I am PFC Ralph Clinton Pinkerton. Today, June 14, 1945, I am half way around the world from Newcastle, Texas and my wife Clodell and kids Jerry Wayne and Judy Carolyn. I am on the Island of Mindanao in the Philippines near Cabanglasan in I Company, 108th Infantry Regiment. I operate a .30 caliber machine gun.

It has been eight months since I saw my wife, kids, and kin folks. My brothers, Raymond in the Marines and Ed Jr. in the Navy, are in the Pacific somewhere. I will be so glad when I get back home to Texas and see my family again.

I was born in 1919 and raised in Newcastle and lived most of my life there until I was drafted. The oldest child of Ed and Ida Pinkerton and I have two sisters and three brothers. I completed elementary school and a part year of high school before I dropped out at 14 and started working odd jobs. I enjoyed playing softball and was pretty good at it. I was the catcher on our town’s softball team.

Clodell and I were both eighteen when we married in 1937 in the middle of the Depression. We were glad when Clodell became pregnant with our first child. But the baby was stillborn in 1938. We were devastated.

There were not many jobs of any kind. I picked cotton, worked in the coal mine, worked as a carpenter’s helper and later as a carpenter. When Dad got his truck, I hauled anything that anybody needed hauling. In 1940, I got a construction job on the Army training camp at Camp Wolters, Texas. The job paid good wages, but it only lasted a few months. I would go there for basic training in 1944. In early 1943, I was hired by the Consolidated Aircraft Corp.in Fort Worth as a riveter, building B-24 Liberator bombers and worked there until I got my draft notice in May 1944.

I arrived at Camp Wolters for my training in June 1944. I signed up for the government insurance of $10,000 to provide for Clodell and the kids in case something happened to me. My pay was $50 a month and $22 of it was allotted to Clodell.

Clodell and kids came to visit me a couple of Sundays during training. She always brought some good home cooked food. Jerry would wear his Army suit to look like me. He liked to salute the flag with me when the bugler played Retreat. Little Judy would walk around or let me carry her. Jerry always cried when they left; he did not understand why his dad had to stay here. After basic training and a short furlough, Clodell and the kids drove me to Fort Worth to catch the train to California. Jerry and Judy were crying the last time I saw them.

I went overseas from San Francisco on the Liberty ship USS Sea Snipe. After a month, on March 4, 1945 we reached our destination of Tacloban, Leyte. This is where U. S. troops first landed to liberate the Philippines.

After a few days we were put on ships to Ormoc where I was placed in I Company. We were involved in clearing out the Japanese troops bypassed in the battle for Leyte. By the end of April we had eliminated most all of the enemy strong points. On May 1 all of us Privates were promoted to PFC. We got our first stripe and first pay raise. Also as of May 1 we were awarded our Combat Infantrymen’s Badge. On May 9 we loaded onto an LCI for Mindanao.

On May 10, we beached and walked down the ramps in the shallow water. The Japs had decided not to defend the landing.The Ormoc group had been together for 2 months now, and we had bonded enough to be pretty good. Just before reaching Mangima Canyon, our 3rd Battalion secured part of the Del Monte airfield from which General MacArthur left on the B-17 that flew him to Australia.

All of our food and supplies were air dropped by C47s flying out of Del Monte. One day a box of grenades was dropped and shattered when it hit the ground. The cotter pins came out and grenades exploded all over. Later a C47 flew over real high, then turned back and flew in low and dropped several parachutes with large metal containers of Coca-Cola. The pilot had flown high enough to get the cokes cold for us.

We relieved a Company that had a Jap prisoner. Someone said, “When you get back to Tokyo, tell Tojo that we are coming to get that SOB!” The prisoner answered in perfect English, “You will probably get there before I do, so you tell him yourself.” The prisoner was an American born Japanese who had gone to Japan just before Pearl Harbor to visit his relatives. He had been drafted by the Japanese and because of his good English was serving as an interpreter.

Today I Company is going out to retrieve a K Company KIA and bring him back for burial. We were up about 0600 hours. My K-ration breakfast was a tin of scrambled eggs with bacon bits. I mixed the instant coffee in my canteen cup with some water and heated it by burning the K ration box. After the cup of hot coffee I had a smoke. Our last hot meal was over a week ago when we started out on this mission. When this mission is over we can go back to the base camp, get cleaned up and have some hot chow again.

We found the KIA and put him on a stretcher to take back. The two machine guns were ordered up to the front to furnish covering fire if needed. So we moved up to the tree line on the right side, and set up our weapons. All of a sudden, all Hell broke loose. We began receiving fire from multiple Jap machine guns and rifles, and mortar shells started raining down on us. The forward riflemen and those behind us jumped for what cover they could find.

We were exposed, but we kept sweeping the area with machine gun fire at any muzzle blast hoping to take out the Jap machine guns. Then I saw my assistant bleeding profusely and not moving. I had been hit too, but was able to keep firing. Then I felt a burning sensation all over my body.