WEBVTT

1
00:00:11.599 --> 00:00:16.559
Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg
Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is

2
00:00:16.719 --> 00:00:21.399
Roger buck Winters. He is a
US Army veteran of World War Two,

3
00:00:22.199 --> 00:00:27.640
serving as a combat engineer in the
Pacific Theater. Mister Winters was deployed to

4
00:00:27.679 --> 00:00:33.240
Guadalcanal in the South Pacific and the
island of Sabu in the Philippines. He

5
00:00:33.320 --> 00:00:39.039
also had the distinction of serving on
an honor guard when General Douglas MacArthur returned

6
00:00:39.119 --> 00:00:44.000
to Sabu. Buck Winters was born
in Willow Springs, Texas, in nineteen

7
00:00:44.079 --> 00:00:48.920
twenty three, and he is a
lifelong Texan. He graduated high school in

8
00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:54.759
nineteen forty one, just months before
the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He was

9
00:00:54.799 --> 00:00:59.399
working for Hughes Tool Company at the
time of Pearl Harbor, and while he

10
00:00:59.479 --> 00:01:04.000
was immediately interested in joining the service, the government had other ideas. I

11
00:01:04.040 --> 00:01:08.280
couldn't join a service. I wanted
to be in the Air Force and fly

12
00:01:08.439 --> 00:01:12.799
a plane because I was a hot
road builder back when I was young,

13
00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:19.239
and the plane was what I wanted
to fly. But it so happened that

14
00:01:19.319 --> 00:01:25.599
I got a letter one morning from
the President that I would be struck on

15
00:01:25.640 --> 00:01:33.920
the job until the Linleys all order
for rock bitcoms for drilling went to Russia,

16
00:01:34.319 --> 00:01:40.760
and until that was over. It
took a year before I was automatically

17
00:01:40.799 --> 00:01:46.159
inducted in. On April fifth,
nineteen forty three, when he was finally

18
00:01:46.200 --> 00:01:51.519
allowed to join, Winters encountered another
disappointment. He could not serve in his

19
00:01:51.560 --> 00:01:56.200
first choice. But Winters and a
friend soon got some advice on what to

20
00:01:56.239 --> 00:02:00.959
do next, and they followed that
recommendation. They said, no, no

21
00:02:00.040 --> 00:02:05.359
more people were wanted for Air Corps
from this area. It's all filled.

22
00:02:06.159 --> 00:02:10.400
So they let about eight or ten
guys that didn't want to just be in

23
00:02:10.439 --> 00:02:15.719
the infantry the order to do something
else. Let us stayed there three weeks

24
00:02:15.199 --> 00:02:21.479
until finally an officer came by.
We fell out. He says, the

25
00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:24.360
next best thing to being in the
Air Force, he's being an engineer.

26
00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:31.039
So it was the last recourse anyway, So that's how I became an engineer.

27
00:02:31.199 --> 00:02:36.479
From there, it was onto training
and Buck Winters found out pretty quickly

28
00:02:36.840 --> 00:02:44.199
that he was a good shot.
We had rifle training with the grand had

29
00:02:44.240 --> 00:02:49.599
a forty five pistol, and I
came out with a pistol with expert,

30
00:02:50.719 --> 00:02:58.560
and with a carbine with expert.
But I missed the mullaseye on a three

31
00:02:58.599 --> 00:03:06.400
hundred yard range and missed it,
So got a sharpshooter badge for that.

32
00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:13.800
When I missed the target, the
guys behind there have a white white flag

33
00:03:13.919 --> 00:03:17.039
on a stick and they wave it
and they called him Maggie's drawers. So

34
00:03:17.159 --> 00:03:23.759
I got a maggage drawers but only
lack one point, but get an expert

35
00:03:23.879 --> 00:03:27.479
on that. That made me feel
good, just to addam away. When

36
00:03:27.520 --> 00:03:30.080
it came to the explosive side,
some of his training focused on what he

37
00:03:30.280 --> 00:03:36.280
likes to call cocktails, more of
the molotov kind. Part of our training

38
00:03:37.120 --> 00:03:42.520
was we went to this particular area. Sergeant told us that said, you

39
00:03:42.639 --> 00:03:46.199
got five minutes to dig you a
foxhole. Sure, we got tanks coming

40
00:03:46.280 --> 00:03:51.960
over and they're gonna run over you. So that was part of our training.

41
00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:54.240
We had to dig. We found
out that you couldn't dig a foxhole.

42
00:03:55.240 --> 00:04:01.280
You had to dig a wi hole
or slit trench and laying it and

43
00:04:01.360 --> 00:04:05.319
then they would drive a tank over
the top of the little training tanks of

44
00:04:05.439 --> 00:04:13.960
small ones and you're supposed to then
get up with your cocktail because it's fake

45
00:04:14.159 --> 00:04:18.000
with gasoline and a fuse, he's
supposed to light it and as soon as

46
00:04:18.040 --> 00:04:26.199
the tank gets over, then you
pop up and you throw the cocktail into

47
00:04:26.319 --> 00:04:32.360
the air vance or back of the
tank and therefore disabled that tank. But

48
00:04:32.519 --> 00:04:38.680
the work with explosives didn't stop there. As a combat engineer, Winters needed

49
00:04:38.759 --> 00:04:43.480
to develop a range of skills to
demolish targets before he and the other engineers

50
00:04:43.519 --> 00:04:47.399
could build. And once he was
trained, Buck and his fellow engineers were

51
00:04:47.439 --> 00:04:53.639
on their way to Guadalcanal in the
South Pacific. I went to Fort Leonardwood,

52
00:04:53.720 --> 00:04:59.600
Missouri, and he got on BASI
and then I were qualified for two

53
00:04:59.639 --> 00:05:06.839
different schools specialists, and so I
chose one in San Antonio, which is

54
00:05:06.879 --> 00:05:12.600
close to my home. Of course, it was a normal ordless depot,

55
00:05:14.160 --> 00:05:19.959
and that's where I learned automotive and
I also had a blow up stuff.

56
00:05:20.759 --> 00:05:29.560
So I spent three and a half
months there and joined the three sixty eight

57
00:05:30.519 --> 00:05:39.199
Regiment of the Engineers, and then
I took desert training out in California,

58
00:05:39.920 --> 00:05:45.839
and after a tour of duty there, we got only an old French liner

59
00:05:45.920 --> 00:05:53.519
called the Roushambo and took our track
across South Passiffic. As we mentioned,

60
00:05:53.680 --> 00:05:57.560
Winters had to wait before joining the
service, and by the time he was

61
00:05:57.680 --> 00:06:01.920
trained and deployed, the main battle
of Guadalcanal was over, but there was

62
00:06:01.959 --> 00:06:06.160
still work to be done to turn
the island into an effective base of operations

63
00:06:06.240 --> 00:06:13.959
for forward missions and to fight off
sporadic Japanese attacks. Upon arrival, the

64
00:06:14.040 --> 00:06:17.439
first order of business for Winters and
his fellow engineers was to set up camp

65
00:06:18.279 --> 00:06:23.680
in the middle of rainy season,
and we threw it from there up to

66
00:06:23.759 --> 00:06:31.000
Teneru Beach and there we bivouicked as
the end of fire Strip number one of

67
00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:40.720
Henderson Field, and of course we
set up our camp there, and there

68
00:06:40.759 --> 00:06:45.319
were still Jeffs on the island,
but at that fourth of the island we

69
00:06:45.480 --> 00:06:49.279
weren't involved in all at that particular
time, so we was able to set

70
00:06:49.360 --> 00:06:56.959
up a camp area and get settled
in before we had to go out on

71
00:06:57.120 --> 00:07:00.839
patrols or anything else. You know. On a day to day base Buck,

72
00:07:00.920 --> 00:07:04.160
Winters and the engineers were focused on
building, but every once in a

73
00:07:04.240 --> 00:07:10.360
while the Japanese would make it clear
they did not accept their eviction from Guadalcanal.

74
00:07:11.360 --> 00:07:15.160
Winters as Japanese strikes served as his
first taste of combat in the war

75
00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:21.879
and his first experience in seeing hundreds
of American lives lost. I got my

76
00:07:23.480 --> 00:07:29.920
battle Star there at Guadalcanal. They
were still Japanese. They were still bombing.

77
00:07:30.319 --> 00:07:36.240
In fact, the northern port of
the island of Guadalcanal we had a

78
00:07:38.800 --> 00:07:47.680
armament stored and also had a naval
outfit that that stored torpedoes, and we

79
00:07:47.800 --> 00:07:54.920
had the planes still coming over and
bombing. But we had a pretty good

80
00:07:54.959 --> 00:08:03.560
defense with We had a little called
eric Obras that was the island command,

81
00:08:03.439 --> 00:08:09.480
and they were fast and they were
the only one that could outfly the Japanese

82
00:08:09.519 --> 00:08:16.120
planes, and they were the island
protectors. But they did get through one

83
00:08:16.360 --> 00:08:24.079
particular case and blew up about a
half acre and we called it Hell's half

84
00:08:24.160 --> 00:08:30.120
Acre cause when everything blew some of
the guys said, this man, this

85
00:08:30.279 --> 00:08:33.480
looked like it's the end the time, the way the skies was all red

86
00:08:33.600 --> 00:08:41.919
and blue and black and smoke.
And then and one other incident that was

87
00:08:41.080 --> 00:08:48.360
a not be of interest was on
January twenty ninth, nineteen forty four,

88
00:08:48.600 --> 00:08:56.679
I woke up about six feet up
in the air from a tenth and hit

89
00:08:56.759 --> 00:09:07.600
the street and a big vowel pitcock
that he had the street right by where

90
00:09:07.639 --> 00:09:13.200
my tent was. If what had
happened where there's a little two men.

91
00:09:13.519 --> 00:09:22.679
So Jeff sub slipped down armed bottom
bay and put a couple of slugs into

92
00:09:22.759 --> 00:09:28.759
a ship we'd had just got through
armamentt loading, and it blew it up

93
00:09:28.919 --> 00:09:33.240
in little three hundred men. Throughout
the war in the Pacific theater, one

94
00:09:33.320 --> 00:09:39.000
thing about the Japanese fighters became frustratingly
clear. As he just described, the

95
00:09:39.120 --> 00:09:46.000
Japanese would kill Americans anywhere, in
any way they could, and they would

96
00:09:46.159 --> 00:09:50.519
not surrender. The Japanese considered it
a dishonor to give up, and we're

97
00:09:50.519 --> 00:09:56.879
taught that dying for the emperor was
far more honorable, so they kept fighting

98
00:09:56.600 --> 00:10:01.519
at a cost to American lives.
But all saw their own Winter says they

99
00:10:01.639 --> 00:10:07.519
had to do what was necessary to
find and eliminate every last Japanese soldier.

100
00:10:07.879 --> 00:10:13.840
Yeah, and the only time that
we had the confrontation, we're helping the

101
00:10:15.480 --> 00:10:20.559
second I think he was the second
Marines. And if we get another army

102
00:10:20.639 --> 00:10:24.200
outfit, we didn't become attached to
them, but we just became a compliment

103
00:10:26.559 --> 00:10:33.039
to burn some Japs out of the
caves. You take dieselttle gas and ford

104
00:10:35.240 --> 00:10:39.399
were rolling down of the cave and
then when the jats come out and you

105
00:10:39.440 --> 00:10:45.960
can pick them off or use a
flamethrower. But building was still the main

106
00:10:46.159 --> 00:10:50.879
job for Winters and the other engineers. Buck says one of the big projects

107
00:10:50.960 --> 00:10:54.960
he worked on was a hospital on
Guadalcanal, and luckily for him it was

108
00:10:56.039 --> 00:11:00.159
completed just in time for him to
be treated there. One thing we did

109
00:11:00.440 --> 00:11:05.320
get into that, it's just the
thing that happened was only Gualacaval. We

110
00:11:05.440 --> 00:11:11.399
built the twenty station or a R
hospital, and I was a seventh guy

111
00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:20.200
to go in there with jungle fever. I had stated there seven seven weeks

112
00:11:20.879 --> 00:11:24.799
and that's the heavy malarias with it. What's you called jungle fever? I

113
00:11:24.879 --> 00:11:31.080
went down from one seventy two hundred
and twenty six pounds, but I survived.

114
00:11:31.559 --> 00:11:37.240
That's Roger buck Winters, a US
Army veteran of World War Two.

115
00:11:37.840 --> 00:11:41.960
He served as a combat engineer in
the Pacific Theater. When we come back,

116
00:11:43.440 --> 00:11:48.759
Buck Winters leaves Guadalcanal for the Philippines
and a front row seat to history.

117
00:11:48.799 --> 00:11:54.960
I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans
Chronicles sixty Seconds of Service. This

118
00:11:56.279 --> 00:12:00.440
sixty Seconds of Service is presented by
T Mobile. T Mobile office six exclusive

119
00:12:00.480 --> 00:12:05.000
discounts for a veteran and military families
and are proud supporters of the National Defense

120
00:12:05.080 --> 00:12:09.639
Network. Visit tmobile dot com slash
military to learn more about how they support

121
00:12:09.759 --> 00:12:13.399
our military community. In Cape Girardo, Missouri, people can wash a car

122
00:12:13.559 --> 00:12:16.440
and help a veteran next week as
part of the SuDS for Service Members event

123
00:12:16.519 --> 00:12:22.480
in Cape Girardo from ten am to
two thirty pm on Thursday, people can

124
00:12:22.559 --> 00:12:24.759
donate money to have their vehicle cleaned. The effort is put on by the

125
00:12:24.799 --> 00:12:31.000
Community Partnership of Southeast Missouri with a
goal of helping local veterans. Organizers with

126
00:12:31.120 --> 00:12:35.200
the PAVE program preparing area of veterans
for employment say all donations are welcome and

127
00:12:35.279 --> 00:12:39.000
people can give without getting a wash. There will be multiple ways to donate,

128
00:12:39.080 --> 00:12:43.799
including QR codes. PAVE helps veterans
with job support and retention. We

129
00:12:43.960 --> 00:12:48.480
raise the money to help them in
any area we can. Chiron Triplett,

130
00:12:48.519 --> 00:12:52.639
Senior said for more great veteran stories, just go to nationaldefensenetwork dot com.

131
00:12:52.960 --> 00:12:58.320
This is Veterans Chronicles I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is Roger

132
00:12:58.559 --> 00:13:03.759
Buck Winters, who served as a
combat engineer in the Pacific theater of World

133
00:13:03.840 --> 00:13:09.200
War Two. After a few months
on Guadalcanal, it was time for Winters

134
00:13:09.279 --> 00:13:15.440
to move to his next and final
stop during the war, in the Philippines.

135
00:13:15.960 --> 00:13:20.000
They're from a tour in the Canal. We got our reuniment, broke

136
00:13:20.120 --> 00:13:28.919
up into battalions, and my battalion
got attached to the American Division and went

137
00:13:28.360 --> 00:13:35.639
through the Mediterranean Straits. In the
Philippines, we jump ship in a little

138
00:13:35.720 --> 00:13:41.840
island called Cibu, and that's ross
spent the rest of my time on that

139
00:13:41.039 --> 00:13:46.159
island before I had a chance to
come home. One of the biggest surprises

140
00:13:46.200 --> 00:13:50.840
for Winters in the Philippines was finding
out that many of the natives there spoke

141
00:13:50.960 --> 00:13:56.960
perfect English, and he explains the
unique way that he found this out and

142
00:13:56.080 --> 00:14:01.600
how it almost cost a local woman
her life. And the first Filipino I

143
00:14:01.720 --> 00:14:09.960
saw was old lady that I was
went down to use the trees, and

144
00:14:09.559 --> 00:14:15.519
I heard some noise behind me,
So I had my whole go around with

145
00:14:15.639 --> 00:14:20.279
me, of course, and I
swiveled around a little bit. It's where

146
00:14:20.279 --> 00:14:24.360
I could see what was going on, and at that time the ladies spoke

147
00:14:24.440 --> 00:14:31.679
in the King's English. He says, you want banana, Joe, I

148
00:14:31.759 --> 00:14:35.279
said, lady, you almost lost
all your bananas. Now I don't want

149
00:14:35.320 --> 00:14:41.799
a banana. And I thought that
was strange. I found out leader that

150
00:14:41.399 --> 00:14:50.639
missionaries that had been over there from
England and the English chrisp talk is the

151
00:14:50.679 --> 00:14:56.159
way they talked, and the people
from Texas was all cowboys. And with

152
00:14:56.320 --> 00:15:03.919
this slang they laughed about every other
word we spoke again. Most of Winter's

153
00:15:03.960 --> 00:15:07.679
work on Sabu was about tearing down
and building back up. He and the

154
00:15:07.759 --> 00:15:13.480
other engineers went through Sabu City determining
which buildings were too flimsy or too badly

155
00:15:13.600 --> 00:15:18.519
damaged to keep. So he and
the others blew up the buildings that had

156
00:15:18.600 --> 00:15:24.080
to go and then got to work
constructing better, longer lasting structures. But

157
00:15:24.200 --> 00:15:28.720
there was still the occasional skirmish,
which reminded everyone they were still at war.

158
00:15:30.200 --> 00:15:37.519
It was clearing out an area and
picking up some giant sized bamboo did

159
00:15:37.600 --> 00:15:43.399
bring down to bring down to Sabu
City. Some of the Filipinos were coming

160
00:15:43.480 --> 00:15:48.159
back down out of the heels and
we got the Jeffs. Jeffs is all

161
00:15:48.240 --> 00:15:56.639
moved down. It is two struggler
Jeffs jumped up out of a ravine and

162
00:15:56.759 --> 00:16:00.840
one of them had a grenade and
it was we didn't know it was primed.

163
00:16:00.480 --> 00:16:07.480
But one of my lieutenants was a
new man. He didn't have any

164
00:16:08.360 --> 00:16:15.159
souvenirs, but he is a good
shot. He was riding as a shotgun

165
00:16:17.320 --> 00:16:23.039
and as soon as he jammed the
truck to stop and he topped the ball

166
00:16:23.080 --> 00:16:30.120
offender and he put fourteen hold in
one little jap out of a fifteen shot

167
00:16:30.519 --> 00:16:33.399
clip. Of course, the grenade
went off, but he went off behind

168
00:16:33.519 --> 00:16:37.799
him down in the ditch, and
the other one gave up. But the

169
00:16:37.879 --> 00:16:41.360
most indelible memory of the war for
Buck Winters came in late nineteen forty four.

170
00:16:42.360 --> 00:16:47.200
That's when he was an eyewitness to
what is perhaps the most famous fulfillment

171
00:16:47.320 --> 00:16:51.879
of a promise in World War Two. But before that could happen, there

172
00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:57.879
was some important and potentially dangerous work
to do. Our company B was selected

173
00:16:57.919 --> 00:17:07.759
to be on a guard for Douglas
MacArthur and his entourage. He came to

174
00:17:07.880 --> 00:17:15.200
visit Saboo, so they come waiting
ashore. Previous to that, We did

175
00:17:15.240 --> 00:17:19.000
a lot of mind sweeping to the
area where we was going to built them.

176
00:17:19.640 --> 00:17:26.079
But we came across the five hundred
pound bomb that was had the fins

177
00:17:26.160 --> 00:17:30.599
still stick it up. It didn't
go off, so our new lieutenant he

178
00:17:30.799 --> 00:17:36.440
wanted to put a rope on the
fence and pull it out with the truck,

179
00:17:37.240 --> 00:17:41.240
and so that's still everybody running.
We took off and he's there by

180
00:17:41.359 --> 00:17:47.119
himself. He called us to come
back and he said, but we count

181
00:17:47.160 --> 00:17:51.319
we're not gonna follol with that.
He said, well, if I give

182
00:17:51.359 --> 00:17:52.640
you an order to do it,
you're supposed to do it. I said,

183
00:17:52.680 --> 00:17:56.640
well, this is one case.
Well this boy is not going to

184
00:17:56.480 --> 00:18:02.519
do it. MacArthur first walked ashore
the Philippines at Leta, but the scene

185
00:18:02.599 --> 00:18:08.519
was very similar on Saboo and Buck
Winters remembers it well. And we escorted

186
00:18:10.480 --> 00:18:15.759
General Dougets. We called him a
dugout dug and I don't know, it's

187
00:18:15.799 --> 00:18:19.880
probably not a nice thing to say, but that was all over the place

188
00:18:19.960 --> 00:18:25.599
over there. Everybody called him that
that but didn't reference you know. But

189
00:18:25.759 --> 00:18:30.880
anyway, we got them settled out
and they're supposed to supposed to come to

190
00:18:32.039 --> 00:18:38.160
the front there was still action going
on that we were not involved with in

191
00:18:38.240 --> 00:18:44.960
the area where we were. But
we took him up to an area where

192
00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:52.400
we dug in around four topical areas
as an ex court, and they stayed

193
00:18:52.480 --> 00:18:56.839
up there two days and two nights, and we escored him back down.

194
00:18:57.880 --> 00:19:02.799
And I did not get to shake
Doug's hand. He only shook hands with

195
00:19:02.880 --> 00:19:06.960
the big boys, you know.
Looking back now, Winters realizes he was

196
00:19:07.039 --> 00:19:11.079
part of a critical moment in World
War Two and the twentieth century. He

197
00:19:11.200 --> 00:19:17.279
has great respect for MacArthur, but
ultimately thinks that was probably best that the

198
00:19:17.400 --> 00:19:22.720
general did not pursue a career change. I was very elated because I knew

199
00:19:23.079 --> 00:19:27.880
the fact about when he had made
the statement that said I shall return that

200
00:19:29.240 --> 00:19:34.400
when he completed what he was going
to do in the Filipinos, they were

201
00:19:34.480 --> 00:19:41.119
all all elated, happy, and
it made it made my heart feel good.

202
00:19:41.960 --> 00:19:48.599
It made me realize that he was
a very very important person. He

203
00:19:48.640 --> 00:19:53.240
knew the lay of the land,
and he had the plan and his plan

204
00:19:53.440 --> 00:20:00.519
worked out his will that probably could
ever have been. I have higher rigords

205
00:20:00.599 --> 00:20:04.240
for him. And the only thing
about it is when he wanted to talk

206
00:20:04.279 --> 00:20:08.680
about being the president later, that's
all. I don't know where I'd vote

207
00:20:08.680 --> 00:20:12.799
for him, and he'd be a
warmonger. In August of nineteen forty five,

208
00:20:14.200 --> 00:20:18.480
the war in the Pacific ended following
the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

209
00:20:19.640 --> 00:20:22.960
but much to the chagrin of buck
Winters, he would not be going

210
00:20:23.039 --> 00:20:29.759
home for a while. We were
stuck over thereive and a half months after

211
00:20:29.920 --> 00:20:37.839
VJ Day because they're using all the
ships at hand to chas verse the prisoners

212
00:20:37.880 --> 00:20:44.200
back to Japan. We had somewhere
in the neighbors ten thousand on low island

213
00:20:44.319 --> 00:20:49.599
called Las Vegas, between Manilo and
Sabu. That's one hundred year old.

214
00:20:49.880 --> 00:20:56.400
Roger buck Winters a US Army veteran
of World War Two, serving as a

215
00:20:56.519 --> 00:21:03.400
combat engineer in the Pacific theater.
He's a witness to General Douglas MacArthur returning

216
00:21:03.440 --> 00:21:08.559
to the island of Sabou in the
Philippines. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is

217
00:21:08.680 --> 00:21:22.400
Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is
Greg Corumbus, and thanks for listening to

218
00:21:22.519 --> 00:21:26.720
Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of the
American Veterans Center. For more information,

219
00:21:27.039 --> 00:21:33.720
please visit American Veteranscenter. Dot org. You can also follow the American Veterans

220
00:21:33.720 --> 00:21:38.799
Center on Facebook and on Twitter We're
at AVC update. Subscribe to the American

221
00:21:38.880 --> 00:21:45.480
Veterans Center YouTube channel for full oral
histories and special features, and of course,

222
00:21:45.680 --> 00:21:51.000
please subscribe to the Veterans Chronicles podcast
wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks

223
00:21:51.039 --> 00:21:55.000
again for listening, and please join
us next time for Veterans Chronicles