Oroville Mercury Register (OMR) February 29, 1952
News From Oroville Men In The Service
George Edward Foote,
son of Mr. and Mrs. Cecil
Howard Foote of Oroville, was enlisted in the U.S. Navy at
San Francisco on Feb. 20. He is now at San Diego for eleven
weeks of recruit training. At the end of his period of training
he will be given 14 days leave before being assigned to a ship or
station. Before going in the Navy, Foote attended Oroville
Union High School.
Elmer E. Knox, fireman
apprentice, USN, son of
Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Knox of Oroville, has reported for duty
on board the submarine USS Pickerel at Pearl Harbor, T.H. The Pickerel
is one of the Navy’s most modern submarines and holds many distinguished
records including the worlds record for longest distance ever traveled
submerged, when the ship snorkeled 5,200 miles from Hong Kong to
Pearl Harbor in 1950. Knox enlisted in the Navy in April 1951,
received his recruit training at the U. S. Naval Training Center,
San Diego, and was assigned to the U. S. Submarine Base at Pearl
Harbor.
Cpl. Donald H. Oswalt,
of Houston street, is stationed at Kubiski, Okinawa, with the 29th
Infantry Regiment, Company K. He is in cooking school as a first
cook. He left the U. S. in August, 1951, after completing
basic training at Camp Roberts. Cpl. Oswalt is the son of
John Oswalt of Reed
Springs, Mo., and has made his home in Oroville for the past five
years where he was employed in the lumbering industry. His
wife, Maxine, resides
with her parents, Mr. and
Mrs. Jeptha Rhoades of Houston street, while he is overseas.
Jack Sapp’s Story continued
After 7 days on the Empress of Scotland, we landed at Casa Blanca,
we went to a big depot for about 6 weeks, waiting. One morning
we were told to move out in two hours. We went by truck down
to the train tracks and loaded into 40’ by 8’ cattle cars.
40 men to a car that smelled like cows, for 3 days and nights we
sat on the floor. Our bathroom was out the door, “hanging
out”. The train was a coal steam locomotive, in the tunnels
we choked on the smoke. Then right at the end of this train
trip we loaded on a Troop ship still in North Africa. On this
ship we had Christmas Dinner ,1943, cold turkey and boiled potatoes,
the trip took 5 days. We landed at Naples, went to another
big Depot. January 1944 we loaded on a L. S. T. for a 3-4
hour trip and landed at 7AM on the Anzio Beaches. German planes
in the sky, balloons all around, the whole area was flat and exposed
to German artillery fire. We loaded on to trucks and went
to a grove of funny looking trees, pines that looked like umbrellas.
Tanks and half-tracks all around, men dug in. Met my 1st
Sgt. (Jack was a replacement), a nice man playing cards. We
lived two men to a fox hole with pine limbs on top for protection
from shells. Those pine nuts tasted pretty good. We
were there for three months, until May 18, 1944 when we moved out
on the road to Rome. Seven days later I was hit by shrapnel
from a mortar, a Medic loaded me on a jeep to Anzio where I was
in a hospital for 6 weeks. I missed my day in Rome.
But I got a Purple Heart and a ticket back to my outfit, the 1st
division. Many of my buddies were dead by now and they had
me identify them. We were now 100 miles north of Rome, on
the way to Florence and the famous Leaning tower of Pisa.
Fought up to the tower.
(to be continued)
Stu’s Notes: I had Lynn goggle Anzio to see when we were
at Anzio Beach head and found out that we were there from January
22 to May 25, 1944. Under heavy fire from the Germans.
You don’t hear much about the fighting there. But it had to
be terrible An L. S. T. is a landing craft, used on the Beaches
during WWII. It stood for Landing Ship Tank or Troop.
Sus Gomez drove or piloted one. More on what he did soon.
My pen is tired tonight.