Warren Hayes

U.S. Army
Pacific Theater

“It was an important factor of patriotism.”

Warren Hayes was a Boy Scout of America as a child. When he entered Los Angeles High School, he joined ROTC, and extended that into college. Finally, he enlisted into the Army as an “extension to the Boy Scouts.” He served patriotically as a 1st Lieutenant, training America’s young men for war. When the war was finished, he remained in the Army Reserves, until he had a mandatory retirement at age 60. He now enjoys his memory of the service, meeting the native people of Guadalcanal, and service to his country with all his heart.

I was born in Galva, Illinois on January 26th, 1921. My parents left Galva, Illinois when I was an infant. In 1928 we lived in Long Beach, and then Hollywood, and then Los Angeles. I went to elementary school and junior high school in Los Angeles, and then I went to Los Angeles High School. I was in the Boy Scouts, and one of the members of our troop signed up for ROTC when he entered L.A. High. I decided to follow suit and did the same thing; it was kind of like an extension to the Boy Scouts. I was in ROTC for three years in high school. Then when I went to UCLA, I was in the ROTC also. They made me a 1st Sergeant in ROTC at UCLA because of my prior experience. On May 1, 1942 I was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant. I also went to Fort Benning, Georgia for a motor maintenance course. I spent three months there, and then returned to Camp Roberts. Ultimately, I was assigned to the second Pilipino infantry, at the age of 21.

On the May 1, 1943, I was sent to the Hawaiian Islands on a flat bottom Landing Ship Tank, and believe me the name “Pacific” is a total misnomer. There was nothing peaceful about the ocean on that crossing. We were rocking back and forth the whole way. There was one crew man and I; we were the only ones showing up for chow, for mess—everybody else was sick as a dog in his bunk.

298th Infantry color guard passes in review at retreat parade in National Guard Woods.

Then we arrived at Oahu. We were put on a railroad. It had these cute little cars, cute little freight cars. They loaded us in them and took us up to Scoffield barracks. We were kept there for six weeks, in a sort of quarantine (just in case we would have brought any diseases onto the island).

Finally, we end up in Tent City, and right next to Tent City was a rifle range. A friend of mine, Jack Connors, was commissioned on the same day that I was, and had a serial number that was just three numbers away from mine. He was on the range with his battalion firing. He had heard that there was a bunch of casual officers (which is what we were called when we weren’t assigned to a unit) that had just arrived in Tent City. He decided to walk down the company street to see if he could see anybody he knew. I walked out of my tent just as he was passing by, and there we were. He suggested that I apply for assignment to the regiment that he was in which was the 298th infantry. This was the Hawaiian National Guard regiment. So I did. I was probably the first and only person that ever requested assignment to that unit so they snapped me up and I was in that regiment for about two years. During that time we went between Oahu, Kauai, the New Hebrides, and Guadalcanal.

I had the responsibility of teaching and training recruits. I would sit in my room and read the field manuals so that I would know that I was teaching correctly. That was my main concern during the war; that I was doing my job correctly. You know I think that a belief in God and, in my case, Jesus Christ, makes you a more conscientious person. I think that I was conscientious in my work. I felt a deep responsibility. I’m sure I also felt a certain amount of pride, being an officer.

Native women of a small village of Guadalcanal pose for Warren’s camera.

When we were in the New Hebrides, I was assigned as the regimental motor maintenance officer. We had a garage and it was in a coconut grove where the trees are all lined up. The garage consisted of a canvas with a rope from each corner going to one of the trees. I was walking about to enter the garage one day. Your hands swing of course when you are walking, and as my right hand was swung backwards, it was hit by a coconut. If that had been one foot or a foot and a half over, I would have come home in a body bag. Those coconuts are enormous and they are much larger than a football.

While in Guadalcanal, I had an interesting experience because there weren’t many troops there. There were a couple roads that had been made out of coral. They were white roads, and I went for a walk one day by myself out into the jungle and I ran into a little boy. We got to talking because he spoke English (they had an English school there to teach the native children). He took me to his native town, and I asked him if I could take a picture of the people of the town. He talked to the town leader, and the leader stood there and started to holler. Of course I couldn’t understand any of it, and pretty soon about a dozen men gathered and they lined up shoulder to shoulder so I could take their picture. I said, “Well, how about the women?” So he said, “Oh, okay.” Blah, blah, blah, he went on and on and on and on, and nothing happened, so he did it again, on and on and on. Finally, out of one of the huts, probably built out of bamboo, a face peaked out and then went back in. So he went blah, blah, blah, blah again and finally he got them to come out. They came out and they lined up just like the men did, and I took there picture. That was a very interesting experience.

When you’re in the jungle, you don’t have to ever worry about being thirsty; you don’t even have to take a canteen with you. All you have to do is reach up and grab a vine, take your bolo knife and whack it at an angle and tilt it down and water just runs out of it. Cool clear water runs out of it into your mouth. An alternative, if they had bamboo, you could take your bolo knife and whack a notch out of the top of a segment and then go get a skinny little bamboo and cut it off and stick it in there and use it as a straw, and get cool clear water.

Native men of Guadalcanal refused to pose with the women, pictured here. “The fellow on the right plank, rear rank is the chief of this village. The accurately straight alignment was his idea of how subjects should be posed for a picture.”

Most of the time that I was in the 298th infantry, the Hawaiian National Guard regiment, I was a regimental motor maintenance officer. For the last year I was overseas, I had really tough duty, I mean, we are talking tough duty. I was in Hilo, Hawaii, as the island transportation officer, I had nice quarters, and I had a brand new Dodge station wagon. I met a girl at the Post Exchange that I started dating. I mean it was tough duty that lasted a good year. When I left Hawaii about a day out, tsunamis hit Hilo and 160,000 people. It picked up a steel railroad bridge and carried it a mile upstream. I was not sorry that I had left when I did, which wasn’t up to me. In the army, you do what the army tells you to do, so I just lucked out.

My family never mentioned being worried about me while I was in the army. I can only imagine that they would be concerned that I would be killed or wounded; that never turned out to be a possibility, since I wasn’t ever in combat. I was used to being away from my family for periods of time, too. Being a Boy Scout, I had gone to camps for a couple weeks at a time. We communicated through V-mail, probably standing for “victory”. I don’t remember how that worked, you just wrote back and forth.

We did not get any leave from the military for the three years while I was in the Pacific, but they saved it up for us. After I was discharged, I had a hundred and five days “terminal leave,” as they call it. So I went “hop-hiking” around the country, and I visited an old girlfriend in Texas, and then I went to the first Mardi Gras that they had after the war. “Hop-hiking” means you go to an Army Air Corps base. They didn’t have an Air Force then—we had an Army Air Corps. You go to any Army Air Corps base and you go to where the pilots report in and get the information about the weather, etc. When a pilot comes in you hear him say where he’s going or you hear them say where he’s headed, and if it’s some place that you want to go, you talk to him and ask, “Can I ride along?” I rode along with a lot of pilots. One of them was an AT6 Army Trainer. He, of course, was in the front, and I was in the back. He said, after we had been flying awhile, he said, “Okay, Lieutenant, take over.” We were all over the sky.

Now that I look back at the war, I’m glad that we got rid of Adolf Hitler, and I’m glad there was an Enola Gay because that saved a lot of lives. If I had remained a civilian, I still would have thought the war was a good thing, in that we were getting rid of the Nazis, getting rid of Adolf Hitler—the coward who committed suicide. Of course the war was essential with Japan after Pearl Harbor. I thought the attack on Pearl Harbor was cowardly. I thought it was inexcusable, and I thought it was heinous because it attacked civilians. It was an attack. Bombing a civilian target—that’s terrible. Of course, that’s what we did at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, but it was unavoidable in order to end the war and save a lot of lives. I would have felt that way as a civilian or in the military, I would think.

When I was discharged, I volunteered for the United States Army Reserve. That was an important part of my life. I would go to meetings, I think once a month. Then every year we would go to some military post for two weeks. At that time, there was no pay, no retirement, no medical benefits. There was no advantage in being in the Army Reserve, except for the opportunity to serve your country. This is the reason I stayed in. Ultimately, I worked up through the grades and became a full Colonel. I stayed in until I had a mandatory retirement at age 60.

I know that’s a long time, but I think my military service was consistent with my ideals, and my philosophy and my dedication to our country and to which it stands. It was an important factor of patriotism. An important factor in love of country. An important factor of keeping our country safe for democracy. Like I said, my military service was consistent with my ideals, and my philosophy and my dedication to our country and to which it stands.