Last updated: August 16, 2021
Place
Museum - World War Two Exhibit
NPS Photo, Danny Ortiz
Quick Facts
Location:
800 Main St, Tulelake, Ca 96134
MANAGED BY:
Amenities
2 listed
Audio Description, Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits
Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy. The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
They were serious. They had air raid wardens. Every block, they had blackouts, they had anti-aircraft guns. Everything had come under ration, you had to have stamps for meat, for sugar, coffee, gasoline, clothes. I think we could buy one pair of shoes per year.
Step over to Paul Christie.
You have to go back to the time places, circumstances. These things happened. That after Pearl Harbor, people on the West Coast particularly were terrified Japanese was going to attack. People don't realize this, but our intelligence lost the Japanese fleet and they didn't know where they had gone, it was sometime around the Battle of Midway. And they thought the Japanese were headed for the West Coast. Gave us p38 lightnings and sent us down the Orange County Airport. Only five of us. We were defensive Southern California, and we will fly out from there. And every day we expected to see the state, the whole Japanese fleet out. We were six weeks out of flight school. We were flying airplanes we didn't know anything about. And to this day, I don't know if we had any ammunition.
They were just building the hangars there because it was a B-24s. For some of them, we put tail turrets and some we had sideturrets and come to this and that and put a lot of oxygen lines. And we did everything on the planes.
Our base had nothing but B-17 flying fortresses. Most of them had 13 guns to those 50 caliber. I was over there twenty seven months. When I came home I got to see my son for the first time.
Move on to Hank Christianson.
They shipped us out a few at a time on different ships, and I went on a converted freighter and by the way, over there, they were terrible storms. Ship, you know, real strongly to the right. And I have steel hill plates on my shoes, so I slept on the deck. Well, and it was I was going under the lights and I was on my back. I reached up and caught the lifeline on my hands that hung over the side of the ship. So I slowly worked my way down and waited to the lul of the storm and reached around the stanchion with one hand and got a hold the cable on the other side and reached up, got a hold of the station and slowly inch by inch pulled myself back up on the ship and I laid there. I had my arms around the cable on one side of that, my legs are all over on the other side. And I debated about whether trying to lay there all night until there was help in the morning. And then I thought, well, it was cold too, February, if a wave hit get me hypothermia, would I have to do something? So I decided to try to crawl on my hands and knees up to the hole. When we got back to the States, I took a roll call and they found that they were short eight people.
Herman Bell speaks of Bird Fairclough.
He first went to Africa and he told me, walk most of the way around the shoreline of Africa, then to Sicily and from Sicily he want to Anzio. And he laid on that beach for 63 days without a bath or anything. And then he went further into Italy and was sent up on a hill to clean out some some nest gunness up there. And Finally was shot through the arm and he went down into one of those cellar like things. And I just they just shot in there with their machine guns and the bullets were going everywhere. But then he said they didn't hit him with had his helmet on and held up pretty bad. And they said the next morning somebody said, anybody in there better come out because we're going to blow it up. And he said it was an American's voice. And he said, boy, don't I'm in here. And so they came in and got him and took him down and had his arm treated. And they said they were going to shipping out. And I said, no way, you're going to ship me out. He said, I know every one of those places, I'm going back up. So he cleaned out several places up there. So that made it safer. And he went a lot of medals and he earned every one of them.
Paul Christie speaks of Al Kongslie.
North African campaign al Kongslie landed with the troops to the south of Casablanca when the ships landed there and you marched all the way across North Africa to Tunisia. And even he fought for ground support for Patton. His orders and now as one of the troops that ambushed the German Hakone. And I was came in as ground support for Al and went all the way through the African campaign, And Cicilia came around and was in the Landingham DayDay and all of the war always Hartmut. Hitler and Tojo had to be stopped
Dud Lemke.
We had a cause because we knew the person we were fighting what his intent was.
Continue to the mural of fourteen hundred and fifty two buildings.
They were serious. They had air raid wardens. Every block, they had blackouts, they had anti-aircraft guns. Everything had come under ration, you had to have stamps for meat, for sugar, coffee, gasoline, clothes. I think we could buy one pair of shoes per year.
Step over to Paul Christie.
You have to go back to the time places, circumstances. These things happened. That after Pearl Harbor, people on the West Coast particularly were terrified Japanese was going to attack. People don't realize this, but our intelligence lost the Japanese fleet and they didn't know where they had gone, it was sometime around the Battle of Midway. And they thought the Japanese were headed for the West Coast. Gave us p38 lightnings and sent us down the Orange County Airport. Only five of us. We were defensive Southern California, and we will fly out from there. And every day we expected to see the state, the whole Japanese fleet out. We were six weeks out of flight school. We were flying airplanes we didn't know anything about. And to this day, I don't know if we had any ammunition.
They were just building the hangars there because it was a B-24s. For some of them, we put tail turrets and some we had sideturrets and come to this and that and put a lot of oxygen lines. And we did everything on the planes.
Our base had nothing but B-17 flying fortresses. Most of them had 13 guns to those 50 caliber. I was over there twenty seven months. When I came home I got to see my son for the first time.
Move on to Hank Christianson.
They shipped us out a few at a time on different ships, and I went on a converted freighter and by the way, over there, they were terrible storms. Ship, you know, real strongly to the right. And I have steel hill plates on my shoes, so I slept on the deck. Well, and it was I was going under the lights and I was on my back. I reached up and caught the lifeline on my hands that hung over the side of the ship. So I slowly worked my way down and waited to the lul of the storm and reached around the stanchion with one hand and got a hold the cable on the other side and reached up, got a hold of the station and slowly inch by inch pulled myself back up on the ship and I laid there. I had my arms around the cable on one side of that, my legs are all over on the other side. And I debated about whether trying to lay there all night until there was help in the morning. And then I thought, well, it was cold too, February, if a wave hit get me hypothermia, would I have to do something? So I decided to try to crawl on my hands and knees up to the hole. When we got back to the States, I took a roll call and they found that they were short eight people.
Herman Bell speaks of Bird Fairclough.
He first went to Africa and he told me, walk most of the way around the shoreline of Africa, then to Sicily and from Sicily he want to Anzio. And he laid on that beach for 63 days without a bath or anything. And then he went further into Italy and was sent up on a hill to clean out some some nest gunness up there. And Finally was shot through the arm and he went down into one of those cellar like things. And I just they just shot in there with their machine guns and the bullets were going everywhere. But then he said they didn't hit him with had his helmet on and held up pretty bad. And they said the next morning somebody said, anybody in there better come out because we're going to blow it up. And he said it was an American's voice. And he said, boy, don't I'm in here. And so they came in and got him and took him down and had his arm treated. And they said they were going to shipping out. And I said, no way, you're going to ship me out. He said, I know every one of those places, I'm going back up. So he cleaned out several places up there. So that made it safer. And he went a lot of medals and he earned every one of them.
Paul Christie speaks of Al Kongslie.
North African campaign al Kongslie landed with the troops to the south of Casablanca when the ships landed there and you marched all the way across North Africa to Tunisia. And even he fought for ground support for Patton. His orders and now as one of the troops that ambushed the German Hakone. And I was came in as ground support for Al and went all the way through the African campaign, And Cicilia came around and was in the Landingham DayDay and all of the war always Hartmut. Hitler and Tojo had to be stopped
Dud Lemke.
We had a cause because we knew the person we were fighting what his intent was.
Continue to the mural of fourteen hundred and fifty two buildings.