Harbor on December 7, 1941. I was on the farm and don’t remember what I was
doing. I really didn’t even know where Pearl Harbor was. But as life went on I began
to realize and look forward to where I was going to be. I was really drafted when I
was eighteen, but since I already had two brothers in service and lived on a farm, the
draft board gave me a deferment until the crops could be gathered. They called me
in the first of January 1945. I went to Fort McPherson in Atlanta for the initial
examination to see if I was fit for service and I found out that I was.
My first experience to not being too eager to volunteer for anything. It
was cold and rainy and I never will forget they came in and said they wanted some
truck drivers. They needed some truck driver’s bad. A few of them were more eager
to volunteer than I was even though I think I did volunteer, but was not selected. I
remember during the day I looked out the window and saw all the volunteers out
there rolling wheelbarrows hauling trash in the rain and cold. I decided I didn’t need
to volunteer too often.
I left Fort McPerson for Camp Blanding and we got into Jacksonville
about two or three o’clock in the morning on a troop train. It took us all day long to
go from Atlanta to Jacksonville. About four o’clock, we got out to Camp Blanding,
I’ll never forget my first meal at an Army Camp. They gave me a plate of dried
Fordhook lima beans and two slices of bread. And that was breakfast. I knew then
that things were not going to be too good.
I took seventeen weeks of Infantry training. I did make expert
infantryman. I was selected as Squad leader. I had been captain of the basketball
team in high school, I guess they thought I had a little bit of leadership ability. I
decided I was more of a follower than a leader. Anyway, I was the Squad leader
through basic training. We ended up the basic training around June 1945. They
gave us either ten or fourteen days at home and then I was to report to Fort Ord, CA.
I rode the bus (most all-traveling people rode busses at that time). I had to stand up
from Dublin to Atlanta. Every seat was full and the isles were crowded. We caught
the train in Atlanta and went to New Orleans; it took three days and two nights to
go from Atlanta to San Francisco. They put me through three weeks of intensive
training in Fort Ord.
We left there and went to Seattle, Washington and stayed for three or four
days and then about four o’clock one morning, they came in and hollered for us to
get ready and we were boarded on a troop ship. It was one of those old ships that
bucks at every little wave it hits. I happened to be assigned to the bow of the ship
and when we went through Washington Sound, I was really seasick! They finally had
to give me a shot to keep me from upping up everything. If it went down, it sure had
to come back up.
We were on the ship for thirty days. The first land we saw was the
Carolina Islands. They let us off for four hours. We left Carolina Islands going
toward Okinawa and we started practicing going over the side of the ship. We had
already been assigned to which wave we would be during the attack on Japan. We
had been assigned the sixth wave to hit the beaches in Japan.
One day, I don’t remember the day that the atomic bomb was dropped,
we heard that the Japanese had surrendered, we like to have sunk the ship. We
went into the Harbor at Okinawa and that was a sight to behold. The kamikaze
pilots had sunk all those ships in the Harbor. It was a challenge to get in. Those
Japanese committed suicide by diving their bombers into the ships. We went in
there and we were in a mopping up operation. Really there was only one road on the
main island and that was right along the seashore. We were up on a little hill that
had been bulldozed off and I was in a pup tent.
This was my first experience with the vaccine that they gave us to keep us
from having heat strokes. It was Japanese vaccine that we confiscated from them.
They’d line us up and give us the shot and about one third of them dropped
unconscious. I knew then if the heat strokes were worse than the shots, we were in
bad trouble. They asked for volunteers to try to mop up the Japanese resistance.
Okinawa had lots of caves, especially burial caves. Every night the Japanese would
come out and look for food and water and we would kill a few. That was our job to
try to get rid of them. I didn’t consider myself a coward, but I didn’t volunteer for
too much of that, that’s for sure. I did practice with the flame-throwers in burning
them out of the caves.
As soon as we worked out the details, I was in the 27th Infantry, an old
time Infantry. A lot of the guys were going to come home, and a lot of them didn’t.
You got out on points. You collected so many points to get out of service. Of course,
the 27th was used for the occupation of Japan. I remember when we would go into
a town; you wouldn’t even hear a dog bark or a child cry. All the people had been
brain washed that the Americans would rape and kill them. They were scared to
death of us! They soon found out that we were soft hearted. We’d go into a store
and they would shove everything to us, they’d try to give us everything. Our job was
to go into each town and destroy anything connected to the military. We’d pile it in
a pile and burn it or destroy it so it couldn’t be used anymore.
That’s where I learned to drink hot tea. That was a Japanese custom
and the leaders would serve us hot tea.
We flew into Yokohama and then up to Sendai, that’s where the 27th was stationed.
But they disbanded it there and I was put into the 11th Airborne, a Para Glider
outfit. I never did glide but we just practiced a lot. We were on the main island of
Hunchu; we went up to the northern part of it to a little town that had a large
manufacturing plant that was protected by all mountains around it.
We took over a three or four story hotel for our headquarters. The only time I
ever saw dog sleds. We had so much snow overnight that only about two feet of a
telephone pole would show. We got snowed in there and stayed all winter. One
little company with a 2nd Lt. We really had a ball up there. We ate off silk linens
and had silverware, everything that we wanted. But when Spring came; it was all
broken up. The regular army came in and kind of broke up all the good stuff. I
was assigned as PX operator because of my experience in the grocery business.
We left there in the spring and came back to Sendai and spent the rest
of the time there training. A lot of men were getting out on points. The military
was doing everything they could to keep you in.
I had made Buck Sgt. and was the gun crew chief and they offered me 1st
Sgt. if I would sign up for three years. They would give me thirty days at home and
if I had a wife I could carry her back with me. I had enough of the Army. I had spent
sixteen months over there and October 1946, I had accumulated twenty-five points,
enough to come home. I was shipped back to Seattle and from Seattle to Fort Sam
Houston, Texas and then discharged. My mother’s birthday was October 15. I tried
to make plans to be home for her birthday.
A group of us paid an old airline (a plane like they used for paratroopers).
He flew us from Ft. Sam Houston to Atlanta and I caught a bus and rode to right out
here at the Garner-Dominy Road and got off and it was about two or three o’clock
in the morning. I walked home which was about a mile. I knew they never kept the
doors locked. I went to the back door and walked in and as soon as I walked in, my
mother called my name. I had not let them know I was coming home. They had not
heard from me in over a month. It was amazing to me that she recognized it was me
when I walked up on the back stoop. I was glad for my mother to see me on her
birthday.
Basically my life in the military was not too eventful. I was very fortunate
that I made it through the twenty-two months I was in.
Note: I (Mac Fowler) asked about his brothers who had served and are
now deceased.
My older brother, Robert in his youth jumped from a hayloft in the barn
and tore up a muscle in his leg that never healed. The Army took him anyway. As
soon as he started the physical training, he couldn’t do it so he didn’t stay in but
about a year. They discharged him.
Jack, my other brother took the test that they came around and gave in
high schools. I think it was called the V12 program, above the average intelligence
was needed to qualify for the program. He applied for it and spent a little over a year
in the northern states with that program. When the Japanese surrendered, they did
away with the program and he came home.
Neither Robert nor Jack had to leave the States.
My brother, Bernard went through the European Campaign through
France and Germany. He now lives in Milledgeville.
My parents were Arthur and Nancy Lord Barfoot, daughter of Mr. and
Mrs. Robert M. Lord.
There were five boys and two girls in my family, Lucy, Robert, Bernard,
Jack, Fisher, Celestine and me. We lost a brother when he was about four years old.
My wife is Elsie Brantley Barfoot. Her father, Jesse Brantley was killed
when she was about three or four, her mother, Nina Mae Cook Brantley married Jim
Henry Weaver. They were from Washington County, GA.
Elsie and I have 4 children, Patricia Barfoot Fargala, Andrew Clifford
Barfoot, William Sanford Barfoot, and Bentley Jay Barfoot.
We have nine grandchildren Lauren Fargala, April Fargala, Kyle Fargala,
Andrew Barfoot, Jessica Barfoot, Diane Barfoot, Scott Barfoot, Jennifer Barfoot, and
Christopher Barfoot.
Interview by Mac and Jimmie Fowler
Clifford Walker Barfoot
2882 Highway 80 West
Dublin, GA 31021
October 18, 2000
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