'DAY OF INFAMY': McAlester veteran recalls Pearl Harbor aftermath, Philippines campaign

Dec. 7—McAlester resident Bill Muncy remembers getting his draft notice into the U.S. Army in 1943 while still attending high school in Odessa, Texas.

A senior, Muncy had turned 18, but still had a semester to go before graduating from high school.

Muncy said he could have got a deferment to finish that last semester in January 1943 if he applied for it, but he felt ready to serve his country.

"I was in the ROTC, in high school," Muncy said, referring to the Reserve Officer Training Corp. "I was ready to go ahead with it."

Muncy, who is 98, had been a sophomore in high school during the Dec. 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which drew the United States into World War II.

"Some of my friends were very upset by it," he said.

Like so many of his friends, Muncy felt an urge to go and do his part to defend his nation in the midst of the raging war.

Shortly after he entered the Army, Muncy attended basic training at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, and underwent boat training at Florida before shipping overseas as part of 594th Engineer Boat and and Shore Regiment.

"We spent 28 days and nights on the water without seeing any land," Muncy said.During those four weeks at sea, the Americans were under the constant threat of an enemy attack. The ship transporting the troops had no other ships along to protect it, leaving it up to the ship's commanders to take evasive action designed to thwart any plans of the enemy.

"We zigged and zagged because of Japanese submarines," Muncy said.

Finally, after the four weeks at sea, Muncy and the other U.S. service members reached their destination.

"I landed in New Guinea," he said.

"We were getting ready to invade the Philippines," Muncy said, referring to the planned U.S. campaign to liberate the Philippines from Japanese forces.

While in New Guinea, Muncy and his fellow Americans had the task of putting together boats to be used to transport troops to the Philippine beaches when American troops stormed the shores. Muncy said the long boats had been shipped in two halves, with he engineers assigned the task of welding them together.

When the time for the invasion came, Muncy had the job of driving one of the amphibious assault boats packed with about 20 troops toward the Filipino beach they were prepared to storm. They might have faced heavy gunfire, but the Japanese had already retreated

"Before we invaded, we had battleships that had gunned the whole beach," Muncy said. "The Japanese had pulled back. I don't know how far."

Although they met no resistance during the amphibious landing, that didn't mean the U.S. troops forces were out of danger.

"A Japanese fighter plane strafed the beach a day or two afterwards," Muncy said. "No one happened to be on the beach at the time."

Sometime after that, Muncy recalled standing on the deck of a transport ship when a Japanese kamikaze pilot slammed a plane into a nearby ship as he watched.

"When it hit the ship, I saw big, red flames," Muncy said. Although the American ship had been damaged and Americans were killed and wounded in the attack, the battered ship stayed afloat.

After the U.S. booted the Japanese from the Philippines, Muncy said the troops began talking about what might come next.

"We weren't very far from invading Japan," he said. Although it didn't come form official sources, Muncy said talk among the troops had them preparing for heavy Japanese resistance from both men and women, who would fight with pitchforks if they had no guns.

Muncy still remembers how he first learned the war had ended, when the Japanese finally surrendered in 1945 after the U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on Japan.

"It was from word of mouth around the camp," Muncy said. Of course, the U.S. forces soon heard the official news of the war's end from their commanders.

That didn't mean their military service had ended, however. He and the rest of his outfit was ordered to go to occupied Japan to await transport back to the states.

"The whole company went there," Muncy said.

Muncy spent around three months in Japan. During his time there, he said the Japanese people went around conducting their everyday business as usual, while he and the the troops who were with him conducted theirs.

He took photos of everything from the desolation resulting from the atomic bombs to the beauty of Mount Fuji, which proved to be one of his favorite photographic subjects.

Muncy said he felt no animosity toward the Japanese while stationed in Japan. The way he looked at it, the war was over.

After leaving Japan, Muncy joined other returning troops on a transport ship that landed in Tacoma Washington. He traveled to his parents' farm in Indianola. He eventually met and married his wife, Nolan McManes. He said she already had three children and they had a child together, named Gussie.

Something Muncy still remembers is how he felt back in 1945, when he learned the war had ended.

"It felt pretty good to me," Muncy said.

He finds it more difficult to express his elation at coming back home after the war.

"I can't explain it," Muncy said. "I was glad to get back to America."

Contact James Beaty at jbeaty@mcalesternews.com.