Shurtz: This is June 10th at about…4:25. My name is Clinton Shurtz, and I am in
Fulton, Kentucky talking to Howard Ambruster… Armbruster: Armbruster.Shurtz: Armbruster. I forgot the R in there, Howard Armbruster…about his
experiences in World War II. I guess, to begin with Howard, tell me about where you grew up at, and… Armbruster: I grew up in Fulton.Shurtz: Fulton?
Armbruster: Uh-huh, and attended Fulton City schools along with three siblings,
and I graduated in 1939, and…after graduation, I went to work for Swift Packing Company, worked for Swift, and…in ’41, all of my friends were volunteering for an ( ), but war clouds was gathering over Europe, all my friends is volunteering, so…in March ’41, I volunteered and 1:00I was taken into the army in April…1941, and I was sent to…inducted at Fort Thomas, Kentucky, and from there, after induction I was sent to Camp Shelby for basic training where we stayed for about eighteen months. I got the different stuff here (Paper shuffling sound) that…yeah there was our—that was our first sergeant, and he and I bunked together. You can read that and ask the question.Shurtz: Hum!
Brock: Howard, tell him, tell him
2:00about your, your family in the beginning. Tell him…about your, your son, your children, your family… Armbruster: ( )… Brock: …and….Armbruster: We, we have one son, he's fifty-four. I won’t forget this George.
Shurtz: Why?
Armbruster: Last Sunday—well he has been appointed as assistant president of
Methodist men for all western Kentucky and west Tennessee.Brock: Very good.
Armbruster: And last Sunday, he preached a sermon from the pulpit, out in his church.
Brock: That’s the first one?
Armbruster: That’s the first of it.
Shurtz: Well that’s great.
Armbruster: They told him he was—he missed his call that he should have been a preacher.
Brock: He did a good job, I…yeah.
Armbruster: Oh, we wanted him to, to tape it, but he didn’t get taped.
Brock: Yeah. And you didn’t hear it then.
Armbruster: Didn’t hear… Brock: No. Well I’m, I’m glad that
3:00he did it, because I….Armbruster: Okay.
Brock: And….
Armbruster: ( ) Brock: …his regular job is what? What does he do?
Armbruster: He is superintendent of a big warehouse down there.
Brock: Okay. And you married Jean?
Brock: Married Jean—I met Jean… Brock: Her, her….
Armbruster: …after I come home from the ar… Brock: …her maiden name.
Armbruster: …after I come home from the army and… Brock: Her maiden name?
Armbruster: Uh-huh…I don’t…we were married in… Brock: Your last name—her last
name, what was….Armbruster: Brown.
Brock: Okay.
Armbruster: Let me tell you a little something.
Brock: All right.
Armbruster: My great grandfather was a Brown and of course, and then my
grandfather was a Brown and married a Brown.My daddy married a Brown, and I married a Brown.
4:00Brock: These, these Brown girls… Shurtz: Attracted you guys [Laughter – Shurtz, Brock] Brock: Yeah, yeah, okay, all right, didn’t go ( )… Shurtz: And, and that’s, that’s George Brock talk—talking there by the way, so…so people listening to the recording in the future will know.Armbruster: [Laughing] Oh, I didn’t know you was recording that.
Shurtz: Oh yeah, it will be okay. So what did you, you went, you went into the
military and what did you do?Armbruster: Well the first year, there was an estimate corporal and he went to
OCS, Officers’ Training Camp, and they asked me to take company clerk and I took the company clerk job, and that’s what I did the rest of the time. I made all the payrolls, kept—I had two hundred and twelve men and I kept all the records on those two-hundred-and twelve men, and…no matter what it was, I kept a record of it. I always kidded everybody; I said I never did figure out how to make that typewriter shoot [Chuckling].Shurtz: And so did you? Where, where you stationed at…during that time?
Armbruster: We were…
5:00Brock: Tell him how and where you were inducted. Tell him where you were inducted and you….Armbruster: I was inducted at Fort Thomas, Kentucky.
Brock: And then you went… Armbruster: To… Brock: …where and where in ( )…
Armbruster: …Shelby… Brock: …where, tell him about….Armbruster: …camp, Camp Shelby, uh-huh.
Brock: Yeah.
Armbruster: And…we went on maneuvers in September of ’42. Instead of going back
to Camp Shelby, we went to Camp Carrabelle, Florida for our…amphibious training, and we were slated to go to North Africa, but we failed the test down there, that amphibious test, so we didn’t go, so they…cancelled that, and instead they transferred some of us to Camp Livingston, Louisiana, and…we stayed there until te…they all, they got ready to send us 6:00overseas. First we went to Jackson Barracks in New Orleans to wait for a ship, and then they put us on the…USS…(Sea Scamp?) and we went…overseas on the USS (Sea Scamp?)—it took, we went by—from New Orleans went down through Panama, to Hawaii.Brock: Yeah, you strength which company, battalion, regiment, what?
Armbruster: Well… Brock: What’s the name of your outfit.
Armbruster: We’re, we have, company, we had two-hundred and twelve men in the
company. Of course, at the, what I… Shurtz: How m…how m… Armbruster: We, we had about a thousand men in the vi…in the battalion.Brock: All right. And the name of the battalion was… Armbruster: Third, 3rd Battalion.
Brock: Third Battalion of….
Armbruster: 149th Infantry.
7:00(Background whispers) huh? And then…we, we left…like I said, we left New Orleans, we went down through the Panama Canal, we went to Hawaii. We stayed in Hawaii about six months. We took ranger training in Hawaii, and…from there they loaded us on troop trust—troop ship, the whole regiment, and…where is that piece of, piece of paper I gave you? I wanted to read that.Brock: I put it in here
8:00(Paper shuffling sounds).Armbruster: And…this is where we encountered on, on our way, we were on our way
to New Guinea and that’s what we encountered… Brock: Were the Japanese entrenched on New Guinea at that time?Armbruster: Oh yeah, they were still… Brock: ( ).
Armbruster: …still had part of New Guinea, yeah.
Brock: You all were invading new, New Guinea.
Armbruster: Uh-huh.
Brock: Yeah.
Armbruster: We landed at Ora Bay, New Guinea.
Shurtz: Maybe I should read this for the recording. I…I’ll start at the, ‘the
troop ship hit ground in a volcano gale. ( ) a, undisclosed story of an eerie volcanic storm which trapped a big American troop 9:00ship and drove her onto a South Pacific coral reef we learned by the (Call?) bulletin here today. Hundreds of troops aboard the transport were evacuated into Liberty ships and LOIs without a single reported casualty, according to official accounts of the incident. The vessel, after more than two days aground was backed off the roof with the aide of liberties and LOIs, and with other minor damage to her haul. First, ominous hint of trouble came one afternoon, when officers aboard the transport sighted huge bellowing black clouds moving towards them. The clouds were formed by a pumice ash storm resulting from volcanic eruption. By mid afternoon, the transport was forced to turn on her navigational lights. A little later, one officer reported day was turned into night. The sky was black and visibility was nil.Blinding stifling ash dust enveloped the vessel, sifting into machinery,
blotting out all visible and navigational aids. The big transport broke in from the safe anchorage to ride out the weird storm slid onto the reef a little before nightfall, smoothly, without even a jar. 10:00All night long the officers and cr…and crew tried to back her off without success. The ash dust from the volcano was so thick that eyelid shield from gas masks carried by the troops were supplied to members of the transport crew who needed them. The ash settled on the ships coating her docks with a quarter-inch dust with visibility at zero and the transport still on the roof, the officers decided to put off the troops. Two liberty ships and five LOIs along with the naval auxiliary vessel, a couple of salvage tugs, and an Australian ship were standing by. Chaplains moved among men praising the calmness of the ship’s master and allowing any fears the soldiers might have had after the ship’s safety. The soldiers were put aboard the liberty ship to continue toward their destination. Meanwhile, four LOIs, aided 11:00by the naval auxiliary vessel, succeeded in pu…pushing the transport back off the reef after she had been aground for two days and nearly six hours. An Australian naval officers who visited a nearby island after the storm reported that dust was thick on the ground and bushes. Trees and shrubs were weighed down with it. Colonel W. G. (Skelton?), who commanded the troops aboard the transport, praised the ship’s officers for the efficiency and smoothness with which the vessel had handled and in with the soldiers were taken off.’ Armbruster: Uh-huh, so that was a… (Shuffling paper sound).Shurtz: Well tell, tell me, tell me….
Armbruster: Well I was….
Shurtz: …the ( ) one….
Armbruster: …taken off for…LS, LST, I, and then transferred to a Dutch freighter
and…they took us on to Ora 12:00Bay, New Guinea and put us off. So that’s…did…there's where we joined up with the er...the…companies.Brock: And you had to fight your way on to New Guinea.
Armbruster: Yeah—well no, we didn’t… Brock: You… Armbruster: I mean… Brock: It
was already secure when you got there.Armbruster: It was already secure, yeah.
Brock: Yeah, okay.
Armbruster: but…that was—here put that, put that back.
Brock: How long did you stay…there and from there where did you go?
Armbruster: Huh…see I was t…transferred to…air force. I had a…they were, we were
forming this…new company. What it was, they were sending these planes over there…all radios out, the wings off, this that and the other, 13:00and we had fifty-two men each, each men was a…a specialist, and…we were putting those wings, the idea was to get it all and get ready for these…men from eur…from Europe coming over and getting, getting these planes ready for them, and…when they got there, they’d be in fighting order. Now… Brock: Were these fighter planes?Armbruster: (A-20s?).
Brock: Yeah, okay.
Armbruster: At…the end of the story was, we had—this was December 7th, 1945. I
had just finished supper, me and another guy, he was from…Ohio, he said let’s walk up on the, the…up to the airport, which wasn’t but, all a couple hundred yards, 14:00so okay, so we walked up there, standing there and talking, air raid alarm went off. He says, “well,” says…”look you out coming over the horizon,” and said, “must be they’re expecting some kind of trouble.” So, about that time, I looked up, I say, “yeah,” I say, “that’s Jap, Japs’ ( ) these big black balls of smoke ( ). I said, “yeah them Japs hanging on the top.” Brock: Now this was ’41, not ’45.Armbruster: No this was…’45, I...
Brock: ’45, okay.
Armbruster: December 7th, uh-huh.
Brock: You’re still on New Guinea at that time?
Armbruster: No we were, we was class, we were on…the Philippines at that time.
Brock: Yeah, okay, all right.
Armbruster: And…they dropped a whole battalion of Jap paratroopers on us,
fifty-one of us, and we…grabbed our rifle, 15:00I was the last to take, leave the company, I went by the supply house, filled my pockets full of ammunition, got my rifle, I caught up with the rest of them, some of them didn’t even have a bullet [Chuckling]. I had a fell back with another, another outfit. Next morning, about daylight, I looked up, I see this…these guys coming in to get us out. I had, well I said, I, that guy looks familiar. I looked at him again, my old outfit...which come up there to get us out, and…they got us out and then we stayed there, oh, a couple a weeks then moved. 16:00Brock: Now, Howard, you said December the 7th of ’45. Of course the war was over then. See, the war was over….Armbruster: ’44! ’44.
Brock: That’s right, okay, that’s right.
Armbruster: ’44, yeah.
Brock: Yeah, all right, yeah.
Armbruster: So, then they, they moved us—you’ve seen this picture of McArthur
wading ashore?Brock: Yeah.
Armbruster: They moved us down, we were within half a mile of that area and
that’s where we set our camp up.Brock: Mm-mm, yeah. Now when they drove him off, he says, “I’ll return,” and so…
Armbruster: Huh?Brock: …this is his return then.
Armbruster: That was his return, yeah we, we were, of course we wa’n’t right
there when he was…returned but…that’s where we camped there… Brock: Yeah.Armbruster: …came back and camped there, uh-huh. But…oh yes, the name of that
ship…was USS Monterey that…ran 17:00aground. I don’t think you got it in there, have you?Shurtz: What’s that?
Armbruster: The name of that ship was the USS Monterey.
Shurtz: Oh, no.
Armbruster: It was a passenger liner.
Brock: Was that a converted Liberty ship?
Armbruster: Oh it was a pa…luxury ship.
Brock: What was it made for?
Armbruster: Uh-huh… Brock: Troop hauling, yeah, okay.
Armbruster: You got it?
Shurtz: What’s that?
Armbruster: You got it there.
Shurtz: Yeah, it’s on, it will be on the—maybe I should read this aloud for the,
the recording as well. I’ll do this…and this is in the, ‘The News Democrat,’ and here is this local…paper?Armbruster: Oh it’s…from Russellville.
Shurtz: From Russellville. And this a…concerning the wa…the war, WW I roster?
Armbruster: Yeah, World War I.
Shurtz: Yeah. So this says… ‘World War II was not the first time Company M had
been sent to the war. In 1917, Company M was sent to Camp Shelby for training to fight in World War I. Christine Hollands ( ) and presented at the October 9th DAR meeting a roster of those members of Company M 18:00at Camp Shelby to Sergeant First Class Craig (Austin?) of the Russellville National Guard. (Hollands?) found a roster twenty, twenty-five years ago at a sale. When at the sale, she noticed a pile of trash that was set on fire. She noted something rolled up on the pile and took a look at it. Her curiosity was picked when she saw President Woodrow Wilson’s face on it. She unrolled and found that the paper was the roster for Company M. She rolled the roster back up and left the sale. The roster was framed and placed at the Auburn American Legion and she decided it needed to go to the National Guard. (Austin?) said that he will take care of the roster and display it. However, the fact that the roster was almost burned stayed in many people’s minds and praised (Hollands?) for saving it. “It would have been a shame if it had been destroyed,” DAR President Emma Thompson said. (Shuffling paper sound). And was the connection of that, that’s, y…that 19:00was Company M during World War I and you were Company M in World War II, right?Armbruster: Yeah.
Shurtz: And that’s the lineage… Brock: Yeah.
Armbruster: Yeah.
Brock: That’s, that’s the continuity of it, yeah.
Shurtz: Okay.
Armbruster: (Paper shuffling sound) I'll find something here for you. See if you
see anybody on there that, that…you might recognize the m… Brock: Here?Armbruster: …that was the A Company from Harlan.
Brock: All right. Say what? Now you spend some time up in Fulgham—no you got
relatives up at Fulgham.Armbruster: Yeah.
Brock: Yeah, I see, yeah.
Shurtz: So it just…continue on your story. What happened next?
Armbruster: Well, didn’t hardly anything happened to, we didn’t have any combat,
anything, after that. Everything calmed down—Oh yeah!I was in the hospital. I had gone to the hospital to have my tonsils taken out.
20:00That was right at the end of the war, and when the war ended, they announced the war had ended. Everybody was shooting their rifles off and everything, and I heard something hit down beside my bed and I looked, I didn’t see nothing. In about an hour, this doctor come through making his rounds, kicked something down there, there was a bullet buried up down there beside my [Chuckling] bed.Shurtz: Whoa!
Armbruster: huh, some ( ).
Brock: S…somebody… Armbruster: Somebody discharged their… Brock: Some of them
got too much to drink and got careless, it sounds like.Armbruster: Uh-huh.
Shurtz: And, and after the, the end of the war, how, how long were you in the military?
Armbruster: Oh I got out soon as… Shurtz: As soon as… Armbruster: Well I got my
orders…the war was just—it’s signed it September the 6th, and I got my orders to come home October the 6th. And I got home…they 21:00sent me to Camp Atterbury…when I got to Camp Atterbury…November the 12th.Brock: Now this is 1945.
Armbruster: ’45.
Brock: Yes. Howard was one of the guys, you were one of the guys that had a long
length of service and a lot of it overseas and you had high points.Armbruster: That’s right.
Brock: …that’s why you got out immediately after…yeah.
Armbruster: You had, I had a, eighty-two points is what I had.
Brock: Okay. And that was considered high.
Shurtz: Oh, okay.
Brock: Yeah.
Armbruster: Well, well, and when I got to Camp Atterbury…Company M was there
too. They, they were getting discharged. They, they come back on a different ship than I did.Shurtz: So what did you do with yourself after the war?
Armbruster: Well I went to college a couple of years.
Shurtz: Yeah.
Armbruster: Then the…railroad offered me a job. And I….
Shurtz: Where did you go to college at?
Armbruster: Huh?
Shurtz: Where did you go to college?
Armbruster: Murray.
Shurtz: Okay.
Armbruster: And the railroad offered me a job, and I stayed with the railroad
for thirty-five years. 22:00I was special agent for nineteen years, I don’t know if, whether you know what a special agent is.Shurtz: No.
Armbruster: Railroad detective.
Shurtz: Oh!
Armbruster: For…nineteen years, and I have been transferred all over the south
with. We left Fulton, went to Memphis, to Birmingham, to Jackson, Mississippi, Monroe, Louisiana, and then back to Memphis. They were going to send me to Chicago and I didn’t want to go. So I asked for a transfer to the road, and they gave me a, a transfer conductor for, for a freight train, which was r…a real, real good job, because a lot of times we’d 23:00get all t…we’d get on a caboose in Memphis and not get off until [Chuckling] we got to Paducah. So, I did that then for the last fifteen years, conductor. Took my pension, I have been on pension since 1984.Shurtz: Oh!
Armbruster: That’s…twenty…about twenty-three, twenty-four years. So I got my
money’s worth [Chuckling].Shurtz: Are you involved today, or have been involved in, in veterans’
activities around the area?Armbruster: Oh I would. I belong to Union City VFW, but…I don’t drive anymore at
night and they, a lot of these things are at night, and I got…I broke both my hips a couple of years ago and I, they still bother me. So I’m not too involved in any of them.I would like to be,
24:00but I just can’t, can’t do it.Shurtz: But you were in the past though?
Armbruster: Oh I was… Shurtz: Yeah, yeah.
Armbruster: …in the past, yeah, I belonged to the VFW and all over the place,
the Masonic Order of Masons. I’ve a…I have been in the Masons for s…sixty-two years on the, I’m the…second oldest Mason in our lodge up here.Shurtz: Hum.
Armbruster: By the way I’m about the third oldest active member in the Baptist Church.
Shurtz: Yeah?
Armbruster: Well, what else we need?
Shurtz: Mm-mm.
Armbruster: Now. (Paper shuffling sound). Look through this and read some, or
you can read part of it. We got…our 25:00outfit, infantry outfit, got a presidential citation, or…(paper shuffling sound).Brock: Clinton, he was exposed to more fire than…doc or I.
Armbruster: Yeah.
Shurtz: Oh.
Brock: He, he was exposed to battle and he hadn’t covered that, now he, you,
there, there is some places that you need to tell him really…the nitty-gritty of… Shurtz: Yeah.Brock: …World War II. Yeah, World War II.
Armbruster: Well, most of it… Brock: What you actually saw or you participated in.
Armbruster: Oh.
Brock: Let me interrupt you just a minute. Can you turn that off just a ( )
Shurtz: Yeah. [Pause] Armbruster: Yeah, I think some of the battles are in there that…fought. 26:00Shurtz: Well for the sake of, can you, can you sum up some of the battles? Can you tell me in your own words what… Armbruster: Well, I really didn’t…I was a clerk, and they really kept me in the rear echelon.Shurtz: Oh.
Armbruster: So, I really didn’t get out there in the main battles. They sent
these messages back to me, and I’d see that the right people got them or, a guy got killed, I’d send his…type up a letter of, and the company commander would sign it and I’d send it off, mail it.Shurtz: So as a clerk, are you…were you traveling with the… Armbruster: Oh yeah
I was w… Shurtz: …okay, that’s…okay.Armbruster: I was with every, every step they took us, I took, and training, I
took ever, everything they took, I went to the field, shot my rifle, dug, done everything they done, I just…I was a clerk and I had two-hundred and twelve men. I did all of their correspondence forms.Shurtz: Oh I see.
Armbruster: …all the company correspondence.
27:00It, it was a full time job.Shurtz: So when…action or battle took place, what, were you protected? How did…
Armbruster: Oh you’re just about four or five miles behind the front line.Shurtz: Okay, I see.
Armbruster: Uh-huh. So, I was back there where it usu…usually safe back there,
and you have your typewriter and your desk all set up. They sent you these messages back, or you typed up the messages and sent it to them. I’d, me and my, my son and I we, we kid each other. His father-in-law was a cook in the army, and I made out the payroll, and so the first of each month we were the two main...two 28:00main men in the army. I paid them and [Chuckling] the father-in-law cooked and fed them [Chuckling].Shurtz: So, so when, when you joined the military…it was an exciting thing for
you? Were you, were you, was it a positive experience…joining?Armbruster: Oh yeah, it was a positive experience. We got on the train here,
there was six of us got on the train here, going to Louisville. On the way to Louisville, we stopped every little town, say we’d stop at Mayfield, we’d stop here, and we’d stop there, we’d pick up soldier, time we got to Mayfield—got to Paducah—not Paducah—got to…Louisville, we had a train load of soldiers, wherever we picked them up. 29:00Then, next day they got us, sent us to…Fort Thomas. That’s where we were inducted, at Fort Thomas, Kentucky. Then in a couple of days they loaded us on a passenger train and sent us to Camp Shelby. We got down there, they says “you go to this camp, you go to this camp, you go to medics, you go to service company,” and this, see what happened, when they…took them into federal service in January, they weren’t up to full strength and these guys that volunteered and drafted and all, they were sending them down to Camp Shelby to bring the company…up to full strength and did that until we got a hundred, a hundred and twelve men. 30:00Yeah…L Company, do you know anybody in Mayfield?Shurtz: No.
Armbruster: You got to go to Mayfield for anything?
Shurtz: No, I’m, I’m just doing Fulton and Hickman… Armbruster: Who?
Shurtz: …interviews.
Armbruster: Oh. [Long Pause] Armbruster: Company S is where George is from
(Paper shuffling sounds). That was my company right there (Continuous paper shuffling sounds). 31:00Now here, this outfit right there, they were from Mayfield, a hundred and eighty-four men. I don’t know whether you’re headed at Mayfield or not.Shurtz: So would you say the, the volcano experience, would that be the most
memorable out of the…what would be the… Armbruster: Or them dropping the Jap paratroopers on us is the most memorable.Shurtz: Tell me about that some.
Armbruster: Because we were standing there shooting at them as they were coming
down. By the time that first one, the first one hit the ground, that’s when we took off running.Shurtz: And what…what date was this, do you know?
Armbruster: December the 7th, nineteen and ’44.
Shurtz: And you were, what location were you at, at this time?
Armbruster: We were
32:00at…at (Arawan?) in the Philippines.Shurtz: And how many…is in effect they dropped…men down in parachutes, how, how many?
Armbruster: the whole battalion, there must have been at least a thousand men.
Shurtz: Whoa!
Armbruster: Dropped on us and there was fifty-two of us. But they, they sent
this…whole battalion up there, and by the way they…they killed just about all those Jap paratroopers.Shurtz: The…fifty, fifty some men, in a thousand? Whoa!
Armbruster: I had a paper…I had a paper,
33:00I, I loaned it to somebody, somebody kept part of … Shurtz: I just think, you know, as far as this hearing your own words on it, and… Armbruster: [Chuckling] oh, the headline co…the headlines they ca…it was off the Courier Journal says “Kentucky boys killed three thousand Japs… Shurtz: Whoa!Armbruster: …in one week.
Shurtz: Whoa! [Commotion sounds] Armbruster: I’m just mostly crippled when I get
up. (Papers shuffling sounds) 34:00This one is not mine but, mine is just like it. That’s a… Shurtz: And what, and what is this?Armbruster: This is a s…a…presidential citation.
Shurtz: Oh, okay.
Armbruster: And…see where is the 149th on there?
Shurtz: It’s the right first one.
Armbruster: First one.
Shurtz: Hum?
Armbruster: We got a presidential citation.
Shurtz: So you show me a presidential citation of that, and that was that, that
event? The… Armbruster: Yeah.Shurtz: …when they dropped, when they dropped the parachutes?
Armbruster: No, that’s, that was when…for this…invasion of… Shurtz: Okay. (Paper
shuffling sounds).Armbruster: Oh, you can kind of thumb through there and ( ).
(Paper shuffling sounds)
35:00Shurtz: Can you…I mean, can, can you sum up any of this for this… Armbruster: Well that’s the…when they, they’re taking a Manila and Luzon, Fort Drum, that was a little, a fort out in the bayou there. That was the Death March. They…you heard of the Death March now.Shurtz: I’m not for sure.
Armbruster: Oh! They captured all these Americans, nurses, and this and that and
the other, and…they marched them nine—about ninety miles out in the boiling sun from one camp to another, no water, 36:00nothing to eat. Out of six thousand started, there was only about a thousand of them left. That’s, that’s the…a drawing there. They uh…that’s where… ( ) of Bataan, that’s where they got that doggone...see the Jap bayoneted any man that, that…fell out, or couldn’t get up and couldn’t go, they’d just shoot them right there on the spot (Paper shuffling sounds). 37:00Atomic bomb, the blast turned rocks into powder. ( ) I got a bunch of stuff in there. Of course you ain’t got time to read much of it. (I take it?) you don’t have time to look at this. 38:00Oh, that was taken at, at Camp Livingston, Louisiana. Now there is our hut, that’s where we lived in Camp Livingston. That’s between Baton Rouge and Shreveport. This is one of our, our, taken of our army reunion. I’m afraid you’re not getting what you want in here.Shurtz: Oh really, what I like is, is have you talk about, you know, that, these
are going to be oral… Armbruster: That was taken at ( ).Shurtz: …presentation, so, whatever the, the microphones can pick up or, you know.
Armbruster: Hawaii, see. Now this, that’s Camp Shelby, that’s where lived in
Camp Shelby, 39:00that’s downtown Honolulu. That’s Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, that’s on maneuvers in Louisiana. We’d get these Filipinos to wash our clothes, they’d find a pond something like that, that’s where they’d wash our clothes in that pond. Now that’s the USS Monterey, that’s the ship that we went from…the states to—I 40:00mean from Hawaii to New Guinea. That’s where it got stuck on the coral reef. We had three thousand men on that ship.Shurtz: Hum.
Armbruster: That’s some of our men. (Paper shuffling sounds). Okay! Now where
are we going with this ( ).Shurtz: Well, any, do you have memorable experiences from, from the…anything
you, you left out, like… Armbruster: Gosh it’s been so much all, I can’t remember, it’s been seventy years.Shurtz: Yeah. What…where were you…what was your reaction whenever the, the
atomic bomb went off in your… Armbruster: I was, I was in the hospital, I was in bed, everybody was hooking and hollering, 41:00nurses come in there, “shush, shush, you all be quiet, you all be quiet.” [Chuckling]. And then, a couple of days later, that’s when they signed…the war ceased. We’re going home now [Chuckling].Shurtz: Do you think people back then…Americans in general were, say more
supportive of the military than they are today or how… Armbruster: By far.Shurtz: Yeah.
Armbruster: By far. We had, we had Rosie the Riveter. Do you ever of Rosie the Riveter?
Shurtz: No!
Armbruster: They had all these women working in these airplane factories, they
was just working right along beside the men, building airplanes, building ships, using (air?) guns, just anything. We had to listen to Tokyo 42:00Rose every morning.Shurtz: What woman, what’s, what’s that?
Armbruster: This is a woman, she was an American, but she got—the war started
she got trapped over in Japan, and they…taught her, gave her a job on the radio. Every morning, she’d broadcast where ev…everybody in the, our outfits, were, what outfits was where, and tell them they were going to get killed that day, and tried to, to…demoralize our morals and all. We’d have to s…we’d have to turn it on and see who, who, who was going to get killed [Chuckling] that day. Now we were…I never s…talk about this airstrip. We were having these planes 43:00getting shot up and coming back in the Philippines, we didn’t have but two air strips getting, and they were all shot up and when they come in for, for a landing, they were tying up the air strips, couldn’t no more planes take off or land. So they sent us back up there for the mountain, operate these…crash airstrip. There is some of these guys they’d come in and be all shot up, they’d still had a lot of fuel, they’d get there and fly around, and around, and around for maybe a hour or so, burning that fuel before they’d get the nerve enough to come in. They’d come and make, make a landing, we’d run out there and jerk the radio out of it, get us the radio where we could listen to…by the way the, the most homesick I ever got like last…Kentucky 44:00Derby, I was listening to the….Shurtz: Yeah.
Armbruster: …Kentucky Derby on, on one of those radio, and when they started to
play “My Whole Kentucky Home,” I got just as sick as, [Chuckling] got as homesick as I could be.Shurtz: Did you see any of that, the…was the RSO performances and did you, did
you, did you see any entertainment when, when… Armbruster: Oh yeah we, we saw, saw, uh-huh.Shurtz: A…any big celebrities come through your…area?
Armbruster: Yes, there was one, I can’t think of her name—she committed suicide
not long after that though. I ca…can’t think of her name, but we had a lot. The baseball team, we…had Joe DiMaggio, a bunch of those players on the baseball team. So we’d, we’d go out and watch them play ball. What else now can I tell you that you might be interested in?Shurtz: Well,
45:00I think there were probably, that’s… Armbruster: Oh, it seems like I… Shurtz: …unless you can think of something, you know. I just kind to want to hear your story and whatever you want to, whatever you want to offer and, you know, and…but… Armbruster: When I was there, and I seen it, and I come home and, I’d all, I told Jean this other day, I, we…landed at Fort Lewis, Washington, that was at Tacoma, Washington where we come back. I called my mother COD, collect from Fort Lewis, and I had been gone a couple of years. She answered that phone, you could—she hollered you could have heard her all over that neighborhood [Chuckles – Shurtz and Armbruster]. The operator says, “will you collect, will you accept the phone, accept the call, will you accept the call?” 46:00She finally got her to say yes [Chuckles – Shurtz and Armbruster]. And my brother flew, he flew twenty-five missions over Germany.Shurtz: Oh whoa!
Armbruster: Uh-huh. He was a…engineer gunner on a B-17.
Shurtz: Well, I think that’s, that’s, that’s a good bit of information, Howard,
I thank you for talking with me, we can… Armbruster: Well I just, I don’t seem like I, it seem like I didn’t say too much.Shurtz: You have some good stories there, yeah. That’s the thing, I think
it’s…you know, we…when you’re collecting these stories, you know you, sometimes you think it’s all going to be shooting up, you know, and all these big adventures, but I think what, what made the war so important and what, is everyone little s…you know, small individual, not everyone had a glorious story but those stories should still be told, you know. Some people sit and do office work and some people never left the United States, 47:00and, you know, and, and all those stories are, are important in the whole war effort, I think and… Armbruster: Yeah, they gave me a clerk’s job and I…I stayed with it, I turned down several promotions to stay with it.“END OF INTERVIEW”
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