Floyd Pace interview with Zoey Reisdorf and Lindsey Peterson

Floyd Pace interview with Zoey Reisdorf and Lindsey Peterson

World War, 1939-1945-Iowa-Oral histories

Pace entered the Coast Guard which was under the Navy's auspices in WWII where he started as a seaman and spent some time on a lighthouse off the coast of Connecticut. Later he became a radio operator in the Aleutian islands.

Buena Vista University

3/10/2011

These oral histories are available for personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that a credit line reads: "Courtesy of Buena Vista University Archives, Storm Lake, IA." Prior permission from the BVU Archives is required for any commercial use.

video/mp4

English

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Zoey Reisdorf, Lindsey Peterson

Floyd Pace

FLOYD PACE

Speaker 1 [00:00:01] Today is March 10th, 2011. We are interviewing Floyd Pace at the communications center at Buena Vista University. Mr. Pace was born April 19th, 1925. My name is Zoey Riesdorf and I will be interviewing with Lindsey Peterson. Where were you when you heard about the bombing of Pearl Harbor?

Floyd Pace [00:00:24] I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 [00:00:25] Where were you when you heard about the bombing at Pearl Harbor?

Floyd Pace [00:00:30] I don't think I understand. Where was I--

Speaker 1 [00:00:34] When you heard about the bombing of Pearl Harbor?

Floyd Pace [00:00:36] Oh, oh. Let's see. I was in Des Moines in a movie theater, and we came out. The kids were hollering, "Extra, extra" on the street, you know? Yeah. We came out middle afternoon and-- and it had happened. Yeah. Terrible.

Speaker 1 [00:01:04] What was your reaction?

Floyd Pace [00:01:06] Well, I was-- I was young enough to have a certain amount of excitement, mean-- because I know it meant that some of us would be going into the service and so on. Adventure, you know, like heck. Well, anyway, there was a certain amount of excitement about it. It's terrible.

Speaker 1 [00:01:28] What else do you remember about those days?

Floyd Pace [00:01:33] Well, I suppose most-- most of the things I remember are connected with the fact that I was courting a-- a tall, long-stemmed beauty who later decided to live with me the rest of her life. And so-- it was pretty much-- things we were doing-- bike riding, horseback riding, softball, picnics, and a lot of dancing. We had a lot of dancing in Des Moines in those days. There was a ballroom by the name of Cromar, where name bands came all the time. I remember Woody Herman came there one time and I think it was 18 minutes that they played "Woodchopper's Ball." Boy, what a show. [Laughter]

Speaker 1 [00:02:31] How did you get involved with the war?

Floyd Pace [00:02:33] With the war? Well, my two older brothers had been of draft age. And so they volunteered, got in. And then my twin brother and I were graduating in 1942, and he and I-- we're very, very close brothers in many ways. But at the time that we were in our puberty stages, he had other ideas. He didn't want to go out with me, he had a girlfriend and so on, but he became very much interested in joining the military. And so he talked me into it, and I thought it was a great idea, you know. Well, we-- we really had to work on the parents because we were only 17 at the time. We finally got them convinced that it was all right. They would sign. And then I said, "Okay, fine." And I can't remember now what I said to him, but at any rate, he said, "Oh, no, no, no, no, I'm going alone or I'm not going". And it-- it was kind of a blow to me because he didn't intend to hurt my feelings. It was just something that he had to do in growing up, you know. Well, at any rate, he refused. He would not go with me. So I had to wait for--from about, I think it was, 1st of July is when he went in, and I had to wait until November. So that's the way that worked. And I went to Curtis Bay, Maryland, for boot camp.

Speaker 1 [00:04:23] How was the experience at boot camp?

Floyd Pace [00:04:25] I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 [00:04:26] How was the experience of boot camp?

Floyd Pace [00:04:28] Oh, well, it was supposed to be 12 weeks, but they convinced us that we-- we were needed badly. So, we had five weeks of boot camp. I didn't learn to swim during boot camp, and I couldn't swim. [Laughter] Yes.

Speaker 1 [00:04:51] And what branch did you service in?

Floyd Pace [00:04:53] I was in the United States Coast Guard, which is-- it was a part of the Navy during World War II. I went into the Navy-- into the Coast Guard, because I thought it would deal with small boats, mainly, you know, and I'd get to pilot some small boats. Well, that's kind of a-- that's a real error in thinking. 85% of the people in the-- in the Coast Guard were in war zones in-- on big ships, ships or on landing craft and that kind of thing. And so, well, anyway--

Lindsey Peterson [00:05:34] How did the girl you were courting feel when you enlisted?

Floyd Pace [00:05:38] Pardon me?

Lindsey Peterson [00:05:39] The girl that you were seeing and taking dancing, the girl you were looking after, how did she feel when you enlisted in [19]42?

Floyd Pace [00:05:50] You know, I told you I was hard of hearing, and I am hard of hearing, but I'm hearing you. But I'm not understanding the question.

Lindsey Peterson [00:05:56] That girl you were seeing? You told us about her.

Floyd Pace [00:05:59] Oh, yes, Betty?

Lindsey Peterson [00:06:01] Yeah. How did she feel when you enlisted?

Floyd Pace [00:06:03] Oh. Crushed. No, no, no, no. No. She-- she thought-- well, a lot of us really wanted to go into the service. I didn't know of any of my friends who were going to be dodging it. None of them were going to. At any rate, I think she was kind of proud. And the day that I-- [Laughter] the day that I signed up for the military, I offered her a ring, which she accepted. So November 30th of 1942 is a kind of a supplemental anniversary, you know?

Speaker 1 [00:06:47] How did you stay in touch with her while you were--

Floyd Pace [00:06:50] Wha-- what?

Speaker 1 [00:06:50] How did you stay in touch with her and your family, like, keep in contact with them while you were gone?

Floyd Pace [00:06:57] Oh, my family? I wrote-- I wrote to my mother almost every night, and I wrote to my wife every night. Sometimes the letter wasn't very long, but it was. "Hi, how are you? Bluh, bluh, bluh." But it was sure nice to get the letters, and I sort of was a champion among the fellows on-- overseas. I always got more letters than they did. [Laughter]

Lindsey Peterson [00:07:31] After your training experience, where did you go next?

Floyd Pace [00:07:37] You're talking about boot camp training?

Lindsey Peterson [00:07:39] Yes.

[00:07:39] Oh. Well, I went to New York City for about three weeks, and then we-- then they stationed me on-- in New London, Connecticut, where the sub base is-- submarine base is. And I was there for about, I think, eight-- eighteen weeks. No, no, no, no. Oh, I don't know. Quite a little while. And then-- then they transferred me to a-- a lighthouse on Race Rock, Connecticut. I can tell you about that thing. During peace time, the lighthouse is a service very similar to the post office or postal service. But during World War II, the Navy took over the Lighthouse Service and ran it. And so we--we had to put in some time out there. I was on this lighthouse about two and a half months, meaning I would go to the tower 85 feet in the air there, you know, and look around and punch-- punch a clock every 15 minutes just to make certain that I was there. And we reported-- we made all kinds of reports that we saw, but it was mainly to man the thing. After all, those lighthouses are very important, but also gave us training in recognizing aircraft and ships. Mm hmm. And the first time I saw porpoises come up and take their breather, I thought it was sharks. Scared stiff. [Laughter]

Speaker 1 [00:09:16] What was your job or what were you assigned to do?

Floyd Pace [00:09:20] Are you-- on the lighthouse or later?

Speaker 1 [00:09:24] Both.

Floyd Pace [00:09:24] Well, just the lighthouse, I was just a seaman. And that meant I would go on watch and look out through this little cubbyhole thing about this big for 4 hours. Three times a day. Three times a-- yeah, three times a day. Later, I was transferred to radio school and became a radio operator and went overseas as a radio operator.

Speaker 1 [00:09:53] And what kind of experiences did you have with being a radio operator?

Floyd Pace [00:09:57] Well, Attu Island is the last island in the chain of Aleutians. There was a-- there was a time when the Japanese were pretty well entrenched all around that area. They had a lot of fishing going on. And-- and then there was a battle, and they slaughtered about 500 Americans. Well, as the war went on, that didn't sound like much, but at that time, it was a lot. And-- but we drove them out of there and the army took over Attu Island and the Navy then set up a system called LORAN, LORAN, L-O-R-A-N, meaning long range navigation. It was a slave station. Adak Island had the master station broadcasting of radio waves for the navigation of planes. We were a slave. So we broadcast a beam also at the same frequency. And then Amchitka was another island that was a slave. They had one also. So some of the people on our-- on our base and Attu had the job of watching an oscillascope and keeping these three signals in synchronization in order that the planes might use it as an accurate guide. So we never-- never heard of any-- of any results. We don't know. We assume that some of the bombing was going on from there.

Speaker 1 [00:11:51] Did you ever know of any casualties or anything?

Floyd Pace [00:11:54] I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 [00:11:55] Did you ever know of any casualties?

Floyd Pace [00:12:00] I don't. I'm afraid I don't understand.

Speaker 1 [00:12:03] Do you remember anyone that had passed because of the war or anyone in your unit or just someone that you knew.

Floyd Pace [00:12:12] Oh, gee, I feel terribly ignorant. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 [00:12:17] No, do you know anyone who died because of the war or--

Floyd Pace [00:12:20] Oh. [crosstalk] Do I know of anyone who died because of the war? Well, in our own-- in our own or our extended family, there was no one like that. We had nothing like that. And, no, I guess I don't. I'm sure it was a terrible strain on my mother because five of us were in the service at the same time. And then my oldest brother, who had three children, was drafted, and at the end of the war, so she had six children in the armed forces, you know. It was it must have been a terrible worry for her. My twin brother served on an LST. An LST is a huge barge-like ship with an end gate that falls down so that they can go up on a beach. And-- and they-- they loaded tanks and so on on that ship. And men, too. And they would go on to an island and drop the-- the-- drop the end gate and the tanks and everything would roll out and the men would roll out. He was in 23 invasions of that kind. My older brother then was a radioman. He went to radio school before I did, and he was on a destroyer escort for two-and-a-half years in the South Pacific.

Speaker 1 [00:14:05] Where were your brothers located at?

Floyd Pace [00:14:09] Pardon me.

Speaker 1 [00:14:09] Where were your brothers located at? You said one was in the South Pacific.

Floyd Pace [00:14:12] You mean, where do they live now?

Speaker 1 [00:14:14] Where were they located during the war?

Floyd Pace [00:14:16] Oh. Once more.

Speaker 1 [00:14:24] Where-- where were they located during the war? You said one was in the South Pacific?

Floyd Pace [00:14:28] Yeah.

Speaker 1 [00:14:30] Where were the others?

Floyd Pace [00:14:32] Oh, well, let's see. The one who was just older than I was on a sub chaser for 19 months between Boston and Greenland. And his job was-- they were-- they escorted troop ships and other ships from Boston to-- to England and so on. And I don't know what Greenland-- why Greenland was involved, but it was. That was a base to turn around. And then the oldest brother who had the children and was drafted, he was in Germany on-- in the army-- army of occupation. He-- he was a driver of officers' cars. I-- I guess you'd call him a chauffeur.

Lindsey Peterson [00:15:30] Did you ever see any combat while you were overseas?

Floyd Pace [00:15:35] No, not really. Among the men? Yes. But that was-- [Laughter] no, not really. And your interview would be lots more interesting if I had.

Male voice [00:15:53] Not true.

Speaker 1 [00:15:56] How did you and your friends in your unit entertain yourselves?

Floyd Pace [00:16:01] How did we entertain ourselves? Well, I did a lot of drawing. Art-- art is my-- is a hobby of mine. And I did a lot of drawing. When you're on a six-hour radio watch, and you're off in a remote area like that, you don't have an awful lot to do. You're-- you're sure-- sure to watch and take care of the international SOS frequency and then our own frequencies for-- for radio to the district Coast Guard office in Ketchikan, Alaska. But-- but generally, there was an awful lot of free time just sitting. So one six-hour period, I would draw noses, and the next time I'd draw ears and so and so forth. And in the meantime, I was-- I did a lot of exercise with the chair, you know, like pushing up [unintelligible] because the way you can really get soft [is] if you don't keep doing something. At midnight, we'd be pitching horseshoes because there's broad daylight. And then if we happened to be off duty and went to bed at 6:00, it would be broad daylight again. And a lot of people didn't like that kind of thing. But I really got so I enjoyed the land of the midnight sun. It was fun. We did a lot of walk-- hiking around, too. We'd run on to abandoned Eskimo villages and that kind of thing. I remember many times looking down and here's a guy looking at me. Part of the skull, you know, and lots of whale bones. One time we-- well, several times we went fishing. One time we rode our boat. It was supposed to have a motor on it, and-- but it didn't work all the time. Anyway, we rode across Nevidiskov Bay to do some trout fishing. Well, we cheated. We didn't-- we didn't fish for trout the way it was supposed to be done. But the machinist mate was a clever guy. I don't know, he was a scrounger. He was a scrounger. You know what that is? Never heard of that word, probably. Well, a scrounger is a guy who seems to be able to get-- get a hold of anything he wants. He got hold of some dynamite caps. So we went to this little river on the other side of Nevidiskov and with one or two of those caps, we just had hundreds of trout, you know? And on the way back, the motor conked out right in the middle. And so there were four of us on-- in this boat. We rowed-- we pumped and pumped and pumped and pumped, and couldn't get the darn thing to going. Finally we started-- we had a lot of lines and hooks and so on with us. I put hooks over the-- hook and line over the side. No bait. We didn't have to. And this is the gospel truth, I pulled up a cod about that long, you know [Pace holds arms just beyond the width of his body], just barely lift him. And he was smiling. I don't think he realized what was in for him. But anyway, the Japanese had been driven out of there. So the fishing lands or waters were just absolutely abandoned. And those fish just-- they had a heyday. So there were a lot of fish.

Speaker 1 [00:19:52] Do you have any other humorous or unusual memories?

Floyd Pace [00:19:58] Unusual memories. Well, I remember V-J Day, and I turned to-- another radio on so everybody could hear San Francisco. And they were just going wild in San Francisco, you know? Oh, I don't know-- the man who had been in charge of that Lawrence (sp) Station was a brilliant man. He had a degree in electrical engineering, and I don't know what else. He was just brilliant. But he had been there 28 months, so he was about ready to fly. They replaced him with a man-- with a new-- a new gold braid. He was a brand spanking new commissioned officer, and he didn't even know Morse code. That fella was just a complete washout. Anyway, he-- he gave us a lot of trouble. Anyway, that's all over with now. [Laughter]

Speaker 1 [00:21:10] How did you feel on V-J Day?

Floyd Pace [00:21:13] How did I feel on--?

Speaker 1 [00:21:18] On V-J?

[00:21:19] On V-J Day? Oh, gosh, just as if the-- had been reborn, you know. Oh, I forgot to tell you. You see, we were married in 1944. May 26, 1944. I came home after radio school, which was a six-month course. I came home on May 1st thinking that, well, he was actually due-- the baby was due, but he didn't come, you know. And so there I am in Seattle, walking the halls of the telephone company. And finally, Betty answered the phone and she-- we had a baby boy. I didn't see that boy until he was 11 months old. But after-- I think it was about-- at the end of a month up there in Attu, in the mail, I got a great big photograph of my wife holding this boy. He was grinning, and he's been grinning ever since. [Laughter]

Lindsey Peterson [00:22:36] How many of you were at your station?

Floyd Pace [00:22:38] 26. It was a pretty lonely place. Not a tree on the entire island. There's a lichen that grows so that it's like a big, thick carpet everywhere. We did some skiing, but not very much. They're called Attu Mountains, but they're not really mountains. They're just big hills. But skiing was fun. Gee.

Speaker 1 [00:23:09] What else do you remember about the islands?

Floyd Pace [00:23:12] What do I remember? Well, I guess I remember that they were kind of barren, except for this lichen. Although you did find those strange looking little flowers that were blooming in the summertime. The-- between my-- my radio, where I was in the radio shack and our quarters where we lived and so on and so forth, was about, I think, about 75 yards. And we had a wooden walkway. But beside that walk were some steel stakes and cable because the winds are just unbelievable in that part of the world. It was not uncommon to have winds of 100 miles an hour without a storm, you know. These buildings were in-- quonsets, meaning they were put into the ground. Most of the quonset was covered by ground. But one storm came and tore the roof off one of those quonsets. Well, you can imagine what kind of a wind it was. So my recollection of the islands is that they were terribly windy and not very cold. I don't think it ever got above-- I don't think it ever got colder than 20 above in the wintertime because it's so far south. And then you have the Japanese current of the Pacific Ocean coming up this way. That's why it warms part of the coast of the West Coast, coming down, you know. I thought the islands were pretty from a distance, you know.

Lindsey Peterson [00:25:20] How bad were the winters there?

Floyd Pace [00:25:23] Pardon?

Lindsey Peterson [00:25:24] How bad were the winters?

Floyd Pace [00:25:25] Oh, well. As I say, not nearly as cold as Iowa. No, no. Terribly windy. Terribly windy, but not very much snow. And on that too, I don't know why. Maybe just blows past and lands someplace else. [Laughter] They don't have any snow fences.

Speaker 1 [00:25:53] Where were you at the time when you heard about the surrender of Japan?

Floyd Pace [00:25:57] When I heard about what?

Speaker 1 [00:25:59] The surrender of Japan.

Floyd Pace [00:26:04] When I heard about what?

Speaker 1 [00:26:06] Japan surrendering.

Floyd Pace [00:26:08] The what?

Speaker 1 [00:26:09] When Japan surrendered.

Floyd Pace [00:26:11] Oh, oh, you mean the-- the end of the war?

Speaker 1 [00:26:15] Yes.

Floyd Pace [00:26:15] Oh, I was on-- on radio watch in Attu. Yeah. Mm hmm. Isdn't that funny that I don't understand? It's a-- I mean, the weakness of the brain is supposed to be here long before my age. But it seems to have been coming just recently.

Lindsey Peterson [00:26:38] What did you experience about the native culture there? Was there anything interesting?

Floyd Pace [00:26:43] No, we were not in contact with any native culture. No. Just the abandoned villages where we could see that they use-- we could see needles made of bone, you know. We could see some other things that were made from whalebone and so on.

Speaker 1 [00:27:10] Of all the things that you did during the war, is there anything in particular that you are proud of?

Floyd Pace [00:27:20] Well-- [Laughter] Well, I suppose I'm proud that I didn't wind up in the brig more than three times. I did wind up in the brig three times. But generally I got along pretty well. And in radio school, I was in a class of 160 men, with six months of radio school all day long, and I graduated second highest, so I was proud of that. My wife is still saying about that [unintelligible]. She just finds-- finds it so hard to say nice things about me, that she can grasp anything, you know? [Winks and laughs]

Lindsey Peterson [00:28:02] Tell us about your experiences of winding up in the brig.

Floyd Pace [00:28:07] Oh, oh, in the brig? Okay. Well, every-- every-- since-- every single time was a question of terrible, terrible injustice. I mean, that. I'm not just saying it because it's me. Well, for instance, New Year's Eve, I was in New London, Connecticut, waiting to be transferred to the radio school. And we were in a-- a hotel that had been bought by the Navy and turned into barracks. So our room had six bunks out, as meaning six guys were in this one room and all the rooms were like that. Well, I was the only one in there who wasn't-- who was engaged to be married and all that kind of thing. And these other guys went out on-- on the town and just raising heck, you know? Well, there was a regulation, a-- a fire watch guard walked the floors every 15 minutes, you know, and it was-- it was six floors, so it was a very, very necessary kind of thing. But he also would put you on report if you were-- if you were not in bed after a certain length of time, maybe 2:00. Well, about-- I think about 1:30 or so, these guys came in just drunker than heck, just raising heck. Well, I talked to them and talked to them and talked to them, managed to keep them shut up until this guy went by and-- twice or three times like that. And so the next morning, I got up and went down to breakfast. I leaned up against the wall to wait for breakfast because I was that much early. These guys didn't get out of bed. They just stayed in bed in their in their dress blues, you know. I went to the first-hour class, and class began, and the-- the instructor stepped up to the-- to the mic and said, "Wait just a minute here." And two military police came in the door and announced that they had come to get-- I can't think what they called me now. Anyway, "Pace", and they took me to the office of the executive-- he was the second in command of the school. A guy named Irund (sp). I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Irund until that guy came along. Anyway, I walked in the door and he said, "You're charged with refusing to get up this morning." And I said, "No, I--" "Don't want to hear a word out of you." Five days in the brig. They took my clothes away from me, except a pair of dungarees. That was all. Well, as I say, it was injustice, wasn't it? Why, if I were in the service now and they'd try that, I'd have that guy's rank because I'd see-- I'd see an officer who was able to do something about it. Well, the other two were similar situations where it was unfair, you know. Anyway, but in those days, the Articles of War, gee, they just allowed a commissioned officer to do almost anything. It was terrible.

Speaker 1 [00:32:01] What did you do after the war?

Speaker 1 [00:32:04] Went to Drake University immediately and took a part time job with Hawkeye Casualty Company doing the credit report on International Business Machines. And I majored in Spanish, minored in English, minored in French, and got a Bachelor of Arts degree at-- in-- started in June and graduated in June three years later, because we went to the summers and all. [Recording stops abruptly]

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