Shurtz: This is June 13th, my name is Clinton Shurtz, I’m in…Clinton, Kentucky,
talking to Sam Armbuster—Armbruster about his experiences in World War II. Thanks for talking to me, Sam, and I guess first start out tell me… Armbruster: Well I guess I start out with my entry, I had an awful odd entry into the army, I, I went, I was in Michigan, I went to Michigan to look for work and was drafted. I s-s-s…went to the board and registered the 27th of November in, in ’42, and in…16th of December they drafted me, they said to come here (Clears throat).Shurtz: What year was that?
Armbruster: That was in ’42.
Shurtz: Okay.
Armbruster: And I was, I was only, only on that board about sixteen days, and I
come home, 1:00they gave me seven days to come home to Kentucky to wind up my business which I ( ) own business…and when I went, started back I had a bus ticket and the bus broke down in Columbia, Ohio, Columbus, and I couldn’t get out of there and I was late getting back to the draft board, and I went down on Christmas eve and I thought, they surely won’t take me, but they handed me a railroad ticket and said, “here get on that train,” and I went to sh…Fort Sheridan and I went out there and walked in and found the first building with a light on it, walked in there and then told the boy. “What the hell are you doing here?” I [Chuckling] says, “Not because I wanted.” And…he sa…gave me (Clears throat) another ticket and said go over there to the supply room and get you…some sheets and blanket and find an empty barrack and go to sleep, and so that, 2:00that’s where my army career started. From there, I went to…Fort Lewis, Washington and take my basic training in Fort Lewis, Washington…there was nothing spectacular about that, anything happened during my basic training. The only thing about it, they were drilling us for water…preservation. We couldn’t…on all of our trips and…in…basic training, we was given, we would reserve the water and we thought sure, we’re headed for…the…Africa, probably. So, [Chuckling] and come to find out, we wound up in the Mohave Desert…trai…taking desert training and still ( ) sure we’re going there, but we didn’t, we went to the Pacific instead 3:00[Chuckling], boy there was, where it rained every day. You didn’t have to worry about water, and I stayed in haw…I stayed in Hawaii there for six months, and I went from there to New Guinea, French Heaven, New Guinea was down on the no…the…we were (Mumbles)…were stationed…to protect the hospital, they stationed us around, in fact the hospital, when we got, when we g…arrived there in a boat the commander had us all polish our sh…our boots, put on new, clean new uniforms, like we were going to be (to?) a parade or something, and we stepped off of that boat and went below knee high in mud, when the, [Chuckling] they marched us back to our quarters where we were going to be quartered, 4:00and there was six-by trucks, these big two-ton six-by trucks, half up in mud, mud was up to the bed and they just walked off and left them, they couldn’t move them. Well that night, the first night in New Guinea, our squadron w…wound up on that little knoll that was rocky as it could be, but we had the big foxholes in those rocks, and these, the rest of the company was down, the rest down in a level place and they had nice digging, and they laughed at us up there being in our foxholes in those rocks. That night it rained and floated them out of theirs [Laughing] and we was up on that rocky ( ), and we were proud of it. But when…then we went from there to the station around this hospital they’d had already had set up for us, ready, the, 5:00been a company there in the…as we marched, as we went to this, our position, we marched all day and that night we were tired. I mean give out, and we had these…hammocks, waterproof hammocks. You stretched them out and they had a top ( ) the rain. Well somehow, I didn’t get mine put up right and it run the water in mine [Chuckles – Shurtz] and the next morning I woke up, I was floating in water and I smoked Camel cigarettes and there was a pack of Camels floating [Chuckling] right up in front of me there. It was a…then we went on to…set up and…we had a pillbox set up. Of course that was a heavy weapons in the…in the regiment, there is a…three, four, four, it’s three line companies, rifle companies and one…heavy 6:00weapons company. I was in the heavy weapons company. We had, we had heavy machine guns, and we were set up around this hospital in the, had a nice bunk, if you can call it, it was a…a…a…dry and had good sleeping quarters, but anyway, one morning we woke up, we heard this hollering and whooping and a going on, and all of us looking out of, out this bunker, and here were all these natives with these…spears and, and, and…bow and arrows, and dressed in war paint, they were jumping up and down [Laughing] and we didn’t know what to do, we weren’t supposed to shoot them, but we didn’t want them in there with us, and we got word back to the headquarters 7:00and somebody come out they sent a man out there that could talk to them. And come to find out, one of their crew had got in our minefield in front of our bunks and it wound up they, when he, they came to the hospital and didn’t say anything to anybody, they just came to the hospital, and once they told him where he was and all this, why it, it quieted down, but we didn’t know what was going on there for a while. From there (Clears throat), from there we went to (Mortica?) didn’t stay there—we didn’t, we didn’t get off the boat there, then we went on from there to…the Philippines, where they unloaded us in Lingayen Gulf, and we went from, starting, at the…to 8:00Baguio and Leyte, that was…MacArthur’s summer home that the Japanese had taken over, and we were in route to take it over ( ) we…the only thing that sticks to mind there was when we…Baguio was up at, on the top of a hill, a mountain, a little mountain I recall, and we, of course had fought all day and was going up that mountain, and we got up the top of it and the news reporter come around, he says, told the ca…the leader there, our sergeant, says, “If you’ll take these boys back down the hill, and bring them up, I’ll take a picture of you taking this place.” He said, “the hell with you, we ain’t going back down the foot of this mountain, we’re on the top, we’re going to stay.” So we didn’t get our picture made. I didn’t have many excep…exceptional 9:00experience, we were on Lingayen, and there then we…from there then we went to…we were loaded on a boat ready to invade Japan. I was so thankful for that atomic bomb… Shurtz: M-m-m.Armbruster: …because, uh-huh, we were expected to lose (Coughs) fifty per cent
of us when we would head that beach, because we were expected to fight men, women and children and everybody. But…of course that bomb put a stop to that, we, we walked in…on shore over there and got us in on landing crafts (Coughs) and…we 10:00were sta…we was, I spent…oh, about three months there, and then I come home and while I was overseas, I took my atabrine pretty regular, because I was afraid of malaria, but when we started home, I thought what the heck I endured it, I can do without it. So I quit taking atabrine. So when I got at (Clears throat) Fort Lewis, Washington, that’s where they docked us and took us off, I was in west, north port, port…that night—that afternoon rather, I had on a army GI’s underwear, army heavy wool suit—uniform, and army—one of those heavy overcoats, and I was standing up there with a blanket around me, around a (Potlock?) stove freezing to death, and I wound up in the hospital. I passed out, 11:00I don’t remember, don’t remember going to the hospital, but I…and I had malaria, it’d take me about a week to get out of that. My buddy, there was only two of my company, me and this boy, that…come back together, we were, they, they were separated, and we got off the boat up in Washin…at…Fort Lewis, somebody stole his pocket book. He didn’t have no money where I ha…they paid us…a month’s sa…salary for we’d have some money and I had forty dollars, and I gave him twenty dollars, and I take twenty, give him half of ( ). Of course he beat home on account he didn’t go to the hospital, he come home. There was a…a group, I don’t know whether he was within it or not, I tri…I, I tried my best to talk to him 12:00after we got home and I never could get him, and he wouldn’t write me. I’d write him, but he wouldn’t write me, he wouldn’t write, he was from up north, in the…finally I went when we was home on a vacation, and we was on vacation up in northern Michigan, I thought I’ll see if I can find him, and [Chuckling] there was four taverns in that town, and I went to [Chuckling] everyone of them and everyone of them would say, why he is right—no, he, he must have gone to another one. I went to another one, I went to four and I never could—he was, he was dodging me for some reason, I don’t know why, but he did, and so finally I just went to one of the bartenders and gave him some money and told him, “buy the boy a beer, I can’t find him, and [Chuckling] tell him I looked for him.” And…I never did and he’s, he’s died since then. I’ve, I tried to and I wanted to talk to him. Anyway his, he, he sent my money home, 13:00it beat me home, the money I loaned him, it got my, it got to my home before I got there. So…that’s about all more or less.Shurtz: Where were you born at?
Armbruster: What?
Shurtz: Where were you born?
Armbruster: Here.
Shurtz: In Clinton?
Armbruster: Yeah, right on, right over in the woods here.
Shurtz: Oh!
Armbruster: Yeah. I must have been a…oh, half mile where I was born.
Shurtz: Oh. What was your childhood?
Armbruster: Huh?
Shurtz: What did your parents do?
Armbruster: My dad’s done, he, he wound up working for the express in Fulton,
but he tried, he tried Detroit, and he tried every place, he tried farming, and he, he just didn’t ca…he just didn’t hang with him and he finally got a job at Fulton at The Express, and he retired out of The Express Office.Shurtz: So after the war, what did you do?
Armbruster: Huh?
Shurtz: After the war what did you do? Did you… Armbruster: He was still working
at express—me? 14:00Shurtz: Yeah.Armbruster: Oh! I…I come home and tried…I done a little of everything. Let’s see
I first started…a buddy, a n…a cousin of mine had bought a store here in Fulton, we ran that store for about ten years, and I got called out again, the reserves called me out at sixty-one…I went to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, and we…trained troops. There was always that…complaint that…we guys, we were (playing?), but they tested our troops against all the rest of them and they f…they proved be…we were doing what we were supposed to. We were congratulated and…then I stayed in the, I stayed in the reserves, retired out the reserves, in…s-s-s-s, ’80, ’70, ’74, 15:00retired out of there in ’74, it’s been a long time. And then I had, I…I had a buddy, another one of my, one of our…squad boy—he was squad—and the squad was a, a little Italian (Depasco Antonio?), he didn’t weigh eighty-five pounds and he could dig a foxhole and berry his self quicker than anything I ever see [Laughing]. Of course it didn’t take a very big one for him [Chuckles – Shurtz], but man he could dig a foxhole really quick. I tried to get a hold of him. The only man I ever got a hold of was my sergeant, Ellis, so I, he was my first squad leader, and…let’s see we was, 16:00where was it we first met—seeing him? I forget where it was but I was, it was in Kansas and…I was wa…this gentleman was walking down through there, and I started, I said I know that man, that’s my sergeant. I followed [Chuckling] him too many times not to know that walk, and sure enough that was him.Shurtz: Were you ever involved in, in veteran stuff in the Unites States, the
VFW, or the American Legion, or… Armbruster: Do what?Shurtz: Were you ever involved in the VFW or the American Legion, or anything
like that?Armbruster: Yeah, I belong to both of them, and I was a member m…in…the American
Legion, but I have never, I s…go to the…foreign wars, but I never have, I haven’t… Shurtz: Huh!Armbruster: …I keep—I just, year by year.
Shurtz: Yeah.
Armbruster: that’s in Tennessee and the mad—and…legion is here in Kentucky, so
I’m a m…full pledging lifetime member in here, 17:00but I kept thinking, the reason I didn’t join lifetime there, I kept thinking maybe they’d get one up here, the legionnaire and I could, then I would join full time, but they haven’t. This is (Movement sounds)… Third Party: There is you some water if he’d help your throat.Shurtz: Oh, that’s nice.
Armbruster: This is my awards. We…while we was in…Hawaii, they were, in that
training we taken a…expert alpha…expert 18:00rifleman’s e-test, and that they, while these b…were awarded these badges. Then when we went into combat, they gave a—we…had the…infantry badge, combat infantry badge. This is, was the hardest one to get, this was the…Japan occupation. That’s, that was my division, the 100th Regiment, bronze star (background movement sounds). 19:00Shurtz: So I didn’t get, were you, you were in combat, then?Armbruster: Yeah.
Shurtz: Can you tell me about that, or was that… Armbruster: Well, while we was
in…the Philippines, I—we had we…I said, like I told you, we was in the heavy weapons, we had a, a…heavy machinegun, and they used them to protect to…advance the infantry. We…take a section to, would be attached to an individual company, we were always attached to C-Company, and they would move us up when the infantry 20:00would start advancing, they would set us up on each, where we could get cross fire on the level, and fire over the…riflemen’s heads, to, as they advanced then we…and…we were in the…firing position in the, in the Philippines one time, and…we was setting…my buddy over here and I was over here, we were firing crossfire, and all of the sudden somebody grabbed me by the seat of britches, and drug me back out, “where’re you going?” He said, “get down from there,” he said, “they shot your buddy.” And my buddy had got shot and so they brought us back, and we lost our…first sergeant there. He come, he come through…where we were stationed at, m…that particular morning, 21:00and told us he was going to go up and…do advance firing for the company and do spotting, and it wa’n’t two hours until they come back with him on a stretcher. He had been shot just as, if you took a pencil you couldn’t have, you couldn’t have drawn it, and he didn’t, he didn’t remember what hit him. And we lost one, we lost another sergeant in the, when we first got off of the…boat at ph…at…New Guinea. He…there was a storm, a tree fell on him [Chuckling].Shurtz: Whoa!
Armbruster: And…we lost…two or three…with the, with those ri…with those heavy
weapons that we had to, and they had mortars too. We had…six 81 millimeter mortars, we…we lost a couple 22:00of boys for that one night, and that was the thing about it, and when you were, you dug a foxhole and you crawled in it at night, and you didn’t get out. Usually with everything that was up and moved after m…dark—shot—was shot, and they (Clears throat), we lost one boy for getting up like that, walking in his sleep, he got up and he got, he killed, they killed him.Shurtz: Whoa!
Armbruster: It was…that’s about all my experiences.
Shurtz: What do you think about, I, I’ve been asking veterans this, what do you
think about our present military situation?Armbruster: I’m scared, I’m scared, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know how we’re
going to get…by without a draft. 23:00Shurtz: Mm-mm. Anything else you want to add, any other stories?Armbruster: Huh…I’m trying to think. This…this little boy I was talking about,
this Italian (Clears throat), he was worried one night that he wasn’t going to get to come home to his—he had a f…a girlfriend, and he was worried to death that he wasn’t going to be able to make it, and he was walking, we was in a six-men tent at that time, and 24:00he was walking around that tent, around [Chuckling] and around, and “I ain’t going to make it, I ain’t going to make it, I’m going, I’m going to shoot myself, I’m going to shoot myself.” I got up and loaded a ri…one of our rifles, I said, “here, do it, I want to go to sleep!” [Laughing] And he laid back down and went to sleep, and we put the rifle up.” Shurtz: You, you mentioned the, the, the native people there. Did you get to interact with them much?Armbruster: With what?
Shurtz: With, like with the native people?
Armbruster: No, we didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t…especially, we got to Japan, we
was in Japan, some of the boys was, were out and around at night, and s…we, we lost one or two men there…knifed at night, but I didn’t, I, I ( ) we were, we were some place one time 25:00and they were, some boys were scratching for something for souvenirs? I said, there is only one souvenir I want to get home, and here he is [Chuckling]. I don’t want none of this other stuff.Shurtz: Where in Japan were you at?
Armbruster: Huh?
Shurtz: Where at in Japan, were you… Armbruster: Kobe, we were in at Kobe. There
is a…there was a school, Takarazuka…a lady’s, girls… Third Party: Theater School.Armbruster: What?
Third Party: It was a theatrical school.
Armbruster: Yeah, a theater school…and we were housed in their, in their
building. Where is that picture? Where is that… Third Party: In this album? It’s not in this album, is it?Armbruster: No
26:00( ).Third Party: ( ) know where that is.
Armbruster: This is a…and this y…that was a…that was in the…desert (Pages
turning sound), this is all… Shurtz: Hum!Armbruster: We…some boys captured some coyotes and kept them in the company
there for awhile and the… Third Party: (Whispers) Here it is.Armbruster: …this is some of our… Shurtz: Oh whoa!
Armbruster: …laundry girls in the Philippines, on Hawaii-Hawaii.
27:00This is at…a place we were stationed in Japan, we’d take over the, we took over their building.Third Party: This is that some of your…was that in Japan? (Pages turning sound).
Shurtz: Whoa! Did you get this when you were there?
Armbruster: How is that?
Shurtz: Did you, did you get this whenever you were…there?
Armbruster: Yeah, uh-huh, yeah, I was there.
Shurtz: It’s surprising because it’s written in English.
Armbruster: Do what?
Shurtz: It, it’s in English.
Armbruster: Yeah, uh-huh. They cheered America just before… Shurtz: Oh! I see.
Armbruster: …before…this happened.
Shurtz: Hum.
Third Party: There is some more of your ( ) if that’s
28:00Japan or not.Armbruster: There is a…(Pages turning sounds) Shurtz: So tell me some more
about…taking over that theater. What was that like? What, what did you do there?Armbruster: Ah, of course they wasn’t there when we go… Shurtz: Oh, okay.
Armbruster: …we just, we just moved and that’s just for our quarters, they
wa’n’t there, they’d… 29:00Third Party: Isn’t that the one you played basketball on the stage?Armbruster: Yeah (Pages turning sounds), it, that was our stage, we played
basketball, it was large enough to have a co…basketball court on it.Shurtz: Oh whoa!
Armbruster: Of course they, they…they were…they weren’t organized when we (Pages
turning sounds), they were preparing to stop us, see when [Chuckling]… Shurtz: So I guess you were pretty excited then when the, the bomb was dropped.Armbruster: Yes sir… Shurtz: Was that a, was that a big… Armbruster: …we were
tickled to death, we was on b…we had, we was on a ship all ready, were sailing in when the, when this happened, 30:00sitting out, outside of Japan, and we just knew…there’d be, we would be lucky if we’d saved fifty percent.Shurtz: Mm-mm.
Third Party: What, did you all (Clears throat) see the…the smoke from the bomb?
Armbruster: No, uh-uh.
Third Party: You didn’t see that?
Armbruster: And they, I don’t know whether they didn’t tell us about it or what,
we didn’t know it until it was done happened.Third Party: Well the things ( )… Armbruster: I was…from the, from Hawaii to New
Guinea, we were sh…shipped in this boat, one, on one of those Liberty ships and our company slept in the swimming pool, they had, they had those barracks you know, that you let down…and it had a hundred, two-hundred and some odd men sleeping in, in this swimming pool, that’s how big it was 31:00[Chuckles – Shurtz].Shurtz: So you stayed in the guard… Armbruster: Yeah.
Shurtz: …how many years?
Armbruster: No, I stayed in the reserves.
Shurtz: Oh reserves, yeah.
Armbruster: Yeah…let’s see from, ’40, ‘41st… Third Party: You got back in just
after we married, didn’t you.Armbruster: Huh?
Third Party: Didn’t you go in just after we… Armbruster: Yeah.
Third Party: …married in ’51?
Armbruster: ’51 or ’52 to ’74.
Shurtz: Hum! Did you anything for the Korean War? Were you called up or anything
for that?Armbruster: No, we didn’t get called up, but I noticed in the paper that they’ve
called out part of the old, my old company and they’re going to Af…Afghanistan and train troops, I see. And I think the nearest…company now of that, that division is in Owensboro Division, I believe that’s, that’s the closest they got a company now. 32:00We begin to, begin to losing people getting, got disinterested in it, and they’re beginning to lose.Shurtz: Well Sam, if you, if you don’t have anything else, I’ll, I’ll.
Armbruster: Not that I know of.
Shurtz: Thank you for your time.
Armbruster: I wish I… “END OF INTERVIEW”
33:00