Gene Austin Greer: Military Service

Gene Austin Greer

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Here is a translation of the above letter:

Hi Riley!                                                                                     South Weber

                                                                                                  22 January 2002

I was glad to get your letter today. I had some interesting things happen while I was in the Service during World War 2.

After basic training in Texas the army sent us overseas on a Liberty Ship. The Liberty Ship seemed large to me. It was about 450 ft long and about 60 ft wide at the widest point. It could carry as much as a 300 car Freight Train.

found on Google

We went from San Francisco to Hollania, New Guinea. That is between 6 and 7 thousand miles.

While in the harbor an enemy Torpedo glanced off the anchor chain and exploded on the beach. (Very Close Call)

On the way across the ocean (Pacific) we saw Flying fish and Porpoise. The flying fish take off from the top of a wave and glide. We had a few land on the ships deck.

We were sent to the island of Leyte in the Philipines. We were able to travel around the Island as there weren't any enemy left. We saw Banana trees and small monkeys, and natives.

We left for Okinawa after about a week on Leyte.

We landed on Okinawa on 1st of April 1944* (Easter Sunday)  This was the last battle of World War 2. The enemy had big guns in caves. They would roll them out and shoot them then roll them back in. They were very accurate because knew exactly where the Shells would hit.

It was one of these big shells landing close to us that broke my eardrums.

After I was wounded I was in a field hospital for about a week. I was them sent by airplane (C-47-2 engines) to the Island of Guam. Then in another plane ( C-54-engines). These planes were before jets were invented. I was taken to the Hawaiian Islands. Where I was in another hospital.

Hopefully this is what you meant for me to tell you.

Thanks for asking me.

I love You!

Grandpa Greer.

*from the information below I think the year was 1945

Postcard Fern received

List of medals he received

Honorable Discharge

Enlisted Record and Report of Separation
Honorable Discharge

Gene and Fern

My only memory of him talking about the war is when we would go to the Air Force Museum and he would show us the planes he rode on. But my most favorite memory is him telling me that before the war he worked at the flour meal in Malad bagging flour to be shipped all over the United States. Not long after he was on the Liberty and worked as a chef. He was having a very hard time, missing Grandma very much, and wanted to be home with her. The main chef sent him to unload some pallets and there on the ship where the bags of flour, the ones he bagged in Malad. He said that it made him realize that no matter how far away he was, the world wasn't as big as it seemed.

My mom remembers him telling her at one of the hospitals (she isn't sure if it was in Guam or Hawaii) he came in very dirty and  unshaven. The nurses got him clean and let him shave. The next morning he was stopped in the hall by a nurse asking him who he was and what he was doing in that area of the hospital. He said to her: Don't you remember, I came in yesterday and you helped clean me up and change my bandages. She responded: I remember, but I thought you were a forty year old man under all that beard. He  was only 19.

For more information on the Battle at Okinawa please visit here.