Robert Milligan Graves, interviewed by Nicolette Graves on 25 April 1999 in Longview, Washington.  Graves was stationed at Camp Bennion at Farragut, Idaho from 1943-44.

Robert Graves is flanked on either side by two unknown soldiers. Photo courtesy of Robert Graves.

RMG: Well, after I was in Portland, Oregon for my physical examination we were taken up there on the train from Klamath Falls [Oregon] - and following our examinations and our acceptance for service; why, we were given orders to return home and spent some time back in Klamath - I think about a week it seemed to me, and then we were ordered to report to Farragut Naval Training Station in Farragut, Idaho. So I proceeded up there arriving there in early September for boot-camp training. And we arrived there, as I recall, sometime early in the day, around... in the morning sometime, and were taken to the building where we were issued our uniforms and all of the various personal things we were going to be using while we were in boot training [coughs]. And that was the last we saw of our civilian clothes - they were shipped back to our homes.

Then we were taken to a barracks where we were assigned for our - what would eventually become our training company. And - on arriving into the training area, we [were] greeted by a lot of the so-called old veterans who were there, or preceding us in a lot of the other barracks, and they jeered and hollered at us, and called us various names which were used for new arrivals, which was kind of an intimidating experience for all of us, but we survived and uh, were shown into the barracks and assigned our bunks, and uh, told to get our belongings kind of together there. And given some instructions on how to store some of our things and make our beds, and various things. And then that, that pretty much took up, I think, most of the afternoon, and then we were taken to dinner [coughs], had our first navy mess which seemed pretty good to me. During the depression we didn't eat too well at home. But uh, anyway, after dinner we uh had a meeting with our new company commander, a man by the name of Day, a very fine man I thought, who became our ruler for the next eight weeks, and uh, was in charge of all of our activities. [046] Uh, and he informed us that uh we would be having lights out pretty shortly - as I recall it seems to me like it was about eight-thirty or nine o'clock that there was taps, no more lights and quiet and uh we'd be wakened the next morning like, I think, about four-thirty or five. So uh, I mean when taps comes, lights are out and that's it, and we were told to be, you know, very quiet, but one of our uh group decided that it was a good time to act up a bit in the middle of the night, and uh started doing a lot of hollering around, and making a bunch of funny jokes and so on, and uh disturbing everybody's sleep. [057]. But it didn't last too long because the powers-that-be came in and got the whole troop up, our whole company, and ushered us outside onto the drill field and ran us around the drill field about four or five times in the middle of the night in our underwear. And it wasn't real warm as I recall! But uh, we all got the message that uh, if anybody screws up we all pay, and uh that was something that we all (coughs 064] needed to learn quickly, and uh I don't think we had anymore of those kind of problems.

But uh, and the next day we finished kind of getting organized as I recall, and we were given instructions on how to fold our clothes, and what would be worn at certain times, and - and uh what time most everything was going to happen to us and when our meals were and when we had to go to bed and what instructions we were going to be having, and that sort of thing. And uh, and what we were going to do to maintain our facilities, we had - we kept the barracks, did all the cleaning, that sort of thing, mopping the floors, cleaning the latrines, and uh, washed the windows inside and out [076]. Every Friday, as I recall, was Field Day which we did all of those things and all the mattresses were hung out the windows to air out and ..... So that was pretty much what we had to learn about taking care of ourselves and our facilities.

The rest of the time we spent uh doing marching drills and learning to work as a unit and as a group, and uh - uh, doing all kinds of things really. Then we had instructions in all kinds of nautical things, knot tying, and some seamanship things, and uh. . just various skills that we probably would need on board ship eventually [088]. And we had rifle practice and uh quite a lot of physical activities, boxing and wrestling and judo and swimming - everyone had to swim - had huge swimming pools and before you could get out of boot camp, you had to swim. [And so] I was fortunate enough that I knew how to swim but not all of them did, and I remember one fellow, well more than one, who could not swim, and they were told to jump in the water, and uh I saw two or three actually faint from fright, and they had to be - eventually they had to do it - they did, and we had to jump off of some big scaffoldings too [100], as I recall, like you were jumping off of a ship I guess. So that was, for me it was fine, I always loved the water, but some people were very intimidated. But it was a very essential thing - a lot of those fellows I'm sure ended up in the water in the ocean, and uh so it was necessary, and you had to learn how to tie various rescue knots and things like bowlines to help you get out of the water. And uh I guess uh - well, we, we did rowing on uh Lake Pend Oreille. The navy had some whale boats down there, and we went down and manned those as a crew. I don't remember how many of us - there must've been probably about six or eight of us in each boat, I think, - they were pretty good-size boats beautiful place, I remember it was about as pretty a lake as I'd seen I think - I really enjoyed that part of it [113]. But the scenery up there, the area's very nice, it's a beautiful area really. So, anyway that was pretty much our activities during those eight weeks; a lot of marching and physical conditioning, calisthenics and uh, other athletic type things. Didn't have much time for any amusements or anything, it was mostly just sleep and eat and train and ....

RMG: Mmhh. Yeah that was... [chuckles]. We bought a car, several of us who kind of hung around together. We had trouble getting into [coughs]. [159] [chuckles]. Before I got out of that boot camp there, I was gonna talk about those rifles, wasn't I? I forgot about that.

RMG: I guess we can go back, huh?

RMG: [sighs] Oh, I was starting to talk about the car, wasn't I? Anyway, we always had trouble getting into Spokane and Coeur d'Alene when we had leave, or liberty, and so a group of us bought an old car, a Model A four-door sedan. And they made one other trip without me - I wasn't able to go on liberty, but the first time I went, why, we were driving down the highway towards Coeur d'Alene and we heard a big thump in the back, and we looked out the window and saw the left rear wheel passing us on the left-hand side, just rolling down the highway faster than we were. The left wheel had come off so consequently, of course, the car had come down on the axle finally. And as far as I know, the car, we just pushed it off the side of the road and it's still sitting there as far as I know - we never saw it again [laughs] [176]. We all left Camp Peterson shortly after that [laughs] so I guess we never really had any need for it anyway.

NG: Where did you go after you left Farragut?

RMG: I was ordered to Camp Shoemaker in the San Francisco Bay area. It was -actually it was a port, embarkation camp really, where people were assigned to various things overseas, and I was there for about - not very long, just a few days as I recall. [238] And uh, everyone was anxious to get out of there because they were really kind of temporary facilities, and no one was there for a very long time. There wasn't anything to do, you didn't have any duties or anything, you were just waiting to go. Anyway, I was just there a few days, and I was assigned to a ship, the USS Bowers, which is a destroyer escort, a brand new one, it'd just been commissioned. It had just come back from her shakedown cruise, actually. And I went aboard her on the 24 March [1944], I think it was. And in a matter of three or four days, we set sail for the South Pacific. I spent the rest of my - well, not all of my time there, I guess, but quite a long time.

NG: And when did you leave the navy?

RMG: December 21st, 1945.

NG: Were there quite a few from Portland?

RMG: Uh, in boot camp there were a number of us, but in service school they seemed to come from everywhere, of course there were just a few from here and a few from there. I don't know how they selected the recruits to go to Farragut. I know people from the Midwest came out there also. But a lot of people from here went to the Midwest for some of those boot camps too, so... I don't' know.

This story was found at www.ccrh.org at the following link http://www.ccrh.org/comm/sand/oral/rgraves.htm