d9ef8142-9409-4269-ba96-02fe707134fd

Matthews, Carl_WAPA-246_WAPA 4170_OralHist_Video.mp4

Carl W. Matthews Jr. was born on August 14, 1924 in Carson County, Texas. His family lived there a couple years and moved to Dawson, Texas. His dad, Carl Sr. was a merchant. Carl was married, his wife passed away and he has two sons and four grandchildren. Carl joined the Marine Corps on Augusts 12th 1941 at 17 years of age. He joined to get away from the small Texas town during the Depression. Carl found basic training exciting and he liked having three meals a day. His first assignment was to B Company, 8th Marines. He heard that Pearl Harbor was attacked when he was in the barracks at Camp Elliot, California. They left January the 6th, 1942, the first contingent of troops to leave the United States and went to Pago Pago, Samoa and arrived there January the 20th. Carl stayed in Samoa until August and became very seriously ill and was sent back to the States. When he was better, he went to work in Base Headquarters Company as a clerk typist until his weight got up again and then went to combat training school at Camp Elliot and then reassigned to the 4th Marine Division. Carl met James Standalier [sp?] Jr. from Hoskins, North Carolina who had gotten out of OCS in Quantico and came directly to Camp Pendleton. Carl was already in G Company and James took over command of the 2nd platoon and Carl became his runner. Carl felt honored to have this position of helping out his lieutenant, he had great respect for him. Carl’s company left San Diego and hit the Marshall Islands first. This battle only lasted eight hours. Afterwards they went back to Hawaii and trained for a number of months and then loaded onto the LSTs and moved for a time over to Pearl Harbor. Carl recalls the LST as being very crowded. He spent time playing the fiddle with a friend in the lower part of the ship with his new buddies. The trip was about 14 days to Saipan. The night before going to the beach on Saipan, they played hymns for over an hour on their instruments. After breakfast the next day, got in the amphibious tractors that they had been assigned to. They landed south of the sugar wharf. Several men were killed immediately. They moved to Chalan Kanoa and stayed the first night. The next day they went across the Susupe Swamp up to the hills and stayed the night there. On the second or third day, they were ordered to check out a gun emplacement over on the bay, to the east, Magacini Bay, today it’s called Lao Lao Beach. When they got there they found that it was a dummy emplacement, set there to fool them. After that, they turned north and began to push through what Carl called the “Devil’s backbone”, a string of mountains. Every day somebody in his company got killed. One in particular was a young kid from New York, named was Bob Howard. Carl also recalls the death of another friend, Nightingale who his friend Freebe tried to save. One time they were on a ridge and got hit with artillery which hit the lieutenant and caused Carl to get a concussion which severely affected his memory. On the ridge north of Tanapag, his company was heading down and a machine gun opened up and killed the lieutenant. Carl passed out and woke up eight days later on a hospital ship, the USS Samaritan, which took him to a hospital in New Caledonia where he stayed a month. He was then put on a boat to San Francisco where he stayed three days. From there, Carl went to a San Diego Hospital for another month. He then returned home, got a medical discharge in March of ’45 and went back to high school and finished high school and started at Baylor University, which is where he was when the war ended. Carl was thrilled when the war was over and feels that Saipan was a pivotal battle. The 60th anniversary is Carl’s first time back. He tells of meeting a Japanese man while visiting Tinian and shaking hands with him, he feels no animosity toward anyone. He has spent time in the jungle searching for the place where his friend, the lieutenant, died. Carl also wanted to find some sort of artifacts from the war. Being back was a wonderful experience and many people thanked him for his service. He feels blessed to have survived.

U.S. National Park Service, War in the Pacific National Historical Park

This digital asset is in the public domain. This digital version was made possible through the National Park Service by a grant from the National Park Foundation through generous support from the Mellon Foundation. When using this asset for any purpose, including online, credit 'Courtesy U.S. National Parks'.

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Video

War in the Pacific National Historical Park, Code: WAPA

Guam , Guam
War in the Pacific National Historical Park, Guam , Guam
Latitude: 13.3905000686646, Longitude: 144.654006958008

ICMS (Interior Collection Managment System) : WAPA-00246
NPS Museum Number Catalog : WAPA 4170

War in the Pacific Oral Histories

2025/03/07

T. Stell Newman Visitor Center, Collections room, Safe and Shelf SLF D-01

Public Can View

Rose Manibusan, Jennifer Craig

Organization: American Memorial Park
Role: Chief Interpretation
Address: Micro Beach Road, Garapan, Mp 96950
Email: wapa_interpretation@nps.gov

Saturday, April 5, 2025 12:05:50 AM

Saturday, April 5, 2025 12:05:50 AM

Matthews, Carl_WAPA-246_WAPA 4170_OralHist_Video.mp4

mp4

1012.2 MB

Historic

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