Lawrence Bowyer is a man of incredible strength. Physically he stands 6’3’’, an obvious physical presence; but Mr. Bowyer has an inner strength. As a proud American soldier, he served our country as a Supply Officer in the Marine Corps in the Pacific during World War II. After his service, he taught business courses at the high school level, including at Pittsburg High School, for thirty-nine years. Nearly sixty years later he still possesses the strength to share his incredible story with his community and his country. His story is a lesson in devotion, and an example of the true definition of a patriot.

I went right out of college and signed up in the Marine Corps in ’42. Of course, December seventh was Pearl Harbor day. The Dean here [PSU] mentioned to me the possibility of getting into the Marine Corps to get a commission so I signed up. That was even before I graduated. When I went in, you had to have a college degree to get into Officer’s School in the Marine Corps. So, they deferred me until I graduated in May of ’42. Then they waited several months before they called me. So, I really didn’t know civilian life as such. I was a student working my way through, my folks couldn’t help me. I was working for twenty-five cents an hour--that was pretty average. That was still in the Depression. Twenty-five cents an hour, that’s two dollars a day for eight hours. Of course, you could get a meal for twenty cents or maybe twenty-five; but after all, that’s an hour’s work. Tuition, when I first started at the college, was eighteen dollars and something a semester and it got up to about twenty-five before I left. You could go out on your own and pay room rent, pay for your food, working for twenty-five cents an hour, [but] it takes a while to accumulate twenty-five dollars. [I] worked my tail off while I was in college trying to stay there, working about every hour I wasn’t in school. I don’t regret that. Going hungry a lot, I didn’t eat very regular. In fact, I broke out in boils--just didn’t have the right food, if any. It was a different time. But, as I say, I didn’t really experience civilian life as such before I went in the service.

[My wife JoHelen and I] get along fine. We’ve had sixty years together, plus the seven we dated. We went together for seven years. My last two years of high school and then four years of college plus another year or two there. We couldn’t afford to get married while I was in college; I was too busy trying to get enough money to stay in college. We’d just been married three months before I went overseas; and [then] gone two and a half years.

Well, I went to Kansas City and course took the physical. A funny little thing happened when I was being sworn into the Marine Corps, into the officer’s candidate school. There was an old, retired Captain doing the swearing in. The sergeant told me I was enlisting for the duration, and six months. Well, at that time most of the American people had the idea that the Japanese were not good soldiers and we’d go over and whip ‘em in a couple of weeks, you know, maybe a few weeks, you know, maybe a week and a half. So, when I got in there to be sworn in, the Captain says, “You join the Marine Corps for a period of four years,” and I started stumbling, mumbling. The Captain said, “What’s the matter?”

I said, “Well, I didn’t sign up for four years, I signed up for the duration and six months.”-- four years sounds like a long time to you, doesn’t it? It did to me at that time, sounded like forever! Well, I didn’t want to be involved four years in the Marine Corps, and I said I hadn’t signed up for four years. He slammed the papers and says, “Cancel the application!”--oh, he was mad.

The Sergeant leaned over and told me, “You’re still down for the duration and six months.”

The Captain picked up the papers, “Well, we’ll start over.” But he was real perturbed about the whole thing.

Well, I went and graduated from college in 1942, right after Pearl Harbor in December, and I enlisted in the Marine Corps, in the Reserve Officers Class. I went to Quantico, Virginia, to the Marine Corps Officers School, which is also the location of the FBI school. It is about forty miles south of Washington, D.C.* We went through--the Marines call it boot camp, the Army calls it basics--you get all the introduction there. We went in, we were PFC’s when we went into Officer’s School, and then you get your commission. But while you’re a PFC you got Corporals and Sergeants over you. I always said they delighted in making it just as rough for you as they could because they knew you were probably going to become an officer. Again, you have to take it. You don’t talk back. For example, if you drop your rifle--of course they call it a piece--if you drop your piece in drill formation, you slept that night with about six or eight pieces [rifles] in your bunk. And you know what a little bunk [it] is. There’s just not much room for you when you get that many M-1 rifles in there. They had ways of--well, you’d learn pretty quick to keep your mouth shut. Don’t argue with ‘em, there’s no point. I don’t know that anybody in my outfit ever did. But you didn’t have much of a chance to argue with ‘em. We were in class a lot, and they were teaching us different things: map reading, a lot of other things about armaments, orders.

Completed Officers Training, or O.C.S. as we call it--Officers Candidate School-- and came out a second Lieutenant, and was a Captain when I came out. I went through several different [military] schools including Quartermaster’s School, and that’s what I did while I was in the service. Well, as a Supply Officer, or Quartermaster Officer your job was to supply all the material for the units, and this was a battalion and later a regiment--that means clothing, food, ammunition, water, and medical supplies.

We came over from San Diego, twenty-seven days to New Caledonia. We didn’t see land the whole way. We saw birds once in a while. A few flying fish. It [New Caledonia] was a French protectorate. I saw people, you know, carrying stuff on their head like you see pictures of. The first time this ol’ country boy had seen anything like that.

[The] Japanese had taken over the Pacific. [We] went to New Caledonia. A lot of people don’t realize how far we are down here. There’s Australia, there’s New Zealand. We had to stop them [Japanese] there or they were going into Australia. [If] they took over Australia, then we were really in trouble. So our base then was New Caledonia. All the replacements were coming in here, and then were shipped up from [there]. Course, I was sent from New Caledonia up through the New Hebrides Islands and went on up to the Solomon Islands. There were hundreds of islands in there, and I went [to] Vella LaVella. While I was there, they made an invasion at Bougainville.

The U.S. broke the Japanese code even before the war, so the Americans, the U.S., knew all the messages they were sending. They got word that a big Japanese general was gonna fly over this area. Well, of course, we knew that so we sent up all the planes we had, and they shot him down. That was at Bougainville. From Vella LaVella we went back down to Guadalcanal.

(Lawrence’s wife, JoHelen, wearing a grass skirt he sent her from Guadalcanal)

As I said, the Japanese had swarmed down over the Pacific. [Bougainville] was an important area to the Japanese. They had a big strong hold there--arsenal, ammunition, troops. Have you read anything about “the slot” in the Solomon Islands? The Japanese would send ships out of Rabaul down “the slot”, right down by Bougainville, Vella LaVella, Guadalcanal, Chorseul, New Hebrides, and a lot of names you never heard of.

Most of these islands out there in the Pacific they [Japanese] had been on those islands for years--thirty years. A lot of them were populated with civilian people that they’d sent in there to build forts and underground caves and fortifications. They had regular cities underground. On top either twelve, eighteen inches, two feet of concrete or bamboo logs – they’re very, very tough--laid criss-cross. They could be bombed and it didn’t hurt them any.

As I said, the Japanese had swarmed down over the Pacific. They had taken the Philippines. They’d been in China, Manchuria, Korea for years. They went down to the Malaysia Peninsula, to Singapore and were ready to go into Australia. So, the Allies, the United States mainly, had to start somewhere so they picked this island called Guadalcanal. They knew from reconnaissance that the Japanese had heavily fortified there, and they knew if they could stop this traffic coming down from Rabaul through “the slot” they could force them back. So, they chose Guadalcanal

If you’re invading an island, they’d set up there with these big ships, and fire in the big ammunition; try to soften up the beach and knock out a lot of these strong boxes and pill boxes, and so forth. Then, they’d send in the planes with bombs. Then they’d come in and strafe with machine guns--twenty and fifty caliber. Then, they’d send in the Marines on these loading ships--hit the beach. So, once the beach was secured, we’d start reinforcing the area. Once this phase was over, quite often the battle was pretty well over--depending on the size of the island. Now, Guadalcanal was a good-sized island, but most of our battles occurred near the beach.

Now in a combat area, there’s two things that a Supply Officer--Quartermaster Officer--better have plenty of and be sure to get it to the front line. Number one is ammunition; and two is water. Water. Remember, it’s hot. People are sweating their tails off, and they got to have water. Food was third.

Occasionally, there were shortages--quite often. However, the problem was getting the supplies to the proper place at the proper time. Often there were enough supplies, but, you know, they might be a thousand or a hundred miles away; but if you got ‘em up in the area where we could use ‘em, why that was a plus for us. Well, my unit--of course--that was my responsibility, being Quartermaster Officer; but the food originally came from the States by ship, and then transferred to other ships and was brought up the line to the forward areas, and then, finally, by truck into the different units.

[The food that] we had at that time, C-rations. It was a package; it had biscuits in it, and it had some different kinds of meats. And then, they had a K-ration. [They] were excellent emergency foods; I mean high in food content to sustain you, like if you were behind the lines or trapped somewhere. You could subsist on this for a period of time. Not particularly tasty, but sustaining.

Another one of my jobs was to send personal effects home of those who had been killed. I know I sent some to Fort Scott, Kansas--and that kind of got to me. That’s getting close to home. [Let’s say] you’re home from Pennsylvania and I’m from Kansas, so what happens to you doesn’t bother me a great lot; but, when--when it happened to Fort Scott, Kansas--that kind of got to me. We sent all our effects back to Clearwater, Utah--I hadn’t thought of that in years--I think it was Clearwater, Utah.

We were down on the Equator, temperature’s terribly hot. ‘Course, rain every day, then the sun come right out and you know what that is--humidity, steam. You never put a shoe on in the mornin’ without shakin’ if first to get the land crabs out, and the worms, and maybe a little grass snake. I never saw a poisonous snake. Mildew--it was terrible! You just didn’t accumulate a lotta things. Over there you had two or three shirts and that was it. First of all, you didn’t want to carry ‘em around.

The weather [in the Solomon Islands] was hot. It was generally rainy--it generally rained every day; and a little cloud would come over, the size of your hat, and rain for thirty minutes, and then ten minutes later the sun’s out just burning ya’--humidity. So, the weather was bad; and then, of course, that meant mud. You had combat boots; generally, the mud was at least that deep, water in foxholes. Dig a trench, and the thing would fall in, fallen mud and water. If you’d spend much time there, why your feet were wet and you’d get a fungus in your feet. The weather conditions were rather unfavorable.

Like any place else, you would have your buddies. I don’t know how to say this--I don’t want to appear morbid--but when I went overseas, I went over with the idea that part of going overseas was getting killed. So, as a result--and thank God I didn’t get killed, as a lotta them that did--but, as a result, you didn’t build a lotta real close relationships because too often they were broken. A person gets killed, and that is not a pleasant situation. You had close friends, yes; but still there was a distance. Some of my closest friends were from Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, California; people I’d never seen before I’d gone into the Marine Corps. I hadn’t known them very long, but yet developed a close relationship.

From [Vella LaVella] I went up to Guam and I found one of my brothers there. That was about after a year and a half. I tell you, that was a glorious reunion. From there, I went to Okinawa. Okinawa is a big island. Remember, in combat high ground is important. You take the high ground, then you can look down. Well, in Okinawa a lot of it was flat.

Well, the Army went one direction and the Marines went the other direction. As it turned out, the direction that the Army went there was little or no Japanese. All the Japanese were on the other end, and the Marines met up with them pretty quick, and had a terrible, terrible struggle. It was a long, hard struggle! It wasn’t a rest area because we were still getting a lot of fire from caves, on the hillsides, and snipers. Raiders came in at night to steal food.

[If] anybody says they weren’t scared [in battle] they’re lying to you! You go in somewhere--lead’s flying, bombs are falling, and people are getting killed, is a rather sobering experience. People that’s experienced these things don’t like to talk about them. It’s not pleasant to see the things that go on. It’s things you’d rather forget; sometimes you can’t forget--to see people killed, and blown up, and blown to pieces and some of their flesh and limbs blown on you, and these kind of things--I hate to think about it. I wasn’t in a lot of combat, as such, but what I experienced was you don’t think much about it at the time until it was over, and then you begin to reflect back and then you begin to get nervous, excited, and scared. Anybody who said they weren’t scared, they were lying to you.

Some of the these things might sound cruel today; but, remember the times and the circumstances--after what the Japanese had done to us. They were our enemy and I hated them! Now, of course, today I don’t feel that way. The Japanese are nice people; but when they’re out there to shoot you, you better shoot first.

We had service. We had chaplains. They’d lead [church] every Sunday, if possible. They had, also, Catholic Priests and a Rabbi. Quite often the Rabbi wasn’t available because there wasn’t that many Jews, I guess, but they’d be available at times. Yeah, there was plenty of time to practice [your religion], and you were pretty glad to do that, knowing that you had somebody to lean on.

Nowadays they got e-mail and all these things. My grandson was in the Air Force for eight or nine years recently and he was in Italy and France and he could use a telephone and call, and sound just as clear as if he was in the next room. In World War II we didn’t have all that. No way to communicate except by letter--and of course, some of the letters got lost and so on. We used to correspond, my wife, by letter; but I’ve seen a lot of LST ships come in loaded with mailbags and hit rough water and the mailbags start flopping off. So, I know a lot of mail was lost, and some of our mail we didn’t get. We’d get blamed for not writing. The best way to write in those days was V-mail. It was a little ole piece of paper about that [4”x 4”] big that they could condense. But, uh, you know, nowadays they fly troops to Iraq, for example. In my day, we got on a ship and chug-chug-chug-chug all the way across, you see. You knew you couldn’t contact family directly other than by mail. So, after a while you just kind of forgot about it. You didn’t worry about it. No use to worry because there’s no way it’s ever gonna happen.

I’ve heard some of the current soldiers make the statement: “I don’t know how those guys in World War II made out, not being able to contact home.” Well, you made out because you had to. So why worry about it? We didn’t think about it to that extent. If you did, it’d kill you or drive you crazy. We had a few go crazy. We called it “Island Fever,” something like that. We had one guy go into a tent one day with a bayonet, was going to cut the throats of the guys--this was during the noon hour, a rest period at least--and he was going to cut the guy’s throats with the bayonet. What had happened, he had gotten a Dear John letter from his girlfriend. Do you know what those are? “Dear John: I don’t want you anymore.” Or something to that effect. And he went ape, man, he was wild. But they got him calmed down and sent him back to the States. Maybe that’s what he was after, you never know.

I know when I was in Peking, toward the end of the war, they started sending over people that were not high school graduates. I had some men under me who were illiterate. One [friend] from Kentucky, we called him “Cannonball,” he was bald-headed as I am now, and more so. Potbellied, and he was illiterate. And, I hate to say it, but he was ignorant. His sister at home could not write, being illiterate, but she had a neighbor write letters from her to Cannonball. Well, Cannonball couldn’t read them. So, of course, some of the fellows had to read them to him. And you know what these fellows would do? They’d read in a lot of stuff that wasn’t there. Cannonball, he’d just throw a fit; and, being ignorant, you know, he just made a fool of himself. It got to the point to where it wasn’t funny, really, because he was going to kill that sister when he got home, and he just said some of the wildest things.

(Lawrence Bowyer)

I’ve read literature, since, that says Japan was so well prepared for the major invasion that civilians were all armed with pitchforks, knives, you name it, sharp sticks--it would have been a murderous thing [to try to invade Japan]. It would have been thousands and thousands and thousands of men killed on both sides. They [the U.S.] were moving all the troops in for the major invasion. We were all just holding our breath, ‘cause it was going to be a slaughter on both sides. By that time, see, you were getting these Kamikaze planes, lot of ‘em at Okinawa and a few on Iwo. When we started getting close, they were really trying to sink those ships. Yeah, I was thrilled to death when I heard that the war was over. That was the best news you could hear. We use to think that we’d have to take all these little islands. A lot of them were taken that you’ve never heard about, but several hundred men or more were killed on a lot of those raids. You know, if you have to do that on all these little islands it’s gonna take years and a lot of men are gonna lose their lives. So they started bypassing islands, just cut ‘em off. Japanese didn’t have ships to get in there and help ‘em, so they’d just sit there and starve to death. It must have been twenty or thirty years after the war that one or two Japanese showed up somewhere and had been sitting out there on an island waiting for the Japanese Navy to come save them. Of course, early, the soldiers had the idea that the best thing they could do was die for their emperor like some of the Iraqi people seem to be doing--blowing themselves up. They were taught that, just like the Iraqi people. Sometimes they’d surrender, fake it, and start shooting and all these kinds of things. Nobody, I don’t think, expected the Japanese to surrender. But dropping those two terrific bombs that did so much damage, the military hierarchy saw that there was no hope for them to win, so they just finally surrendered. I know there’s opponents to that idea and a lot of bad things have happened with the atomic bomb since. Brother, when your life is on the line out there I’m just damn glad they dropped it. And I don’t mind telling ya’ so either!

When we got the word, we were on Okinawa. We had combat boots about that high [up to the calf], and the mud was just about the same depth. Mud, mud, mud. Some of us officers were out in the coral pits filling trucks, taking them back to the camp, putting them in the tent, making a coral deck in the tent, getting us up out of the mud. One night the trucks stopped coming out to get us. We were a mile or two from them, up on high ground. We looked down, the lights come on in the camp. Of course, we operate on a blackout all during the war. We said, “What’s going on?” Finally, somebody remembered us out there. Came out and said, “Hey, the war’s over! We dropped the atomic bomb. The Japanese are surrendering, MacArthur’s coming to Tokyo and accepting the surrender of Peace on the Missouri.” A lot of the guys went wild. Some of them did a lot of drinking, shooting. Several people got killed that night, just random shooting. I was really thrilled to death.

After that settled down a little bit, we were sent in. I was in the First Marine Division, I was sent into China. Beijing. Of course, when I was there it was called Peking. We had anchored way out in the Yellow Sea between China and Korea; the ships had to anchor way out there because the bed of the ocean sloped up so gradually they couldn’t get in too close. So anyway, we was up there for, ‘til I came home, and we were supposed to hold North China until Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek could get his armies up there. He was in charge of China then. We were supposed to hold North China until he could get his armies up there. Well, it turned out he was very corrupt, and he didn’t do any good. But they did come up, he and the Madame, and I was on the Colonel’s staff and paraded for ‘em. Stood right behind the Generalissimo and the Madame on the left. They were both short, [me] being 6’3’’. But it was cold; and the first time we’d seen snow or cold temperatures in two years [having been] down here in the tropics on the equator. All we had were what we called dungarees, like an army khaki. And boy, we were shivering and shaking. They [The Generalissimo and Wife] got out of a car, I guess it had a heater. It had a thing on the back just like a hot water tank in your house--round and tall. Boy, did it throw smoke. But anyway, we attended tea with ‘em.

From there I came home. We were supposed to go over to Japan, get refueled; but there was a big storm out here, terrible storm. Big ol’ ships would just disappear out there in the waves and pretty soon, here they'd come up again. Big, big storm, a lot of ships were lost. So we turned around and went down to Shanghai. So I was in Shanghai two or three days, three or four, [then] straight across to San Francisco. Good ol’ USA!

The thing I remember, when we came across is all the lights on the ship. Remember, we weren’t used to lights after dark. Now, such a pleasant experience--here I was sitting out on the deck at night, looking up at that old moon. Then of course, I was gone twenty-seven months, came back into San Francisco and called JoHelen. I’ve always said that was a sweet voice on the phone; hadn’t heard it for two and a half years, I tell you. It’s just like coming into San Francisco Bay, we come right in between Alcatraz and what they call Knob Hill; and you see the old U.S. appearing--that’s a thrill.

So, I called her from San Francisco. Boy it was pleasant to hear her voice, and told her when I’d be in to Kansas City. I came in by train, of course, planes weren’t used much, you see, in those days. This was in ’46. So she was to meet me at Union Station. I came up from down below into the station and a group of people up there [were] waiting for their friends. I looked the crowd over and I couldn’t see her. So I thought, “She must not be here yet.” So I just went over to sit down. In a little bit, here she came. She had a fur coat on. She’d bought a fur coat since I’d talked to her, I didn’t know about. I think I saw that woman with a fur coat, and thought, “Oh Lord, she don’t have a fur coat.” She’d pulled a trick on me and bought a fur coat! A little unusual, I guess, to sit down and wait, but here she came. A tremendous thrill, of course. It almost felt like a stranger. It’s hard to describe. Of course, it was a glorious reunion. You know, just to get back in the USA. It’s just hard to describe. My wife was working in Emporia, so we went to Emporia. Of course, I didn’t have a car, so we had to wait until her sister and her boyfriend was gonna come down to our home to give us transportation. People knew I was back before I got there; but oh yeah, we were welcome. Everybody was glad to see me, and I was glad to see everybody else.

(Lawrence arriving home)

War, of course, is not a pleasant experience and we should learn that. We should learn to try to solve our differences other than with sending our young to combat, to be killed, and kill off the best. You know, the youngest and healthiest and best minds in the country and [we] send them off to battle. There’s ways to solve things other that shooting each other. We definitely knew what we were fighting for; we were fighting for our lives, and fighting for the right to be free. Much different then, than say, the Vietnam War. Remember, the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, knocked out our Navy, and we were really back on our heels. Everybody of eligible age was joining and willing to join. It wasn’t like some of the other conflicts we’ve had. Here our whole existence was at stake, just like in Europe. The country came together; you wanted to do your part. And you appreciated and enjoyed the fact that you were doing what you could, and doing what you were told, of course. Every young man enlisted and tried to do his duty and that’s about all you can do. No regrets. You knew it was your duty, but you knew it had to be done; and you didn’t want to push it off on anybody else. You had to do your part.

If this country’s in trouble, I think the young people need to volunteer, and help it out. Sign up, get in it. If this country’s not worth fighting for, brother, you better get out. I’m biased on that. I think this is one of the greatest countries on Earth. I don’t think all the young people realize that; but if you see some of the places I’ve seen, when you can’t go down to the corner and get a hamburger anytime you want to. You can’t travel--go across the State line over there anytime you want to. A lotta countries, you know, you have to have passports and visas and checkpoints and all these kinds of things. A lotta these things we don’t appreciate. We take them for granted. I did a job that needed to be done. I was glad to do it. When I see somebody, today, that will not stand and salute the flag it gets under my skin real fast. I get a little perturbed at parades. People do not honor the flag when it goes by. Some people won’t even stand to give the flag salute, and that bothers me. I think we need to be taught more patriotism. I always lead the flag salute at the retired teacher’s meeting once a month, and other organizations I’m at. They’ll ask, “Will you give the salute today?” and I’ll say, “I’ll give a salute to my flag any time I get a chance.”

This oral history was researched and prepared by Caleb Hoyer, Feb. 2004.

*The italicized portions denote material from a previous oral history with Mr. Bowyer

researched and prepared by Jared Radke and Drew Rhodes, Jan. 1989.

[ ] indicate words added for clarity.