This is Bob Landon talking. I was born in Smithland, Iowa in 1926, and in 1928 we moved over to Yankton, South Dakota, ‘28 to ’39. In ’39 we moved out to Oregon. I have five brothers and five sisters that were born during the depression.

We lived in the town of Scotts Mills, Oregon, which is about three hundred population; I went in the service in 1943 and got out in 1946.

About 4,000 Marines and CB’s were on the island that we took back from the Japanese on February the 1st of ’44, the island that Japan had taken away from us on December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day. They came over at 2:30 in the morning, February 12th to try to take the island back from us. They did a lot of damage, but they didn’t get the island from us. On the casualty list we had a tremendous amount of casualties at that time of day. The next day it looked like a nudist colony because we lost all our clothing, our tents, our eating hall. So all I did when they first attacked us; I just lay down and prayed that we’d get out of this. We had ninety-three ships out in the harbor that escorted us down from Pearl Harbor; the ones out on the ship thought we were goners, the whole island was a blaze all the way around us. We lost so much equipment, we had to go back to Hawaii to regroup, and then they sent us on the invasion of Guam in July of ’44. And we had a big scare there too, there was only one building standing when our big guns got through battering Guam. The church up on the hill was the only building that was left standing, all the rest of them were half gone, or two-thirds gone or all gone. I just got down and prayed and cried and cussed.

And so I got out of the service in ’46. I went to work in the saw mill from 46’ to 54’ and in ’54 I went into the post office from ’54 to ’67. Then from ’67 to 1990, my wife and I got in the Dairy Queen business, we had all three of our sons in the Dairy Queen business.And then my brother got in Dairy Queen Business the same year that I did, he’s still in there, he’s going on his thirty-seventh year in the Dairy Queen in Bandon, Oregon or Florence, Oregon. But I had mine all the way from Coos Bay up to Salem, Oregon. We finally retired from the Dairy Queen Business.

I was also the County Commissioner from ‘62 to ’66, then retired from that, come down here to Arizona in 1990 and been down here ever since. And I volunteer out here at the ballpark at Peoria. This is my, entering my tenth year out here. I was a volunteer fireman for over forty years, retired out of two fire departments, in Coos Bay, Oregon, then in Dallas, Oregon. In 1946 I joined the Scotts Mills Fire Department, my Dad was a Fire Chief, so I spent half my life in the volunteer firemen business.

Now I volunteer out here, and I’ve had a great year out here in spring training. I love working out here for the volunteers. I’m leaving for Oregon the 10th of April, and hopefully be back here in October of 2004.

Bob was then asked what did you do in the CB's? What was your job? He answered that he drove caterpillars and ran a rock crusher, because we had to crush rock to put on runways, we built two runways on Guam for our B29 bombers so they could fly over to Japan and back without having to run out of fuel. I spent all my three years out in the South Pacific, and while I was out there my mother passed away, she was thirty-nine years old and passed away in 1944.

If you have an interesting account to relate, please record it on a cassette, as Bob did, or write it and send to Jon Richardson, Peoria Diamond Club, Peoria Sports Complex, 16101 N. 83rd Ave. Suit 2, Peoria, Arizona 85382, or email it to Don Singer at webmaster@peoriadiamondclub.org

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