw it in the chamber, pulled the lanyard.

Fugate: Well as the, as the mess sergeant, where did you set your…your kitchens up at… Horn: Well, we never did set one up on Iwo. We set them up right close to the rest of the tents.

Fugate: I made, I made a quip about the, the army food not being too good at Pearl Harbor while you were stopping at the, the restaurant there, but…what kind of, I mean as, as the, were you just a company cook and you supplied food for just the company, or… Horn: Yeah. Rations were brought to you. The, 42:00they had a supply sergeant from headquarters that he would bring his little slide rule and if you fed a hundred and twenty men today, you got rations for tomorrow for a hundred and twenty people. If you just fed a hundred, you just got rations for a hundred, and you might have a hundred and twenty [Chuckling] in that thing, so… Fugate: There were ways to get around that, weren’t they?

Horn: Yeah.

Fugate: What were some of the… Horn: Well you always…he would, if you tell him how bad you need them, he’d give you a little extra. But everything was divided with a slide rule, he was, you, he’d write it down to…we used to get frozen chickens, they had the heads on them, the feet on them and the entrails on them [Laughter – Horn and Fugate]. Oh me!

Fugate: That was a lot 43:00of fun to clean on Iwo Jima, I’m sure.

Horn: No, we didn’t have those there. We didn’t have a kitchen set up. We wouldn’t… Fugate: So, what did the men do? They just, basically they, the, C rations and… Horn: C rations, K rations.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: And they had one they called tin-in-one… Fugate: Right.

Horn: …that had, had canned bacon, but it was uncooked bacon, and there was about a pound, pound of bacon I guess in a can, and had C rations, K rations, candy bars, cigarettes, they had a little bit of everything in it. But one, one box was supposed to feed ten people for one meal. And… Fugate: Well as the, as the cook was it your responsibility to draw those rations and then pass them out?

Horn: Do, draw all those rations and then passed them out.

Fugate: And where would you go to draw them, I’m… Horn: Oh, you had to go down to headquarters and draw them out, on, on the Iwo, we went to the headquarters, but on the others, on Saipan, and back at Pearl, the, they had a ration truck come around every morning and brought your grocery, brought your supplies.

Fugate: Hum. I, you, you, you said earlier that the men would put their, their, I guess it’s their 44:00C rations in, in the sand at Iwo and… Horn: And heat them.

Fugate: And heat them. Was that volcanic sand all over the island, or just… Horn: All over the island.

Fugate: It was completely covered then.

Horn: Yeah.

Fugate: The… Horn: Oh, well now I wasn’t all over the island, parts I was on, we was up that close to the airport and it was, you could dig in it anywhere, just take your hands almost would dig it out.

Fugate: Okay since on Iwo, it was basically your duty to then go retrieve the, the rations at headquarters and pass those rations out amongst the men. What were your other duties since you weren’t… Horn: And keeping the water supply. Now they had a steel set up on Iwo for distilling water, there was not fresh water, and… so we had, we would kept, get a water tank, and then put a lister bag up and see, 45:00they had chlorine in it.

Fugate: What’s a lister bag?

Horn: That’s a water bag with valves all the way around it. So, about two, two-and-a-half, three-foot across the diameter, about four of five foot long, you hang it up, it’s got the valves on the side to hook them get to draw your water, just like a water fountain.

Fugate: Okay.

Horn: And, you had to test the water, be sure that it had plenty of chlorine in it, and, then they wouldn’t drink it [Laughter – Horn and Fugate] Fugate: They weren’t drinking it because it tested like chlorine?

Horn: Yeah.

Fugate: Who went around and, I don’t know, inspected those things and made sure that they were…was there a regimental officer or someone… Horn: Yeah, regimental officer, then the, then your…the post officers would do it, your company officers. You had a mess officer, and then you had a mess officer for the, for the battalion, and they would check garbage cans, they would check everything and, and if they found grease, clean it up.

Fugate: The, the equipment that you were issued as a company cook, 46:00what kind of equipment was that?

Horn: We had those gasoline stoves, field stoves, stacked, and you could bake in them, or you could cook in them, and it didn’t take much to cook powdered eggs and [Chuckling] dehydrated potatoes and, the ( ) most everything was dry.

Fugate: Yeah.

Horn: While out on the outside of the, wrap around Saipan and Iwo.

Fugate: Did you supplement their, the, the meals with any of the stuff you could find on the island? I mean… Horn: No.

Fugate: …there had to have been…they wouldn’t, didn’t allow you to do that.

Horn: Uh-uh. We had a company fund when we was at Pearl, and we would, we’d go out, if we, and if we’d going to have the hula girls, or have a, we had a luau once, we would buy stuff like that, and we would buy the extras out of the company fund. But you couldn’t spend 47:00it for anything else. We bought two five-gallons ice cream makers once, hand operated, and we used to make ice cream all the time, we always had. Then when we left Pearl, we had to leave our ice cream makers, but.

Fugate: A luau, what was the luau like? That was just for your company, company H?

Horn: Yeah, and they bring, they bring a bunch of the girls and the hula girls and the old women, and bring them off and dig a hole, line it with banana leaves and tea leaves and wrap that pig up in a chicken wire and cover him good again and put him in there, fill his belly full of hot rock, and it’s good eating. Oh, brown, good. When I was over there this time, a luau was about forty dollars, if you wanted [Laughter – Horn and Fugate] a luau and they had one at Barbers Point for the survivors, but it was sold out. It was sold out months 48:00before the… Fugate: How many survivors actually attended the reunion?

Horn: I think we had about four thousand registered, and we’ve on… we’ve only got about a little over eleven thousand in the whole world.

Fugate: How many here in the state of Kentucky?

Horn: Well, I don’t know, there was… really I, I don’t know. We had, we had two from Cadiz, and we had one from--we had two from Owensboro, and we had one from Frankfort. We had several from Louisville, and we had one from Mount Sterling, and had one from Carrollton, I don’t know, we had several over there.

Fugate: How many members… Horn: Oh and one from Lawrenceburg.

Fugate: …are there in Kentucky? How many members of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association are there from Kentucky?

Horn: Right now we got ninety-two. 49:00Fugate: Ninety-two. And there are more Peal Harbor survivors living in Kentucky than that.

Horn: Right, but for some reason, they, we don’t get enough publicity out or something, we, we don’t hear from a lot of them, and when you write a lot of them, they don’t seem like they’re interested. If they would come to one meeting, [Chuckling] they would be back.

Fugate: Yeah. We attended one of your meetings, and I have, I had a lot of fun watching the auctions and, it seems like everybody has a good time, it’s, it’s sort of like a, a high school reunion all over again.

Horn: It is. Well, it, you’re, you’re going back, you’re getting together with people that do--have been through the same thing you’ve been through. It…and we’re just…I don’t know; it’s one of the better organizations. You’re just, thick, and close.

Fugate: Yeah, at that point in your life, I guess you’re, you’re alive, it 50:00is the most exciting part of your life at that point, your, your first experiences away from, from home and what not, and suddenly you’re thrust into this world war, and that had to have been an, incredible situation.

Horn: We had a speaker one time that made a speech, and he said you fellows are unique. He said, not what you did, but he said, you’re, you’re a unique group. He said, you were fighting a war defending the United States twenty-four hours before the war was declared. He said, you was in a undeclared war for the United States. We got thinking about it, well he was right. That was a, that, we, we had, there was the most of us never thought about that. It’s not what we did, it ju…the people at Pearl Harbor didn’t know anything 51:00anymore than anybody else in the service. It was just the position we were caught in, that’s.

Fugate: You reacted as best you could… Horn: Yeah.

Fugate: …to the position your were in, yeah. [END OF INTERVIEW]