Robert Hinsdale Interview

Robert Hinsdale was drafted into the Navy, and many of his siblings also served during World War II.

Robert Hinsdale

Robert E. Hinsdale grew up in Lenawee County, Michigan, where he participated in Future Farmers of America, traveled with the school band, and worked at a bomb parts factory before getting drafted for WWII. After joining the Navy, finishing boot camp, and getting shipped to Pearl Harbor, Hinsdale was assigned to the USS Pensacola where he worked on Turret 4 for the duration of the war.

This two-part interview discusses Hinsdale’s experiences during various bombardments across the Pacific theater, daily life and chores aboard ship, weather conditions, information on various battles, a description of a burial at sea and information on various guns and ammunition used on the Pensacola.

• Robert Hinsdale Interview Part I

  
  

  This two-part interview discusses Hinsdale’s experiences during various bombardments across the Pacific theater, daily life and chores aboard ship, weather conditions, information on various battles, a description of a burial at sea and information on various guns and ammunition used on the Pensacola.

  Credit / Author:

  NPS/Joshua Bell

  Audio Transcript

  Interview with BM2 Robert Hinsdale

  Aleutian World War II National Historic Area Oral History Program

  June 14 & 19, 2016 Sand Creek, MI

  Interviewed by Joshua Bell, Park Ranger, Aleutian World War II National Historic Area

  This interview is part of the Aleutian World War II National Historic Area Oral History Project. This interview was recorded with the interviewee’s permission on a digital recorder. Copies of the audio file are preserved in wav format and are on file at the offices of the National Park Service in Anchorage, Alaska.

  The transcript has been edited by the interviewee.

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  June 14, 2016

  Joshua Bell: Today is June 14th, 2016. I’m Josh Bell, Park Ranger with the Aleutian World War II National Historic Area. How are you today, Sir?

  Robert Hinsdale: I’m just fine, sir, Josh.

  Joshua Bell: I just want to let you know that this conversation is being recorded. Is that ok?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes, that is ok.

  Joshua Bell: Could I have you say your name?

  Robert Hinsdale: My name is Robert E. Hinsdale

  Joshua Bell: And when and where were you born?

  Robert Hinsdale: I was born in Lenawee County, Adrian, Michigan in 1924, in August, the 16th.

  Joshua Bell: August the 16th. A birthday coming up here, not too far. Robert Hinsdale: That’s right! I’ll be 92!

  Joshua Bell: Excellent. What were your parent’s names?

  Robert Hinsdale: Ray and Naomi Hinsdale

  Joshua Bell: What did they do?

  Robert Hinsdale: They were farmers.

  Joshua Bell: Farmers. Did you have any siblings?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes, I do. I have an older brother, Allan, and Gordon was next, and then there was Ada, a girl, and then I was the fourth of the family, and then I had a younger brother, Howard.

  Joshua Bell: Excellent.

  Robert Hinsdale: And Mom had all five kids, 1920, 1921, 1922. She was sick with Typhoid Fever in 1923 and then she had me in 1924, and my brother Howard in 1925.

  Joshua Bell: That’s a lot of boys for one house.

  Robert Hinsdale: (laughing) That’s a busy home!

  Joshua Bell: What was it like growing up in the 20’s and the 30’s?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well that was a good question. I remember helping my dad in the 30’s. I was able to do chores. And I did some milking. My older brothers did the most of the milking and I did other chores. I remember going out in ’36 when I became 12 years of age and setting up grain shocks and helping the neighbors thrash. My dad had a team of horses, let’s see, I’d be 12 in 1936 and I’d be at 14 about 1938. About when I was 14 years of age I was able to take the team of horses and go to the thrashing ring and we would thrash grain.

  Joshua Bell: How did the Great Depression affect your family?

  Robert Hinsdale: We had a garden, and we had meat, milk, eggs, chickens and we had hogs. We were blessed with food. But I remember mom washed on Mondays, setting up the washing machines, Maytag washing machine engine. I’d get that started, my grandpa helped me. And all the kids helped of course. And then I was a sixth grader in 1936. See, and I graduated in 1942, so I started high school in 1938.

  Joshua Bell: Where did you graduate from? Robert Hinsdale: Sand Creek High School. It’s a small community, rural, agricultural school, and I had an unbelievable career at that high school.

  Joshua Bell: Academics or extracurricular?

  Robert Hinsdale: We won the league championship and Class D Districts in Basketball. I was involved with FFA. That’s Future Farmers of America, and was in the FFA State Band, and we got to practice all summer at various places, like the National Forest Festival, at Manistee, Michigan. And then we went to the National Cherry Festival at Traverse City, and then in the Fall we went to Kansas City to the FFA National Convention. So that was a great event in my junior year in high school.

  Joshua Bell: That’s a bit of trip from the hometown, isn’t it?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yep, yep!

  Joshua Bell: Was that the first time you’d left home to go on a big trip?

  Robert Hinsdale: That’s the first time I ever got that far away from home… Kansas City.

  Joshua Bell: What did you think?

  Robert Hinsdale: I remember the southern accent of the nurses at the hospital! I had a bone felon in my finger and I had to go to the hospital and get it lanced. That was the same as a boil. I’ve never heard of one since. But, I got a scar on the end of my finger where they lanced that boil, bone felon. But I was back on the street playing my trombone the next day.

  Joshua Bell: Good, good! Now what year did you graduate from high school?

  Robert Hinsdale: ’42.

  Joshua Bell: 1942. So, you would have heard about Hitler and what was going on in Europe?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes. The history teacher was telling about Germany taking over Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia and countries and later he was invading Poland. So, we knew that something was going wrong through the history studies at school. But, you know as a young student, you know you don’t get concerned about war like an older person would. After I got out of high school I worked in the factory for six months. Then I was drafted and we went to Detroit.

  Joshua Bell: What factory was it? Robert Hinsdale: It was a magnesium factory and we made bomber parts for the bombers that were being built at Willow Run, Ypsilanti, Michigan.

  Joshua Bell: Oh, at Willow Run. Absolutely.

  Robert Hinsdale: B-17s and B-24s. We made bomber parts at the magnesium factory in Adrian, Michigan.

  Joshua Bell: What was your job there?

  Robert Hinsdale: I was a tester on the bomber castings to see if there were any leaks. A water tester. I put pressure on the jig and then I clamp it down and put water pressure on it, and if there were not leaks, I’d do another one. It was kind of like piece rig.

  Joshua Bell: How was the mood at work? What were people thinking…

  Robert Hinsdale: Oh, dad worked there, and all my neighbors, everybody it seemed. IT’s like this famous man from NBC wrote a story about World War II, the Greatest Generation…well that was what it was like. Everybody went to work. There was gas rationing going on and later sugar was hard to get. But somehow, everybody was able to put up with it and went on with their busy life. And they didn’t talk too much about the war. But, things were terrible going on over in Africa in 1942. And then, down in the Philippines, things were terrible in Guadalcanal. Terrible battles.

  Joshua Bell: Where were you, what were you doing when you heard about Pearl Harbor being attacked?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, I was at home, and I was still a senior in high school, and it was on Sunday afternoon. I don’t know if I was listening to the radio or what I was doing… the folks probably were concerned about it. But as a youth, I don’t think I really can remember anything, and different than normal.

  Joshua Bell: Did you ever think about joining the service before getting drafted?

  Robert Hinsdale: No, I just waited until somebody told me what to do. And when I got drafted and went over to Detroit, they wanted to know if I wanted to be the Army, Navy or Marines. And I said I’d like to go in the Navy. My brother, Gordon, was in the Navy, and later he joined the Marines and he flew corsairs, a squadron of corsairs.

  Joshua Bell: Oh Wow!

  Robert Hinsdale: And he was in Okinawa.

  Joshua Bell: Were any of your other brothers in the service? Robert Hinsdale: Yeah, my next brother, Howard, the youngest, graduated in ’44 and so he was drafted and went in the Navy. He was aboard a mini flat top, CVE Carrier, USS Sitkoh Bay.

  Joshua Bell: Sitkoh Bay, oh wow!

  Robert Hinsdale: Yep, and he was a bugler. That was his duty. And then my sister, she was a registered nurse during the war. She worked at Harper Hospital in Detroit.

  Joshua Bell: She was!

  Robert Hinsdale: And my oldest brother had a heart problem, a real severe heart problem when he was a freshman in high school. It’s just a shame they didn’t have the technology they have today because they could have saved his life. He never stopped from working hard. He would milk the neighbor’s cows in the morning and then go to Adrian College. He got a degree and ended up as principal at Utica High School, that’s 25-mile road, North of Detroit. And he passed away at the age of 40.

  Joshua Bell: Aw, jeez, modern medicine’s quite something, isn’t it?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes, it is.

  Joshua Bell: You mentioned you went to Detroit when you were enlisted…

  Robert Hinsdale: We were inducted in Detroit. And then we had to go to Boot Camp of course!

  Joshua Bell: What was that like?

  Robert Hinsdale: Mrs. Roosevelt decided there should be a new naval training station up in Farragut, Idaho. We were the first group of kids from our county to go there. They took a whole trainload of us to Farragut, Idaho. We went right by Great Lakes in Chicago. That was quite an experience to go clear up there.

  Joshua Bell: What was daily life like?

  Robert Hinsdale: If one guy messed up, we’d all suffered. We marched and marched, had KP duty, ran obstacle courses. It was eight weeks, or nine weeks of training. After Boot Camp, we had furlough to come home a few days and then, we went back. We went down to Pleasanton, California to an Assignment Distribution Center. We were put on a cargo ship and headed for Pearl Harbor. And when we got to Pearl Harbor, that’s where we were assigned to the Pensacola. The USS Pensacola is a heavy cruiser and she was in dock there because she was torpedoed in Guadalcanal. They put a hole right in the middle of her and it took nine months to heal her up so she could be ready to go in October 1st of 1943. They kept us busy scrubbing decks, chipping paint and wire brushing the cargo ship. This was my first trip across the Ocean. We ate like hogs and I was hungry and never got seasick.

  Joshua Bell: Were any of your friends with you?

  Robert Hinsdale: We had one Adrian boy on my ship, from our county, that’s all.

  Joshua Bell: That’s it?

  Robert Hinsdale: And most of all my friends that went with me to Boot Camp just went different directions. The Pensacola was torpedoed in Guadalcanal when the Japanese come down the “throat” to help save the Japanese army in Guadalcanal. So the Navy set up five cruisers one night up there to interfere with them coming down. Well, the Japanese had some very intelligent destroyers, torpedo boats and ships. And they sank the North Hampton heavy cruiser that night at midnight. They took the bow off the New Orleans heavy cruiser; they took the bow off the Minnesota on a torpedo hit. And they hit the Pensacola where 120-something men were killed and 70-something injured. But she was able to survive and get back to Pearl Harbor. The only ship that survived that battle was the USS Honolulu, but they did hit four of us. The North Hampton was sunk, the Minneapolis and the New Orleans bows were gone, and the Pensacola got torpedoed.

  While the ship was being repaired in July of 1943, we stayed in the barracks surrounded by pineapple fields. My rank at this time was Seaman First Class. (In Boot Camp you are a Seaman III Class, then a Seaman II class.) Some of my duties as Seaman First Class were to get a driver’s license and drive the Captain around in a jeep to his meetings. I was also on deck duty for 3 months. I had to stand watch, 4 hours on, 4 hours off, if we were in battle, otherwise 4 on and 8 hours off.

  In October 1943, the ship was ready to go out to sea after a shake down (practice) cruise. We had practice drills for raids, false alarms and “man your guns”. We could travel at 32 knots.

  Joshua Bell: How did you feel about getting assigned to that ship?

  Robert Hinsdale: I didn’t know much about Navy ships. I’d never seen one before that. I’d never seen one before that. We got to Pearl Harbor and we were assigned. The Boatswain Mate told us, “You two Guys come with me.” And so we became deckhands, meaning I mopped floors on Division 4, on the fantail. And our duties were to take care of Turret 4. That’s a 2-gun, eight-inch gun, on Turret 4. The ship had a total of 10, eight-inch guns. And we had eight five-inch guns. We had numerous 40mm and 20mm guns. And we had two Kingfisher airplanes, pontoon plains on our ship.

  There was a laundry on the ship. All ships made their own drinking water. Sewage was ground and disposed over the side. We’d get ammunition, food and other supplies when we went into the lagoon. Goods were stored in the bottom of the ship. There was a large shower room and the toilets were called “the Head”.

  There were bunks below deck, 4 high, that would pull down to the sleeping position. They had an iron frame about 30 inches wide that held a 2-inch mattress. There was about 12 inches between a man and the bunk above him, just room enough to torn over. I slept well.

  Joshua Bell: When you say “take care of the turret” what does that entail?

  Robert Hinsdale: A turret consists of about 25 to 30 sailors to man the guns. My first battle station was down in the powder room and as the years went by, I worked my way up to where the officer was inside the turret, with the earphones on. Then we had directions from the Bridge. At our first battle, we were ready to go in October of ’43, and the first invasion was the Gilbert Islands in the Pacific, south west of Pearl Harbor. If you look at ta Pacific map, you’ll find the Gilbert Islands, and the Battle of Tarawa is history of a terrible battle. We bombarded the island a month or two. Several ships did, before the Marines landed. I worked on the 2-gun turret, which was 20 feet long and swiveled.

  But the Japanese buried themselves in the sand all the way across the Pacific and then they waited and waited until the Marines came, and when they did come, they slaughtered them all, thousands of them.

  Joshua Bell: What do you remember about participating in the bombardment? That’s a long time to wait on a small island.

  Robert Hinsdale: I was in a turret and we were out four or five mile from the island, so you see, I never saw any Japanese at all. But one night, after bombarding, about sunset at Tarawa, my duties were up in the Sky watch. That’s 120 feet foremast. A foremast, (the mast nearest the bow of the ship), is the tripods that you have to climb a ladder to get up in there, and you use spyglasses. There’s about five of us sailors setting up there and we’d each have ninety degrees to watch. Like, from zero to what? Divide them off in quarters, the degrees of a circle, and you’d have that area to watch.

  So, one night at sunset, 15 Japanese torpedo bombers, “Betty’s” were skimming over the top of the water, wanting to get in the sunrays of the ships. We had a carrier, about three heavy cruisers, and six or eight destroyers, cruising around out in the Pacific at night. And the sunset was just beautiful and then “Battle”, “General Quarters”, sounded. Instantly we saw the bombers coming, skimming over the top of the water, going around us, to try to get in and come in at us in the sunrays, so we couldn’t see them. By the time I got down to my Turret 4, of course it’s way aft, (fantail), the back end of the ship, the hatches were all dogged down and when the hatches are all dogged down you are not allowed to open them up. So, we crawled under turret 4 and laid on our bellies land watched the plane fly over with all 40mm and 20mm shooting. And this is the action that I got to see. I’ve never seen anything like it all through my Navy career. The 40mm were firing at the planes as they were flying over the bow. 20mm were firing as fast as they could, and I saw one plane go down ‘til there was nothing left of him. They did hit the Independence carrier with a torpedo, but there was very minimum loss. So we survived that attack pretty comfortably without any loss or any loss of ships. But I did see some action.

  Joshua Bell: What do you remember thinking when that was going on?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, that really got to me when I saw that. That was about… I’ve never seen anything like it all through my career of the Navy, bombarding because I was in Turret 4, and you don’t see any of the action. It isn’t like mounting a gun mount on the outside of the ship. It’s inside, that turret is pretty solid. The only thing you can do is hear somebody report.

  Joshua Bell: So when those guys came in and you saw that happening, what went through your mind?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, they didn’t have any pity on those Japanese people, they just kept firing until there was nobody left. You could see them swimming around the airplane tire that was floating, but they keep firing right at him until he was gone. Yep, we the, I just don’t know what to think about that.

  Joshua Bell: It’s tough stuff.

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, anyway, that was quite an experience, and then you heard stories about Tarawa Islands later. And there’s a book out on Tarawa, you can read up on that. It’s terrible, we lost 2500 Marines and the Japanese lost 25,000 because of that battle. We went south to the Funi Funi, across the equator for Christmas of ’43, came back to Pearl and got more ammunition and supplies, fuel. And the next invasion was the Marshall Islands. And those Islands are the next step towards Tokyo.

  Joshua Bell: Before we go down to the Marshalls, I want to ask you, what was it like to go to Pearl Harbor the first time and then come back? I mean that’s a pretty exotic place.

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes it was. That would have been about ’41, December ’41 when they bombed Pearl, and I arrived there in ‘43, about a year and a half later.

  Joshua Bell: What do you remember thinking when you got to the island?

  Robert Hinsdale: When we got down to the ship, we had ship duties down there, before the Tarawa Battle. I could see where the old battleships had sunk and they had cleaned up enormous amounts of the Battle of Pearl Harbor. Yep.

  Joshua Bell: Did you get any shore leave while you were there?

  Robert Hinsdale: Sure, oh yeah, we got duties. I had two weeks of 20mm school, way up around the coast of Pearl Harbor, near Honolulu. I guess I can’t even think of the name of the island that Pearl Harbor is on.

  Joshua Bell: Oahu?

  Robert Hinsdale: I went for 3 weeks to the shores of Oahu and attended a 20mm gunner school. A 20mm target was a sleeve pulled by an airplane by a long rope. That was used to shoot at. I learned to maneuver the gun, tear it down and put it back together. A 20mm magazine is round and holds 60 rounds of ammunition, 1X 6 inches long. It fires fast. The 4th shell leaves a mark on the target, the sleeve.

  Joshua Bell: So how did you spend your time down time?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well I had a pretty good shipmate and he kept me from getting in trouble. He went on liberty with me and that’s been a blessing to me to have a shore buddy that didn’t drink and didn’t smoke. Most of the sailors though, they went out and they boozed it up and they smoked heavy.

  Joshua Bell: And caroused….

  Robert Hinsdale: …but I was fortunate to be, get out of that service without those bad habits.

  Joshua Bell: Very good, I’m sorry, I interrupted. It was Christmas 1943. What was it like to spend Christmas away from home?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well at Funafuti, if you look at the Pacific map, you can find Funafuti near the equator. The natives entertained us at Christmas of 1943. Ezra Peabody, an American entertainer come out there and sat on this high stool. He’s a little bit of a short guy, and he played the banjo like you never heard before in your life. He entertained us, and the fat native ladies in their grass skirts came with sea shells that were sewn together and they traded with the sailors for cigarettes or candy or anything they could do, to kind of put on a show for us. That’s what they did. That was Christmas of ’43.

  Joshua Bell: Did you write home during our stay in the service?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes, I wrote home a lot. Joshua Bell: Did you feel connected to home when you were in the service?

  Robert Hinsdale: Sure, yeah. Whenever we had mail call I would get a letter from my folks and my Grandpa. And my sister and brothers. Yep.

  Joshua Bell: Was it hard to be away from home?

  Robert Hinsdale: Never gave it much of a thought. I just felt as though I was a young 18-year-old sailor and they made good soldiers, that age group does. They don’t have any fear and don’t worry about anything. They kept us busy.

  Joshua Bell: That’s true.

  Robert Hinsdale: That’s right and then we went back to Pearl land got fueled up and prepared for the Marshall Islands. And I remember some bombarding of Marshall Islands, like Wotje. And we hit some ammunition dumps with our 10-inch shells, about 10 miles out. We would bombard. So you see I was a long ways from the enemy, when you’re out for, five mile from the enemy and you’re shooting eight-inch guns bombarding. That was our main objective. They called us Division Five. There was three heavy cruisers involved in that, plus about six or eight destroyers and that’s all we did all through the war was bombard islands before marines landed. We’d listen to Tokyo Rose, a radio announcer from Japan, at night.

  Joshua Bell: What was it like to be on one of those ships when all the guns were going off?

  Robert Hinsdale: When you’re in Turret 4 and down two decks below, you don’t feel any concu…any vibrations or anything. It’s pretty quiet.

  Joshua Bell: What was it like when you were in the turret?

  Robert Hinsdale: Ah, you got up in the turret in the last six months of the war… then I could hear them!

  Joshua Bell: All the video that I’ve seen of a ship firing, sending rounds down, is…

  Robert Hinsdale: I can’t imagine what it was like on a battle ship where they shoot a 16-inch gun instead of an eight-inch gun. Now that shell weights over 500 pounds, that 16-inch shell does. Our shells weighed 280 to 320 pounds. So it’s quite a difference.

  They roll them around like milk cans, and they’re all mechanically handled, right. They come up into the chamber on a lift, right up into the chamber. The barrels are 20 feet long and they’re huge and, so it’s quite a gun.

  Joshua Bell: You would have to steam, you would have to back and for between all these different places. What was it like? How did you pass the time on the ship when you weren’t engaged?

  Robert Hinsdale: Oh, our duties would be morning, sunrise, and we would scrub the floors, and mop them. We’d shine the brass, we’d have a, hang out laundry out a little bit. We would chip paint and wire brush and keep things up, tuck in the odds and ends, like a navy boy should do!

  Joshua Bell: What was living on the ship like?

  Robert Hinsdale: We would occasionally see whales in the water, spouting their water from their blowhole as they came to surface. We would see proposes and barracudas and some sort of flying fish. They’d fly 40-50 feet and then dive down. In one harbor, we dove in and swam. Jellyfish would sting you if you weren’t careful.

  We had wonderful food. I never complained about the food. We had a barber shop, we made our own water. We had all the conveniences of a city, that’s what all the ships in the navy had. They make their own water, they do all their own laundry, and barber shop, and they have a hospital, medical care is the best. We had two airplanes on our ship. And we had carpenters and mechanics and signalmen and gunners.

  There’s probably a dozen, 15, 20 ranks you could advance in. Mine was being a Boatswain and then I become a Boatswain’s Mate Second Class.

  Joshua Bell: And what did those specialties do?

  Robert Hinsdale: They’re sort of an overseer of a division. Like 4th Division, 3rd Division, 2nd Division, with about 30-40 men in each division. And there would be a Boatswain’s Mate in charge of each division. The Boatswain’s Mate would delegate Seamen 1st Class and to do duties on the ship like cleaning, wire-brushing, painting, getting supplies to them, and stuff like that.

  Joshua Bell: What were your officers like? What were the guys who were about you like?

  Robert Hinsdale: Oh, I had the best officer you could ever imagine. He became a minister for a Methodist church in Texas after he got out of the service. And he mentored me, like a dad. He was just a wonderful man.

  Joshua Bell: What was his name?

  Robert Hinsdale: Lieutenant David Kitral.

  Joshua Bell: Kitral?

  Robert Hinsdale: Kitral, yes.

  Joshua Bell: And he was from Texas?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes he was. And he went to Duke University for his degree as a minister. But I never had contact with him after I got out of the service, which really has always bugged me. But I did have a shipmate, Hillary Richard, I buddied with, like I told you about, that mentored me. He lived 100 miles southwest of Houston, along the Gulf, the Gulf down there. He’s from Wadsworth, Texas. And Ardyth, my wife and I were able to get down there twice and visit him. And his occupation was shrimp fishing and he took us out shrimp fishing. That was fun! Yep!

  Joshua Bell: You must have eaten well that night!

  Robert Hinsdale: Hmmmm, you what?

  Joshua Bell: I said you must have eaten well that night.

  Robert Hinsdale: Yup, and he could also go out and pick up pecans. And his hobby was to package this fish, shrimp and pecans and give them away at Christmas time to his family.

  Joshua Bell: Oh, that’s nice!

  Robert Hinsdale: Yup!

  Joshua Bell: That’s good, that’s good. Let’s see. Let’s go back to the Marshall Islands there, ‘cause you were going to talk about that.

  Robert Hinsdale: OK. The next group of islands after the Marshall Islands… I think we made a trip up to the Carolina Islands, next west of the Marshalls. We were in that battle too, at the Carolinas.

  And then, the next battle after that was the Marianas, Guam, Tinian, and Saipan. And while that was going on we were up in the Aleutians.

  We made a raid on Paramushiro to help draw off some of the enemy, thinking that there was going to be an invasion up there in Paramushiro, north of Hokkaido. They needed some help down at the Marianas to conquer Guam, Tinian, and Saipan. And they thought maybe if they made the Japanese believe that there was a great invasion going on up there in the Aleutians, that would draw some of their military from Guam, Saipan and Tinian and Mariana Islands. Joshua Bell: What were your impressions of the Aleutian Islands?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well they are barren. There’s not any… I didn’t see any trees. It just seemed like bare rocks. It’s just no vegetation; it didn’t seem like to me. I didn’t see any. I don’t remember going on land, I just sat out there in the harbor, anchored, and I didn’t have the chance to go on tour.

  Joshua Bell: Which harbor were you in?

  Robert Hinsdale: I can’t remember… both Adak and Attu...

  Joshua Bell: Both Adak and Attu?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes.

  Joshua Bell: OK.

  Robert Hinsdale: And then when we were up there, I told you, we went to bombard a couple of times, and the fog was interfering with our bombarding.

  Joshua Bell: I was just about to say, ask about the weather.

  Robert Hinsdale: (laughing) It’s a lot of moisture up there… It’s damp and wet and… but the bombarding was quite the experience. They said our performance was so high, at 150 feet, they said the peak of the performance was at the top of the fog. That was a… can you see an enemy bomber trying to bomb us? And you could see a foremast going through the fog, but we didn’t get hit. I don’t know whether we destroyed any of their property or not. But we did unload all the ammunition we had over there anyway.

  Joshua Bell: How much ammunition did you carry with you?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, I can’t tell you the exact tonnage, gut it’s an enormous amount of shells. I know that, on each invasion, like Gilbert’s and Marshall’s, and Carolina’s, we would load up each time afterward the bombardments and then we’d load up again after we got to the Attu and Adak over at Paramushiro. We’d load up again and fuel, we’d have fuel and food and all our supplies.

  One time, when returning to Pearl Harbor for supplies, I noticed my brother Howard’s ship was tied up in the harbor. I found him and went on liberty with him. I hadn’t seen him in 2 years and he’d gotten 5 inches taller since I last saw him!

  Joshua Bell: Well lets’ see, did you ever….

  Robert Hinsdale: Then the next battle… after that, Marianas were conquered. I’ve got it written down someplace how many lives were lost at Mariana… One night we were headed for Marcus Island, (I don’t know whether you can find out where Marcus Islands is or not on the map. It’s a little bit north of Marianas), and the sea was just flatter than a pancake. The sunset was beautiful and all the sailors were on topside, enjoying the sunset, and the ship was… I’ll read a paragraph here: “the sea was slick like glass, the men on the topside were enjoying the sunset as we traveled at 25 knots. While on route, an unbelievable wave rose higher and higher over the ocean, over Turret 1, taking the lives of two Warrant officers over the side of the ship. They were men that had 30 years of service. We went back to search but could not find them, at the closing of darkness.” We bombarded Marcus Island.

  Joshua Bell: Just a rogue wave?

  Robert Hinsdale: The ship timed these enormous waves out, and the bow would go up in the air, and it would come down, and it would go up in the air higher, and higher and then finally when the bow went down again, water went over the top of the bow, and that’s what washed these two warrant officers over the side.

  Joshua Bell: What was it like to ride on the ship, to be on the ship when that was happening?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, this is only happening once in our lifetime, anything like that. It was just an unbelievable event that happened. It’s something you couldn’t even see on the topside. You couldn’t, you wouldn’t believe there was waves out there like that. But that ship timed those waves out and started to go up and down and the timing was so accurate that when the last time it went down, the water went over the top of the ship and washed those two warrant officers over the side. But it never happened like that again, ever. But one time, I’m getting ahead of my story if I tell this one. I’ll wait ‘til later. The dangerous waves must have been on the ocean floor, like a tsunami.

  Joshua Bell: OK.

  Robert Hinsdale: We were in a typhoon, the after effects of a typhoon, after the war was over. But I’ll tell you that story later.

  Joshua Bell: Was that after…when was that?

  Robert Hinsdale: That was after the war.

  Joshua Bell: That was after the war…ok.

  Robert Hinsdale: And we headed for Iwo Jima. We were going to have a memorial service down there after the war, for the men that got hit at Iwo Jima. My next story is coming up, at Iwo Jima, after the Marianas.

  Joshua Bell: OK, well, let’s do it the way you have it planned out…

  Robert Hinsdale: Our next objective, after the Marianas…We got back and we got fueled up. We started bombarding Iwo Jima, Chichi Jima, and Iwo Jima, in the Bonin Islands. We were bombing Tokyo then, from Guam. The B-29’s needed a halfway point, Iwo Jima is halfway between Tokyo and Guam. They needed a place for the bombers that were disabled to land so they had to have Iwo Jima. So, we went up there a month to two, maybe two months before the Marines landed, and bombarded maybe three times. We just tried to destroy the place. And then the Marines landed in. I think it was February and then there was a terrible loss at Iwo Jima. The books that you read will tell you about that.

  One time, we were bombarding and we thought… (there’s a paperback Iwo Jima book that tells this, I didn’t know this story ‘til after I’d gotten home several years later and I read this story about the Pensacola), She (the Pensacola) was bombarding and we thought, well, let’s get in a little bit closer and closer. The book tells about the Japs having a four, five-inch gun in a cave on a train track. And they were arguing about “Let’s get ahead and shoot them now.” And they finally decided to shoot, they shot five salvos at the Pensacola, and they hit 20 feet from the ship. The next five salvos they shot at us were all direct hits. The shells, when they come in contact with metal, like the metal of a ship, they automatically explode. And when they explode, that’s what kills people. Shrapnel. And they had one hit the airplane on the catapult, another one hit sky aft, and killed Lt. Commander Behan and they killed about 13 other sailors and wounded over a hundred.

  But we weren’t, we just… What happened in the story in the Iwo Jima book, the Japanese gun mount cracked on the train track and they couldn’t fire anymore, so the sailors, the Japanese sailors were saying, “We could have just sunk them if we kept firing.” That was something I didn’t know until after the war.

  Joshua Bell: Where on the ship were you when this happened?

  Robert Hinsdale: I was in my turret with Lt. Kitral and I had my earphones on so we had communication with the bridge. That’s how we found out that the ship had been hit. The officer’s mess hall was a big room, used as a hospital for the wounded. I was sent to the well deck for something. I saw a doctor sawing a man’s leg off as the man laid on a table. The man was blue. 120 men on the ship were wounded. Seventeen killed. The Pensacola was not disabled. Repair was made and in the afternoon, we resumed bombarding.

  We had a funeral the next day, a burial at sea, and that’s quite an experience that I’d never seen before in my life.

  Joshua Bell: What was it like?

  Robert Hinsdale: They do it up on the well deck near the airplane carriers. That evening, we had the burial. Seventeen men were put in canvas bags with a 5-inch shell for a burial at sea. I knew one kid, Tom Harman, who worked below ship in the boilers. He happened to be out sightseeing during that attack and was killed. The men were slid over the side of the ship and buried in the ocean. The 120 wounded men were placed on another ship.

  Joshua Bell: What was that like, experiencing that? What do you remember thinking or feeling?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, that would really shake you up. To think, why them? Why not…Why not me? … and Why? You just don’t understand. I know one of the boys. I went to Bootcamp with him. He was one of them. He had a... he shouldn’t have been out where he was. He was up topside, just observing. Bombarding and shrapnel got him.

  Joshua Bell: What was his name?

  Robert Hinsdale: Tom Harman

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes, not the one you know, Tom Harman, the football player, but this is another Harman.

  Joshua Bell: So that must have changed the mood on the ship?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yeah, that was on of our close battles, at Iwo Jima. That we really got in contact with those guys, the Japanese. We could see Mount Suribachi, it’s a desolate Island, you never saw anything. The battles were just terrible. I have a graduate from my high school that was on a landing craft, he brought in sailors, and tanks and light trucks into the shores of Iwo Jima. He had some very close calls, but he survived.

  Joshua Bell: When you were on the ship did you follow what was going on in Europe?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes, they had newspapers, newsletters out every day on board ship. I knew about things; that troops were going up through Italy about that time from Africa.

  Joshua Bell: What do you remember about the day everybody found out that Germany had surrendered?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, let’s see. I don’t know as I gave it much thought. And I never even gave it a thought that the Japanese were going to give up either….

  Joshua Bell: Understandably!

  Robert Hinsdale: But until it actually happens…’til the atomic bomb… I’ve got a big story to tell you about the atomic bomb, too, later on.

  Joshua Bell: Sure, go right ahead.

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, when we were, I’m getting ahead of the Okinawa story.

  Joshua Bell: Let’s have Okinawa

  Robert Hinsdale: Ok. At Okinawa, after Iwo Jima. And we were bombarding Okinawa, and I didn’t know my brother, Gordon, was on Okinawa with a squad of Marines, in corsairs. His job was to intercept the kamikaze as they were coming down by the thousands. Thousands and thousands of kamikaze planes were coming down for suicide missions and these corsairs’ marine squadron were to intercept them.

  Now what happened at Okinawa? The Kamikazes sank more ships, killed more sailors than any part of the whole war. It was that bad.

  Then my brother Howard was on a mini flat-top and he was coming into Okinawa bringing another bunch of airplanes for the military (kind of a carrier for some of the resupply). They needed more planes, supplies. They almost got hit by a kamikaze. Their ship. It was close.

  In later years, I heard that the USS Hinsdale Cargo ship was hit by a kamikaze plane. There were a lot of ships lost at Okinawa. And that’s why I tell you why we bombarded.

  One experience we had… We were bombarding and going along the island of Okinawa, and a battle ship was ahead of us and a couple of destroyers, and a couple heavy cruisers. We decided to make a 90-degree turn. (This is an act of God). As we were in a 90 degree turn a periscope appeared on our port side and he shot two torpedoes at us and we were in a 90-degree turn. As we were going the other way, one torpedo went up the left side on the port side, and another torpedo went up the right side. He straddled us. And of course, I didn’t know anything about this! But this is what happened. And they took a picture of the wakes of the torpedoes as they passed the bow. And they dissipated you know. You could see the wakes of the torpedoes going on past the ship! But that’s how close we came to getting hit by a torpedo.

  Joshua Bell: What was it like to learn all this stuff after the fact?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, I didn’t learn about that ‘til after we had gotten home. After they printed the book out, the Pensacola book. Yep. You can read about that story in the Pensacola book.

  Joshua Bell: All this stuff that happened around you that you didn’t know about.

  Robert Hinsdale: Yep, that’s true.

  Joshua Bell: That must be an odd feeling.

  Robert Hinsdale: I often thought I’d made the right decision when I decided to go in the Navy. I hated to think I’d be in the foxhole.

  Joshua Bell: Absolutely. So, what happened after Okinawa?

  Robert Hinsdale: OK. We, I think we had to come back to the United States and get set up for the invasion of Tokyo, of Japan. And we had a real renovation of our ship. They cut the foremast down while in Mare Island, in San Francisco, and they trimmed her up. I had a 20-day furlough in May of ’45.

  Joshua Bell: And what did you do with that furlough?

  Robert Hinsdale: I went home!

  Joshua Bell: You went home.

  Robert Hinsdale: Yep, yep! It was about time for the high school graduation. I dated my girlfriend; in the future, she was my wife. I didn’t know that at the time though. But, I’m so glad that that event, (our marriage) happened ‘cause she’s a wonderful woman.

  But, anyway, we went back to the Pensacola and we were ready to go. Well, they had the atomic bomb in crates in July of ‘45 and the Pensacola book tells us that the Pensacola was designated to take them to Tinian. But, they changed their mind and said; we’re going to put them on the USS Indianapolis.

  The Indianapolis was a newer ship and they wanted those bombs to be delivered. We didn’t know they were bombs and what was in the crates. We didn’t have any clue of what was in them. But that’s what was in them. So the Indianapolis was directed to go as fast as she could to Tinian to have them assembled so they could drop the bomb on Hiroshima, Nagasaki. And that’s how long it took, from July, ‘til about the 9th of August ‘til they dropped the bombs. And you know the story about the Indianapolis. Do you?

  Joshua Bell: Yes.

  Robert Hinsdale: It was just devastating what happened to that crew. We had gone on liberty with them in Sacramento, all those Navy sailors. To think that they were in the water between Tinian and the Philippines for 4 and a half days, with nobody knowing anything about where the Indianapolis was.

  Joshua Bell: Right.

  Robert Hinsdale: For 30 years the Navy administration blamed Captain McVay and stripped him of his medals. When President Reagan got to be president, they then put the blame on the Navy instead of Captain McVay. So, Captain McVay’s relatives got all his medals back that they had taken away from him. They said the Navy was to blame for what happened to the Indianapolis. About two weeks before the war ended, the Japanese sub, (My Pensacola book tells) he says: this ship is coming right at us, she’s not zigzagging and we can sink her in 30 minutes. And to this sailor, a Japanese sailor; you won’t have to ride the suicide Kaiten torpedo.

  They were literally going to put this Japanese sailor on the torpedo and he was to steer this torpedo into this ship. And the Japanese captain said; you won’t have to ride this. So they did. They sank the Indianapolis in 30 minutes and 900 of the 1200 got off the ship, and they were in the ocean water for 4 and a half days before they were found. The only survivors were about 375 men. And they were… it’s just devastating.

  Joshua Bell: That must have been quite something, hearing that story and being out on a ship yourself.

  Robert Hinsdale: Yep. Well, we didn’t know anything about it. We just heard that there was a ship sunk, and I don’t know what we thought. Well, anyway, after the Indianapolis left Mare Island, we headed for the Aleutians again. We were going to go to Japan. But, that was our duty assignment to go up there again and make an invasion. But we sat up there in the harbor, and all of a sudden, we heard that the Atomic Bomb had been dripped and the Japs were gonna give up.

  Joshua Bell: How did you feel about what happened?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well it was a big celebration for everybody in the whole world, Yup. That’s for sure.

  June 19, 2016

  Joshua Bell: Today is June 19, 2016. I’m Josh Bell, park ranger with the Aleutian World War II National Historic Area and we’re happy to have back with us Robert Hinsdale who’s going to continue his story about his service on the USS….

  Robert Hinsdale: USS Pensacola!

  Joshua Bell: The USS Pensacola, exactly right. The last time we talked you mentioned about the United States dropping the bombs on Japan, and I was wondering if you’d like to pick up from there?

  Robert Hinsdale: OK Alright. Ready? Should I start now?

  Joshua Bell: Oh, absolutely.

  Robert Hinsdale: OK, that was August 3rd, of ’45. We left for Adak, Aleutians on the 9th of August. At Adak we heard the news that the war was over. They had dropped the bombs on Japan and the celebration of the ear ending started. And on august 20th, we headed for Attu. On August 31 of ’45 we left for Japan to go to the Straits of Hokkaido. It’s on the North tip of Honshu, the entrance of Hokkaido Straits, over in the Sea of Japan. To a naval base called Ominato and we anchored there. On the 9th of September, Admiral Fletcher accepted the surrender of the Japanese forces in the northern Japan Empire and the U.S. flag was raised over the Naval Station at Ominato. On August, no November 7th, well, I should tell a little bit about the occupation forces. I remember going on a shore patrol and we had to guard a barn, just like a barn out here on the farm. The Army had already picked up all the guns, of the Japanese and put them in the barn. And they were piled as high as the track in the barn and we just guarded that barn. Eventually they divided those arms up amongst the Navy personnel, of the fleet that went in there during the occupation and I brought home two Japanese guns, rifles. So that was something that I’ll remember. I never have shot them. They are too dangerous to shoot and you couldn’t get the ammunition to shoot anyway. They’re just souvenirs.

  Joshua Bell: How did it feel…

  Robert Hinsdale: I do remember taking some liberties, and the people were very humble, very polite Japanese. They are very poor. Unbelievable transportation. The streetcars were mini-type street cars and they just over leaded the street cars because there wasn’t enough transportation available to go to work. They had work to do. And the women were out on the sidewalk with scrub boards, scrubbing their clothes, laundry, too. But then on trading with them, we were looking for souvenirs, and they were looing for cigarettes, candy, or anything that sailors had. Most of the Japanese native dress the kimonos, were pretty much gone. But we did get some Japanese flags and some other souvenirs. They were really humble people, that’s all you can say. I just feel like whoever was in charge of the occupation did a wonderful job.

  Joshua Bell: How did it feel to go from being on a ship to having to do shore patrol? Being in the army of occupation?

  Robert Hinsdale: And then go ashore and do shore patrol?

  Joshua Bell: How did that feel?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, that was a new experience for me, I remember that. We didn’t have to carry any guns that I remember. We just didn’t need any guns anymore!

  Joshua Bell: Were you nervous at all?

  Robert Hinsdale: I think I was nervous when we entered the straits of Hokkaido. We got in beach boats, climbed down, and that’s when I first saw Japanese personnel up close. Of all the war, that’s when I really saw contact with the Japanese. They were pretty poor I’ll tell ya. I do remember seeing them and staring at them, and they picked up some garbage our ship had.

  Joshua Bell: Do you feel like they were as depicted by the videos, all of the filmstrips, and all the articles in the newspapers?

  Robert Hinsdale: I really don’t remember seeing any newspapers. But I did remember seeing a lot of ships along the shore that our planes had destroyed. A lot of stuff that had just been carted off to the side where they’d been bombed and wrecked and weren’t usable anymore. Like in war we saw some damage to the buildings where they bombed too. But up in that upper part of Japan, I don’t think that there was any concern to Navy or the Army about danger. I think they did most of the damage further down south in Japan.

  Joshua Bell: So, you would, would you say that the Japanese didn’t fit the stereotype?

  Robert Hinsdale: They were what?

  Joshua Bell: Would you say the Japanese didn’t fit the stereotype that most people had in their minds?

  Robert Hinsdale: Oh, yeah, well, I guess I can only explain it this way. They were so humble and so polite. They were easy to get along with and they wanted to visit with us and they wanted to show us some things they had to trade for things that we had. I saw one guy to across the road with an old car with black smoke coming out of it. He said that he was burning coal to operate it! And how he got that thing running on coal is more than I know.

  Joshua Bell: So, what else happened during your time with the occupation?

  Robert Hinsdale: I don’t remember too much more than what I’ve already told you, Josh.

  Joshua Bell: OK.

  Robert Hinsdale: We headed for Iwo Jima. Yeah, November 9th, we headed for Iwo Jima. That’s when we left, November 9th and we were there two months. That was just about all I can tell you about the occupation.

  Joshua Bell: I was going to ask, how did being underway change from being at war to peace. This peacetime. How did it change from when you went from, you know, being at war to having peace?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, yeah, the book my Pensacola book, tells just a few months before we had entered, they could have probably shot us, but after we pulled in there, they were just humble and they’d taken all their guns away from them and they were very polite and you just couldn’t ask a bunch of people to behave any better than they did.

  Joshua Bell: Absolutely. When you were on the ship, leaving Japan, was there a different mood on the ship? How were the people?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, we didn’t have to have any watch anymore. They could smoke cigarettes, and that was allowable. We were just in great relief to know that the war was over and we were going to go home.

  Joshua Bell: You’d been quite a few thousand miles, it would seem.

  Robert Hinsdale: Yep. We headed to Iwo Jima and had a tough time getting there because we went through the aftermath of a wake…typhoon. A typhoon is the after effects of the ocean just, it takes in a huge area, and we were on the outside of the typhoon and it was still rough. We stayed in our bunks and our sacks for almost two days without going topside because the ship was rolling and pitching and heaving. I’d heard stories where ships were destroyed in a typhoon. Just totally lost. While there we had a memorial service for our shipmates who were killed the year before at Iwo Jima.

  Joshua Bell: What was it like to get home after all that time away from home?

  Robert Hinsdale: OK, I’ll wind it up and hurry here. We left the memorial and we picked up some military personnel at Iwo and headed to San Francisco. We stayed about five days and went back to Guam and picked up another bunch of military. They called us the “Magic Carpet” and we took the men back to San Francisco. And then, I was discharged in February of ’45. So that’s just about that. I was so glad to get home. I remember those days. Now I want to tell you, if you have an extra minute, about my parents.

  Joshua Bell: Sure, sure. Go ahead.

  Robert Hinsdale: OK. I want to honor my parents, for my life, for raising me and in effect my family, their family. So many memories of all they did for their kids. And their grandkids. My wife and I had 3 girls and a boy. The three girls and their families live within ½ mile of my home. The three girls are on each corner of my farm. And my son, Grover, is in Atlanta, a head coach at Georgia Tech. He’s been coaching down there for 37 years. He’s a special kid. And I, if I earned anything in my life, I would have to give Ardyth, my wife, all the credit. She raised the kids and I milked the cows! My folks took us to church and I have been going to the same church for 91 years, he Sand Creek Community Church. There’s a little town there, about 100 people live in the town, but, we have a wonderful church. We, Ardyth and I, we made several ship reunions and it was a joy to see some of the shipmates. We rent my farm out now, and I do bale the hay now as a hobby. I’m just about done too, with the hay business!

  Joshua Bell: Good!

  Robert Hinsdale: With 100 degree weather, I guess I better quit.

  Joshua Bell: Not a bad idea.

  Anyway, the local Sand Creek School, called the Aggies, is my entertainment. I attend all the ballgames. I’m active with the Gideon’s International. I belong to the Sand Creek Telephone Board, for 63 years and we have an active service for the patron’s. We even provide television now.

  I’ve been blessed with good health and have been able to donate 28 gallons of blood to the American Red Cross and I’m still giving. I also deliver Meals-On-Wheels.

  Joshua Bell: Good, good, Bob! I wanted to ask you, what are you most proud of with your service?

  Robert Hinsdale: Proud of? My service?

  Joshua Bell: Yeah, in your service, what are you most proud of?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well I guess my shipmate, Hillary Richard, for one. He kind of led me away from the drunk sailors and smoking and bad habits. And, so I enjoyed him. My division officer was just one of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet. He treated me wonderful all the time I was on ship. And, eventually, he became a minister and I wish I could have seen him later years, after he got out. But I didn’t.

  Joshua Bell: Good. Good. Is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you would like to add to the history?

  Robert Hinsdale: That’s a good question, Josh. I know after we hang up I’ll think of something. But I can’t think of it right now. I was very fortunate to be where I was, that’s for sure. I made the right decision when I went up to Detroit to be inducted and I chose the Navy. I will never forget that either. My heart goes out to the soldiers that had to live in foxholes, but I’m proud of them. I belong to the American Legion, and I go to the memorials and put on my uniform so we can honor the ones that didn’t make it. They are my heroes. I have some schoolmates and close friends that didn’t make it who served in different parts of the war. It’s sad to lose a soldier in the war.

  Joshua Bell: I can’t imagine. But we’re happy that you made it through, Bob.

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes, I’m very fortunate.

  Joshua Bell: We’re very happy, and I want to thank you on behalf of the Aleutian World War II National Historic Area and the National Park Service for sharing your stories with us. It’s an honor to hear them.

• Robert Hinsdale Interview Part II

  
  

  This interview discusses Hinsdale’s experiences during various bombardments across the Pacific theater, daily life and chores aboard ship, weather conditions, information on various battles, a description of a burial at sea and information on various guns and ammunition used on the Pensacola.

  Credit / Author:

  NPS/Joshua Bell

  Audio Transcript

  Interview with BM2 Robert Hinsdale

  Aleutian World War II National Historic Area Oral History Program

  June 14 & 19, 2016 Sand Creek, MI

  Interviewed by Joshua Bell, Park Ranger, Aleutian World War II National Historic Area

  This interview is part of the Aleutian World War II National Historic Area Oral History Project. This interview was recorded with the interviewee’s permission on a digital recorder. Copies of the audio file are preserved in wav format and are on file at the offices of the National Park Service in Anchorage, Alaska.

  The transcript has been edited by the interviewee.

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  June 14, 2016

  Joshua Bell: Today is June 14th, 2016. I’m Josh Bell, Park Ranger with the Aleutian World War II National Historic Area. How are you today, Sir?

  Robert Hinsdale: I’m just fine, sir, Josh.

  Joshua Bell: I just want to let you know that this conversation is being recorded. Is that ok?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes, that is ok.

  Joshua Bell: Could I have you say your name?

  Robert Hinsdale: My name is Robert E. Hinsdale

  Joshua Bell: And when and where were you born?

  Robert Hinsdale: I was born in Lenawee County, Adrian, Michigan in 1924, in August, the 16th.

  Joshua Bell: August the 16th. A birthday coming up here, not too far. Robert Hinsdale: That’s right! I’ll be 92!

  Joshua Bell: Excellent. What were your parent’s names?

  Robert Hinsdale: Ray and Naomi Hinsdale

  Joshua Bell: What did they do?

  Robert Hinsdale: They were farmers.

  Joshua Bell: Farmers. Did you have any siblings?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes, I do. I have an older brother, Allan, and Gordon was next, and then there was Ada, a girl, and then I was the fourth of the family, and then I had a younger brother, Howard.

  Joshua Bell: Excellent.

  Robert Hinsdale: And Mom had all five kids, 1920, 1921, 1922. She was sick with Typhoid Fever in 1923 and then she had me in 1924, and my brother Howard in 1925.

  Joshua Bell: That’s a lot of boys for one house.

  Robert Hinsdale: (laughing) That’s a busy home!

  Joshua Bell: What was it like growing up in the 20’s and the 30’s?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well that was a good question. I remember helping my dad in the 30’s. I was able to do chores. And I did some milking. My older brothers did the most of the milking and I did other chores. I remember going out in ’36 when I became 12 years of age and setting up grain shocks and helping the neighbors thrash. My dad had a team of horses, let’s see, I’d be 12 in 1936 and I’d be at 14 about 1938. About when I was 14 years of age I was able to take the team of horses and go to the thrashing ring and we would thrash grain.

  Joshua Bell: How did the Great Depression affect your family?

  Robert Hinsdale: We had a garden, and we had meat, milk, eggs, chickens and we had hogs. We were blessed with food. But I remember mom washed on Mondays, setting up the washing machines, Maytag washing machine engine. I’d get that started, my grandpa helped me. And all the kids helped of course. And then I was a sixth grader in 1936. See, and I graduated in 1942, so I started high school in 1938.

  Joshua Bell: Where did you graduate from? Robert Hinsdale: Sand Creek High School. It’s a small community, rural, agricultural school, and I had an unbelievable career at that high school.

  Joshua Bell: Academics or extracurricular?

  Robert Hinsdale: We won the league championship and Class D Districts in Basketball. I was involved with FFA. That’s Future Farmers of America, and was in the FFA State Band, and we got to practice all summer at various places, like the National Forest Festival, at Manistee, Michigan. And then we went to the National Cherry Festival at Traverse City, and then in the Fall we went to Kansas City to the FFA National Convention. So that was a great event in my junior year in high school.

  Joshua Bell: That’s a bit of trip from the hometown, isn’t it?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yep, yep!

  Joshua Bell: Was that the first time you’d left home to go on a big trip?

  Robert Hinsdale: That’s the first time I ever got that far away from home… Kansas City.

  Joshua Bell: What did you think?

  Robert Hinsdale: I remember the southern accent of the nurses at the hospital! I had a bone felon in my finger and I had to go to the hospital and get it lanced. That was the same as a boil. I’ve never heard of one since. But, I got a scar on the end of my finger where they lanced that boil, bone felon. But I was back on the street playing my trombone the next day.

  Joshua Bell: Good, good! Now what year did you graduate from high school?

  Robert Hinsdale: ’42.

  Joshua Bell: 1942. So, you would have heard about Hitler and what was going on in Europe?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes. The history teacher was telling about Germany taking over Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia and countries and later he was invading Poland. So, we knew that something was going wrong through the history studies at school. But, you know as a young student, you know you don’t get concerned about war like an older person would. After I got out of high school I worked in the factory for six months. Then I was drafted and we went to Detroit.

  Joshua Bell: What factory was it? Robert Hinsdale: It was a magnesium factory and we made bomber parts for the bombers that were being built at Willow Run, Ypsilanti, Michigan.

  Joshua Bell: Oh, at Willow Run. Absolutely.

  Robert Hinsdale: B-17s and B-24s. We made bomber parts at the magnesium factory in Adrian, Michigan.

  Joshua Bell: What was your job there?

  Robert Hinsdale: I was a tester on the bomber castings to see if there were any leaks. A water tester. I put pressure on the jig and then I clamp it down and put water pressure on it, and if there were not leaks, I’d do another one. It was kind of like piece rig.

  Joshua Bell: How was the mood at work? What were people thinking…

  Robert Hinsdale: Oh, dad worked there, and all my neighbors, everybody it seemed. IT’s like this famous man from NBC wrote a story about World War II, the Greatest Generation…well that was what it was like. Everybody went to work. There was gas rationing going on and later sugar was hard to get. But somehow, everybody was able to put up with it and went on with their busy life. And they didn’t talk too much about the war. But, things were terrible going on over in Africa in 1942. And then, down in the Philippines, things were terrible in Guadalcanal. Terrible battles.

  Joshua Bell: Where were you, what were you doing when you heard about Pearl Harbor being attacked?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, I was at home, and I was still a senior in high school, and it was on Sunday afternoon. I don’t know if I was listening to the radio or what I was doing… the folks probably were concerned about it. But as a youth, I don’t think I really can remember anything, and different than normal.

  Joshua Bell: Did you ever think about joining the service before getting drafted?

  Robert Hinsdale: No, I just waited until somebody told me what to do. And when I got drafted and went over to Detroit, they wanted to know if I wanted to be the Army, Navy or Marines. And I said I’d like to go in the Navy. My brother, Gordon, was in the Navy, and later he joined the Marines and he flew corsairs, a squadron of corsairs.

  Joshua Bell: Oh Wow!

  Robert Hinsdale: And he was in Okinawa.

  Joshua Bell: Were any of your other brothers in the service? Robert Hinsdale: Yeah, my next brother, Howard, the youngest, graduated in ’44 and so he was drafted and went in the Navy. He was aboard a mini flat top, CVE Carrier, USS Sitkoh Bay.

  Joshua Bell: Sitkoh Bay, oh wow!

  Robert Hinsdale: Yep, and he was a bugler. That was his duty. And then my sister, she was a registered nurse during the war. She worked at Harper Hospital in Detroit.

  Joshua Bell: She was!

  Robert Hinsdale: And my oldest brother had a heart problem, a real severe heart problem when he was a freshman in high school. It’s just a shame they didn’t have the technology they have today because they could have saved his life. He never stopped from working hard. He would milk the neighbor’s cows in the morning and then go to Adrian College. He got a degree and ended up as principal at Utica High School, that’s 25-mile road, North of Detroit. And he passed away at the age of 40.

  Joshua Bell: Aw, jeez, modern medicine’s quite something, isn’t it?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes, it is.

  Joshua Bell: You mentioned you went to Detroit when you were enlisted…

  Robert Hinsdale: We were inducted in Detroit. And then we had to go to Boot Camp of course!

  Joshua Bell: What was that like?

  Robert Hinsdale: Mrs. Roosevelt decided there should be a new naval training station up in Farragut, Idaho. We were the first group of kids from our county to go there. They took a whole trainload of us to Farragut, Idaho. We went right by Great Lakes in Chicago. That was quite an experience to go clear up there.

  Joshua Bell: What was daily life like?

  Robert Hinsdale: If one guy messed up, we’d all suffered. We marched and marched, had KP duty, ran obstacle courses. It was eight weeks, or nine weeks of training. After Boot Camp, we had furlough to come home a few days and then, we went back. We went down to Pleasanton, California to an Assignment Distribution Center. We were put on a cargo ship and headed for Pearl Harbor. And when we got to Pearl Harbor, that’s where we were assigned to the Pensacola. The USS Pensacola is a heavy cruiser and she was in dock there because she was torpedoed in Guadalcanal. They put a hole right in the middle of her and it took nine months to heal her up so she could be ready to go in October 1st of 1943. They kept us busy scrubbing decks, chipping paint and wire brushing the cargo ship. This was my first trip across the Ocean. We ate like hogs and I was hungry and never got seasick.

  Joshua Bell: Were any of your friends with you?

  Robert Hinsdale: We had one Adrian boy on my ship, from our county, that’s all.

  Joshua Bell: That’s it?

  Robert Hinsdale: And most of all my friends that went with me to Boot Camp just went different directions. The Pensacola was torpedoed in Guadalcanal when the Japanese come down the “throat” to help save the Japanese army in Guadalcanal. So the Navy set up five cruisers one night up there to interfere with them coming down. Well, the Japanese had some very intelligent destroyers, torpedo boats and ships. And they sank the North Hampton heavy cruiser that night at midnight. They took the bow off the New Orleans heavy cruiser; they took the bow off the Minnesota on a torpedo hit. And they hit the Pensacola where 120-something men were killed and 70-something injured. But she was able to survive and get back to Pearl Harbor. The only ship that survived that battle was the USS Honolulu, but they did hit four of us. The North Hampton was sunk, the Minneapolis and the New Orleans bows were gone, and the Pensacola got torpedoed.

  While the ship was being repaired in July of 1943, we stayed in the barracks surrounded by pineapple fields. My rank at this time was Seaman First Class. (In Boot Camp you are a Seaman III Class, then a Seaman II class.) Some of my duties as Seaman First Class were to get a driver’s license and drive the Captain around in a jeep to his meetings. I was also on deck duty for 3 months. I had to stand watch, 4 hours on, 4 hours off, if we were in battle, otherwise 4 on and 8 hours off.

  In October 1943, the ship was ready to go out to sea after a shake down (practice) cruise. We had practice drills for raids, false alarms and “man your guns”. We could travel at 32 knots.

  Joshua Bell: How did you feel about getting assigned to that ship?

  Robert Hinsdale: I didn’t know much about Navy ships. I’d never seen one before that. I’d never seen one before that. We got to Pearl Harbor and we were assigned. The Boatswain Mate told us, “You two Guys come with me.” And so we became deckhands, meaning I mopped floors on Division 4, on the fantail. And our duties were to take care of Turret 4. That’s a 2-gun, eight-inch gun, on Turret 4. The ship had a total of 10, eight-inch guns. And we had eight five-inch guns. We had numerous 40mm and 20mm guns. And we had two Kingfisher airplanes, pontoon plains on our ship.

  There was a laundry on the ship. All ships made their own drinking water. Sewage was ground and disposed over the side. We’d get ammunition, food and other supplies when we went into the lagoon. Goods were stored in the bottom of the ship. There was a large shower room and the toilets were called “the Head”.

  There were bunks below deck, 4 high, that would pull down to the sleeping position. They had an iron frame about 30 inches wide that held a 2-inch mattress. There was about 12 inches between a man and the bunk above him, just room enough to torn over. I slept well.

  Joshua Bell: When you say “take care of the turret” what does that entail?

  Robert Hinsdale: A turret consists of about 25 to 30 sailors to man the guns. My first battle station was down in the powder room and as the years went by, I worked my way up to where the officer was inside the turret, with the earphones on. Then we had directions from the Bridge. At our first battle, we were ready to go in October of ’43, and the first invasion was the Gilbert Islands in the Pacific, south west of Pearl Harbor. If you look at ta Pacific map, you’ll find the Gilbert Islands, and the Battle of Tarawa is history of a terrible battle. We bombarded the island a month or two. Several ships did, before the Marines landed. I worked on the 2-gun turret, which was 20 feet long and swiveled.

  But the Japanese buried themselves in the sand all the way across the Pacific and then they waited and waited until the Marines came, and when they did come, they slaughtered them all, thousands of them.

  Joshua Bell: What do you remember about participating in the bombardment? That’s a long time to wait on a small island.

  Robert Hinsdale: I was in a turret and we were out four or five mile from the island, so you see, I never saw any Japanese at all. But one night, after bombarding, about sunset at Tarawa, my duties were up in the Sky watch. That’s 120 feet foremast. A foremast, (the mast nearest the bow of the ship), is the tripods that you have to climb a ladder to get up in there, and you use spyglasses. There’s about five of us sailors setting up there and we’d each have ninety degrees to watch. Like, from zero to what? Divide them off in quarters, the degrees of a circle, and you’d have that area to watch.

  So, one night at sunset, 15 Japanese torpedo bombers, “Betty’s” were skimming over the top of the water, wanting to get in the sunrays of the ships. We had a carrier, about three heavy cruisers, and six or eight destroyers, cruising around out in the Pacific at night. And the sunset was just beautiful and then “Battle”, “General Quarters”, sounded. Instantly we saw the bombers coming, skimming over the top of the water, going around us, to try to get in and come in at us in the sunrays, so we couldn’t see them. By the time I got down to my Turret 4, of course it’s way aft, (fantail), the back end of the ship, the hatches were all dogged down and when the hatches are all dogged down you are not allowed to open them up. So, we crawled under turret 4 and laid on our bellies land watched the plane fly over with all 40mm and 20mm shooting. And this is the action that I got to see. I’ve never seen anything like it all through my Navy career. The 40mm were firing at the planes as they were flying over the bow. 20mm were firing as fast as they could, and I saw one plane go down ‘til there was nothing left of him. They did hit the Independence carrier with a torpedo, but there was very minimum loss. So we survived that attack pretty comfortably without any loss or any loss of ships. But I did see some action.

  Joshua Bell: What do you remember thinking when that was going on?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, that really got to me when I saw that. That was about… I’ve never seen anything like it all through my career of the Navy, bombarding because I was in Turret 4, and you don’t see any of the action. It isn’t like mounting a gun mount on the outside of the ship. It’s inside, that turret is pretty solid. The only thing you can do is hear somebody report.

  Joshua Bell: So when those guys came in and you saw that happening, what went through your mind?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, they didn’t have any pity on those Japanese people, they just kept firing until there was nobody left. You could see them swimming around the airplane tire that was floating, but they keep firing right at him until he was gone. Yep, we the, I just don’t know what to think about that.

  Joshua Bell: It’s tough stuff.

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, anyway, that was quite an experience, and then you heard stories about Tarawa Islands later. And there’s a book out on Tarawa, you can read up on that. It’s terrible, we lost 2500 Marines and the Japanese lost 25,000 because of that battle. We went south to the Funi Funi, across the equator for Christmas of ’43, came back to Pearl and got more ammunition and supplies, fuel. And the next invasion was the Marshall Islands. And those Islands are the next step towards Tokyo.

  Joshua Bell: Before we go down to the Marshalls, I want to ask you, what was it like to go to Pearl Harbor the first time and then come back? I mean that’s a pretty exotic place.

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes it was. That would have been about ’41, December ’41 when they bombed Pearl, and I arrived there in ‘43, about a year and a half later.

  Joshua Bell: What do you remember thinking when you got to the island?

  Robert Hinsdale: When we got down to the ship, we had ship duties down there, before the Tarawa Battle. I could see where the old battleships had sunk and they had cleaned up enormous amounts of the Battle of Pearl Harbor. Yep.

  Joshua Bell: Did you get any shore leave while you were there?

  Robert Hinsdale: Sure, oh yeah, we got duties. I had two weeks of 20mm school, way up around the coast of Pearl Harbor, near Honolulu. I guess I can’t even think of the name of the island that Pearl Harbor is on.

  Joshua Bell: Oahu?

  Robert Hinsdale: I went for 3 weeks to the shores of Oahu and attended a 20mm gunner school. A 20mm target was a sleeve pulled by an airplane by a long rope. That was used to shoot at. I learned to maneuver the gun, tear it down and put it back together. A 20mm magazine is round and holds 60 rounds of ammunition, 1X 6 inches long. It fires fast. The 4th shell leaves a mark on the target, the sleeve.

  Joshua Bell: So how did you spend your time down time?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well I had a pretty good shipmate and he kept me from getting in trouble. He went on liberty with me and that’s been a blessing to me to have a shore buddy that didn’t drink and didn’t smoke. Most of the sailors though, they went out and they boozed it up and they smoked heavy.

  Joshua Bell: And caroused….

  Robert Hinsdale: …but I was fortunate to be, get out of that service without those bad habits.

  Joshua Bell: Very good, I’m sorry, I interrupted. It was Christmas 1943. What was it like to spend Christmas away from home?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well at Funafuti, if you look at the Pacific map, you can find Funafuti near the equator. The natives entertained us at Christmas of 1943. Ezra Peabody, an American entertainer come out there and sat on this high stool. He’s a little bit of a short guy, and he played the banjo like you never heard before in your life. He entertained us, and the fat native ladies in their grass skirts came with sea shells that were sewn together and they traded with the sailors for cigarettes or candy or anything they could do, to kind of put on a show for us. That’s what they did. That was Christmas of ’43.

  Joshua Bell: Did you write home during our stay in the service?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes, I wrote home a lot. Joshua Bell: Did you feel connected to home when you were in the service?

  Robert Hinsdale: Sure, yeah. Whenever we had mail call I would get a letter from my folks and my Grandpa. And my sister and brothers. Yep.

  Joshua Bell: Was it hard to be away from home?

  Robert Hinsdale: Never gave it much of a thought. I just felt as though I was a young 18-year-old sailor and they made good soldiers, that age group does. They don’t have any fear and don’t worry about anything. They kept us busy.

  Joshua Bell: That’s true.

  Robert Hinsdale: That’s right and then we went back to Pearl land got fueled up and prepared for the Marshall Islands. And I remember some bombarding of Marshall Islands, like Wotje. And we hit some ammunition dumps with our 10-inch shells, about 10 miles out. We would bombard. So you see I was a long ways from the enemy, when you’re out for, five mile from the enemy and you’re shooting eight-inch guns bombarding. That was our main objective. They called us Division Five. There was three heavy cruisers involved in that, plus about six or eight destroyers and that’s all we did all through the war was bombard islands before marines landed. We’d listen to Tokyo Rose, a radio announcer from Japan, at night.

  Joshua Bell: What was it like to be on one of those ships when all the guns were going off?

  Robert Hinsdale: When you’re in Turret 4 and down two decks below, you don’t feel any concu…any vibrations or anything. It’s pretty quiet.

  Joshua Bell: What was it like when you were in the turret?

  Robert Hinsdale: Ah, you got up in the turret in the last six months of the war… then I could hear them!

  Joshua Bell: All the video that I’ve seen of a ship firing, sending rounds down, is…

  Robert Hinsdale: I can’t imagine what it was like on a battle ship where they shoot a 16-inch gun instead of an eight-inch gun. Now that shell weights over 500 pounds, that 16-inch shell does. Our shells weighed 280 to 320 pounds. So it’s quite a difference.

  They roll them around like milk cans, and they’re all mechanically handled, right. They come up into the chamber on a lift, right up into the chamber. The barrels are 20 feet long and they’re huge and, so it’s quite a gun.

  Joshua Bell: You would have to steam, you would have to back and for between all these different places. What was it like? How did you pass the time on the ship when you weren’t engaged?

  Robert Hinsdale: Oh, our duties would be morning, sunrise, and we would scrub the floors, and mop them. We’d shine the brass, we’d have a, hang out laundry out a little bit. We would chip paint and wire brush and keep things up, tuck in the odds and ends, like a navy boy should do!

  Joshua Bell: What was living on the ship like?

  Robert Hinsdale: We would occasionally see whales in the water, spouting their water from their blowhole as they came to surface. We would see proposes and barracudas and some sort of flying fish. They’d fly 40-50 feet and then dive down. In one harbor, we dove in and swam. Jellyfish would sting you if you weren’t careful.

  We had wonderful food. I never complained about the food. We had a barber shop, we made our own water. We had all the conveniences of a city, that’s what all the ships in the navy had. They make their own water, they do all their own laundry, and barber shop, and they have a hospital, medical care is the best. We had two airplanes on our ship. And we had carpenters and mechanics and signalmen and gunners.

  There’s probably a dozen, 15, 20 ranks you could advance in. Mine was being a Boatswain and then I become a Boatswain’s Mate Second Class.

  Joshua Bell: And what did those specialties do?

  Robert Hinsdale: They’re sort of an overseer of a division. Like 4th Division, 3rd Division, 2nd Division, with about 30-40 men in each division. And there would be a Boatswain’s Mate in charge of each division. The Boatswain’s Mate would delegate Seamen 1st Class and to do duties on the ship like cleaning, wire-brushing, painting, getting supplies to them, and stuff like that.

  Joshua Bell: What were your officers like? What were the guys who were about you like?

  Robert Hinsdale: Oh, I had the best officer you could ever imagine. He became a minister for a Methodist church in Texas after he got out of the service. And he mentored me, like a dad. He was just a wonderful man.

  Joshua Bell: What was his name?

  Robert Hinsdale: Lieutenant David Kitral.

  Joshua Bell: Kitral?

  Robert Hinsdale: Kitral, yes.

  Joshua Bell: And he was from Texas?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes he was. And he went to Duke University for his degree as a minister. But I never had contact with him after I got out of the service, which really has always bugged me. But I did have a shipmate, Hillary Richard, I buddied with, like I told you about, that mentored me. He lived 100 miles southwest of Houston, along the Gulf, the Gulf down there. He’s from Wadsworth, Texas. And Ardyth, my wife and I were able to get down there twice and visit him. And his occupation was shrimp fishing and he took us out shrimp fishing. That was fun! Yep!

  Joshua Bell: You must have eaten well that night!

  Robert Hinsdale: Hmmmm, you what?

  Joshua Bell: I said you must have eaten well that night.

  Robert Hinsdale: Yup, and he could also go out and pick up pecans. And his hobby was to package this fish, shrimp and pecans and give them away at Christmas time to his family.

  Joshua Bell: Oh, that’s nice!

  Robert Hinsdale: Yup!

  Joshua Bell: That’s good, that’s good. Let’s see. Let’s go back to the Marshall Islands there, ‘cause you were going to talk about that.

  Robert Hinsdale: OK. The next group of islands after the Marshall Islands… I think we made a trip up to the Carolina Islands, next west of the Marshalls. We were in that battle too, at the Carolinas.

  And then, the next battle after that was the Marianas, Guam, Tinian, and Saipan. And while that was going on we were up in the Aleutians.

  We made a raid on Paramushiro to help draw off some of the enemy, thinking that there was going to be an invasion up there in Paramushiro, north of Hokkaido. They needed some help down at the Marianas to conquer Guam, Tinian, and Saipan. And they thought maybe if they made the Japanese believe that there was a great invasion going on up there in the Aleutians, that would draw some of their military from Guam, Saipan and Tinian and Mariana Islands. Joshua Bell: What were your impressions of the Aleutian Islands?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well they are barren. There’s not any… I didn’t see any trees. It just seemed like bare rocks. It’s just no vegetation; it didn’t seem like to me. I didn’t see any. I don’t remember going on land, I just sat out there in the harbor, anchored, and I didn’t have the chance to go on tour.

  Joshua Bell: Which harbor were you in?

  Robert Hinsdale: I can’t remember… both Adak and Attu...

  Joshua Bell: Both Adak and Attu?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes.

  Joshua Bell: OK.

  Robert Hinsdale: And then when we were up there, I told you, we went to bombard a couple of times, and the fog was interfering with our bombarding.

  Joshua Bell: I was just about to say, ask about the weather.

  Robert Hinsdale: (laughing) It’s a lot of moisture up there… It’s damp and wet and… but the bombarding was quite the experience. They said our performance was so high, at 150 feet, they said the peak of the performance was at the top of the fog. That was a… can you see an enemy bomber trying to bomb us? And you could see a foremast going through the fog, but we didn’t get hit. I don’t know whether we destroyed any of their property or not. But we did unload all the ammunition we had over there anyway.

  Joshua Bell: How much ammunition did you carry with you?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, I can’t tell you the exact tonnage, gut it’s an enormous amount of shells. I know that, on each invasion, like Gilbert’s and Marshall’s, and Carolina’s, we would load up each time afterward the bombardments and then we’d load up again after we got to the Attu and Adak over at Paramushiro. We’d load up again and fuel, we’d have fuel and food and all our supplies.

  One time, when returning to Pearl Harbor for supplies, I noticed my brother Howard’s ship was tied up in the harbor. I found him and went on liberty with him. I hadn’t seen him in 2 years and he’d gotten 5 inches taller since I last saw him!

  Joshua Bell: Well lets’ see, did you ever….

  Robert Hinsdale: Then the next battle… after that, Marianas were conquered. I’ve got it written down someplace how many lives were lost at Mariana… One night we were headed for Marcus Island, (I don’t know whether you can find out where Marcus Islands is or not on the map. It’s a little bit north of Marianas), and the sea was just flatter than a pancake. The sunset was beautiful and all the sailors were on topside, enjoying the sunset, and the ship was… I’ll read a paragraph here: “the sea was slick like glass, the men on the topside were enjoying the sunset as we traveled at 25 knots. While on route, an unbelievable wave rose higher and higher over the ocean, over Turret 1, taking the lives of two Warrant officers over the side of the ship. They were men that had 30 years of service. We went back to search but could not find them, at the closing of darkness.” We bombarded Marcus Island.

  Joshua Bell: Just a rogue wave?

  Robert Hinsdale: The ship timed these enormous waves out, and the bow would go up in the air, and it would come down, and it would go up in the air higher, and higher and then finally when the bow went down again, water went over the top of the bow, and that’s what washed these two warrant officers over the side.

  Joshua Bell: What was it like to ride on the ship, to be on the ship when that was happening?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, this is only happening once in our lifetime, anything like that. It was just an unbelievable event that happened. It’s something you couldn’t even see on the topside. You couldn’t, you wouldn’t believe there was waves out there like that. But that ship timed those waves out and started to go up and down and the timing was so accurate that when the last time it went down, the water went over the top of the ship and washed those two warrant officers over the side. But it never happened like that again, ever. But one time, I’m getting ahead of my story if I tell this one. I’ll wait ‘til later. The dangerous waves must have been on the ocean floor, like a tsunami.

  Joshua Bell: OK.

  Robert Hinsdale: We were in a typhoon, the after effects of a typhoon, after the war was over. But I’ll tell you that story later.

  Joshua Bell: Was that after…when was that?

  Robert Hinsdale: That was after the war.

  Joshua Bell: That was after the war…ok.

  Robert Hinsdale: And we headed for Iwo Jima. We were going to have a memorial service down there after the war, for the men that got hit at Iwo Jima. My next story is coming up, at Iwo Jima, after the Marianas.

  Joshua Bell: OK, well, let’s do it the way you have it planned out…

  Robert Hinsdale: Our next objective, after the Marianas…We got back and we got fueled up. We started bombarding Iwo Jima, Chichi Jima, and Iwo Jima, in the Bonin Islands. We were bombing Tokyo then, from Guam. The B-29’s needed a halfway point, Iwo Jima is halfway between Tokyo and Guam. They needed a place for the bombers that were disabled to land so they had to have Iwo Jima. So, we went up there a month to two, maybe two months before the Marines landed, and bombarded maybe three times. We just tried to destroy the place. And then the Marines landed in. I think it was February and then there was a terrible loss at Iwo Jima. The books that you read will tell you about that.

  One time, we were bombarding and we thought… (there’s a paperback Iwo Jima book that tells this, I didn’t know this story ‘til after I’d gotten home several years later and I read this story about the Pensacola), She (the Pensacola) was bombarding and we thought, well, let’s get in a little bit closer and closer. The book tells about the Japs having a four, five-inch gun in a cave on a train track. And they were arguing about “Let’s get ahead and shoot them now.” And they finally decided to shoot, they shot five salvos at the Pensacola, and they hit 20 feet from the ship. The next five salvos they shot at us were all direct hits. The shells, when they come in contact with metal, like the metal of a ship, they automatically explode. And when they explode, that’s what kills people. Shrapnel. And they had one hit the airplane on the catapult, another one hit sky aft, and killed Lt. Commander Behan and they killed about 13 other sailors and wounded over a hundred.

  But we weren’t, we just… What happened in the story in the Iwo Jima book, the Japanese gun mount cracked on the train track and they couldn’t fire anymore, so the sailors, the Japanese sailors were saying, “We could have just sunk them if we kept firing.” That was something I didn’t know until after the war.

  Joshua Bell: Where on the ship were you when this happened?

  Robert Hinsdale: I was in my turret with Lt. Kitral and I had my earphones on so we had communication with the bridge. That’s how we found out that the ship had been hit. The officer’s mess hall was a big room, used as a hospital for the wounded. I was sent to the well deck for something. I saw a doctor sawing a man’s leg off as the man laid on a table. The man was blue. 120 men on the ship were wounded. Seventeen killed. The Pensacola was not disabled. Repair was made and in the afternoon, we resumed bombarding.

  We had a funeral the next day, a burial at sea, and that’s quite an experience that I’d never seen before in my life.

  Joshua Bell: What was it like?

  Robert Hinsdale: They do it up on the well deck near the airplane carriers. That evening, we had the burial. Seventeen men were put in canvas bags with a 5-inch shell for a burial at sea. I knew one kid, Tom Harman, who worked below ship in the boilers. He happened to be out sightseeing during that attack and was killed. The men were slid over the side of the ship and buried in the ocean. The 120 wounded men were placed on another ship.

  Joshua Bell: What was that like, experiencing that? What do you remember thinking or feeling?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, that would really shake you up. To think, why them? Why not…Why not me? … and Why? You just don’t understand. I know one of the boys. I went to Bootcamp with him. He was one of them. He had a... he shouldn’t have been out where he was. He was up topside, just observing. Bombarding and shrapnel got him.

  Joshua Bell: What was his name?

  Robert Hinsdale: Tom Harman

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes, not the one you know, Tom Harman, the football player, but this is another Harman.

  Joshua Bell: So that must have changed the mood on the ship?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yeah, that was on of our close battles, at Iwo Jima. That we really got in contact with those guys, the Japanese. We could see Mount Suribachi, it’s a desolate Island, you never saw anything. The battles were just terrible. I have a graduate from my high school that was on a landing craft, he brought in sailors, and tanks and light trucks into the shores of Iwo Jima. He had some very close calls, but he survived.

  Joshua Bell: When you were on the ship did you follow what was going on in Europe?

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes, they had newspapers, newsletters out every day on board ship. I knew about things; that troops were going up through Italy about that time from Africa.

  Joshua Bell: What do you remember about the day everybody found out that Germany had surrendered?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, let’s see. I don’t know as I gave it much thought. And I never even gave it a thought that the Japanese were going to give up either….

  Joshua Bell: Understandably!

  Robert Hinsdale: But until it actually happens…’til the atomic bomb… I’ve got a big story to tell you about the atomic bomb, too, later on.

  Joshua Bell: Sure, go right ahead.

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, when we were, I’m getting ahead of the Okinawa story.

  Joshua Bell: Let’s have Okinawa

  Robert Hinsdale: Ok. At Okinawa, after Iwo Jima. And we were bombarding Okinawa, and I didn’t know my brother, Gordon, was on Okinawa with a squad of Marines, in corsairs. His job was to intercept the kamikaze as they were coming down by the thousands. Thousands and thousands of kamikaze planes were coming down for suicide missions and these corsairs’ marine squadron were to intercept them.

  Now what happened at Okinawa? The Kamikazes sank more ships, killed more sailors than any part of the whole war. It was that bad.

  Then my brother Howard was on a mini flat-top and he was coming into Okinawa bringing another bunch of airplanes for the military (kind of a carrier for some of the resupply). They needed more planes, supplies. They almost got hit by a kamikaze. Their ship. It was close.

  In later years, I heard that the USS Hinsdale Cargo ship was hit by a kamikaze plane. There were a lot of ships lost at Okinawa. And that’s why I tell you why we bombarded.

  One experience we had… We were bombarding and going along the island of Okinawa, and a battle ship was ahead of us and a couple of destroyers, and a couple heavy cruisers. We decided to make a 90-degree turn. (This is an act of God). As we were in a 90 degree turn a periscope appeared on our port side and he shot two torpedoes at us and we were in a 90-degree turn. As we were going the other way, one torpedo went up the left side on the port side, and another torpedo went up the right side. He straddled us. And of course, I didn’t know anything about this! But this is what happened. And they took a picture of the wakes of the torpedoes as they passed the bow. And they dissipated you know. You could see the wakes of the torpedoes going on past the ship! But that’s how close we came to getting hit by a torpedo.

  Joshua Bell: What was it like to learn all this stuff after the fact?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, I didn’t learn about that ‘til after we had gotten home. After they printed the book out, the Pensacola book. Yep. You can read about that story in the Pensacola book.

  Joshua Bell: All this stuff that happened around you that you didn’t know about.

  Robert Hinsdale: Yep, that’s true.

  Joshua Bell: That must be an odd feeling.

  Robert Hinsdale: I often thought I’d made the right decision when I decided to go in the Navy. I hated to think I’d be in the foxhole.

  Joshua Bell: Absolutely. So, what happened after Okinawa?

  Robert Hinsdale: OK. We, I think we had to come back to the United States and get set up for the invasion of Tokyo, of Japan. And we had a real renovation of our ship. They cut the foremast down while in Mare Island, in San Francisco, and they trimmed her up. I had a 20-day furlough in May of ’45.

  Joshua Bell: And what did you do with that furlough?

  Robert Hinsdale: I went home!

  Joshua Bell: You went home.

  Robert Hinsdale: Yep, yep! It was about time for the high school graduation. I dated my girlfriend; in the future, she was my wife. I didn’t know that at the time though. But, I’m so glad that that event, (our marriage) happened ‘cause she’s a wonderful woman.

  But, anyway, we went back to the Pensacola and we were ready to go. Well, they had the atomic bomb in crates in July of ‘45 and the Pensacola book tells us that the Pensacola was designated to take them to Tinian. But, they changed their mind and said; we’re going to put them on the USS Indianapolis.

  The Indianapolis was a newer ship and they wanted those bombs to be delivered. We didn’t know they were bombs and what was in the crates. We didn’t have any clue of what was in them. But that’s what was in them. So the Indianapolis was directed to go as fast as she could to Tinian to have them assembled so they could drop the bomb on Hiroshima, Nagasaki. And that’s how long it took, from July, ‘til about the 9th of August ‘til they dropped the bombs. And you know the story about the Indianapolis. Do you?

  Joshua Bell: Yes.

  Robert Hinsdale: It was just devastating what happened to that crew. We had gone on liberty with them in Sacramento, all those Navy sailors. To think that they were in the water between Tinian and the Philippines for 4 and a half days, with nobody knowing anything about where the Indianapolis was.

  Joshua Bell: Right.

  Robert Hinsdale: For 30 years the Navy administration blamed Captain McVay and stripped him of his medals. When President Reagan got to be president, they then put the blame on the Navy instead of Captain McVay. So, Captain McVay’s relatives got all his medals back that they had taken away from him. They said the Navy was to blame for what happened to the Indianapolis. About two weeks before the war ended, the Japanese sub, (My Pensacola book tells) he says: this ship is coming right at us, she’s not zigzagging and we can sink her in 30 minutes. And to this sailor, a Japanese sailor; you won’t have to ride the suicide Kaiten torpedo.

  They were literally going to put this Japanese sailor on the torpedo and he was to steer this torpedo into this ship. And the Japanese captain said; you won’t have to ride this. So they did. They sank the Indianapolis in 30 minutes and 900 of the 1200 got off the ship, and they were in the ocean water for 4 and a half days before they were found. The only survivors were about 375 men. And they were… it’s just devastating.

  Joshua Bell: That must have been quite something, hearing that story and being out on a ship yourself.

  Robert Hinsdale: Yep. Well, we didn’t know anything about it. We just heard that there was a ship sunk, and I don’t know what we thought. Well, anyway, after the Indianapolis left Mare Island, we headed for the Aleutians again. We were going to go to Japan. But, that was our duty assignment to go up there again and make an invasion. But we sat up there in the harbor, and all of a sudden, we heard that the Atomic Bomb had been dripped and the Japs were gonna give up.

  Joshua Bell: How did you feel about what happened?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well it was a big celebration for everybody in the whole world, Yup. That’s for sure.

  June 19, 2016

  Joshua Bell: Today is June 19, 2016. I’m Josh Bell, park ranger with the Aleutian World War II National Historic Area and we’re happy to have back with us Robert Hinsdale who’s going to continue his story about his service on the USS….

  Robert Hinsdale: USS Pensacola!

  Joshua Bell: The USS Pensacola, exactly right. The last time we talked you mentioned about the United States dropping the bombs on Japan, and I was wondering if you’d like to pick up from there?

  Robert Hinsdale: OK Alright. Ready? Should I start now?

  Joshua Bell: Oh, absolutely.

  Robert Hinsdale: OK, that was August 3rd, of ’45. We left for Adak, Aleutians on the 9th of August. At Adak we heard the news that the war was over. They had dropped the bombs on Japan and the celebration of the ear ending started. And on august 20th, we headed for Attu. On August 31 of ’45 we left for Japan to go to the Straits of Hokkaido. It’s on the North tip of Honshu, the entrance of Hokkaido Straits, over in the Sea of Japan. To a naval base called Ominato and we anchored there. On the 9th of September, Admiral Fletcher accepted the surrender of the Japanese forces in the northern Japan Empire and the U.S. flag was raised over the Naval Station at Ominato. On August, no November 7th, well, I should tell a little bit about the occupation forces. I remember going on a shore patrol and we had to guard a barn, just like a barn out here on the farm. The Army had already picked up all the guns, of the Japanese and put them in the barn. And they were piled as high as the track in the barn and we just guarded that barn. Eventually they divided those arms up amongst the Navy personnel, of the fleet that went in there during the occupation and I brought home two Japanese guns, rifles. So that was something that I’ll remember. I never have shot them. They are too dangerous to shoot and you couldn’t get the ammunition to shoot anyway. They’re just souvenirs.

  Joshua Bell: How did it feel…

  Robert Hinsdale: I do remember taking some liberties, and the people were very humble, very polite Japanese. They are very poor. Unbelievable transportation. The streetcars were mini-type street cars and they just over leaded the street cars because there wasn’t enough transportation available to go to work. They had work to do. And the women were out on the sidewalk with scrub boards, scrubbing their clothes, laundry, too. But then on trading with them, we were looking for souvenirs, and they were looing for cigarettes, candy, or anything that sailors had. Most of the Japanese native dress the kimonos, were pretty much gone. But we did get some Japanese flags and some other souvenirs. They were really humble people, that’s all you can say. I just feel like whoever was in charge of the occupation did a wonderful job.

  Joshua Bell: How did it feel to go from being on a ship to having to do shore patrol? Being in the army of occupation?

  Robert Hinsdale: And then go ashore and do shore patrol?

  Joshua Bell: How did that feel?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, that was a new experience for me, I remember that. We didn’t have to carry any guns that I remember. We just didn’t need any guns anymore!

  Joshua Bell: Were you nervous at all?

  Robert Hinsdale: I think I was nervous when we entered the straits of Hokkaido. We got in beach boats, climbed down, and that’s when I first saw Japanese personnel up close. Of all the war, that’s when I really saw contact with the Japanese. They were pretty poor I’ll tell ya. I do remember seeing them and staring at them, and they picked up some garbage our ship had.

  Joshua Bell: Do you feel like they were as depicted by the videos, all of the filmstrips, and all the articles in the newspapers?

  Robert Hinsdale: I really don’t remember seeing any newspapers. But I did remember seeing a lot of ships along the shore that our planes had destroyed. A lot of stuff that had just been carted off to the side where they’d been bombed and wrecked and weren’t usable anymore. Like in war we saw some damage to the buildings where they bombed too. But up in that upper part of Japan, I don’t think that there was any concern to Navy or the Army about danger. I think they did most of the damage further down south in Japan.

  Joshua Bell: So, you would, would you say that the Japanese didn’t fit the stereotype?

  Robert Hinsdale: They were what?

  Joshua Bell: Would you say the Japanese didn’t fit the stereotype that most people had in their minds?

  Robert Hinsdale: Oh, yeah, well, I guess I can only explain it this way. They were so humble and so polite. They were easy to get along with and they wanted to visit with us and they wanted to show us some things they had to trade for things that we had. I saw one guy to across the road with an old car with black smoke coming out of it. He said that he was burning coal to operate it! And how he got that thing running on coal is more than I know.

  Joshua Bell: So, what else happened during your time with the occupation?

  Robert Hinsdale: I don’t remember too much more than what I’ve already told you, Josh.

  Joshua Bell: OK.

  Robert Hinsdale: We headed for Iwo Jima. Yeah, November 9th, we headed for Iwo Jima. That’s when we left, November 9th and we were there two months. That was just about all I can tell you about the occupation.

  Joshua Bell: I was going to ask, how did being underway change from being at war to peace. This peacetime. How did it change from when you went from, you know, being at war to having peace?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, yeah, the book my Pensacola book, tells just a few months before we had entered, they could have probably shot us, but after we pulled in there, they were just humble and they’d taken all their guns away from them and they were very polite and you just couldn’t ask a bunch of people to behave any better than they did.

  Joshua Bell: Absolutely. When you were on the ship, leaving Japan, was there a different mood on the ship? How were the people?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well, we didn’t have to have any watch anymore. They could smoke cigarettes, and that was allowable. We were just in great relief to know that the war was over and we were going to go home.

  Joshua Bell: You’d been quite a few thousand miles, it would seem.

  Robert Hinsdale: Yep. We headed to Iwo Jima and had a tough time getting there because we went through the aftermath of a wake…typhoon. A typhoon is the after effects of the ocean just, it takes in a huge area, and we were on the outside of the typhoon and it was still rough. We stayed in our bunks and our sacks for almost two days without going topside because the ship was rolling and pitching and heaving. I’d heard stories where ships were destroyed in a typhoon. Just totally lost. While there we had a memorial service for our shipmates who were killed the year before at Iwo Jima.

  Joshua Bell: What was it like to get home after all that time away from home?

  Robert Hinsdale: OK, I’ll wind it up and hurry here. We left the memorial and we picked up some military personnel at Iwo and headed to San Francisco. We stayed about five days and went back to Guam and picked up another bunch of military. They called us the “Magic Carpet” and we took the men back to San Francisco. And then, I was discharged in February of ’45. So that’s just about that. I was so glad to get home. I remember those days. Now I want to tell you, if you have an extra minute, about my parents.

  Joshua Bell: Sure, sure. Go ahead.

  Robert Hinsdale: OK. I want to honor my parents, for my life, for raising me and in effect my family, their family. So many memories of all they did for their kids. And their grandkids. My wife and I had 3 girls and a boy. The three girls and their families live within ½ mile of my home. The three girls are on each corner of my farm. And my son, Grover, is in Atlanta, a head coach at Georgia Tech. He’s been coaching down there for 37 years. He’s a special kid. And I, if I earned anything in my life, I would have to give Ardyth, my wife, all the credit. She raised the kids and I milked the cows! My folks took us to church and I have been going to the same church for 91 years, he Sand Creek Community Church. There’s a little town there, about 100 people live in the town, but, we have a wonderful church. We, Ardyth and I, we made several ship reunions and it was a joy to see some of the shipmates. We rent my farm out now, and I do bale the hay now as a hobby. I’m just about done too, with the hay business!

  Joshua Bell: Good!

  Robert Hinsdale: With 100 degree weather, I guess I better quit.

  Joshua Bell: Not a bad idea.

  Anyway, the local Sand Creek School, called the Aggies, is my entertainment. I attend all the ballgames. I’m active with the Gideon’s International. I belong to the Sand Creek Telephone Board, for 63 years and we have an active service for the patron’s. We even provide television now.

  I’ve been blessed with good health and have been able to donate 28 gallons of blood to the American Red Cross and I’m still giving. I also deliver Meals-On-Wheels.

  Joshua Bell: Good, good, Bob! I wanted to ask you, what are you most proud of with your service?

  Robert Hinsdale: Proud of? My service?

  Joshua Bell: Yeah, in your service, what are you most proud of?

  Robert Hinsdale: Well I guess my shipmate, Hillary Richard, for one. He kind of led me away from the drunk sailors and smoking and bad habits. And, so I enjoyed him. My division officer was just one of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet. He treated me wonderful all the time I was on ship. And, eventually, he became a minister and I wish I could have seen him later years, after he got out. But I didn’t.

  Joshua Bell: Good. Good. Is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you would like to add to the history?

  Robert Hinsdale: That’s a good question, Josh. I know after we hang up I’ll think of something. But I can’t think of it right now. I was very fortunate to be where I was, that’s for sure. I made the right decision when I went up to Detroit to be inducted and I chose the Navy. I will never forget that either. My heart goes out to the soldiers that had to live in foxholes, but I’m proud of them. I belong to the American Legion, and I go to the memorials and put on my uniform so we can honor the ones that didn’t make it. They are my heroes. I have some schoolmates and close friends that didn’t make it who served in different parts of the war. It’s sad to lose a soldier in the war.

  Joshua Bell: I can’t imagine. But we’re happy that you made it through, Bob.

  Robert Hinsdale: Yes, I’m very fortunate.

  Joshua Bell: We’re very happy, and I want to thank you on behalf of the Aleutian World War II National Historic Area and the National Park Service for sharing your stories with us. It’s an honor to hear them.