By Robert Corson, January 25, 2020 — When I was in the Army, they sent me to Fort Dix, then to Massachusetts, then back to Fort Dix, and back to Massachusetts. They asked me where I wanted to go, I said Germany, they said OK, and sent me to Korea. I thought, “This ain’t starting out too good.”
I got on the boat, the USS Mandan, the last troopship after World War 2, taking troops to the far East. We hit a very bad hurricane, or they’re called cyclones out there. The front of the bow of the boat split open. So we went from going 12 knots down to 3 knots. We were supposed to get there in 11 days, it took us almost 30 days to get to Japan. The food was terrible, the conditions were terrible. If you ever go in a troopship, there’s bays all on top of each other with barely any room, so everyone’s on top of each other. So if someone gets sick, the smell would kill you. I thought, “This is a nightmare.” So then I got sick, I got really sick. I heard over the loudspeaker them calling for me, “Corson, if you don’t come here you’ll be considered AWOL.” I thought, “I don’t care, throw me over the side of the boat at this point.”
So after the 2nd or 3rd day I dragged myself out of bed, I went up on the top of the ship, I laid on the deck, and some swabby comes over and kicks me in the side and asks, “Hey what are you doing?” I said, “I don’t know, probably dying, I’m sick.” He said, “Why are you sick?” I said, “The boat is rocking like crazy, I’ve never been in a boat like this!” He asked me what I’d eaten. I said, “Nothing.” He asked, “Well, what’d you eat yesterday?” I said, “Nothing.” He said, “Well, that’s why you’re sick!” I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “You have to eat!” I said, “You really think I’m going down to the mess hall? Your trays just fly all over, you have to hold on while everything rocks back and forth! No way I’m going down there to try and eat.” He said, “go down and get a box of ritz crackers and some coca-cola. Have that, and in about an hour or two you’ll be alright.” I thought, “This guy’s gotta be crazy, but I’ll try.”
So I went down and got the crackers and coca-cola, the rest of the trip didn’t bother me at all! Nobody had told me before. There was no directions, no one telling you where anything was, it was my first time, but that really saved me.