Oral History Interview with Robert Haynes

Milligan: I’m going to s…start this right now. Okay, this is Sarah Milligan. I’m at Mount Sterling, Kentucky. It is Ju—no, it’s February 23rd, 2008 [Chuckles – Haynes]—long day. I’m interviewing…Robert C. Haynes, Sr. about his World War II experience.

Haynes: Yes.

Milligan: All right. So, tell me a little bit about, about how that experience started for you.

Haynes: Well, the experience started in nineteen and forty-six. During the war, I had—my father had gone to Baltimore to work and I stayed one year with him…and we moved there from Jenkins, Kentucky, and we moved there for that one year and I went to Paterson Clark High School. My father was encouraging me, I was a sophomore, and my father was encouraging me to join the navy, and he said, “oh, look at all the benefits that you can get, when you, when the war is over, 1:00you can get the GI Bill of Rights and all of this,” and…I was thinking about that but I wasn’t ready for the navy, because I’m a mountain boy. And so, the other thing my father didn’t realize, is that my mother had a lot of control over me and when he mentioned that, it almost led to divorce, [Chuckles – Milligan] but [Laughing], but anyway I finished school and, and the next year I came back to k…Kentucky to finish high school at Jenkins High School. I played basketball and was a fairly good player, and I had a scholarship in 1946, June of ’46, I had a scholarship to go to Union College. But, I had a mind of my own. I, first of all, needed to have my teeth taken care of, 2:00and I needed to have, I wanted to get, I wanted to get married. I had….

Milligan: Did you have a girl friend?

Haynes: Yeah—oh yes, I had a girl friend, I had one, and so I wanted to get married and…I…didn’t have a job…after school as I….

Milligan: You were eighteen?

Haynes: I was seventeen….

Milligan: When you graduated high school.

Haynes: …when I graduated. So what happened was is that…the…Union College wanted us to…send in a ten dollar deposit fee for room, and my mother and father, my mother just still—we were still living there. I was living with her. Dad was still in Baltimore, and he was guarding the shipyard there. But anyway, my mother…had to scrounge around to get ten dollars, 3:00and I was a realist, and I said well, there is, how am I going to…go to school? I don’t have the, I have one suit that I had worked…in the summer, in Baltimore, Maryland, and I bought a suit, and, and that’s one suit I had to take to college. I was a realist and I knew that, that things weren’t just right, and I wanted to be independent, it was just my nature, and so, what happened is, I, I was walking down the street with my friend, a boy by the name of Harold (Bright?), and we both were from Birdie, Kentucky. I was out in the country and he was in town, and I said, “Harold, let’s join, let’s join the Army.” And Harold looked at me and he says, “okay!” And so we went over to Norton, Virginia told them we wanted to join the army and we joined and 4:00then we went to…later on we…in about a week we went to Roanoke, Virginia and were sworn in, and then from there we went up to Fort Mead, Maryland to get our army uniforms and all of this, and then I ended up in June, July, and August in Fort McClellan, Alabama. And that, it was hot! [Laughter – Milligan], it was hot. So, basic training, but the hostilities were over, but the war was not officially over, and so the, they needed people to come in and to relieve the soldiers that had been fighting, and so… Milligan: So were you eighteen by the time you enlisted?

Haynes: I was…no I was still seventeen.

Milligan: Did your parents have to sign?

Haynes: No, because it was the month, the same month as my birthday, so they took me on my own word [Chuckling].

Milligan: Was your mom mad?

Haynes: No. 5:00Milligan: Okay.

Haynes: No, Mother was a little bit of a realist too, and so anyway… Milligan: You’re in Alabama.

Haynes: I w…in Fort McClellan, they shipped me out to Fort McClellan, Alabama in June, July and August. Whoa! The temperature was hot, and with basic training that was going on, it was eight weeks then, because they needed people to let other people come home, they needed people over there to be the occupational force, if you will. And so I…I th…underwent basic training, and…I don’t know why but…one, one of the sergeants that was in charge of training said to me, he said, “have you ever thought about going to OCS?” an officers’ training school.

Milligan: Okay.

Haynes: And so I said, “well, no, 6:00I really don’t plan a career [Chuckling] in the, in the armed services.” So anyway, I did pretty well in there, they liked me pretty well, and so gave me a furlough of two-weeks. I went home, I was married, I got a…benefits of being a…my wife got benefits of being a, a married wife, always thinking ahead, trying to, you know, [Chuckles – Milligan]. And, and, and so…they had s…worked on my teeth in, and a doctor had told me, you’re going to lose all your teeth, can I pull them all out, give you…this was at, in Jenkins.

Milligan: Oh in Jenkins, they were going to pull all your teeth.

Haynes: Yeah, and I said, “no, I don’t want my teeth out.” Milligan: Why did he think he needed to pull your teeth?

Haynes: Well, I had not taken care of my teeth as well as I should have, because I had never been taught.

Milligan: Right, mm-mm.

Haynes: Well, when you got in the army, they taught us that and they gave us a toothbrush, 7:00toothpaste and they expected you to [Chuckling]. And so, he, he extracted about four of my teeth and all the rest were filled and I never had, I still have today, I’m seventy-nine years old, and I still have the same teeth that I had when I got out of the army.

Milligan: Whoa.

Haynes: And they are, and I, I never had a, maybe one or two occasionally, not much. And so… Milligan: Your goals, you’re married, your teeth are taken care of… Haynes: Yeah and I’m, I’ve got some income now, and I am building for the future. I am going to be a teacher, and so I’m building for the future, and so I suffered the heat, a hundred and two, and doing judo out on the field in the hot weather.

Milligan: They taught you judo!

Haynes: Oh yeah! Yeah, and, and marched us and…oh, it was a—did KP occasionally. If you weren’t careful, 8:00kitchen police, what ever happens, as you go to the, three o’clock in the morning, you get up and you go in and peel potatoes and, and you do work in the kitchen getting ready for the, for men when they came in to eat breakfast. So I, you, all of us wanted to dodge that [Laughter Haynes and Milligan]. But, anyway, I got out of that and went home, was married, left after the two weeks and went to sa…Camp Stoneman, California.

Milligan: Oh!

Haynes: Near Sacramento. And I was going to be shipped overseas, and that’s where I…also was taken care of, health-wise, shots and everything. And then, in just about, oh, two, two weeks or so, I was on, I was—got on a ferry boat, going out to the…out to get on the ship, the General Collins 9:00in San Francisco Bay. And so anyway…we got shots and examination, and cleaning out the ears, the wax in the [Chuckling] ears, and, and all of this, and then we were on the ship. But to get to the ship you had to get on a ferryboat, and the signs say, up above, if you go to get on the ferryboat, ‘through these portals pass the best damn soldiers in the world.’ Milligan: Really!

Haynes: And so [Chuckling], so, I didn’t feel that way necessary, but, and so I got on the, the ferryboat, and I’d never been on a boat before. And so it would rock from side to side and, and I got s…a little seasick before I even got on the ship [Chuckling]. And so, anyway, they took me down and put me on the, on the ship. So I got on the…ship and they star…looking around for people to work KP 10:00and for work details they called it. And they nabbed me, but they did one thing, they forgot to, they forgot to…get my name. So they took us to the station, the workstation, and mine was in the mess hall there they c…and, and, and the thing is, I went in and there was the cook of the ship and he was eating a, a hot dog, and I was already sick….

Milligan: No-o-o.

Haynes: …and so and he turned his back, I laid down right next to the ( ) [Chuckling] and since he had my name I figured it out, he doesn’t have my name. So, when he went back, I disappeared [Laughing]. I went down, then went down I knew where I was to be assigned so I went down to, with, there was four people, one on a canvas bed, the other one—not the…three… Milligan: Bunk.

Haynes: …three-people bunk. So 11:00I got into a, a bunk and, and they never did find me.

Milligan: Oh!

Haynes: And so I was, boy I, that was, and I was getting to feeling a little better because it was still anchored.

Milligan: Yeah.

Haynes: Then we headed for Hawaii and the Philippines.

Milligan: Were you seasick the whole way?

Haynes: No—over to Hawaii, yes.

Milligan: Yeah. What happened to your friend you enlisted with?

Haynes: He was, he came the same place, but a little bit after me. And so we got separated. And—so I got on the ship, and the first stop was Hawaii. I was feeling bad all the way over, but I didn’t watch the water, they said “don’t watch the water.” Milligan: Yeah.

Haynes: And so I stayed…pretty much under. The weather was a little rough. So we got out in Hawaii, and I didn’t understand, they gave us two days leave, I didn’t understand why when I stepped out on the ground, the ground seemed to be coming up at me, you know, 12:00because you, the, on the ship, you got those [Chuckling] waves so, anyway, I got back on the ship and wonderful, this was in late September, late September… Milligan: 1946.

Haynes: 1946. So, what happened was, is that I, I was there and the water was as smooth as glass. I started feeling good! And I got out and oh, I got on the deck, we’d sleep out on the deck at night and, and everything was fine, until we were about, we were about three days out of Manila, the Philippines and a, a typhoon hit.

Milligan: While you were on the boat.

Haynes: Yes. And the ship’s bow was going way up, and then it would…fall and hit the troth, and shake and everything and, and I was down, down, four-stories down 13:00and, and one of the guys wanted to look at the sea, so he’d gone up to look out and a big wave had hit him and knocked him down the metal stairways and so they locked us in. So here it was, and we knew what was happening and went up, came down, and then what happened? The motor of, the engine of the ship went out. The lights went out, the, you could hear the glasses in…breaking in the, in the…ki…kitchen. Oh! And some of the guys had been shaking the dice, I wasn’t, but they, and they’d been using foul language and everything. It changed from foul language over to praying [Laughter – Milligan and Haynes] real quick [Chuckling] and, and so, so when that happened, and you couldn’t see a thing. And so I came out on the, the guy under me, 14:00I came out on his neck, and, and he was from Texas. But anyway, I, we would be tossed around and we could feel it, and, and then the lights came back on. But the guys that had been rolling the dice, they were praying [Laughing] like everything. And, and, and so anyway, we finally moved out of that into the straights, going into Manila Bay, and it was calm and everything, and so I ended up at the 29th Engineering Base Topographic Battalion, which was a f…a space, but there was a battalion headquarters was there, but there were no places for us to live, and so we had to put up tents, and it was the rainy season, starts in October. The rainy season came in and the beds were metal, and we put the beds opened them up, got a mattress and it was, 15:00the rain was coming down, and the water was running in through the [Chuckling] through the f…the ground under in the tent, it didn’t have any floor in it.

Milligan: Yeah.

Haynes: And the, the beds…the morning you would wake up and the bed was about, oh, for or five inches from the, from where it’d sunk down from the [Laughing] water… Milligan: Into the mud?

Haynes: …that was [Chuckling] going through [Laughing], yeah, in the mud. So, anyway that went on.

Milligan: So you, you joined the army, but you ended up spending a lot of times on boats.

Haynes: Yes, just a, a, oh, maybe three or four weeks. But anyway, what happened next was, I, I’m not the carpenter type, and they were looking for work details again, and I would, had, I would watch the non-coms coming that were looking for work detail people, and I would go in the other direction, and… Milligan: You were getting used to sneaking 16:00( ) Haynes: Oh I was learning how [Chuckling] to be an army man [Chuckling] and, so I did that, then one morning, they, they had improved everything, and it gradually improved pretty—oh, it wasn’t bad. But one morning, I was there, and over the PA system, it says, “Robert Haynes, report to battalion headquarters, and immediately!” And oh I was scared, I, eighteen, barely eighteen now, and I was scared and I said, “oh-oh! They’ve caught up with me for dodging all these [Chuckling] details, and so, so, I was frightened, really scared. So…I went to battalion headquarters, I walked in, trembling a little bit, and this bo…this sergeant looked at me, personnel sergeant major looked at me and says, “sit down!” I said “yes, sir.” And it didn’t matter. 17:00Everyone was sir, as far as I was concerned. And, and I was a PFC, so I set down, and he was looking at my records. He says, “you had accounting.” “Yes, yes sir.” “ You’ve had typing?” “Yes sir.” “You’ve done pretty well in your, in your sciences?” “Yes, yes sir.” And he said, “okay,” he says, “you got a pretty record, how would you like to be the company, the company sergeant, the pom…company clerk for the thirty-three sixty-first base survey company?” And I said, “hum…I’ll take it.” [Laughing].

Milligan: Eighteen years old.

Haynes: “I’ll take it.” So I became the company clerk at the b…the battalion company clerk, and I did payrolls and all that sort of thing, and my personnel sergeant major who was in charge of all personnel records and everything, and when 18:00I’d type something, he would not accept erasing, erasure. I had to have it perfect. And I would take it up to him, and he would hold it up and look at it, and if there had been eraser mark on it, he’d said, “do it over!” And so I did it over, and… Milligan: So you, do you feel you got that position because you had had typing?

Haynes: Typing, and bookkeeping, and, and, and, and a pretty good grade and, and my, they looked at the IQ test too that you give in the army, and that was above average. And so, with that in mind, I, I went ahead and took that job.

Milligan: So you felt fortunate to ( ).

Haynes: Oh Lord it wa…compare that, sitting at the typewriter, compare that to how to deal with the hammer and carrying wood, and all [Chuckling] that business. I didn’t like that, so I was fortunate, and so, and how fortunate I was. 19:00And this was the 29th Engineering Base Topographic Battalion.

Milligan: Which means… Haynes: Which… Milligan: …exactly what?

Haynes: It means that, it, its mission was to do the mapping, both aerial mapping and with, with all the companies in there, each one had a mission, with aerial mapping, photographic, with surveying out in the field, going to the islands, and making maps.

Milligan: In the Philippines.

Haynes: In the Philippines.

Milligan: What….

Haynes: And there is a thousand…hund…hundred and seventeen islands in the Philippines.

Milligan: So what, what constituted the need for the mapping? Had people not been stationed there?

Haynes: To…the mission was this, to map and to take all maps that previously existed c…validate them, but also to train the Filipinos to, to do this…mapping themselves. So that was the mission, and I had, I was fortunate to be in the engineers. 20:00My friend later on came over and he was in the MPs. I was just so fortunate to get in the 29th Engineering Base Topographic Battalion. One was one most wonderful experience in my life.

Milligan: What was, what was so memorable about it?

Haynes: Well…well, first of all I worked real hard, I was very courteous, and, and…I…they liked me, they like me, and so what happened is they jumped me up to a corporal and then they moved me up to batta…company headquarters, it’s called, company, company, the headquarters company. And so they moved me up to that. And then the, the personnel sergeant major was getting ready to come back to the United States, he, he had been there a long time. So…he called me up one day and says, “would you like to become the personnel sergeant major for the battalion?” And 21:00I said, “what, what does that mean?” He said, “well,” he said, “it means you can get a promotion.” And so through some efforts that went on, I eventually got promoted up to a staff sergeant at age nineteen.

Milligan: Whoa!

Haynes: And my brother-in-law was at Clark Field and he came down to visit and the colonel of the battalion liked me. The company commander liked me, and the sergeant major of the battalion, a man by the name of Smith, he, he liked me, and, and I was always the one that did—I worked real hard, and with a good attitude, and attitude made the difference. So, what happened is that I got promoted to personnel sergeant major, and staff sergeant in time, and, and…it meant more money, it meant that I got a, the mess hall, I got a place to eat more, and family-style, and then 22:00it also meant on the week-ends I could check out a, a…weapons carrier or a jeep to go out and see some things around Manila and at Clark Field, and up near there, where the, the volcano that erupted in 1990s, Petino…(Whispers) Petino…yeah, Petubo, Petubo (Pinatubo?) [Chuckling] I’m too basketball oriented [Laughing], Petubo, and so I got to visit there forty some years afterwards it erupted.

Milligan: Yeah.

Haynes: And, and so I got to go to Corregidor… Milligan: Which is?

Haynes: Which is right near Manila and that’s of course, in the Philippines, that was the last place that we had before we, before we…had to surrender, General Wainwright—MacArthur had been there but he took off in February, 23:00the President of the United States ordered MacArthur to come home, and so he sent PT boats up to pick him up, and also the president of, of…the Philippines at that time was Corris…(Corazon?), and he…picked him up, and then he came back and MacArthur and his family left Corregidor it’s worth, we were the last defense.

Milligan: Right.

Haynes: And Corregidor is right at the mouth of, of the bay… Milligan: Yeah.

Haynes: …and you could be in Corregidor and look out and you could see Bataan, just about eight miles away… Milligan: Right.

Haynes: …and another place about eight miles. You could look out and you could see these archipelagoes…there.

Milligan: How did, how did that make you feel? I mean being there after all of this huge up, up shift, and, and you’re there post that, how did your interactions with the Filipino people, and how did that make you feel?

Haynes: Oh, well, I felt, I love 24:00the Filipino people, I really do, because I had two guys that were Filipino scouts, and their army, our, our army paid soldiers and they had two companies and they were assigned to the battalion until I taught them how to type, and I worked with them, and they, they liked me, and so what happens is that they invited me to play basketball with them [Chuckles – Milligan], and so I started on the weekends and sometimes at night but mainly weekends. What ha…would happen is I would go out to the barrios with this team, and…and, and they had stringed lights around the perimeter of the basketball court, just bare…bulbs, and it was dirt court. And then they had smoke coming up to get rid of the mosquitoes. And so, we would play basketball against Filipino teams 25:00and they just…I was very much accepted and so wherever I went, it was always with courtesy.

Milligan: That’s great!

Haynes: And, and I cared for them and they cared for me.

Milligan: That’s, that’s a very good relationship.

Haynes: Yes.

Milligan: What, politically how did it, how did it fit with you all there? What, was it accepted? Did you, did you feel like you were welcome there to, to do the mapping, to do the… Haynes: Oh yes! We we…we, we were, and I was…in June of 1946, the Philippines was gr…granted nationhood. They became a nation. MacArthur was one—by the way MacArthur is revered in, in the…the Philippines. His name still…there and we were on Highway 54, which was named MacArthur Boulevard, in the Philippines. It has a new name now, but it was there. 26:00But anyway, I…the Filipino…scouts was one, but in June of ni….—July the fourth 1946, MacArthur and others gave them the statehood, a nationhood, and so I was there the n…on their first anniversary. And now the Filipino soldiers weren’t, they didn’t have this, this uniforms like our scouts did, and, and all of this, but on that ( ) day, they were lined up all along boulevards for miles, and miles, and miles standing there at attention that day, and it was a celebration that they had been looking forward to since eighteen and ninety-eight. That’s when we wan…they wanted, the guerrillas had been fighting the Spanish, and so when Dewey won the battle there and…for…and the Spanish 27:00gave up Cuba at that time they gave up, they gave up the Filipinos, they sold the Filipino—Philippines to us for two—twenty- million dollars, and but, that, that’s another whole story.

Milligan: Yeah [Chuckling]. But anyway, when I got to Corregidor, I, saw the Malinta Tunnel, and that’s where we had dug tunnels to keep the bombs from damaging us there. We had dug tunnels back in the rocks and for hundreds of feet, back with side branches and, and when Jo…General Wainwright had to surrender there, MacArthur has taken off to get to Australia. President had ordered him to come, and so he went on PT Boat Number 41 down to Mindanao and then they flew him over to…Australia, and then from Australia—in Australia 28:00he finally ended up in Sidney, Adelaide, and then Sidney.

Milligan: So at nineteen, when you’re here, do you, do you have the sense of, of kind of devastation had just happened? I mean there was the Bataan Death March, there is all of these things, these horrific things that happened in that region, and, and they really fought to the end, you know… Haynes: Yes.

Milligan: …that last stronghold, did, did you feel that?

Haynes: Yes, yes, and, and I took pictures and I took a picture where MacArthur had stood with the idea is when he came back in…1945, he said, “raise the, raise the colors of the flag and let no enemy ever take it down again.” And so…I stood there. Also, I stood at the entrance of this Malinta Tunnel. It says, “beware, there is, the booby traps, do not enter.” The booby traps are here, and so don’t go in. And also snakes are in there. Well, the booby traps didn’t 29:00bother me too much, I was, but, but when he said snakes, No-o-o [Laughing] I’m, ( ) “snakes!” I didn’t want to go back in there. So, anyway, then on the beach, on the beach, you walked along and I’ve got a picture of this out here. But, you had little Japanese shoes…and…machine guns, and everything rusting out. They were still there, all of that when I went over, and I was mentioning the, the Malinta Tunnel, when Wainwright surrendered for all the Philippines, he surrendered there to the Japanese. The reason he surrendered is because the next day, the Japanese were coming in with superior forces, they didn’t have much left and over a thousand people in the hospital back in here and he says, “what’s one more day, freedom if we can 30:00get all these thousands of people killed.” So he surrendered. And when MacArthur received him later, he, the Japanese had shifted him around, he was in…Mount…outer Mon…golia, and when the Russians came in, they, they liberated him, but, but when he came he was emaciated, you know, he’s lost weight and everything… Milligan: Yeah.

Haynes: …but when he came in and saw MacArthur he burst out started crying, and so, but MacArthur says, “you, don’t, you were a hero.” Milligan: Yeah.

Haynes: So, and they, and we treated him as a hero and gave him a promotion to general and then he ended up, his army career, but, anyway, that wa…to look over and see these shoes and little pieces with clothing and, and machineguns and banett—bayonets 31:00and all of this, on the beach…where the fighting had occurred, you see… Milligan: Right.

Haynes: …was…quite sobering, really… Milligan: Yeah.

Haynes: …when you see all of that.

Milligan: Well I, I wonder how that is, you know, you, you came in as kind of—as you said, kind of to be what could be an occupational force, you know… Haynes: Yeah, this… Milligan: …you’re really there to reconstruct and work or create peace or whatever… Haynes: Yes, build friendships.

Milligan: …build friendships. So since you were there after, after all the combat took place, it, it seems like you are in a happier role but there is still… Haynes: Well [Chuckling]… Milligan: …those pieces.

Haynes: Yeah, I told you earlier that I had gotten a weapons carrier I can check out, and so some friends and I were in the weapons carrier coming back and it was at night time, and we were driving down this highway 54, MacArthur Boulevard, is probably about ten miles out, and this brand new Ford 32:00came up right next to us and was trying to force me off the road, and you see the hunt Hukbalahaps were, that’s the communist group. The Hukbalahaps were still trying to take over. So it was, this car was trying to force me over and I said, huh, he’s got a new Ford, I’ve got a weapons carrier, so he is not going to force me over. So I would cut back at him. So we ran for about three or four miles like that. And then, over here we passed a jeep and had a machine gun on the…at elevated up on the back… Milligan: You passed an American Jeep… Haynes: Yes.

Milligan: …on, on the right.

Haynes: On the right. And so this jeep saw what was going on and he started out and he was swooped up I guess, but he was after that Ford and he was really going after it. And so we…when we…went a few more miles, the jeep pulled us over. It was MPs, 33:00really is what it was, pulled us over and says, “you better get back to the…your…headquarters because this car, they were after your vehicle…the, the car, the men in the back had a…b…Tommy guns and so…you, it would be dangerous.” So, I said, “yes sir,” and [Chuckling] so we went back, but the, the…they found a way to integrate them, they, to, the United States to…and the Philippine government to alleviate some of the concerns and the gripes and of the, the communists there, and so they lost some favor. But they were called the—the we called them the Hukbalahaps but they were just called Huks later on, h-u-k-s, Huks, and… Milligan: Why did you call them the Hukbalahaps… Haynes: I’d… Milligan: …is that their real name? 34:00Haynes: I, I don’t know. That was the—but I looked up on Google, and, and they now, I, so they call them the Huks, h-u-k-s. So it was, it was st…and you could walk downtown Manila in, in…early nineteen forty …s…late ’46, there and you would see bandoliers and rifles among the population there, and so, but they, I was never threatened or, and they didn’t threaten Americans at that time. But that was the Huks and the guerillas of various kind, and… Milligan: Did you write home a lot?

Haynes: Oh yes, yes. I was married.

Milligan: Newlywed… Haynes: Yeah!

Milligan: …you were newlywed.

Haynes: Two weeks [Chuckling], but, yes I wrote. But one of the things, interesting thing, is that I remember…going downtown and I’ve got a picture showing me, you don’t have the big skyscrapers and things then, 35:00it was near the Pasig River…and…but they had these stalls, these saloons, or stalls set up and you’d get your picture taken and you’d get art, little artifacts knives and, and polish stones and…a lapidarian was at work and coats and all this and…and they would in…embroider the clothes in the back like 29th Engineering Base Topographic Battalion that you could send home, or you could keep.

Milligan: Yeah.

Haynes: But anyway, it was a business place, and…so but you’d go in and, maz…the amazing thing I would hear this voice, says, “hey, Huk…balahaps, get your, get your bulock, let me see, what is it? The…turn it off just—balute, 36:00okay. “hey, get your balute, balute, balute, balute, balute” and I said, “what in the world is a balute?” And I’d see them over, they would be eating something, and I said, “what is that?” “it’s a balute, it’s a balute.” And so I went back to my office and the next day, and I said, “what is a balute?” And they said, “oh,” says, “that is an incubated egg, duck egg, incubated duck egg for the…they put the heat and the conditions to it and time it and at a certain time, they’d take it out and it becomes a balute, and it’s a delicacy.” Milligan: So, it’s an un-hatched duck.

Haynes: Ye-e-s [Chuckling] a developing embryo.

Milligan: Right.

Haynes: …inside [Chuckling] the egg, and so, and so the, the people I asked, they was two clerks, they were Filipino ladies that were working in the filing room and I s…they said, “did, did 37:00you get one to eat?” I said, “no-o-o! have you ever, have you ever eat?” “Oh yes, we eat balutes all the time [Laughing].” And I said, “no, don’t be close to me [Laughing]” Milligan: But you never tried one.

Haynes: No-o-o, I wouldn’t eat one of those [Chuckling].

Milligan: So how long were you over in the Philippines?

Haynes: Fourteen months.

Milligan: Fourteen months.

Haynes: Yes.

Milligan: Did you wish it was longer, did—was that enough?

Haynes: No, that was enough. I was wanting to come home, because my brother-in-law who…is—was a photography, photographer for the…working with the Engineering (Photographic?) company. He, he from Clark Field, he, the survey, he was there and he was a captain, I think. But he came down and he talked to my company…my battalion commander who was a West Point man, Colonel (Dirks?) and when you saw him, you 38:00would know him. A West Point man stands tall, straight, wa…when he walks, you know he is a West Point man, and so, and he goes by the rules, he is sticks…there by the rules. So, anyway, he…Colonel (Dirks?) when my captain brother-in-law came down, Colonel (Dirks?) he led him around, took him around the, the company, and he talked to him about me, and so he’s told me, he says, “here you are, a high school student and you’re already a…staff sergeant.” He says, “you could be a master sergeant here and just with putting your time in.” He says, “I talked to Colonel (Dirks?), he would like for you to re-up.” And, well I [Chuckling] that didn’t interest me. So…he 39:00said but you just got a high school education, and he is a graduate of Berea. And so, I said, “that’s okay, I want to become a teacher, but,” I said, “thank you for advising me of this.” So I gave it some thought, and, and…I decided not to, and I decided to go home.

Milligan: After two years.

Haynes: Yeah after, yeah, fourteen months.

Milligan: Fourteen months.

Haynes: And so I had made friends with—over the phone, never seeing him, with a Mister Green, he was a warrant officer, and I told him about me being sick on the ships, and he said, “well how would you like to fly home.” And I said, “I’d love it! Oh,” and I came [Chuckling], but he says, “well you pick out about five or s…about six or seven of your friends that, that are due to be rotated back, and send me their names and we will fly them home.” 40:00And they cut the orders you see up there. So, I did and so I flew in to…Sacramento, to the…air base there and they…I mus…I mustered out.

Milligan: How did you get, how did you find Mister Green?

Haynes: I sent all my reports to him.

Milligan: Ha-a-a-h!

Haynes: You see I ass…assemble all of the company reports and, and I got in trouble for that once, but I assembled it and I got it to him and I got it on time and he said, mine was the best reports that had come in. So he liked me and then we talked and he found out about me and I found out a little bit about him and, and so it just worked out that way.

Milligan: Yeah.

Haynes: But the interesting one there is, is that, we had another company there and the company commanders are pretty powerful, you know, they, they control the companies, they are, they are responsible. And so 41:00this…this…photographic company…photo mapping company…they’d been, their first sergeant had not been sending in his reports on time. And so I took a routing slip and I said, send it down, I m…marked the company, thirty-three-sixty-one, I marked the company, sent the routing slip down and, and I had to do that for, oh several reports in several weeks and so one day, the company commander came out and went in to see [Chuckling], to see Colonel (Dirks?) and, and, and the sergeant major for the battalion, and I was in trouble, (sought?) all the routing slips and he says, “look at this, he is a, just a non-commissioned officer, look what he is doing, he is telling me what I must do.” And so [Chuckling], so 42:00I was in trouble. So, he says, “I want him busted.” I wasn’t… Milligan: Were you doing something beyond your job, or was that… Haynes: No.

Milligan: …what you were supposed to be doing?

Haynes: It’s what I was supposed to be doing, but when I, they were, they, they were kind to me. The personnel officer was kind and the commanding officer was kind, and I said, “well I’ve been having trouble getting the reports, and I know the first sergeant is responsible for getting the reports in, so I was sending it for the first sergeant saying, “I’ve got to have it.” And, because I got to get it all to, at headquarters, and so [Chuckling] so…anyway…the company commander, the battalion commander told the company commander, “get the reports in on time.” And he said, “and we will work this out without any problems.” So he called me and he says, “you, I want you to go down, and I want you to apologize to and tell what you told me to the company commander.” So I went there, and I told the company commander 43:00and he says, “mm-mm,” he says, “what I understand young man,” he said, “but let me tell you the story.” And I said, “yes sir.” And he said, he says, “there is a barber,” and he says, “he’s got a customer that comes in and this customer comes in and he, he’s been in the construction business and he’s got dirt all over his face, he, and he wants it shaved and a haircut. And the barber he’s, anyone comes in, especially with dirt in their ears,” and he says, “he gets up in the chair and the barber looks at him.” He says, “the barber has got to make some decisions, and the decision is this. If I’m too, if I’m cleaned out his ears say, oh-oh, I’ve got some soap in your ear and clean it out, and clean the face off a little bit, so and it makes the man feel good, and he’ll get out of the chair 44:00and he will feel like coming back. Now, if, that’s one decision I’ve got to make. Now the other hard decision is this, if I take my…cover here sheet and I pull it off and say get out of my…chair, go in there and wash your face and ears and come back,” he says, “I’ve lost a customer for life, for all the time I’m in business.” He says, “now which thing you would, would you chose, and” he says “always look at the results and try to know.” And I said, “of course, I would make him feel good.” He said, “now,” he says, “now young man that’s tact.” He said, “you always remember that definition for tact.” And I have all my life, and so from then on, I [Chuckling] tried to get a little more tactful and [Chuckling] in building with… Milligan: Make him feel good.

Haynes: Absolutely 45:00 [Chuckling]!

Milligan: So what did you do when you came back? You, you were, you were flown back in to Sacramento, you’ve assumedly flew, flew back home to your new… Haynes: No, I didn’t fly. I got on the train to Chicago.

Milligan: Okay, oh!

Haynes: Got on the t…train to Chicago and flew b…and came back to Chicago, got on the bus and, and…and got off the train at Lexington, got on the bus and while I was on the train, it was the last few days of October I was on the train and what, and well it was early November, and oh the whole train became solemn all at once. Says, “we’ve just heard, Man O’ War died.” Milligan: (Whispers) Oh!

Haynes: And so I know when he died, he died in 1947 the first part of November, because that was there—well now I got a, going to Jenkins, Kentucky. There was no train, 46:00and the bus stations downtown Lexington, so I go downtown Lexington to get on the, the bus, and it only goes to Hazard. And I said, “well that’s closer home, [Chuckling] and, and, and my wife’s there.” So I go to the bus up to…Hazard got out, it was early in the morning, no buses leaving until the next day around eleven o’clock there or something. And so I hired a taxi and I took the taxi over and cost me six dollars I think [Chuckling] and I, but anyway, I was going home. And then I got home and then, oh lord, I, I was responsible, I had to work, I had to find a place, but I decided to go to school, so I came down to Transylvania, and I talked with the, the most wonderful woman in the world, Dean Jennings. She was from Cynthiana. And so I went down and she enrolled me with—under 47:00the GI Bill of Rights and so…my wife and I could play basketball. And so I came down and went to school, and after the first quarter, I said, “if college’s like this, I don’t want it,” because they didn’t give me good scheduling, my advisor gave me. He had me scattered through the whole day, and I lived out of town in with kitchen privileges there with my wife and she was there all day and, and in January she became pregnant and I added to the baby boom [Chuckling] and, and so… Milligan: There is several of you here today that added to the baby boom.

Haynes: Yeah, and so, what happened was is that…I took—and they gave me a class called the philosophy of education under Doctor Crawford, Crawford Junior High School, or elem…middle school was named after him, he and his wife, 48:00and they gave me that course, the Philosophy of Education, Rousseau, Descartes, all these people. I, I couldn’t even read the book hardly. And then they gave me a English with themes and I had never written a theme before, and had, I [Chuckling] remember one theme that I wrote about my early schooling, the one with two-room school, and I wrote the theme and he came back and the teacher asked me, would you mind if circulate like this to all the other, all the other professors. And so, I said, “no, it’s okay.” But I got a C+ or something content was outstanding, but the written part [Laughing] wasn’t too good.

Milligan: So, what did you want to teach?

Haynes: I, well of course, there is only thing that you do when you’re a boy from eastern Kentucky, you want to coach basketball and teach history [Laugher – Haynes and Milligan]. And so… 49:00Milligan: It might still be that way.

Haynes: …but it didn’t take me long, that didn’t take me long. I dropped out, by the way, after that.

Milligan: After your first semester?

Haynes: After the first quarter.

Milligan: The first quarter.

Haynes: For three quarters I dropped out and went back, oh I worked at the coal mines in… Milligan: Jenkins.

Haynes: …Jenkins and, in, in, in Pike County… Milligan: Pike County.

Haynes: …and so, but you have to earn money, you got a child coming, and then I…lots of experiences there, but it didn’t take me long, after about six months, to know that wasn’t what I—school was better [Laughing] than this. So I set me a goal to come back to school, and Dean Jennings, bless her heart, from Cynthiana, she had been in a private school in 1941, December, and the private school, boarding school for women she was way up in administration. So, she’d come back, they had confiscated the school for the…FBI or these CIA… Milligan: Oh!

Haynes: …and they took over the school, 50:00says, “tell them to go home.” And they took it over and so… Milligan: In Kentucky!

Haynes: (No-no?) go back to Kentucky, yes, you, I mean you go back… Milligan: Where is the school located?

Haynes: In Arlington, in, in… Milligan: Oh!

Haynes: …in Arlington, Virginia.

Milligan: Right.

Haynes: And so, right out of Washington. And so, anyway, she came back but she was the dean of, of students and she wrote me and asked me what will it, what, why would you like, how, what could we do to help you come back to school? Asked me. And I s…I said, “well, I need a place to live. And I ne…and they had just jumped the GI Bill to a hundred and twenty-five a month, plus your, all your tuition and stuff.

Milligan: Right.

Haynes: One of the best investment they’ve ever made with me, because, and all the GIs, because they paid back in taxes thousands of times. But anyway, I, I decided to come back, and I came back in January 51:00of ’48, and, and, to play basketball. I came back. Then education course, Doctor Crawford was also in charge of…in charge of…placement when you graduate, and so…I, I took a course with him and toward my sophomore year, and he said, “well,” he said, “now, I’ve got, I’ve got needs of teachers, and,” he says, “when it comes to history teachers and coaches, I’ve got two for the whole state—I mean all that I got in my office, two they want.” And then—but for science teachers I have a, a request for thirty some, and” he said, “you know how many I have? None.” And I had taken a course 52:00in economics under Doctor Hall, and Doctor Hall says, “If I wake, if I come in to your house and I, I punch a,” he says, “I expect you to just wake up and say supply and demand.” [Laughter – Milligan]. And [Chuckling] and so, I’m intelligent enough, before I said, “ha-ha!” with the supply and demand, I can see that.” And I had just taken a course with Doctor Brown, and all the other students for some reason were having trouble in anatomy and physiology. I took, I was taking, I was, I was his top student. I—it was easy for me, I could learn it well. And so, I changed my major over to biology [Chuckling].

Milligan: Smart!

Haynes: And you, you, you got to look at the future, and, and, and I was, I was being tactful [Laughing], I was looking ahead.

Milligan: So were you a biology teacher?

Haynes: Yes, I, and biology, 53:00and my faculty liked me in Transylvania, for some reason I don’t know why, but, but I was, I wanted to learn so bad in Transylvania, and so they nominated me for a Carnegie Fellowship for teachers for…Peabody College which is part of Vanderbilt now, but Peabody College and they were going to take twenty from throughout the United States…and so I, I applied and I was selected and I had another child on the way. I sold an old house that I had bought up in…the mountains. And that was my food for that year but my tuition and the little allowance was there, so I made it through, and got a…my masters degree in June and by taking extra courses and I got my masters degree in June, and not only that, but all in, 54:00in science and secondary education but mostly in science. And so what happened is that a, a teacher from Coleman, Alaba…a superintendent from Coleman, Alabama asked the faculty who would you recommend, and the faculty at Peabody recommended me and so I got a job, it’s the first job I was offered [Chuckling] and, and they started me out with a masters degree with the highest salary that they could, could give, and so I went down and they hired me to teach chemistry and biology, and coach in the middle sh…in the junior high school. So I took it and the thing is, I never, I dodged chemistry, because it was so hard at Transylvania, the word of mouth was stay away from it. So I took a blitz course in chemistry that summer, four-years course in the summer, 55:00and it was paid for by my Carnegie fellowship, you see it continued. And so, I went to Coleman and taught chemistry and biology and coached [Laughing].

Milligan: For how long? How long were you there?

Haynes: One year.

Milligan: One year.

Haynes: Yes, and got a job…to go to…Arlington, Virginia. One of my friends, he got his doctorate and he was the principal up there.

Milligan: So your family was following you all these places?

Haynes: Everywhere I went… Milligan: Whoa!

Haynes: …with my family, and… Milligan: How did you end up in Mount Sterling?

Haynes: Well…Oh…I’ve…got interesting in learning. And so, while I was at Peabody, I had done well, and so I entered the doctoral program there, and then, when I went to Arlington later, national, Sputnik had gone up, and so I got a National Science Foundation [grant] for the summer at Maryland and then for the year-long 56:00at, I had my choice of North Carolina or Colorado, and I said, well I’m never get to go west again and I’d read Zane Gray’s books on, oh I loved them, and so I said, I’m going to Boulder, Colorado. So I went out there and got another masters degree and…then I came back and to Transylvania, and I taught there. They invited me to come back and teach.

Milligan: Oh.

Haynes: Two masters degree and… Milligan: Yeah.

Haynes: …my advisors and so Doctor Brown was the dean, and I had been his, one of his better students. So I came back and I taught there.

Milligan: Uh-huh.

Haynes: And… Milligan: For how long?

Haynes: Nine years.

Milligan: Nine years.

Haynes: Nine years. And then…I did, I…nine years in science and, and then, and then two years in a combination of science and education. I became the director of student teaching because it had gotten to be a mess. 57:00And so…teachers weren’t wanting our teachers, and so I got in, and I went out, and pretty soon I had it bumped back up to forty teachers and I was teaching fundamentals of secondary education.

Milligan: Oh!

Haynes: And as director of student teaching, and so… Milligan: Yeah.

Haynes: …I was getting elementary students and I was getting high school students for certification. So anyway, I taught there and then this same friend who brought me to Arlington, was now the assistant superintendent in Roanoke, in, in…Richmond, Virginia, and, and they offered me the—brought me up as consultant and then they offered me a job for a new regional mathematics and science center… Milligan: Whoa!

Haynes: …it’s a brand new, for eight school districts, hundred and twenty-thousand students-based, and plus it meant working all the year and it meant a five thousand dollar raise. And 58:00when you’re making six thousand dollars, that’s, you, you tend to go where the money is.

Milligan: Yeah, it’s almost doubling your salary.

Haynes: So that’s what I did.

Milligan: I, that’s fascinating from… Haynes: [Laughing] Now you got my life?

Milligan: …from trying, from trying to decide what to do out of Jenkins, Kentucky, and whether you can afford ten dollars for a dorm room.

Haynes: Y-e-e-a-h [Chuckling].

Milligan: So, two masters degrees and professional consultation and people inviting you all over the place and… Haynes: And I have been a Fulbright Scholar.

Milligan: Fulbright… Haynes: And again… Milligan: Carnegie… Haynes: …Carnegie fellow and a Fulbright scholar, and then I was invited to speak in Pakistan… Milligan: Whoa!

Haynes: …and so to a group over there on main-power development. And so, and then I ran into a friend in…a Fulbright scholar to China… Milligan: Whoa!

Haynes: …seven weeks there, studying history culture of China.

Milligan: Oh my goodness!

Haynes: But, but, m…my it was, is, I’ve, it all started with the GI Bill of Rights. It gave me opportunity, 59:00and here it was, I’ve been the most wonderful life, there is not a time in my life that I really been unhappy in my job.

Milligan: That’s great!

Haynes: And, and I’m still going. I, I’m, I’m the, I’ve retired, of course, but I ended up in Montgomery County by when I was in, I had, after I was in my science center—by the way, that center is still going, forty years ago… Milligan: Whoa!

Haynes: …still going. So I did the, well with it. And they’re still using the pattern that I established there.

Milligan: That’s great.

Haynes: But I decided to become the superintendent of schools so when I was there, and I needed to get certified as a superintendent… Milligan: Right.

Haynes: …so I had to go to VPI, I had to go to the University of Virginia, I had to get certification, so I did that, and then I became a s…the superintendent, one of the superintendent 60:00in Chesterfield County, right out of Richmond. He had worked with me and so he invited me to come to Roanoke as his…assistant superintendent.

Milligan: Right.

Haynes: And, and so I went up there and that was, fell in with my goal and I got some experience and, then I went to Fredericksburg, Virginia, and…from Fredericksburg then my grand children now were in Henry County, Kentucky.

Milligan: Right, I ( )… Haynes: So I came back and I did my missionary work there [Chuckling] because I n…never been in a country…school… Milligan: Right.

Haynes: …before, I had been in the city schools.

Milligan: Right.

Haynes: And so, and, and one of the things I was…I have been noted for in Virginia and other places, I’ve been noted for being innovative and, and making changes, and so… Milligan: That’s a positive thing they have said… Haynes: Yeah.

Milligan: …about you.

Haynes: Yeah, and this, in here I, I’m now, I’ve been the president of the Rotary Club, 61:00I’ve been…president of the Chamber of Commerce… Milligan: In Montgomery County?

Haynes: Mm-mm, and I have been the…governor of Rotary District six-seven-four-o, which is all of the eastern and central Kentucky, some in northern Kentucky, and…and I started a foundation when I was here, and I worked part time with it, and now it’s part time with no pay. I chose that myself, and, but I built programs and innovate, and so I’ve had a wonderful, wonderful life.

Milligan: That’s good that you’ve contributed so much… Haynes: Yeah.

Milligan: …that’s amazing.

Haynes: And they did, did put me in the hall of fame here, the chamber of commerce hall of fame for the modern period.

Milligan: Oh good… Haynes: So… Milligan: …you get some recognition. I bet you get a lot of recognition… Haynes: I ha… Milligan: …I think you do.

Haynes: Yeah, I’ve had [Laughter – Milligan] more than, more than I deserve, really [Chuckling].

Milligan: I doubt that, but I bet you got a lot. Well… Haynes: I’m here is a, my latest project… 62:00Milligan: Oh this, this is your story of where you’ve been with the pictures that you have.

Haynes: Yes.

Milligan: I think that… Haynes: And stor…and history, it has, I still love history, and so I’m a (Grecophile?).

Milligan: So [Chuckling], so this is China, Pakistan, Taiwan, Paris, not in Kentucky… Haynes: No.

Milligan: …Oxford, London, Athens, the Philippine Islands… Haynes: And that’s where… Milligan: …and then Corregidor is what you were saying.

Haynes: Yeah, and this, and all of these, the most exciting places in the world, I have just enjoyed it. I built friendship, and I’ve helped, I’ve helped…I was the ambor…ambassadorial scholar, scholar chairman for the Rotary Club… Milligan: Whoa!

Haynes: …and so I’ve, we’ve interviewed people and sent them… Milligan: Right.

Haynes: …with…fellowships… Milligan: Yes, yes.

Haynes: …and, and then we proceed to, to… Milligan: Right.

Haynes: And, and I’ve worked with Doctor 63:00(Groding?) in Morehead and actually, back in the…eighties, when I was superintendent here, ’86 to ’90, what we did, Doctor (Groding?) and I worked out a course in the his…the history and culture of, and language introduction from China.

Milligan: Oh, whoa!

Haynes: And we put it in high school, and he put it in Morehead… Milligan: That’s great!

Haynes: …I put it in here, and… Milligan: That’s great that that’s an in…possibility.

Haynes: Yeah, and I brought it… Milligan: …opportunity.

Haynes: …and I brought a, one of the interpreters from…from Shanghai, I brought here to teach that.

Milligan: Whoa!

Haynes: And I had ( )… Milligan: And you had the connections.

Haynes: I, and I’ve got another one… Milligan: Hoh!

Haynes: I still have them.

Milligan: Well, I, its’ just been, it’s been an hour, it’s been a whole hour, I just…thank you.

Haynes: That’s [Laughing]… Milligan: I, it’s just been great, you, you’re very entertaining story teller, I’m going to… “END OF TAPE 1” “BEGIN TAPE 2” Milligan: Go ahead—one addendum.

Haynes: One addendum. My wife…passed 64:00on January the 19th.

Milligan: Just two… Haynes: Just… Milligan: …weeks ago.

Haynes: …a month ago, so… Milligan: A month ago, oh gosh!

Haynes: …and she had Alzheimer’s but she…she died of pneumonia and had a bout with that, and, but I’ve been her care taker for Alzheimer’s for…for two years… Milligan: Whoa!

Haynes: …and this I did while I was there, I’ve been, I was with her constantly, never b…letting her out of my sight… Milligan: Whoa!

Haynes: …unless I had someone I could trust with her.

Milligan: Yeah.

Haynes: But… Milligan: So you made that book, the publication that went along with your pictures… Haynes: Yes.

Milligan: …during that time.

Haynes: But the thing is, I want to mention this. She was such a wonderful woman and what all of this moving around, we moved, moved, moved… Milligan: Yes.

Haynes: …and she worked at Bryan Station for nine years, and so and worked at 65:00the University of Richmond, and…for the president there, and she was a, a the editor of a newspaper over in—of a publisher of a newspaper over in Henry County, the Henry County Local, and wherever we’ve gone, Fredericksburg, she was the co-chairman of Keep Fredericksburg Beautiful… Milligan: Whoa!

Haynes: …and but she, and when we came to move, she didn’t want to move from Lexington, she didn’t want to move to [Chuckling] Arlington, Virginia, she didn’t want to move from all these different places, but never a word of complaint. She just started packing the boxes and unpacking the boxes, packing and unpacking, and I’ve got to say that she contributed to this wonderful life that I have lived, she contributed and without her, it would have been not good. OK! 66:00END OF INTERVIEW