Interview January 2001
Ira Neilson went to boot camp one week after he turned 17. He was in boot camp for six weeks. When he got finished with boot camp he got on a boat to go to China. Before they went to China they went from San Francisco to San Diego to pick up veterans to replace veterans that were ready to go home.
On the boat there were about 6,000 men. The first morning on the boat they started breakfast at 5:00 a.m. and fed everybody by 2:00 p.m. After a while it got better but the reason it took so long was because it was so crowded. Some people had to sleep on the deck. Most bunks were in compartments about 8 feet high. It had 5 bunks starting about 6 inches off the floor.
In September he got to China and was put on a destroyer repair boat for several months. He can remember standing on a pier and watching some starving Chinese kids playing in the water. The Veterans would throw coins in the water and the kids would go and find them. After dinner there were lots of left-overs and the veterans would put the left-over food in 50 gallon barrels. When the barrels were full they would put them on the pier and some Chinese men would take care of them. The starving kids would try to get some left-overs with tin cans. The Chinese men wouldn't let them get some, so 2 or 3 kids would come from the land and make the men mad so the men would chase the kids. When the men chased the kids some kids would come out of the water, run up and get some left-overs. Then all the kids would share the left-over food. At the end of September he got discharged.
Communist were about 8 to12 miles around towns. Nationalists were stationed in the towns. In the town there was also an aiport where planes could take off to war. Marines were about eight miles from town. They kept the communists out so they couldn't take over. Some marines were captured and a few died. Ira never had to carry a weapon or worry about being in danger because the Marines kept everybody out.
Ira can also remember watching an army 6-by truck coming down from the pier and an old man walked out in from of it. The truck just ran him over and kept driving. A few men walked over to him and he was dead. They just wrapped him in a canvas bag and threw him over the pier.
He was transferred from the ship to a Port Facility. He wanted to go to find out what they did. There were big barracks and radio's at the Port Facilities.The facility was about half a mile or more from the pier. They would walk to the facility. It was really, really cold. Every morning they would walk around. He would see four or five people dead on the streets. They were all froze to death. People asked "why the big buildings weren't opened so they could go in" and the answer was that "why worry about them freezing to death in the winter because they will starve to death in summer." People also asked "why people didn't help them out" and the answer was that "in China, it was a custom if you help, you will become responsible for that person."
Ira thought it was interesting how they ground their flour. They had a stone about four to six feet. There were poles coming from the top and the side. They would blind fold a donkey and it would walk in circles. A big stone would grind up the flour.
He went to Shanghai, China and saw something else interesting. He said that families lived on little boats about 15 to 20 feet long and about 6 feet wide. You would see a mother on one side washing clothes and at the same time another family member sitting on the back going to the bathroom.