My Genealogy Home Page:Information about Canty Francis Herrington, Jr.
Canty Francis Herrington, Jr. (b. June 05, 1924)
Notes for Canty Francis Herrington, Jr.:My name is Canty Herrington. Serial #. The following are my experiences in World War II, I joined the army in Bay City, Texas on July the 18th 1940, and my next duty station was Fort Brown, Texas. When Pearl Harbor was bombed I was stationed in Fort Riley, Kansas, going to school to learn meat, milk, and dairy products inspection. After I finished the school, I was sent to Camp Crowder, Missouri to do meat, milk, and dairy products inspection.
I was then sent to Camp Phillips, Kansas, near Salina to do meat, milk, and dairy products inspection. I was next sent to Camp Roberts, California to do hiking with full field packs, lessons to use all kinds of weapons, learn hand-to-hand combat, and do close-order drill.
I was then sent to Camp Adair, Oregon to learn survival in ice and snow, how to keep our water from freezing, how to build a warm bed, how to build a warm shelter in snow, how to pitch a tent in sandy weather. Then a small group of us was sent to Fort Ord, California, to take jungle survival training. After the jungle survival training, we were sent to Camp Stoneman, California to await shipment overseas. The ship finally arrived and we were taken down to the ship and were marched aboard between two rows of machine guns. (The ship was named “General John Pope”.) When we were all aboard, the ship cast off and started on its journey. The first land we saw was American Samoa. When we got close to land, the people on shore shouted to us, trying to throw fruit onboard, and asking where we were from.Unfortunately, the side of the ship was too high to throw the fruit on board, but we did tell them where we were from. Each time we would name a state, they would all cheer.
We were soon past and on our way to New Guinea. When we reached New Guinea, we were loaded on small boats and carried to shore, where we were told that we were in Oro Bay, and we were given some small yellow tablets and were told that it would keep us from getting malaria. The only thing I found out was that they would turn your skin yellow.
After a time, we were moved to Sansapor, Dutch New Guinea. We started practicing landings with LST’s in calm weather, in rough weather, in stormy weather, and in every kind of weather imagined; we had some sea-going tanks that were called “BUFFALOES” which were carried in the L-S-T”s and would float on the water.
After a long time, we were loaded on the L-S-T’s and all our gear was put aboard and we just sat there at night. After a while, a Japanese airplane flew over and all the searchlights came on and all the anti-aircraft guns started firing, but no one could hit him, until he flew over the ocean, and all the guns stopped firing. There was a ship that started firing, and he scored a direct hit with the third round. We started immediately, and we, joined next morning with the convoy.
As far as the eye could see were ships of all kinds, destroyers, battleships, aircraft carriers, cargo ships, Destroyer escorts. We all headed for the Philippines. The destroyers were scattered along outside the convoy, the aircraft carriers were leading us, the battleships were behind us, the cargo ships were scattered through the center of the convoy. We traveled for some time (SEVERAL days) before we saw a group of small islands, and a look-out saw the wakes of two torpedoes which had been fired at one of our cargo ships, fortunately, they both missed and all the destroyers and the destroyer escorts cut through the convoy going “WHOOP, WHOOP” and went over where the torpedoes showed and started going in a circle. They started firing depth charges, and there was soon a huge oil slick on the water, and air started coming up in great splashes. When our lookout saw it, he said, “SCRATCH one submarine!”
We went on until we saw a ship close to shore, and we thought it was one of our ships, and we found out that it was Japanese, and one of our battleships sunk it with one volley. We went on until we saw some more land, and our aircraft carriers turned into the wind and launched their planes, which flew around our convoy and then flew off. We didn’t have to wait long before a cloud of Japanese Planes showed up and our planes came down from above and shot down all but one, and he few down between the ships in our convoy and jettisoned his bombs in the ocean, and when he tried to climb, he had three of our planes on his tail. They went out of sight, and in a few minutes, the American planes flew back over the convoy rocking from side to side and our lookout said, “They got ‘im.”
We went on until we came to the place where we were supposed to land, and there was an aircraft carrier giving ground support fire to help us land. No sooner than we got ashore, the carrier was hit by five suicide planes and set on fire. That ship was the U.S.S. Lexington.
That was a terrible sacrifice, but he got us ashore, so we were determined to make a success of it, so we moved forward. We encountered sporadic ground fire, but nothing to stop us. We came to a small town named Pagupan in the province of Pangasenan and were shortly joined by some Filipino men who had some military training. Three were assigned to my company. Their names were, Defilio and Enarro Morgallon, and Proedencio Gamboa, since no one could pronounce their names, we called them – Pete, Bob, and Joe. We soon found out that they knew the territory like their own backyard.
We moved steadily forward and came to a town called Santa Resario and there was a City Hall with a tower and a clock with 4 faces, which was supposed to strike, but the Japs had taken the works out of it, but the Americans brought new works, so they fixed it, and started it to running and striking, the people came from everywhere and stood in front of the building crying.
The next day the people cooked a barbecue for the whole Battalion, and after we ate, we started out again. We walked until after dark and continued on until our squad was told to walk on the pavement. Everybody was walking on the pavement until we came to a place where our men were digging up land mines, disarming them, and stacking them beside the road. We kept going until daylight and came to a town called Munoz, which was held by Japanese. After a six-day battle, we finally took Munoz, and counted 57 tanks destroyed and many pieces of artillery were captured. I picked up a keepsake shrapnel in my left side.
After Munoz, we were on the road again, going to Manila, when we came to a river with nice sand bars, and we decided to stop and eat our meal. When we were eating, two Japanese tanks pulled up on the other side of the river and started firing at us. About that time, one of our self-propelled 105mm gun tanks appeared and his first shot hit one of the tanks causing it to explode. The second tank turned to run, but he was too late. The shell hit him in the rear and he exploded.
My squad was sent out to scout, and we came to a road, which we followed until we came to a farmhouse, then we went over to it, and there was a man lying on the ground next to the building and holding a pair of binoculars in his hands, and a walkie-talkie radio in front of him. He said something to our squad leader, who turned toward us and picked out five of us to go with him and told the next to stay there.
We went to a drainage ditch and went down it until it tied into another ditch and the leader said, “From here on, hand signals only.” We went on until the squad leader stopped us and pointed up. We looked up and saw the barrels of 4 Jap machine guns. The squad leader motioned to the lead man and he took the first gun and handed it to me and I passed it back, then he took the second gun and handed it to me and I passed it back, then he took the third gun and passed it back to me and I passed it back, then he took the fourth gun and handed it to me and I checked it and it was fully loaded and ready to fire, so I kept it and pointed it up in case some one poked his head over the bank of dirt. We took the guns back to the farmhouse and the squad leader told us to destroy all 4 and I wanted to keep one, but the squad leader said, “No, if you fire that gun, everybody will recognize the sound of it.So, destroy it.” So, we took the four guns and bent the barrels in the fork of a tree, and then we threw them against the house. The man with the radio and the field glasses suddenly picked up his radio and said something into it and a terrible borage hit the place that we had just left. We then joined our unit and started walking, and some trucks came and picked us up, carrying us for a long way.
We stopped in a good-sized town, and we had food and rest, both of which we needed. After we had all that, we started out on foot. We came to a place where my squad was sent out scouting, and we found a Jap tank which was sitting there all alone and it had some rifles in it, so we took three of them and burned the tank with incendiary grenades. The tank was all we found, so we joined our unit and the trucks came again and picked us up and took us to San Miguel, where we camped, then we went into Manila the next day. That night I felt a lump under my blanket, so I moved it and slept in a different place. The next morning, I discovered that the lump was an unexploded artillery shell with the detonator still in it. I told the ‘Sarge’ about it and he called the bomb squad and they came, took the detonator out of it and took it away. Later we were moved to the campus of the Santo Tomas University.
After about a week, we were taken out to where the survivors of the Bataan death march were, and they wanted cigarettes, so we started giving them lighted ones, they would take two or three puffs, and then faint. A man with a machine gun came over and told us to get away, that they were being taken care of, so we did as he told us.
The next day, we were taken out on Bataan Peninsula and a barrage started on Corrigedor Island. After a while it was lifted, and a fueling ship was back in to pump fuel oil in the caves, and taken out and the oil ignited.It was about the only way that it could be done; but it was very effective.
We then went back to Manila and to our camp area and we were told that there was an outbreak of cholera and we all to take an inoculation and that I was supposed to help with the shots. The ones that were picked to help got our shots first, and then we gave everyone else their shots. It worked out really well. One poor guy fainted and had to be revived, but he was OK.
We went back to our camp and that night our Captain came up and said, “get dressed and get your guns and ammo, one of our outpost guard stations has been fired on!” So we did as we were told, and some trucks came and carried us out to where it had happened and some soldiers and a Filipino police officer joined us, we split up into two groups and started down the street on each side of the street, and there were some fires burning in the city, so we had some light and were making pretty good progress and we came to a brick wall that ran along the street, and a tree was growing behind the wall, and when I looked up, I saw a man standing on top of the wall by the tree, and when I saw him, he tried to climb down on the tree, and I shouted, “HALT!” and he stopped. The police officer came over and I pointed the man out to him just as he started moving again. So I called “HALT” again, and the police officer shouted something in Filipino to him, but he would not stop, so the police officer said, “Shoot him! He is not Filipino!” So I shot him and he fell inside the wall. I started looking for a gate or something to get inside, and the squad leader said, “Let it go, we will look in daylight!” So, we started down the street again, but found nothing and the trucks came back and took us back to our camp. The next afternoon, the Filipino officer came to our camp and said, “Well, we found your man! But he didn’t have any rifle! All he had were six hand grenades! Well, that sounded a little bit suspect, because he was a sniper! Everything was O.K., because the main thing was, we got him!” After that, we were told that some highways were being used by the Japanese to move men and material and troops over a highway near the coast, and we were told to go out and build a defense at a highway inter-section, and we were told how and where to build it, so we did. We were told, “Build in a circle on top of a slight rise”, and we were to ring the inside of the top of the ring with alternate 30 and 50 caliber machine guns. We were to dig our foxholes deep, which we did. One guy said that he was going to dig his hole in the center of the circle, and I told him “don’t do that, the Japs may have it zeroed in.” But he would not listen, and he was the only man we lost. The Japs tried attacking twice, but they lost so many troops, that they gave up and left.
We went back to Manila and we saw General MacArthur’s wife several times, but we never saw him. She was staying at the Travelers’ Hotel and we would see a jeep come and pick her up in the morning. But we never saw it bring her in. Soon the leisure time was over, and we started again to make sweeps, hunting for Japs.
One of the sweeps was made was for a group that was receiving hostile fire from a hill near them that had tall weeds and high grass. So, we went up the hill and when we neared the top, a Japanese officer jumped up shouting and brandishing a sword. Well, one of our men shot him and walked over and picked up the sword. Since we couldn’t find any more Japs, we went back down and the hostile firing had stopped.
On another sweep, we were going up another hill and I looked out to my left and saw a man walking parallel to our group. I knew that he was not one of our men! Then it dawned on me that he was wearing a Japanese uniform! So I just waited until he came to a little bit steeper place, and when he slowed down, I shot him. He fell down and started to try to crawl and I shot him again. He laid there, and we went over and rolled him over and looked in his pockets and all he has was a fountain pen, and I picked it up. I started to unscrew the top and the squad leader said, “No! No! Don’t! Throw it down! Throw it down!” So I threw it down. It was a booby trap!
We went out on another sweep and found a highway that we followed for a rather long time until we came to a junction and in going around it, we discovered a reinforced pillbox that looked as if it were new. About the time we started to try to decide what to do, an American tank pulled up in the midst of us and fired. He got the pillbox, but he hit seven of us with shrapnel! None of us had life threatening injuries, but who wants to take a bath in scrap-iron?The piece that hit me was part of the rotator band of the projectile that hit my left ankle. It was patched up and healed O.K.
We next went down to a river, where the Japanese were seen crossing a bridge. So, we waited for a long time, and we didn’t see anybody, and surely not Japs. While we were there, two American planes flew down the river and skip-bombed the bridge and knocked out four spans of the bridge. So, we went back to Manila and we didn’t have to wait long. We were called out on another sweep! We were supposed to relieve them, and we got caught in a trap! The Japanese started raining artillery on us, and we were digging as we could, but we were lucky, another outfit broke us out, and they sent us back for some rest and relaxation.
After that we were taken to a place that was near to some mountains and close to the ocean, and we were told to advance until we received hostile fire, then we were to fire and then retreat. We did as we were told, and were fired on and retreated. As we retreated, there were many, many people who started chasing us, and we were by that time running hard! Then the cannon shells were exploding behind them and then started exploding in front of the, and that’s when they realized that they had been had!
After the barrage was lifted, we were told to go back up and give them a body count. We were not supposed to count an arm or leg, just a head or torso. I don’t know what the final count was, but I heard the number mentioned of 8,000, but that could be somebody’s guess.
Well, we went back to Manila and heard the sad news, that our General, Edwin D. Patrick had been killed by a sniper; who killed him while he was driving, or riding in his jeep. We saw Harvey I. Blackwell receive his Congressional Medal of Honor for taking a bulldozer and crashing down the wall of Intra-muros, the Walled city in Manila.
Well, we were sent out again, and we really got in a trap. We were making another sweep and we got surrounded. Even worse than the last time. We didn’t have anyone to help us to get out. We ran out of food. We had to split everything. Our Air Force dropped food by parachute and the wind changed, and the Japs got our food. Our troops finally broke through, and they brought macaroni with meat sauce, and we ate out of our helmets with our hands.
We got out and they took us back to Manila and soon out on another mission, where it was pure added asinine stupidity that caused our problem. They pulled the same trick on us as we pulled at the ocean, only they used hills instead of the ocean. They hid in the hills while they sent out a token force to shoot and then retreat to draw us in. By the time our leaders figured it out, it was too late. When the artillery started I thought for sure that it was done. I started crying I could not stop. I had picked up many guys who were in the same shape, but I never thought that I would be one. I was taken out, they got my equipment and carried it with me and took and gave me some kind of pill. They took me to a field hospital and gave me an examination. Then they took me to Clark Field and put me on a plane and flew me along with several to Iakloben, Leyte to the 126th General Hospital, and when I fully recovered, they turned me to duty and I stayed till the end of the war, and when the ship came in to take me home, it was painted blue and white, and its name was: The U.S.S. admiral Hugh Rodman
We had an uneventful trip home. As I can remember, it carried 1,690 passengers, and we had beans for breakfast everyday. Tokyo Rose called 6th Division “The Bloody Buckets”
[General Tama Yuki Yamashita was captured and put in Bilibid Prison in Manila, and he used a poison pill and joined his honorable ancestors. (Japanese P.S.) The Battleship “Yamato” is resting on the bottom of the Pacific, 200 miles west of Tacloban, Leyte. We didn’t put it there, the Navy did. ]
*August 17, 2005 Uncle C.F. (age 83) gave this journal to me during a visit to him at the Hillcrest Medical Nursing Institute, in Knoxville, Tennessee. He said he had just written it and wanted to share it with someone. I asked if I could make a copy of it and he gave me the journal. I tried to write it exactly as his handwritten text. In the last paragraph all the letters were in caps. When reading his text there were some places where his handwriting was very small and tight, but it was hard to show that in this.
More About Canty Francis Herrington, Jr. and Elizabeth Wolf:
Death of one spouse: 1981
Marriage: Chicago, Illinois.
Children of Canty Francis Herrington, Jr. and Elizabeth Wolf are:
- Richard Arthur Herrington, b. 1948, Galveston, Texas.
- Mary Frances Herrington, b. June 05, 1950, Galveston, Texas.