Autobiography of Wilbur R. Thatcher (My Dad) Installment 8 of 10
This week's blog is installment 8 of 10 of my Dad's autobiography about growing up in Wayne County Iowa. Enjoy
Your mother & I were married when I was home on leave July 5th 1945. I was sent to Ft. Riley Kansas, then to Ft. Ord Calif. & then to Camp Angeles in Southern Calf when we shipped out from Southern Cal. We were being sent to Leyte in the Philippines but orders were changed at Honolulu to go to Mania via the Marshall Islands. A small cloud could hide the sun in the Philippines & rain for half an hour then the sun would come out & steamed us. This was the monsoon season. We were about 20 miles from the B29 Air Base. We could see the plane tails from where we were.
When we arrived in Manila we came past Corregidor the inland water was green as grass. We climbed over the side of the ship with everything we had on our backs & got into flat bottom boats which took us to shore. The last hundred yards we had to wade ashore.
When we came home by boat we all had food poisoning. The ships doctor gave us all a bottle of castor oil. The Navy crew was sick also & could not clean up the bathrooms. What a mess. Had stomach problems ever since. We came back to Ft. Lawton Washington & by train to last depot Ft. Sheridan, Ill, Chicago & back to Seymour by train.
