Charles Clifford Burks
Do you remember what beach? If you hadn't have asked me that…..we were at Utah I believe…(pause) that's not it, Utah was the beach below us….but anyway I can't think of the name…….68 years is a long time (laugh)…. We landed troops there and they were really getting hit hard…finally they made it towards a cliff area that gave us more problems than anything, but we kind of whacked the machine gun crews off…but then we got in closer because their big main battery we had pretty well destroyed..that was on the 5th day…those guys were yelling from the beach "you got to get closer!..you're shooting beyond them!"..well, our trajectory told us where we were at..our bullets were passing about that far about the ground (paces hand about a yard off the floor)and they wanted us to get lower..we were reluctant to do it because somebody was gonna jump up and run or something. That bullet would have annihilated the guy. We were telling them that and they said "shoot anyways!"…I remember that very clearly..that they tried to get us to shoot down..I could see them moving..see where the bullets were hitting. Well on the 5th day they started to send in paratroopers in..we had beat them back enough that..we could get heavy equipment in, tanks and things like that..and we just took an army of people. It's hard to imagine the amount of airplanes in the air at that time, the bombers…were from one side to another and loaded with paratroopers..some of them were pulling gliders behind them, they had paratroopers in them too..most of those guys crashed…well, a lot of them did..but the planes were as far as you could see..this way to this way…they just went over for hours. That gave us enough land base…we hammered there about a month.
Where did you go after Normandy and the Mediterranean?
We left there and went to the Pacific…that was in late '44..August…We went to Iwo Jima and landed, we hammered them for four days….we got there on Valentine's day..February the 14th, 1945. ..and we landed troops on the 19th. We really shot the place up bad, I mean as bad, or as good as we could…everybody, there was a whole bunch of ships there. The battleship Texas..was involved, and then the Arkansas..they looked alike, the only way we could tell the difference is that the Arkansas was camouflaged , and the battleship Texas was the color it is now, that blue looking color. Uh, but anyway, all the pictures made from that day was taken from our ship by the Associated Press. We loaded people in there..That was a terrible thing, those guys…those Marines really got hit bad. We lost half of them..50%, 10 thousand people we lost there..the Marines really caught it…We finished up in Okinawa, they finally secured it. We killed over 25 thousand Japanese on that island…they fight to the last guy. We just had them outsmarted and outgunned…we (the Arizona) could furnish the shore power that they (Japanese) couldn't…Okinawa was a bad fight, we lost a lot of people there, good guys..one from San Antonio that I showed you a picture of…..
Was this the friend that was a baker you were telling me about?
We got information..they gleaned information out of the people that were fighting the war, that was a tremendous mind thing for President Truman at that time for him to make the decision to drop the atomic bomb 'cause he knew it was gonna kill lots and lots of innocent people….at Hiroshima and Nagasaki…so we knew that the bombs were on their way. They came by way of the..the..uhm…the Indianapolis..the cruiser Indianapolis brought them over. They brought them to the Phillipines and then they were delivered…they were flying out of the philipins..no, they were flying out of Guam…took them to Guam, that's where they dropped them off. They was later sunk right there after the war was over..the Indianapolis....
Were you often scared?
You know, you're never really scared during an operation…your confident..you don't even think about being injured, I never did and most of the guys didn't…..you're so concentrated, you've got to get that guy..and you're gonna get him, you know in your mind you know you're gonna do what you set out to do..if you don't you've lost everything. It's only when it's all over with, when you go looking.. and there's this guy dead, and then so-and-so..like that baker I was telling you about..little things like that, that's when you go to being frightened, that's after things settle down…I guess that's why we do that we we're young… The only time I was really afraid was when I was in the North Sea and we were escorting the ships over..they sent the battleship Scharnhorst over there..to take care of us. We knew that we had a battle, they had bigger guns, they were a faster ship….we knew it was gonna be a battle when we got together. That's the only time I was ever frightened ahead of time….but you got shake that, you gotta get that out of your mind if you're gonna be effective. We knew that…so we just went to other things..play cards or do something to get that off your head. We were fortunate that the British air force attacked that ship..before we got there, and they destroyed the rudder. It (Scharnhorst) was hard over, they couldn't do nothin' but run around in circles. It was a heyday for the rest of them because they couldn't change their guns fast enough..couldn't maneuver. It was a drop dead situation before we got there…we didn't even fire a shot, but anyway, they sunk them. We was tickled to death…but they were out to get us, that was their specific job. Intelligence had told us that.
Tell me about some ways you guys entertained yourself on the ship to keep you from thinking about things like that.
Well, we had boxing matches…we had a band on there…these guys would get out there and play and , you've seen 'em, two guys dancin' the jitterbug….and then we had fights. We would put on the boxing gloves and say "I can beat that guy!"..well let's go see, get in the ring….there's gonna be organized fights….nobody ever got mad..we would just get in there and fight to see what we could do. Incidentally, I was number two, I could beat everybody..but there was one guy..boy, that aggravated me more than anything. I could not beat that guy, he whooped me every time….gosh, that guy was swift and he hit hard….
Little things like that kept you occupied I guess…and then we had movies down below. Nobody could go topside smokin' or anything like that..or any kind of light. We had compartments you go through if you was going outside there would be another door right there..you go through that one it shuts all the lights off in here. Then you close this door and the lights would come on in that one…at nighttime we didn't want the enemy to get a fix on us..
What was the most uncomfortable part about living on a ship like that?
I guess taking a shower. First you was limited…we took a shower with 3 of us..there were several showers around the ship..toilets also. Toilets were lined up on the back of the ship..you sit in a little seat like this, and you shared the armrest with the guy next door…and I've seen those stalls full. I used to wait until everybody went to bed…and then taking a shower..three guys. One guy would get under there and wash down real good, then he got out from under it and soaped down real good…then the other would get in..then it just went round until you got through. But you had to preserve water, we made our own water…water was precious. Primarily you want it for drinking and fixing food..you shut the water off as soon as the last guy is through…
. How did you make the water?
We distilled it out of sea water….you couldn't store that much obviously, we had tanks that carried a certain amount of water..it made water night and day..to keep that built up.
What were your feelings when you returned home?
I laid down and slept a lot..I liked classical music on the radio, and I would sleep a lot. My parents just left me alone….
Is there anything you would like to add?
That's a difficult question, I'll tell you..the reason it's a difficult question..it's the psychology of things….We were raised in the country, I mean, I was raised in Galveston but we moved into the country for a length of time..there are four or five real important things in your life: God is number one, number two is family life, number three is just to be fair to everybody…watch how the animals do, from the comfort of a chicken, to the passiveness of a cow. Those are the things I remember…people just need to be kind to one another.
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