Wayne Radke interview with Matt Hudnall and Lindsey Peterson

Wayne Radke interview with Matt Hudnall and Lindsey Peterson

World War, 1939-1945-Iowa-Oral histories

Radke served as an electrician in the Navy and spent some of his time in New Guinea. Later, he served in the Phillipines and recounts the beautiful birds and thick jungle there. His stint in the Navy concluded around Christmas 1945.

Buena Vista University

4/21/2011

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

video/mp4

English

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Matt Hudnall, Lindsey Peterson

Wayne Radke

Matt Hudnall [00:00:00] I'm Matt Hudnall and I'm interviewing today with Lindsey Peterson, Mr. Wayne Radtke at Buena Vista University. And today is April 21st, 2011. Mr. Radke, did you enlist in the military or were you drafted?

Wayne Radke [00:00:20] We volunteered for immediate induction.

Matt Hudnall [00:00:23] Volunteered.

Lindsey Peterson [00:00:23] What year was that?

Wayne Radke [00:00:25] 1943. In October or September, somewhere in there.

Lindsey Peterson [00:00:34] Do you know, what branch or what part of the military did you serve?

Wayne Radke [00:00:37] The Navy.

Matt Hudnall [00:00:39] What were you doing before you enlisted?

Wayne Radke [00:00:41] I was a farmhand.

Matt Hudnall [00:00:43] Farmhand?

Wayne Radke [00:00:43] Mm hmm.

Matt Hudnall [00:00:45] Where did you do most of your training?

Wayne Radke [00:00:49] The-- in the service, you mean?

Matt Hudnall [00:00:52] Yeah.

Wayne Radke [00:00:52] It was in Idaho. Farragut, Idaho.

Lindsey Peterson [00:00:58] What was training like? What was a typical day?

Wayne Radke [00:01:01] Oh, just-- we was taught to swim more and basic-- like, lifeguard things a little bit. We didn't do any shooting any guns or anything-- have anything like that. Then, just Navy ordinance and stuff like that. Teaching us the basics is what it was. Just military life and how to obey things and that.

Lindsey Peterson [00:01:30] Were-- were you glad to be in the Navy or--

Wayne Radke [00:01:32] Yes.

Lindsey Peterson [00:01:32] Yeah.

Wayne Radke [00:01:33] Yeah. That's-- I volunteered to get in the Navy. I didn't want to go into the Army.

Lindsey Peterson [00:01:37] Why is that?

Wayne Radke [00:01:38] I didn't want to walk. [laughs] And they always had meals. If you're on ship, you always had meals, see. And so that's-- that was why.

Lindsey Peterson [00:01:51] Did you have any-- what was your job in the Navy? Did you have a special role?

Wayne Radke [00:01:56] I went and took some tests when I was in Farragut. And I passed the test to get into University of Minnesota for an electric-- to be electrician, and be electrical and service on the ships. And while I was on the ships, then I took a little more training. And there were, at those times, see, the ships came out with no radar. So we had to install radar on these ships, and that's what I was-- in my crew-- that we installed radar, which was a very good deal because they had to kind of pamper us, no matter what it was. And we went on to the hospital ship, USS Mercy and we went right into the captain's quarters and stuff. And they said, "Don't they have first right?" They could go ahead and do what they wanted to do-- to run the cables through and stuff like that. So that's-- that's what we did.

Lindsey Peterson [00:02:58] So you went from ship to ship.

Wayne Radke [00:02:59] Yes. Mm hmm.

Lindsey Peterson [00:03:00] Okay.

Wayne Radke [00:03:01] I-- when I first went overseas, we ended up in New Hebrides, and that was just more or less a de-embarkation point to where I was going to go, more or less. Over the one-- took a long while to get there because we, for about a day, we could not have anything running on our ship because they had a submarine sounding, and so that delayed it for getting over there. And it was an old beat-up ship, you know, cargo ship they had converted, is what it was and--

Lindsey Peterson [00:03:38] Did you have any experiences ever with U-boats?

Wayne Radke [00:03:43] No, no, no. And that's-- we didn't see anything, but they had the soundings on. They had those instruments, that could tell if a submarine was around or within range. Then they had to turn off all electrical things or all motors and stuff because we ate sa-- cold sandwiches is what we could have. And when-- when we got to New Hebrides, then we were just there for about a week or two, and then I headed to New Guinea for a destroyer repair base and worked in there for a long time, went on ships to closer islands and you'd stay aboard the ship and be working there and-- oh, on that-- on that destroyer repair base, they had it dug out the channel real deep, and they could have these floating docks. They could run these big ships in and they'd sink the dock and run the ship in, and then they'd raise the docks, pump them out and raise it up and raise the ship up with them. And they could work on the dry all the way around the ships, see. And that was one of the first ones in that area. So the-- we seen some that got beat up, came down there and got fixed up, see.

Lindsey Peterson [00:05:09] What were those ships that were beat up like?

Wayne Radke [00:05:11] Hmmm, I knew you was going to ask me that. I can't remember the names of 'em. There were-- there was a destroyer that got beat up quite bad, had part of one side was blown out of it. But they could-- they could bring it in and the ship-- they laid huge sheets of metal, like 16 by 12, 16 foot by 12 and a sheet right on the side and welded it in there and fixed it up. And that's -- that's some way they did. The main drive shaft on the screw was twisted, and they had to lace it up-- was maybe 60 foot long at least. And they'd-- this screw-- the shaft was at least that big around. And they'd take that and put heat it on real slow and it continuously turned. And as that heat got on there, then they'd put a little pressure, and a little more pressure, and they got that true again, because if it wasn't perfectly true, they wouldn't be able to ride that ship, you know. It'd just vibrate you out of there. So that was quite interesting to see that done, too. And they could do that at that base out there. In the New Hebrides, I'll just tell you a little bit about that. Palmolive Pete had one of the hugest there-- palmolive grove there. And every tree was planted like they used to plant corn, just you can row it every way, just beautiful, and-- but there was an area there in the hill [that] was quite large and was filled with white crosses. And there was a fune-- at least four or five funerals there a day. The-- the servicemen being buried there, yeah. That happened in Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides. That's the name of the place. I always remember that.

Matt Hudnall [00:07:11] When you went to New Guinea and you worked on the ships that had gotten beat up in various battles, did you come across any servicemen that had been in the battles? That kind of thing?

Wayne Radke [00:07:24] No. [crosstalk] No. No. In fact, see, I never worked on those ships because they were repairing 'em. We-- we just put on the radar. That was where it went from. And they were smaller. These LSTs and that's a smaller landing craft, that's what we put them on. The USS Mercy was a big one. The first big one we ever put on. But otherwise, they were mostly smaller landing crafts. They had the wooden pole a mid wooden mast up there that we had to go up on. We had to get that top square so that this cone would sit over the top of it, had to be exact, and then that would fit on there. So that would hold that rotating thing up there. That's-- I shouldn't be gesturing with my hands, is that right?

Matt Hudnall [00:08:14] No, you can.

Wayne Radke [00:08:14] Huh?

Matt Hudnall [00:08:14] Yeah.

Wayne Radke [00:08:14] OK.

Lindsey Peterson [00:08:14] Did you ever get to interact with any of the crews or any of the members on the ships when you were installing radar?

Wayne Radke [00:08:18] Oh, yes. Yeah. Yes. In fact, on the USS Mercy, we got well-- real well with the captain. He seen that we had a real big meal prepared for us when we got finished and that, so because we worked during the evening and during the night and everything on it to get that ship going again, see. So, that-- there was a huge hospital ship. Everything was white inside. The engine room and everything perfectly, brilliantly white, just glared and that the whole ship was that way. That clean, too, boy.

Lindsey Peterson [00:08:53] While you were on the Mercy, did you see any patients?

Wayne Radke [00:08:56] No, no, no. Never got close to the patient rooms. In fact, I was working on conning tower and that, and that's where we stayed.

Matt Hudnall [00:09:09] Where did you go after New Guinea? Did you go anywhere else?

Matt Hudnall [00:09:13] Yeah, we-- we worked in a number of islands there, and Admiralty Islands, which is a chain of islands and through that and finally ended up in Philippines. And then we were in the Philippines when they got the huge armada together to go into Tokyo, Japan. And we heard the broadcast and we seen the ships lined up-- you can't believe this. You couldn't see as far as all the ships were lined up waiting to go. And then the USS Iowa made a trip around the whole works with the band in full uniform on top playin' "We're shovin' right off, we're shovin' right off." And Admiral Halsey was speaking on the radios that we could hear-- everybody could hear, and he was telling Tokyo that we're coming. We've got every ship. We're coming, and we're going to blast you out of the water. And they went in there, see, didn't hardly have any resistance because they knew that they didn't have a chance. But he kept telling them that and kept telling them, told them, we're coming. So that was quite a sh-- quite a thing, really. Yeah.

Matt Hudnall [00:10:33] What was-- what was it like in the Philippines? You know, Japan had control of that for a while. Did you hear anything about that? Did you--

Wayne Radke [00:10:43] No. No, we didn't. Where we were at-- there's so many islands that I cannot recall the name of that little island there where we were on. But no, no. There had been some signs that there had been some trouble there, but that's all.

Lindsey Peterson [00:11:00] And the island you were at, was that just military or were there any civilians on--

Wayne Radke [00:11:04] No, there were civilians there, too.

Lindsey Peterson [00:11:06] What was it like, with the civilians?

Wayne Radke [00:11:09] Well, [chuckles] it was-- they were different. The ladies didn't want to dress too well. From the hips down, they were all right but not from there on. And they were all there, and they all had-- or a lot of them were coming with what, like a big platter that fit on top of their head and bananas stacked way up on top of there and 50 centavos. Fifty cents, you could get that whole stack of bananas they were walking around selling that. But that's--

Lindsey Peterson [00:11:39] Did you ever get to talk with them?

Wayne Radke [00:11:40] Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. You know, they [were] around you all the time, wherever you went. They're trying to sell their product, you know. [laughs] It's a little different system over there, but that's the way it was.

Matt Hudnall [00:12:00] Do you have any interesting occurrences or, uh, stories that you could tell us about that time over there? Do you have anything interesting?

Wayne Radke [00:12:07] Well, I do remember in New Guinea, we were trying to-- there was another area up above in there and there was a lake back there, but we were to run some power back past through there. And there was a guy that was native, down there, he had been fishing and he had a bunch of fish, and he laid 'em down there and went somewhere else. And another [chuckles] native came down there and picked those fish up and started taking off with 'em. This guy come back with a machete, screaming through the woods after him. And that's-- we seen him tear out of there. That was kind of interesting. We was running-- was running wires up through there and seen some interesting things back there. Was a lot of monkeys and that around there. These very fancy macaw birds-- macaws and those-- just thick back there. Really a lot of beautiful birds.

Lindsey Peterson [00:13:04] Was the whole area pretty beautiful? It sounds like it--

Wayne Radke [00:13:08] Well, yeah. Hm-hmm. Yeah, it was jungle-like. It got real thick jungle in there. But-- and that's-- that's why these birds are there because they're so thick, you know, and monkeys and everything else.

Lindsey Peterson [00:13:22] How did you get around through that area?

Wayne Radke [00:13:25] We were just on the edges of it, see, where they-- where they had made a road or something, but otherwise, no, you couldn't go through-- back through there. You'd get lost pretty quick. Where we was runnin' that power line up through there, they had kind of cut a little path through-- up through there. So.

Matt Hudnall [00:13:45] How long were you in the Philippine Island chain?

Wayne Radke [00:13:54] I couldn't tell you. I was-- I was overseas for 18 months and that was the last end. My longest time was in New Guinea. That would have been about nine months, I suppose, to a year somewhere like that in New Guinea or in that area.

Lindsey Peterson [00:14:15] Where did you stay? Did you guys stay on the ships or--

Wayne Radke [00:14:18] No. No. Most well, some. No, not normally. No, we-- they-- they had barracks there and we stayed there.

Lindsey Peterson [00:14:28] What were those like?

Wayne Radke [00:14:29] Those barracks? There was no windows or doors, but there was a roof and over-- overhangs so that the rain wouldn't blow in it, because it rained a lot there and it was real hot. So you had to have ventilation, and that was the only way. And it were two-story, you know, and you begged to be on the top because there was all wooden floors that were not sealed real well. [chuckles] So everything went through. [laughs] If your bed was down there, you'd have to shake it off at night. [laughs] So-- but it was-- it was-- it was very livable.

Matt Hudnall [00:15:10] How did you you guys pass the time when you weren't installing cables and the radar system and stuff?

Wayne Radke [00:15:16] BSing-- [Laughs] like that-- like any normal people would. I know when, see, there was no restrooms or stuff there, but then they'd build [unintelligible], they took a bunch of 50-gallon drums and cut them in half lengthwise, weld them all back together and had a string of about, well, length of this building at least. And there was all in one string and water ran down through there there was some wood pieces over every once in a while. And that was it. That was your private party right there.

Matt Hudnall [00:15:59] Do you have any interesting things that you guys did while you were BSing over there?

Wayne Radke [00:16:04] No, no, not really that I can-- should remember, no.

Matt Hudnall [00:16:11] So while you were overseas, did you keep in touch with any family? How easy--

Wayne Radke [00:16:16] Oh, yes. When I was in New Guinea, it was the easiest, because when you moved, your mail would get maybe a month or two behind you. But once I was in New Guinea, why then it would come direct. But I think when I first left 'til the time I first had the first letter, it was about three months 'for' you could get anything through because, well, I was in the New Hebrides and not sure where I was being placed, I guess, I don't know. Because we had no mail call then, either, on certain places because there was no where they could get it.

Matt Hudnall [00:17:01] We're going to backtrack a little bit. Where were you-- I forgot to ask this, where were you when Pearl Harbor-- when the [crosstalk] the Japanese attacked?

Wayne Radke [00:17:08] I was in the United States, in Iowa.

Matt Hudnall [00:17:11] OK. What did you think of that, you and your family?

Wayne Radke [00:17:13] I remember, it was on a Sunday afternoon, or-- or a Sunday. And there was about four of us guys that were going to go to Galva for-- play some pool. [chuckles] And-- and then it came on the radio, and we couldn't believe it. And then, so then I remember that real well.

Matt Hudnall [00:17:34] Did you have any family or friends that were in the military at the time that you knew?

Wayne Radke [00:17:39] No, not at the time.

Matt Hudnall [00:17:41] No.

Wayne Radke [00:17:45] No. They-- No, I didn't. No.

Matt Hudnall [00:17:51] What about-- you said you witnessed the armada heading to-- getting ready to head to Tokyo. What was the-- you said it was really exciting to see what people think about that. Were they ready to end the war?

Wayne Radke [00:18:06] Yeah.

Matt Hudnall [00:18:07] You know, were they--

Wayne Radke [00:18:10] Everybody knew-- knew they were just waiting. I just figured it was going to be over. I knew it was going to be over when-- when that happened. Why, I knew it was going to end.

Lindsey Peterson [00:18:22] So how did you feel then when the atomic bombs were dropped?

Wayne Radke [00:18:26] Well, you know, we didn't hear about that right away. And then I don't recall what I did feel about. I really--

Lindsey Peterson [00:18:37] How long after was it until you heard?

Wayne Radke [00:18:41] That I can't tell you either because I just don't remember what-- how long ago that was when-- what time span that was. It was, oh, see, that's been a few years ago. [chuckles] And you don't always remember all the things. And once in a while, they'll spring back on you. But not-- not too often anymore.

Matt Hudnall [00:19:09] When the ships left, how long were you still in the Philippines after the war ended with Japan?

Wayne Radke [00:19:20] Well, one-- trying to think the date-- when was the war over? I got back into the United States in 1945. Christmas Eve.

Matt Hudnall [00:19:29] Okay.

Wayne Radke [00:19:32] I do recall that. We pulled into Portland, and the ship pulled right up, and they had the bands on the docks, and I think that had been 18 months we had not seen a neon light or anything like that and they had that all lit up with Christmas trees, and there were people standing on the dock-- would take what denomination of church that you go to and they would take you-- had plenty of homes, wanted to take us all out to eat. So they treated us wonderful. And but they had Christmas carols, we-- there's plenty of guys had tears in their eyes. That's what I'll say. It was very emotional because if you haven't seen a light like that or none for that long a time and then [unintelligible] into there, well, the first thing, see, when you went overseas, there is no light above ship at night. You go through two dark curtains, they call 'em. You zigzag through to get aboard on top mounts or you're not allowed to smoke outside or nothing because they claim a cigarette can be tect-- detected over a mile away. Just the glare from when you take a puff of it, and then, see, when you come back, when we came back, we had lights on there and that was really something. And then when they hit into Portland, that was-- that was a finishing touch, I'll tell you. Really was. But they were excellent to us.

Lindsey Peterson [00:20:56] What did you do after Portland?

Wayne Radke [00:20:59] I was on leave for 30 days, and then I went back and helped decommissioned ships in Astoria, Oregon. There's a-- I was electrician and so I was in charge of four or five guys. We had to take all the electric motors apart and clean them up and put some Vaseline and stuff on them so that no rust would get 'em and put 'em back together. I said I had my name signed on I don't know how many sheets there. [laughs] That was my tags they had to put on each ship, on each motor and stuff. But I was in charge of decommissioning that part of it.

Matt Hudnall [00:21:38] How long did you do that?

Wayne Radke [00:21:41] I took-- did that until June. Think it was. Let's see, I think it was in June when I got back.

Matt Hudnall [00:21:49] What did you when you got back, did you go back to farming?

Wayne Radke [00:21:51] Yes, I went back as farmhand and then got married in [the] next March. So. [laughs]

Lindsey Peterson [00:22:04] Did you take advantage of any GI bills or anything like that?

Wayne Radke [00:22:08] Any what?

Lindsey Peterson [00:22:09] GI bills?

Wayne Radke [00:22:11] Well, yes, I took part in some of them. Yeah. They-- they had some for starting farmer, I think, had something like that. I don't recall what others that's-- yes. We were well-treated, we were well-treated, weren't paid-- overpaid when we was overseas, but that's-- nobody else was either. So.

Lindsey Peterson [00:22:35] Did you ever consider going back and looking at where you'd been when the war was over?

Wayne Radke [00:22:41] No, no, not really. No, I-- it would be very, very pretty. New Hebrides would have been beautiful. And I don't know about all the others.

Matt Hudnall [00:23:02] Do you have any other interesting stories about your time overseas that you can remember and--

Lindsey Peterson [00:23:07] Or anything you'd like to add?

Matt Hudnall [00:23:08] Yeah.

Wayne Radke [00:23:09] No, not really, they-- Like I said, see, I seen no action. And we were-- we were close, but I mean, that's-- close counts, but it don't count. [chuckles] That's-- was enough for attention, but that's it. Yeah.

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