The
World War II Memoirs of
Marcel
Sujkowski
126th
The Marcel [
Joined the U.S. NAVY SEABEES,
Took my boot training in
Left
We had rough combat and survival training at
One time I was instructing my group how to
disarm a person with a knife. I flipped my buddy that had the knife and he hit
the deck with his head and got knocked out. We poured water on his face to bring
him to. I thought he was dead.
The
obstacle course was very rough training. One day we had Judo instructions and
the next day the obstacle course. This training went on for a month straight.
We did a lot of training with hand-to-hand, knife, machete, rifle and crawling
on our hands and knees under barbed wire with live ammunition fired over our
heads. Other training included climbing walls, swinging on ropes over water
from one side to the other side.
I was
very tired every night from this training. The Judo instructor always picked on
me every time when he demonstrated different points of fighting in judo. There
were times I did not go out on liberty into town with my buddies because I was
too tired from the judo and the obstacle course training.
Went home on a 30-day leave in October 1943.
After my leave, I reported back to
A week later, we boarded a troop
train to
We had an abandon ship drill here. We
stood on a high ramp about thirty feet above the water and jumped in with our
clothes on. When we were in the water, we took our shoes off, tied the laces
together, and put the shoes around our neck. We took our pants off, tied a knot
in each pant leg, and then lifted the pants over our head to catch air in the
pants. They acted as a life preserver. It was quite a drill. Stayed in this
area for more training till January of 1944.
Left Camp Parks for
We left the
We got caught in a terrible storm while at sea, bound for
The U.S.S. Arizona was a
mess. The Japanese left the place they bombed and
strafed in one hell of a
mess. I also saw the destruction that occurred at Hickam airfield.
Left Pearl Harbor in a storm, while at
sea just as rough as we got caught leaving the states. Arrived at the
All
this time we lived in pup tents. The only way we could clean up was to wash up
in the ocean. One time when I was swimming alone I heard someone yelling at
me. I looked at the beach and I did not
see anyone yelling at me. Then I looked up at the lookout pole and that’s where
the guy with a horn, yelling “SHARK!” I looked behind me and I saw a shark fin.
I swam really fast into shore. The guy said the shark swam around me two times!
I said to the guy, “The shark probably was not hungry for any Polish meat”.
Left Enewetak
We are still getting bombed
by the japs from the
While on board ship before we invaded the
islands of Engebi Enewetak, we were getting fired and bombed by Japanese
aircraft.
A Japanese submarine lurked
in the lagoon at Engebi. Our torpedo bombers from the aircraft carriers sank
the submarine.
The
natives were taken to the islands where there wasn’t any bombing or fighting to
live. We called them the green islands.
These
islands were out bounds for any military people.
All this happened in February
and March of 1944. We captured two jap snipers while working on the
Ten Navy corsairs left to
bomb the
Three airplanes did not come
back from the mission over Truk because they ran of out fuel. They think they
crashed over the
One of the longest and largest air raids
by the Japanese lasted for about four hours. We finished the airstrip and our
planes called corsairs started to bomb and strafe the
We had urinals made out of Jap
helmets. Seabees always knew how to
figure out things! A hole was cut out of the helmets and a pipe about half inch
in diameter was welded to the helmet. The pipes were about 5ft. long. The pipes
were pushed into the coral sand about two feet deep. They were all over the
island in designated places.
One time the air raid siren went off and we
got into our foxholes. One of my buddies decided to go back to our tent and he
said, “This is just a false alarm”. Then all of a sudden, the Japanese started
to drop the bombs. He jumped back into the foxhole. He fell right on top of me!
After the air raid was over, I beat the hell out of him for jumping on me. He
was my Polish friend from
Our Navy fleet came in and stayed for about
two weeks. That's when I meet my cousin from one of the ships, Leo Bachkiewicz.
Marines and seabees came to shore from the ships for swimming and relaxing on
the beach. The invasion forces on the ships were to invade islands of
Another navy fleet and troop
ship came in with marines, seabees and army. They stayed in port for about two
weeks.
Then the whole convoy of
ships left to invade the
I tried several times to make a
connection with my brother Joe’s ship he was on to see him. I never did succeed
because the ships shifted positions every hour so the Japs could not pin point
in what position the ships where in.
Tokyo Rose would tap into our American
radio and try all different subjects concerning wives and girl friends back
home not being good to lower the moral of our GI’s. Telling us to surrender,
because we are going to be defeated by the Japs.
We had the natives that were on the
islands when there was no fighting, bring coconut logs and palm branches on one
lcvp ship to our
For recreation when the tide of the ocean
went out, which changed every four hours, we walked all over the shore and
picked up sea shells and looked in pot holes in the ocean and observed all
different kinds of fish swimming. A lot of the holes were really deep. We also
tried catching some of the fish but never did succeed. We made necklaces with
the seashells that we picked up on the reefs. We sold some of the necklaces to
the people on board the ships. I sent some home to my sisters and they sent me
the chains so I could make the necklaces.
We made our own fishing poles and hocks with which we caught all
different kinds of fish. My first fish that I caught was a blowfish. I had to
step on it to get the hook out of its mouth since it was full of sharp gills. My buddy Joe put a hook on a rope, which was about a
half-inch in diameter and threw the rope in deep water. He tied the rope around
a huge rock for an anchor and checked the rope about six hours later. It was
broke in two pieces and the bait was gone. It must have been a very big fish to
break the rope.
One Sunday about 1800 we observed six of
the natives on the beach with poles about 6ft. long. They walked out to the
reefs when the tide was out toward the breakwaters of the ocean. Then almost
three hours later, we heard the natives yelling while in a semi-circle hitting
the water with the poles and coming to shore as the tide was coming back in.
The natives drove in fish to shore. Two of the natives were throwing the fish
on shore. It was something to witness. They drove in 300 or 500 fish to shore.
We ate fish for two days in a row. They were [ocean] perch and very good to
eat. I saw the natives eat the fish. They bit the heads of the fish off and ate
the fish raw with the intestines and scales on them. We almost vomited seeing the natives eating fish raw
like that.
The
Bob Hope show arrived on
Left the
October 18th, left for the
Monoloa Ridge seabee naval base the same day for rest and replacements for our
battalion. We rested for about six weeks. One of my friends was a cook in our
battalion. His name was Bill Staley from
Our
battalion was invited to participate in a smoker contest for a boxing team. The
Navy had smokers. It was a different type of entertainment to watch your
buddies participate in. Two of my friends joined the team, but I did not.
I
remembered my brother Joe telling me to never join any boxing teams, because of
boxing against a professional opponent. Two of my friends were knocked out in
the first round, but Staley got knocked out in the second round. So I was the
smart one not joining.
The USO put on some good entertainment for
us. They had ladies in grass skirts dancing and they were very good. The girls
and ladies were in what they called [Muumuu’s] that looked like nightgowns.
They were better then the people in grass skirts. Every part of their bodies
were moving in all directions. All of us stood up and clapped our hands in unison.
One day while on liberty in downtown
My brother Joe called me up
while his ship the U.S.S. Wichita was in
While on board the U.S.S. Dashing Wave on
our way to the Marshall Islands, we crossed the International Date Line. I got
initiated to the realm of the Golden Dragon
It lasted about all day. On
our way aboard the U.S.S. Fairside to the
The ships crew did not miss a trick.
While at Moanalua Ridge, I went to heavy
equipment school. I operated all different equipment; bulldozers, road graders,
cranes and power shovels. I enjoyed operating the cranes and power shovels. My
first experience in loading a truck with fill dirt, I held the crane bucket too
high over the truck box and dropped the dirt. The whole truck just rocked up
and down and the women Marines jumped out of the truck and cursed me real bad.
I never heard women curse that bad before. The instructor just laughed his head
off. From that experience, I learned the proper way to load a truck. After
finishing the school, I got a rating from seaman first class to machinist mate
3rd class and an increase in pay. We got our new replacements and are now a
full battalion again.
We left
Went to a catholic mass on a
huge British ship converted to a troop ship. We left our ship on a landing
craft to get to the ship. We had to climb a cargo net to get on board this ship
at about 0800in the morning.
We got a brief orientation
about
Invasion.
Dropped anchor in Naha harbor in
Okinawa at 1600 hour. Boarded a landing ship for the
I operated a crane on the beach
unloading all different kinds of equipment off the landing ships. Once the
Japanese shot a hole in the radiator of the crane I was operating. Somebody
found a pail and kept pouring water from the ocean into the radiator. I was
operating the crane all night unloading equipment from landing ships on the
beach while under fire and bombed from the Japanese.
When
daylight came, other people relieved us. I
operated the crane for fourteen hours straight, due to the fact that I was not
relieved as my buddies were. My commanding officer picked me up in his jeep.
After learning that I wasn’t relieved, he said to me, “Are you hungry and
tired?” I answered “Hungry and tired”.
He said what “would you like for breakfast?’ I said in jest, ham and
eggs! He took me to the officer’s area and said to the cook, “Feed this man
what he wants to eat”. I said “Ham and eggs” I had a lot of canned meat
and juices on the crane. I came back with a truck to get the can goods but they
where gone. Somebody stole them from the crane the following night while I was
driving a truck because they need to get the material off the beach. While
driving we were told not to stop till we reached our area because Japanese
snipers were in the area. We were driving up a hillside and I had a hard time
shifting the truck to follow the truck ahead of me. When I arrived in the area,
I asked the guy where to unload the truck. He told me that I lost part of the
load while climbing the hillside. The guy
driving the truck behind said to me, "Where did you learn to drive?"
He said he had to zigzag his truck from hitting the barrels falling off my
truck. The barrels were 60-gallon drums full of gasoline. That was my
first experience driving a truck and did alright driving trucks after that. We were told not to stop for anyone because the
Japanese army was all over the hills moving through the area.
The Army units used flamethrowers to get
the Japanese troops out of the caves and you could hear them screaming. Some of
the japs gave themselves up after awhile. A lot of Japanese men, women and children
came out of the caves.
Women are carrying all their
belongings on their heads coming out of the caves.
We are finally getting squared away. May
the 5th a large group of Japanese escaped out of the stockade where they were
kept.
A lot of them got killed while trying to get away. They came through our area at night and we were
shooting at them as they ran by. We were told not to take any Jap prisoners,
because if we did we would have to feed them from our rations.
An ammunition dump went off this morning. The Japanese
were bombing the area. Bombs and ammunition were going off just about all day.
Snipers are still on the prowl. June the 11th 1945 a large group of Japanese
went through our area at night. Every night the snipers give us trouble and I
can't sleep half the time. One of our buddies shot a Japanese officer. I was watching the back end of our tent and I saw
japs going by our area. I fired my rifle at them, but I don’t believe I hit
any. I asked my buddy Joe that was supposed to be watching the front end of the
tent if he had seen any Japs. He didn’t answer me. I looked at him and he was
asleep. I hit him with the butt of my rifle and told him to keep awake and
watch for Japs going by our area in front. I told him I am watching the back
end of the tent protecting him and he is not protecting me!
June the 19th, Japanese bombers
drop bombs on us again. We have air raids here just about every night. One
Japanese plane crashed in our area. A lot of jap bombers are shot down. We are
living near the village of Kin. Saturday June 21st 1945 while working around
the crane someone shot at me. I never did know were it came from. My buddy did
not know either. Maybe it was a Japanese sniper, but we sure hit the ground in
a hurry!
The Okinawa mud is lousy. It is like
driving on ice on the road.
A person sinks in the mud out
here. It never stops raining.
I had an accident with my crane. The boom
of the crane went over the crane cab. That was really a mess and was my own fault.
It took us all to day fix it up. I operated power shovels and trench hoes when
moving dirt.
August the 10th 1945 we heard scuttlebutt
that the Japanese are asking for peace. The Navy ships were firing at Japanese
suicide planes for just about all night in the
August 12th, 1945. We moved to another
village, this time called Ishikawa near the Yontan airstrip. The women in the
compound where the japs were kept only wore loincloths around their butts. We
saw all different size breasts.
The Japanese men 'Okinawans'
had two wives so we were told, one for raising children and the other for
pleasure.
Women worked the rice fields
and the men sat and smoked their pipes.
Ernie
Pyle got killed in the invasion of
After the invasion I found a chicken, another buddy found a dog and then
my friend found a monkey. So we had a few pets in and around our tent. The
monkey we called it Tojo and the dog which resembled a German shepherd, we
called him Rex. We feed them every day and they were in good health. I had a
string around one leg of the chicken so it wouldn’t get lost. My friend that
had the monkey said to me that he was going to make some raisin jack [Alcohol].
We could have a party and cook my chicken and eat it. My buddy that took care
of the monkey stole some raisins from the chow hall to make his raisin jack. He
put raisins and some sugar in a bucket with water let it ferment into alcohol,
about 120 proof, very potent stuff. Well about a month later on a Sunday, I
went to play a game of baseball with our team. I had a good game, which we won
against an Army outfit. When I got back to our area and my tent, there was a
bunch of guys singing and whopping it up, drunk from drinking the raisin jack.
The mess cups they used for drinking were tarnished from drinking the alcohol
of about 120 proof. The cups are made of a finished metal and turned black.
When I got to my bunk there was a guy drunk, lying down in my bunk and I had to
push him off since he was so drunk. He then tried to give me a hard time, but I
told him to get lost. These people were really drunk. I looked around our tent
and discovered my chicken was gone and asked the guy from
While
playing a game of baseball I sprained my ankle. The coach [our medical doctor]
told me not to put any pressure on it and let it heal. At night, my buddies from my tent went to
watch the movies at the chow hall. I stayed in my tent to write some letters.
Night set in and I turned on the light so I could see better .All of a sudden
the dog Rex started to growl and bark and the monkey Tojo started to chatter.
Rex and Tojo were looking up the hill behind our tent. Rex was really barking
now. So I turned off the light and looked up the hill and saw something moving
and running from one place to another amongst the pine trees toward me. I
grabbed my rifle and fired on the objects coming down toward my tent. I hopped
over to the chow hall and sat by my buddies. I told them about what happened
and why I came to watch the movie. After the movie, my buddies and I checked
the hill and found nothing but several broken pine branches up the hill. They
were Jap snipers, we all agreed to that. So the dog Rex and the monkey Tojo
probably saved my life. A lot of the snipers were throwing hand grenades while
they were on the prowl.
Doing guard duty from about two am to six
am while snipers are around, the area is very rough and scary. You have to be
ready and alert all the time. We were told not to take any Jap prisoners
because if we did, we had to feed them from our own rations. You also shot at
anything moving in the area. This is happening after Okinawa is in American
possession. Even sometimes at work details in the daytime, while operating the
crane or power shovels we were shot at from the hills in the area. I took the
rotors out of the distributor every time I got through operating the crane or
power shovels because the Japs were booby trapping our equipment.
Some of
our people got killed starting up the equipment.
We have been hearing scuttlebutt that some huge bomb
was dropped on
We are still getting bombed
just about every day and sometimes at night. Everybody is happy that President
Truman gave the okay to drop the Atomic bombs on
The first Atomic bomb dropped on
Emperor
Hirohito and Japanese Prime Minister Suzuki seek an immediate peace with the Allies.
General Douglas MacArthur is appointed to
head the occupation forces in
All we have to do is wait for
a ship to take us back home to the good Ole United States of
Naha Yontan airstrip and Mancinto
airfield are just jammed with planes of all types. The two harbors in
While still sight seeing we saw the Army
Airborne division getting ready to land in
A lot of our fighting equipment is
blown up and everything in the area is destroyed. Some of our people are getting
ready to go back to the States. At the present time General Mac Arthur is
getting everything tied up here for the trip to
Every building is blown up
and destroyed. We really gave the Japanese hell here. They deserved every bit of it.
We are still waiting for a
ship to take us back to the
Now, the signing of the defeat
of the Japanese empire, the political one on the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay
at ten thirty in the morning.
I am listening to the ceremony on the radio in our tent with four of my
buddies on the
All of us in the tent have
serious looks on our faces while the program is being broadcasted on the radio.
Now President Truman is speaking from Washington D.C. General Wainwright was
the first American to sign the peace papers.
Then they backed up on their
own power.
Monday evening
A.P.A. Number 138. Eight days
at sea. Most of the trip is rough, stormy and cold. Traveling in the north
pacific weather is very cold.
We crossed the International
Date Line tonight
Thanksgiving Day
We were in the fog for a long
time, almost all day. All of a sudden, we were out of the fog. The sun was
shining and it was a clear day.
We pulled into
Everyone has a smile on their
faces to be back in the
My buddy Minnie Vassalla was
picked to be the millionth man to come back from the Asiatic Pacific war area.
They escorted him off the ship by two beautiful ladies about 18 or 20 yrs. old.
A lot of women were cheering and singing to us on the deck of the ship all different
military songs, the National Anthem and God Bless
My buddy’s picture was on the
front page of every
I got stationed at the Navy base at
My leave starts on
Reported to the U.S.N. base in Great
Lakes Illinois after my leave for further assignment.
report to Navy Pier in
I tried to get tickets for
some of the great stage shows while in
I went to the Pulaski Hall several times
to listen to polkas and waltz music that was played and sung in Polish. I got a
lot of free food and drinks for nothing because I spoke Polish to the people
that were in charge of all the refreshments. Pulaski Hall was a nice and clean
place. I learned to dance when I would go to Pulaski Hall. My buddies that were
not Polish always wanted to go the Pulaski Hall with me for the free
refreshments. I visited a lot of historical places and museums in
I reported to the Great Lakes Naval
Base
I got an Honorable Naval
Discharge from the Navy Seabees on
These are just some of the highlights
and memories of my military life in the Navy Seabees during World War Two.
I thank God I survived the
conflicts of World War Two.
·
Disclaimer: About the ship pictures. With the exception of the
USS Wichita, which is the actual ship picture, all the others are ones that
were of the exact same class of ship that was listed. So most certainly, this
is what the ship looked like that was listed.
I got married to Leona [Lee]
Kelpinski
She is a good wife and mother
to our children. God gave me a good spouse. We have four wonderful children.
Peggy Ann born
Richard Allen born
Timothy Joseph born
Ronald James born
We purchased our lot at
We are still living at the
same house and address.
I made a living operating cranes and power shovels at Bay
City Shovels for nineteen years. I was the head tester
and demonstrated cranes. I
quit Bay City Shovels
I repaired all different
kinds of electric cranes while working there. I also ended up being an
electrician, maintaining and repairing all electrical equipment in the foundry.
I did tearing out of old electrical wiring in the plant and then wiring all
types of new equipment in the plant to modernize the facilities. I retired from General Motors in
Marcel [