Audio
Colonel John Schonher Part 1
Transcript
Haller: “My name is Steve Haller. I’m the park historian for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. John Martini, the curator of military history, is here with me today on October 25th, 1995, at the home of Colonel John Schonher. And Colonel Schonher lives in Sacramento, California, and he’s graciously invited us both here today to allow us to interview him about his experiences with the Coast Artillery Corps and the Harbor Defenses of San Francisco during and after World War II.
“So thank you, Colonel Schonher, for having us here today.”
Schonher: “You’re welcome.”
Haller: “Now, we are making this tape for the archives of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. And I understand that the National Parks Service has your permission to make this recording and to transcribe it and to use it for research purposes; is that correct?”
Schonher: “That’s correct.”
Haller: “And that you’re willing to assign the copyright to this tape for those purposes.”
Schonher: “Yes, I am.”
Haller: “Great. Well, thanks very much, as I said, for having us today.
“And why don’t we start the interview by asking you to tell me a little bit about your personal background, like when you were born and where, that sort of thing.”
Schonher: “Yes. I was born in Seattle, Washington, on September 5, 1909. Attended schools and one year of high school there, and came to California in October of 1924; attended high school in San Francisco. And at that time, I had joined the Junior ROTC program at the high school and, later, the National Guard. I obtained a scholarship to the University of California in 1927, and I continued the ROTC program into the senior grade as commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve in December 1930, and I graduated in 1931 with honors in the College of Commerce.”
Haller: “Did your family have a military background or were you the first --”
Schonher: “No. Came from a single-parent family. I had a very introverted, isolated type of life until I came to San Francisco and went to live with my aunt for the last two years of my high school years.”
Haller: “So what motivated you to join ROTC?”
Schonher: “Well, I guess it’s fascination with the military. Sometimes I think maybe a patriotic background probably wasn’t a great deal there. Everybody seems to think that, but at least I was fascinated by the military.”
Haller: “So when you start --- after your ROTC --- your military training, how did you actually get into the military?”
Schonher: “When I was in high school, before I obtained my scholarship my hopes of getting any kind of advanced education was through the military academy; and my instructor in the Junior ROTC had arranged with the local congressional representative to get an appointment to West Point.
“I’d had a little trouble with my left eye. I’ve got a scar on the cornea from a cracker getting into my eye, according to what my mother said. Anyway, I went out to the Presidio for an examination. On a good day, I guess I could pass the 20/20, but it was very borderline. And with the risk of having to pass an examination, physical examination, in the academy every year, it seemed a little bit risky. So I put it on hold for the time being, as far taking advantage of it [the appointment – JM]. And it was only a few months later that I obtained a scholarship to the University of California.
“At that time, five percent out of the top graduates of the ROTC program could obtain a commission in the regular Army. And I had that in view, except at the time I received my commission, money was running out and the Depression had started; and those appointments were no longer available.
“Of course, in recent years, the bulk of all officer personnel comes from college ROTC programs rather than any of the academies.”
Haller: “So when did actually you become commissioned and where did you start in the Army?”
Schonher: “Well, I started out to go ahead and seek my own career in civilian life --”
Haller: “I see.”
Schonher: “-- which was not very easy in the depth of the Depression.
“So that when CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps] started, they offered active duty for officers to go on duty with these camps. And so I went to active duty in 1933 --- I think it was May --- and I continued until March of 1937 as second lieutenant and first lieutenant. And during that period of time, I certainly had a great deal of experience with rather similar duties as you do in the military. E CAMPs [?], as far as the military was concerned, was just to provide housing, recreation and welfare for the enrollees, the different Park Service, Forest Service; took over the work programs.”
Haller: “Where were the camps that you supervised?”
Schonher: “Well, first camp was in Modoc County, north of Alturas. While I was there, I was selected to winterize the camp over in Hayfork on the Trinity side of the valley. And went over there and hired personnel to cart, to saw, to turn a summer camp into a winter camp. And then I remained there on duty as a junior officer. Then I went to other camps. Went over east of Redding, where I became camp commander for quite a period of time. I moved up to another camp in Castella and then back to Hayfork. And then went to Oregon in a camp west of Salem, in the foothills there, which was with the Park Service, and left in March of 1937.
“After that, there were some periods of two-week active duty. I had taken a position as an auditor with the State Franchise Tax Board and considered leaving --- staying there until I retired, but I stayed active in the Reserve.
“And in 1940, the Sixth Army held --- no, it was the Fourth Army --- the Fourth Army held maneuvers in the state of Washington, and I went on a four-week active-duty tour, which was rather unusual to have that long a period. But it was a large maneuver; involved the regular Army, National Guard, Reserve officers in a huge program because at least the President and members of congress felt that we should start doing something about our own national preparedness.
“And then at the end of that, I returned back to Sacramento and I could feel that it was only a matter of time to be called to active duty, so I volunteered to go on extended active duty in November of 1940. And all the orders I received --- others were there involuntarily, because Congress had passed an act that they could call Reserve officers for one year of active duty, plus the drafting of personnel to fill out what was a very skeletonized Army.”
Haller: “Is that --”
Schonher: “And --- sorry. Go from there.”
Haller: “Oh, excuse me. I was just going to ask you, is that the time, at that point --- were you then assigned to the Coast Artillery Corps? Did you ask for that assignment?”
Schonher: “When you --- when you get your commission in college, you can ask for your Reserve assignment with any kind of active organization that’s available. Many of the infantry people – of course, the Infantry unit at Berkeley was the largest. The Coast Artillery and the Naval unit and the Air Corps group were about the same size. And I, of course, asked to be attached to the 6th Coast Artillery as a Reserve officer.”
Haller: “I see.
Martini: “Was that because it was a local unit in San Francisco?”
Schonher: “Yes --- well, it was the only nearby coast artillery. That’s what I had been trained in, yeah.”
Martini: “Did you have a special interest in coast artillery?”
Schonher: “Well, yes, because I belonged to the National Guard, as I previously stated. I joined underage, which many of them did. And that was the 250th Coast Artillery; tractor-drawn, 155-millimeter regiment. And so I had a lot of hands-on training, from the very basic part of the artillery preparation, and manipulation of the data to transfer to the guns for firing.
“I think the first summer of active duty, I was just what you call a --- operating one of the azimuth instruments that tracked the target. The next year, I was a plotter that did the plotting on the firing board for the --- I’ll show you a picture --”
Martini: “This is one of your private photos? This is a group photograph.”
Schonher: “Yes. It’s --- they gave us copies of them. Signal Corps, of course, no problem taking pictures and making copies of them. This is an earlier one with Colonel Eustis.”
Haller: “To go back sort of chronologically and not get too badly out of chronological order, were the --- when you were discussing the 1940 maneuvers in Washington, which I assume was around Camp Lewis; is that correct --”
Schonher: “Yes.”
Haller: “-- Fort Lewis, rather?”
Schonher: “Yes. They had the --- north and south was the boundaries of the Shahala River. So I believe we were in the southern group.”
Haller: “Uh-huh.”
Schonher: “And this was --”
Haller: “You were in the --”
Schonher: “2nd Battalion, the 6th Coast Artillery, at that time.”
Haller: “Okay. Great.”
Schonher: “And that was supposed to be the anti-aircraft battalion --”
Haller: “I see.”
Schonher: “-- which, of course, didn’t materialize quite that way; eventually.”
Haller: “Yeah.”
Schonher: “But all they had was .50-caliber machine guns. They had no 90-millimeter antiaircraft guns, nothing. So we --”
Haller: “No 3-inch guns, no nothing?”
Schonher: “No, nothing.”
Haller: “Really.”
Schonher: “Very skeletonized.”
Haller: “Okay.”
Schonher: “But we could go through the maneuvers, you know, move and go wherever we’d be needed.”
Haller: “Right.”
Schonher: “So we spent the first week up there just getting in the trucks and moving, reconnoitering all the territory so we knew what the ground was like. Of course, it turned out a lot of it was wasted, but we didn’t know what was coming. And, finally, they did --- I think the maneuvers lasted three days, if I remember correctly. And we really didn’t know what was really going on very much. They had umpires galore all over, too, but I never saw one. So I guess we never got very much involved in the maneuvers at all.”
Haller: “Well, I don’t imagine a first or a second lieutenant --”
Schonher: “But it was a big one. It was big one. It was very interesting. You’d see ---you’d go up --- you’d go up a highway and come to a crossroads, and here’s a reconnaissance unit with a horse and a 30-caliber machine gun. [Laughs] And I thought it was --- we saw the trains coming in for that maneuver on the Milwaukee Route in the northern part. I never saw so many trains and coaches that they brought out from everywhere just to pull these people in. Because it took, I think, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California. I guess what was used to be called the 9th Corps Area before they divorced the tactical up to the maintenance people.”
Haller: “Now, what greeted you when you got --- it was later that same year that you got to Fort Winfield Scott?”
Schonher: “Well, it was later --- that was --- that was in August, and by November --- what was going on then, it was an all volunteer Army and I thought maybe they’d call on us. I thought maybe it might be a little advantageous to be on there first. But it didn’t seem to make a great deal of difference, because the whole group was eventually --- pretty much every officer that was a member of the Reserve assignment to 6th Coast Artillery were all under active duty. We had a huge mobilization.
“And at this time, of course, there was still a very strong peace movement in this country and didn’t want to get involved. But President Roosevelt, you know, he’d been Secretary of the Navy. He understood what the problems were and thought he’d convince Congress that we should start doing something. But we were still defense-minded. You know, the Navy’s the first line and then the Coast Artillery’s the second.”
Haller: “Right.”
Schonher: And at this period of mobilization, I guess the Coast Artillery’s kind of the top dog in the Army, as far as that’s --- you know. Precedents in training --- although the Infantry was certainly mobilized. 30th Infantry was filled out very quickly with draftees, just as much as the Coast Artillery. But the news and everything else seemed to center on the Coast Artillery, because this was something people could visualize.”
Haller: “Now, you were talking about the Fort Lewis maneuvers, where the recon outfit at a crossroads would consist of a guy on a horse and a 30-caliber machine gun.”
Schonher: “Yes, yes.”
Haller: “So what was the situation in terms of readiness and equipment that greeted you at Fort Winfield Scott later on --- or subsequent?”
Schonher: “Well, I went on active duty in November of 1940. They’d gotten the grade officers -- captains and the junior officers -- were all in a class. They got instruction on battery administration --- you know, what it takes to run a battery --- food, rations, morning reports, prisoners, guard duty; all the little details which you don’t have hands-on experience, because you don’t experience this, even on a two-week active-duty tour, you know. So that was a period of time until January, when we received the troops; and they activated the batteries that were reorganized. I think it says in here how many were active at the time. And it was a big expansion; and we manned installations that weren’t even --- were obsolete, in a way.
“My first assignment in Battery D, we decided to move to one of the barracks out at Fort Barry. One of those two old barracks as you probably remember.”
Haller: “Yes.”
Schonher: “Battery E was next door with Captain Hack- --- Hackenson? I forgot his name now. It’s in here. At any rate, he had --- it was one of the active batteries, because they were manning the 16-inch gun battery at the time [Battery Townsley – JM]. But they only had what was skeleton organizations for all of these batteries, you know. They’d maybe only have 70 men, where a full complement is a little over 200.
“So I received my full complement of draftees in January. Of course, I had a cadre of first sergeant, some of the technical people, cooks and the mess sergeant that you have to have. Basically, they had some training. And Battery E next door, they received enough to fill themselves up to a full complement.”
Haller: “So you were CO of Battery D, you said, at this point?”
Schonher: “Yeah, D.”
Haller: “Now --”
Schonher: “And we --- we were assigned to Battery Mendell at that time.”
Haller: “How would the assignment of a battery, in the structure of the Coast Artillery regiment, how would a battery, like Battery D, be assigned to an emplacement such as Battery Mendell? Was it one company per battery --”
Schonher: “That’s --”
Haller: “-- or per similar --- battery with similar mission or how did that work?”
Schonher: “See, the guns are a battery.”
Haller: “Yeah.”
Schonher: “The personnel, the company, is a battery, too. It’s a company in the usual sense of a military --”
Haller: “Got it.”
Schonher: “It’s a group of people, a company, an Infantry company. So they called them a battery instead of --”
Haller: “Right.”
Schonher: “So that’s --- they did the same way with the Field Artillery, the same thing.
“When we were assigned to Mendell, that was only temporary. And I’d say we received these troops about --- I think it was about January 23rd, somewhere in there. And by April, we had to fire one gun at Battery Mendell. So these people that came, they came directly from the reception center. They had no basic training. It seemed logical, simply because the Infantry-type training --- the early training at some of the training centers where they applied it to Infantry-type situations, where the Artillery’s more specialized. So we had to train them from scratch, as far as military discipline, whatever it was.
“So we fired Battery Mendell, and it was quite successful. I think one round put a crescent on one of the skids on the target, but --- we had a misfire because of a faulty primer. So the time element, we ended up with only a satisfactory performance.
“And then in May, we were moved to Fort Miley.”
Martini: “Battery Chester?”
Schonher: “I think that’s correct, Chester --”
Haller: “12-inch disappearing --”
Schonher: “12-inch disappearing --- they had that one old 1892 barbette, with the hoist the shells up with the… hoist.”
Haller: “That’s right.”
Schonher: “It was sort of a museum piece. Actually, Chester was disappearing, which was really obsolete. But they weren’t going to give up on them because, I guess, the overall idea of a defense was use whatever you have. So there we started our continued training; not only artillery, but just also even mob control was one thing that we were involved with.”
Haller: “Mob control?”
Schonher: “Yeah. Well, troops are routinely done that … do that and there’s a lot of techniques that have to be learned so you don’t fire at people indiscriminately.”
Haller: “Who were they afraid might --”
Schonher: “Well, this is --- this is just routine. I think any military group that’s --- they have, very occasionally, been called in, mostly the National Guard. But I don’t think that there was a realistic idea of any great threat of that. They had training in chemical warfare, Infantry, use of bayonet, target practice with a weapon.”
Haller: “Was your company expected to provide sort of perimeter defense for the emplacement, as well as do the firing of the weapons?”
Schonher: “Well, yes. That particular --- Fort Miley was surrounded by what they call a man-proof fence; but no fence is man-proof. But that was more security for just any casual person trying to get in.
“We were kind of like a post by itself. We had our own post flag. We had a retreat ceremony every day. I had to mount a guard. Instead of sending people down to the guardhouse to go on a guard mount, we had to provide our own guard. We had rotation and people on guard; one officer. There were 12 of us. We just had to rotate to be on duty.”
Martini: “You had command of Battery Chester.”
Schonher: “Yes.”
Martini: “The other installation there was the mortar battery.”
Schonher: “Yeah. They were --- they were given up because of very limited range.”
Martini: “So that wasn’t active?”
Schonher: “No. They --- they didn’t --- they used to practice with some of the mortar batteries. I went on one active duty in 1932, I think, where they had a mortar practice at the one on the south side, down towards Funston.”
Martini: “Yes.”
Schonher: “There’s a mortar battery there, and we watched that. But they gave up on it because --- it was just a matter of training and tracking of targets, so on, doing the things that --- hopefully, they’d have better armament later to use.”
Haller: “Were there any particularly memorable experiences of your sort of last peacetime days while you were serving on the harbor defenses?”
Schonher: “Oh, yes, many of ‘em. I don’t know how far you want to go. At any rate, I thought I’d move on a little.”
Haller: “Let’s do that, and we’re going to turn over the tape.” [End of Side 1, Tape 1.]
Haller: “During the time that you were in charge of Battery Chester at Fort Miley, were you the senior officer for the entire post?”
Schonher: “Yes, yes; because there were no other officer personnel, except our own battery. And this went on --- oh, yes, we had other training.
“For example, they had a height finder that was just brought in the service for antiaircraft purposes, a rather long tube with reflectors and telescopes. And we had to train some personnel for that, too, because that was the only fire control they had for antiaircraft gun at the time.
“And we found a lot of foggy weather there in summer, of course. So we finally ended up sending them over to Oakland every day.”
Haller: “Okay.”
Schonher: “And I don’t know who provided --- I guess the Army Air Corps provided a plane for us, to track. That was another one of the facets of training that went on.
“Now, as far as incidents, I think I can move on to about December. E Battery, they had problems there. I don’t --- I’m not going to go into it. Anyway, they relieved the commander and sent me over to take charge of the battery. And I was scheduled to have target practice the week after December 7th.”
Haller: “1941.”
Schonher: “1941.”
Haller: “Okay.”
Schonher: “And I found a lot of things rather strange there. I reported over in the afternoon and I’m standing there talking to the first sergeant in the office and I look at my watch and I said, ‘It’s time for retreat.’ ‘Retreat?’ ‘Haven’t you ever had a retreat?’ He said, ‘No.’ I says --- that was pretty sad. This is how bad things had gotten.
“At any rate --”
Haller: “Yeah. Now, where was E Battery?”
Schonher: “E Battery was in the barracks area at Fort --- at Fort Cronkhite area --- E Battery, I guess you know where it is, yes. Anyway --”
Haller: “And you were assigned to --- E Battery was assigned to what weapons, then?”
Martini: “Townsley.”
Schonher: “Battery Townsley, right.”
Haller: “Okay.”
Schonher: “They were in the throes of trying locate, you know, all of the property that had to be signed up. This was a big hassle of any commander, is you’re responsible for all the property. And I wouldn’t sign for anything until I could find it. And there’s a lot of property with that 16-inch gun battery. That was an interesting part of getting started. I think this was several days before December 7th. I don’t recall how long.
“But, at any rate, I got familiar with the organization and took care of some of the problems that they had with the personnel. I had some excellent people and some dogs. And, unfortunately, a lot of the problems were people that had gotten into the Army voluntarily sometime in the past. The draftees were no problem.
“At any rate, on --- you want to know what happened on December 7th?”
Haller: “I was just about to ask.”
Schonher: “My wife --- this is --- not my present wife --- was at Berkeley visiting a friend, and I was --- I had quarters on the post, Quarters 26B. And the two children were out in the yard playing Sunday morning on December 7th. I was trying to get some breakfast together. And my daughter rushed in and said, ‘They attacked Pearl Harbor!’ So I turned on the radio and heard the story.
“And then the phone rang, and General Stockton called and said that he was getting ready to activate all of our defenses, and he would call me later. And, in the meantime, on the radio, they had calls going on in the Bay area. Everybody --- all military personnel report immediately. And everybody starts to evac., because everybody was --- for so many people, it was Sunday and there’s a lot of things to be done. Then another call from General Stockton said that go ahead and report to the battery and get organized to be able to defend ourselves in any kind of attack. And that’s what happened on Sunday morning.”
Haller: “So what did you do to organize --”
Schonher: “So --”
Haller: “So what did you do?”
Schonher: “Well, we --- I think we had to bring the cots up, as they were in the barracks, scatter them around the best we could. Later --”
Haller: “Inside the battery? Inside the emplacements?”
Schonher: “Oh, yes. There’s a lot of room in that --- in that --- a lot of room [for cots – JM]. It’s hard to find it ‘cause it’s dark now. But the Quartermaster found out a way to attach these springs to the wall and that could be held by chains so that they were in proper position. They could also be folded back after the bed has been made. So this became the living quarters. We had --- one (inaudible) was available for the kitchen. They had gasoline field ranges, which had been authorized because of the antiaircraft -- the possibility of movement in the field. And we had enough area to feed. We had another area for the office and enough room for the officer personnel to put their own bunks in there, including the battalion commander, a good commander, who was Lieutenant Colonel Fauville (?) at the time.
“And I don’t remember if it was the first night or the second night, we were quite late --- I was in bed and I was asleep. And I had a phone right next to me in bed and Fauville’s right next to me. And the phone rang, and it came from the harbor defense commander, saying that --- the statement was that it’s been reported that the Japanese navy was 400 miles off the coast of California. I shook Colonel Fauville and we looked at each other. And 400 miles, well, that’s a long ways away. So we went back to sleep. And I think both of us had very many reservations about that statement to begin with. Turns out we were correct.
“I remember when General Stillwell came back to take over the Sixth Army after 1946, I think it was. He was interviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle, and he made that same statement about this --- he got the same report.”
Haller: “That’s right. He was --”
Schonher: “He said --- well, the intelligence was --- we didn’t have any, because we had no Navy. And you don’t gather intelligence any other way, across an ocean, than by a navy.
“At any rate, that’s how my career started with the Battery Townsley.”
Haller: “Were there any other unusual incidents around the first days of the war?”
Schonher: “Yes. We had an alert --- we had a rather primitive radar setup that was right there at the roadside near the barracks area, just where the road starts up the hill, there was a van parked there with radar equipment. Now, I think they had more than one. At any rate, immediately, the alarm was sounded that there were planes overhead and a blackout was ordered for San Francisco; and it was incomplete. And I remember there was a lot of hair raising over that as far as San Francisco was concerned. People went around jerking out lights, breaking windows and so on.
“That happened to be a very clear night, too. And nobody could hear anything, see anything. The searchlight battery turned on all their searchlights. There was a big antiaircraft organization in the Oakland area. They were alerted. That --- that came to naught. Then --- I don’t know --- several days later, we had a very heavy rain. And, of course, up and down the coast, the Infantry and Field Artillery are just going around all the --- from wherever they started, the Golden Gate Bridge was filled with trucks, artillery going someplace to take a position.
“And then it began to rain.
“And this one day, a captain --- who had an Infantry company in the area, he was supposed to provide Infantry protection --- came and, lo and behold, it was Captain Bunker, who was a CCC commander at the same time I was.
“So --- and I said --- ‘All your people have are shelters … only shelter halves.’ And I said, ‘Well, I think it’s going to be okay. If you’d like to move in behind the two guns, it’s a large covered area.’ I said, ‘It’s kind of damp and cold and the wind blows through there, but it’s out of the rain.’ He said that would be great. So I called Harbor Defense and they said that’s fine. So they moved in and it was heaven for them. They could get in out of the rain, put their sleeping bags on the cold concrete.
“And we happened to be on alert at that time. We had A alert. A alert was shoot your guns every --- code B was 15 minutes, be ready. And one of the gun commanders … sergeant came to me and said he had the magazine doors open. Had to have everything ready. And he said, ‘there are quite a few Japanese in that outfit.’
“I said, ‘Well, I don’t know. It’ll probably be all right if I called headquarters.’ Called Harbor Defense Command Post and stated it. And I think General Stockton answered the phone at the time. I don’t remember. And he said, ‘I’ll get back to you’ --- no, I guess it wasn’t. Anyway, he came back personally and said, ‘Well, they’re members of the Army.’ He says, ‘Let ‘em stay,’ which is natural and it should be. I assumed if he had any question about it, I thought I had to inform him.
“And they were there for only two nights, and then they moved on. I think there was a lot of repositioning --- a lot of changes went on. And even our organization, as a chain of command --- originally, the Harbor Defenses were organized as sectors. The Northern California sector was --- General Bergen, at the time, was the commander.
“And --- but when that war broke out, we were transferred into control of the Army Corps. I can’t remember the number of it. I think it was the 19th. At any rate, this was the organization for a --- for a while, until the --- I guess it went back under --- directly under Fourth Army. I’m a little hazy about this, anyway.”
Haller: “Mm-hm.”
Schonher: “The changeover, I know my promotion was delayed for about five or six months. And my first step up after that was ---well, first, to go back to duty here, it was early in --- somewhere in January, the War Department wanted to get data on bombproof shelters; and they had nothing about penetration by aerial bombs. They decided that they would use the 16-inch gun battery, Number 1 gun, at [Townsley] --- it was the only 16-inch gun in the continental United States that could be traversed to a land area.
“Well, they constructed four concrete blocks of various thicknesses and various reinforcement steel in ‘em. And I was assigned the problem of firing at these blocks. Although the ordnance officer at Harbor Defense post would be charged with it, I never saw him.
“Well, it was kind of a neat problem. They had to define the muzzle velocity of the shell to approximate the terminal velocity of a bomb. So they had to use different powder charges to get the results they wanted. So they brought an ordnance powder man from Salt Lake City that happened to be the corps area command structure. He was a civilian. And he made up the various, different sizes of powder charges. We were going to fire a live, armor-piercing shell, but we deactivated --- the ordnance man deactivated the base fuse, which sets it off. They wanted just to get the simple penetration.
“The other problem was to aim a gun like that. The block is probably about 300 - or 400 yards away. I don’t remember the exact distance. So I could bore-sight the gun by pointing it at the target they put up --- first of all, you put a --- a wire across the muzzle, and you connect that with the wire screen on the block; and with the electrical noose[?], they can determine the actual velocity of the shell.”
Haller: “When the shell cut through the wire.”
Schonher: “When it cuts through the wire of the muzzle and when it penetrates the frame of wood with two --- chicken wire, it’s just chicken wire. And it wasn’t very big, and I had to aim at it. So I --- the other thing --”
Haller: “The chicken wire was on the target?”
Schonher: “Yeah.”
Haller: “Yeah. Got it.”
Schonher: “Yeah. It was in a frame, wooden frame. I don’t remember the exact size. It wasn’t very big. The only thing I remember from my college physics was ‘falling bodies, ½ GT2.’
“Now, an interesting thing, I remember this physics course that showed no matter what you shoot, no matter what its speed, it’s going to hit the ground at the same time as one dropped vertically; and they demonstrated with a sand table. So I remembered that formula, and I worked it out that I’d have to aim the gun about --- I don’t know --- about 18 or 20 inches above the target for a spot. So I traversed the gun until --- I had somebody do it while I was looking through the primer hole; and I had the cross-struts with the front of the barrel so I had an aiming point. That way, I could set the gun as far as azimuth. Then I went over to the range drum and put a little scratch there, because the readings on it weren’t that fine. So that --- that worked fine.
“There were a lot of other things involved with it. The Lockheed Aircraft Company provided the high-speed photography camera that could (inaudible) [expose – JM] about 3600 frames per minute … or second. I don’t know. It was a very high-speed camera. And so they rigged it up with the primer on the gun to have a few milliseconds’ delay to allow the camera to get up to speed before the guns fired. So, actually --- I just --- he [the cameraman] actually fired the gun, actually; ‘cause I’d tell him --- I’d just tell him fire, and he’d start the camera and then he’d press the button and the gun would fire.
“And the projectile hit right in the middle of the screen. It was okay. I mean, you know --- unfortunately, the muzzle velocity was too high. The shell penetrated the block completely and lodged in the dirt behind it. So I had to come down to a lower velocity.
“And the man that was doing it --- the powder bag --- you know, the powder bags were quite long. They had to end up with a very small one, about like a pancake, about maybe eight inches deep and greater than 16 inch, because the powder chamber is bigger than the shell. At any rate, he put that in last.
“So he closed the breech and he got ready to fire again and nothing happened. And I remember the captain said, ‘What the hell did I do wrong?’ I said, ‘Nah, nothing. I think it’s a misfire.’
“And I remember Colonel Fauville he says, ‘Well, why don’t you put a new primer in it?’ I says, ‘Well, regulation says that if the primer fires, you wait a full two minutes before you open the dang breech.’ So we waited and pulled the primer out. And the gun commander said ‘open the breech’ and looked in and said, ‘Is it still burning?’ I said, ‘Close it.’ I said --- and I waited. And I said, ‘There’s something wrong with it.’ I opened it up. Well, the base of that powder charge has got a red --- it’s painted red, and he thought that was --- all that happened was this thing collapsed in there, and the flames just skittled right off the powder charge, never ignited.”
Martini: “It started the bag smoldering, but it never --”
Schonher: “No, it didn’t even smolder. It was just no better than a scorch mark on it. Because when it collapsed, it was pretty flat; and the flame has to hit it directly.
“At any rate, I told the ordnance man --- I says, ‘What the heck difference does it make whether you put that at the end or put it in the middle?’ So he said, ‘Well, I guess it’s all right.’ He put it in the middle, so he had a full charge for the next time it went off. But, unfortunately, blew the counter-recoil cylinder on the darn thing; because nobody knew that this Navy gun, that you had to have --- reduce the pressure in the counter-recoil mechanism at the time. And we checked with the Navy and they said, ‘oh, just reduce the pressure; we do it all the time,’ because they didn’t fire a full (inaudible) [battery? –JM]. So the velocity stuck, creates much wear on the gun.
“So then when we finished the rest of that successfully, they --- after they (inaudible) the crater, they put the shell back in there and then it detonated to see what further happened to the concrete. And, unfortunately, it’s like a mortar that had struck. If you look at the top of the concrete up there [on top of casemate #1 – JM], there’s this chip mark up there that I could just --- when they’d detonate, I could hear the stuff rattling on the shield. See, they got to have a big, about three-inch-thick armor around --- spaced around so that there’s not fragments.
“Somebody was telling me that they had a black 155 regiment [the 54th CA Regiment – JM] down at Cronkhite at that time, and they furnished the guard for the --- for the area down there. And this guard happened to hear this thing a’whistling, and he started running and he stumbled down. And the fragment hit, you know, not far from him. And we had a .50-caliber machine gun that was positioned on top of the plotting room, and some of the stuff started raining down on them, too. So we --- so every time they detonated a shell, we had to get everybody to stand clear down in the Cronkhite area, because that stuff was just flying all over.”
Martini: “This is the shells that were still lodged in the concrete block?”
Schonher: “Well, they --- the shells actually dropped when they hit. And they had to hoist them back and put them in the crater, and then they had to electrically detonate ‘em.”
Martini: “Uh-huh. I see. So you actually had 16-inch shells bouncing off those concrete blocks.”
Schonher: “Well, they bounced back. Every one of them bounced back, yeah, you know, because --”
Martini: “Like the expression the path of the least resistance. It just blew it right back at them.”
Schonher: “-- they have a very, very blunt armor-piercing steel front.”
Haller: “Right.”
Martini: “Yes.”
Schonher: [Describing the shape of a 16-inch projectile – JM] “That --- that long thing that you see sticking out is just a windshield. Dynamic, yeah.”
Haller: “Got it.”
Schonher: “Aerodynamics.
“In fact, those things didn’t even break up into pieces. We put one on top of a post on top of the battery there for a gas alarm. It made a nice bell sound. In fact, one of the guards, on a foggy night, he thought that was a person. He challenged; nothing happened, so he fired his rifle at it. He found out it was just this shell sticking on a post. It looked like a man in the fog.”
Haller: “So let me ask you one question having to do with this test. And that is, I am reminded of the fact that the Japanese used battleship shells with aerial fins on them to drop on Battleship Row. Was --- did anybody ever make the connection between that and your tests?”
Schonher: “I don’t know.”
Haller: “You don’t; okay.”
Schonher: “I don’t know that. I --- I --- I don’t know what’s like that. That’s --- that’s the same type of thing that they were going to hunt Saddam Hussein, too, was a --- was a shell to penetrate the bunker where he was supposed to be hiding.”
Schonher: “But, anyway --- and we had --- we had USO groups come up to the battery, some of these famous actors and --”
Haller: “Like who?”
Schonher: “I can’t remember ‘em.”
Haller: “But they were pretty famous?”
Schonher: “Oh, yes. The only one I can remember is this funny fellow that had the big bug eyes, and I can’t think of his --”
Haller: “Jerry Colonna?”
Schonher: “Colonna, Jerry Colonna.
“And one of those girls that they had --- there were two women actors --- actresses that had the same last name. I can’t think of them. Anyway, they --- it went pretty well.
“We had a lot of rain that winter. And one of the base-end stations out --- the last one up north near Drakes Bay, we couldn’t even get to them with a truck. They were marooned for several days. So we went out with a truck and we took several people along. We just carried the rations in about the last quarter mile. But the --- they had good quarters at these base-end stations. They had --- and we supplied them. They did their own cooking. In fact, a couple of them, I think, got a deer or so.”
Haller: “How long were the guys on duty at the base-end station?”
Schonher: “All the time. All the time. They were there constantly. At the first part of the war, they --- they just lived there. They had bunks there.”
Haller: “Yeah, but for how long? Did you rotate them or --”
Schonher: “No, they --- they stayed.”
Haller: “They stayed for weeks on end.”
Schonher: “Yes, yes.”
Haller: “Okay.”
Schonher: “This --- this --- of course, the latter stages, I don’t remember just when we --- whether we completely --- all occupied or not. I don’t remember.”
Haller: “Now, you say --- so CO of Battery E, in this case, you were responsible for not only, then, the two guns and --- Battery Townsley and its two guns, but obviously, then, also for all the base-end stations, then?”
Schonher: “Yes. They were all part of the same personnel.”
Haller: “Supplied firing data for Townsley?”
Schonher: “Oh, yes. We had --- we had fire up there in Drakes Bay and we have down past Point Montara. We had clear down to Devil’s Slide. It’s just a little pinnacle of land just on the seaward side of the highway.”
Haller: “I know it. I was afraid to walk out to it about three or four weeks ago.”
Schonher: “And then, of course, we had to have plans for defense of the land around us.”
Haller: “So, then, you were responsible for the --”
Schonher: “Oh, yes.”
Haller: “-- for the antiaircraft --- for the machine-gun nests around Townsley, as well?”
Schonher: “Yeah. And at the early --- somewhere in the early past of my battery commander, Secretary of War McCloy [N.B., Assistant Secretary of War – JM] came out personally.”
Haller: “Did he?”
Schonher: “He came out. I showed him around the --- you know, battery commander --- the battalion commander doesn’t --- he just goes along. It’s up to me to take him around. And he decided that the --- the defensive area wasn’t satisfactory. He wanted barbed wire entanglements put up. So we put them down on the beach there at Rodeo Lagoon and we put it up on the hillside, on the north side of the hill above the powder magazine. It stretched out for --- I don’t know how far.”
Martini: “This was --”
Schonher: “Because of his visit, that’s why they put out the --- and so battery personnel did the labor for it.”
Martini: “Was it like a fence or barbed-wire entanglements?”
Schonher: “Yeah, it was just barbed-wire entanglements, where you put posts underground. They’re like a triangle, as I remember; very formidable. Barbed wire was wrapped with --- was dipped in some kind of tar-like substance to retard rusting in that salt air.
“Anything else that’s interesting there at the time --”
Haller: “If that’s the case, hold on for a second; because we’re near the end of this side.” [End of Side 2, Tape 1.]
Description
A discussion of San Francisco Harbor Defense between Colonel John Schoner and Golden Gate National Park Historians Stephen Haller and John Martini conducted in 1995.
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