Arland Claude Nichols
Arland Claude Nichols was born on June 22, 1926. He is the son of Cora Alice Hackney and Claude Frank Nichols. Older brother of Gerald Stephen Nichols who passed away from cancer in the summer of 1988. Arland was born and raised in South Bend, Washington. At age seventeen he joined the Navy where he was stationed aboard a destroyer called the “USS Shields”. After the end of WWII he returned home and worked with his father building logging roads. After ten months he then joined the Airforce where he was a cryptographic technician. While in the Airforce he obtained a GED. During his life he traveled and lived many places such as Florida, Michigan, Texas, Korea, and Germany. Retiring from the Airforce in 1965, he worked for a nuclear repair company on Medina Base, then went to the post office for a short time. Finally, he found his last job at Kelly Airforce Base where he began his civil service career. His first position at Kelly was in the Nuclear Weapons Division. He then moved to Aircraft Maintenance until he became a Management Analyst which he retired from in 1993. Arland was married to Mary Josephine Kunze on July 10, 1948 at San Juan Capistrano Mission. They had seven children until they adopted the eighth. Mary Nichols passed away in 1993 right after his retirement, so he decided to move to Adkins. Later in 1998, 52 years after they last dated he saw Jeanne G. and they reunited. In 1999 they got married and are still together. He is Catholic and a Republican, has no more ties with the military or civil services, because of his retirement. On his free time he likes to go to the shooting range and he enjoys cutting wood. He fought in WWII and was apart of the U.S. Navy during 1944-1946, stationed in the South Pacific on the 7th fleet.
Why did you join the Navy?
Our country was in war and I was almost 18 and I wanted to do my part.
How did you join before you were 18?
My parents signed a form, because I was about to turn 18 in a few days.
After joining where were you sent and what did you do to train?
Idaho, there was a naval training base back then and that is where I got my boot camp training. We had to march, do calisthenics, learn
simafor, flags, tied knots, and I had to learn to do things to be on a ship and how to shoot a rifle and pistol.
How long was basic training? Was it hard?
It was about two months I guess it was hard because we had a marine as our company commander.
How did you feel about WWII?
I didn't mind going there, their was alot of guys in alot worse conditions than me. In the army in Germany and the South Pacific so I wanted to do my part and I did.
FDR was the president at the time, did you agree with how he was handling the war?
Roosevelt was in then and I thought the war was handled alright, there was not much he could do it was people on in the field, they were the ones doing it. I didn't like Roosevelt, never did, he knew that the Japanese were going to hit Pearl Harbor and he let it happen. Rather than warn the people down there he sank alot of ships and killed alot of people. I did not like him especially because of that he could of warned them and they could have been better prepared to take care of it when it happened. Instead of having it stunned on them just because he wanted to start a war and use it for politics or something. Thats about it.
How did you feel about
D-Day when it happened and where were you?
It happened December 7, 1941. I was in school still, just a young kid about the age of 15.
How did you feel about
Pearl Harbor? How did it affect you and the men you fought with?
Were you married or dating anyone during the war? How did the war affect your relationship if any?
What did you do onboard the ship on a normal day from morning to night?
Were you very close with all the men aboard the ship?
Describe a hectic day aboard the ship
You were on the USS Shields right?
On your time off the ship, where did you go and what did you do?
Were you a part of any major battles?
No, we got in the end of it we were in
Borneo a spot down where Japanese fought the Australians. They called us to help them by bombarding the Japanese, so we did for a few hours. We went ashore and picked up two Australians and they came out to our ship and working by radio they kept talkin to their commanders in battle. We bombarded where they said to and we were just helping supply the winning force, but we didn't win it for them. We just supplied fire power to help them out. They did win, but we would not count that as a battle for us it was the Australians.-
Did you have planes on your ship?
Did mother nature ever effect you or the ship?
How did you find out about the end of the war?
Did you know about
Nagasaki and Hiroshima immediately?
How did you feel when you arrived home?
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It made me mad that the Japanese would sneak over there like that and Ughh.. thats about it. I was very fortunate, because I got out of boot camp onto a destroyer. I was assigned to a bran new destroyer in Bremerton, Washington. We picked up the ship, commisioned it, led a shade down cruise, and then went to the South Pacific. We went through Pearl Harbor, so I saw it right after it happened, that made me all the madder.
Kinda Sorta had a girlfriend but broke up with her, I was just a young kid of 18 years. I wasn't really into girls at the time, more interested in my ship.
Keep the ship up, did alot of scrapping paint to prevent rust and then repainting the ship. We spent sometime down at the mess hall studying different types of Japanese aircrafts so we knew them when we spotted them. We practiced our guns, I was on one that fired a projectile and had a separate powder and the powder had to be put in and then the projectile had to be put in, it was set to how far and when it would burst. We had to practice loading and shooting it, all different things that operated the gun. I was a signalman striker for a while and I went on a voyage. I had to learn semaphore and morris code for flashing lights.
no as a matter of fact I didn't know them all very well, I knew the ones in my gun corp and the ones in my division. I was in the first division up in the bow of the ship and I knew them all wel. I knew alot of the others,but not very well. I wasn't that close to them, the other guys in my division we were all buddies, we were always together.
When I was asleep and the damn generals quarters went off other words we were scrambled to our battle postitions on the ship like one time we were in a convoy and our skipper was a leader and commander of the destroyer squadrin this protects the ship. Well we got a signal on the radar that there were subs trailing us, so we went way ahead and then went around went up behind the sub and sank it. One subs nose came up to the surface and then back down, I still remember it.
USS Shields PP596, Bran new destroyer. I was very fortunate to get it because it was interesting and exciting, not like being on a transport ship or a big battle ship or something, this was really flashy.
When we were in port we were in China, we would go ashore and chase around (laughs)
(Laughs) Our ship was about 300ft long, a destroyer was fast and long only 50ft wide if that much. No room for planes of any kind on it we had five big guns, three 40mm anti-aircraft guns,four 20mm anti-aircraft guns, two torpido mounts each filled with five torpidos, four K guns doing depth charges, we had two on each side. They called us a floating amunition domes, but ti was very interesting and I was excited, I felt very lucky to be aboard, but wouldn't of been if one of the Japanese subs would of hit us.
A
typhoon split a sem on the bow and all the guys in the first division had to be moved out into empty bunks. In the "war boys" this is what they called the blacks, because they could not be on the ship as crew they could only fight, well their quarters had some open bunks and they asked me if I wanted to sleep in there and I said "hell yes" I didn't care. After we got out of the typhoon we went to dry dock to fix the ship.
We got it over the radio, that is how we recieved the news I was happy, because I was going home.
We got news from somebody we would listen to from Japan a women on the radio who would blab the news to try and upset the troops. Her name was
Tokyo Rose, they would tell stories about capturing americans and turning tatoos into lampshades. I don't know if it was true or not, they would play it all over the ship.
My home was still
South Bend, Washington. I was real real happy, I never got too much to do on a destroyer, but it was great to be home.
Doing this interview I have learned more things about my grandpa and what he had to go through before he even turned
my age. I never knew that my granpda was only in the navy for two years, that he joined at 17 or that you could do that. I also
learned how much he loved what he did and what he had to do while on the boat which was really interesting to me. Before starting my interview I thought that he would have seen more action out on the ocean, but in reality he was more safe than others on land or in the air. I did not think there were any drawbacks to this interview. I was able to spend time with my grandpa and
learn more about his past which was really cool. The interview process is more effective than reading or seeing dmovies, because they actually lived through it and you feel
closer to the subject since you are closer to them.
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More infrormation on Pearl Harbor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Harbor (2005).
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Tokyo Rose
More infrormation on Tokyo Rose.
http://forejustice.org/wc/tr/tokyo_rose_040503.htm (2005).