Transcript

-tape beings-
Yeah, a PT boat, one those -points at picture of PT boat on his wall-. You remember President Kennedy?

–interrupted by father-

Where-where’s your camera?

I-I didn’t bring it! I’m so sorry… -laughs nervously-

-father interrupts again-

You know, I-I saw these pictures, that’s why-that’s why I realized that Don Jim is one of these….

That was a uhhh…

One of these uhhh…

Remember the story of President Kennedy? When he was young…?

-answers hurriedly- Yeah—yeah!

He was run over by a Destroyer, a Japanese Destroyer. He was on a PT boat, they’re called um, Torpedo boats, and that’s what a torpedo boat. That’s a picture of mine over there –points at photo on his wall- And uhh, that’s a torpedo boat in action. And there’s--see that picture up there in the corner?

Yeah.

That’s my crew.

Oh.

The 1-15

Oh my gosh.

Yeah! Ohhh.

-clacking noise and clatter heard in the background-

Well you guys want to interview Mr. Teale?

Yes

This young—they-they’re learning how to be young reporters now.

Well, that’s good!

Okay! Let’s see what we can do today…

You-you wanna start?

O-okay. Well, we’re gonna start off with some really simple question.

Sure.

Umm, so, where did you come from?

Where did I come from?

Yeah, where were you born…?

Well I was born in uhh, a little town called Elyria, Ohio. E-L-Y-R-I-A, and I was raised mostly in Minnesota.

And how was it like there…?

How was it in Minnesota?

Yeah.

Well it was wonderful in the summer time, and coooold in the winter. There was a lake by it, and we would fish in the winter time and fish in the summer time.

Uhh, so when were you born?

When? What year??

Yeah, in what year?

Oh wow—

I don’t think he wants to review that –laughs-

Ohhh wow…Ohhh yeah, I remember that. Well, I was born almost eighty-eight years ago, in 1922. June, 1922. That’s almost eighty eight years.

Wow….When did you join?

When did I join the Navy? Uhh…-pregnant pause- Ya know in December 7th it was. In 1941, I joined the Navy about one month after that happened. I joined January, 1942. I volunteered.

-surprised tone- Oh! You volunteered!

Yeah!

-noises of praise and agreement-

Oh wow!

Cool.

That’s a memorable thing.

Yeah…Well, see I had just started college, and uh, I volunteered immediately and then-then they let me stay for a little while uhh, for a few months until they found a place for me, to send me to officer school, and after officer school I graduated from officer school, then I went to uhh, PT boats. Then I went out—I went out , I had two tours of duty in the South Pacific during—during the war. I went in ’42 and I- I mustered out in ’46. So I was four years in there.

Which war did you serve at?

Hmm…?

-repeats question- Which war did you serve at?

I served in World War II, against the Japanese.

Hmm, against the Japanese.

That’s why he loves Japanese food.

-laughter-

Well he makes good Japanese food!

Uhhh, who did you serve under?

Well, well this is interesting. Most people think that uh, if you’re in the navy, you serve under a navy command. In the—in the Pacific, there were two commands. Command under Admiral Nimitz and he commanded the Northern part of the South Pacific. You have to have a—a image. Here—here’s a globe. Here you can look at it here.

-clatter and ruckus heard-

It’s okay, you can sit!

See, here is the Pacific- the Pacific ocean, and uhh, and Nimitz patrolled all the activity in this part—

-father interrupts-

Japan, Alaska…?

All this going here and Mr. Mcarther patrolled all of the parts through New Guinea and Australia.

Does it involve Alaska at that moment? No right?

Uh, Alaska was—

-father interrupts-

Up here.

Yeah. Because they invaded—Japanese invaded Alaska.

Right.

So there were two commands.

And you? Direct or mostly reported to…?

I well—We were small, ya know? The whole team. But, uhh but through the navy command, they answered Mr. Mcarther, at that time. Other navy commands that answered to Admiral Nimitz.

So when you served, was it already after Japanese invaded China, or before?

Oh well, the Japanese invaded China in 1937. They invaded Manchuria, came down West coast of China. And then that’s 1937 and they continued expanding down the West coast and finally in 1941, when they bombed Pearl Harbor, they continued with a very fast advanced to Indo—Chi? Indo- China?

Yeah, Indo-China.


And the Phillipines and took all their islands down there.

What exactly did you do in the war? Like, you were in the navy…?

I was in the navy, eventually was captain of a PT boat, one of those. Now a captain—now I wasn’t a captain, like a big guy. I was what they called uhh, just a minor officer. I was in command of a little PT boat.

Umm, drr, ohhh, did you ever fight against anybody, like…?

Oh yeah. You see this pictures here? –points at pictures-

Ohhh.

That’s what we did. We would go out on patrol every third night and we would go behind enemy lines and each every once in a while in—in fights like that.

What weapons did you carry on the boat?

We had-- You would understand this—we had forty mm guns—here I could show you again—we had forty mm and two twin fifty calibers, a twenty mm and uhh and that’s a twenty mm. Forty, twenty, two fifties, four torpedoes—

Against submarines?

Oh yeah.

Ooo wow.

And—and a set of rocket. Five inch rockets. We had a lot of armery, lot of weapons.

So you can detect submarines also?

Oh we can fire at ‘em, yeah.

Interesting.

That’s cool…

How long did you fight for? How long were you in the war?

Well I was in the navy for four years and in the war for three years.

And in those—in that time, did you get any awards or medals?

Well, we got uh, We got what they would call Battle Stars. When you’re in uh, engaged, when you’re engaged in a big battle, like when we went on patrol, not like that, but when we engaged in battle we got Battle Stars. ‘cuz I was in the invasion of –incomprehensible name- and in the invasion of Morotai. And we got uh, Battle stars for that. Apart from that, we just did our regular duties. We didn’t go lookin’ for trouble.

-laughter-

Ummm….

My-my daughter—you girls go to Saint Johns School?

Yeah.

Yeah.

See this is a picture of my daughter when she went to Saint Johns School.

-laughs-

Really??

Oh wow –laughs-.

She was there—let’s see—She’s now fifty-six years old…she went—

She went to Saint Johns??

Yeah, she went to Saint Johns.

OH WOOOW.

Yes, both my daughters did.

Ohh cool.

So they know Puerto Rico than I am!

Ohh yeah! They were raised in Puerto Rico! Born! They were born in Puerto Rico.

Umm, soo,--

Did you make any good friends, or any acquaintances or someone you remember specifically during the time?

Ohh. Ehh, when you’re on a PT boat, you have a crew. A crew of men. And there were two officers and ten men on that boat, and they became family. You knew them very very well, and that’s an interesting question because, you see this? That picture up there. That’s my crew.you also see under the 1-15 a picture of a goat. Well, that’s the goat. –points at the goat- That’s the only thing we saved from the boat.

Oh wow…

If you look carefully you’ll see writing on that goat

Yeah

That’s all the members of the crew. All the names.

Oh wow.

They all survived?

They all survived.

-sounds of astonishment and praise-

So you’re a great commander, a great captain.

Heh, we’re all lucky. That’s it. We’re all lucky, yeah.

And did you ever lose anybody, under your command?

Not directly, no.

Okay.

But when we go on patrol we go on another boat and uhh and when we go on patrol we lose someone on the other boats. But uhh, that’s a chance we take.

Is it like really hard for you to talk about the war or does it come really simply?

Well, most of it I don’t mind talking about, I like to talk about it, uhhh there’s a few little things I don’t like to talk about -- some of my friends would die of malaria, there was some unfortunate things, you can’t forget them but—

-Father interrupts-

You can tell that he is one of the proud veterans

Yeah

He is proud of what he did—he served well

At the time, when you were serving –cough- excuse me, did you believe that the war was really necessary?

Did I think it was necessary? Oh, at that time because remember, we were attacked which wasn’t like Afghanistan or Iraq. We were attacked, physically attacked, and remember, we did not go into World War 2 until we were attacked. That war was going on for two years in Europe. Uhhh between the Germans and the French and the English, uhh but it took the attack of Pearl Harbor for us to enter the war—Yes I was very – that’s why I volunteered, I was very supportive of the war.

So you were proud to serve?

Oh yes, oh yes—to stabilize the world—I was very proud to serve

Uhh do you think you have any memorable memories, coming from serving at the war, any distinct—

Well, yeah, I have all my memories I-I have a lot of them

But something more distinctive

Yeah like something more distinctive? Like something to brag about or to--

Not just to brag about, but it really like, it stuck with him, and he’ll like always remember it for--

Well, there are so many things I think about, for instance, uhh when we—we call these things fire fights when we get into a fight like that –points at picture of a fire fight- , those are always memorable because you are scared to death while you are in a fire fight, so you never forget those, but there are so many. Oh, I remember the day when we would uh have leisure and uh we’d take the boat out and we’d anchor, over a reef, by a reef, so the men could just go swimming, and we’d swim without any clothes because there was nobody around and there was always a lot of sharks

-gasp/laugh-

Hammerhead sharks, you know the ones with the –uses hands to show how hammer head shark looks like-

Oh yeah!

And we would have to put a-a person on the fifty caliber, up there –points at spot on picture where gun is- to watch for the sharks coming in and if they saw a shark, they would fire a blast,

Wow

But they wouldn’t really kill the shark, but they’d scare them away, but anyway those are just—

-phone rings-

Im so sorry

Soo..

You have another question Emily?

No, I think you answered all our questions.

Weren’t you glad to meet somebody like this?

Yeah.

I feel really honored.

Well thank you.

Thank you, Don Jim.

Thank you for coming in.

-rambling thank-you’s-

Thank you for letting us come to the office

Yeah my pleasure!

So you girls write it up good!

They will, they will!