Audio
William R. Bennett Part 4
Transcript
[00:01:30] Haller: At night at bed, go to bed, you'd hear Taps.
[00:02:00] The troops were in four inventory regimens, one [inaudible 00:01:50] following the other. They had different buglers each night, but the one bugler, I'll say the 35th infantry, the first quandrangle would start Taps. Next thing you know, you'd hear a second bugler, a third, and a fourth, all blowing Taps at the same time. Then you got the ... all four, and just, that was something that I'll never forget hearing those calls. Then other calls that you'd hear, you'd hear Reveille in the morning. First Sergeants call, officers call, and different ... pay call, you know. You had a bugler for payday, mail calls, things like that, but those bugle calls were all part of it.
[00:02:30] Bill: They would use those bugle calls at the Presidio as well as at [inaudible 00:02:35]? Still to-
Haller: At the Presidio, yes, but the Presidio was just for the one unit. Those calls were more or less just for the 30th.
Bill: I see.
Haller: Whereas for Scofield, there were four [inaudible 00:02:46].
Bill: Four mentions? Got it.
Haller: Plus other units too.
Bill: [00:03:00] One detail I want to make sure we don't neglect, because it's of some interest to our information regarding the pet cemetery, and we're back on the Presidio now here, so excuse me for jumping around, but you were living there in '28, '29, '30 or so. Now you said that one of your friends' dog was buried at the pet cemetery at the time?
Haller: Right, right.
Bill: Could you tell me about that?
[00:03:30] Haller: This was a youngster named Charlie Rockwood. His father was a major, the Major Rockwood. He lived just two sets of quarters from me on East Canton.
Bill: Okay.
Haller:
[00:04:00] Well, they had a pup. The pup got loose and ran out in the street in front of the quarters and was hit. Then of course the kids, we were all ... everybody was sad about that, but I knew the daughter, and the young daughter and Charlie, they wanted to have a little ceremony, so there was an area on the post that been designated for a pet cemetery.
Bill: Where was that?
Haller: That wasn't too far. Oh, from the barracks, from 30 down to the barracks, down by the bay. I can't name the name of the street there, and there was a road that wound up around to this main cemetery itself, but this was on a little curve.
[00:04:30] Bill: It was ... The present pet cemetery is sort of behind the stables, between the stables and the backside of Chrissy Field. Is that what we're talking about?
Haller: Not ... That's in the immediate area.
Bill: That's the same area.
Haller: That's in the same area, mm-hmm.
Bill: Okay.
Haller: In the immediate area.
Bill: Okay.
Haller: To geographically put it right on the button for you, I can't do. My memory is not that good, but that's the approximate area.
[00:05:00] Bill: Okay. It was near the stables.
Haller: Right, and this wasn't anything of any large size. It was small.
Bill: It was small. What did it ... there were other burials there?
Haller: There were others there, now, not two numerous, but there were a few. There was just some little spot that somebody had designated that could be used for that purpose.
Bill: Okay.
Haller:
[00:05:30] Whether it was one of the commanding officers of the 30th that the kids, the families do this, but I guess they all get together. Just ... We all went over there. I guess a dozen of the kids, we all went over, just a little ceremony, [inaudible 00:05:34] so on our own, and that was it. There was a ... but it was something that I do remember because it struck me later when I went back to the Presidio, when I'm driving around there, pet cemetery. Bingo, the light goes on and ...
[00:06:00] Now I didn't go in and walk. I just ... I've never had one. I've just driven by a time or two, but it was just a little interesting, just one of those things that you didn't normally see. I didn't see that anywhere else. I never saw it at any other army post where I visited, but just something that the Presidio had. It's interesting that you say that they still have it there today.
Bill: [00:06:30] Well, they still have it and lots of our visitors ask questions about it, and since we don't really have a lot of information in the written record about it, your story's interesting to us.
Haller: No, I wouldn't think you would, but unless there's something really significant.
Bill:
[00:07:00] Yeah. Well, the Presidio and Fort Mason, well, the Presidio in particular has some other associations for you, even after you moved away. Perhaps I'm jumping around a little here now, but you got married on the post. I know you mentioned that, isn't it-
Haller: That is quite true. Well, when-
Bill: How did you meet your wife?
Haller: Well, I met my wife in Washington, DC.
Bill: Washington. She from a military family too?
Haller:
[00:07:30] Yes. Sure. Her father was Colonel Goldberg. He was quartermaster, [inaudible 00:07:18]. He and my father were very good friends, and my father remarried in Washington DC, and the wedding ceremony, everything was held at Colonel Goldberg's quarters in Washington. A short time following, I was up for vacation time. The bank I was with in Honolulu, I was like, "Well, I'm going to take a spin back to Washington and meet my new mother-in-law and see my dad and everybody," so back I drove to Washington.
[00:08:00] My father at the time was Secretary of the Treasury in the United States Soldier's Home in Washington, DC, so they had a set of quarters on the grounds there. He said, "Well, now I want you to come on this afternoon. I want you to come over and meet the Goldbergs, and you can also see where Laura here and I were married." Fine.
[00:08:30]
[00:09:00]
[00:09:30] Prior to leaving the quarters, he looked me up and down just like he was inspecting the troops again, shoes shined, tie, [inaudible 00:08:23]. As I met his inspection, off we go. I did not know what to expect, but I figured, well, I'd head over to the Goldbergs, so we walked in, and I've never met nicer people. [inaudible 00:08:47] Of course, in those days, here I was, a bachelor in Honolulu, and meals at this operator club I belonged to [inaudible 00:08:55] play, but here in the home cooked meals, then the family atmosphere and all that, so ... but what started the ... struck by lightning, what started things going is when I walked out into the garden in their home, and here and lo and behold there's a young lady with another young woman too. The other young girl lived next door to my dad at Soldier's Home in Washington. Her father was General Walsh, and see, the two girls were both in from school. My wife-to- be had just graduated from teachers' college in Boston. The other girl was going to go a girls' college.
[00:10:00]
[00:10:30] Long story short, we started up the acquaintanceship. I had to watch my P's and Q's because I was a little older. I was in the awkward stage there. I couldn't sit down as we're doing now in the living room and talk with the older people. They were all talking about colonel news or this and that, and I go out and here's the two girls out there. They're younger, but we're talking and joking and kidding. Another thing I don't remember, I always prided myself on using my head for something besides a hat rack. There was a bar all set up, but instead of dodging over there and start making drinks, I'd just have a drink, one and then sit down, because I knew we were being watched from time to time by the older folks inside.
[00:11:00] But this conversation progressed and the young lady was most attractive to me, so it was protocol going way back in the early part of the interview, army protocols ... You go back and you thank them, you call upon somebody whom you've met. Here are the two girls. Got to take them both, both have entertained me. Both, both of them had been over there, both tied to their court, their homes.
[00:11:30] I called up the first girl, General Walsh's daughter. She was there. Whoops. They [inaudible 00:11:15] later when she left. Why'd you call her? Had to take her to a nightclub in Washington, you know, but then I dated her and I had many friends around the Washington area, so that started the ball rolling. Then I go up to New York with this fellow I was living with in Hawaii. He was an insurance broker. We went up and saw the play South Pacific. I couldn't take her with me. Her folks wouldn't even want to turn her loose with me at that time. They didn't know me, but back to Washington I came for my dad's birthday, and I spent as much time as I possibly could right there in Washington.
[00:12:00]
[00:12:30] Got back to Hawaii. We wrote back and forth over the course of a year, and then I proposed to her on the phone. "How would you like to come and live in Hawaii?" Then is a case, her friends were there, my friends and all, "You want to go to Washington to get married? You want to come to out to Hawaii?" Hit a happy medium. "Let's get married in San Francisco," and the families are all in full agreement. Great, so my dad comes up, and we stayed up at Fort Scott by the way, met part of the way, and the [inaudible 00:12:42] come out and we're married right there in Presidio.
Bill: At the main post chapel?
Haller: At the main post chapel in Presidio, and ...
Bill: When was that?
Haller: This is July 24th, 1950. I hope she's listening.
Bill: Yeah, that's good. You remembered, because I know your wife's around.
[00:13:00] Haller: I hope you [inaudible 00:13:03]-
Bill: Sorry I put you on the spot there.
Haller: You had me in the corner that time. I figured you might do that, so I was prepared.
Bill: You brushed up.
Haller: I was prepared.
Bill: That's good. Okay. Good.
Haller:
[00:13:30]
[00:14:00] Plus that's ... I wasn't really sure what ... and the interesting thing, the chaplain who married us, great, great, very likable, jolly sort of fellow, and he later became Chief of Chaplains for General Walsh here, and no source of embarrassment to her when he had our pre-marriage talk. I'd been all up the night before on the plane. Boys were entertaining me on the plane once they knew I was coming to up to be married, so I got off, I had to ... and I kept falling asleep in the office downstairs there in the post, in the chapel right today where I showed you.
[00:14:30] He was giving us this pre marital talk, opened the window and door ... embarrassing, really, and he teased me about that at the reception later on. You know, [inaudible 00:14:11], partner ... but that was Chaplain Brown, and great, but that was the wedding ceremony. We had our reception there at the officers club, which was just great. Then I remember we formed two or three cars, highballed it to the Embarcadero, and they took us down to the [inaudible 00:14:32], and that was where we had our honeymoon right back on [inaudible 00:14:35] back to Honolulu.
Bill: Great.
Haller: So that was ...
Bill:
[00:15:00] Well, between ... we've sort of skipped a few years in here between leaving Fort Mason and San Francisco. I know you spent some time, which, which we've described in Hawaii at Scofield Barracks and also at Fort Chapter, but although you didn't make a career out of the army, you were in the service during World War II, weren't you?
Haller: That is correct.
Bill: You want to give us sort of just a little brief ...
Haller: Well, the ...
Bill: Discussion of what you did during the war?
Haller: The only lottery I've ever won.
Bill: I've heard that one before, you know.
Haller: First draft.
Bill: Yeah. You were the first draft?
[00:15:30] Haller: I was in the very first draft in December of 1940. As you well know, what happened a year later, but it was ... in my time, it was "Goodbye, dear. I'll be back in a year."
[00:16:00] I was a teller in the downtown Honolulu Bank, and off we go to Scofield. I was on the spot from the time I moved, because a reporter got ahold of me and we were having our farewell speech by the governor and the president of the chamber of commerce in downtown Honolulu, [inaudible 00:16:07]. I stood out like a sore thumb being a big tall [inaudible 00:16:11] big Caucasian. Morning newspaper man comes up to interview me. Come to find out I'm the son of Colonel Sierra Bennett in Washington, DC. I'm a teller in the bank. The president of the bank is the president of the Chamber of Congress. He shakes my hands.
[00:16:30]
[00:17:00]
[00:17:30] I listen to all this. I go out to Scofield on the train, go through all my swearing-in ceremonies, issuing of all the clothing and everything, getting the truck to go up to this area for a basic clean. One of the first things I had to do was walk in and report to my company commander to get my personal belongings, so I walked in and I made him laugh. No, I made him smile, but I did it ... Private Bennett. Private Bennett reporting, sir, as directed," which is the terminology, you see. He looked up at me and says, "You're an army brat," and he said, "by the way, have you seen the evening paper?" No I hadn't. "No sir." Right smack on the front page of the Honolulu Star post, here's my picture, shaking hands with the president of the Chamber of Commerce, Joey Waterhouse, Sam King our delegate to Congress standing there. They got a Colonel's son, Colonel's son inducted at Scofield there.
Young Bennett, 22, giving up a year of his life for service, and that's it. Well then ...
Bill: Turned out to be more than a year though.
Haller: [00:18:00]
[00:18:30] Said a "goodbye dear and a year." Bingo, November of '45, but the cadre gave me a bad fact. They used the heck me out there when I took my basic, but we got through that. It was awful, because everything was second nature coming out there, but I ... whether I was with ... after being inducted, which is an involved story. I know you're going to run out of tape ... involved the local boys. I had my choice of two regiments when I finished my basic training for my year of service. One was with this 298th Hawaii National Drug Regiment in Honolulu, or 299th on one of the outside islands. I naturally chose to stay on the world, so I was with them for that whole year, at least, before the attack. We had the December 7th attack of the Japanese.
[00:19:00]
[00:19:30] At that time I was near Wheeler Field, my brother, and I had to get to Scofield right away, get back, and our unit was made up of a good many Japanese boys. We didn't know that [inaudible 00:19:17] but they were [inaudible 00:19:20] which later formed, under the time, 442nd Regimental Combat team, the most highly decorated, and I did everything for those kids I could. Kids I'd been in school with, athletics with, worked with, anyway, and many, many friends. I saw them then. I saw them later in Italy when I went over to Italy later on.
Bill: But you didn't follow the hundredth battalion to Italy though?
Haller: [00:20:00]
[00:20:30] No, no, no, no, of course note. The odds of me sitting here today wouldn't be in my favor if I'd remained with them, but I left then and I went and I was assigned to other divisions in the country, 72nd division, but then I was ... they broke us all up and they were shooting noncoms and everything overseas then in various units, replacement units, and I was at Fort Mead, Maryland. All of a sudden we get word that's breaking us up and we're to ship over as individuals, as a group, and I went up to Fort Hamilton, New York, went aboard a carrier, then we went to Casablanca.
[00:21:00]
[00:21:30] We didn't know where we were going. Had no idea. We were at the pier at Staten Island for two days. No one would say where. We had a hundred E51 planes on this carrier taking over to the 12th Air Force, but we didn't know where we were going, if Merrill's Moradas out in Birmingham, nobody'd seen ... but once again, we used our ingenuity. There were two or three of us from Hawaii, started talking to a couple of the old Navy chiefs, and we started talking about the Lexington and Saratoga, the old carriers, how they used to come out to Hawaii and this and that. Oh, they got friendly with us. Finally, as we're pulling up, they said, "Fellows, we'll tell you now where you're going, now that we're leaving. You're headed for Casablanca."
[00:22:00]
[00:22:30] Still didn't know what unit I was going to be with. I was assigned to fifth army, fifth army [inaudible 00:21:42]. Got into Casablanca, was there with the British people. Oh, with the British commanders for a time, worked with them and shipped 40 and eight train from Casablanca to Iran and on over to Italy. Fifth army headquarters, spent my time there with them, all the way through up ... all the way up until things were over. But thankful to say I was not with a combat unit. I was a combination situation where I worked with a special service unit and with counter intelligence, and there was good and bad in each situation, but I was there. I wasn't subject to anything that could happen at any time, as you would be in a company. There were incidents where landmines, things blew up in front of us, could just well been our Jeep as the next, but those were incidental, in comparison, but that was all part of the military then. Special service standpoint later on, and tied in with CIC. I met a chap named Burt Lancaster.
Bill: Did you?
[00:23:00] Haller: Burt was a great, he was the nicest guy you could ever want to meet. My wife went into orbit when we introduced her to him later on. He came to Hawaii. They filmed the movie From Here to Eternity.
Bill: Yes.
Haller:
[00:23:30]
[00:24:00] He invited us down. This is a story she should tell. He invited us down to filming of the beach scene and all this and that, but he was one I met in Italy. We saw him in San Francisco a time or two after that, when he was out. Now, I'm sorry to say Burt passed on a few years ago, but he was just one of the people I ran into over there. Another coincidental thing, which boggled my mind for a minute when I first thought about it. After we were married, my brother-in-law hands me this Howitzer, a a West Pointier brother, class of '17, '18. I'm thumbing through that, finding my father-in-law, but who do I find in there as his classmate? General Mark Clark, commanding officer of the fifth army, also, which is of interest to you, a former commanding officer of the Presidio.
Bill: That's right, and he was both your boss during World War II and the commanding officer at the Presidio.
Haller: It tied in, made me think a little bit about that.
Bill: [00:24:30] Nice tie-in. Well, why don't you just briefly tell me, what was your career? What'd you do after the war in your civilian career?
Haller: After the war, instead of staying in service as I could have done, even with General Clark in Indiana, I chose to go back to Hawaii. Coming back, I had a month on the east coast, month on the west coast, went back there, and I returned to the bank I was with.
Bill: And has that been your career, a banker?
Haller: [00:25:00]
[00:25:30] No. I stayed with the bank and I was with the bank for 16 years, which included military service. Then my wife and I decided, let's come up to the coast, take a look. Her family had moved to Palo Alto there, and we said we'd come up and just look things, with the understanding I'd go back, come back to banking, whatever, but my [inaudible 00:25:16] cook, Dole, the pineapple company, had moved up then and it had a cadre in San Jose, out on Fifth and Virginia near the college. I had many friends. They said, "Bill, come on down." They said, "Bill, if you need [inaudible 00:25:35] come on down, working with us," just the chap in charge of personnel said, "I've got just the spot for you." He said, "Now, it's your choice," so we thought about it a little bit and decided to make the move up here, so I went back and came home back here.
[00:26:00] Then I was with Castleman Cook, affiliated with Dole Pineapple Company, for 25 years retiring from San Jose. My work was military. I was in charge of military contracts and everything pertaining to the military as far as food operations and filing everything with the company. I was a very busy chap during the Vietnam War, meeting government contracts, shipping out of open, things with the service.
Bill: I see.
[00:26:30] Haller: I worked with commissaries throughout the country, all military, so it all tied in to my background.
Bill: Mm-hmm. I see.
Haller: The powers that be at Dole knew this, you see, so ... and I had a contact here, a contact there, and I spoke the language, and so also I tied in. Working with them with military and foreign exports, so I enjoyed that very much. In and out of the islands a few times. Hawaii will always be a soft spot for me.
[00:27:00]
[00:27:30] Hawaii will always be a soft spot for me, and the music, the people, are part of me in Hawaii. That'll never leave me. Just like my memories of the Presidio and Mason as we [inaudible 00:27:20] before. My memories as a boy. People thought that when I retired from Dole, I'd go back to Hawaii. My grandchildren live in nearby Vaceville. My daughter is a teacher there. We can watch those kids grow, which I would be unable to do before, so that's basically in a nutshell, my story now.
Bill: That's good.
Haller: But my wife and I do like to get off on trips from time to time. My wife is a retired school teacher and we've enjoyed 45 years together.
Bill: That's great.
Haller: I'm hoping to hang in there for the 50.
[00:28:00] Bill: Hope so too. I certainly enjoyed sharing the memories that you have of your life and of your life in Presidio in particular. You've had some really great stories to tell and some vivid descriptions. Before we wrap it up, do you think, is there anything we've missed? Is there any other things you'd like to talk about relating to the Presidio or Fort Mason, or do you think we have covered it pretty well?
[00:28:30] Haller:
[00:29:00] Steve, to be honest with you, I'd be searching if I was looking for something else now, but I think we've hit a lot of highlights and a lot of things that have stayed with me all these years and I don't regret a minute of it. Being an army brat, coming from an army family, I experienced things that many other youngsters wouldn't, and the travel and just the atmosphere, but east coast, west coast, north, south, east, west, I always said if I was to leave Hawaii, California and particularly this part of California is where I'd want to be.
Bill: I'm glad you were able to fulfill that wish. Thanks a lot for having me down here today.
Haller: Oh, my pleasure, Steve, and I appreciate your time and them taking time to come down and do this, and I hope I've been of help to you and the park service in relating things that can be useful to you.
[00:29:30] Bill: You certainly have been. Thanks again, Bill.
Haller: Hm.
Description
Interview with William R. Bennett about his life in the Presidio and Fort Mason in the 1920's and 1930's with National Park Service Historian Steven Haller
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