Interview With Edward Carr

Posted on 02/08/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Edward Carr of Port Townsend conducted by John Clise on October 26, 2002 at the Fort Worden History Center. Mr. Carr served at Fort Worden in the 248th Coast Artillery during World War II. Here he describes maintaining the searchlights:

“Our searchlights were kept in the balloon hangar. We did all our maintenance down there. Sometimes we’d roll them out on their wheels, and sometimes test them …The searchlights really took quite a bit of maintenance. The mirror had to be polished and it was a stainless steel mirror. They used jeweler’s rouge to polish that mirror to get the high reflective quality. The reason it was stainless steel and not glass was that the light was produced by a carbon arc. These carbon arc rods were about three quarters of an inch in diameter and they would be fed automatically. That arc produced the light, and in an elevated position if there were any sparks that flew off the arc, it would melt a glass mirror. Sparks falling on the stainless steel would not distort the mirror, like it could a glass mirror. The routine maintenance we did required the maintenance of these rods, replacing the rods, being sure they were fed right, and the engine maintenance of the generator.”

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Interview with Lyle E. Buchanan

Posted on 02/08/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Lyle E. Buchanan of University Place, WA (retired Brigadier General) conducted by Laurie Medlicott on May 16, 2002 at the Fort Worden History Center. Gen. Buchanan served in the U.S. Army from 1935 to 1977. He was stationed at Fort Worden in 1941. He was stationed in England and France during World War II.  Here he describes crossing the English Channel after D-Day:

“It seemed like a pleasure boat, a small English ship. We landed at Omaha Beach. I beat the WACs there by not much. I can always remember the beauty of the crossing. It was a beautiful evening and the sunset and all these ships. They had some of these ships on the outer part of the coast as a bulwark between submarines. You could hardly believe that there was a war, except you saw the weapons of war. The war on the coast was over by then. You walked off the ship and walked up the hill and you were there, there was nothing dramatic about it.”

He also describes his experiences in England:

“About the closest thing I came to having shot fired at me was artillery and the buzz bombs. Now those were something else. There is a lot written about the old V1 and V2 rockets. The sound was just a dull, dull drone. The first one, you never knew where they were going to land. The Germans didn’t know either. I remember the German airplanes. In England, I was near an ammo dump and they were always after that ammo dump, every night you could hear the undulating roar of the airplanes. It wasn’t a steady sound. If you take a two-engine airplane and you don’t have the engines in sync—rrrrrr—that’s the way the German airplanes always sounded to me, just kind of an unsteady drone.”

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Interview With Lyle E. Bose

Posted on 02/06/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Lyle E. Bose of Vancouver, WA conducted by Oran DeBois on May 12, 2002 at the Fort Worden History Center. Mr. Bose served in the U.S. Army 532 Engineer Boat Support Regiment, 2nd ESB in World War II and the Korean War. Here describes the Inchon landing and Hungnam evacuation during the Korean War:

“We didn’t know it at the time. But we were going for the invasion of Inchon, and when we left here, a troopship pulled in (to Fort Worden) with members of the Second Division on it and we loaded on and they dropped us off in Yokohama, Japan. We built the unit up to full strength to give a little training, and we boarded ships and went in on the invasion of Inchon, Korea, September 15, 1950. We were in Inchon about two months, and then we left there, went down around South Korea, all the way out through the Sea of Japan, up to within 40 miles of the Yalu River. We set up a beach operation at a place called Iwon. We landed two divisions there and we set up supply dumps on the beach. At that point, the Chinese pushed into the war.

My company evacuated by narrow gauge railroad. It was only 80 miles but it took us 18 hours to get there. It was down through the mountains and every once in a while you’d get occasional sniper fire and so everybody would get off the train and get back on. It was so cold when we got to Hungnam, some of the men on the train had to be carried off, lifted off, helped. We were very fortunate that no one got frozen feet or other body parts.

In Hungnam, the Chinese kept pressing forward, down through North Korea and they encircled Hungnam, so we started back loading troops out of there, the 3rd Marine Division and the 7th Infantry Division. We backloaded them all out of there. They wired the city and any equipment that the Chinese might be able to use and blew it up. We got out of Hungnam on December 24, Christmas Eve, 1950. It was about 12 degrees below zero, and it was very, very cold. We went from Hungnam, for just two days, down by Pusan to Ulsan, which is now a big city. It was just a little village then, now it’s a place where they make automobiles. (Then) we loaded up, went around and back to Inchon for the second time. It wasn’t a real invasion this time but we walked in and set up operations there. After that we left as one big unit, the Second Engineers Special Brigade, and we went back to Camp McGill, Japan.”

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Interview With Norma Borgstrom

Posted on 02/06/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Norma Borgstrom of Williams, OR. Mrs. Borgstrom was an Army wife who lived in Port Townsend during the Korean War era while her husband was stationed at Fort Worden. The interview was conducted by PamClise on January 27, 2004 by phone at the Fort Worden History Center:

“We were living in the Hastings Building apartments on Water Street…all we had was an icebox, we didn’t have refrigerators and they didn’t have ice delivery.  A sergeant and his wife lived across the hall from us, he and my husband would stop and get blocks of ice. And one night, the sergeant would carry the block up the stairs. It was up on the third floor.  And then the next night, my husband would have to carry the ice, they were like a couple of kids…well, we were all just kids. And they’d ride those blocks of ice down the hallway and you could hear them coming forever. We thought it was terribly funny.”

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Interview With Dick Berg

Posted on 02/04/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Dick Berg of Olympia, WA conducted by Wendy Los at the Fort Worden History Center on June 21, 2005. Mr. Berg served in the U.S. Army Sixth Division at Fort Worden, Hudson Point, and Korea during the Korean War. Here he describes one of his experiences while serving in Korea:

“Our company, the 501st Harbor Craft, was in charge of all floating equipment. We had seagoing tugs and containers with all the food for all the guys in Korea who came through the port. We had a pretty important job because it was the only shipyard in Korea. I remember a ship that came in, a Korean ship that got hit out in the water with another ship that almost cut it in half. They brought it into the shipyard and we dry docked it. We took out 15 or 20 bodies. It was an experience I’ll never forget.”

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Interview with Glen Bellerud

Posted on 02/01/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Glen Bellerud on May 8, 2002 conducted by Rae Tennyson for the Fort Worden Oral History Program. Mr. Bellerud was the first Manager of Fort Worden State Park and served here from 1972 to 1991. Here he discusses some of the significant developments during his tenure:

“We built the reservation system, my crew Gus and Bonnie Boice and Sue Vance put together the first reservation system for State Parks…There was a Fort Worden management plan which we followed and we put that package together. I worked with people in California, Oregon. Basically it was (for) the camping, and we put the first reservation program together for that and the first one for vacation housing, the first conference center situation…Over time we got our budgets and we kept going, we did the C(ommanding) O(fficer’s) house, I helped put together the ladies that did the CO’s house (the Heritage Group). They had a limited budget. We went all over the state looking for furniture, etc. a lot of volunteers, a lot of donated things had gone to it. Worked with Jim Humphrey on the Rhody Garden, we put that in. We did the bakery when it was here working with disabled kids…Got the Marine Science Center going, worked with the Artist in Residence programs…with Centrum. While I was here, Fiddle Tunes came into being, the Bluegrass, all that stuff. “Officer and a Gentlemen,” I brought those people in for that movie. “The Caine Mutiny Court Martial “with director Bob Altman, we did shoot …even a lot of commercials like the Maytag commercial were shot here.  We put in the underwater reef… We did all the work out on the front of North Beach…the batteries were saved up there. We put the second campground while I was here. I was the Jefferson County Centennial Chair and one of the first big projects was working with Yvonne Ferrell who was deputy director of our agency to get the first donation to turn the balloon hangar into the Pavilion. The first $250,000 came from State Parks. I myself laid over half of that grass turf (in Littlefield Green).”

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Interview with Robert C. Becker

Posted on 01/29/2012 by fwohp4481

From the Interview with Robert C. Becker of Sequim, WA
conducted by Eugene Walker on May 13, 2002 at
the Fort Worden History Center. Mr. Becker served in the U.S.
Army 14th Coast Artillery in World War II. Here he describes mine
plant operations:

“In our battery we had the USS Bell. It was a mine
planting operation and I took part in one of the operations. It was
real interesting and it could be dangerous. If a guy got tangled up
in that cable, you could drag him right off with the mine. But
everything went well, nobody got hurt. We practiced right out here
next to the (Point Wilson) lighthouse, on the shore there. One
mine was fired every year…blew the water up about 60 to 100
feet. “

He describes target practice:
“All of the guns were still here. Even the 12-inch down on
the coast was here. We had a 3-inch rifle, Walker was its name.
We fired it, and that’s when we fired a volley through the mast of
the Bell towing the target. We were supposed to be shooting at the
target dragged about a thousand feet behind. The logistics were a
little bit wrong.”

A prank on a fellow soldier:
“Some fellow that came from the South. He would never
take a bath, and he’d always come in late and make noise. After
nine o’clock, you’re not to make any noise, and the lights were out
of course. Well, he’d do both (turn on the light and make noise).
One time the guys found a little crab and they knew just what to do
with it. They put it down the bottom of his bed. When he got in
bed and he touched that thing with his foot, he jumped out of bed
and hollered.”

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Interview with Fred Antrobus

Posted on 01/22/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with Fred Antrobus of Port Ludlow, WA conducted by Patience Rogge at the Fort Worden History Center on February 10, 2004. Mr. Antrobus taught science at the Fort Worden Juvenile Diagnostic and Treatment Center from August 1964 to June 1966. Here he tells the story of the fish tank in his classroom.

“My science classroom was on the second floor and we had three of the trout from one of our trips (that) did not die. We had them in a bucket in the back and there were 12 kids sitting around with rubber tubes going into this bucket hyperventilating into the bucket to keep the trout alive and we got them back and put them in a separate aquarium. At that time they weren’t chlorinating our water and so we just ran tap water into the top of the aquarium and then the water overflowed into the sink below. We worked with them and found that they were also motivated by food, so we would go over and get a piece of steak or something from the mess hall. One of the kids was cutting it up in small pieces and noticed that all three noses were right up against the glass. He picked it up and the fish came up, he moved it over and the fish followed it. Within three days we had the trout so that they would come out of the water onto a platform that just had a skim of water on it, take the food gently out of our fingers and then wiggle back into the water. So we had three trained trout. There was a screen over the top of this aquarium. I went in on a Sunday morning to feed the animals and there was three inches of water on the floor. One of the trout had dived down the drain head first, and I assumed that one of the kids had not put the screen on properly. I called my boss, John Kanaar, (who came to help clean up the water). We went down to the Home Ec room that was directly below, there were large ceiling tiles, each filled with about three or four gallons of water, all bowed out. The biggest leak in the entire room was over a big table where the teacher had hundreds of patterns. They had turned to soup. Below this room was where the Industrial Arts teacher stored all his fancy plywoods, birch and mahogany, sitting on edge in about 18 inches of water. We vacuumed up all the water, opened windows, turned on the heat. About 7:00 that night the Art teacher called and said, “There’s water coming out underneath your door.” So, not only had we taught these trout to take food from our fingers, we taught them to butt their way up into the screen and let the screen off. Two trout were down the drain alive, water was getting through their gills. The other was on the floor. I quietly cleaned the three rooms up by myself and was not a happy camper.”

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Interview with James O. Arntz

Posted on 01/22/2012 by fwohp4481

From the interview with James O. Arntz of Bend, OR conducted by Jonathan Langdon at the Fort Worden History Center on October 23, 2003. Mr. Arntz served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. While at Fort Worden, he was stationed at the Harbor Entrance Control Post atop Artillery Hill. Here he discusses a little-known incident.

“We did a very necessary function there, keeping the Japanese subs out. In fact, a Jap sub came into the Strait of Juan de Fuca one day…they had been detected when they went across the magnetic loops…we had sonar loops out there too. They are microphones that would (pick up the sound), you could hear the type of motors. We knew it was a sub, and we (could tell) if it was a U.S. sub; but we knew it was a Jap sub. Well, they surmised that they had been detected, they turned around and went back out the Straits. In the meantime, the PC boat was afraid to drop the depth charges because it would screw up our magnetic loops. So they got away and went out through Neah Bay and out into the Pacific. We never got them.”

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Welcome to the Fort Worden Oral History Program Blog

Posted on 01/21/2012 by fwohp4481

The Fort Worden Oral History Program began as a part of the Fort’s centennial celebration in 2002 as a project of the Friends of Fort Worden, a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing the visitors’ experience. It was organized by Laurie Medlicott, former member of the Port Townsend City Council, with help from several volunteers. Fort Worden partnered with the Library of Congress American Folklife Center’s Veterans History Project, which is building a nationwide database of information about people who have served in America’s wars. When the centennial ended, the corps of volunteers kept the program alive.

In 2003, Patience Rogge took over running the program. Its objective is to collect oral histories to be taped, transcribed, archived, and made available for students, genealogists, writers, and historians. The entire collection tells of the real life experiences of those who served at Fort Worden during the military era; who worked or lived here during the Juvenile Diagnostic and Treatment Center days; or have visited, participated in activities, or worked at the fort since it became a state park conference center. A volunteer undertook the huge task of archiving the interviews and photos, manuscripts and other memorabilia that people donated using the State Parks’ Past Perfect program. A retired secretary offered to transcribe all the military interviews, which at that time numbered about 80. In 2007, another volunteer offered to transcribe, catalog and index the entire collection. We have mailed out hundreds of information packets, scheduled scores of interviews, and collected more than 300 oral histories. In addition to in-person interviews, we conduct telephone interviews, so people all over the world are within our reach.

In 2007, the program issued its first publication “Conversations With the 369th”, a catalog of interviews with members of the U.S. Army 369th Engineer Amphibious Support Regiment who served at Fort Worden during the Korean War era. Their stories are especially interesting, since many of the soldiers participated in the building of the US airbase at Thule, Greenland while others were sent to Camp Desert Rock, NV to take part in early atomic tests or to Rochefort, France as part of a NATO exercise.

This blog is an on-going, ever growing collection of excerpts from the collection.  We search for interesting, amusing, and informative “snippets” in the interview transcripts to share with the public. Complete transcripts and CDs of the interviews are available at a nominal cost to cover duplicating and mailing.

Please send your inquiries to:
Jefferson County Historical Society – Research Center
13692 Airport Cutoff Rd
Port Townsend, WA 98368
research@jchsmuseum.com      360-379-6673

Or select a cataloged list of interviews from the links below (updated 4/2014):
Comprehensive Interview List

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