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Interview with Tommy Lee Cabe

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  • Cabe 1 Interviewee: Tommy Lee Cabe Interviewer: Nathan Novgrod Date: April 14, 2004 Location: Macon County, NC Duration: 30:10 Nathan Novgrod: This is Nathan Novgrod interviewing Tommy Lee Cabe. It’s the 14th of April, 2004. They want us to start with your life before the war, just sort of a general history. For instance, where are you from originally? Tommy Cabe: I was born and raised in Macon County, North Carolina on a small farm. NN: And that's where you were when you enlisted? TC: That's where I was when I enlisted in the Navy, 5th January 1939. NN: Alright. Were you employed at the time of your enlistment? TC: No, not corporate. I was just working on the farm, my dad owned the farm. NN: Was farming sort of the most common thing at the time, in the area? TC: Yeah, at the time it was. The population was thin then and there wasn't much else here. NN: Yeah, let’s see. How common was college attendance at the time? TC: It was low, I can't give you a percentage but, probably not much more than 10% I guess maybe 15%, 15 I'd say. NN: Alright, how did the local community view the war before you left? TC: They's for it, they wanted to get, they knew we couldn't put up with that fella coming across the pond. NN: You enlisted, you were not drafted, right? TC: That's correct NN: What was your main reason for enlisting in the Navy? TC: Well. I, I did it for a career. That's how it started and later things happened and it didn't get there. I got part of my foot blown off and I got burnt and I stayed in the hospital nine months and nine days. But that was much later. Cabe 2 NN: Did a lot of people from the area enlist when you did, or was it a high percentage of people that were joining? TC: No, No. minimum, very minimum I would say. NN: Do you have any other family members that joined the military? TC: Yeah well, during the war now is that what you mean? NN: Before or during the war, either or? TC: Well I had one, two, three brothers and a brother in-law, well I don't know, I am going to say I knew at least personally more than twelve. NN: Alright, where did you enlist at, what was the point of entry? TC: Raleigh, that's where I was sworn in. NN: What was your first impression of military service? TC: I was homesick. NN: That's a pretty common one. I've actually got a buddy in the Marines at the moment stationed in Hawaii. He knows that feeling well. TC: I spent lots of days in Hawaii. NN: How long was your training before you actually became active? TC: Well now, supposed to had three months but I got, they double timed us around the drill field and I got double pneumonia. I was sick bad, in the hospital a month, not a month a week and that put me back ah two weeks actually. I didn't graduate from that until March, sometime in March. NN: Did you have any particular specialty as far as, what exactly did you do in the Navy? TC: My specialty later or whenever I went in? NN: Either or. TC: You didn't have much of a choice unless you was in the top ten or better, so I took Gunner's Mate striker. I wanted something other than deck work. Cabe 3 NN: Did you stay a Gunner's Mate or did you ... TC: Nah, I made second class Gunner's Mate, in… trying to think what year it was, nineteen and forty two and then, transferred to aviation and went to school in Chicago for six or eight weeks, I don't know how much. Then transferred to school, to South Jacksonville Florida and I finished up there in March. In aviation, I was taken specialty in instruments and stuff like that. We'd fly B24's and drop bombing tubs at forty thousand feet. NN: Alright, when exactly did you get placed on active duty? TC: I was on active, by that what exactly do you mean? It was all active duty, every bit of it. NN: Alright. That's pretty much what they are looking for, just trying to find out ... TC: Yeah mine was all active duty because I was at Pearl Harbor, they bombed the place. NN: Pretty much as soon as you got done training you were active? TC: Yeah. I went right straight to battleship Mississippi training. NN: Urn, Other than Pearl Harbor did you go overseas? TC: Oh, I stayed, I've been to every island in the Pacific, I'm not naming 'em but I've been to China, I've been to Pearl Harbor, I've been, I was in Pearl Harbor when they bombed the place. But been to, lot of stops, took a convoy of freight and stuff, all kinds of stuff like that. I've been to all them islands but I don't know them by name now. When I say all, I'd say 30 or 40 or so. NN: Urn, how long were you overseas before you were discharged or before you left the military? TC: I was, let’s see, I got my foot blown off and burnt in late, ‘44 at Lady Gulf, Southern Luzon, Philippines. I've been in eight battles before that. Eight of the major ones. Pearl Harbor was not the worst either. I'll tell ya, People think it was bad, it was, I saw the Arizona blow up and turn over. I stood on our deck and watched them come by us, I could have thrown a wrench in the cockpit of the plane, torpedo planes. NN: You were on the USS Mississippi? TC: No, at that time I had transferred to the St. Louis, light cruiser. NN: Let's see. Did your experiences in the war change how you looked at the war, as far as, before you left if you for it did it sort of change your outlook on it? Cabe 4 TC: No, I don't think it did, I felt the same way, for my country and my folks and everything. I was raised to respect your neighbors and friends and to protect them anyway you could and I still felt. I still feel that way now too. I am for the war right now, some people say oh why did we go over there, why in the hell did we go? If we hadn't they would have been over here in a few years. NN: That's true, that's 911. Um, what specific unit did you serve in? TC: What district? what do you mean by that? Now I'll have to get it down. NN: It just lists what unit as far as like, I am trying to think, I am not as familiar with the Navy's jargon. TC: My unit was the South Pacific Fleet. The entire unit was the South Pacific. NN: Alright. TC: In addition to that, I was in, at Alaska, now I had forgotten about that. I was up there about three months but that was just, we bombed and took Kiska. That was south, east of Dutch Harbor. NN: What was a, and this is sort of a broad question but, what was a typical day like? TC: Ah, a typical day for me, I'll just give you mine. They bumped me, I, I was sleeping and they would bump me at 4 o'clock. Tell ya to go on watch. You get up and go on watch and at, either they'd bring ya some sandwiches maybe around 7 or something like that or they'd come up at 8 and relieve ya, and you could go for a while. Then when you got off duty you worked on the ship. There was no such thing as going to sleep. If you ever got caught going to sleep it was just terrible. Worked all day, whatever ya had to do till you was on, presumably on eight, off eight. But I never, none of us ever seen a time when we was off a full eight. NN: And you said you were on a light cruiser? TC: Yes. NN: What type of missions was that ship? TC: It's with the South Pacific, let’s see what'd they call that, ComSoPac, that be, Command South Pacific. Nimitz is an admiral out of, short and then we got, you know he was there first and then later Nimitz was the commander er admiral of the South Pacific. NN: Alright, Um. Cabe 5 TC: Later my old admiral, or captain got it, he's the one that took the island, what Wake Island. He was a junior guy and they picked him over all the rest of 'em. Wasn't even a carrier officer. They made him admiral and he tore 'em apart. NN: So you guys were mainly employed in capturing islands? TC: Yeah, it was bombarding and protecting, I don't know what the word for it but, all the marines, you see we was continuously bombarding and they were going in and we was bombarding them and backing them up. NN: Do you think that the training that they provided for you prepared you? TC: Oh it was pretty good. I had two offers for Annapolis, Admiral McCain and I forget the person. NN: Uh, when exactly did you return from the, or when did you get discharged? TC: I got discharged July the 4, 1945 in a hospital in Virginia. NN: What's the first thing you did when you got back? TC: Well of course, I, I had just got married in San Francisco several months prior to that. I met my wife and stayed home for a while and as soon as I could, I couldn't do anything for a while and then I worked a while with my family and built a house down here. Then I took off and went to school, aeronautical school in Tennessee, Memphis Tennessee. But they never did pay me and I had to quit before I got my certificate. You paid, and you couldn't live, times was hard then. VA was just slow and they still are. NN: What were the most drastic changes you noticed when you came back, as opposed to before you left? TC: That's a hard one. I guess the, this may not be what you are looking for but, ah employment is the hardest part of it. Finding employment. See this is a rural section, not much work to be had. I put in all this powerline, 75 miles of powerline and I worked at a pipe factory for a short while. After that, in 1948, I went to work for the US Forest Service and worked there till I retired. NN: How had the community that you left, here in Macon County .... TC: I beg your pardon, I have a deaf ear so you got to speak up. NN: How had the Macon County community, this area specifically change, as far as physically, were there more buildings? Cabe 6 TC: More buildings yes there was, and people were moving in from the South and still are, they're just taking up everything. We was 23 thousand population for a long time, now it is three or four times that. NN: Did the perception of the war locally change when you came back as opposed to before when you left? TC: Yeah, I think it went forward, moved forward, the whole thing sort of moved with it, I don't know what the word is for it but, it moved forward, everything seemed, everyone was a movin', movin' forward. Even in business, small business, and leavin'. Southerners around here was farmers and heap lot of them took there whole families and moved to textiles plants in South Carolina and Atlanta and places like that. NN: Did a lot of the returning soldiers go to college? Was that a common occurrence? TC: Oh yes. Now that was, I don't know what a lot you'd call but a lot for us. We didn't have many but gosh there's a bunch of them. I don't know what percentage it'd be but it was just about everybody went. NN: And you said you went to school...? TC: Tennessee, I went to School of Aeronautics. NN: Alright, was there a lot more business related jobs as opposed to farming when you came back or were there still, not really growing? TC: No, they's growing. Farmers was buyin' mechanical equipment in other words it was horse and buggy whenever I left, primarily now, there was a lot of people getting tractors and some equipment. NN: That's pretty much it as far as the official questions, they list how did your perception of the war change but we have already talked about that. It also lists how had your community change, but we kind of already hit on that as well. Umm. You said you received eight medals? TC: Yeah, I want to show you those. I gottem, I had em down but I'll show ya. I got a split disc and I can't get around so well. At this point the interviewee takes interviewer to another room to show him his medals. NN: Alright, we are set again. TC: Ok now, I was, on the morning of the 7th, it was the 7th wasn't it, casue I was going to school in Washington DC, gunnery school. I was already dressed, packed and everything and the gong went off and I run to the top of the deck, I was down on fifth deck and I heard them planes and Cabe 7 I said Oh God, that’s not our planes, I could tell the motors. Looked up and it was just as clear as could be they come in and I stood on back… Honolulu, our sister ship, was tied to the dock, we was tied to it. There was 35 ships in the harbor, I mean 35 got out. Only six got out and 35 was sunk. And the, the torpedo planes hit the Arizona, you've seen it, I sat there and watched it. It didn't fall over fast like you think it would, it was real tall. Just like that went over. We were tied to the dock and the captain, admiral on the Honolulu, Rud was our captain said you never get out of the harbor. He said, "By God, I might not get out of the harbor but I won't be burn up." The entire harbor was burning. So we backed into the fresh water tank, the fresh water line that went to Fort Island, cut it in two and as we went on out the is two subs that was lay'in for us, but first of all, before we get to that, we went by all these ships that were down, just as we went by, these turned over, the Arizona, not the Arizona but the, God I can’t… there is so many of them I can't remember now. The Oklahoma is the one that turned over and there was all these upside down and all these people was in there and knowed they couldn't get out. Now I didn't hear this, but my friends did and told me, the marines was sticking their heads out the port holes and begging us to kill 'em. Shoot 'em. And as we went out the harbor, the captain run into one of the subs and cut it in two. Two man subs. The other one jumped the bow of the ship, hit the coral reef and run over some stuff exposed on the other side. Then we went out and were gone, let’s see three, four days. I guess. Let’s see, we come back in, we had what you call jerk soup, took onion soup, and jerky and 2 or 4 gallon of water and eat it. And we come back and there was four little subs and there was one of them under the hospital ship in the bay the. I knew the name of that hospital ship. Anyway, they stayed there, they's afraid to move it, afraid it would go off, they stayed there three weeks. Finally moved it and they moved that and found they's both dead they commit the hari kari. NN: So the four small subs were Japanese? TC: Yeah, the engineer and the torpedo man was all that was in it. They took that out took it up to the navy bay, or to the submarine base, jacked it up with a big crane, set it on blocks, and took and poured concrete in that bow where that torpedoes was at. And they let that set up till it wouldn't turn it off and they took it out and they painted it up and took it all over the United States to show it to people. And that's about the .... oh, yeah, we come back in, I just have to tell you this, this is something they made a mistake in. They said three thousand people was killed but when we come back in they had a narrow gauge railroad, and they had eight or ten cars and they was stacked I'm guessin', I don't know that it was but from the looks from where I was, I was pretty close, looked like it was ten pine boxes high and they was taken them out in the hills, out to Kane’ohe, where a D7 was pushing a big trench in the hill and we, theys packed 'em all in there. I don't know how many there was, but you know there was more than three thousand on eight or ten cars high as they had 'em. A lot of that you never did hear. And after that we got ready and came to the states and took the marines to Guadalcanal after that. And it just went on and on and on. I guess that's probably all you want to go with. But I was in the first attack on the Japanese, Caroline Islands. Two Carriers, two cruisers, two light cruisers, and four destroyers, and we left the destroyers didn't have enough gas to get there and back so they went to twelve o'clock and we went wide open, we could get about thirty knots. And the destroyers and the small ones had to wait out and we went in, just the cruisers and carriers, we Cabe 8 launched before daylight and they circled the ship and all their lights, they blinked everyone of 'em did. They go and then come back. It wasn't more than an hour, something more than an hour and they started dropping. Some of' em made it to the deck and some of 'em made it and went down right inside of the ship, others went down in the sea and we never did see them anymore. That was the first, it just went on and on but you're not interested in all that. I could go on all day. NN: Well, when I get this all typed up and transcribed they may, I probably won't have a chance to because the semester will be over in May, and their doing all sorts of these. TC: Is there a chance I could get a copy of this? NN: Yeah. I can send you one. TC: Be sure I get a copy, I've got children, I've got grandchildren, I've got great grandchildren and I ain't never set down and talked to them about it. They don’t know nothing about it. NN: Yeah, I will make sure that we make a copy, in fact before I am done with everything I'll make sure to make a copy and get it to you. But yeah, they may want to come back and talk to you if they find some stuff that they think you might have some more information on or. TC: The battle really started after that. That wasn't nothing. We went to Guadalcanal. We went to Kolombangara and incidentally I was there when Admiral Yamamoto was the Japanese head honcho but he was the head admiral and they flew him in, in a betty bomber twenty engine sea plane and New Georgian Island, the big airfield there and uh, they thought they'd sneak him in, we was no planes nothing, we knew they was coming, we'd broke the code, we know he was coming. And he come in and he started to land the first one, landed as pretty as you've seen, the decoy, the second one come in and there was two, three thirty eights split him wide open. And seventy-five millimeters in the nose of them things. I didn't see it but I heard it. I listened to it on the, I hung around, I was in charge of everything on deck all, the armory, death charges and all that and I could hear everything that came over the loudspeaker. NN: Alright. That looks like we've pretty much covered all the bases. I just need to get a little bit of information they want. They also have a form they want you to sign saying you understand that they might use some of the information from this interview in an exhibit. Chances are they will use it more in terms of research rather than the actual tape but they might and they just want to make sure that's ok with you. TC: In my own mind, I've got some good research that they could use. They could use right now in fact. The first Captain I ever had, he’s really nice, and they picked him, a young admiral he was, to go to Wake Island and they took him over senior admirals. I can't remember his name. starts with an “N” but I can't remember. I got letters from him, after he retired. He lives in California. I'll tell you the truth, ain't nothing as bad as it seems. You remember that if you ever have to go. You might have to if they get this draft back in. Cabe 9 NN: Yeah it just depends on how far they take the current one, I just heard on the radio this morning that they are planning on sending more troops into Iraq. It's not unforeseeable. TC: Like I was telling ya, the first day I was scared to death, but I got used to it. It was just a day’s work. It was alright most of the time, the food got pretty lousy sometimes but we made out alright. So dang much stuff! didn't like being a country boy. Their cooking was ... there was a boy, from four miles away, he was a cook and I'd get on up with him and tide me over. NN: Made some good southern food for ya, eh?
Object
  • An interview with Tommy Lee Cabe conducted as part of the "After the Wars" research project of Western Carolina University. Born and raised in Macon County, Tommy Lee Cabe enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1939, intent on making it his career. His first specialty was as gunner's mate, followed by aviation electrician's mate. Mr. Cabe was aboard the USS St. Louis when the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred. He recounts his personal recollection of the attack and the battles immediately following, as well as a typical day aboard a ship at war. Assigned to the South Pacific Fleet for the duration of the war, he participated in eight battles prior to the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944 in which he was injured. Discharged on July 4, 1945, Mr. Cabe returned home a newly married man seeking employment. Most of the returning veterans sought college educations, but did not graduate as the Veterans Administration failed to fund their tuition. Hired by the U.S. Forest Service in 1948, he spent the remainder of his working career with them until his retirement. He discusses local attitudes before and after World War II, as well as the changes he noted after returning home.