Donald Moore

U. S. Army
Pacific Theater

“…at night when we were in the jungle, it was so dark you couldn’t see anything, from here to you. So the Japanese would sneak right up and stab you in the back right in your own foxhole.”

Donald Moore was drafted in Tucson, Arizona on August 1, 1942. He was sent to Camp Roberts, California where he was trained in combat infantry. He fought on New Guinea and was also part of the re-taking of the Philippines when General MacArthur “returned.” He fought in the treacherous jungles of northern Luzon as part of that campaign and was injured. After Japan surrendered, he was sent to Nagasaki where he witnessed firsthand how the A-bomb had devastated that city and its adults and children His only brother, a Marine, also served in the Pacific Theater of Operations and was killed.

I was drafted when I was 18, when I was in summer school at Tucson High School. I was going into my senior year. I got a draft notice on August 1,, 1944, and I was in the Army in two weeks. I had a choice to go in the Navy, the Army, or the Air Force, and I chose the Army. So after they drafted me, I was sent to Camp Roberts, near San Miguel, California. It was the United States Army Replacement Infantry Training Center at that time. So I was there for 15 weeks of combat training. Then I was given two weeks before reporting back to Camp Roberts to be sent overseas for combat duty. I don’t know what date that was but I do know it was a month before Christmas.

This is where Moore was stationed during the war.

You know who I trained with? Red Skelton. Red Skelton got drafted—the big comedian, the funniest guy on earth. I tell you, you’ve never seen a guy more hilarious as this guy. He’s a comedian and he put on shows there for us. We would go into our canteen on our break and he would come in there and just go into a routine. He did everything. He’s the greatest pantomime specialist in the world. I tell you, you’d never see anybody that was so talented like he was.

In the infantry training you go through all phases—you go through water exercises; you do infantry training through fire. You do mountain climbing, you do big hikes, camping out. You go through all different phases of map reading, combat reading, things of that nature. They taught you everything in hand combat. Of course physical fitness was a big thing everyday, out on the parade ground going through the calisthenics, doing the push-ups, everything else. Anytime you screwed up, it was pushups—twenty-five push-ups; you managed that. They made you run the five-mile course. I mean, you get out there and “take five” and that’s it. They were very rigorous. It was according to who your training sergeants were. Some of them were real strict, some others, any little thing to set them off . Everyone was different, you know what I mean, but they had strict procedures that you would follow and they went through. So a lot of them, they tried to eliminate you, they try to make you quit. ‘Course, if you were going to quit, they just tried to make you go do something else. They couldn’t kick you out, once you were in. The only way to get kicked out is with a physical, by being physically not ready, disease, or you got sick or something of that nature. The training was very tremendous. Another thing, they didn’t give you much time off at that time because it was very critical for us. They give you a 72-hour pass and that was it, you got back to base and that was it. That was really great though because it really taught you discipline, taught you how to be a better person. It made you realize what you were, the person that you were, and what you wanted to be. I think that was the greatest thing I got out of the training.

When I got into combat, I made a lot of choices which saved my life at times, because I had combat people with me—veterans who had been in combat who knew situations, who knew everything and then they sit there and told you what to do, to try to take care of yourself and things. A lot of the time that helped you, but in war if you were at the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s it.

I was forwarded from Camp Roberts to San Francisco where my debarkation was out. My combat group from Camp Roberts—we were all together, assigned to different sections. So some of them were sent to Europe, some were sent to the South Pacific. Well, our unit was assigned for the South Pacific to be replacements for combat veterans. We didn’t know where we were going; of course there was very little information because of the infiltration, especially on the boats. The U-boats were taken out on the Pacific, so actually you never knew what you were doing. All you knew is you got on the thing and you didn’t know your debarkations or where you were going. We were on the troop ship for almost ten days. We didn’t have an escort at the time; the Pacific at that time was very dangerous so we had to go on a zigzag course. That was the way to elude the enemy.

We finally met destroyer escorts when we got within a hundred miles of New Guinea. We came in as replacements at Hollandia, New Guinea, and they kept us there almost a week. Then we were transported by boat again down to Saidor, New Guinea, which was a combat area. I was assigned to the 32nd Infantry Division. This was a division in the 6th Army at that time. In the Pacific they had two Armies, the 6th Army and the 8th Army. We were under the command of General Walter Krueger who was the Commander of the 6th Army. General Robert Eichelberger was the Commander of the 8th Army and their headquarters at that time were in New Guinea, because they were waiting to make the big invasion on the Philippines after we were mopping up in New Guinea. New Guinea was the worst time for the Marines; the Marines were there with us.

Don Moore’s brother who died during the war.

After mopping up operations there, we were forming the invasion of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. This is where you’ve seen the picture of General Douglas MacArthur walking in the water. Well, we were the supporting infantry into that area. We were assigned to that right after Christmas going into January, 1945. After securing Leyte in the Philippines, by now all of the Japanese are in northern Philippines in northern Luzon. So now our division is forming with the 6th and 8th Army to form the invasion of Luzon—northern Luzon in the Philippines. At this time, this was controlled by a General Tomoyuki Yamashita who was the supreme Japanese commander in the Philippines and his headquarters was in northern Luzon, that’s were they had finally chased him—they moved him all the way out of southern Philippines up to the northern Philippines. The Japanese were in the foothills. It’s like going from here to Mt. Lemmon—if we were going up the highway and we had everybody strapped up on Mt. Lemmon. Well, that’s what happened after we got to the northern Philippines, we had to track up in the mountains.

We were up there in mountains—all jungle fighting, which is precarious, a very slow procedure. You go through the jungle only by trail. If there is no trail, you don’t walk through the jungle. Jungle fighting is real close combat. It’s pitch dark and, of course, there is nothing. I think the whole experience of jungle fighting is another essence of the war in the Pacific. It is altogether different when you have open fighting like in Europe, going from buildings and forest and stuff like that—but jungle fighting is another world. You don’t hear nothing, you don’t see nothing. Another reason it’s so treacherous is because your terrain and everything you are carrying makes you very slow. You are moving your troops, trying to get supplies, taking care of the wounded and the dead, and everything else.

Then the illnesses, you talk about physical—malaria, dengue fever, beriberi—there are so many things that come from the jungle that get you physically. That malaria was very proficient. We had to take something everyday to combat malaria. This turns your body yellow; we were yellow almost like the Japanese. They always talked about the Japanese being yellow, you know, their skin, but they are really white, just like we are. They always referred to them like that. Malaria would turn your body in a precarious way. A tremendous lot of people—we lost a lot of casualties through disease.

When we were fighting up in Luzon, we got up in the high jungle. Naturally, we fight by doing patrols. Usually we had a company of 20 to 30 men, but while we were there it was 15 to 20 on patrol, mopping up, getting ready for these operations. Because everything they had was dug into the mountains, in foxholes, caves, it was just horrendous to trap them. The enemy would never give up. The fighting was with flamethrowers, so many bombs and booby traps. There was a tremendous amount of that going on, especially in the jungle fighting. The Japanese would always set these anti-personnel mines. They were called Bouncing Betties. They would tie them up into the jungle and they would put them up about six to eight feet high in the jungle along the trails. They were set with trip wires, so when you’re walking on the trail, you might set off the time element—which was a three- to five-second fuse—and set off the bomb, the grenade.

During the occupation in Osaka, Don Moore joined the baseball team and enjoyed playing against the Japanese team.

That happened one day we got in there. On one patrol, we were mopping up and we were going up the trail in the jungle. ‘Course I was about the fourth man on the squad at that time traveling. We tripped these two. When you’re in the jungle on the trail you either go forward or you go dive into the jungle. That’s all you can do—there is no way to go. So what happened is when those things go off, when they’re set up, they are set up above your head. They are eight feet high and then the shrapnel comes down—straight down to the ground like that. The shrapnel hit me in the right side. I got hit in the shoulder and down on my right leg. Let’s see, I think I had eight to ten pieces of shrapnel. From where I was when I dove into the jungle, it came on my back and I was curled up. So, actually, the wounds were not real serious. They all penetrate with about an inch or two inches, but nothing hit me in a serious place, no blood vessels. They were just all what they call flesh wounds. They went into the side and they caught, one behind my leg lodged there and I couldn’t walk, the one lodged right behind my kneecap back there. Once I was wounded, the only way to do it was they get in there. By the time we got communication back, we had another two other guys seriously wounded—while they have to send the people up to try and get you out, you know. Only way to go is out through the trail, right? They had to carry you out. It’s a tremendous operation. If you were seriously wounded, you never made it, because they couldn’t get you out within two to four hours, maybe longer than that. Otherwise, you had to just lay up there, and there was nothing you could do. You’re trapped. So we lost a lot of people who were seriously wounded in the jungle because of that situation. Once they got you out of the mountains, then they had the little airfield where they flew the little aircraft in—no helicopters in World War II.

At the time when they flew me out, of course I was still now only 18 years old. Well, one Sunday they flew me down to the 41st field general hospital. Now that’s like what M.A.S.H uses, if you watch it on TV. That was the field hospital where they handle all the seriously wounded and anybody wounded. Once I got to the hospital, they treated me and they got in there. By the time I was in the hospital here comes this order from the President that nobody could be in combat under 19 years old. Well, I got wounded May the 12th, and of course my birth date was July the 17th. So they kept me down there and I got healed and they sent me back to my unit. But then I couldn’t go into combat because I still was only 18 years old. So I was assigned to the General’s command at the guard for our commanding general at that time. It was General Gill—a general from Texas. I’ll never forget his name. He was the Major General in command of our division at that time. His headquarters was in Baguio, the capitol of the northern Philippines—the city where Yamashita had been, and then, finally, after we chased him up into the hills, we trapped him. He finally surrendered, and they hanged him after a trial by jury up there.

We secured northern Luzon and then, at this time after the Philippines were all secured, we were going to make the invasion of Japan. They take our whole division and they send us down and of course, at this time, they are making the A-bomb for Nagasaki and Hiroshima. ‘Course we don’t know anything about the A-Bomb. You know, there is no communication. All we know is we are getting ready to make the invasion of Japan.

When they sent us down to the southern Philippines along the coast of San Fernando down there—‘course we are doing training because we are going to do the invasion of Japan—we spent almost six to eight weeks down there. At this time, they dropped the atomic bomb, the first one, on Hiroshima. We heard about all that. After we heard about the bomb and all this fallout, we had to wait almost a month to go in because of the policy. Then they dropped the bomb on Nagasaki. They didn’t surrender right away, but after the second one on Nagasaki, that eventually brought their surrender at that time. Once they made the surrender, our unit was sent to Japan for occupation duties.

In the occupation, the worst thing was the bombs. That was the worst devastation I’d ever seen in my life in Nagasaki. Yes, especially the people that were injured by it, what it had done to them. There was nothing there; the city was leveled, there was nothing—the worst human destruction that ever could happen, like Hiroshima. Here you are, you just killed innocent people that had nothing to do with war. You know what I’m talking about? It was just like they came right over here and bombed Tucson now. We don’t have anything, our friends are in the war but then they want to level this place. I just feel sorry for those people. You had to be against them, but they were just human beings just like you and me. Once you got to know the people, you do enough for them and you treat them and the kids, the young people. It was the hardest thing to deal with over there. We would give them food. We would do everything for them because there were so many that were just—they lost their families, especially the young ones. You had to help. It was the hardest thing to deal with, really hard.

They moved our unit up to Osaka, Japan, and we took over a big training base which was an infantry base for the Japanese there. Once we got into Osaka, I got on the baseball team. We played the Japanese team, and we had a lot of fun. They weren’t very good, but they loved to play. We traveled on the train. Of course, their train system in Japan is unbelievable.

At that time, while I was there, my brother was killed at Hiroshima. My brother was in the Marines. They were mopping up operations there. He was my only brother. I was the only one left in the family. The Army had this point system where they sent you back to the States if you had a tremendous amount of points. I had close to 50-something points, and with my decorations and everything—they give you decorations for combat—I was pretty close to going back to the States, but then I found out, right after my brother got killed, I was sent because I was the only one left in the family. At that time it was in April, May, June, 1946? I know it was summer because by the time I got back from there I came back to the States—to Ft. Lewis, Washington. In the meantime once we got back from the war they screwed up and they couldn’t find all of our records, and everything was sent to one of the other bases in the United States. I don’t know where it went, Ft. Hood, Texas, or somewhere, I don’t know where it was. Anyway, I had to go down there and do M.P. duty in Ft. Lewis for almost three months sitting there waiting for them to get our records straight—to get everything to get discharged from the Army. That was an experience, unbelievable. Ray, my brother, had a wife, and going on M.P. duty was unbelievable. I didn’t enjoy that too much, but that’s what you were assigned to do, so you did it.

Overall, that’s about it. By the time I got out of there and I got back home and came back and got discharged, it was August of ‘46. It was ‘44 when I went in. It was actually just a little over two years, so when I became 20 on August the 12th of ’46, I was discharged. I went back to high school; I needed only 12 units to graduate. I went back to Tucson High mid-year, and graduated mid-year of ‘46. At this time I’m an athlete—good baseball player—so I got a scholarship to the University of Arizona to play baseball. So I went to play baseball at the University my freshman year.

1951 or 1952. This is Don after the war, returning to normal everyday life delivering packages to the Tucson community.

I think World War II is so much different than the Vietnam War, the Korean War. Each war was different. Everything from the way it was handled, to the way they argue, the duty, and everything else. Like the war today: we are just fortunate that we haven’t got to the atomic problem again, or the gas problem, which we never had in World War II. We were fortunate in World War II. You have to feel for the people today; here they got now these stupid suicide people to bomb people. That is something that has to be psychologically horrible. But in the fighting in the Pacific, like at night when we were in the jungle, it was so dark you couldn’t see anything, from here to you. So the Japanese would sneak right up and stab you in the back right in your own foxhole. You didn’t know who was who. A lot of guys just go completely out of their mind. The psychological aspect of trying to go through the war meant you had to keep your sense, your own self, you had to really look at yourself everyday and say, I hope I make it to the next day. You had to have that thing: Well, if it’s my time it’s my time, right? You’re sitting here and there’s your buddy, he gets it right between the eyes. That’s the hardest thing in war. So many memories come back—sorry, it’s hard to keep your composure, especially talking about it all the time. That’s why it’s so tragic. You see all your friends go and when you lose your family someday, that makes it very tough. That’s the hardest thing to go through, I tell you. It was the hardest thing for my parents. My brother was a superb athlete, and, in fact, he was better than I was. He was All-State in football and All-State in baseball. He would have made a great professional ball player, because he had the skill, he was great. Here he is, he gets killed—that hit in our soul. That’s the thing that’s hard to deal with. So you’re very fortunate to make it through the age and be here, it’s just one of those hard things. I mean, I’ve been so fortunate to go through life, and in all my years and I only got injured that one time. It’s fortunate to go through fifty years and work, that’s really something. That’s really a tremendous accomplishment even after you’re lucky that you made it through the war. That’s about all I know.

Over in Japan, during the occupation, you found they were such brilliant people. Those people, well, today they own everything, because they are dedicated in what they do. I mean the people—in everything they do from the kids from everybody up—that’s the way they are brought up, taught. That’s why they are so brilliant today. That’s why they are leading the world in everything today because they are such brilliant people. If you have been over there and watched them and see how dedicated they were. Our kids don’t know what it is to think about what discipline is. You have to have tremendous respect for them. The stupid leader, that’s why, during the war and everything else, the people would kill themselves, because that’s the way they lived. They were dedicated that they were going to win this war. Of course, their leaders—the guys that put them into that situation—those guys sit there. You had to go kill those people; they wouldn’t quit. They wouldn’t give up. They wouldn’t come walk out. You had to go there and just kill them. Well, what are we accomplishing? That’s another hardest thing to go through in war.

I just like to hope that your generation never has to go. Some of you will. If you go into the service, you are going to be dedicated for your life, and that’s it. The situation is there, so you have to face that and do it. That’s life. It’s easy to die, but a tough way of life. It’s like anything. Our eventuality is there, all of us. We are going to die, we will be gone. We preserve life and enjoy it, that’s the way I do. I hope I wake up the next day smiling. We are going to wake up, we hope we wake up. That philosophy does make a lot of difference; you have to have that will to do that. You have to have that will because if something hits you, you never know when you need it. That’s in everything in life today. Just so fortunate.

I enjoyed coming here and talking to you and giving you insights. Everybody that was in combat or in World War II, I’m pretty sure will give you pretty close to the same story of things—the way they are and what they were. Everything was so different. What makes it interesting, you know, is that the European war was totally different from the Pacific war. Everything was so much different. The Navy was part of the war, the Air Force part of the war, you know what I mean? It’s really great in that aspect.