Harry Bailey Interview

Harry Bailey served with the US Army Harbor Craft Detachment during World War II. Harry’s service was not on the large vessels and supply ships but on the small coastal and inter-island vessels such as the power barges, tugs and freight passenger ships that supplied food and equipment to the bases in the Aleutian Islands.

Through his years of service in Alaska he experienced the weather that the Aleutians are notorious for and recalls some of the most memorable voyages. He describes what life was like for a young service man in the Aleutians during the war; what he ate, where he lived and how he passed the time.

Read a narrative from Harry Bailey in this online article, which tells his story in great detail. His interview is available in text and audio below.

• Complete Harry Bailey Interview

  
  

  Harry Bailey's interview about his life and World War II.

  Date created:

  10/14/2020

  Audio Transcript

  Interview with Harry Bailey Aleutian World War II National Historic Area Oral History Project April 10, 2008, Sutton Massachusetts Interviewed and transcribed by Janis Kozlowski, National Park Service, Anchorage, Alaska [sound of phone ringing] Harry Bailey: Hello. Janis: Hi, is this Mr. Harry Bailey? Harry Bailey: Yes. Janis? Janis: Yes, is this gonna be a good time to talk? Harry Bailey: Sure. Yes. Janis: Ok. Harry Bailey: I’m prepared for you. Janis: I thought I might have confused you in my letter saying it was going to be at 10:30. I forgot to put Alaska time next to that. Harry Bailey: I didn’t think of that until yesterday. Janis: Oh. [laughing] Um. Harry Bailey: No, it can’t be. [chuckling] Janis: Yeah. That’d be real early your … no … yeah that’d be very early our time. Harry Bailey: You’d have to take and well … I’d still be in bed maybe. Janis: [0:00:45] Now, I’m sitting in a conference room here with a digital tape recorder turned on. Is it ok with you if I tape our conversation? Harry Bailey: Sure. Janis: Ok. Great. Now, when I talked to you the other day you had stories to tell me; things that you remembered from your time in the Aleutians. I wondered if you just wanted to start there? Harry Bailey: Yes. [0:01:11] I do in my story that I will send you, a lot of it will be the same as far as when we went to Attu going from Seattle; it was in December and January and I cannot swim though it makes no difference up there. I was scared to death all the time. We ran into one big storm probably crossing the Gulf of Alaska and then we got lost, sort of, off of Adak and we sat offshore. We could see some lights and we thought it was Adak but we were not sure and I think we spent a day and a half out there. And finally a Navy boat came out to rescue us and take us in. That was the easy part because we got hung up in the submarine net going in and all kind of little problems but nothing big in that aspect. [0:02:12] At Attu, of course, we carried freight to Shemya. I’ve said if it wasn’t for these little power barges I don’t think Shemya would have existed at that time because there was no harbor. We would go into a small dock and instead of you throwing your line to the dock they had two bulldozers that would throw a small line and you’d pull in their cable and then the bulldozers would wheel you into the dock side and you’d bounce off the bottom in the sand. They’d unload you in as fast a speed, I mean, you’d be gone again. Off you’d go to Attu and another day of getting loaded and in turn going back to Shemya again. [0:03:00] And there were a couple of big storms we got in at Shemya. We were, I think there were probably six to eight of those power barges and all they would tell us was to go out into deep water. At that time in the snow and so forth we couldn’t find our way back to Attu and when the storm was over, I mean, for the most part, everybody got in. But on this one particular night one fellow had on his barge, he didn’t have any fuel. He had no choice but to get back to Attu as soon as possible to get adequate fuel. He made it all the way in the harbor but then when he got there he ran aground. So, just to get in that night was quite difficult but he did that part and then lost his ship. Yes. Anything else there you had? Janis: Did … [0:03:54] You didn’t have a lot of … you know, you were saying that you were stuck out at sea some trying to find Adak when you were first coming up. You must not have had a lot of good navigation equipment at the time. Harry Bailey: We had a compass, nothing else. Janis: [laughing] That’s pretty meager. Harry Bailey: That’s right. And at the same time they weren’t equipped yet to … but we had a radio – we never used that radio, oh, probably till late in ’44 at Attu when we could converse with a radio station. That’s how I ended up as a radio signal man and I learned the Morse Code—to blink with the lights. And then once the radio stations came on, I mean, you had better contact with shore. But there were some times there when … well, I can say we went to Agattu one summer and I don’t think the radio would reach us at Agattu because of the mountains. I guess we enjoyed it over there and we just spent probably two or three weeks and finally as we were leaving to go back to Attu they were coming over to find out what happened to us. [0:05:01] It was kind of a … if you belonged to Harbor Craft Detachment, part of the ships were manned by civilians. There was always a little bad feelings there because they were drawing probably $1000-1500 a month and we were still on that $100 or less. On occasion, I would say probably only two, but when things got tough the Army would order us to do something, well the civilians would come up with an excuse; their anchor was tied up in the rocks or something of that sort and we’d have to go. So, there was that bad feeling but not to any great extent. [0:05:41] Clothes wise, I don’t know, the Army did not give you clothes that were adequate for being on a ship. We were always trading with the Navy. We’d give them something in turn for one of their jackets. I remember I did have one at that time. Like I said, the Army did not equip you well. They gave you some rain clothes, the same outfit that you would be wearing if you were an infantry man. So, that wasn’t one of the pleasurable moments there as far as the civilian thing and being ordered to do things that somebody else wouldn’t do. Janis: Well, the … [0:06:25] you were part of the Army Transport Service, right? Harry Bailey: Yeah, I was loose [laughing] from the point of I’m not sure everybody knew where they belonged. We were … I think they came up with Harbor Craft, that particular name, probably in late ’43 because we – most of us were infantry that had finished basic training. Then when we got to Seattle they put us in Harbor Craft Detachment. Janis: Was that because you had … [0:06:57] did you have some seaman skills? Harry Bailey: None at all. [laughing] None at all. And they did have a school in Seattle. We would travel every day down from Fort Lawton to the docks and there was a school there. It was, again, pretty loose. I mean, it was there if you cared to learn if not, I mean, you just brushed it off. Some of these people never did care and often, I won’t say often, but occasionally if you could claim chronic seasickness you’d get off the boats. Janis: So, was it a volunteer thing or did they just initially pick some people? Harry Bailey: They just picked us. Janis: And then some of them didn’t like it so well so they tried, maybe, to get out. Harry Bailey: Yes. Yes. Janis: [0:07:42] And then how did these civilian people … how did … were they part of Army Transport also? Harry Bailey: Yes. You know, without the – well, I don’t want to say it – they weren’t in the same fashion as … like if you’re in the Army being ordered to do something. But, I think in the beginning there were not enough Army people to go and that’s how civilians got into the aspect of working. There were a number of them, I mean, I would say, like at Attu, there were probably, well, if there were 40 Army ships, I would say that at least 10 were civilian crews. Janis: Wow. Harry Bailey: And occasionally there was a mixed one too. I never did figure that out because I was not of that … it never happened to me. Janis: So the pay differential was quite large though, you said, right? Harry Bailey: Yes, quite. Janis: Were the civilian ones, were they older fellows so they didn’t try to get them to enlist or something? Harry Bailey: Yeah. They were older, you know, they probably would get into, you know, what is it 39 years old, I guess and you couldn’t be drafted or whatever. But occasionally you’d get a few younger people like ourselves who had been, I guess classed as 4-F for Army service and they were as civilians on those ships. Janis: Hmm. [0:09:15] So would you tell me, when did you get into the Army? Harry Bailey: In mid-March in 1943. Janis: Ok. [0:09:29] And after your training, did you go right up to the Aleutians? Harry Bailey: No. We probably didn’t go to the Aleutians … it was a couple of days before Christmas in 1943 that we left. [We] Spent the … probably, two months at Fort Lawton before we did get assigned to a ship and go off to the Aleutians. They said there were, a lot of them, I mean a lot of these other ships they only did … they also did the Bering Sea up to Nome. I have a friend who takes great pride in being the first mate and having the Captain say, “I’m going to bed, you take this thing tonight and you bring it back down to Dutch Harbor.” And he says how he feels so good he passed between Little and Big Diomede. He felt that he had accomplished something there. Janis: Without hitting them? Harry Bailey: Without hitting them. [laughing] There were some -- I can’t think of any particularly right now, wild stories, that, you know, you can laugh at now, but at the time that … They don’t seem as bad now. Janis: [0:10:46] Well, there must have been some real scary experiences. You even said in your crossing from Seattle you hit the storm there and I’m sure you saw some pretty bad weather. Harry Bailey: We did. I mean, they say Attu some of those storms would go on for four or five days. Someone said that the storm always stopped on the odd number day but I can’t vouch for that or can’t remember. But they were … you know you’d hang into the harbor there on your anchor. You’d like to get a buoy, you know, you could secure to that but we always got chased away from them because the Navy claimed they were the ones that had the preference on them. [0:11:28] But, you know, your anchor and the wind blowing like it did, the anchor would drag on the bottom and I can recall one night of say, in my bunk, and we had two new crew members that had been on the White Pass and Yukon Railroad. They just came on and had no idea what this was about. But …and it wasn’t a stormy night but as I’m laying there—as I say, I can’t swim—so I was always the best man to watch out. I felt a bump and I looked out the window and we were dragging anchor and we just bumped into another power barge like ourselves. And I hopped out of the bunk and looked down in the galley and there were these two railroad men sitting playing cards. They never felt the bump or anything. [Janis laughing] But, that’s just, like I say, one of the things. These railroad men used to talk about going up to Whitehorse where you could buy liquor and getting half tooted up and coming all the way down to Skagway blowing the whistle all the way. [Janis laughing] That was their humor, you know. [both laughing] [0:12:39] But, you know, there were a number of storms, I mean, I cannot recall all of them, but that one, particularly on Shemya there, where they just told us to get out or leave ... because, we used to unload freighters. They would come over, well, up from Seattle or San Francisco and they would lay offshore at Shemya and we would tie along side of them and they would, you know, load us and we would run into the dock and come back out and do that – 24 hours a day. That was handled pretty easy. For awhile when I first got there we had a civilian and every time we got to go to the dock he’d wake everybody up. You know, some people had been up all night and then they’d wake up again. But once he was gone we could handle it properly. [0:13:32] Then they have, between Shemya and Niski, the island, is a pass. I don’t think anybody had ever been through there, [it was] very narrow and how during the storm the big swells that flow through there. But, they finally said that’s the way to go because you could go the other side of – the south side of Shemya – and get some relief from the wind. If the storm didn’t become greater we’d just hang there at anchor. And when it subsided we’d go back to the other side, the north side, of Shemya and start unloading ships again. Janis: [0:14:10] So it was safer in a storm to be out, kind of out – not out in the big sea – but away from the shore so your barge didn’t get beat up and swamped? Harry Bailey: That was about the size of it. Get out in deep enough water and hope that all would go well. I mean, at least you wouldn’t run aground. It did happen from time to time. When I first got to Attu the first storm, which happened shortly after we arrived, a tug boat with a six man civilian crew hit a rock out there and all six of them drowned. It could happen in the harbor even. [0:14:49] When I was in Attu in 1990, when I got back there, I pointed out to the warrant officer, he said they were going to start trying to sal … not salvage, but do something with locating old ships. And I said, “you go out on that rock there and there’s one dangling out there.” There were others that did not even get into Attu. What kind of a ship – telephone service or wire service, they were, you know, trying to run a phone service to Attu. And that big thing, I think it was called the Dellwood, [US Army Cable ship, photo in University of Alaska Fairbanks archive. Supposedly one of four ships lost at sea during World War II] they had machinery for, like a switchboard. It was supposed to go and be dropped off at Shemya. Well, they forgot to do that and they were going on to Attu and the ship hit a rock and sank outside the harbor. So the … I don’t know whatever happened with the switchboard, but that was lost and everything else. Janis: [0:15:50] Well, there weren’t a lot of … I mean, there was a lot of water between those islands between Dutch Harbor and Attu and there weren’t a lot of people out there to help you out if you got in trouble, right? Harry Bailey: No. I can’t remember losing many too many people, just occasionally, but everybody seemed to get by. I mean, no, the Navy, I guess would come. And going … at the time late, before the war ended I was back at Seward at a radio station and before getting to the radio station I was assigned to the biggest ship that we had, [they] called it “FS”. I guess that meant freight and passenger or freight service. I was put on as a signal man—radio man--on that ship. We … the engines quit somewhere off of Dutch Harbor and I never heard of Chernofsky until that day when we got the call for assistance. It was a nice summer day so you just hung out there and, I don’t know, about ten hours later a tug came out and towed us back to Chernofsky. [0:16:59] But, I don’t know … well, in Seward I ran into, when I was at the radio station there, where I could hear a faint voice on the radio and it was one power barge towing a disabled one. But the one, the tower, lost his power and the one he was towing in turn had, as best they could, to hang on and be … and take care of that one. And they were trying to call into Dutch Harbor but I guess due to the mountains there and Shelikof Strait they couldn’t hear them so I was able to pick that up and relay it. And the tug went out from Kodiak and pulled them in, I guess, because I never did hear anymore about it so I’m sure they were safe. Janis: Boy, that sounds like an … that could have been a real tragedy there. Harry Bailey: Yes. Yes. When you’re on the radio you always … when you can’t hear anybody, you ask for words twice. That is, repeat each phrase. I had to do that that night because they were, you know, so far away or whatever. I mean, the reception was very poor. But they made it I guess, you know. Janis: That’s good. [0:18:13] Now, this power barge that you were on, how big was that? Harry Bailey: 85 foot long, not very big. Janis: And how many crew worked on it? Harry Bailey: Nine people. You had: the fellow we’ll call the skipper, First Mate, the cook, two engineers – that makes five—and four so-called deck hands and in my case, I guess, I did that as well as radioman. So it’s nine people. There were other power barges. There was one other size, a little bit bigger, I guess, 110 feet or so. They, well … where did I read it … there’s a book somebody did on Army ships of World War II and they always say the power barges did the dirty jobs. We always like to think they were doing the best work. [0:19:12] If you’re, like I say, banging off the shore on Shemya, not Shemya but Agattu, the radar station they set up over there, the first time we went over there one of the smaller freight/passenger ships had bad luck and they hit the rocks and they were – the thing was sinking. We went over to salvage it but there was nothing there that was worthwhile. Janis: Hnn. Harry Bailey: Yes. Janis: Well, I was gonna ask you, you … [0:19:46] when you had problems like that was the … was it the Army’s responsibility to help you out? Did the other Army Transport ships try to help you or was the Navy helpful as well? Harry Bailey: I would say both. I would say both. I mean first one would be called would be, you know, Army. But, then I think the Navy were probably were more equipped with, you know, being that much bigger and having more occasion for salvage work. [0:20:15] At Attu they built a marine railroad which would haul you up onto the beach, you know, to be serviced. They built that thing about four times – or tried to build it, put it that way. And each time it came near completion the wind would come and the storm would blow it down again. Janis: Oh, geez. Harry Bailey: And after awhile they just, they give it up. They must have said let it go. Janis: Well, it’s probably too far to go all the way back to Dutch Harbor or some other safe harbor to get a boat fixed, right? So that’s why they tried to do that? Harry Bailey: Yeah, that’s right. Yes. The Navy did have a, I guess you call it, a floating dry dock that would take their ships in. On occasion, I mean, when we had problems they’d work it out with the Navy where we’d go in there and, you know, drain the water off and set us up on piling and so forth to be serviced. That happened to us once, we went in there only because taking care of your ship, you have to copper paint the bottom. That’s supposed to be one of the essential things to keep the power barge in decent shape. But we did do that one time. We serviced the Navy; a couple times we did that. [0:21:44] When the so-called task force would come in, because they would go down to Paramushiro, in the Kurile Islands, they’d bombard them and they always came in at night. When you woke up in the morning you’d see that. There was probably two cruisers. This wasn’t much of a so-called task force, it was very small compared to the south Pacific but they – two cruisers and probably six or seven destroyers. And when they would come in they had to be, I don’t know if they stocked up on food and so forth, and we were designated to do that one time. [0:22:28] And, God, the Navy had nice food compared to the Army. I always remember there were honeydew melons and cantaloupes. I didn’t see one of those things for three years up there. The Naval officer who was there that day, after we finished servicing them, he gave us a couple of melons which was the, I guess his way of saying that we did a good job supporting them. Janis: I wonder why there was such a difference in the food. I’ve heard others say that too. And they also said the Navy would get like recreational equipment for people too. Harry Bailey: Yeah, well, I think, I’ve often heard that and I don’t know why but they said the Navy did take better care of [people], as far as the eating was concerned. I’m trying to think of … I know a story of a couple of Air Force people that were … that heard about the good food the Navy served. They were flying people and pilots and they went over to the Navy officer’s mess hall to eat one night and they treated them alright but they said their uniforms were nothing. That all these naval officers from the lowest one to the highest one were dressed in their dress uniform and white shirts and ties. And he said we were scrubby Air Corp with big flying boots and jacket and so forth. They felt out of place they said. But I guess they made their one trip. Janis: Got something good to eat at least and see what was going on on the other side? [laughing] Harry Bailey: We never had steak. I never saw steak. In fact, I think the only time I ever had steak was when they brought us back to Seattle, coming home for discharge. They gave a choice of steak or turkey. Janis: Wow! Harry Bailey: [0:24:27] In Seattle, they had table waiters that were German prisoners of war and the way they went around there –cocky—you’d think they had won the war. [both laughing] Truly so. I mean, arrogant. But anyway, that’s another story too. Janis: So, they … the German prisoners of war were put to work there in Seattle? Harry Bailey: Yes. I didn’t know it until I got back there. Janis: I guess there was nowhere they could run so they could use them for some things like that without worrying about them getting away. Harry Bailey: It’s a long way back to Germany. Janis: Yeah. A lot of water between. [both laughing] Harry Bailey: [0:25:07] There was another prisoner of war camp up in southeast Alaska too. It started off to be a, before the war, or during the beginning of the war, to be a trans-shipment for all kind of, you know, things that would be going off to the Aleutians. But, because when they retook Attu and Kiska in 1943 and how the Army works, they never needed that. The thing was still being built by the time the battle of Attu was over. So, I guess it was German prisoners of war they brought up there to dismantle the thing. I think that’s where some of the … no that wouldn’t be … where the natives, remember from Attu, they shipped them back off the island before the war? Janis: Yeah, to near Ketchikan. Harry Bailey: Yes. Yes. And, of course, they weren’t treated very good. We had a couple of Aleuts, as we’d say, with us. Janis: Oh, you did? On your ship? Harry Bailey: Nope, with the group on one of the ships. Janis: Oh, ok. Harry Bailey: There was one little fellow, they had a little, very … a tugboat they called a midget tug—not very big. But they used that to relay instructions at Shemya. And that little thing probably couldn’t have been more than, I don’t know, 15 or 20 foot long, and he’d go back and forth between the freighters and deliver messages and so forth. But one of the people on that was a little Aleut. And they used to take that damn boat out there, I mean, when big swells were rolling in. It didn’t seem to bother them at all, you know. Janis: I suppose they were used to it if they’d been living out there their whole life. Harry Bailey: I guess. [0:26:56] Over at Agattu we had to get out of that cove at one time because of a storm that was coming and the wind was gonna carry us into there. So we decided to go around Agattu just because we had to come back after the storm was over. We came to a big, you know, the Orthodox cross, the two cross bars. That was on Agattu right on a sandy beach. A little hut buried half in the ground and that must have been prior to the war. They would fish over there or something. I saw a picture or something lately and they were showing the Aleutians and that … I think it was the same cross that was still there, you know. It was, you know, a pretty massive thing. Janis: Wow. Harry Bailey: [0:27:53] I had read, and this is getting away from my story but, I had read that … oh, I don’t know what his title would be, but he went down through the Aleutians, you know, studying graves and so forth. I don’t know, I can’t even tell you his name now. But anyway, he said at one time, they figured that 1000 people lived on Agattu, many, many, you know, 100s of years ago. I was surprised to see that. You wouldn’t think that it was because at Attu during, you know, prior to the war, I don’t think there were any more than probably 60 or 70 people there. Janis: Yeah. [0:28:32] And you guys had a radar station there, right? Harry Bailey: At Agattu? Janis: Yeah. Harry Bailey: Yeah. And I still can’t believe how they would … they were up on a high peak. I never did see the radar station. We went over there, but the first time we went over they must have been … had radio contact with Attu at that time because maybe an hour after we got there this little Army truck came crawling down off the high hill and they took supplies. We ran the power barge up onto the beach and they loaded up. There was no crater mount and then they went back to where the radar station was and they must have had … I know they had bulldozers there but you have to have gravel to build a road. I finally ran into a fellow who was at that radar station. I said I often wished I had … some afternoon when on the ship we were doing nothing I would have liked to walked up and looked at it. He said, “that road is 20 miles long.” I looked at the map I have and that road wiggled back and forth up and down to get over there. You know, around this pond or mountain or something. The direct line, I would guess, said it was no more than even 10 miles, you know, from where we were. But, they were there and there was another radar station on Attu. We went over there just once. We brought the Chaplain over, it must have been for a service or something like that. Janis: [0:30:20] So you never got far off the ship to go see if there really was any evidence of people having lived on Agattu, it sounds like? Harry Bailey: No, and I think today how I should have done more like that. I mean, I guess some of the people who were on Shemya there they really got into it. And they claim there was a cemetery with two people buried there and some of them more enlightened in that sort of thing, I mean checked out the flowers and everything else that crew there and so forth. But I guess being young we just did the thing and didn’t get too involved that much with that sort of thing. Janis: [0:31:02] Well, it sounded like you stayed on your ship quite a bit though, right? Harry Bailey: We did. Yeah, because there wasn’t … I say that I think I saw two USO shows at Attu while I was there and one movie. Because, the thing is that you kind of, well, I don’t know, but you don’t … you didn’t go too far. There wasn’t much to do anyway. We were always, you know, getting ready to perhaps leave. They never, you know, had any orders and such. [0:31:46] And another ship with a friend of mine I went to school with came in one day to Attu. He was on a yacht that belonged to Ford Motor Company that had been taken over by the Army. So he came ashore, or came over to our boat and we decided to go to the PX. Well, we did, but by the time we come back down to take him back to his ship a real storm – not a real storm but a good storm [laughing] had started to pick up. And in that harbor, in that little ship, he had to get back and they weren’t going to come into the dock because they didn’t want to damage it. And my … I was afraid, because I couldn’t swim, like I say. And one of the fellows on the boat said, “well, take the skiff, I’ll take him back.” And, I didn’t want to get on that little 15 foot, 12 foot skiff, but I said, “I got to go, I got to go.” Because, he was my friend and I was scared to death. But anyway, I took him out there and he owed me some money from going to the PX and he finally got aboard the yacht there and he says, “I’ll go down in my stateroom and get your money.” And I said, “The hell with the money. No, no.” [laughing] We got back ok, but I mean. I thought that was gonna be the end that day. Janis: [0:33:09] So, just because of that you probably didn’t get a lot of shore leave, right? Harry Bailey: No, no. There was, you know, I don’t know, we never, as I say, I did play basketball too-- like I’ve forgotten that, a couple of times. And I had forgot that I had even played basketball until I ran into another fellow who came from New York and somehow we got in contact. It was only about five years ago and he said, “Did you play basketball?” And I said, “I don’t think so.” Well, he kept all the basketball scores over the years. [laughing] And he called me back one day, he said, “Yup, you were there. “ He said, “You scored two points one game.” [both laughing] But I forgot it completely, you know. Janis: Where would you have been able to play? Harry Bailey: The Navy. The Navy had a gym. Janis: Where was that? Harry Bailey: At Attu. Janis: Oh! Harry Bailey: [0:34:02] Yeah, they had … if you wanted to go to the PX, the better place to go was the Navy ship store, you know, which would be the equivalent of the PX. But they had far more merchandise that you might be interested in buying. So, we went over there whenever we had a desire to. But it was, like I say, far better than what the Army offered. Janis: So, is that where you can spend your pay? Harry Bailey: That is right. I don’t know, even then there wasn’t much you needed to even spend the money. [0:34:42] But they had massive dice game out there … I think maybe all through the Aleutians, perhaps. And I still don’t know of anybody who heard of it that I know of but they called it “four, five, six.” And you used three dice. I won’t get into all the thing, how you get in … all the crap you get in --you get a natural, a five, seven or eleven. But, that was a different game. We had a cook. He always talked about how he was up at Bethel on the Kuskokwim River and he had a good night rolling the dice. And all the time he was at Attu he lost his pay probably within two days after getting it. And this particular day of getting his pay he went up to the game; because I guess it went on every night. And he came back and he was, I don’t know, somebody made some hooch out there and he was staggering. But anyway, he came back and we said, “you lost your money again.” He says, “no, no,” he says, “I made money.” Well, because he couldn’t navigate too well, we just sat him down and was gonna put him to bed and went through his pockets, I think he probably made about $1500 that night. Janis: Wow! Harry Bailey: Which was a lot of money then. Janis: Yeah! Harry Bailey: And the following night he wanted to go back and it was decided that we weren’t gonna let him take more than, I don’t know, $100 or something. And he went back up that night and he came back and he had $500. Janis: Wow. [laughing] Harry Bailey: After that he was leaving to go back to the States; to Louisiana. So he went home with a pocket full of money. [0:36:24] Money used to change hands, even on the ship rolling dice, with nine people. One guy would have it all, somebody’d get around and find somebody he could borrow $10 from and they’d have another game and all the money would transfer to somebody else. I don’t know how many times It’d pass through my hands and go to another fellow a week later when we were shooting dice, or rolling dice. Janis: But nobody felt bad about that on your crew? Harry Bailey: No. You actually … you couldn’t do a lot with the money anyway. Smart guys sent it home, right? I sent some home, but my accumulation of money the whole time there was like, I guess about $5- or $600 I was able to do that. But the dice games went on every night. Janis: [0:37:12] So, did you pretty much sail with the same crew the whole time? Harry Bailey: Uh, no. I guess we, that was always something we had a … well, at Attu when we first got there, we had a good crew. We lost two people: the cook and two deck hands on the way up. They claimed seasickness, so we got one with … the fellow was a native of Alaska. He lived up in Chicken. Do you know where Chicken is? Janis: Yup. Harry Bailey: Ok, he’s been to Chicken to mine gold on a stream up there. He had a claim. We got a new cook, the one that won all the money. I can’t remember who else. It was really good people. You could get along fine. But, for one reason or another … well, they … the fellow who was the Skipper, the fellow that we left Seattle with, that’s the First Mate in going with an Army person. And he was to learn to be the Skipper when we got to Attu because the civilian would go back off to Seattle. He just took us there. He went up to the rank you could get on the Skipper bit was a Warrant Officer, Junior Grade. And when he went for the exam or the board to be awarded that, I guess he was supposed to present himself by name and say “reporting as directed.” And he didn’t. And he didn’t get his warrant for that reason. And he ended up being demoted and then we took on a Warrant Officer who had no capabilities to be in charge. And whenever things got tough, my friend that I was with all that time up there, he had to take over and handle the ship. And then, like I say, there were transfers occasionally of somebody that had sick relief. We got those two railroad men, they could care less about anything. But it didn’t always work out that way. But it would have been nice to keep the same people, you know, we got to know each other that way. Janis: Yeah. [0:39:33] Now, you said you didn’t get trained that well so how about these other people like this Skipper, I mean, you’d hope they’d get quite a bit more training. Harry Bailey: Yeah. And basically they didn’t. I don’t know how they assigned … how that came about. Maybe they were more mature. My friend, I mean, he was four years older than me but there’s a difference, I think, between 19 and 23. Really, I do think so. Janis: Yeah. Harry Bailey: I was in Seattle there and another fellow that I had there, he probably about 5-6 years older than me. He took a ship and he was the one who ran aground that night in the storm at Attu. So how he came about, I don’t know. [0:40:26] Because you know the Harbor Craft Detachment, as a friend of mine in Maine says, when they formed it, they took us, you know, we were all young people. But there were some older ones, even, you know, maybe in their 30s. And the Army whenever they come up with a new outfit, when they form it, they take away from another Division or Regiment. And the Army gets rid of their misfits that way. That’s an old story, you know, because we had a few characters when we were in Seattle. [0:41:05] There was one fellow who ended up … I got to Seattle and picked my bunk out and there was somebody sleeping above me but I didn’t see him I’d say for a week. Then one morning I woke up he was living down in Seattle. This was a loose outfit, believe me. [chuckling] He used to say to me, he called me “Bunkie”, he said, “Tighten up my blankets, I just fixed it up this morning.” And he’d go off another 3-4 days to Seattle. There were not a big number but there were … because i say it was really loose. I think even the two new Lieutenants that were in command, I mean, they weren’t first rate officers by any means. Now, there again, [chuckling] there is crazy things that happen there in Seattle. It was just as well to get away from there and get some responsibility because there was nothing there. I mean nobody did any work. I mean, it was just a place for you to be and go to the school. And well, I’m getting away from the story, but in Seattle when we’d go out in the morning, they would call a company, I don’t know, that could be even 150-200. It was five Companies, maybe six and the Commanding Officer would call for a report from the First Sergeant as to who was there. And as they call the first Platoon somebody would say, “report” and the guy would say “Platoon 1, fifteen men absent.” And he’d go down the line and I’ll bet you there were 50-60 to 75 guys that wouldn’t be there that morning. Janis: Really? Harry Bailey: Yeah. As I say…. Janis: What did they do about it? Anything? Harry Bailey: I would … I don’t know. [0:43:03] In fact, I was said to be absent for five days one time and I had to report up there and they really gave me the business and I don’t know what they would do because I guess you’re absent without leave—AWOL. But I never heard of anybody getting punishment. Janis: I always thought the Army or the military was real rigid about things like that. Harry Bailey: Oh, no, well, should have been, you know. In my case when they claimed I wasn’t around for five days, on their roster they were marking it where I was missing but it was the fellow just above me was missing. It was dark, you know, in November, at 6 o’clock in the morning. And he was marking the wrong spot. I finally, I don’t know … they discovered it. But, I got off the hook anyway.

  [0:43:58] Going back, you know, you get through infantry training you usually go to a replacement depot and whoever’s suffering from loss of life or whatever, they take the replacements. This was in Pennsylvania and people were leaving there, you can’t believe it was pitiful the number of people that were absent without leave there. And they’d just be gone, I guess, until they were caught. I mean, that too was pretty loose. There again, I’m getting wound up and getting away from the subject. I’m sorry.

  Janis: Oh, no, that’s ok. It’s all interesting, because you know this is all our history here.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah.

  Janis: So … I don’t know how much of your life you want to reveal, but I was wondering [0:44:49] did you grow up in Massachusetts?

  Harry Bailey: Yes. Yes.

  Janis: And then is that where you ended up in enlisting or were you drafted?

  Harry Bailey: I was drafted.

  Janis: What did you think about that at the time? Were you willing to go or did it seem like a burden?

  Harry Bailey: Yeah, I accepted it. Because I had a girlfriend and she says, “I never thought you would go. “ I said, “Oh, yeah, I expected it was just a matter of time, you know.” But, you know, I think when you first go in, I mean, leaving home and that--it’s difficult. I mean, I missed – call it homesick. I ran into a fellow in Maine who was with us when we went to Seattle. I don’t know, maybe ten years ago I found him up in Maine and he told me, he says … he looked like he was a jolly fellow, always smiling when you saw him. But, he says, “You know, I used to cry every night” he said, “I was so homesick.” [laughing]

  Janis: Oh. [0:45:43] How old were you then?

  Harry Bailey: I was 19.

  Janis: Well, that’s pretty young.

  Harry Bailey: I thought I was pretty worldly until…. [laughing]

  Janis: Yeah, well as long as you are under your parent’s roof you feel pretty ….

  Harry Bailey: That is right. Confident. Yes, yes, definitely.

  Janis: [0:45:57] So then what happened to you after you got drafted?

  Harry Bailey: I went down to Carolina and to infantry basic training. Then that was, I guess, three months. Then we went on to this camp in Pennsylvania where there was, like I say, no water or whatever. Then around the middle of July, I guess, we left to Seattle.

  Janis: [0:46:22] On a train?

  Harry Bailey: Yeah, I think it was about 4 or 5 days on the train. You know on that, they had a freight car where the mess car was. That was quite interesting though going across the prairie, I mean, never having seen anything like that before.

  Janis: So, you’d never really been out … away from the East Coast?

  Harry Bailey: No, no, I can’t even. No, I never had.

  Janis: So that was kind of eye opening.

  Harry Bailey: Oh, yes. And I enjoyed it. I mean, the train could have gone on forever the way.… I, you know, used to sit on …they had some kind of a guard on the train. I don’t know why but I could sit out, not on the back, but between cars, you know, on the platform and look out and watch the world go by. Yeah, I enjoyed every bit of it.

  Janis: Was it a full train?

  Harry Bailey: Yes. I would say, I don’t know, about 20 cars, you know, with troops on it.

  Janis: How many do you think?

  Harry Bailey: I’m gonna say 3- maybe 400.

  Janis: Wow.

  Harry Bailey: We stopped in Chicago, just, I don’t know, to change engines or something. But everybody got off right in the city there. You could look down the track and see all that were on the train. I would guess something like that – 400.

  Janis: That’s a lot of people. [0:48:02] Then where did you end up then?

  Harry Bailey: Fort Lawton.

  Janis: Oh, you went right from Pennsylvania to Fort Lawton?

  Harry Bailey: Yes.

  Janis: Ok.

  Harry Bailey: It was nice. Seattle was a good town, to be near.

  Janis: I actually like it now. It seems like a great place, but … so it looked pretty good to a 19 year old too?

  Harry Bailey: Yeah. Yes. Yes. I mean, there were loads of servicemen there. There were British sailors there, Australian sailors … you walked the streets there, I don’t know, along about 4th or 5th Avenue, that was one of the streets that I remember. But as you went up from the dock it got better. If you were on 1st Avenue, that was a tough place to be. I don’t know, one fellow there used to go down to a tavern every night down there and come back and talk about the fights and people not getting along and so forth. I never hung around down there on 1st Avenue.

  Janis: What did people, what did the servicemen do there?

  Harry Bailey: I don’t know. I can remember there being a USO in one of the buildings up around 4th or 5th avenue there. I don’t know, in fact, I don’t know as I even went in there. But, I guess, they more or less roamed the streets. Maybe you go to a restaurant. I never got involved with the bars there, I mean, I was too young.

  [0:49:54] But, I don’t know, Yessler – you know of that place, Yessler? That square? You ever hear of that? That square?

  Janis: No.

  Harry Bailey: That was in one of the tougher parts down there. And I remember walking home to go back to the … because I was assigned to a ship there at the time, you know, training. We came down into that Yessler Square, a woman ran out of a … one of the buildings and a few minutes later a fellow come out bare foot and he said to us, “Did you see a woman run out of here with a red coat?” And nobody cooperated with him. We said, “No.” But I don’t know what he was chasing her for. [Janis laughing]

  Janis: Doesn’t sound good.

  Harry Bailey: No, no. [0:50:41] That Pike’s Place, that was up there then too.

  Janis: It was?

  Harry Bailey: Um-hmm.

  Janis: I didn’t realize it was there then.

  Harry Bailey: It was just basically a farmer’s market. Whenever I went down, that I seen it, you know, maybe, couple or three times there was nothing there because it was in the evening. Evidently the produce or whatever they had would have been hauled off or sold and they’d be back the next day. I do remember that.

  [0:51:12] This one time I went down to the ship canal that goes over into Lake Washington I think.

  Janis: Yeah, un-hmm.

  Harry Bailey: And, my friend that was on that yacht that I was speaking of, he was down there one time and he called it the government locks. That’s all I’d ever hear of it until I read in a book a few years ago that was calling it the Herbert Chittendon locks. I never knew the name of it and he didn’t either. He just knew it was there.

  Janis: I was just in Seattle a couple of weekends ago and we were gonna go over there and we weren’t able to because we just didn’t have enough time.

  Harry Bailey: To the locks?

  Janis: Yeah. I didn’t realize they were there, so. I always thought locks were interesting.

  Harry Bailey: Just swallowed my tonic here. It went down the wrong way.

  Janis: If you’re getting warn out from talking, just let me know.

  Harry Bailey: I’m not, if you are. If you can put up with it.

  Janis: Oh, no, I don’t get warn out though so you tell me if it gets [laughing]…. You have to do a lot of the talking so that’s the harder part, but…. [0:52:23] So in Seattle you stayed on a ship? The ship that you were assigned to?

  Harry Bailey: Yeah.

  Janis: [0:52:30] And you did your training during the day?

  Harry Bailey: Yeah, this again is one of the funny things. The ship—that was a little yacht too. For the most of the time I was on it--which might have been, I don’t know, six weeks or more--the engines were out and these other fellows were with the civilian person and they were learning or working on the engine – I think there was only one engine. But anyway, we just stayed tied to the dock and then one day, I guess, they got it ready to operate again.

  They brought a group of fellows down from our group that were still living up at Fort Lawton and we were all the way in to the dock to street side on Alaska Way and they started the engines and the civilian Skipper called for “astern” and we backed out of the area between the docks into, well, a waterway, where other ships could come down and go to various docks. And across the way was a ship yard where they were building destroyers.

  Well, anyway we backed out between those two docks and he called for forward speed and that damn ship didn’t want to do that. It kept going backwards, backwards, backwards. And it went all the way across the waterway and bumped into the dock where the destroyers were made. I was again, scared to death. I thought that damn thing was gonna sink.

  Anyway, this is one of the comedy things about it too, we went back there and hit the dock and somehow got it going forward again and took it out into Elliott Bay. And on the way back he decided to take on fuel so we went in to a ship oil dock and he came in nice and slow and now he wants to put it in reverse to slow it down and snug up to the dock. So he put it in reverse again and the damn thing wouldn’t come out of reverse. So, we were backing up….

  They used to have little power barges. I never saw one in Alaska but they were little small things and that ship that I had … that I was on the rear – the fantail, as they called it – it was sloped, you know, from underneath and going, getting bigger as it got to the main deck. We crawled up on that little power barge, just like you’re on a ladder. And there was somebody putting a radio in the little power barge. He was coming across the dock on a plank. He threw his radio into the water and there was a big fat guy -- the most I could see was a big, fat fellow trying to crawl out a window. [laughing] We got up there and, like I say, crawled on ‘em and did an awful job on the power barge. Finally he got it going forward again and as far as I know that was the last time that it ever went out to do anything on the training bit.

  Janis: I was gonna say that’s not the ship that you took to Alaska I hope.

  Harry Bailey: [laughing] No. I don’t think it ever … it was called the Bonhomme. But the designation the Army put on it was the Q103. So it was a strange thing – queer, if you want to call it that.

  [0:56:27] Then they had a World War I destroyer they used for training. I never went on that. But, my friend did. They would go out for training courses and he told me how they had life suits, you know, rubber – the hat and all you’d zip up from the front. You’d float. He told me how he got in one of those suits and jumped in the bay there and floated around. And again, going back to my swimming and not being able to swim, one day one of these civilians said to three or four of us, “Each one of you grab one of those suits.” And I said, “What are you gonna do with those?” He says, “Just come with me, carry a suit.” And I said, “If you think I’m gonna get in that thing, you’re mistaken.” [both laughing]

  And we had a … he never said a word to me. The other three or four fellows with their suits, they were just laughing at me. All he wanted us to do was carry them down and dump them into one of the small boats that was taking off. But he wasn’t gonna get me in one of those things. [Janis laughing]

  Janis: [0:57:36] Well, I’m surprised between that and some of your experience with the ship that wouldn’t come out of reverse and then your trip to Alaska that you didn’t fain seasickness too to get off that ship.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah, I had, I think, you know, seasickness I’ve often said half of it is fright. Your first time out, that’s my feeling. I was seasick, I would say, well, perhaps till we got to Seward and maybe I was frightened too. Because I thought a couple of times there, “this is it.” [laughing] I’m not gonna come back again. But that’s why I always thought, I think that fright gets you too. That will help to make you sick.

  Janis: Yeah, sure, I bet.

  Harry Bailey: I managed to get over that. I often said when I come home I’d tell my mother, “If I got to go again I’d want to go back to the boats,” you know.

  Janis: Really?

  Harry Bailey: Yeah.

  Janis: So, you weren’t that frightened by it.

  Harry Bailey: No, you get over it, you know. I don’t know they speak of getting your sea legs. Have you ever heard that expression?

  Janis: Yeah.

  Harry Bailey: [0:58:41] I can remember going into Shemya standing on the front of that thing and, you know, not big seas but good waves and you’re bouncing around. I took great pride in being able to stand there out on the open deck there and just waiting to get into the dock to throw my line so that we could tie up. You get, maybe you get cocky, I don’t know. I think you do. I thought of that since, I shouldn’t have done that.

  Janis: Well, that’s why they get 19 year olds right, to do that kind of thing, because you’re not afraid.

  Harry Bailey: Yup. That’s right, you don’t know. You haven’t been there.

  Janis: [0:59:15] Did you ever fall overboard?

  Harry Bailey: Not quite. At Dutch Harbor on our way out to Attu, I don’t know for a crazy reason I wanted some ice cream. You can make it, I wouldn’t know how … wouldn’t know how to do it today but you pack salt around it and that and I had a bucket and that. And I went out to get my ice cream. I don’t know why I put it way out on the other end of the ship.

  But on the ship there were, it was just a flat loading barge, like you can visualize I hope. But there were boards all the way around this opening where we used to carry our freight. They were probably about four foot high and on the outside of the boards there was a, oh, I don’t know, maybe 18 inches where you could walk on the outside and there was a cable that went between the post and that was … the cable was to hold on. And that night going out there, I slipped and I did not go overboard. I slipped, went off and at the same time I did I reached up and grabbed that cable [laughing] and was back up there in a wink.

  But that was the only time I came close to … maybe I was more careful after that. Because you could, you know, you fall in there was nobody around there. You’d drown for certain if you fall in.

  Janis: Yeah. They didn’t have a lot of time to get you back out of the water.

  Harry Bailey: [1:00:53] No, we had another time when we were tied up at Attu and somebody had made … they used to make all kind of liquor, out of jelly, potatoes, you name it. I have no idea how they did it, but they did. You want to have a drink you got to make your own stuff. But this fellow wanted to go ashore, you know, just tie to the dock and lower a ladder which would be … you know, it would lay on the dock and lay on our barge up on the top deck and I was holding the ladder while he crawled across and all of a sudden he said, “woops!” and he fell off in the water. He was between the boat and the dock which would have been, you know … he fell into a space that was probably no more than three foot wide and anyway, shouting for help. I don’t think he went down. I remember seeing him go down and then pop up and that was it, somebody hauled him out right away. But he had the biggest bruise on his hip that I ever saw a man have. It must have stuck out, oh, I don’t know, five or six inches.

  Janis: Wow.

  Harry Bailey: And….

  Janis: Well, I don’t imagine you can fall into a three foot space off a ship like that without hitting something.

  Harry Bailey: He hit on the way down. This is the crazy thing that you laugh at and we talk about after. But he was in bad, bad shape. And they threw him in my bunk because he couldn’t be carried off to his own ship and I think he stayed there in my bunk for three days until he recuperated enough that somebody got a jeep and got him back on the dock and took him to his ship. [laughing] That’s all I can think about [laughing], like I say, I’ve never seen a bump like that in my life, you know. It was swollen.

  Janis: Wow. Maybe he was marked AWOL for those days.

  Harry Bailey: [laughing] I don’t know what crazy things, you know.

  [1:03:01] Another time we were – this is an aside from that – you know, in the harbor at Attu, they call if Murder Point, one side of the harbor, there was a coastal artillery battery there to guard the entrance to the harbor if the Japanese came. A fellow that I knew from down around where I lived then was there and I stopped to see him a couple of times.

  But then one morning we were selected to go out while the Coastal Artillery took target practice and they had a float out in the entrance to Massacre Bay, you know, for their target. We had an observer from their outfit and we got out there and somebody had anchored that thing down and I guess he called for them to shoot and there came this thump from the shore when they fired and the shell landed, I would say, within 5-10 feet of that target. And I said to myself, “These guys are good!” They fired again, I don’t know, for another hour and then they never even came close. The first one was the only one that came close [both laughing].

  Janis: That was just a freak accident, huh? [both laughing]

  Harry Bailey: That’s, like I say, some of the things that you keep thinking about, reminiscing there. That’s the ones you remember most of the time, the fun things.

  Janis: Yeah, well that’s a good way to view it, I guess.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah.

  Janis: [1:04:47] You didn’t take your 85 foot power barge from Seattle to the Aleutians, did you?

  Harry Bailey: Yup.

  Janis: Wow, that’s a pretty … you probably felt pretty small in that big water didn’t it?

  Harry Bailey: You do, you do, you know. That’s how they all got there, you know, the power barges. There were a number of tug boats too of different sizes. Some used to haul a big barge behind them, you know, a tow barge. They … loaded with freight or whatever. They come all the way from Seattle with that thing.

  Janis: Wow.

  Harry Bailey: Once in awhile you’d hear how they lost their tow. I guess they would search for that, you know, I don’t know how. I guess sometimes they found it and sometimes they didn’t.

  Even when I went back to Attu there in 1990 there was a tug boat that came up hauling a big, flat barge to supply Attu. And, I guess, they came up from Seattle, I know they did. But, they would come in and there’s no dock at Attu now, it’s all that just remains of World War II ruins -there’s young Navy and Army they’re all decrepit and falling down. But they came all the way from Seattle with that thing. I was hoping that I could get aboard [chuckling] and go over to Shemya to take a peak at that again but they … I never got a chance to even see anybody on the ship. But they went to Shemya and came back again. I guess they said when they went to Shemya to unload they couldn’t it was too rough over there so they needed to come back into Attu for better weather.

  Janis: A situation you knew well.

  Harry Bailey: Um-hmm. Yes. [1:06:48] I told the bird watchers I was with, I said, “You have no idea what it’s like here, especially in the winter.” [chuckling]

  I think that tugboat that I told you with the six people drowned, that was when we got to Attu. They said they had winds that time, you know, up into 100 miles per hour and gusts. Geez, get out on the open ocean.

  Janis: Yeah.

  Harry Bailey: Something like that. It’s not nice to even think about it – having been there before, you know.

  Janis: Yeah, that would be pretty scary.

  Harry Bailey: Yup. 60 mile an hour is scary too. [laughing]

  Janis: Yeah, yeah. Maybe you wouldn’t notice much difference between 60 and 100, you’d be scared by that point anyway.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah. At Attu there, the gusts would come down off the damn mountains off to the west. And, boy, I mean, everybody, there was … like in that particular story I was just telling you about the 100 miles an hour, another fellow who I never knew but I’d write to him, he lost his power barge out there during that storm. And he said everybody was in trouble that particular storm. I mean, just trying to keep from going aground. Anchors would, you know, drag and so forth. And in that storm too, two power barges actually went up on the beach.

  Janis: Well was it because … [1:08:23] did you not have good weather information and you got in these storms? Or did the Army just want you to go out in everything?

  Harry Bailey: We never heard of the weather, not until the day it came, you know. There was nothing … I don’t know, it was pretty loose, as I say. In 1944, at the end, things were becoming, you know, where you had more contact, you could get a weather report. But, again, I don’t know, another fellow that I was with on that ship who I’ve found in the last 10 years, told me how after I had left Attu that the Lieutenant Commander of the group sent one of the boats out in a big storm and said they were lost. I don’t know whether they ever found them or what but he said the Lieutenant lost his job. He was demoted or whatever.

  These guys were, you know, two civilians. I don’t think they had any experience, you know, being on the ocean. They were just there and more or less to keep it organized and send you here, there and everywhere but they didn’t seem to have any knowledge of what a storm would be like--nothing of that sort.

  Janis: Well those were some pretty big storms up there too especially if you weren’t really a seaman. That would be quite a challenge, I would imagine.

  Harry Bailey: Yes. [laughing] I only know about myself but I’m sure other people had the same feelings I did. Maybe they were more afraid although I don’t think anybody could be more afraid than me, the first … in the beginning, you know?

  Janis: Yeah, I bet. Uh….

  Harry Bailey: Go ahead. I’m sorry.

  Janis: Um. Let’s see what was I going to ask you? Did … when you were on the ships out there, [1:10:23] when did you actually leave Alaska?

  Harry Bailey: I because of being the radio man I was fortunate. I left in March of ’45. I got there, like I say, in December, first part of January of ’43 – first part of ’44, I should say.

  [1:10:46] But, we … another fellow we went up to a radio school in Anchorage, that was like, you know, going back to civilization again. But we were in a Quonset hut, living there, waiting for a flight to Anchorage. And they came in and said there is a flight coming in today or it’s there now and you guys go down to the airstrip. And somebody took us down and we got there they decided the weather was too bad and the airplane hadn’t arrived or was not going to take off. So we went back up to that Quonset hut.

  Two or three days later they sent us down again. And we got down there and they said, “No, no, weathers bad.” So, I think we went down three times and came back to the Quonset hut and the … after that third time, my friend and I said, “We’re not going back up to that Quonset hut. We’ll just stay at this airstrip … airport, call it what you will, until the day comes and they arrive.” Well, we … there were wooden benches there and I don’t know, maybe, one or two o’clock in the morning, I was sleeping on the bench and this fellow come in and shook me and he says, “Come on, there’s an airplane out there. It’s gonna leave now.”

  And we went out there and you can’t believe the snow storm. You … I’ve never seen it snowing harder than that day. [laughing] There was that airplane and we got on it and off we went and I guess we stopped at Amchitka and Naknek and then finally to Anchorage. But I don’t know how that airplane whether he came in that night in that, or how he got there. But, God, I mean, it wasn’t a real storm, but it was snowing so hard when we got out there.

  Janis: [1:12:43] And those guys had probably little more navigation equipment than you might have had on your ships but they still didn’t have a lot.

  Harry Bailey: They didn’t have a lot. After … they had … they learned the weather up there. I know little about it but, you know, when there’d be a big storm going on … just about the time that that storm had ended and it was … clouds might be breaking a little bit, them transport planes – C-47s – would come in to Attu just hugging along the side of the mountain and dropping down and landing. So they were flying when the storm would still be, you know, say at Adak. But they had that thing down to a science I thought.

  Janis: Well, I guess if they waited for good weather they wouldn’t be flying very much.

  Harry Bailey: They wouldn’t, no. [1:13:33] I had a friend, another fellow who lived in my town, he went in right after they had the battle and they were building an airstrip at the so called Alexei Point was the name of it. He was with Air Transport and he said that they landed at that strip which was being built while the battle was going on and he said that they landed but they couldn’t take off for two days because the runway wasn’t long enough to go. So they could land but they couldn’t take off. I guess they took wounded back.

  [1:14:16] Oh, you know what I wanted to tell you, I did check this out. You talked about the cemetery at Attu and a lot of people still don’t know where it is and those that did know have died. But this one fellow that was in school with me, I didn’t remember him, but he recalled being in the same class and he lives in another town. He said that after the war he went down on a Navy LST to recover the bodies. He was Army but they called him volunteers. He said he was stationed in Virginia and he thought it would be nice to go to Alaska so he did. And they went to Attu and the first time I talked to him, which could have been six or seven years ago, he said when they got down to Attu bringing the bodies up out of the graves, he said there were some that there was so much live ammunition – grenades and everything – he said that somebody called into Anchorage and asked, they said it’s not safe to do. He said, then we didn’t bring them out. And I often wondered, did he mean Americans?

  So I called him a couple of days ago and I said, “Whose bodies and the live ammunition and so forth …” No,” he said, “they were Japanese.” What I’m telling you is the Japanese – there’s still some there, you know. He said they didn’t take them. He said, we took, I don’t know, he said they took 100 Japanese of the 400.

  You know an LST is a big landing ship.

  Janis: Oh, the kind where the front comes forward and….

  Harry Bailey: No, it doesn’t come down. It’s almost like a freighter it’s so big. They call it LST, Landing Ship Tank, is what they refer to it. You know it’s a big ship. But he said they took … he did tell me and I’ve forgotten already. Whether it was … I think he said 400 Japanese bodies. But he said they put them in rubber bags and there was no refrigeration. He said there was a terrible, terrible smell.

  Janis: Oh, I imagine.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah.

  Janis: They took some Americans too though didn’t they?

  Harry Bailey: Supposedly, he told me they took all of the Americans.

  Janis: Do you remember when that was?

  Harry Bailey: In 194 … it would be ’46 or early ’47.

  Janis: Pretty quickly after the war, then.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah, he said they stopped at all the islands along the way, you know, where people had been buried.

  Janis: Oh did … they were trying to get all the bodies that they could?

  Harry Bailey: Yes. [1:17:07] And he said they brought some, which I think there’s a cemetery in … at Fort Richardson.

  Janis: Um-hmm. Yeah.

  Harry Bailey: He said they buried some at Sitka too. I didn’t know that.

  Janis: I didn’t know that either.

  Harry Bailey: You can check that one out. He said … I think he said there were two cemeteries at Fort Richardson, that’s the air base now, right, Elmendorf?

  Janis: That’s the … yeah, Elmendorf is the Air base and Fort Rich is right next to it.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah, that was all Fort Richardson at that time. Elmendorf and Fort Richardson were the same.

  Janis: Well then, I guess, and this is just from somebody … there’s a guy writing a book about World War II veterans from Pueblo, Colorado.

  Harry Bailey: Yes.

  Janis: And, he was looking for a certain man and he didn’t know where his grave site was so he asked me about it and I talked to the guy at Elmendorf and I guess they track people down that way. So some of the bodies, I guess, were moved back to their local cemeteries or Arlington or different places. So, some of them got moved even after that.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah.

  Janis: But I didn’t realize that. That was news.

  Harry Bailey: I saw that. I expected, you know, that some families wanted them brought back home.

  Janis: Yeah, because Alaska is a foreign country to a lot of people. So, that’s not … not a place they’d ever get to, to see their loved ones grave.

  Harry Bailey: No, no, true. Everybody in Alaska is from someplace else, right?

  Janis: Right. That’s right. [laughing] Just about.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah. When I’ve been up there. I mean, I always ask people, “Are you native.” No, no, no, I come from here or there, you know.

  Janis: And then like us, we have two kids born here but they don’t want to be from here anymore.

  Harry Bailey: They don’t.

  Janis: No. They’re gone. They went to LA.

  Harry Bailey: Oh, bright lights, huh?

  Janis: Yeah, I think so, yeah.

  Harry Bailey: Do you live in Anchorage?

  Janis: Yes, uh-huh.

  Harry Bailey: [1:19:04] Yeah, I had some friends that lived there for awhile – down around Muldoon.

  Janis: Oh, yeah.

  Harry Bailey: They’re both, I guess, dead now. It’s funny, once you lose the … you know, your Army friend, it seems to slack off with the wife. And I can understand, you know, because they were just part of his life and they floated into mine and so forth.

  Janis: So your communication kind of drops off.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah, it just drops off. The fellow that lived up in Chicken there, he died last year, but he … actually in the winter he lived down in Tok.

  Janis: Oh, the big city.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah. [both laughing]

  Janis: So you kept in touch with quite a few of the guys that you worked with in the…?

  Harry Bailey: Yeah, I tried to. Even once in awhile now I get curious and go looking for somebody. Like I say, the fellow from Chicken and this fellow that was a Skipper there he came from up around Utica, New York. But he ended up going back to Alaska after and working in Anchorage. I always, you know, kept contact with him. There’s, I don’t know, I got one down in Georgia, another New York City. This year I got three less Christmas cards. It’s … I tried finding one in St. Louis but I tried to describe who I’m looking for and saying if you’re related would you call me, but sometime they don’t even call back, you know.

  Janis: Oh, that’s kind of sad, huh?

  Harry Bailey: It is, yeah, it is. I mean, yeah. Or there’s no telephone there anymore or something like that. But, Seth Tolman [not sure of name] passed away there last year. He was my last contact in Alaska … you know, for knowing people.

  [1:20:59] I don’t tell anybody but I had an old girlfriend down in Seward when I was there. I never saw here again or nothing but I knew she lived there and once, I guess a couple of times I talked to her. I found out that she’d been married five times.

  Janis: Oh, really? [both laughing]

  Harry Bailey: I was in Seward one time and that’s how I said, you know this girl? And she didn’t live there then, I guess – I know she didn’t, because that’s why I asked about her. They said, “Oh, yeah. We know who she is. She’s been married five times.” [both laughing] I thought I was a winner, you know. [both laughing]

  Janis: [1:21:36] Well, you didn’t tell me what you were doing in Seward. Did you just pass through there or did you actually work there for awhile?

  Harry Bailey: No, I went to that signal school in Anchorage and then they put me on this FS – the freighter ship to go out to … well, we went to Adak. But anyway, I made that trip and the first Sergeant who I had had a little disagreement with a couple of times, he was getting out of the Army so I wrote him a letter. He was in charge of all the radio men and I told him that I’d like to go to the radio station in Seward because this is where my friend that I went to school with was then – we were both radio men. So I said … I didn’t think that I … he would do it. So I said to him, “You’re getting out, so it won’t make any difference to you. Maybe you might let me go to Seward.” And after coming back from that one trip out to Adak on that ship…. You know liquor out there used to sell for about $50 a bottle.

  Janis: Wow.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah, I don’t know if you knew that. Yes. So I didn’t have any money when we got back into Seward so I borrowed, I think, it was about $5 a bottle for a fifth of Whiskey then from my friend who was at the radio station and I concealed it on the ship and I was gonna make a killing out at Adak selling it for $50 a bottle. Well, anyway, the ship was … the engine was running. I threw one of the lines off and this fellow come running down the dock with his barracks bag on his shoulder and said, “Wait, wait!” He says, “I’m here to replace Bailey.” And, anyway, the Skipper of the ship gave me my $50 back that I bought the whiskey with so I didn’t loose anything there and I went ashore in Seattle. So, the last thing that First Sergeant did for me was took care of me and put me in Seward in the radio station and that’s where I ended up before coming home for discharge.

  Janis: So you didn’t think so badly about him after all, right?

  Harry Bailey: No, we’re friends now. [both laughing] I found him down in Florida. He calls, oh maybe once or twice a year. So, no, he was alright. He had to work it out, not me. I mean, I just talked too much that day and he told me that I wouldn’t be a Corporal that next day. But he didn’t take it away from me. So I think he was, he is, he’s soft hearted. But he tried to sound … he was a little fellow. He, I guess, you know, the respect you should get being a First Sergeant is you gotta be gruff, right?

  Janis: Um-hmm.

  Harry Bailey: I think, I didn’t show the respect that day that I should have. So, that’s how I got into Seward.

  I did [laughing] go up to Fort Richardson and from there you usually came home on Alaska Steamship – you know, they bring you back to Seattle. And I went up right after New Year’s in 1946 and they were – everyone, many, many people – were being discharged and sent home. And I went into the barracks and the bunks were three high. And there was no room … very little room to move, you know, from side to side. And they were going to wait now for a ship and they’d go back down, probably to Whittier and be transported to Seattle.

  [1:25:18] And I hadn’t, you know, in Seward I had a nice room of my own in the barracks. And on the ship, you know, you had a nice bunk and I wasn’t used to living in these kind of conditions. [laughing] And, there was a … because of the discharge of people the fellow that could handle all the paperwork was only a Corporal who had been, when I was there at the signal school earlier, he was still there. I got into that barracks with all these guys and the three bunks and I said, “God, this is terrible.”

  So when I saw this friend who was still stationed at Fort Richardson, I said, “God, it’s terrible over there.” He says, “You don’t like it?” I says, “No.” He said, “Would you like to go back to Seward and wait for your friend?” – who came, again, from the same town. He said, “He’s coming back up from Adak, on a ship, tugboat. And I said, “Yes.”

  I went up on a Saturday to Fort Richardson and on Monday I was back on the train and I went down to Seward and I just sat around for a whole month waiting for them to come up with that tugboat. That’s how I got back.

  [1:26:30] We got towed back. The tug I was on didn’t have any power. Another tug towed us back to Seattle.

  Janis: Really? Wow, that must have been a long trip.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah. I would … I don’t know how long – 6 or 7 days maybe?

  Janis: But more exciting because you knew you were going to … you were heading closer to home.

  Harry Bailey: Oh, yeah. It was good. [laughing] I tell people that’s how I came back home – on a tug boat that didn’t have any power.

  Janis: [laughing] [1:26:56] Well, who was your buddy that you keep talking about? It’s the same guy, right? The one from Maine.

  Harry Bailey: Uh, no, he’s from the same town as I did. We went to school together, same class I was in. His name was Labreck.

  Janis: Labreck?

  Harry Bailey: Yeah. L A B R E C K. Like I say, we went into the Army on the same day too. I used to ask him, “What’s your Army serial number?” He says, “I don’t know that.” And I’d tell him the serial number because he was two behind me in line when those were passed out. So, to this day, I mean, those serial numbers, I still have them in my head.

  Janis: You know his and yours.

  Harry Bailey: Yes. I was 24 and he was a 26. [laughing] But he … I think most guys forget about it for some crazy reason I still … it’s one of those things that hangs in.

  Janis: Well, I’ve heard some of the other guys doing interviews, they’d say, “My name is so-and-so, my number’s this and … so they do … a lot of people, it sounds like, remember.

  Harry Bailey: They do. Yes. That’s … as I say, that’s the way I know. I just remembered that thing – 31260623. I said ‘24’ a minute ago so I did forget it.

  Janis: [1:28:15] So what happened after you got to Seattle then?

  Harry Bailey: We called up at Fort Lawton. A truck came down and they didn’t know who we belonged to. See, that’s how screwed up things were in this outfit.

  So, as I say, we stayed in the barracks and this one fellow, the so-called Skipper, and my friend Labreck there, we said “Let’s go down to Seattle for a few days.” So we went down to Seattle and we stayed in a hotel for three days and then we went back up and by that time they found out who we belonged to. [We] Got a, you known, ticket to the train to come back to Massachusetts.

  Janis: [1:29:03] Did you stay in the Service then or where you discharged?

  Harry Bailey: When I got back to Fort Devens in Massachusetts it was … we got back there on a Saturday night, I guess and we were out Monday. They moved them out real fast.

  Janis: So do you remember what, about when that was?

  Harry Bailey: Yes, February the 28th, in ’46.

  Janis: A memorable day. [both laughing] You remember the exact date.

  [1:29:32] And then what did you do for a career after that?

  Harry Bailey: I should have done more. I’m a plumber.

  Janis: Um-hmm. So you didn’t use your radio skills that you learned?

  Harry Bailey: No, there was no place for that. I thought that, you know, I had knowledge about radios and so forth and I had conned somebody into an audition there one time for a local radio station. And the guy was … he said, “I’ll be brutally frank, you don’t have it Mr. Bailey.” That ended that thought, you know.

  But, I don’t know, I looked at … you know, again, I never knew at that time what was out there to do and somebody said one day, “Well, plumbers make a lot of money.” Oh,” I said, “I guess I’m gonna try that,” you know. But given the choice I would have looked at something else.

  Janis: Well, it probably was a pretty good profession, wasn’t it?

  Harry Bailey: It was. I’ve always been self employed. That made it easier too, you know. [chuckling] But, yeah, it would … I think if I were to do that again I probably would join the union or something like that. Where, you know, when you’re by yourself there’s still people who call you on a Saturday or Sunday because, you know, if they call the company they’ll tell them to wait until Monday. I never had that capability to say you gotta wait.

  [1:30:58] I truly, you know, getting into like Attu and the history, you know, the person who wrote the book on the natives of Attu and the burial and so forth … geography, that’s my thing, geography and history. But I never, you know, did anything with it. I wished I had now, you know. But that’s something you think about after it’s all over and done with.

  Janis: Yeah. [1:31:35] So what would you … what do you think about your experiences during World War II? Was it a good experience for you? Do you think it had a big influence on your life?

  Harry Bailey: Yes, I think so. One of my friends there, the Skipper again, said to me one day, “We did our part.” He said, “We did our share of the work, “ as far as … I think, you know, looking at it, those people on shore … you know, we lived on the ship. You know, in decent weather we lived a pretty good life, you know – only nine people and there was no military, you know, chasing you all the time or telling you what to do. So, it was … except for the stormy weather there, I think that it was the best place to be. Of course, in the storm you always look at the guy that’s on shore because he’s got ground under his feet. You know, he doesn’t fight the wind and the anchor dragging and so forth. But I don’t know, I think I … as I say, I would do it again if it happened to be that way.

  Janis: There weren’t a lot of good theatres in World War II to be in, but I guess, it sounds like you felt like you got a good place to be and you lived through it.

  Harry Bailey: Yes. [1:33:00] I definitely, you know, I had, well, in basic training, they were asking for volunteers for the Second Ranger Battalion and there were three people in the platoon I was in and they were going to volunteer. One fellow said, “Are you gonna come with us?” And I said, “Yup.” So, just prior to that my friend there, Labreck, he said, “You’re not gonna go with those guys are you?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “You’re gonna die, you know?” “No” I said. He says, “You’re gonna die.” So, I didn’t volunteer.

  On D-Day two of these people, they landed at Normandy with the Ranger Battalion and I’ve seen the movie, The Longest Day, and the things that they did. One of those two, he got killed the first day. The other fellow I found out he’d passed on later. But I mean, I would have … you know, whether you could volunteer and maybe they wouldn’t take you. So, who knows whether I would have made it or not, but my friend Labreck talked me out of it which is … I’m happy for today.

  Janis: Yeah, he was a good friend to you that day. [both laughing]

  Harry Bailey: It sounded good at the time, you know.

  Janis: Yeah. Well, were there any other stories that you wanted to tell me about that I haven’t specifically asked you?

  Harry Bailey: You know I’ll probably think of a dozen after, you know, we finish today. Right now, I cannot come up with any others.

  Janis: Well, we’ve been talking for a long time. You’re probably kind of talked out anyway. But, you know, if anything else comes to mind I’d be happy to get back with you again.

  [1:35:09] Now did you say that you have a written story that you’d like to give me, or?

  Harry Bailey: A what?

  Janis: Did you say you had a written story. In the beginning you said something about something you were going to send?

  Harry Bailey: Oh, a story, yeah, uh-hmm … going from Seattle to Attu.

  Janis: Oh, you wrote the story up about that?

  Harry Bailey: [1:35:29] Yeah, about 20 years ago. I … speaking of it now. I had one paragraph that talked about seeing the Russians and in the story I talked about seeing, I don’t know, 15 or 20 of their ships with the red hammer and sickle flag off of Attu. And I was gonna write a little correction when I send this story, because time sometimes fails you when you come up with the wrong period. I realized that, you know, it was on that FS boat the last trip that I made to Adak – that’s when I saw those ships, you know, which was certainly a year and a half later.

  But the Russians, you know, they trained them. Did I mention that? At Cold Bay?

  Janis: No.

  Harry Bailey: That lend lease. Cold Bay had … was a big Army Fort early in the war and then they closed it down after Attu was taken, and it was empty. And then that lend-lease, the United States gave a bunch of ships to the Russians but they brought them to Cold Bay for training. That’s when I … I realized all these years – 40 years – that’s why, where I saw them. It was much later than I had thought of earlier. Then they were training at Cold Bay and … that on the ship that I was on I mentioned the Russians were, I said, “Oh yeah, there’s a bunch of them over there in Cold Bay.” So there were a lot of ships that were, you know, given to the Russians – destroyers or smaller, you know, Navy craft.

  I was gonna write a little note on the bottom there that I did not see them at Attu, I saw them at Cold Bay.

  Janis: Oh, ok.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah. I cannot think of anything.

  [1:37:39] We went over to Chichigof Island [meant Harbor?], that’s where the settlement was, and we were going for souvenirs one day and we got deciding we were gonna go to Holtz Bay. And to get around there – we didn’t know where we were going – we’re going on a steep slope to go out to the point and then circle back to Holtz Bay. And the snow was deep, it was in May, and there were about 6 of us. And we walked, I don’t know, about three hours and finally we come to a point where you could see Holtz Bay. It was just too far. We were gonna go back. Actually there was a road there – we didn’t know it though – to get over there. So we decided that we would give up on that, it was just too far away.

  But in the meantime, you know, late afternoon, the sun had gone down and all that snow that we were walking in where we could … you know, it was soft. The stuff froze up. And this was, like I way, a real steep incline there. And we got back, of course, but you had to break through the crust every step. I don’t know, probably for two or three miles we had to walk. We got back there and there was nobody over there at Chichigof Harbor except a mess hall. So we asked the fellow if he had anything to eat because we hadn’t had anything since the morning. And all they had was jelly and bread. But that was good that night.

  Janis: It was better than nothin’, huh?

  Harry Bailey: That is right, yes.

  Janis: [1:39:18] Well, it sounds like things were pretty snow covered when you took that trip but did you see evidence of the battle at all.

  Harry Bailey: No, not at all. No, I remember we … another little radio school – a signal school - that I was going there, there was a Sergeant – evidently a First Sergeant – he was there during the battle and we talked about Americans collecting souvenirs. And he said, one time he says, “We buried this one Japanese fellow about five times” he said. Every time they’d bury him someone would come along and dig him up looking for souvenirs.

  Janis: Oh.

  Harry Bailey: Like I said, it always goes on.

  Janis: Yeah.

  Harry Bailey: [1:39:59] But that, you going back there, you know, to Attu there I’m surprised that the people I’ve talked to that came earlier, those that died that don’t know where the cemetery was. It was right off the beach.

  Janis: Down by Massacre Bay?

  Harry Bailey: Yeah. I guess there was a small one over in Holtz Bay but the biggest cemetery was right, well, almost near the Army docks where, you know, we used to tie up. I got … in fact I’ve got pictures of the, you know, cemetery, taken from a boat, I guess it was, because they were small. I had them blown up so they were big.

  [1:40:50] And some of these pictures have been around a long time, like Shemya, you know, showed when they were building the docks at Shemya. That would be like in the summer of 1944. They got them and I say, they built them and oh, I don’t know, maybe by the end of August … you know, they built two big breakwaters too. Did I mention that to you before?

  Janis: No.

  Harry Bailey: They used to, you know, take … we brought in these big heavy construction trucks – Euclid’s they call them.

  Janis: Euclid?

  Harry Bailey: Yeah, Euclid -- big, for building roads really – heavy, heavy trucks. But we used to bring them in in pieces then they’d assemble them at Shemya and they built these breakwaters. They worked all summer. These were massive things and anyway, we … in October, yeah, October, I guess it was we were hauling a bunch of civilian workers over to Shemya. And on the way over the wind started to blow and it was raining real hard. And we had, I don’t know, maybe 50 or 60 and they were up in our rooms and all through our ship. You know, there was no places for … they were staying out in the open if it was decent weather. But, anyway we got almost to Shemya and they blinked over with their light to go back over to Attu and that was when those breakwaters were washed out. That was the day that they … I don’t know, maybe three months after they were built.

  Janis: Wow.

  Harry Bailey: The breakwaters went, and the docks and … I’ve got pictures, you know, of the buildings, when the docks were finished or being built. Then also of after the storm, I mean, I didn’t take the pictures of … somebody else that was on Shemya took them and sent me copies of those. But I think that if you … If that is … if you’re interested in those, but maybe they’ve been kicked around, you know, in magazines or books on the history of the Aleutians.

  Janis: [1:43:13] Well, you know, we … lately I’ve been having people ask me about pictures of Shemya and we don’t really have very many. That’s not to say they’re not out there. I was going to try to make an effort to try to find some of them because it just seems like we don’t have a lot from that area. But like I said in the letter, it’s entirely up to you if you want to have some of your photos used to illustrate your interview or to allow us to use them. We certainly don’t want to impose on families for that kind of thing.

  Harry Bailey: I don’t know. I will look. If I had the negatives of those, of that Shemya thing and the cemetery, I would send them to you. I don’t care if the negatives back anymore. I could send you the photos and you could make copies of them. You got better facilities than I have for making copies.

  Janis: Yeah, if you’re interested in doing that I would be very careful with them and send them back to you. But only do it if it’s something you feel comfortable doing. Because I know they’re your personal photos and they’re irreplaceable, so there’s no pressure there to do that.

  Harry Bailey: Ok. I’ll look around. If I find the negatives, like I say, I don’t care for them now, because nobody else would be looking for them. They’d throw them away, you know, they wouldn’t know what they were. But, if I find those, then I’ll look at the photos and make a decision.

  Do I have your phone number there?

  Janis: Um, I’m not sure. I’ll give it you though. It’s….

  Harry Bailey: I’m ready.

  Janis: It’s 907-644-3447 [repeated by Mr. Bailey as it’s said].

  Harry Bailey: Ok. I have it. I’ve had a pad and a pencil here while I’m sitting talking here. I was gonna ask you that in the beginning. [1:45:07] Yeah, I got that and I will send the story.

  Janis: That would be great, I’d love to see it.

  Harry Bailey: I thought it was pretty good myself. [laughing] I read it occasionally now to reminisce, you know.

  Janis: You’re a very articulate speaker so I’m sure your writing is good.

  Harry Bailey: I wished I could do better. I said that to my son when I wrote it. I said, “you know, my command of the language isn’t that great.” I said … he said, “well you express yourself.” I said, “well, that’s maybe, so,” so. From time to time I think I could do better but at the time when I wrote it that’s the way it came out.

  Janis: So many people don’t write anything down and I bet your kids are happy that you’ve done that.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah, I think so and I’ve said that others there … initially I wrote it because I talked to somebody at Alaska Magazine and they sounded interested. Of course, it probably took me three or four months – I’d write part of it and then forget about it for awhile. And then when I sent it to them they said they had too many stories. So I’ve done a number of stories on the Aleutians and we’re not interested at the time.

  [1:46:23] So … I got in … in fact, I got it in print in one book on World War II.

  Janis: Oh, did you?

  Harry Bailey: Yeah. It was a fellow in Montana. His name is Cohen, Stan Cohen.

  Janis: Oh, yeah.

  Harry Bailey: He did … I sent it to him for what it was worth and he printed the whole thing. You know … The Forgotten War? He got three, four volumes.

  Janis: Yeah, I’ve got those.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah, you might find it there.

  Janis: I’m gonna go take a look.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah, I think it might be … it’s not in the first two I don’t think, maybe three.

  Janis: Ok, well, I’ll take a look for it.

  [1:47:10] You know, the other thing I was gonna tell you is if you have your kids or other family members, I can make a copy – an audio copy on CD or DVD of your interview so that you have it to give to them if you like.

  Harry Bailey: I would like that, yes.

  Janis: OK. Do you know how many copies of it you’d like or do you want to think about that and we can talk later?

  Harry Bailey: I would be … if you gave me 2 that would be sufficient, you know. I got four kids but they can share.

  Janis: Or I can make one for each. They don’t, they’re not very costly to make.

  Harry Bailey: If you would, yeah.

  Janis: Ok. Now the … what I’ll do is … I always transcribe these so they’ll be on paper and then we’ll have the audio copies and I make them in usually three different formats just so that they’ll last a long time. So, I’ll send you the paper copies too in case they’d like to read them.

  Harry Bailey: [1:48:06] Alright, could I … you know, the fellow that made the trip, like I was telling you, down to pick up the bodies. I talked to him two days ago … I mentioned the calendar. You said you still had some calendars left.

  Janis: Oh, we sure do.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah. Oh, you may get a request from somebody in Alabama who I don’t know, but my friend in Georgia said he ran into some Aleutian veteran who collects and so forth. And he says I told him how you got a calendar or had calendars and I said, “yup.” So he gave him the mailing address that, I don’t know, I got from, I don’t know, Mr. Greenwood?

  Janis: Yes, uh-huh.

  Harry Bailey: So, he may be chasing you down. He was looking for some calendars. And the fellow that I talked to who lives here locally, I don’t have his address right now but I’ve got it and when I send the story I’ll include that on a piece of paper if you might send him one.

  Janis: Oh, yeah, we’d love to get these out to people because you know they’re not very useful once they get real old. So if people want them we’re very happy to send them out.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah. So I’ll do that. I wrote his address down someplace but I don’t know where it is now. So….

  Janis: And the other thing is if they want to keep getting them we’re keeping a mailing list and we just … I’m just about finished with the 2009 calendar and that will go out – I’m not sure, maybe this summer, maybe in the fall. I’m not sure how quickly things will go but then they’ll get one of those automatically.

  Harry Bailey: Ok. I’ll … it was a big hit with my … three or four friends there. When I got the five of them last year. Maybe that fellow that I tell you I’ll give you his address, I might write the other addresses down and you can mail them directly to them.

  Janis: Oh, absolutely. People don’t have to be veterans to get them. If there are people that might be interested, or schools, anybody that wants one we give them to. So you don’t have to have any specific credentials to get them, you know. We’d like more people to learn about what you guys did out there and sometimes a little calendar like that gives people a little, you know, snippets of information and maybe helps them understand that there was more to World War II than they realized.

  Harry Bailey: [1:50:20] Yeah, because I … I used to talk to a woman who was with Reeve Aleutian.

  Janis: Um-hmm.

  Harry Bailey: It was an 800 call and she was very nice. She let me talk to her and question the Aleutians and so forth. And anyway, I wrote something and I sent a picture that I have of a power barge in Agattu and her husband told her one day and said, “I didn’t know all those things went on out there.” It’s … some people had no idea of it being even a battle out there and some just don’t even know about it whatsoever.

  Janis: No. I think there’s a lot of people that way so. We’d really like to, you know, make sure more people know that there was a theatre of war there too.

  Harry Bailey: [1:51:08] I’m adding on now but you know across the water there, the town – the city – of Petropavlosk, I thought that the war would … we’d go down and take the islands in the northern Pacific after Attu. So I told this First Sergeant that had the radios, I said, “When we move down to the other islands they’re gonna open up a radio station, I think” – that was just my thought. I said “They’ll probably put it in Russia, in Petropavlosk.” And I said, “Assign me there, will you?” [both laughing]

  He just shrugged his shoulders. I didn’t read there not too long ago that the Navy set up something down there, a weather station, over there after the war.

  Janis: Oh, they did?

  Harry Bailey: Yeah, during the war, toward the end. But, I always wanted to go there.

  Janis: Really, how come you wanted to go there?

  Harry Bailey: Curious. Curious. I like my geography. It never came to be, so. Just what I’ve read about it – I just got a book shortly of two people … it’s pretty far behind the current times there, civilization and that now, you know.

  Janis: Yeah, I haven’t been there. I’ve been to Russia twice.

  Harry Bailey: You have.

  Janis: Um-hmm. To the Far East and yeah, things look very different there than here.

  Harry Bailey: Did you go down to Vladivostok?

  Janis: Yes, uh-hmm and then we went to two of their parks: one of them was on the border with China and the other one was over towards Magadan.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah, they mention Magadan. There’s another one there too.

  [1:52:51] Did you ever read the story, Home From Siberia?

  Janis: Yes, I did.

  Harry Bailey: Very interesting.

  Janis: Yeah, it’s been some time but … he’s a good writer too. I can’t recall his name now.

  Harry Bailey: Hayes.

  Janis: Hayes, right. Otis Hayes.

  Harry Bailey: Yes.

  Janis: Yeah.

  Harry Bailey: I didn’t … he wrote a second book after that. I didn’t agree with everything he said but I didn’t … I read it, I guess I got it at the library. The first one maybe because it happened in my time or something there, that I found it more interesting.

  [1:53:27] I used to watch those high airplanes take off – which was very seldom – you know going down to Paramushiro.

  Janis: Um-hmm

  Harry Bailey: But, I don’t know, they left early in the morning, I don’t know, very seldom did you see them taking off from Shemya, I don’t think. Maybe I saw them once or twice. Only once did I see them coming back. They were paving the runway. They brought in an asphault plant, you know, for paving and it was the summer there. We were going over to the PX and they were coming back – B-24s, you know, four engine bombers.

  Janis: [1:54:10] This is on Shemya you’re talking about?

  Harry Bailey: Yeah. And they were paving the runway so they only had a limited distance to land on hard pavement while they were finishing the rest of it. They would come in and put the brakes on and the whole nose of the airplane would go forward and almost scrape the ground. And they must let off on the brakes and the thing would slide along more. They’d keep working the pedal and then brake to land with the.…

  I think I’m running out of … if you give me long enough I’ll keep thinking and thinking and thinking. [laughing]

  Janis: [1:54:50] Well, I was just going to ask you one more thing along those lines. When you were at Attu did you see the PV-1s and PV-2s headed over to the Kurile Islands?

  Harry Bailey: No. But they were there and I’m gonna get ahead of myself again and talking about the PBYs – the flying boat. One day we were going to Shemya and we were headed that direction and a PBY came down to water level off of Shemya. He’s coming right for us. And he’s coming and he’s coming and somebody says, “Jesus, he’s trying to give us the fright of our life” or whatever. And he came to where it would almost be in front of our boat, not quite, I’m sure. But that thing lifted up, like, lifting up straight. It didn’t happen that way, but that’s how close he came before he took that damn big airplane up. One of the crew members there looked out the window and shaking his fist at him. He could see them smiling down there, you know.

  Janis: So they did it just to give you a rush, huh?

  Harry Bailey: Oh, yeah, yeah. [1:56:10] Then a B-25, that’s a small, two engine bomber – they did that one time. Now I wasn’t awake there but they came down and did the same thing and they took two or three feet off the top of the mast of our boat.

  Janis: They did?

  Harry Bailey: Yeah. From that day on you could always identify that ship because there was no mast there for that distance, the three feet or four feet upward. But that was the only time, but I guess they used to do that quite often. It give them something to do too, you know, just out there flying around.

  Janis: Yeah, have a little fun, huh?

  Harry Bailey: That’s about it, yeah.

  Janis: I had a … I’m a pilot myself and I’ve been in a little airplane where the F-15s off Elmendorf have come pretty close in front of me and they rock their wings in front of you.

  Harry Bailey: Yes.

  Janis: And they’re just playing I think.

  Harry Bailey: Playing around, yeah. [1:57:07] Did you ever hear of Petersen Airways? It’s long gone now. Just a little private….

  Janis: Yeah.

  Harry Bailey: I … when I went down to Seward one time from Anchorage, I flew down with him. He had a bi-plane, three passengers and himself. And the day they took me over to – not Elmendorf, but the … the private….

  Janis: Oh, Merrill Field?

  Harry Bailey: Yeah, over to Merrill. That was grass then.

  Janis: Oh, when it was on the park strip, uh-huh.

  Harry Bailey: Yeah. Yes, the old one, wherever it was. Anyway, they took me over there and down to that airplane. And although I’m old now, I’ll refer to these two other people, an old man and a woman they got into the back seat for two people. I got in … well he has to, Petersen has to get in, the pilot, first and that’s the only door on the

Transcript summary (complete transcript, all three parts)

Harry Bailey's interview has been separated into three parts.

Part 1 (full audio / transcript)

1. Trip from Seattle to Attu on a power barge, carrying freight to Shemya, storms off Shemya, loss of a barge off Attu audio / transcript
2. Navigation equipment on the ship, use of the ship’s radio, morse code, difficulty in transmitting among the islands audio / transcript
3. Civilians working for the Harbor Craft Detachment, pay differences between civilians and Army enlisted men, inadequate clothing provided by the Army, trading clothes with the Navy audio / transcript
4. Harbor Craft Detachment, training in Seattle to be a seaman, who was chosen for HCD, civilians in HCD, who the civilian seamen were audio / transcript
5. Joining the Army in 1943, training at Fort Lawton, Washington, story of a friend who sailed the Bering Sea from Nome to the Aleutians, storms in the Aleutians, Navy priority on anchor buoys audio / transcript
6. Dragging anchor, working on ship with two railroad men from the White Pass/Yukon Railroad, unloading freighters coming in from San Francisco and Seattle, working for a civilian skipper that woke them up all night long audio / transcript
7. Harbor on the south side of Shemya, weathering storms in deep water, losing a boat and six men off Attu, sinking of the Dellwood off Attu, getting towed to Chernofsky after losing an engine off Dutch Harbor, taking a radio call from a ship in distress, making operators repeat everything twice for clarity audio / transcript
8. Size of the power barges, composition of crew on the power barge, trying to salvage a ship off Agattu, Army and Navy rescue operations, marine railroad at Attu for servicing ships, routine maintenance of the power barge audio / transcript
9. Servicing the task force assigned to bombing Paramushiro audio / transcript
10. Army vs Navy food, story of two Air Corp guys eating at the Navy’s officers mess, eating steak in Seattle, German POW’s as waiters in Seattle audio / transcript
11. Internment camp in Southeast Alaska, Aleuts interned in southeast Alaska, working with Aleuts in midget tugs, Orthodox cross on Agattu, hearing about an old village on Agattu a long time ago audio / transcript
12. Servicing the radar station on Agattu, road to the radar station, radar station on Attu, how people spent their time ashore, shore leave, spending a lot of time on the ship, USO shows, inability to go far ashore, going ashore with a friend and having difficulty returning to the ship after audio / transcript
13. Playing basketball at the gym on Attu, shopping at the Navy PX, playing dice for money, story of the cook who made money on playing dice after getting drunk on hooch, playing dice for money on board the ship audio / transcript
14. Crew members on the power barge, changing crew on the barge, working with a miner from Chicken, going through unqualified Skippers, working with two railroad men audio / transcript

Part 2 (full audio / transcript)

1. Training given to Skippers, who was selected for Skipper, how the Harbor Craft Detachment was formed, story of a bunk mate in Seattle, loose military operations in Seattle, Company reports of men missing for duty audio / transcript
2. Bailey being reported AWOL in error, people going AWOL in Pennsylvania during basic training, growing up in Massachusetts, being drafted in the Army, age when drafted, basic training in Carolina, Pennsylvania training, train ride to Seattle audio / transcript
3. Arriving in Fort Lawton, Washington, describing the streets of downtown Seattle and sailors from Britain and Australia, what the servicemen did in downtown Seattle, Yessler Square in Seattle, story of a man chasing a women in the street near the square audio / transcript
4. Housing on board the ship in Seattle, story of a training ship, Bonhomme, in trouble in the harbor after having been worked on audio / transcript
5. Using a World War I ship for training, using rubber life suits, story about fear of being put into a rubber suit, seasickness, a cocky 19 year old stands on the open deck in seas audio / transcript
6. Nearly falling overboard off the barge getting ice cream, man falling overboard trying to get off the barge audio / transcript
7. Coastal artillery shooting practice in Massacre Bay, sailing the 85 foot power barge to the Aleutians, stories of tugs losing their tow in the crossing from Seattle to Alaska audio / transcript

Part 3 (full audio / transcript)

1. Wind and weather in the Aleutians, weather reporting and forecasting, lack of experience of Lt. Commander resulting in loss of ship audio / transcript
2. Leaving Alaska, getting an airplane ride to Anchorage in a storm, navigation for aircraft in the Aleutians, aircraft stranded on Attu while the airfield is built audio / transcript
3. Removing American and Japanese dead from the islands after the war, transporting bodies with no refrigeration, where Aleutian dead were buried audio / transcript
4. Working in Seward as a radio man, story of how he convinced his Sergeant to let him go and buying and selling liquor, getting stuck in crowded barracks in Anchorage audio / transcript
5. Getting a friend to help him get transferred back down to Seward to ride home with his friend, going back to Seattle on a tug and barge, friend Labreck who joined the service two men behind him, arriving in Seattle with Labreck audio / transcript
6. Discharge from the service, career as a plumber, influence of experiences of WWII on life, willingness to do it again if need be, volunteering for the Second Ranger Battalion, Labreck talks him out of volunteering audio / transcript
7. Russian lend-lease of ships, seeing Russians at Cold Bay, taking a trip to Chichigof and Holtz Bay on foot audio / transcript
8. Collecting souvenirs on Attu, cemetery location on Attu, pictures of building the dock at Shemya, using Euclid trucks to build a breakwater at Shemya, storm taking out the breakwater audio / transcript
9. Seeing the airplanes head off on missions to Paramushiro in the morning, asphault plant on Shemya, short field landing technique for B-24 landing on uncompleted Shemya runway, getting buzzed in the ship by a low flying PBY, getting buzzed by a B-25 in the ship that took off part of the mast audio / transcript