The war started while I was working for the Salt Lake Tribune.

I worked for the Salt Lake Tribune until August 13, 1941 at which time I quit to go to work for the War Department, U. S. Engineering Office. They were the ones that built the Remington Small Arms Plant. I worked as a Junior Checker and Payroll Clerk. I worked with them until February, 1942. At that time I received notice that there was a job opening on merit system for a clerk-typist at the army administration office at Ft. Douglas. Inasmuch as it was a permanent job with a possibility to advance under the merit system, I quit at the Small Arms Plant and went to work at Ft. Douglas. After two months of working under an army sergeant whose's personality clashed with mine, I had all I wanted to take from him and quit. He acted like we were a bunch of privates under his command and became a first class dictator expecting us to take his word as law and not to question his interpretation of merit system regulations or other regulations that he continuously interpreted to suit his own needs. He was unhappy because we were being paid more money and accumulated more leave time than he even though we worked under his supervision and so he took every opportunity to take away our benefits whenever he could.. When I quit, I requested all of the money, and leaved time I had coming under the merit system. It was denied, and I appealed his decision much to his chagrin. The appeals board overrode the sergeants action and he had to pay me all the benefits that I had coming. This set a precedent which he had to follow in administering the merit system regulations in regards to pay and accumulated leave time.

Yes. This all happened after my year at the U.S.A.C. After working at Ft. Douglas, I went to work for the Denver & Rio Grand Railroad until I joined the Marines.

Definitely, because everybody was affected by it. I was twenty-four years of age when I joined the Marines on July 9, 1942.

Yeah. I had to sign up for the draft. I anticipated that I was a prime candidate to be drafted. I was twenty-four years of age, unmarried with no dependents.

I was working for the War Department, U. S. Engineering Division, at the Remington Small Arms Plant which was being constructed at the time.

Yes, I felt like it was breathing down my neck.

That was one of the reasons. Another reasons was because the Marine Recruiters were in Salt Lake City recruiting men for an all Mormon Battalion in honor of the Mormon Battalion that existed during the early days of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I felt that if I joined with a bunch of Mormons that I wouldn't have to be around a bunch of dirty mouthed guys whose recreation was mainly going out and getting drunk and taking advantage of whatever the girls would offer.

That's right. There were sixty three in the first platoon. This was the one I signed up for.

Yes. They planned on having three platoons of around that number in each platoon. When they filled the first platoon, they gave us a royal send off with a lot of pomp and ceremony. We were ushered on the train with families and dignitaries looking on. We arrived at San Diego, where we were to attend boot camp, the following morning. After our initial training at boot camp, we were taken out to the rifle range at camp Pendleton. They taught us how to use bayonets, but the only time I ever saw them used was on rats that housed themselves under the floor boards of tents at the camp. We took the bayonets off the rifles and kept them handy while we were putting up the tents. As we put up the tents, the rats would become scared and run out from underneath the wooden floors. When the marines saw them, a number of them would take off after them with their bayonets.

Yes, /we used our bayonets as weapons to get rid of the rats. It was a diversion from the routine stuff that we were having to do. It was also amusing watching a bunch of marines going after one rat.

The guys were careful around each other and so there weren't any casualties except for the rats.

I got sick with the flu while I was at Camp Pendleton and was taken to the hospital. By the time they released me, the rest of the platoon finished their rifle training and were preparing to go on a furlough to Salt Lake City. They assigned me to another platoon so that I could finish my rifle training at Camp Pendleton. When I learned that the platoon that I came down with had been sent back to Salt Lake City on a specialrecruiting mission. I felt worse than I did when I had the flu. I learned later that the First Platoon of the Mormon Battalion marched down main street in a special parade and were given the V.I.P. treatment while they were in Salt Lake

Yes, It was effective too. They had another platoon of the Mormon Battalion ready for boot camp by the time we left.

Yes, It was effective too. They had another platoon of the Mormon Battalion ready for boot camp by the time we left.

No. After the platoon arrived back from Salt Lake City, they told the members that if they wanted to stay together, they would have to join the amphibious corps. None of them were interested in joining and so the platoon was disbanded and the recruits were sent in different directions.

No. When my new platoon finished training at Camp Pendleton, they asked me what I would like to do. They gave me a bunch of things that I could qualify for if I wanted to go. They needed men to fill positions at the supply depots in the Quartermaster Corps. The qualifications required a year of college. My year of college under the NYA came in handy. I applied and was accepted. I was sent to the Naval Air Station at North Island, San Diego to wait for the training to start for the next group of trainees. I was assigned to guard duty for eight hours a day we stood four hours on and four hours off. We also had every other day off. We were given a lot of freedom to do whatever we wanted to do on our time off as long as we stayed out of trouble. I went ashore to get acquainted with mainland San Diego and found a golf course that catered to service men and was very accessible and so I put that on my agenda of things to do on my time off.

While I was waiting for training, the Marine Commanding Officer at North Island received a request for him to go through his files to see if he could find anyone that could qualify as an administrative clerk as they were badly in need of one at the new air station just being completed at El Centro, California. When he came to my records and saw that I had experience in clerical work and was a fast typist, he gave me orders to pack my things and prepare to catch a train for El Centro, California. When I got on the train I found that a sergeant major had also been given orders to report to the Marine Air Station at El Centro as the NCO in charge of administration. We arrived at El Centro at midnight. The temperature was 100 degrees and the air was so filled with crickets one had to cover his head with his arms to keep from being hit.

When we called the Commanding Officer at the base to get transportation out to the Air Station, he told us to check in at a local motel as the enlisted men's barracks wasn't ready to be occupied yet. When we checked in, we were informed that there were five other marines that had checked in before us. We were really treated great by both the Commanding Officer and the towns people. Those marines who liked to drink were invited to parties at different peoples homes. There were only two of who didn't participate. One was a staunch Catholic and the other a staunch Mormon. There were enough families who didn't drink that kept us busy accepting dinner invitations.

It took the construction company a couple of months to complete the buildings on the base and so when squadron of planes landed we had to arrange for transportation and rooms at the local motels for the pilots to stay overnight. The seven of us marines had to be a jack of all trades to service the planes so that they had enough fuel to fly on to Hawaii. We were also at the service of the pilots and tried to meet their needs as to where to go to eat, phone their loved ones before leaving for over-seas duty, and take them to get other things they wanted from stores in El Centro.

My first office was a shack I shared with the sergeant major. It was built by the construction people but they no longer needed it. A short time after we had moved in the building began to shake like a bulldozer was pushing it. I calmly asked the sergeant if they were moving us to another location without giving us notice. He said, "Bulldozer hell! that's an earthquake! Let's get out of here!" That's the fastest I had ever seen the sergeant move. He didn't go around the desk, he went over the top. The next day the newspaper stated that it was a 6.0 magnitude earthquake, but it caused very little damage because it was a rolling type of earthquake. If it had been a jarring type, it would have done a lot of damage to the buildings on the base.

The commanding officer of the El Centro Air Station received a call from the Naval Air Station at Salton Sea requesting additional fuel be hauled there to fuel the PBY planes stationed at their based. They had a submarine alert and were short on fuel. The commanding officer called the corporal at the motel and asked him to round up three marines to drive the trucks to Salton Sea. The corporal went to the house where five of the marines were partying. All of them were so drunk they couldn't drive and so he asked me to drive a truck, he drove a truck and the commanding officer had to drive the other one. When we arrived at Salton Sea, we were told that that the submarine had been checked out and was one that belonged to the United States. We fueled their planes and then returned to the home base much relieved..

Between squadrons landing on the base, we had quite a bit of spare time to ourselves. There wasn't much to do in town because as the enlisted men increased on the base, the town people began to feel overwhelmed and quit holding parties for the marines. I started trying to find things that we could do that would be interesting. Some of the marines suggested getting a football and having some intermural football games. I contacted the El Centro Junior College football coach to see if he would loan us a ball and equipment so that we could play. He suggested that he loan us the equipment and ball and that we form a squad and they would play us. Very few of us had played any football other than backyard football in our lives. We thought it would be fun. He told us that we could do it and invite the towns people to come out and watch us. We scouted around and found a lieutenant on the base that had coachedsome football and so we got him to coach us. When he got us together and saw how we played, he was ready to quit before we got started. We talked him in to sticking with coaching us. We practiced until the day before we were to play the junior college team. They had really built us up. I guess there were about 300 to 400 people to watch the game. The day before our coach put in an SOS to the Miramar Marine Base and recruited a couple of guys that had experience playing football and brought them to El Centro to run the show.

Yes. When they brought them in, it was a complete surprise to the team although a pleasant one. Guys like me made up the team. I was a lineman and only weighed in at 170lbs. The other team mates weighed in at 170 to 190 lbs. We were playing a team that outweighed us at least 30 to 40 lbs to the man. In addition they were Junior College Champions for the State of California. They should have given us medals of honor for courage. They tried to make us look good for the sake of the towns people, but it was very obvious to them as well as us that they weren't fooling anyone. Whenever they got the ball whether it was on a kick or a fumble, they would always give the ball to the full back and would huddle around him until we nearly got to them then he would break loose and follow his linemen up the field. They mowed us down like bowling pins. If we got through to where we could tackle the player with the ball, he would run over us and leave us laying on the field. The only exceptions were the three men from Miramar. They had both weight and savvy and so we had to rely on them to do most of the tackling. The Junior College Team found ways to keep their score reasonable for our sake. When we tackled them during the second half they would make us look good by falling down. They did a lot of other things to help us make good plays whenever they could do it and look respectable. They beat us by three touchdowns, but as the newspaper said, "The score could have been 100 to 6 if the junior college team had played like they were capable of playing.

The spectators thought it was nice of us to try something new even though we knew that we could get skunked. We were always trying something new to keep us busy.

As the barracks and officers' quarters were completed we constantly received new personnel to man the base. As administrative clerk I was kept busy checking the marines in on the base. Along with the personnel I received a lot of secret and confidential material for which I had to set up a filing system. Much of it had to do with coding and decoding messages and operating the decoding machine. Regulations stated that only commissioned officers should handle this restricted material. They had to get special permission for me to handle it as I was only a private first class. When the communications officer was assigned to the base, he requested that I be assigned to the communications department as he felt that my knowledge of the secret and confidential material would facilitate his being able to set up and run the communications department. He told me that they hadn't covered anything on the handling of restrictive communications at the school where he was trained. He had no knowledge of how to set up and run a coding machine or what to do with the material when it was received. Before the Communications Officer arrived on the base, I was working in the Adjutant's department and became very familiar with the officer- incharge of the control tower as I did a lot of favors for him when a squadron of planes would land at the base. He was often overwhelmed because he was short on personnel to handled them. When I had the time I would volunteer to help him take care of the pilots. The adjutant, control tower officer, and the communications officer, all three put in a request for me to be transferred to their departments. The communications officer won out because I had been cleared to handle secret and confidential communications.
The communications officer asked me to teach him what I knew about communications, and rewarded me by making me the non-commissioned officer in charge of communications. He told me that he wanted to keep me in charge of communication and so if any enlisted men came on the base out of radio school with a higher rank than I had, he would put in for a higher rank for me so that I would out rank any of the men under my supervision. As a result, I went from a private first class to a technical sergeant within a year.

A big change came on the base when the Lady Marines began to arrive. Most of them were assigned to communications and put under my supervision. I believe every male on the base felt he had to come over and get acquainted. It took a couple of days forthings to settle down. I finally had to forbid any socializing during working hours and the lady marines were able to accomplish their work without interruption. During their off hours, both the enlisted men and women arranged to have picnics and other activities out in the desert.

William Joseph Maynes