Interview with Lawrence Gregory, World War II
Corporal, United States Marine Corps
6 th Division, 4th Regiment, 2 nd Battalion, 81 MM Mortar Platoon
Cook Memorial Public Library District
February 22nd, 2007

Interviewer: Marlene Gregory
Transcribed by: Connie J. Pfeifer
Proofread by: Ellen Bassett

MARLENE: This interview is taking place on February 22nd, 2007 in Vernon Hills, Illinois. My name is Marlene Gregory and I’m interviewing Lawrence Gregory, who enlisted in the Marines during World War II. He attained the rank of Corporal. Mr. Gregory was born on March 28th, 1925 in Chicago, Illinois and currently resides in Vernon Hills, Illinois. Here is his story.

MARLENE: Mr. Gregory, in what year did you enlist in the Marines?

LAWRENCE: It was approximately…I believe it was March 17 th in 1943.

MARLENE: And how old were you at that time?

LAWRENCE: I was 17.

MARLENE: What prompted you to enlist?

LAWRENCE: I wanted to serve my country, and the fact that the draft board told me when I come in, when I turned to be 18, I could be drafted into the Army and I didn’t want to go into the Army. I wanted to go into the Marine Corps. That’s why I enlisted.

MARLENE: Did you have to leave high school to do that?

LAWRENCE: Yes I did. I was a junior in high school when I left.

MARLENE: Now you said you wanted to join the Marines. You didn’t want to be in the Army. What attracted you to the Marines?

LAWRENCE: It was an upright type of organization that I felt that I belonged in. Every time I pledge allegiance to the flag, I got a lump in my throat, and I felt, “I’m going to serve my country.”

MARLENE: Did you know anybody else that was a Marine at the time?

LAWRENCE: No.

MARLENE: Okay. When you enlisted, did you enlist with anybody?

LAWRENCE: No.

MARLENE: Just on your own?

LAWRENCE: On my own.

MARLENE: Do you remember where your induction took place?

LAWRENCE: It was downtown, I believe. I can’t recall the office building that was there, but it was downtown in Chicago.

MARLENE: Do you remember what that was like when you went for the induction… what you had to do?

LAWRENCE: Oh yeah. There was quite a few guys there. We had to do a strip…they had to do a health-type check, and an eye test and so forth. I passed all of that with no problem.

MARLENE: What were your first few days like…after you enlisted.

LAWRENCE: After I enlisted, oh, okay. After I enlisted, I went home, told my mother what I had done. Of course, she cried. I told my mother, “I’m serving my country.” And she realized that too because she was a World War I teenager when they had World War I. Anyway, she understood. My brother was also in the Air Force. The only thing that I regretted was leaving her alone, because my mother was a widow. Of course, she had a going away party for me with some of my friends in high school. My swim coach was there. It was a big thing. We said our farewells. It was the next day, I went to Union Station and that’s it…I left.

MARLENE: You kind of answered my next few questions, because I was going to ask about what the sending off was like, and you did describe that for me. Mr. Gregory, you said that you didn’t enlist with any buddies that you had at the time.

LAWRENCE: Correct.

MARLENE: What were your friends doing? You said you had to leave high school.

LAWRENCE: They stayed in school. I guess shortly after they graduated, they were drafted. I know for a fact, I didn’t keep in touch with them, or they with me but when I got released from the Marine Corps, I found out that a few of them were killed in Europe.

MARLENE: Another question I have….did you have a sweetheart at the time that you had to leave behind?

LAWRENCE: Not a sweetheart, per say. It was a girlfriend. She saw me off at Union Station.

MARLENE: Oh, she did? She was there at Union Station for you.

LAWRENCE: I said goodbye to her and I start walking down toward the train, and I turned around and looked. It was the first time I saw her crying. And that was that.

(sounds fades out)

LAWRENCE: The living conditions were…what was the word, spartan? For Sparta in the Greek term. It was very crude. “We’re going to make men out of you, because right now all of you people are nothing. We’re going to make you men.” I respected that.

MARLENE: Do you remember anything about the food you ate?

LAWRENCE: The food? The first time I ever had heartburn in my life. They’d make chipped beef on toast and there’s another word for that, but I don’t know if I can say it here.

MARLENE: Go ahead and say it.

LAWRENCE: We called itSOS…Shit on a Shingle. Sorry.

MARLENE: I think I’ve heard that before.

LAWRENCE: Anyway, it was delicious. After I’d experienced eating that, the first time…I must be having a heart attack because I had that burning sensation in my stomach, but it was good.

MARLENE: Good! You’re probably the only one that has said that. What were some of the duties that you were assigned, other than your basic training. Did you have specific duties that you had to do?

LAWRENCE: Specific duties? Well, actually basic training you did everything. You had to qualify in the rifle range. At that time I shot Sharp Shooter. It was all new to me. I never fired a rifle before in my life, and you got to squeeze off your rifle….squeeze the trigger I should say at a target there and every time I’d squeeze one off, the M-1 rifle would extract the cartridge, and in doing that the power from the cartridge would explode, not explode, but splash in your eye and you couldn’t see that well and I complained of that to the Sergeant on the range there. He said, “That’s tough. You just have to make out.” Well anyway, as a result of that, I shot Sharp Shooter. The best you can do is Expert. It was a year later where I requalified on another rifle range, and I shot Expert after that.

MARLENE: Very good, very good. Going back, you mentioned that the training wasn’t that difficult for you because you were in pretty good shape.

LAWRENCE: Yes.

MARLENE: You mentioned there were some overweight guys. What happened to them?

LAWRENCE: They struggled. The Drill Sergeant was constantly on their case. They said, “If you guys don’t shape up, we’re going to have to ship you out of here, because you can’t make it.” Of course, they tried and they struggled, but everybody pretty well passed.

MARLENE: So, nobody got shipped out of there?

LAWRENCE: No. I failed to mention, after we got off the train, “Everybody…all you SOB’s stand in front of the train. Anybody that don’t want to be in this Marine Corps step out right now!” Everybody stood there with this SOB calling and that. “Holy Cow! Did I do the right thing?” But, no one stepped out. Everybody stayed in line. “Okay. We’re going to make men out of you now.”

MARLENE: Talking about that, was there ever a time during your basic training…..(sound fades out)

LAWRENCE: …not only me, but all the rest of the guys, a lot of them had fevers from the inoculation shots. They make you fall out. “Oh, God. I’m shivering. I’m shaking. I got a fever, and they’re telling us what we have to do. “Geez. Did I make a mistake here? I feel like I’m dying and they’re making us…”(sounds fades out)…my mother, of course, and she said, “It’s about 35 degrees here. It’s raining and snowy.” That type of thing. I thought, “This is a great place to live.” California was beautiful. The weather was so pleasant. I couldn’t get over that, because I’m used to the harsh winters in Chicago. I never regretted being there. I was glad I was where I was at.

MARLENE: Did you make any close friends with your buddies in basic training?

LAWRENCE: In basic training? A few of them. There were a few guys from Chicago. After basic training….(sounds fades out)

MARLENE: Did that closeness or camaraderie with the people in basic training….did that kind of help overcome the homesickness because you did have men that you were close with or experiencing the same things with?

LAWRENCE: No, not really, because everybody was on their own. You had to learn their general orders and all kinds of various things.

MARLENE: So it wasn’t like a college fraternity?

LAWRENCE: No, no it wasn’t. You’d better do your job because nobody was there to help you. It was all on the individual.

MARLENE: Skipping ahead a little bit….how did you move up through the ranks? You said you left as a Corporal. What did you have to do to attain those ranks?

LAWRENCE: Really, I guess the fact that you had to do certain basic training, when you went through that. I think it was after basic training then they made you a PFC, because you accomplished all the…what you had to accomplish on the rifle range and learn how to close order drill, all of those military…. Basically, for the most time I was in the Marine Corps, I was a PFC until near the end when I was going to be discharged. They made me a Corporal.

MARLENE: Okay. Mr. Gregory, after basic training, where were you sent? And was there a particular place you were hoping you’d be sent? How did you feel about where you were going?

LAWRENCE: There was no particular place. I didn’t know. They said you’re going to be sent to an island off the coast of California called San Clemente Island. I had no idea what that was. As I find out now, it was about 40 miles southwest of Catalina Island. You hear about Cubs training for baseball and so forth. We did guard duty there and also we were a detachment that Navy would come in and learn how to fire their side arms and rifles. We would coach the Navy on how to do that. Then also we did mainly guard duty because of the possibility that there were Japs trying to invade the west coast. We were afraid, so there were Marines on the various places to do guard duty.

MARLENE: When you were doing guard duty, was there ever a time when you were scared for your life?

LAWRENCE: Oh, there were times when a Sergeant or a guard would come in the pitch black and maybe two in the morning. You could hear someone coming, and you couldn’t see them and I had to challenge them. One wise guy Sergeant, he wouldn’t say anything. You’d better know the password or you’re gonna…..because we had ammunition in our rifles, but there wasn’t a round in the chamber. But as soon as you acuate that bolt on your M-1 rifle and you heard the round going in the chamber, he spoke up then because I had to do that. He’s a Sergeant or a guard, and he’d give the password. And I’d say, “Okay, advance it. Advance forward and be recognized…” and so on.

MARLENE: How did you feel the first time you had to do that?

LAWRENCE: I chewed him out. I said, “Don’t do that to me!” I’m scared. I’m in a lonely outpost there. On one side is the ocean…possibly Japs could possibly come up in a boat of some kind or something. They have submarines. I said, “You do that to me next time, and I’ll…I’m not going to ask twice.” “I’m just testing you,” he said. I said, “All right.” That was the only time that happened.

MARLENE: Okay, well go on to...now, you did have combat experience, correct?

LAWRENCE: Yes. Yes.

MARLENE: I’m going to ask you a few questions about that. Whatever you feel comfortable talking about…if there’s something you don’t want to talk about, that’s fine. Just generally, describe for me what it was like on the front lines. What do you remember about those days or weeks. How long were you on the front lines?

LAWRENCE: When we unloaded on the troop ship, we weren’t the first wave to go in on Okinawa. We, I think we were about the fourth or fifth wave, if I recall right. We were on these landing crafts, and we’re bobbing around in circles. Some of the guys got seasick, because you were bobbing up and down. “Hey, when are you going to hit the beach?” Because we won’t be able to do anything we’re so sick. It didn’t bother me, though. Some of the guys you could see were green in the gills. Finally our landing craft hit the beach. We got off, and we were expecting a hail of bullets or what-have-you but it was quiet. I couldn’t believe it, because from the previous operation, Iwo Jima, those guys caught their lunch. We were able to get on the beach. We’re all spread out. Everybody was getting their gear off the landing craft. It was an amphibious tank that was up a little high and there was a guy standing up there looking around. I stood up to look to see if I could see any of the enemy. There was no one here. This guy is standing behind this 50 caliber gun, and he caught a round right between the eyes. And that’s when “Hey, get down!” I’m sure they’re all dug in somewhere. Well, they were. They were in fox holes. Pretty sneaky, too. They’d lift up a cover on their head, take a shot and get back down. You couldn’t see a soul. They were picking us off. Anyway, everyone stayed down. Of course, being in a mortar platoon, we had to wait back to let the rifle platoons go first because they’re the ones that would infiltrate the area and they keep covering more ground. Then we have to move up and keep moving until we could find a place where we’d settle down for the evening and get our guns in place, our 81mm mortars. Set them up, give an azimuth reading and just wait for orders from the Forward Observer to see if there was any enemies that we could lay down a barrage on. Well, it didn’t happen. So the next day, we packed up our gear…and if I recall, I think we were at the northern end of the island…it’s been 62 years. I can’t remember that long. Sorry. Anyway, we moved up continually until we set our guns in placements and we found out that….my Forward Observer…he would talk on the field telephone to the Sergeant of the platoon, what was going on. There were guys that were catching rounds from the back. They were getting shot in the back, and couldn’t figure out where are they, the enemy? Where are they? So we finally located…these guys were all dug in and they’re hidden in their fox holes. They would come up and pick off a guy and come back down again. So, finally, okay let’s lay down a barrage. We had our three mortars set up, and we’d do a block of firing every so often. Of course, the riflemen laid back in their fox holes and letting us do the mop up work. And finally after the barrage was done, he said now with our three guns, “Just fire intermittently, one at a time.” Because I guess the Japs knew that we were on to what they were doing there, and they were deserting their positions, and that’s where we were killing them.

MARLENE: Let’s go back a little bit. We jumped ahead to your deployment, but we didn’t find out how you got from San Clemente…when you were deployed, how long you were at San Clemente and how you got to where you were deployed. Give us a little more information about that.

LAWRENCE: Oh, all right. While I was doing guard duty in San Clemente, I was ordered to go back on the coast of California, Camp Pendleton, and do some extra training learning how to be a mortarer, an A-1 millimeter mortarer. For that, we also had judo training and forced marches, all kinds of rugged things to keep everybody in shape. After that training, I went back to San Clemente Island, and I became a Physical Ed trainer for the guys on the island there. Every morning I had to do calisthenics and of course, some of the other guys weren’t in that great of shape. You could hear them groaning and moaning, but hey, that’s the way it is in the Marine Corps. So, it was after all of that time, I think it was six months possibly on San Clemente Island, and I was sent back to Camp Pendleton. We did some more training, and then from there, Camp Pendleton, we went to the Port of Los Angeles to board a troop ship to go overseas. After we left the Port of Los Angeles, we sailed up to San Francisco underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, picked up some more troops and then from there, we sailed out. I looked at that Golden Gate Bridge and I thought, “I’ll probably never see it again.” But, as it was, it took us, I think it was possibly two weeks to get to Noumea, New Caledonia in the South Pacific. I thought, “This trip will never end.” It was two weeks of waiting in the chow line day after day all because the troop ship had to do a zigzag type of passing in case subs are trying to zero us in, they can’t shoot at us. They don’t know when they’re going to turn and so forth. They couldn’t do a straight line type of a trip over the ocean. They had to do a lot of zigzagging. Once we got to New Caledonia, we spent I think it was possibly a week, maybe two weeks at the most at Noumea, New Caledonia. From there, we boarded another troop transport and sailed to Guadalcanal and there we docked at Guadalcanal as, you know, a battalion of laborers. We had to do a lot of grunt work type things until we could find a place where they could place all the troops. I was moving lumber from one place to another and different odd jobs. Finally I got my transfer on the island. I joined the 4 th Marine Regiment. That Regiment just got back from Guam. They just got through with their action there. They were doing a little R & R. I joined the Mortar Platoon there and got to know some of the guys. From there, we start training again. We possibly thought that after all of that training we were doing, hiking and setting up gun replacements and taking practice rounds and so forth. We thought possibly we were going to be in line to go to Iwo Jima. It was kind of the scuttle-butt amongst the regiment there.

MARLENE: So, at that time you still didn’t know where you were going to end up.

LAWRENCE: We didn’t know where we were going to go. No. And of course, Iwo Jima was already (?) I thought, “I guess we missed that action. Well, where we going now?” As it turned out, they were going to load up and go to Okinawa, and they were teaching us how to act on that island…don’t drink the water and so forth. They weren’t sure what type of….if case you had to take a bath or something, watch the water because it might be…what they told us was liver flukes. I never heard of such a thing. It’s just things in the water that could get into your skin and invade your body and so forth. I didn’t know what to think. We’ll see what happens. Anyway, on Guadalcanal, we had to take atabrine tablets for yellow fever. Was it yellow fever? I believe it was. It was malaria. That was it. Not yellow fever. Malaria. Every guy had a yellow pale look to himself. Their eyes were yellow from eating atabrine tablets. And you had to wait in line every morning, and the Sergeant would hand out, or rather the Corporal would hand out atabrine tablets and he stood there and watched you take it, because some guys wouldn’t take it. You took it or you had hell to pay, because they didn’t want anybody coming down with malaria. That was the reason. So, that was a bummer. Okay, now, we’re getting ready to board a troop transport to Okinawa. We’re all in this hold. I think in the hold it had bunks piled one on top of another, maybe ten high. So, we’re all stuffed in there like sardines. Anyway, as I recall, there was a big storm that we were in, and a lot of guys were getting sick. I happened to be on the bottom bunk near the floor, near the deck, and I made sure that I could get out of there if somebody….well anyway, a couple guys got sick in their bunk and they were heaving and it’s going on the floor and I thought, “Holy Christ!” Anyway, we got through that storm all right. We’re doing some calisthenics aboard ship to try to stay in shape, because, hey, it doesn’t take long before you start losing your ability...stamina and so forth. Finally, we get to the point where, here we come, there’s Okinawa, and the battle wagons are already pounding that island. Nothing could live there after these big 16-inch guns start pounding that island. Of course, our (?) Corps go in and (?) and bombing…I think it was a waste of ammunition. You couldn’t see anyone there. But, they had to do what they had to do. We finally landed, and that’s what I’m talking about now. We landed on the beach, and there was no opposition. I thought, “Well God, where are they?” That’s where we left off.

MARLENE: Why don’t you then continue with your experiences then in Okinawa after you landed.

LAWRENCE: As I recall, we were on the north end. As I understand, the Army was on the southern end, and they were holed up. They just couldn’t move forward. We were asked, I guess by the Army to send a regiment to the southern end to take over the Army positions. I was amazed at their fox holes. The fox holes were elaborate. You could stand up and fire your weapon. Our fox holes that the Marines made were just a shallow, maybe a six or eight inch fox hole where you could lay down in because you weren’t going to be there long. In the morning, you got up and moved forward. Where the Army, they dug in and stayed there and waited for the artillery to soften up the enemy. It never did happen, apparently. Anyway, they asked for the Marines to come in and take over their positions. Now what the Army did after that, I don’t know. But anyway, we come up from the southern end and set up gun positions and we were called on by the Forward Observer to fire on this area. We would lay down a barrage, so the riflemen could move forward, and that’s near the end there at that operation at the southern end. A lot of the Japs were, from what I understand, the Forward Observer saying they were in cane fields or something. And they were committing suicide, because they knew that they were…you could see them blowing themselves up, their arms are flying in the air and heads coming off because they take a grenade and put it up their throat and blow themselves up. Meanwhile, after that, we’re not really in action after that. We’re sort of like waiting to see what our orders would be. Let’s see if there’s anything I didn’t cover.

MARLENE: How long was this operation?

LAWRENCE: Let’s see, we got in there April 1 st, and I believe it was possibly the middle of June, maybe, when they finally…when the Japs finally…had no more resistance from the Japs. There was one…that’s right. I forgot to mention…there was one gun placement…it was on a hill where the Japs had a…I’m trying to remember what caliber cannon that they had...they would come out on railroad tracks. A door would open in this cave, a steel door and they would roll that cannon out there and fire some rounds, because it was a high place. It wasn’t a mountain so-to-speak. It was a high area. He would fire some rounds and do a lot of damage with a lot of tree bursts. Our FO was wounded on that. They brought him back, and we had to send another guy up there. FO was Forward Observer, and he would look with his binoculars and he would call back to the line there on the field telephone what shots they gave and give us the azimuths reading. We’d zero in on that area and then fire our rounds. This camp….what the heck was it? A 105 or…I don’t know what the hell Japs, what kind of gun they had up there, but they couldn’t knock it out. They had dive bombing. They’d close those steel doors, and they couldn’t penetrate it. It must have been a cement reinforced type…not a pill box so-to-speak. It was in a mountainside. Finally, okay. We bombarded the daylights out of that placement there. I thought, “Okay, we’ve got it secure.” That door would open up and out come that gun and fire some more rounds and kill more guys. I’m not sure if our Regimental Commander was wounded on that or not, but we had some big brass that were wounded on that. Finally, they had to send up the rifle guys. That was the only ones who could take that position out. They sent them up there with small arms fire. I don’t recall there being a flame thrower up there, but they threw grenades up there. And finally they were able to wipe that position out. All these big guns couldn’t do it, but you had to have riflemen come up there and do it.

MARLENE: What type of weaponry did you carry yourself, and what did you use? What other supplies did you have to carry with you the whole time?

LAWRENCE: Well, when we first landed on there, each man had to carry, I believe, his own backpack with socks and some K-rations and your ammunition. And I carried a Thompson sub-machine gun, because being in the mortar, we wouldn’t be doing long-distance firing. It had to be people that…the Japs would invade our position there because we’re a mortar platoon. It’s close-type firing. The Thompson is the best thing for that. It fires a 45-caliber bullet, and it’s accurate, say, within 50 yards. Not even 50 yards. I’m sorry. Probably might be 25 yards. After that, you’re taking your chances. But 25 yards…if you aim it right, you’ll get the guy.

MARLENE: Did you feel confident with the supplies that you had?

LAWRENCE: Oh, yes.

MARLENE: You felt like you were prepared?

LAWRENCE: Yes. Getting back to….each guy had his pack, his weapon, water, his K-rations, and he had to carry three rounds in front, 81 mm mortar rounds until we got to land. Naturally, you gotta’ have some shells to fire. So each guy in a squad had to have three rounds on him to carry up into the position there. When we finally set our guns up, each guy unloaded all these rounds, we had something to fire off until supply could catch up with us, the supplies with more rounds. Let’s see, after that, wherever we moved up, the supplies would move with us. They would stack up a bunch of mortar rounds for us, and I was just at that time, I was in the squad and then near the end of the operation, I ended up being third gunner on this one mortar. We had the first gunner. He’s the guy that has the (?), get the bubbles leveled and gets his line lined up with the (?) mark so he can hit that target. The second gunner is the guy that carries the tube. He has the round and drops it in the pipe. This guy here is always balancing that bubble, because you make sure, you don’t want to hit your own troops. And the third guy, of course, he’s in charge of the base plate, the heaviest part of the gun and that was me. That thing had to weigh, I would judge 50 pounds. And when you’re lugging that through mud and everything, oh God…I lugged it on my arm, and I’d put it on my shoulder and lug it that way.

MARLENE: Did you feel you were properly trained and confident when you were…and you felt like you knew what you had to do?

LAWRENCE: Oh, yes. I felt very confident, because we were accomplishing what we were ordered to do. They said, “Don’t fire on your own troops or you’ll end up being on the front line, too.” If these guys are incompetent...but we never had that problem. We always go ahead of our guys.

MARLENE: How often did you ever feel that you were close to death and that you might die…fear of losing your life.

LAWRENCE: Alright. There’s nothing more terrifying than being bombed by another mortar platoon, because the big guns…you hear a whistle of a projectile coming over, and you had time to duck and take cover. But with a mortar round, all you hear is a “whoosh, whoosh” and an explosion. It’s that fast. You got to a point where you hear a “whoosh”…and by the way, you drop everything and hit the ground to make a less of a target. Once you’re on the ground, the thing explodes up on an angle, and likely you’re not being hit by any shrapnel. Well, when you hear that “whoosh, whoosh”, you drop everything and I just slammed, and I broke a couple of my teeth, my front tooth and I thought, “I’m going to lose my teeth.” It’s not only me. It was everybody else, we’re just slammed down on the ground to get out of that mortar round. That was the most terrifying. But the big guns shells…if I hear them whistle, I get down there. If it’s going to be a direct hit, hey it’s all over.

MARLENE: How did you feel with that stress, the daily stress of knowing this?

LAWRENCE: Thank God I was young enough. The older guys it was a wear and tear on them. Them guys were…there were a few guys, not in our platoon but there was others that committed suicide they were so devastated. It was hell! It was hell.

MARLENE: Do you think your age kind of helped?

LAWRENCE: I think, yeah, well sure! The Marines they want young guys that are not afraid. “Hey, they aren’t going to hurt me!” That type of thing. In the time when they were shelling us with the big…I was praying in my fox hole, “Mom, please! What’s your baby doing here?” That was over. After the shelling was over, hey, I’m okay. It didn’t hit me. I made it out of that.

MARLENE: Did you see any close buddies die?

LAWRENCE: No buddies, no. Our platoon, our mortar platoon, we’re kind of jaded in that…it’s just that we know of other guys that were on the front line. They brought them back. I don’t know how many yards and they were laying on stretchers. Naturally, being in a mortar platoon, “How you doing, pal?” I would try to console them. I’d say, “Hey, you’re going to be state-side now. Don’t worry about it. You got it made. You don’t have to go through this hell.” “If they get me in time on the hospital ship.” A few guys before they got them on the beach, they died. They died of loss of blood or they died of shock. I just felt bad. Well anyway, I’ve mentioned before about the tree bursts from this gun up in the…not in the mountains so-to-speak. It was a high area and it had a tree burst, and our Lieutenant Colonel caught a round. He came back. We got him out. “Hey, Colonel, you’ll be okay.” He was crying, because he was so traumatized. Oh, boy. Also, while we were sitting in that area they’re kind of getting the wounded back onto the beach, we’re waiting for orders of what to fire next and all of a sudden there was a big rush of machine gun fire. It was a Jap that probably infiltrated through the front lines, and he had what they called a Namboo automatic weapon, and that was devastating. Boy, it didn’t touch any of our men, but there were guys just outside of us that were wounded. Anyway, it wasn’t long, and they located this guy and that was the end of him. That was a devastating weapon, that automatic weapon. They call it a Namboo. That’s the only thing I know. I don’t know what caliber it was, but it was an awesome weapon. We had our 30 caliber machine gun, but this was more devastating than that. It just scared the crap out of all of us. But anyway, they took care of this guy. It was possibly I think the next day where we’re standing around waiting for orders, and here comes one of the guys…we didn’t know him personally, but he was a demolition expert. He was walking around. He was a big guy. He had to be six foot two or something like that and over 200 pounds, and he’s walking around with a cigar. He had a caped up dynamite. He would blow the caves. I said, “Is that what you’re doing?” He said, “Yeah.” We called him “Tiny.” These caves were about, I would say, 100 yards away. Well, the Japs would go in these caves and at night they could possibly come out and terrorize us. When I say terrorize… I mean you’d be in your fox hole. That was the most terrifying thing at night. In the day time you could see what’s going on, but at night you laid in your fox hole and you couldn’t sleep. You could hear the Japs, they would say, “Marine, you die tonight.” That type of thing. Anyway, it didn’t happen in our platoon but there were other platoons that were laying in the fox hole, and the Japs would creep up on their stomachs with their bayonets on a bamboo pole and apparently they knew where the fox holes were. I don’t know. I can’t imagine how they could see that at night, but the guys would be laying in their fox holes and they’d come up behind them with the bayonets… and right in here, a jab, and we’d wake up in the morning and see…

MARLENE: Describe where that is.

LAWRENCE: Between the collar bone and your shoulder blade. That bayonet would go right in there, and you wouldn’t know what happened in the pitch dark. You’d wake up in the morning, you’d see these guys dead with a bayonet in them. They’re dead. It was almost impossible to sleep. We would have a thing going….the guy next to me, Bob Crain, I’d say, “I’ll do the guard duty at night. You go to sleep.” As soon as it got dark, you dug your fox hole and you laid there, and you couldn’t go right to sleep. You’d have to force yourself to go to sleep, that type of thing. On my watch, I’d stay up until about 12:30, 1:00 in the morning, and I’d wake Bob up, “Okay. It’s your turn. I’m going to sleep.” That type of thing. And of course, it’s at night and you hear different explosions and all of a sudden, there would be a flare that would shoot up and light up at night. It would float down on the parachute to light up the area so you could see if there’s anything around. It’s an eerie sight. Everything is a (?) type. And you look around and, “Okay, everything looks safe.” Well, finally the flare would land on earth, it would die out, and again, it’s pitch black. All you could do…you couldn’t see anything…all you do is go by hearing. Well, this one particular night, I’m laying in my fox hole, and it’s approximately 10:30 or 11:00 at night. After the flare went out, I’m laying there and I hear something. I can’t make it out. I’m looking around. Your eyes are trying to adjust to see what’s moving. Here’s the thing…before all of that happened, there was a place where we were in transfer. A group of people were moving down the road and when you’re in your fox hole at night, nothing moves. You stay in your fox hole, whatever, because if you get out of there, you stand a chance of getting shot by your own man. So we hear all of this commotion going on. “It must be the Japs moving in force trying to….” Well, all hell broke loose. Everybody is firing at wherever the sound came from. Well, the next morning, I think there was one Jap soldier there and the rest were civilians. And they were slaughtered. Oh, it was a horrible sight to see, women and their little babies. For the life of me, I can’t understand…I guess they were terrified of Americans, because according to the Japs, the Okinawans told them we were murderers and rapists and things like that. They were just terrified of us. So they thought they’d be safe by moving at night to go to some other place. Anyway, we were read the riot act. “Hey! This can’t happen. We can’t go killing civilians. Okay. We’ll get to the bottom of this.” Anyway, now getting back to my story...I’m laying there at night and I hear something moving, and “Uh, oh.” I’ve got my Thompson sub-machine gun, a round in the chamber. I’ve got the safety on. All I have to do is squeeze that trigger and turn off the safety and I kill someone. Whoever it was. I’m ready for this part. I can’t see. I hear the footsteps and I see it’s a woman. I’m sure it’s a civilian woman. She walked by my fox hole. I didn’t kill her. Today, I think about it all the time in my sleep. I could have slaughtered this… I don’t know if she was an old woman or young woman or what. So anyway, it’s not on my conscience that I killed an innocent civilian. So, that was the only terrifying part for me. But at night it was the worst. During the day, you saw what was coming, you heard what was coming but at night you couldn’t…you hear the screams, the Japs yelling, “You die!” That type of thing…it was just terrifying.

MARLENE: How long did that go on?

LAWRENCE: Throughout the whole operation until maybe the very end. Then it started dying off, because a lot of them were surrendering. A lot of them were committing suicide.

MARLENE: Was there anything that you got to do if there was any low time when you weren’t in combat, to kind of…

LAWRENCE: Oh, yeah. They would take us back off the front line so you could take a bath. For two weeks, I didn’t bathe. I couldn’t stand myself and eating the K-rations. Anyway, we’d get behind there, and had a little R & R type thing. They had the cooks come up and make us fresh bread. What a luxury, we thought. They’d make soup.

MARLENE: Did they have activities that you did? Did you play cards or anything?

LAWRENCE: Oh, no activities, just relax and try to catch up on your sleep. You took a bath, changed your socks and I had sores all over my hands and being skinned. You do a lot of things. Those scabs, not scabs…open sores were all getting infected so we had the corpsman come over, that’s what we called them, corpsmen. “Hey, can you help me out with my hands? I just can’t even make a fist anymore, and everything is all festering on me.” So, he’d put sulfa drums on my little skin wounds, and they would heal up. I’m okay. Let’s see…what else…then I had a chance to shave because I’d had a beard…two week’s of growth and that. Just grimy. I’d go in some well. The Japs had well water. I’d fill my helmet up with well water, douse myself. I’d soap up and everything and rinse myself off. I felt like a million dollars then. END OF SIDE ONE

 LAWRENCE: BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO Near the end of the operation, we start getting prisoners that we would guard and have them bury their dead. That was a horrible thing. The stench of a dead person…it’s something you never forget. It’s horrible. Anyway, this one prisoner we had, he was sitting there with his wrists tied behind him, and this one fellow, a friend…a good guy, really…Bill Ferris. He was from Philadelphia. We would see all of these atrocity pictures of the Japs beheading American soldiers and the Marines and that type of thing. We had this prisoner sitting there by himself, and I was sitting there. I don’t know what I was doing at the time, but Bill Ferris had this fireman’s axe. He’s standing there and I’m looking at him, “What’s he doing with that axe?” I could see him, he’s standing there and the prisoner is on his right hand side, and he’s looking like he’s getting ready to swing that axe and cut this guy’s head off. I could see him, like he’s righting himself. I said, “Bill, don’t do it.” I guess I read his mind, because he looked at me and he dropped the axe and he walked away. He was going to chop his head off. It’s just that you see those things. How can these SOB’s do this to people… these Japs where they beheaded our American soldiers? So, I guess he thought, “I’m going to get revenge. I’ll take this guy’s head off.” But I talked him out of it. I don’t know if that prisoner realized. I don’t know if he’s alive today, but I saved his life really…an enemy.

MARLENE: Go back. You talked about a friend, “Tiny”. You started that story with the dynamite.

LAWRENCE: Oh yeah, Tiny. Oh, I didn’t finish that, did I? Yes. He’s blowing these caves to get any Japs that might be hiding in there to come out at night and infiltrate our lines. I said, “Tiny.” He said, “I just light this fuse and heave it in the cave there and duck for cover. We’ll blow it.” Anything that’s in there…if he didn’t kill them, they would be unconscious because of all of the compression from that dynamite. He’d run in there with a flashlight and make sure everything was dead in there. I was watching him, and then he’d go through another cave. I saw him with a cigar, and he’s lighting the wick, he’s looking at it, he looks at it again and it blew up in his face. And we’re watching that. I can’t believe it . This big guy, 200 plus pounds. And when the dust cleared, he was gone. He blew himself to bits. It just shook everybody up to see that. We couldn’t find him. We looked for parts that we could, you know, send to tell somebody. But we told the Platoon Commander that Tiny blew himself up. He said, “All right. See if you can find anything, dog tags or whatever.” We weren’t able to. He just blew to pieces. That was the end of Tiny.

MARLENE: Were there any men that you made really good friends with? Did you feel a sense of camaraderie with them?

LAWRENCE: There was a couple guys. We were more or less in the same boat, all PFC’s, of course, at that time. Bob Crain was one of them. He’s from Boston. As a matter of fact, Bob Crain, I guess he was in charge of the lottery in New York. I saw him on television, years later, of course. Let’s see…who else? There were a few guys from the south. Doug Evans was a nice fellow. When we have a little R & R, we’d sing and harmonize together and things like that. And another guy, Bob Crawford. He’s from North Carolina.

MARLENE: So, you still remember their names, some of them?

LAWRENCE: Only because we talked together, and our fox holes would be close together. That’s why. The other guys in our platoon, we knew them, but we didn’t really associate that much because, there’s 45 guys in a platoon. The only one I really knew was my squad leader and the guys on our squad a little more. The other squads, you knew them, but you weren’t really friends, type of thing.

MARLENE: When you were done in Okinawa, what happened after that?

LAWRENCE: After the operation in Okinawa, we got aboard ship and they took us to Guam. When we got into Guam, I thought, “All right, we’re going to do a little R & R in Guam. After a week or two weeks of rest and rehabilitation, we’re going to start training again to invade Japan proper.” I thought, “Oh, boy, this is going to be the big one now.” The information that we got that even the civilians will be armed. It’s gonna’ be Holocaust for American troops, but it’s something that has to be done.

MARLENE: How did you feel at that time?

LAWRENCE: “This is probably the time that I’m going to get my lunch, for sure.” Now we’re fighting the Japanese Army but the civilians also because they’ll be armed, too. Well anyway, we started our training, and then it came…the atomic bomb that Truman had dropped on Nagasaki then Hiroshima, then the Japanese finally gave up and surrendered. McArthur was going to come in there, and they’re going to sign an unconditional surrender aboard the Missouri. Okay, now we have a change of plans. We’re not training for warfare anymore, we’re going to be shipped on board ship to go to Japan proper and occupy Japan. And that’s where we went to Yokosuka, it’s a Naval base there. I don’t know how many miles away from Tokyo it is. We stayed there for, I think, from June possibly until September possibly. It was starting to get cold. We occupied it. It was just a thing that, actually we did guard duty in the Yokosuka Naval base but actually we didn’t do anything as far as Japan proper. We took a trip to Tokyo. They let us have liberty so-to-speak, but there was nothing to see there. Everything was bombed out. Then finally…we had Christmas dinner there, and then New Years, and then finally we’re going to be sent back to the States. We landed in California and spent a little time on the west coast. Then I was shipped to be discharged, either California or you had your choice. I’d rather go to Great Lakes. It’s near my home. From there, a train ride to Great Lakes, and I had my teeth fixed because I had them broken. I was discharged then on March 6 th or 7 th of 1946. They offered me, “We’re going to discharge you as a Corporal, and if you want to re-up.” I said, “No, thank you.”

MARLENE: That’s what I was going to ask. Did you ever consider re-upping?

LAWRENCE: No. Three years of the Marines was enough for me.

MARLENE: You mentioned when you went, after your basic training when you shipped out, you went under the Golden Gate Bridge. When you came back, did you get to go under the Golden Gate Bridge? You thought you weren’t going to get to see it again.

LAWRENCE: Oh, yes. Right. Coming back…oh, that was another thing I missed out. Coming back on this troop ship, I’m looking at the bow there and I see this land mine…not a land mine, a mine floating in the ocean there with the horn sticking out. We’re heading right toward it. I’m yelling. Of course, the people on the bridge…they’ve got their things they’re doing, making sure the ship’s going in the right direction, no zigzags anymore. It’s straight home. I’m yelling up there, and the guys looking down at me and I’m pointing. “We’re coming right into this mine!” If the ship bumps into it, it blows the damn thing up. The guy on the bridge looked, and then he notified everybody and the ship did a turn. We could have blown that ship up and sunk right there at the end of the war. I tell you, it was something! I just happened to be sitting on the bow just thinking what it’s going to be like when I got home and that type of thing. Then, “What the heck is that out there?” It’s floating and bobbing in the waves. It’s a big thing, too. That would have blown the front end, the bow off of that ship.

MARLENE: Thank goodness you saw it. So, when you were discharged, you said that was in Great Lakes?

LAWRENCE: Yes, Great Lakes.

MARLENE: How did you get home from there? What was the homecoming like once you got home? Who did you see? Let’s go back again to the question about the Golden Gate Bridge. What did you think? Did you get to go under the bridge again?

LAWRENCE: When I saw that bridge I thanked God that I was able to get back. Even to this day, I’m amazed that I’m not even wounded, and I made it through. I see all of these friends I knew that were wounded and some killed and never made it back. I failed to mention, also, on San Clemente Island. There was one guy that played the accordion like a professional. He was a professional accordion player. I couldn’t believe how beautifully this guy played. His name was Paul Boerman. I said, “Paul, you should be in show business.” He said, “I was, but I wanted to get out of that. I saw the light.” I said, “You saw God?” He said, “No, I lead a terrible life when I was an entertainer.” A “sinful life”. That’s what his words were. It’s a shame to let that beautiful talent of yours…He said, “Well, I don’t know. After the war maybe I’ll continue. I see the Lord now and I’ll never do what I did before.” Whatever that was, he never explained. Also, I failed to mention that I went through boot camp with this guy, Michael Pagone. He was a young Italian guy. He was, I would say, 180 pounds, twice as wide as me and would take no crap from nobody, but he didn’t get much schooling. He would write home to his mother in boot camp, and he would ask, “How do you spell some word?” And I’d spell it for him. A few of the other guys made fun of him, “Some dumb Dago don’t know how to…” He’d get up there, and he’d wipe anybody’s clock in that platoon because that’s how rugged he was. After that they realized, hey don’t mess with Mike because he’d wipe us out. Well anyway, he would come to me every time he’d want to write home. I had to help him spell words and that type of thing. Well, in Okinawa, we were moving up from the north end to the south end and we saw on the beach there a lot of action that you could see…rifles and things discarded laying there, people wounded and I saw a helmet there with a bullet hole right through the helmet. On the back it said, “M. PAGONE.” “Poor Mikey caught his lunch.” Of course, with the accordion player, he had his backpack and it was shredded like it was hit with something. And he was killed, too. It was his name. There were two guys that I knew back on San Clemente Island, one with boot camp, the other on San Clemente Island I knew were killed. Although I wasn’t there to witness it, I could see their equipment destroyed by gunfire.

MARLENE: So when you saw the Golden Gate Bridge, you thought, “I’m back. I’m alive. I’m not injured.”

LAWRENCE: I’m alive andI said a silent prayer to myself, “Thank God somebody was looking over me.”

MARLENE: Go back to again when you were discharged, how did you get home?

LAWRENCE: Well, okay. After Great Lakes, of course, while I waited for my….let’s see…I had to be examined. I had a health check-up. I had my teeth made for me. Of course, in the meantime while I’m waiting there, my mother visited me at Great Lakes with my aunt. I saw them. They were hugging me and that type of thing, and my aunt said, “Larry, we prayed for you everyday that God would send you back to us.” And that’s why. I realized, “Oh, my God!” Somebody had to be watching over me. That’s why I was so thankful. Anyway, I finally got discharged from Great Lakes. I took the North Shore, which is nonexistent anymore. They did away with it. I took that down to….where did I get off at? It was the North Shore. I had to go…I’m sure it was downtown when I got off of there to take the Chicago Surface Lines to my home. I got off at Damen Avenue and Thomas. I just get off the street car and who did I see but Uncle Gene’s sister. My brother-in-law, his sister. Of course, I knew her in high school. “Larry!” Here I am in my uniform. She’s the first gal I saw. After that, I walked to where I lived and, “Mom! I’m home!” And that’s it.

MARLENE: How was your mother’s greeting?

LAWRENCE: She almost tripped on the steps. She couldn’t get up fast enough to give me a hug and that type of thing.

MARLENE: Do you remember what your first meal was when you got home?

LAWRENCE: Yes. Right.

MARLENE: What was it?

LAWRENCE: I can’t recall now, at the time. It’s been so long.

MARLENE: But it was different than the military food.

LAWRENCE: Anyway, my mother…that first day or second day…she turned on the radio and I heard…..you know how sometimes you don’t get the station tuned in right, and you hear like a projectile going. I automatically, just second nature, I dove under the table. It was just something I’m reliving. I was embarrassed. My mother said, “What’s the matter?” I said, “Oh, nothing, Mom.” I didn’t want to tell her what I was doing under the table.

MARLENE: So, you’re home now. What did you decide to do with your life?

LAWRENCE: I inquired about more schooling. I got my high school diploma. I went to Navy Pier to sign up for some college courses there.

MARLENE: Now, did you get a GED?

LAWRENCE: No. I got a diploma.

MARLENE: You went back to high school?

LAWRENCE: Right. My wife was at my graduating exercise. And of course, I was waiting for them to call me to go to Illinois State. They said it would be a two-year wait. I thought, “Okay. I’ll wait. Meanwhile, I’ll get a job, and when I’m ready…” Of course, I met my wife.

MARLENE: Now, when did you meet your wife?

LAWRENCE: Let’s see. I was discharged on March 7 th, I believe, and I met my wife April 3 rd or 4 th.

MARLENE: Right after?

LAWRENCE: Yes.

MARLENE: Did they have the GI Bill then?

LAWRENCE: Yes, they had the GI Bill. Right.

MARLENE: You were going to take advantage of that, but there was a two-year wait?

LAWRENCE: Two year wait so I said, “Okay, I’ll wait.” Like I said before, I met “Miss America,” Genevieve Trojan. We fell in love and we got married and had son number one.

MARLENE: What career did you settle on?

LAWRENCE: I had hoped to take a course in…to eventually get into dentistry. But it didn’t happen.

MARLENE: What did you do then?

LAWRENCE: Well, I had temporary jobs. I worked in a dental lab for awhile until I talked to the guy who was the chief set-up man. He said, “Get out of this. This is no job for you.” It’s kind of a cut-throat job type thing. So, okay, I’m still waiting for them to notify me about the…but meanwhile, I need a job to take care of my new family and my wife. I put applications in with Edison, Telephone Company and the Post Office. The first one to call me was the Telephone Company to come for an interview.

MARLENE: Do you think any of the training that you got in the military helped you in your career?

LAWRENCE: No.

MARLENE: No?

LAWRENCE: No. They taught me how to kill people.

MARLENE: Anything? Even organization skills or discipline?

LAWRENCE: Well, discipline-wise, yes. Of course, everything has to be just the way it is, but that’s how they taught you in the Marine Corps, otherwise, it’s not right. No, in that respect, I’m kind of a lonely guy, really, because of that. But as far as job skills, I couldn’t take that wherever I went.

MARLENE: So, you learned on-the-job?

LAWRENCE: Yes, I learned on-the-job.

MARLENE: And you talked about being married and raising a family. How many children do you have? What year were you married, first of all?

LAWRENCE: Where?

MARLENE: What year?

LAWRENCE: What year? It was 1947 on July 19 th. 1947. And shortly nine months and one day, our number one guy was born and from then on…

MARLENE: And how many other children?

LAWRENCE: After that it was number two guy, Daniel. Number one guy is Lawrence. He’s not a Junior, though. He’s Lawrence Michael. Our number two guy is Daniel, and then we had a beautiful little girl, Victoria. And shortly after that it was Christine. Everything was looking up after that.

MARLENE: You talked about getting a job with the Telephone Company. How many years did you work there?

LAWRENCE: I was there just shy of 38 years. Of course, and then at the end of 38 years, they were talking that there might be a strike. I didn’t want to go through that again. I went through a strike the first time. I was off for six months. I’m not going to do that again, so I retired. And here I am retired for, let’s see….19 years later. Really, I’m in relatively good health.

MARLENE: Are you still married?

LAWRENCE: Oh, yes. Definitely so.

MARLENE: How many years have you been married now?

LAWRENCE: Genevieve and I will be married…it’s going to be 60 years.

MARLENE: When your children were growing up, did you share with them your war stories?

LAWRENCE: Not really, no.

MARLENE: Did you share much?

LAWRENCE: Our kids here and there would talk about it. It’s not something I’m comfortable talking about.

MARLENE: Did they ask questions growing up?

LAWRENCE: You mean the children?

MARLENE: Right.

LAWRENCE: Oh, yeah. I can’t recall…no, I don’t think they ever asked what the war was like or anything. It might have come up, but I didn’t want to talk about it.

MARLENE: Have you spoken to them more since they’ve reached adulthood? The last few years, have you opened up to them more?

LAWRENCE: I think I’ve mentioned it more when they were older, yes because it’s unpleasant for me to talk about death. I mean, it was terrible to see bodies mangled and two-week old dead people laying there and they’re rotting away. It’s just horrible.

MARLENE: Have you made any lifetime friends from the service? Did you keep up with any of them? Or do you belong to any Veteran organizations?

LAWRENCE: No. I didn’t want to join the American Legion or VFW, because it was all that military thing, and it just reminded me of the death that I witnessed. I wanted to get away from that.

MARLENE: We talked about if what you learned in the military helped you with your career. Do you think you’re a better person for having done what you did?

LAWRENCE: Oh, yes. I realize the sanctity of life, how precious it is. The fact that I experienced other places while in combat where life wasn’t worth a nickel.

MARLENE: So, you have no regrets?

LAWRENCE: No regrets. No. I did what I did. I wouldn’t want to go through it again, but I’m glad I did what I did.

MARLENE: Did your military experience influence your thinking about war or about the military in general throughout the years?

LAWRENCE: I think the war we were in was a just war. But, Korea or Vietnam, I think it was unjust and the war we are in today. I would just dread to have my grandsons in there risking their lives for something that….

MARLENE: I was going to say….would you encourage young men and women today to join the military?

LAWRENCE: To protect our country, yes, but not for a senseless war.

MARLENE: If you had the chance, would you like to go to Washington D.C. to see the World War II memorial?

LAWRENCE: Mmmm…it would be nice to see that. Yes. Because when I was there before, that memorial wasn’t up.

MARLENE: Well, is there anything that you would like to add, something that I’ve overlooked? Any conclusions, any final words?

LAWRENCE: All I can say is, I thank the good Lord that I’m here to talk about it.

MARLENE: Well, I want to thank you, Mr. Gregory, being one of the members of the greatest generation. Thank you for your interview and for sharing your memories with all Americans.

LAWRENCE: Thank you.

1. 2. 3. 4.

1. Lawrence Gregory and friend Douglas Evans, taken in Japan, 1945. 2. Lawrence Gregory pictured in front of a water well in Okinawa, 1945. 3. From left to right, Robert Crane, Tom Crawford and Lawrence Gregory in front of an abandoned storage shed on Okinawa, 1945. 4. From left to right, Lawrence Gregory and Robert Crane writing letters home on a captured machine gun cart, Okinawa, 1945.