Oral History Interview with John Toy

Milligan: Okay, this is Sara Milligan with the Kentucky Oral History Commission. I’m in Mount Sterling, today is February 23rd, 2008. I’m interviewing John C. Toy, about his World War II experience. Mr. Adrian Arnold is…in the room with us and he is…going to assist with the interviewing. So first of all, give me a little bit of background info about yourself. Where were you born, when were you born? Where are you from?

Toy: Well I was born here, in Montgomery County, August 14th, 1918, and lived here all my life. And I went to school here, it started out as a one-room school, and oh that was one year I went to school, I never was tardy, that first year. The reason, the teacher roomed and board with us.

Milligan: Oh [Chuckles – Milligan] Toy: Yeah. Her name was Miss Elsie Stevens, yeah, I remember her real well, and…she roomed 1:00and board with us, and the one-room school was down on the Paris Pike. I think we called it the (Mobley?) School.

Milligan: The Modeley School?

Toy: (Mobley, Mobley?) Milligan: (Mobley?).

Toy: Uh-huh. And there was a lady, not long ago, she said that she went to school there, I believe she is deceased now, but I, I remember her well. Though, I mean, not, I don’t remember then, but in the past few years she taught there, yeah. So then…I was raised on a farm and, and after I got out of school, I got tired of…fooling around on the farm. One thing I found out, that…and I tell the story, the army would pay twenty-one dollars a month and give me room and board, and I thought, man that beat hoeing tobacco for room and board [Laughter – Toy and Milligan]. So… Milligan: So…how old… Toy: …so I just joined the army.

Milligan: How old were you then?

Toy: I was, oh, I was about twenty, twenty-two years old.

Milligan: Twenty-two years old!

Toy: Yeah. 2:00Milligan: So, what made you decide to enlist, besides the… Toy: Oh, I don’t know, you know, I think the draft was getting close to me, and…so I just…but I’m, and volunteered. They asked me where I wanted to go, and boy, I was a young boy, I said, “send me as far as you can.” That’s all. I rode a Pullman; I got to ride a Pullman car from Cincinnati to San Diego.

Milligan: That is a [Chuckling] long way away.

Toy: That was a long ways from home [Chuckling].

Milligan: So what year did you enlist in the…military?

Toy: It was in…’41, June the 1st of ’41.

Milligan: 1941.

Toy: Mm-mm.

Milligan: And what branch did you enlist in?

Toy: I got in the army.

Milligan: In the army.

Toy: Mm-mm.

Milligan: And I’m reading your hat, and what does your hat say?

Toy: Pearl Harbor Survivor.

Milligan: Pearl Harbor Survivors, do you… Toy: So, I…took training in California, at San Diego, and…they shipped me to…Hawaii. At that time…Hawaii was a territory, it wasn’t a state, and I was sent to…Fort Shafter, Honolulu, 3:00TH, Territory—Territory of Hawaii, and I got I think in September of ’41, nice, paradise, and…oh, yeah, I had, I had a good time, and do what you have to do and…I, da…I always, Dad always told me, when, if you’ve got to do something, do it right, and, and do it better than somebody else, and you’ll get along.

Milligan: So what were your duties when you first got to Hawaii? What were your… Toy: I got into a… Milligan: …responsibilities?

Toy: …antiaircraft.

Milligan: Antiaircraft.

Toy: Antiaircraft, and our mission was to…protect Wheeler Field, far as I knew. So we would get along good until, well we had been on maneuvers and…for, I don’t know, for eight or ten days, and they called it off 4:00on a Friday night. Why I don’t know, and I never can fin…I can’t find out anything, I can’t, I haven’t read anything on it, but they called if off. Saturday morning we took the guns, sent all the guns back to the gun park, cleaned them up, hauled the ammunition back to the crater, put it in storage, and you get a pass and go to town. That was December the sixth. So the next morning, that is when it all happened.

Milligan: Right. Where were you?

Toy: [Laughing] I was getting ready to—I just ate breakfast and getting ready to, I was going to go up and shower and clean up and shave and everything, and as it was a pretty day I’ll just catch me a shuttle bus and go to the beach. But I never did get there, see, and so…first we noticed…I noticed this plane flew over, flying real low, about the top of the trees, 5:00palm trees, and it seemed like it was going real slow, and the pilot, I can see him now, he just had a big smile on his face, and I believe if I waved at him, he’d of waved back, and his guns were firing, putting up dust, and I just happened not be in his line of fire and so, then everything just…went crazy.

Milligan: What were people around you doing?

Toy: Huh, well, trying to f…get in and…all the ammunition was locked up for our rifles and see, trying to get, by the time we got those out, and then it was…the airplanes they had concentrated on Wheeler Field, which is right next door, Wheeler Field and then others were on the Harbor with ships and so that’s what they was interested in with airpor…air fields and, and the harbor ( ).

Milligan: Yeah.

Toy: So, they kind of left us out, which I’m glad.

Milligan: Right.

Toy: So I had a good friend, I didn’t, I didn’t know it until 6:00we was working together a few years later, and…it was sometime later, and he was stationed at Wheeler Field, and I would go through Wheeler Field to get to Schofield, yeah, and…I think Raymond Turley he should be here today, and he had, he was…now he had it pretty rough, he had a rough time out of it, but he survived, and a good fellow.

Milligan: He survived the attacks?

Toy: Mm-mm.

Milligan: How did that feel, I mean walking, I just can’t imagine walking out thinking you’re going to take a bus and go to the beach, and all of the sudden… Toy: Yeah, that’s all… Milligan: …you’re under… Toy: Yeah.

Milligan: …massive attack.

Toy: It’s all over. Yeah, and now before this all happened, why…that was a good place to, to if you were going to be in the army, wonderful. Because we could catch a bus and go to the University of Hawaii to various place that they would put on there, like, and…that’s all just free of charge and go and, and everything was nice. And sports, 7:00they were—sports was a big thing. I was going to…I was going to go to the, I was at 97th Antiaircraft, and 98th had a football team, see, so I’m going over, I’m getting ready to go to the 98th and see them, see if they, if I could play football with them, see, yeah. They had their coach, their uniforms and everything and, and the football was a big thing, because at the end of the year, season or whatever, they would have a game and they’d play it barefooted.

Milligan: Really?

Toy: Never, never heard of it before, and that was the only one I ever saw, they played it barefooted.

Milligan: Did they ever say why?

Toy: [Laughing] I don’t know, I don’t know why, but they just, yeah, so… Milligan: Interesting.

Toy: But…it’s all…I, I had a good time, (shortly?) while I was there. You can make the best of it, and…what start…what 8:00got me thinking that back in training, in California, on Saturday mornings this little boy, young, a young boy came out. He was a PFC, he just had one stripe, all this stuff man and he is sharp, he is sharp, and I thought man, that boy got that one s…one stripe, he got a, probably got a permit pass and go to town, and everything, on the weekend, I’m going to get me some of those, and everything I, they told me to do, I did it the best I could, I did it better than the other fellow and everything, and I wound up, and I got me some of those, see, yeah!

Milligan: You got your permanent pass just right.

Toy: Oh yeah, yeah I did, I had a permanent pass, and I had my own vehicle, and…so… Milligan: Huh!

Toy: Yeah, and lot, lot of good privileges, so it’s all what you make it.

Milligan: It is.

Toy: Mm-mm, yeah.

Milligan: So what happened after, I, I’m just trying to picture this, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, I mean what was the, what was it like to be there afterwards, because the world’s changing, everything… Toy: It changed, and…well 9:00the, just the…following that, well…on the 7th, the 8th, the, they moved me, I went to the, across Wheeler Field and the, they gave me a machinegun, see, and settled there and we got word that…word got, got word that the troops at landed and, and this and that, and…rumors started and so it, it was so rough there for about a month, and then nothing happened, so…then everything kind of quieted down there, and…they were making plans to take, go, go take in islands and…such as, what’s ( ).

Milligan: Did you all have a sense of what was going on in the main lands, as far as… Toy: No, what we would hear on the radio, and from maybe getting a letter from home… Milligan: Yeah.

Toy: that…it was…they would, you know, 10:00oh what, one time the—you had no scrap iron I think.

Milligan: Scrap iron?

Toy: Yeah, see, and…and so they’d get scrap iron and they’d melted it down to build ships and everything and…so…and everything was rationed, you know, we’d get a letter, so-and-so was rationed, but we didn’t know much about that, and…but we did…oh yeah, we had fresh milk to drink.

Milligan: Really?

Toy: And…after…along about December 7th, along about the middle of the month, they cut it off. And we found and, I was told that the all the dairies was own, owned by the Japanese.

Milligan: Oh, so after… Toy: Yeah.

Milligan: …after the bombing in Pearl Harbor, they… Toy: Yeah, yeah.

Milligan: …cut all that off.

Toy: Mm-mm.

Milligan: So did you, did you end up getting deployed outside of Hawaii after… Toy: No, no I...

Milligan: …that happened you, you… Toy: …I stayed there the entire time.

Milligan: You stayed in Hawaii the entire time.

Toy: Uh-huh.

Milligan: Did you ever feel threatened or scared… Toy: No, no.

Milligan: …after the initial attack? Did you, did you feel scared while it was going on?

Toy: [Chuckling] Well I don’t know, being a young boy and everything, 11:00I just [Chuckles – Milligan] I took things as they come and just…go along, maybe some nights you might not sleep good, or you might not have a good bed for a long time there, had a tent out on the ground and, but…then things changed and…so…I got along good.

Milligan: So how long were you in the, in the military?

Toy: I got…discharged in May of ’45.

Milligan: 1941 to 1945.

Toy: Uh-huh, mm-mm.

Milligan: So do you…wh…what was the significance with 1945? Why, why did you get discharged then?

Toy: Now that I don’t know, but they, I left there in, in March of ’45 for reassignment, back to the states, and I had twenty-one days laying around at home, and then report to…the alba…(Albine?) Hotel, in Miami Beach. 12:00Milligan: Florida, in Florida.

Toy: Florida, yeah. So then…I was there about twelve days, and…I had to attend a class a, a morning, about an hour in morning and one in the afternoon, and the rest of the time was my own. So I’d, I’d go deep-sea fishing [Chuckles – Toy and Milligan]. Yeah, did ( ).

Milligan: That sounds pretty rough [Laughter – Milligan] Toy: Yeah [Chuckling], well the, they say this is, this is the place and there you are and so they sa…I, and I had a room and so, so they assigned me to the New Georgian Hotel, room on the first floor, and…they was a lot of WACs and WAVEs in the service that time, and one of those, when a WAC was a, was a desk clerk and I’d sign a book once a day, every morning, and then…now, that was some more, that was a good place.

Milligan: What is the stand for WAC?

Toy: Huh…Women’s Auxiliary Corps? I believe that’s it.

Milligan: Mm-mm, I think so. 13:00Toy: When…you know, yeah, that was a good place, they had good food, go down in the cafeteria something down the street, at the hotel see, the army took those all over.

Milligan: Mm-mm. So, what—did your duties changed then from you were in Hawaii to when you were in Miami?

Toy: The what?

Milligan: Did your duties, your duties changed?

Toy: Oh yeah, no I didn’t, it’s a matter of fact, I didn’t have any.

Milligan: [Chuckles – Milligan] You didn’t have any… Toy: Right then…[Laughter – Milligan]. I was at the…I believe it was the Biltmore Hotel about noon, and a girl came out on the stage and says…”Cease fire unofficial, cease fire in Germany.” And about ten minutes later she came back out and said, “it’s official.” So then the war was over in Germany.

Milligan: So how were people reacting?

Toy: Oh no, they was all excited, and…then…I was—then they transferred me to 14:00Camp Atterbury, Indiana.

Milligan: Indiana.

Toy: So…sergeant major called me down one morning, he says, “Sergeant Toy…you got a job, if you want it.” That’s something else there “if you want it.” And I was to go to the Edinburgh Railroad Station and meet the train every other day and then ta…in other words leave post that morning and take buses and go to the depot meet the train and as the soldiers get off the train, see that they get on the bus and the driver take them back to the camp. And I had that every other day.

Milligan: Mm-mm. Yeah, that’s [Chuckles – Toy] driving the bus.

Toy: That’s what it…and then, well then ( ) now he called me down and says, “I got a job, if you want it.”—no, before that, he said “you’re going to be discharged.” And I thought, well, I couldn’t understand that, see, discharge in May of ’45, the war is not even going. And but he said, “I got a, a, a tech sergeant just being discharged, 15:00and if you, there is a job you can deliver the, all new vehicles throughout the 5th Service Command, which I think that would have included Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and several states, “and…if you want it, it’s yours. Then if you want to be discharged, you will have to wait for a replacement.” So I just told him I would take the discharge.

Milligan: Mm, so that’s all.

Toy: That (worked?) nice.

Milligan: Do you think that they…do you think that they re-routed you to, to those places because of your experience on Pearl Harbor? Did you ever feel like… Toy: It might have been that, or…being as I volunteered and had that much time in, that’s the only thing I can think of, like ( ) that I got discharged.

Milligan: So when you, when you joined the military, did they ask you what 16:00your interests were and where you wanted to go?

Toy: Yeah, they asked me where I wanted to go, that’s why I told them send me as far as you can [Chuckling].

Milligan: As far as you can?

Toy: Yeah, and I went to Cincinnati depot there and got a Pullman and rode upper berth.

Milligan: Who drove?

Toy: Upper berth, a train.

Milligan: Oh it, a train!

Toy: A train. upper berth in a Pullman?

Milligan: Yeah…Pullman car.

Toy: Uh-huh. Now in California before I went overseas…that’s out of San Francisco, there was Alcatraz and another little island out, Fort McDowell, what you called Angel Island, all shipping out, veteran, service men are going from there and coming back into that place, and I got off the boat one morning in Alca…at Alcatraz see, and it was going full blast then, it was going big time. But I didn’t, I didn’t wander too far from the boat, just walked around and looked at the place, see.

Milligan: Alcatraz was, it was, what was going full blast there?

Toy: They had, they had a big time prisoners, 17:00you know, like Al Capone, and all them…and all those big name guys.

Milligan: Yeah. Why did they, why did they dock you there?

Toy: Well the same boat that served Angel Island, it took care of Alcatraz and then on over to San Francisco, see? It was a military boat.

Milligan: Oh okay.

Toy: See, I mean. And it all… Milligan: But… Toy: …it hauled the supplies to the post ( ). Yeah, Alcatraz… Milligan: That’s interesting.

Toy: That was some old place. It was a rock.

Milligan: Do you think back on it now, when you… Toy: Yeah, I thin…I think about it and I read about something, Alcatraz where they now they changed it into—I don’t know—a museum or something like that?

Milligan: Mm-mm.

Toy: And the boat to Alcatraz. And I came back through there when I came back to the states.

Milligan: You came back through Alcatraz too?

Toy: Through, through Angel Island, under the Golden Gate Bridge.

Milligan: Yeah, you came back in—Adrian, did you have a question?

Arnold: I was just wondered if John 18:00ever been back to Hawaii.

Toy: Yeah, the last time I went back in ’91 to the 50th Anniversary.

Milligan: The 50th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor?

Toy: Uh-huh. Beautiful. I had a good time. And I met a boy, I left my friend, he is a Portuguese, Alfred Harris is his name, I left him in March of ’45 hadn’t heard from him, or nothing, and I thought if I ever get back I’m going to look him up. So that I did, I got the telephone book out, and you know, under Harris, the first one was Al, man that’s close, that’s good, that’s short for Albert, Al that’d be his cousin.

Milligan: Oh really [Laughter – Milligan] Toy: Yeah, and he said, “I don’t know, I haven’t seen him for years, but…you call this number.” He gave me a number and I told him the reason why I wanted to get in touch with him, told him who I was an such, and he said, “now, if you don’t get him, get the right place, you call me back.” I ( ). So I made nine phone calls, he had an unlisted number. 19:00So I called him. His wife answered the phone. I said, “is Harris there?” “He’s in the shower.” Please tell him this is Toy, I want to talk to him. He came back and he said he didn’t know anybody by the name of Toy.” I said, “tell him it’s Sergeant Toy from the mainland.” I heard him hollering [Laughter – Milligan]. Yeah, he remembered, and he come over to the hotel that night at about ten o’clock, and we rode around until, I don’t know, two or three o’clock. Then on Monday, he was off, he, he stayed in sa…he w…he was working for the government then, now at that time, and we rode around on Monday, to every isle, every beach we went swimming in, so [Laughter – Milligan], and all the west Sco…Schofield, Kolekole Pass, that’s where the Japanese came through that pass at the north sector, and…just had, oh I had a good time, yeah. 20:00Milligan: So what was your relationship with him in, in the forties?

Toy: We were just, we were in the same company together, and he was a tech sergeant and I was a staff sergeant, and so…we all, all belonged to the…non-commissioned officer’s club and we, and we had a lovely time [Laughter – Milligan], Albert Harris. Go swimming.

Milligan: So did—I, you said when you got on the island, the idea was that it felt like a paradise.

Toy: Oh it was! Then, see because everything was pretty primitive, then, but then after the war started you see a lot of change, you know, we didn’t have freedom.

Milligan: How did it change?

Toy: Yeah, you know, like…you know, everything was blacked out, like out lights all out, and then we’d get an air raid, well then, here, Harris and I we’d get in a jeep and we’d go down and, I, I got transferred over to transportation, so we’d go down and see if the gas station is open, and the men is on duty there, then we’d get in the jeep, and we’d drive around 21:00the island, see.

Milligan: Just for fun?

Toy: [Chuckling] That’s just ( ), two o’clock in the morning, might as well just, you know, en…enjoy yourself while you’re there.

Milligan: I think it’s interesting. A lot of people I’ve interviewed today have—were routed through Hawaii… Toy: Uh-huh.

Milligan: …going various places, so… Toy: That was shipping out and shipping out point, coming and going there, yeah.

Milligan: How did that…impact the people who were there…stationed there?

Toy: Oh, oh, what, civilians?

Milligan: Civilians or, like you, who were… Toy: We…well… Milligan: …actually stationed in Hawaii?

Toy: I don’t know, it didn’t bother me too bad, I just…I knew the job I had there, there was in, I knew that when these companies, when these divisions was coming in, and I was in transportation for the commanding, commanding general, and then I 22:00would assign them that the commanding officer of that division a vehicle and driver and take c…take care of, take care of him, and such as that, and…so, oh the—let’s see, who was that came down? President of the American Red Cross.

Milligan: Really!

Toy: Yeah, and he took over a house on the other side of the island and…I had to furnish him a vehicle, and I ru…I’d go and chat with him quite often… Milligan: Yeah.

Toy: …nice fellow. Oh and we had a, I believe it was him who had the vehicle…this is back before your day, Major Bowles, wasn’t there, wasn’t there somebody named Major Bowles had a, I think that car was armored platted, yeah. I, I believe it was Major Bowles, and…I believe that car was armored platted, yeah, yeah we had that vehicle there.

Milligan: Armor plated car.

Toy: Yeah, you know, both troops.

Milligan: So when…if that was a major deporting point for the military, was it a major re-entry point… Toy: Oh yes, uh-huh… Milligan: …also?

Toy: Yeah.

Milligan: So did you see a lot of the aftermath 23:00of some of the, the battles that were going on in the Pacific?

Toy: Oh yeah, a lot of the boys…a company would go, go down on the island and they’d make an invasion there and to take that island here they come back. Well then they come back and get all gassed up, [Chuckling] and go to the barbershop, one company, I’ll never forget it, it, it went to the bat…got a hair cut, they cut that darn, they got that haircut, they shaved off down the sides, then you get some, one of them get in the center and then the, some of them with even a square block in the center like this, and a haircut such as that, see, and they’re on ( ).

Milligan: Just shaving down the center?

Toy: Shaving down the center and then down the sides and crossways and just everyway, see, not a, not two of them are alike.

Milligan: Was that stylish?

Toy: Oh they was, to them it was, yeah, [Chuckling] it, to them, you know, what the heck, we’ve been down here, been all over the island sixty days.

Milligan: Did, did 24:00you have a lot of people come back that were injured.

Toy: Oh yeah, yeah the, yeah, you know, the boat that I came back on ( ) a lot of injured.

Milligan: A lot of injured?

Toy: Yeah, a lot of wounded, yeah, a lot of them, and…and…let’s see, the boat we came back on had a Japanese naval officer prisoner. I don’t know what they was doing with him. I know I was sergeant of the guard, of the boat coming back, and I had to take him down and let him, he got to complaining about the food and, so I would take him down let him taste of some soup or something they’d always mix up and I don’t know whatever happened to him. After, after we got back, I didn’t, I didn’t work after ba…after we got back the states and I got off the boat, I didn’t worry about him anymore. Somebody else took care of him.

Milligan: Yeah. So you were, you were in the military from before the war started until it was over. You saw the entire thing.

Toy: No it was, I, I didn’t get to—see, the war wasn’t over until 25:00August the 14th, I got out in May.

Milligan: You missed it by… Toy: Just a few months.

Milligan: …a few months.

Toy: Uh-huh.

Milligan: Yeah, but essen…essentially that whole period… Toy: Yeah.

Milligan: …while the, all the big fighting was going on, did, did you all have a sense of, of the magnitude of… Toy: Oh yeah… Milligan: …the battle?

Toy: …because…while I was stationed at was planes coming into Hickam Field…well every once in a while, well it, more than one, they’d come in and, big full loaded bombers, maybe one of the motors was on fire, see.

Milligan: Oh.

Toy: Yeah, and such as that, yeah. And they had one…one down Hickam Field one day they had one bringing back to the states for a bond drive, they, and…I believe the name of that plane was…the Mary Ann, if my memory is right, the Mary Ann, and it had bullet holes in it, and the flight nurse—the flight…I guess they called it a flight nurse, 26:00or whatever, she was on it, and they had it there just showing it and getting it ready to send it back to the states and Mary, the Mary Ann, shot full of holes, bring it back to the states for a bond drive.

Milligan: And you really weren’t scared.

Toy: No [Chuckling]! Well now, everything was pretty right there, there it was, everything was pretty peaceful then, at that time, see, yeah.

Milligan: So, when you came back you were in Indiana when they discharged you. What did you do then?

Toy: Oh, for a living, I got in the trucking business, and…I, I worked for…a s…I worked for a stone company, and…got back in ’45, got married in ’46.

Milligan: Was that somebody you met after you were discharged?

Toy: N…well no, I knew her when I was fifteen years old [Laughter – Milligan]. I was sixteen and she was fifteen.

Milligan: Right.

Toy: Yeah, and so we got reacquainted, 27:00eh, how we m…after I got out, one night…I believe I was home on—so I went—when I was home twenty days before I went to Florida, I come ( ) it was about nine o’clock at night and this car coming down ( ) and just some girls in it, and she was in the car. I don’t know how she recognized me, or I recognize her, then we stopped right there. Then we renewed old acquaintance [Laughter – Milligan], and that led to marriage, for sixty years, and… Milligan: Whoa!

Toy: …there you are.

Milligan: Whoa, very quick acquaintanceship for a long marriage.

Toy: Yeah, well, of course we knew each other back there… Milligan: When you were young.

Toy: …in the early thirties, see, and then, of course kind of got separated and but, yeah…got a good life.

Milligan: So looking back, was that part of your life? How would, how would you say that experience was?

Toy: One of the best. 28:00Milligan: Yeah.

Toy: It, it was good, mm-mm. Yeah, I would…I wouldn’t discourage anyone from… Milligan: So what did you do for a career the rest of your life?

Toy: Well at that…after I quit trucking for the Kentucky stone company…I went to work for the post office.

Milligan: How did you get a job there?

Toy: I don’t know, I knew they, they wanted somebody and…I put an application in, took the test, and being so I was a veteran, I had a five point preference, and…I went to work there and there was—then it was a, then that job paid…a dollar sixty-one an hour, in ’50, ’53.

Milligan: Whoa!

Toy: That big money.

Milligan: Yeah [Chuckles – Milligan] Toy: Big money.

Arnold: It was then.

Milligan: It’s hard to imagine now.

Toy: And that, that’s, and that was the best job in the country, because it paid the same amount that that post office paid in New York, 29:00and San Francisco. And the only difference they ever m…they made in it was Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. They paid different. So that was good.

Milligan: So how long did you work with the Post Office?

Toy: ‘til…I retired in 1980.

Milligan: So you’re ( )… Toy: Counting all my time, I think I had my thirty years.

Milligan: Whoa, your whole career.

Toy: Mm-mm. It’s been a good one.

Milligan: it sounds like it, did you ever think about going back to a warm spot?

Toy: Oh yeah! Yeah.

Milligan: Longer than to visit [Chuckling]?

Toy: [Chuckling] No, but it was, it was nice. We enjoyed it, the wife and I went back, we enjoyed it and…so…I always said while I was there, if I had gotten discharged there, I would have stayed.

Milligan: And, were you ( )?

Toy: But, but I didn’t get discharged there, 30:00so… Milligan: So, since you got discharged in Indiana, did, is that how you came back to Kentucky?

Toy: Oh yeah, mm-mm.

Milligan: Essentially?

Toy: Mm-mm.

Milligan: Do you have any children?

Toy: I have two, two children…one…Pam (Ishmael?) she married (Dutch Ishmael?) they have a Chevrolet and Ford dealership here, and Sandy, Sandra…married John (Helard?) McDonald, they live on Owens…on the…Camargo Road, he has the black Angus cattle and she, she’s employed at the community, Community Trust Bank, so…they are good.

Milligan: Good experience.

Toy: They are all good to me [Laughter – Milligan], yeah. I, I think, if I want something, I’m, I’m careful not to mention it, and if I do, I’ll get it.

Milligan: Miss the op…don’t miss the opportunity?

Toy: Yeah, but no, I don’t, no, I don’t ever mention nothing, because if I do [Chuckling] I’ll surely, they’ll see that I get it, 31:00yeah, mm-mm.

Milligan: Well it sounds like a…it sounds like a great life, and, and to be able to say that you’re a Pearl Harbor survivor, but that you…it di…it didn’t seem to affect…the rest of your tenure in the military… Toy: No, no, no, uh-uh.

Milligan: …too extremely.

Toy: No, uh-uh.

Milligan: It’s… Toy: And… Milligan: …I think it’s different. A lot of people had different experiences, it sounds like… Toy: That’s right, yeah, mm-mm.

Milligan: …on that, so… Toy: So I get…I get a lot of phone—I get the phone calls, and, and…the police will stop me, because I carry a Pearl Harbor survivor license plate, and…I know it has saved me from, like getting a speeding ticket one time [Laughter – Milligan] Milligan: Off record.

Toy: I’m, I’m, I’m sure, I’m sure of that, because I saw the cop come over the hill and I knew I was driving too fast, and he turned around and I pulled over and stopped. And he, I talked to him a bit, I told him I was driving too fast, he walked out, looked at the rear back of the car, and he, he came back and said, “I’ll just give you a warning ticket.” 32:00[Chuckling]. So…but…that’s all been good, and, I, I enjoyed it while I was in the service, yeah.

Milligan: Adrian, did you have any question?

Arnold: I was one thing that, Raymond Turley is supposed to be here.

Toy: Yeah.

Arnold: …and he was a Pearl Harbor survivor up also, and they were there at the same time but didn’t know each other, and he was… Milligan: From the same county.

Arnold: …from Mount Sterling.

Toy: Mm-mm.

Arnold: Same town ( ).

Toy: Uh-huh. I didn’t know it until I, af…he worked at the post office ( ) and I worked there with him for I don’t know, two or three years. But I would have to go then ( ) Hawaii, I’d have to go through Wheeler Field to get to my Schofield… Milligan: Oh, so… Toy: …see?

Milligan: …so you didn’t ever have… Toy: And, and yeah, and he could have been standing right out there and I, looking at him, you know… Milligan: How amazing to me that you can be so close… Toy: Oh yes, uh-huh.

Milligan: …in such a small area… Toy: Mm-mm.

Milligan: …and it takes you to get, go to Pearl Harbor and back to actually get to know each other.

Arnold: That’s right.

Toy: Yeah. But Raymond, Raymond would be a good…he 33:00had, he had a hard time, he had…at Wheeler Field, they bombed that quite a bit, in other words that practically destroyed it.

Milligan: Right, right.

Arnold: I think they practically destroyed all the planes, didn’t they.

Toy: What’s that?

Arnold: They, they destroyed most of the planes.

Toy: Most of the planes, yeah, uh-huh.

Milligan: Yeah.

Toy: And he was…I think he was a, a, mechanic, plane mechanic.

Milligan: Oh.

Toy: And specially on, and then he got to the point where he was a me…mechanic on one plane, took care of everything on that plane. Of course he had men to take care of the, do the electrical work and such as that, see.

Milligan: Yeah.

Toy: But that, he, he was good, good boy.

Milligan: Whoa, it’s a good story.

Toy: So…yeah, I went through, one time there they got word that the Japanese were going to use mustard gas, and the, 34:00they took, I was one of several they took and…they put that gas on you, a doctor did, he put it on your arm to see how bad it burned you. I always felt like if they wanted to know, they ought to put it on themselves, and then they’d know [Chuckles – Milligan and Arnold].

Milligan: I think that’s a good point.

Toy: But don’t you know, I cannot find, I was in, I go to the VA Hospital every six months, and a lady over told, said you can file a claim for that, and that I did, but somehow or the other, they cannot find that.

Milligan: Records?

Toy: and the records.

Arnold: Well!

Milligan: Do you have a mark, like a scar from it, where they did it?

Toy: No, no, this, they put it on, it makes a big—made a big blister. And you’re fa…a fair complected person, oh it would work, it would be terrible, but I always had a good tan, and…so it wasn’t too bad.

Milligan: So, did you have to go back and show them later on what it did, I mean how did that work?

Toy: Well it’s just a big blister came up there and then, you know, they’d all go away and then time goes on.

Milligan: What are they trying to understand from that, whether you can be outside when they drop… Toy: They just… Milligan: …mustard gas?

Toy: …yeah, they just wanted to know how bad it’d burn you, so I always thought if you want to know, if you want to something, 35:00put it on yourself, you’ll find out, you know, first hand.

Milligan: Good point.

Toy: Yeah, but I don’t know, there was several of us, I know it was…and we were, we were up on one end of the island there for several days, because…we went down and swim at this beach, and nurses went up to that beach, see, but they had a whole, whole, they had the doctors and nurses, and everything was there, if you had any big problems. Then when you got back to your company, if you…you could, if, if it still gave you trouble, you’d go to the, to the…they called it…whatever the…office there, doctor’s office there, he would treat you and…they had to put a band-aid on.

Milligan: So were there a lot of doctors and nurses there… Toy: Oh yeah!

Milligan: …because that’s where the… Toy: Wounded… Milligan: …wounded were sent?

Toy: Uh-huh, yeah. 36:00That’s one thing, nurses, nurses played a big part in the military that…there was very little said about them. I’ve got…literature and…from various organizations for how many served, how many have been—how many wounded, how many were killed…how many were prisoner of war. There is thirty-five of the prisoner of war have in the Philippines, for thirty-six months, or thirty-five months, and there is one buried on foreign soil, and I got, where, I got…record where one is still missing, one is unaccounted for. You don’t hear enough about the women or the nurses in the military, see.

Milligan: Yeah.

Toy: But I believe is one, a letter I got that sa…say that one is still missing, unaccounted for, and one buried on foreign soil. 37:00Milligan: The nurses.

Toy: Uh-huh. And without them, I tell you we’d be, we’d be, the military would be in bad shape, it would terrible, yeah.

Milligan: Right.

Toy: Oh yeah!

Milligan: Well it’s good that you, good that you recognize them.

Toy: Oh yeah that’s… Milligan: Recognize that. I don’t, I think pre-World War II there was, there wasn’t any recognition.

Toy: So…no, whenever I get a chance…I like to mention them, because…without them, we b…we, we’d be in bad shape, because a lot of them served right up on the front line, and… Milligan: How did they serve? In what capacity?

Toy: Well it’s a, if he is wounded, they’d patch you up, they, you know, just like the nurses at the hospital, yeah, and stuff…and they’re, they’re first class.

Milligan: Mmm, 38:00well. Is there anything else you want to add?

Toy: [Chuckling] No that, that’s enough.

Milligan: I feel like I have been through the battles today.

Toy: I bet you have.

Milligan: It’s been great stories though, great stories. Well I’m going to go ahead and shut this off.

“END OF INTERVIEW”