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makssir LED CONFIDENTIAL

Nabrative by: Fred W. Bottomer, Chief Photographer, USNR Recorded: 10 Sept. 1945
USS CHANDELEuR, AV10 Film No: 441
Rough Transcript: Arienta,
Y 2/c, 22 Oct. 1945

Lt. 'Porter: RUM Dre

This is Lieutenant Porter. We are in the Office of Naval Records and

Library on 10 September 1945. Chief Phtographer Fred W. Bottomer, USNR, will

talk this morning aboOt his experiences in the Pacific War.

Mr. Bottomer where were yop at the time of Pearl Harbor?

Bottomer:

I was still in a civilian capacity at that time. I was working fax

the Cleveland Press and Acme Newspicture Association. I came in the Navy some time

in April of '42 and really started my Naval career when I was assigned aboard the

USS CHAND Di II' a seaplane tender. I put the ship into commission in San Francisco

on or about the 19th of November the same year. Theat's really when my Naval career

started.

I still think the CHANDELEDR had the finest, largest and best equipped

photolab in the fleet even to this day. Other pho#ographers that have been in the

Navy for a good number of years have always come aboard, we're proud to have them,

and they've always left with the idea they'd like to be the chief photographer aboard
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there. They've never seen anything like it.

We went to sea and got a few scares and saw our first submarine just off

of Pearl Harbor. The boys there were pretty good shots, they had all been in the

their
Navy for some length of time, and ticilybui Naval background, sharpshooters, and so

forth, really came in handy. They spraddled the periscope first shots out of the

which was
bag, and we got full steam ahead and left the rest of the job to the CATALINAVPBYs

that dropped depth charges and it was goodbye for the Zap submarine.

Then later on we made a trip up to Espiritu Santo and went up to Guadal-

canal and I don't recall the time but I was later transferred to en Army-Navy Crash

1,4
Intelligence Unit whose x job was to survey and plamx photograph and make complete

comprehensive reports on all enemy equipment especially aircraft.

L
Working for this

that
Crash Intelligence Unit was something out of the ordinary, something that I/hadn't

anticipated after being aboard ship, flying, flying on patrols 13-14 hours a day,

and getting transferred and living in the u jungles and developing gimxImmx pictures

under adverse weather conditions and all this and that sort of thing and x one would

have to climb on his belly to get a photograph and instrument panels and planes were

shot gnat up by our planes, and so forth, and was down in the jungles and crawling
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through Jap infested territory that was pluto and blood up to your knees and had

been there for months before we could get into it was far more greater experience

than I ever guest anticipated when I left the ship. I knew it wasgoing to be

very pleasant but it was just something so unusual and having to develop and try and

get fresh water was another problem for developing pictures and having to use 250 to

a thousand gallons a day was really a problem.

I
Working with the natives was another interesting feature of this photograp hie!

unit, you might say. Our Naval Combat Intelligence Unit would inform us that a

pilot on a mission just coming back from Rabaul or Truk had shot down a Jap plane and

they didn't know what it was but they saw it go down on a certain island like the

Island of Kolombangara or Choiseul Island or some of those places. Some of these

places were still Jap infested. There was as many as 4,000 Taps on the Island of

Choiseul and it was our duty to go over there, first of all to fly over and see

if we could find the exact location, the Navy Combat Air Intelligence would inform

us and give us a pretty good direction as to where this plane came down,x on what

corner of the island, and so forth. We'd go over and make a pin point spot with

either a camera and figure cut how many days it would take us to get back up in this
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island, how many men and manpower and manpower hours it used, kka and food consumed,

and so forth and water. It was quite a problem to take six men so we had to cut

as many as
it down sometimes to/three or four men and because of our food and water supplies

and carrying everything with us besides our instruments to hack through the jungles

and carbines and pistolsount it was necessary to protect you in order to get your

surveys and get back to your unit safe. On this one island, Choiseul, we had swveral

planes down and we man went up there, we tried to get in, we were afraid to inform

that
Naval Intelligence/we were going which we were accustomed to doing because they said

there planes
tint were 4,000 Taps on the island. And we knew that some of these Alai xx down there
in
from our Alamo photogfaphic observations int the island several days before were a

never
new type of plane that we had/seen before. Our unit commander was Lieutenant Hall

wUo was most interested Ix and overanxious in getting in there and getting those

planes out and thought we could do it with a reasonable risk of t life. So,

we got a dumbo boat one evening and took off from the Island of Aunda and we had

five men in our party and went over and kat landed on the Island of Choiseul and

we got in there by a dumbo boat which is a PBY which can carry several passengers

it
and it's also a dukw matt can land on water and the natives, it had all been
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arranged previously by the coast watchers and the natives of a certain selected

tribe of natives that we could trust. They'd come out in boats, buried our men in

the bottom, =covered them up with twiggs and palm leaves and some of us came in in

the dark and before sunrise that morning and started to work on these Japanese air-

craft just as fast as we could and got out with Ommtx pictures. Well the boat,

of course, the PBY had left us there stranded and that evening we slept under the

native's huts and later on we were running short of cigarettes and one thing or another

wt After the fifth or sixth day they brought us in some..another dumbo boats came

I
in and brought us in some food, water and cigarettes. And as the natives were leav-

over on
ing this dumbo boats and coming USD the beach, some Jap machine gunners in a nest

buried, the natives thousht they had to make friends with them, they opened up

with their machine guns and killed three of them. The natives immediately turned

this 26 passenger boat, it was a long narrow thing hollowed out of a log, they call

it a war canoe. It took them about three years to built it and they turned this

boat upside down and started swimming against the tide, lialimmkitt as though they

were drifting out at sea, the Iaps no doubt thought they had killed all of them

when they opened up. They were pretty foxey and one of our men who was making some
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pictures of the planes, a fellow by the name of Mike Freedman had heard the shots

fired and he couldn't find a descent place to hide so he hid inside one of the planes.

And later on some of the Japs came down and they looked over this plane and they

disappeared and everything seemed to be going along pretty good. And we went around

went down to the beach with some of the n tives and they showed us some more planes

and we found some very unusual specimens that time.

Later on some boys were down, there was four of them down on the beach

sawing some parts off trying to remove.a plane so we could get it back to the xx

Island Choiseul and have it shipped back to the United States for further study.

While these men were there they saw a plane flying overhead and they started waving

at it and the pilot figures,well there's some boys down there stranded, there's a

couple of planes crashed up maybe they're survivors. where's four of them. So

he comes down for a landing thinking he's going to make a rescue. So they blew

a raft up,one of these rubber rafts and they sent in a couple of men armed with

guns, they had no doubt seen Iaps from the air,too, running and scrabbling think-

ing they might drop a couple of bombs, etc. and they had come down. They came over\

to the beach and the boys got all excited and they started waving them back. They `;\

told them not to g come in mid they'd give their position away and so forth. Any
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how they came in and they made same contact and then they went back and tic they told

their pilot and they took off. Well from that time on it was really bogie woe as

the natives would call it, give us quite a scare. For several days we kept out of

sight and hid under the natives huts, slept under their huts, and so forth. And we

always had to break camp by daylight in the morning, hide all evidence that we might

have slept there, the Japs might come along and find of our American spoons with

USA on it or USN and it would have been a sure dead giveaway. So we had to keep

things covered.up quite a bit. Well anyhow they went back and there was an orter

issued when they got back saying that when the men going out on these missions in the

future would contact Naval Intelligence and tt inform them where they're going and

so on and so forth so they can eliminate just this sort of a thing that had happened.

- this plane coming down, mak setting down on the water, the risk of the plane and

Of course
the men in it and so forth. Akactirsi they were absolutely right, we agreed with them.

But we wore a little overanxious in getting the planes out of the jungles and getting

them back before anybody else got them.

Our greatest problem heretofore had been with the firstmen on the \
They
the
islands were usually/Marines tATAFwere great souvenir seekers and you couldn't blame \-

max wasn't much out there in the jungle

them. They were looking for boddie. Ther e
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to fight for because you very seldom saw in fact you never saw a white woman.

I hadn't seen mine for 26 months. You had to do something to keep going and these

souvenirs were so valuable to our government for little reasons for instance the

production numbers on an airplane motor, production number on the wings, and so forth,

of the plane and to find unusual armament anyt#ing pertaining to aircraft was so

unusual, was such a high beneficial factor to our gminxxmant government at the time

to know what the saps were doing.and their changes were so radical,mxixthey could

do things so quickly, change the Wing tips and the torque of a plane so radically.

i,4 It was the design of their ships and the way kki they were made and they had excelle nt

/insulation and their rivets were all flathoaded givdng them a lighter plane and a
A
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!greater lift and so forth. Well, we also not only learned the production but we

learned who the manufacturers of these planes were. We found out who made the wire

who installed the wire, who made the tail surfaces end who made the wings and who

made the motors and even American names appeared on tires and generators and things

of that sort. Vie were most interested in finding out who these people were, who

were making these parts so that when we cam to bomb Tokyo we'd know who to bomb,

not the civilian population but from the standpoint of putting them out of productic n.

I
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That was one of the reasons why we had to get in there first-and-get them before the

Marines went in and got them.

We finally got out of this island some way or other and we brought several

planes, there wmt were thousands of souvelnirs to be brought back. We were primarily

interested at this time in bringing out all the name plates and that sort of a thing

for the reasons that I've just stated. We xx returned to the Island or, which was

our home base of Munda, and started assorting these things out and we had seven

Japanese interpreters to take these things and they'd line them up and they'd draw

the characters on a long sheet'of paper and right opposite these characters in

English they would tell what they were, the numerals, the manufacturers name and we

would keep a copy in our files and then we'd also get a copy back to the States as

rapidly as we possibly could by planes and that sort of thing because our government

wanted to know Nitat not only what we were doing but what the Ippanese were doing and

that's what we were assigned out there for. So when they read these reports over

we told them the typo of planes and some unusual factors and we'd send them some

photographs, they said, "Gosh, t we'd like to have that plane." They sent us..this

was all sent to us in secret code. We decoded the message and we got a seven-hands
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working party and with the proper arrangerients through our Intelligence officers

and so forth we had made a little mission back to this island again to get out one

of these planes, It was called a Judy. And it was OUT understanding it was one of

the first ones of its kind that was ever taken in practically one piece. a little

minor injuries that kapigamA happened when it crashed on the beach. So, we went in

and contacted the natives and we made friends with them. voe cave them razor blades

and calico that our government had furnished us and cigarettes, of course they

really loved, and tobacco., * and a little canned food that we went without because

in mxx order to make friends with these natives, well anyhow they made a ImAxximx

lingto. It's a form of a raft and we had taken the wings off very carefully, then

that would
we put all t.A.s thing on this raft these natives had made x ftxxut have probably

taken us weeks and we had anticipated getting this thing out of there in about three

or four days. Well we got 60 natives here and there. It went all over the island

the fling passed the word to t e underground grapevine methods and they got the

natives down and they found out that we were giving them razor blades and calico

and something unusual, sometl,ing that they could ruse for the little work that

they had done for us. Well we got to the point where we had to cut it down a
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little bit. Instead of giving them a handful of razor blades, we hrd to ration

them out to one razor km blade. Then we had IN some foorl'and they all seemed to

want rice. The -laps seemed to have treated them pretty good with rice occasionally.

And they seemed to have a great taste for rice. One of the reasons for it was that

rice could keep in most any state. They could get bugs and things in it and it

wouldn't hurt it. They aux could boil it and skim it and eat it. Well it seems

we didn't bring enough rice with us and we promised them we'd bring back some more

rice with us the next time we came. They wore thrilled. So wehad in our previous

arrangements figured we knew we were going to get this plane out of there and so

forth and we had an LST come in one afternoon about 4 o'clock and we saw them coming.

I'Ve didn't want to waste any time because we knew the answers if we ever got caught.

Well this LST had received orders that they were to come in there and be there at

4 o'clock and they weren't to take out because they couldn't get back without getting

back at
caught some way or ether until daylight they couldn't get through Ix the nets to

Munda. So their plans, we didn't know anytUing about, but we knew that they were

to come in around 4 o'clock and we saw them coming and we k started out and we

had a pretty tough beachhead to make. It was n to get over with this Judy, this
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plane we had taken out and several other parts of other planes' armw.ent. For

instance, .20mm cans we had found on some planes that loaded this raft down quite a

bit. It m took all of these 60 natives to get us over this beachhead. This beachhead

consisted of rough coral bottom and thewaves, breakers, were pretty high and we tried

to make it at low tide but it was, our time tables were off a little bit. So anyhow

we saw them coining in and this LST couldn't get over this reef. Well we had to get

over the reef to get out a little deeper water and tkixxx these natives floated it

over and did a magnificent job. They never lost even a part of the wing even though

it looked kiik like it was going to slide off. They got us out to the LST and came

aboard. The boys all had some hot food for a change and they had, it wasn't steaks

but it was a tasty as steaks, for supper and so forth and later on at evening right

after dark, we were up there talking and sitting around on the deck of this LST

andmost of the boys on the LST were so interested in our booty that we found that they

were asking questions. It sure kept us busy. When all of a sudden we had a

call at general quarters and it seemed one of the lookouts had spotted a submarine

breaking the surface and all of a sudden there was all kinds of signal lights going

on all over the beach, red, green and white and blue lights.-:Trhen this submar*e
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started signaling back. Well, sod, there was nothing we could do then but just

shake our knees and stand by. We had only two .20mm guns aximput against probably

a five-inch gun that this submarine had. The gun was never pointed at us however.

No one during observation saw it but there were several questions from men who

someWhat became panic stricken but yet in a very few minutes they had perfect control

of themselves. Amax' They were crying, "Well, why don't we get underway.?" "Why

don't they start the motors?" )21Qty "Why don't we shoot at them?" "Why don't we

get them before they hit us?" Well, the skipper of this LST was a pretty smart

operator. He had been in the Navy for some time and he sure remembered his three Cs.

to be cool, calm and collected at all times and he sure was. He mum never spoke

to noone and he manned his ship in a captain's manner. Any how if we had started up

our motors they might have heard us. They may not have ever seen us. And on the

other hand we couldn't see how they could help but see us. But anyhow we had them

puzzled. They didn't know what to do so they surfaced there for 20 minutes or

more and then they took off and submerged. That was the last we saw of ikrx it.

By gosh we were mighty thankful. We didn't get underway until we got our escorts

the next morning. Three planes flew ove2head and we saw them coming and we started
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the motors and got underway and returned to our base which ac was about 90 to 100 miles

away which was our home port again.

We had had several reports of a plane being dowbron-an island around Kolom-

bangers. Several of the officers had flown and tried to find the plane from the air

with no success for four or five days. Finally it dawned on me that they ought to

yry and contact tiis native who said he saw this plane go down. It seemed that our

men were over on an island working on a plane and the natives had sneaked in and out

of the junglesand spotted them and came up and made friends with them and they thought

it was funny that this plane was all smashed up and caught afire Men in the jungles

and they were burying the bodies of the five men on this big Betty which was a big

bomber, two motored bomber, a Tap plane, when the natives came up on them and they

told them there was aplane on this island but the men had noir px maps with them and

so forth and they didn't know just where this plane was but they had some idea it was

20 miles or 30 miles or so up the island and they told them it was in the water near

the beach. That was the nearest they xmx could get. So I was assigned to take a

party and go out am and see if I could find this plane. Instead of flying over and

trying to locate it I went over and contacted the native who said he saw this plane
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go down. There A happened to be two of them which was all the better and we got an

LCV and went over to the Island of Kolombangara where they had been working on a

farm and we were underway for about two hours and I pulled out a map and started

looking at this map and the native reached over my head and pointed where it was

and I thought, gosh, that's way up yet, that's about 30 some miles up. Well we

finally reached the point where it was getting dark and 1 thought we'd never get

back tonight and we've got to be inside the nets before dark so we won't monkey

around, we'll find it quickly and get back. So we thought we hrd located it and

we went up on the island and tried to locate something to mark it such as a buoy.

And the Japanese had a m lot of cans and one thing or other laying around that they

had been using. Of course our boys had bombed them out of these places and went up

and found a can and just about ready to take it out and it had a hole in it where

they iat had punctured a lot of holes in their cans,imalkA oil and gas that they left.\

never
They minx leave anything. So one of thenatives came down and found a can. He

coudn't find a for it. We made a plug for it. We got some Japanese

wire that had been laying around and got Nome heavy weights and parts that we had of

an old motor and one othing or other and we went out and we tried to locate it to the
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thought
maxim nearest of our ability and/that we had found it and thought well the thing

to do is come back in a couple of days later with divers and equipment to haul this

plane out. They swore that there was a plane down there. Of course we were still

taking a chance. We Mill couldn't see it, the water was a little dirty and the tide

was high and she was kicking up on the beach and so forth so we put this oil drum out

there and floated here away and we got a piece of calico and tied it on the branch of

'
41ad
a tree to make a landing when we came in to find the exact location and so forth. Sm

we shoved off agaix and back to our home port again on Munda.

In a few days we got our organization table set up and we started out and

we went aboard the DIXIE and borrowed one of their.divers and the captain was well

pleased to let us have this diver and gear and so forth and we went ors with a diver

' and we went out on a flat this time, a Large barge, and we had a derick on it. It

belonged to the net tenders. The men had all arrangements made and had food and

about
everything, chow for all men. We had probably/a 12-men working part and we figured

we'd use the natives for therest of our labor. We had calico and food for the

natives and all that sort of thing. It was all looked out for the organization

table what we were going to do and how we were going to go about it.
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Well, we finally got up to this Hamberri Cove and the calico that was left

up in the tree for a marking had disappeared. The natives, no doubt, were using it

for a skirt. Then getting back to trying to locate this thing, why, we couldn't tim

find it our buoy had disappeared. So we couldn't locate this buoy that we made out

of this old oil drum anywheres. It must have broke loose in the storm or in the

high tide some where mt or other. The natives came out on the beach, saw us, they

immix hauled our gigs around and so forth. They hollored at us, and shouted and

pointed over this way. We kept looking, we couln't see anyth:ng but a bunch of

cocoanuts floating on the water. Well we passed cocoanuts flhating on the water

all the way up. We thought just another cocoanut. Finally one of the natives waded

in and he swam out there and he said, he pointed to us that they had made their own

buoy out of cocoanuts. They had sliced off part of a whole tree andthrew it in there

and cocoanuts will float. Their primitive style is alright.

said ha said,
That diver went down and sure enough he came up and he stmt,"Sayithat

plane is all in one piece", he said. "Say," he said, "the instrument board there

is almost he MiKil said. "It's dark, a little dark down there. It's

only about 15 fathoms of water but he said, "It's all illuminated. Do you suppose \
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they've got a battery in there working all this time?" Of course, it was their

illuminous dial which was very bright. In fact, our pilots thought it was too bright.

It hurt their eyes after a time especially flying at night.

So we proceeded pulling this plane aboard. Va had to be very direful we

didn't pull it apart. So they hooked on to the engine and put a line aft to midship

and pulled her aboard our barge. Vie pulled this Jap plane back with us. vQell it

was a Hemp, one of the it latest ones that the Zaps ever made. It also I had a

landing gear attachment on the tail yhich proved to us that it xamx came off of a

Jap carrier. And the fact that it had only been down a month or a little over a

month the natives said came down on the tax last moon and the next moon up was 28

there
days or so, it verified that in that vicinity kkatam had been a Yap carrier which

was sometiling that our Intelligence Wanted to know. All these little verifications

mean an awful lot to people who nre out there working trying to know where the Tap

fleet is hiding and so forth and what they've got. We also started surveying the

plane immediately and we found that it had some new type of weapons on there. It

had two .20mm cannons in the wings. Instead of having tkm Just 60 or 70 rounds of

ammunition in the clip, they had several hundred, in fact !d say safely around 3,000
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rounds of ammunition very carefully laid in the wings in a belt form and it was very

cleverly done. It also had two synchronous guns in the cockpit and one aft in the

fairly
tail which heretofore had never been found. Well, it was a ur good find.

Gettinc back to our base with this plane, it took us a little more time

pulling it up to be careful than lie anticipated. First of all, we had several hundred

mf gallons of fresh water aboard this flap that we had. tind as soon as we got her

up on deck we started throwing water by the buckets and scrubing the plane down.

It was the first fifteen minutes, it was our understanding, that a plane comes out

of salt water then it starts to corode. Of course the plane did have a few barnacles

on it and we scrubbed it off as nearest as we could. But the instrument panel vas

so intact that it seemed that this pilot, and we also found out what brought this

plane down, that one little .50 caliber bullet had gone through his oil tank and it

had drained his oil tank in the motor andhe couldn't get any supply of oil and he

came down. The motor and everything was just perfect. A perfect find. So we

cleaned her down and scrubbed hare and started working on her making photographs,

and so forth, and we had good light so we could have all our reports ready to go out

when we got back. It had taken us about six hours, seven hours to get back. Well

it was way after dark when we got back and we were smart enough-to take ourraincoast
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and slickers and cover up the rondells the Tap insignia for our own planes may have

seen this barge out there and they may have come down, which is another experience

we had one time, would probably have shot us up thinking we were a kmx bunch of

saps up there,and maybe come down and machined gunned us so we covered it all up.

And we couldn't get throUgh the nets. We were about three or four miles out and

the signal lights started challenging us sending A A AA Nagy challenging signal

and they wanted our identification. All we had was a m little Signal Corps flashlight

aboard and I signaled back to them,Net tenders Net tender: And they evidently didn't

get it because the thing had to be focusted right on the beam so we decided to have

shoulder
some man lean over and hold this hon his simemitxand they boosted me up on top of the

crane where they could see us and started flashing out, Netlander! Net tenders

And finally they picked it up they gave us, "Roger" and got God, what a relief that

was. Well we couldn't seem to get the nets open it was pitch dark. I mean it was

pitch dark. Finally they kept flashing Attention! Attentions and we got some fell*
,\N

over on the net barge, the net, we assumed was several hundred feet to our port side

and it was right in front xx of us. All of a sudden a fellow flashed a light and

challenged us and we hollored Net tender and reversed the motors and pulled out and
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we almost tore through him. And we sure got out of there in a hurry and backed up

and we asked him to put mat a lantern out so we could see where we were going. Cf

course, this was against all regulations before anybody could ever get through the

netathey have to have permission from the security catch and so on and the officer

there was no
of the deck the man who was in charge, practically the apt ain of the bese t/break

in those regulations. Well we told him we were a net barge and we had

to get in. They figured maybe the net broke loose and the fact that we had a net

barge, they saw us and they put a light on us and they let us through. We got in,

made our surveys on the plane and made our reports, made a pretty nice job on that

plane. Well that was the end of that mission.

While up at this Knimmk Hamberri Cove, it's spelled H-A-M-B-E-R-R-I Cave.

up there
It's on the &Island of Kolombangara. It's in the New Georgia Group. While we were /

working and getting this p1iins out the natives that came out of their habitants some

of them any said they lived way up in the mountainsand pointed to these huge mountains

up in the vicinity and said that their wived were up there. We couldn't understand

why they were XVI all men around there and no women. They said the Japs ran them up

in the hills. They call them the hills. Anyhow they were a -11ttle nervous at first.
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to tell us whore their wives were and so forth. They didn't understand us. Well,

we made friends and we paid them off in calico again and tobacco and they just were

thrilled about it. We gave them a few clothing, shoes that they never wore before but

they wanted them and to make them happy We gave them to them for the work they were

doing inhelping us find and get this plane aboard this barge.

Well the Chief came over and wanted to take me over on the beach and while

the men were working the net tenders were working trying to pull the plane aboard,

I disappeared and went over the beach with him, the Nita Chief of the tribe and

just can't recall his name at the present time and he took us over on the beach

us
and he showed/some holes that wore dug as Imp deep as 20 to 30 feet. And he said

those were bombs. He said px planes, our planes, great big planes came over and

flying, he says, they drop these bombs to drop the laps out and he showed us where

the Japs were staying. They had gone in and taken the natives floors and part of

their roofs off and built their own huts way back in the woods so they could be

no doubt
camouflaged from the air. Evidently our p fliers/had seen.them moving around down

there and they came down to get them to straf them and they let their thousand pound 4141

bombs go. We found out from the sine Disposal Officers and Bomb Disposal Officers

that they didn't have enough altitude to harm these huge one thousand pound bombs
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CONFIDEN t
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and they just went down. They weren't duds, they were still alive. They had instru-

ments to test them. So we went on and went around and saw these bombs laying here

and gk there and the big holes and that's why the natives weren't living here. They

took us over and showed us how the Yaps hrd ripped up their decks and their roofs and

everything and tore them apart and tried to make their homes. So we promised them

we'd do something for them and see what we could do. So when I got back to klunda

I contacted Ensign Rathbone and Lieutenant Nelson. They were Mine Disposal and

Bomb Disposal Officers. I told them the story about it and gee they were more than

pleased. I told them it would make a nice fishing trip for them to go up and throw

a line over the side and catch some baracooda and of course ixknaix I heard these

stories. Te were so busy doing things we never had a chance to do it. So on our

way back the next day we got a much faster boat to go up there and cut off the time,

make it in one day and they had some instruments aboard and we took a picket boat

and we went up. We knew that there were some more findings as ml much as Jep

generators and so forth and some barges that might get some new things out of it, it

wasn't a wasted mission anyhow and it was a little rest period on the way up. So

we took advantage of it and we found that these live bombs were alive, with their
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CONFIDENTIAL

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instruments. We set off several of them and gee, the natives- all scrammed. e

couldn't find a native after the first one went off any place. They h-d all gone to

the mountains and told their wives about it. When we had set off about a dozen or

more and some of them we told them we tried to get one of them to tell him to bury them

so then finally we stopped blowing them up and we went out in the boat and went

across the bay. Finally we saw one of the boys drifting down very casually and raising

his arms and waving a piece of calico and he put it around lit his shoulders and then

he's wave it again and he'd hollored at us and we couldn't understand a word that

he was saying. And we got ahold of him and wanted to know whatit was all about.

We thought maybe he spotted some Japs and one thing or other. Gosh he didn't want

us to shoot any more, if there was any more. And he found another one buried by a

tree way up in the mountains. Well we told them they could all come back and live

They were alXxxIx alright how all they have to do is fill up these holes with water

to
and when the water disappeardd/fill them up with sand with dirt and they would be

secure, they'd be alright. So oh he was so happy.

When we were on our first mission $ up there we tried to get souvenirs.

We asked them if they Max had any Japanese helmets or rifles or anything.
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"Oh, no! Nothing like that. Jap say bury everything. They take everything

with them." So score more natives came down. Gosh they were coming down by

the groves, coming from all over and they were bringing all kinds of souvenirs,

beads and s Jap bayonets and guns and flags. Gosh they just loaded the boat

up. They brought pineapples and bananas and we had wonderful food. We didn't

want to take anything away from them especially in abundance especially food

because they didn't have much of it. Their seasons are so short. They brought

us even grapefruit. That was really a treat, to lay out there for a couple

of years to get some grapefruit and bananas. Of course bananas are in their

seasons but they were mighty tasty that day. So they just made the biggest

fuss over us anethey were so pleased and happy to think that we had come out

lite
and treated them so wonder that they could go back and tin like they did before

the Saps had taken over the island.

And finally we returned to our base in Munda.

END
 DECLASSIFIED AUTHORITY - NW 54487

Narrator: Bottomer, Fred VI., Chief Photographer -Film No.

U.S.N.R.
TopicPhotograpnic Intelligence,
New Georgia Campaign.
Date of Action Summer of 1943 Classification: Secret
Date of Recording: 10 Sept. 1945 Recording taken by.: Lt. Porter, Arienta, Y2c

Track Nos. Digest of contents of RecordinL. Include naerl

persons, ships, and stations.

Early war experiences - assigned to ANCIsPA. ACS would report Jap

downed. Some in Jap territory. would fly over location. Plan land
trip to area. Three or four men would make trip. On Choiseul nad
several planes down. Reported 4,000 Japs on island.

New Jap plane. Got Dumbo boat)left Munda witn five men. Natives
came out in boats. Got pictures of Jap plane. Slept under natives'
huts. Got food in second Dumbo boat. Japs killed three natives
with machine guns. Natives upset own boat. Took to water - U. S.
photographer hid in plane. U. b. plane lands, came to beach. waved
tnem back. Came in anyhow, gave position away. Broke camp eacn
morning.

Aviators ordered to contact ONI to avoid similar incidents. Marines

got souvenirs. Some valuable, such as production number on plane
motor. Changed designs quickly. Learned manufacturers of planes.
U. S. names on tires and generators. would knowmno to bomb in Japan.
Brought out name plates.

Got back to 2Aunda. Had seven Jap interpreters. U. S. would ask for
plane after seeing pictures. went back for Judy. Gave natives razor
blades, canned food, tobacco, calico, etc. Made lean-to in form of
raft. Took wings off. Got 60 natives. Had to ration natives - all
wanted rice. Promised more.

Had LST come in - tough beachhead. Loaded raft down. Floated raft
over reef. Had hot food for change. Suddenly nad G(.2. Sub blke
surface. Had only two 20 mn gun. LST skipper kept calm. Twenty
minutes later sub left. Left after plane cover appeared.

Had reports of plane downed on Kolombangara. Had idea to contact

native who saw plane downed. Told in water near the beacn. Native
pointed out position on map. Used Jap drum for buoy. Used Jap wire
and old motor parts. Put calico on tree to mark spot. Got diver
from the DIXIE. went up on barge, 12-hand working party. Got up
in cove; calico had disappeared, also buoy. Natives pointed to cocoa-
nut. They had made own buoy of part of cocoanut tree.

Plane had intact dial panel. Pulled plane aboard. It was a Hamp.
Had tail hook. Meant Jap carrier was witnin 150 miles in 26 days.
Good dope on Jap fleet. Plane had new type weapons. Cleaned up plane
on way back. One .5U calibre bullet had gone tnrough oil tank.
Covered up Jap insignia to prevent being snot up by U.S. planes.
 DECLASSIFIED AUTHORITY - NW 54487

Challenged at net. Finally passed. ahile at Hamberri Cove,

Kolombangara, natives said wives were up in hills because of
Japs. aent over on beach with Chiel: to see holes caused by
bombs, not exploded. Cause for natives not being there. Japs
took their huts.

Got bomb disposal officers. bent up in picket boat. Set off

several bombs. Natives disappeared. One returned, told area
safe. First asked for souvenirs. Many natives then came back
frith many Jap souvenirs, also grapefruit, bananas, etc.

Outlined by Lt. Porter.