I started to shiver a little.
I said, “I don’t know if you want to call me a deserter.
I don’t want to go in there. I know I’m going to die.”
“This might be my day.” I said, “If I go in there, maybe they’ll kill me.”
The German begins its ruthless march of conquest and sets the stage for World War II.
With little to stand in their way, the Nazi divisions roar across the polish countryside.
America prepares the armaments of war the world must have if democracy is to survive.
United States forces move in to drive the Japanese forces from Attu.
Now, Allied bombers strike deep behind Nazi lines.
Heroes, every one. Men who abandoned home and
vocation that they may be ready to defend democracy if necessary.
As news of the Second World War flooded the screens of American movie theaters,
millions of young men, like Andrew Puopolo and his closest friends, were enticed to join the fight.
We went to see “Wake Island”, and when we were seeing “Wake Island”
Amos Bosco and Jimmy Cammarata joined the Marine Corps the following day.
That left Frank, Johnny, and myself.
Maybe two months later, Frank Orlandella and Johnny Anastasi were drafted.
I said to myself, “Here I am. I’m going to be left alone here.”
So I went to the draft board.
And I said, “I’d like to volunteer to join the Marine Corps,
provided, I go to boot camp with Frank Orlandella and Jonny Anastasi, who were drafted.”
They said, “That’s easy.”
So there I was. I got into the Marine Corps with my two buddies.
We went to boot camp together.
While we were in boot camp, we had a Marine they called “The Chief”.
A specimen of a man. He was maybe 6’2” or 6’3”, 220 pounds.
And he was in the boxing team. So, naturally, he used to spar around.
So, this rebel came to me and said, “Andrew, you talked about your boxing exploits you had.
Why don’t you put the gloves on with The Chief?”
I almost died! A man like that?!
I was, at that time, maybe 145 pounds.
So, finally, I couldn’t talk myself out of it. So, we boxed.
While we were boxing, I said, “The only way I’m gonna keep away from this man
Is to stay low and hit him in the belly.” So that’s what I did.
I hit him in the stomach, I hit him in the kidneys and all that.
And then, after a couple of rounds, I heard Sergeant Cosco, my drill instructor.
“Puopolo, I want you to report to me in the morning.”
He said, “Can I make a suggestion that you join the Marine Corps’ boxing team?”
He said, “If you join the team, you’ll get liberty every weekend.”
In those days you used to get liberty once a month. I couldn’t say no to that.
And that’s how I became a boxer in the Marine Corps.
Pleased with the benefits the boxing team afforded him,
Andrew then sought to altar his Marine Corps training to a more desirable specialty.
I liked guns for some reason. Of course, I’d fired every type of gun.
So I requested transfer, and I went to school for gunnery.
And while I was doing this, they told us, “Look,
the top five of the class are going to become corporals.”
So, when we finished our coarse, I became a corporal.
I said, “My God!” That was something, you know?
Then, they put me in a TBM outfit. That’s a fighter plane.
So I was transferred to an F6F squadron. The 534 VMF Squadron.
So, while I was in that outfit,
my commanding officer got a group of us boys together in his office,
And told us that we’d become sergeants. So I became a sergeant!
I said, “My God!” And I was a sergeant for about a month and a half.
And after that, they told us that we’re going to be going overseas.
They started issuing liberty, and everybody got a liberty, but I stayed behind.
I said, “Why must I stay behind?”
I said, “I want to see my parents before I go overseas. I don’t know if I’m coming back.”
And they said, “Well, we need a skeleton crew. And you were one of the ones chosen to stay behind.”
I didn’t like that, naturally. So I did a dumb thing.
I came home. I took an extra 48 hours of leave that I shouldn’t take.
When I came back, they picked me up and put me in the brig.
What did I do? 48 hours? I figured they were going to
slap me on the wrist and say, “Look, you shouldn’t be doing that.”
And they read off that I was unfit to be an NCO and they cut me down to PFC.
As fast as I made my sergeant stripes, that’s as fast as they took them away from me.
Though stripped of the rank of officer,
Andrew remained with the 534th, as they prepared to head out to sea,
destined for the Pacific Theater to join the fight against Japan.
Andrew was headed to the Mariana islands to reclaim lands Japan had occupied
since their devastating conquest of the Pacific, two and a half years earlier.
As the Marines neared what was, for many of them, their first invasion,
they could only hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
The Chaplain gave us Absolution. We received our Communion.
And the next day, we found ourselves circling Guam.
While we were invading Guam, I saw the ships circling.
They were bombing the hell out of the island.
Bombing, strafing, and our planes going there.
So, when they returned back from strafing and fighting, I used to take care of the guns.
In the wings, they had machine guns.
I used to take the guns apart, clean them, synchronize them.
I made sure they were tight, so the guns weren’t loose.
And then I would replenish the bullets in their proper way so they wouldn’t tangle,
So while they were fighting, they would’t misfire.
That was my duty, taking care of those guns.
Eventually, they sent the first echelon - the first groups to hit the island.
Within a few days, a secure beachhead was established, and Andrew came ashore.
But with the battle of Guam far from over, this was no time to breathe easy.
And I did see a lot of…
I saw a lot of bodies floating in the ocean there.
When I came to shore, the first thing I did was dig a foxhole and a pup tent.
But, now they’re telling us that there’s an estimated 25,000 Japanese still on the island.
So, be aware at night, because they’ll infiltrate and they’ll kill you.
And we did hear some cries in the middle of the night - people being stabbed and everything else.
There was one experience I’ll tell you.
One time, one of our planes got shot down. It went into the jungle.
So I had drawn duty then, from 12:00 to 4:00 in the morning. Guard duty.
They put me in a jeep with the sergeant master who was driving us to where the plane was.
He got to a certain point, and he couldn’t go
in any further into the boondocks because there was no paths.
He said, “That plane is in the boondocks, and we have to guard it.
There’s material in there that the Japanese want. So you have to guard that plane.
That plane has to be guarded.”
I started to shiver a little. I didn’t feel myself.
I said, “This might be my day. If I go in there, maybe they’ll kill me.”
I said, “I don’t know if you want to call me a deserter, but I don’t want to go in there.
I know I’m going to die.”
But he finally persuaded me. He said, “You don’t want to dishonor your family name.”
So I finally did. It took about ten minutes to reach the plane.
When I got there, they changed guards.
That was the worst four hours of my life.
At any time, I didn’t know if a Jap was going to come behind me, use their bayonet, or kill me.
I couldn’t wait for the four hours to expire.
Twenty days after the battle began, the island of Guam was deemed secure and back in American hands.
Waiting for his squadron’s next assignment,
Andrew and the Marine Corps boxing team continued to entertain the troops.
Everywhere I went overseas, I boxed.
They used to issue us a case of beer when you had an exhibition.
If you fight, you get one case of beer. If you win the fight, you get two cases of beer.
So, I won most of my fights. I did lose a few.
So, I used to get the other case of beer and distribute it among my buddies.
There wasn’t much beer on the island, so I was getting something like gold.
It was gold, really.
But it wasn’t long before Andrew was called back to battle.
As the Allies reclaimed island after island in the Pacific campaign,
drawing ever closer to the Japanese mainland,
their enemies only seemed to grow in resilience and desperation.
The final two battles of the Pacific Theater would prove the most ferocious in the war against Japan.
I participated in action against Iwo Jima. That was in 1945. February, 1945.
And then, I participated in action against the enemy on Okinawa. And that was in April of 1945.
Planes. Japanese planes.
They used to destroy - that’s what I saw - a lot of death and ships being
sunken by those kamikazes.
I saw bodies all over the ocean.
And on land, we saw bodies galore. Japanese and American troops.
And there were so many, they used to dig trenches and just roll them in there like cattle.
And then they would cover those bodies, and that was the end of those bodies.
I saw that, too.
After three months and over 160,000 American and Japanese casualties,
the battle of Okinawa was over, and the United States Armed Forces were on the doorstep of Japan.
I was told, “Andrew Puopolo, report to the office in the morning.” So, in the morning, I did go.
And they said, “Andrew, how long will it take you to get your seabag packed?”
I said, “Why?” He said, “You’re going home.”
And when I came home, Truman sent the A-bombs to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And when they dropped those two bombs,
that was the end of our war between the United States of American and Japan.
Following the war’s end, Andrew returned to Boston, Massachusetts,
where he was fortunate to see that his closest friends had come home safely.
We all survived. We all survived.
And then, any time something came about - any
gathering, the five of us would always be together.
After the war, that’s when we started getting married.
You know, so I went to at least four weddings right there.
But I’m the only remaining one that’s alive right now.
The others passed on. They all passed on, all four of them.
Dear, dear friends of mine.
I want to really thank you for taking this time out to talk to me.
I’m pleased with what the Marine Corps did for me. It made a man of me.
It really did. And I was proud to fight for my country.