First Row L to R: Lt.Col.Harry Adkins,Maj.Rimmer,Maj.Kemp,Capt.Johnston, 1st Lt.Robisch,2nd Lt.Matthews, Second Row L to R: Capt.O'Gorman(Chap.),Capt.Warner,1st.Lt.Miller,2nd Lt.Ruane > Photo was taken in front of Battalion Headquarters at Libbyville, Oahu 1944. Within a week or so Colonel Adkins will be retiring from the service. Major Arthur Garvey will take on the leadership as Battalion Commander of the 485th Anti Aircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion.
Most of the officers went on to Leyte in October 1944, and to Okinawa in April 1945. The meeting was attended by fifteen officers total. I used my vintage Kodak folding camera. After the picture taking session the colonel wanted me to process the 8 exposure roll in our on-base darkroom. When asked to process the film on the premises I hesitated, thinking "what if something should go wrong?" Besides, a commercial photo-finisher could enlarge the pictures. Our darkroom budget for the necessary pieces of equipment did not include the acquisition of an enlarger. Lt.Robisch then took the roll from me while I breathed a sigh of relief. Forty sets of prints were placed on order and enlarged to 6" x 3 1/2". When the 485th moved to a staging area Colonel Adkins came for one last visit before leaving Oahu for his return to the States. I was headed for the Personnel Office where I worked when he spotted me. He thanked me for taking the pictures and also wished me good-luck, I can't remember his exact words.
When our HQ & HQ Battery moved to Libbyville we noticed that a small shack was on the premises that the previous unit used for a darkroom so someone got the bright idea to make use of it. In order to make it operational, two others and myself were required to fill out a form after which we would obtain a Photo Finisher's Certificate from the Office of the Military Governor Territory of Hawaii. Now that we had our ID's we purchased the bare essentials. My 35mm color film was usually sent to Australia for processing. Here's a happy Okinawan, one of three men, brought to our area to do small jobs. Two other men with him had reserved their feelings for another day showed no emotion whatsoever. One job these men were called upon to do was to cart away an "arm" that washed up on the beach behind my tent one morning, and to bury it somewhere far away from our living quarters. There was no discussion or speculation as to whom it belonged to, ours, the enemy or possibly a civilian. My buddy, Larry, a truck driver stopped at this interesting place. These abandoned houses or whatever they're called, was a welcome change of scenery for me to take some pictures for my type of souveniers. No, neither one of us dared to go inside because if there were anything worth the taking they would have already been taken. I found out a couple of days later that some other members of our battery also paid a visit to that same site and they did go inside to poke around. They came back with their findings but I didn't envy them or their prizes. They came back with a bunch of fleas. Unlike the young girls who were afraid to be photographed, the men didn't seem to mind it one bit. When a person is holding a camera there is no need for conversation in order to take a picture, just aim and click the shutter. These two girls appear to be more at ease now, compared to the first time I photographed them. One of the older women in the group (not pictured)thought I was a Japanese interpreter because I used to rattle off commands that were studied from a small booklet handed out to all the troops a day or so before the landing. Also included in the booklet, like counting from 1 to 10 in Japanese/Okinawan, several commands like 'ATTENTION!', how to say 'Good Morning' etc. Also mentioned were the fact that snakes showed their presence occasionally, but in the 8 1/2 months that I was on the island, I had never seen any.
At night we would listen in to Tokyo Rose to hear what she had to say about the situation and how it was going. She was "on the air" every other night. I am not sure of the actual date on this one particular night when she said "you GI's on Okinawa have 24 hours to get off the island or something very terrible will happen to you!" or words to that effect. Nobody appeared to be shaken up by this, we were just waiting for some music to be played.
To view pictures of Leyte, click on button...
Joseph J. DeCaro
E-mail:[email protected]
Last Modified: December 27,2003
