The US Navy Japanese/Oriental Language School

BIOGRAPHIES - Class of 1944
Gerald Green

Gerald Green, USMCEL

NOTE: Gerald Green was a Camp Elliott USMC Enlisted Linguist and not a US Navy JLS/OLS Boulderite, although he knew some of the JLS/OLS men. USMCEL letters are printed because they both knew many of the Boulder graduates and no one is tracking their story. Green attended USC, therefore he is associated with these pages.

In the article "Doyle 'Gocho' Harris, Samoa EJLS/OLS", in The Interpreter, Cal Dunbar mentions "CPT Jewett USMC, the conversational Japanese teacher at Camp Elliott." As a member of the inaugural class at that school I remember Captain Jewett as a bluff, elderly (as he seemed to my 18-year-old eyes) gentleman who had been commissioned a USMC officer solely by virtue of his having been a long-time businessman in Tokyo, well-versed in conversational Japanese. Certainly there was nothing remotely military about him. Willing to disregard the severe injunction that we be allowed to speak no words of English shortly after our arrival at Camp Elliot, and it being known to my classmates that I had played a sousaphone in my high school band, he would always say, when a band marched past our classroom, "Green, how much does that big horn weigh?" Somehow, we managed to win the war.

We were a very small group of enlisted men, quickly assembled from among new boots at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego (I enlisted December 8, 1942), because of the recent sudden death of the First Marine Division D-2, Lieutenant Colonel Frank B. Goettge on patrol in Guadalcanal the night of 12 September 1942 , together with Lieutenant Ralph Cory, virtually the only language officer in the USMC of that time who knew the language of the enemy. Soon thereafter word was passed to all platoons then in "boot" training to recruit men capable of quickly learning the Japanese language. The criteria for such selection were, apparently, not clear to those charged with the recruiting. No one then in training knew Japanese. Like most of those recruited, I had studied some languages in high school (Greek, Latin, and Spanish). Indeed, Marine Corps enlistment in 1942 apparently discriminated against anyone who was not Caucasian. However, our faculty at Camp Elliott consisted of Captain Paul Dull, who had been retired from active duty for medical reasons, Captain Jewett, and a robust, young Marine Corps sergeant whose name was Lew Yet Ming, a person of Chinese ancestry who somehow knew Japanese.
(to be cont’d)
Gerald Green - USMCEL

[Ed. Note: Paul Dull graduated from the USMC Japanese Language School in Hawaii from July to December 1941, along with E. Boardman, J. Erskine, R. Gard, G. Holtom, J. Merrill, D. Nugent and J. Pelzel.]

Gerald Green, USMCEL
Part 2

Our instructional materials were the two Kenkyusha daijibiki (Japanese-English, English-Japanese), the Rose-Innes Beginner's Dictionary of Chinese-Japanese Characters, and a thick sheaf of mimeographed lessons authored, I believe, by Captain Dull. Our student group studied in the classroom about 8 hours a day, marched everywhere together in close-order drill (trading off duties as drill instructor in Japanese), ate together, went to the PX together, occupied the same barracks - in short, we spent every waking moment practicing Japanese for the 13-week duration of the school. I no longer remember how many of us "graduated," but there was severe attrition; I think there were 9 or 10 of us at the end, and there must have been more than twice that number when we began. There was a lot of emphasis on spoken Japanese, but we also learned a lot of kanji, with an emphasis on reading captured documents, maps, etc. We were scarcely aware of the language school at Boulder, but we knew that those men spent a much longer time and were graduated with commissions. We were not told what our rank would be upon completing the course, but I remember being mildly disappointed that we all made PFC at the end and our MOSs were scout-sniper, with only a secondary MOS as Japanese interpreter.

When I finally met a graduate of the Boulder program, it was after we had secured Cape Gloucester (New Britain Island). I had joined H&S Co., First Marines during the stay of the First Marine Division in Melbourne Australia. It was on Cape Gloucester where one of my "incidental" duties was to shepherd a group of Nisei Army translators the Marines had briefly borrowed from the Army. (True to its traditions, the Marine Corps had shunned such non-white recruits despite their obvious value, and my CO - Chesty Puller - decided he couldn't trust his Marines not to shoot first at a Japanese face.)

Just before we were to move to Pavuvu Island for "rest and recreation," we acquired our first language officer, Captain Dick Greenwood, who had just completed the Boulder course. Thereafter, enlisted interpreters were more often used in our primary military occupational specialties (more scouting than sniping, I'm glad to say), but on the next invasion the division made (Peleliu) I still had to lug my bag of heavy dictionaries in addition to all the accoutrements of war - rifle, bayonet, ammo belt, etc., etc. (to be cont’d)

Gerald Green - USMCEL

[Ed. Note: Those who attended the USMC JLS in Hawaii who were not judged ‘ready’ on December 7, 1941 (busy that day in Hawaii), were sent on, like Jack Pierce to programs in the States (see his piece in issue #16, “Holtom Reprise”).

Gerald Green, USMCEL
Part 3

Peleliu was the worst of my experiences in making a landing on an enemy-held island, and not only were there few captured documents to translate, there were no prisoners to interrogate. Col. Puller had decreed aboard ship prior to our landing that he wanted "no prisoners." So when a patrol returned with a frightened prisoner who claimed to be a Korean laborer (and I verified this by asking him), the CO said, "He looks like a *@%ing Jap to me! Lieutenant, get your carbine and take him out and shoot him." The lieutenant did as he was ordered. Soon after the division returned to Pavuvu, the first sergeant called over to my tent, "Pack your seabag. Your orders just came through, and you're going to the States in 2 hours!" I had even forgotten that I had applied for officer training (V-12) while in boot camp, but you may be sure I was happy to comply. I was assigned to the V-12 unit at the University of Southern California, where I stayed until I was mustered out on points at war's end, December 8, 1945. (finis)

Gerald Green - USMCEL

This information was graciously provided by:
David M. Hays, Archivist
University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries
184 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0184
(303) 492-7242

These pages are dedicated the history of the graduates of the US Navy Japanese / Oriental Language School, University of Colorado at Boulder, 1942-1946 and also attended USC.

This information has been made possible by David M. Hays Instructor/Archivist of University of Colorado at Boulder.

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