In Their Words; Oral History with Cletis Overton

Your time the things that you didn't think normally Well from. I was at the Cabana to warn about July 1st and July until sometime in October of 41 and they sent a Japson a thousand of us from Lewes on an island down to the island of Mindanao and they moved us into a prison camp which formerly was a civilian Koncz civilian prison for and I converted that to a people that you camp and I had civilians working on it and prayed. But I guess they turned up close. They left and when we got down there it was already about twelve hundred already imprisoned there that had been captured down on an island and surrounded the island. So there's

about 20 or 200 of us in the penal colony. It's called. Well the road was a lot more than they'd ever been given the when they gave us all arise with it. And they usually have. Salva Kiir Sabah's a native plant grown over there. And I take the route at Rukhs would get about that background and Asaba is what they make some kind of putting out. You know it's a starch it's all starchy stuff and when it's cooked is just it just mashes up goes into like a mashed potato are super tight you know salty. And we had plenty of that and then we have plenty of salt. They give us a little sugar each each morning for breakfast.

And so we got along we began to get stronger you know and so was everybody it worked it was able to get out and go to work and they had a huge rice. But you I imagine it was probably 200 or more acres and rice and we did work in rice. But you know we had planned to drive the seedling and we had it by hand and it was right to harvest we went in there with the hand cycle and we just get a bowl of rice here you know and cut them off and put them in a basket here and you'd move it along and when that basket was full and you took a poll bamboo pole and run through the handle on each side of this big basket shouldered it out and got owner took it out to us. A narrow gauge railroad at night came along picked these baskets and take them in. Well we had a pretty good day

except it didn't in 1943 there was a group that was on a coffee date you know saying man is on that detail every day. Well over a period of time they plan to skate and they did escape and it was the route that they had the bad press up into groups of 10. They called Brother brother groups. I don't know why but the purpose of it was that if any one or more escaped from that blood brother group the rest of them would be shot. And we knew this happened in other camp. We'd been some bad back. And so one of the one of the guys was my group of Tehan And and so the barracks in which they these escapees lived and they were carried away were carried over to about two miles to another camp which was on occupied.

And they put us over there and we didn't go out to work for I don't know about 30 days. We just stayed in the camp and they wheeled over on a two wheel cart are rice and load digging. So we had pretty good though. I didn't have to go out to work and so we were telling jokes and laugh at night one day officer come in and spoke to us and said we're not you're not allowed to be to have any levity you're not to talk and carry on like this. You're here to meditate. And so it happened really is they were waiting on word from the headquarters in Luzon as to what to do with this. So we didn't have any reason to believe that we wouldn't be taken out one morning and lined up in shock. But in a way they moved us back

to the main camp and we blended in with everything there. What I was there about two years the longest one place I kept and they moved 750 of us out of that main camp to offer you a miles below and put us in another camp. And our job was to build an airstrip for the Japs to land and rape you. And so our work was with a shovel and wheelbarrow you know moving dirt stricken shaping up a runway way and we mind coral rock and crush that hammer hand in and that would just put the put on their head or over they rolled over it and made an airstrip. Wow. August 20th. Well let me back up on August 1st.

We didn't go out to camp and the next day and the next day so we didn't know what to expect. And by the way talking about food I woke up one morning and looked out the window and it looked like it was snowing. That was my first thought. It was snowing when I got full awake I looked out and it was grasshopper I mean it just like everywhere and is on Bush's Gricean they'd eat everything. What. Nothing left but the buying of a guy you know. Yes. I mean yeah are the lead. They just strip the green stuff off. And so one morning or one day I saw a couple of guys out there with with a mosquito net.

They just go on just like that like a sign you know and catching them grasshoppers in a boat in the hay all of them down them grasshopper and their wings dropping them grasshoppers in a bucket hat and then they'd get some charcoal from the kitchen our kitchen and they had to get onto the floor of the where we slept and they had that charcoal and cooked them. Grasshoppers then they'd eat it with rice right. You know just like parched peanuts so sudden the guys got to make a lot out of it. And it wasn't but a day later that everybody's brother was out there trying to catch him grasshopper. That was the way we had a good faith grasshopper. And I sensed every time I think about it I think about the scripture in the Bible that told about the papal it'll have an owner

is all that's happened to live on locusts or grasshoppers and honey you know. Well in a way on the 20th of November that came in I heard in the land of sap and columns of Bulwer's said and how did that. Yeah. And they put a rope around the outside man a half hitch on his arm you know that rope or under a group of 100 or so and these groups of a hundred We marched down about three or four and about three miles I guess to the dark and we were loaded on a Japanese prayer. And we were on that. Well that changed us after about 10 days I changed it over to another one right down on the bottom floor of that building and of course by that time we would start down again you know and

give us very little food on the boat. Very little water. So about 4:30 one afternoon on September 7th. Forty four. This thing exploded. Eighty two of us managed to get out of that boat. Get on the water and swam to land about two and a half miles distant and we were gathered up by natives and it was an area that the natives the ground forces were in control. It was rugged mountainous terrain and it wasn't any citizen or anything of value to the jap. So they just didn't come in and occupy that low place. And so we were one thing it is going to tell you about it. The human the human body can do a lot and take a lot more than anybody can imagine. Probably is a better way word starved down condition

and our weight yet we were able to get them to negotiate two and a half mile in water to land. And you tell me have we done that. But I'll tell you another thing that home of Tanpa. Naturally I was raised in a Christian home but I wasn't a Christian and all but Tayana accepted the law I became a Christian and I trusted the lowered ever since. And when I'd get in these things I just leave it up to the Lord you know. I did what I could and I think that's way I got back to the Lord. I wouldn't know. So anyway way way was with gorillas for about three weeks and they had a radio communication way up in the mountains at their headquarters and I radioed

out to allied forces they are survivors and they in turn got in touch with another submarine that was operating in that area and had them to pick us up and bring out as many as it could. So we got orders one day to be up 20 20 kilometers up to date from where we were six o'clock that evening while we we went up there and we got and we were told that a submarine was due to come in that night and carry out as many as they could and they had to draw numbers. The senior officers from one to 80 to one boy one to eighty one. One boy volunteered. He was a radio operator and he volunteered to stay with him and help him in our communications. And so I drew a number 72. And I just knew they couldn't carry out 72 on a submarine. You know

about 9:00 that night way up three or four hundred yards. You're the submarine come service down the water. A few minutes here come a couple of guys rolling over a rubber boat or to the beach. Well I did want to step down and ask how many there were. And a senior officer said to one. And he flies to fly out to this and they fly back and he turned around and said well we will take every one of you. And so that night he was supposed to be in a secret mission and there but these natives had gathered in there by the hundreds you know looking for that submarine. In fact the skipper told us later that he come in and saw all that and they had bonfires built and he saw all that and he didn't know what was coming in and not finally decided it. That's what we were all day in

these native boats. He wrote us out there and we were loaded the inside of that submarine and we took off and I after five days and nights we rounded up at a land in New Guinea as a naval base. And we spent the night there we were issued new uniforms shoes and everything. We didn't have any clothes maybe a pair of shorts. We better put it straight anger and we got our bags haircut shaved new clothes on and we didn't know each other. You know after we got in you saw that the next day they put us on a torpedo about 80 boats and we went about 35 miles to another island where there was an airbase and they laid us on loaders on an airplane or planes and we flew from there to

Brisbane Australia and we were there and the Forty-Second General Hospital about three weeks and we were loaded on a boat to come back to the states. So that's why we arrived home and we've folks and when I got to my Aubert. My buddy one of my buddies sort of grew up with in school. He had an automobile which was scarce at that time. You know they wasn't making automobiles but in a way his sister my wife's sister. Oh. I got home D'Albert and she had this car and she and this buddy of mine carried me down a country mile from here. Twelve forty eight miles. And about a mile before we got to the house we met a man walking toward us.

I recognized him as my dad. I said stop the car. There's my dad. So when they got stopped and I got out walk around behind the car overtook him and we shook hands and he looked at me so odd and he said Son that's you know I said Daddy it's me. So we embraced he said we'll get in the car. Your mother is at the house. Well I'm at the house. The house was is a good size house it had a hallway went from the front porch to the back porch. And each side was to two big room. One was a living room where the fireplace was in the other. And my parents slept at night and we had to the bedroom and. Shower and there's a picket fence propped concrete up from the front gate to the porch. And then all across the porch went into the hallway.

Wow. And we drove up and I got about opening the front gate I saw my mother coming down the hall the kitchen was back on the forwhy and she come out of the kitchen wiping her hands on the apron to say who wrote it. And she got out on the front porch and she saw me and we met about half way between the gate and the porch and before she ever touched the sheep she prayed the most beautiful prayer of thanksgiving I have ever heard. They understand. It seemed like there was a halo about her. That was a great homecoming. And when I explained was her station at Bible Airforce Base and when I got to my Ogburn spent the first night at her mother's house. And and it come a electrical storm and a big rain and the telephone system was broke was I thought you couldn't call

and but I got there about 1:30 in the morning and I tried to call her when I found out where she was and I couldn't get through. And at 6:00 the next morning at that time they had operators you know they had a central office and you had to dial the operator and plates and get the mom and she had it for you when I went up to the central office the next morning about life or six o'clock and I put a call through and got her night off. I don't know what all was said. We loved each other and all that sort of stuff. So it was a day or two later that she got a she got a seven day leave to come home and she has come in from Memphis on the rock out and rockets used to go to hear from the East Coast the West Coast and our sister and her got together to

pick her up later on. I don't know why they did that because 20 minutes later they had been in that she had been in Maui. You know but we enjoy a day. So she knew she was the one that you'd written the letter. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. And so five o'clock that afternoon we were made standard for one year. So that's a great homecoming. Getting back to adjusting to civilian life I don't know. I had trouble with it but I didn't know I had trouble you know I think back now and see how frustrated I was about certain things you know. And but I adapted to it and I didn't know whether I'd be able to do manual work or not for a living. And and so the government had a program that you could draw a check every week prepared to two

weeks you know to help you adjust and get a plan that didn't. And of course you had the GI Bill. I learned about that. So we talked out over quite a bit and we decided well maybe the best thing I could do is go to college. I just finished. Know that. So we had a baby at that time. It's boring macho. And so I went to Monticello and enrolled in college down there and I had to work down two years down. I would degree in agriculture because I thought about it you know before. And so that's what I did. I graduated in 49 and I stayed in graduate school a year and I just had to get out and go to work you know and I put and I made application with the with a governmental agency that I didn't hear from for about a year

and I got a letter one day and said they had a note in it and I was interested to come down for an interview. So I went down and they said did hire me. And so I dropped out while I finished all my classwork except write a thesis and I'd done mostly research on it. But I was through a good life and I. Oh I want to work with a farmer's some instruction agency of the Department of Agriculture which you been then I ought to go now. And so I had 35 years of federal service and I've been retired now since January 19 for 19. 62. I've been retired 20 20 years or more questions. Keeping in mind this could be watched a hundred 500 years by future

generations. What is it you'd like to say about what it means to be in America and what it means to live democracy. What is it that you hold dear. Well I try to bring that out. I've made a lot of talks over the years you know just said it in churches. And I think I kind of emphasize it in that book. But I think I can tell the people that 500 years from now or whatever if the Lord don't come before the end that America is the greatest place on earth for human beings. We enjoy freedom to do what we want to do as long as we don't. As long as you don't prohibit other people from doing what they want. We have freedom of speech. We can talk

about the government or anything or anybody. We have that privilege and we have the privilege of getting an education. Learning to do something and make a contribution to the world in which really of people they would not recognize our way at all. But they will still need I'm sure they are. They need education and prepared himself to do something to make a living and contribute to their society. That's because everything that I didn't ask me to ask you questions that you might talk about well I don't know if you're going I probably like a lot of things you know I just kind of skim through it you know. But you read that book and you'll understand better what I've been talking about. Well yeah.

I just. These young people I've talked to over here the use of the fifth and sixth grade history classes once a year and I tell them to honor their country and look up to it and help support it and go to school and get a good best education they can get and prepare themselves for their life and their living. And I guess if I have had my life to live over I don't suppose I'd change a thing about it even though at time it. But the Lord helped me through it and I am happy everyday. I'm not able to do anything anymore. Just set in. But I enjoy it. And my wife and I if we get to

November we'll have been married 60 years. We're married. Forty four. Forty four. That's that's six this year. I guess we would be married seven years. Just come in and we've raised four children. But one in three girls and three granddaughters and we have a great Grant. The oldest granddaughter has four children. Boy he's about 11. And two boys are twins they are about eight and they have a beautiful daughter about seven years old. All of them are. And they've got jobs to do and well we don't we don't. We never worried about it. And I was fortunate enough to we eked out enough to send him to college. And

you know you couldn't ask for a better life. And we've done had our life in fact forward when it's time to go. I'm ready. Good.