Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
4:30 | After the Pearl Harbor attack, Warren Parker became an MP based on where he was standing in line at the induction center. So many men were counted off and sent to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri for basic training. Later, in California, the unit built a mock POW camp in the desert, but their "prisoners" never showed up.
Keywords : Warren Parker Becker MN Lamberton MN Revere MN Pearl Harbor Germany Japan Redwood Falls MN Fort Snelling Fort Leonard Wood Missouri guard duty Camp Young California Prisoner Of War (POW) desert
He was seasick before he left the San Francisco Bay, so Warren Parker missed the grand sight of the Golden Gate bridge. His MP unit went to New Guinea, then Morotai. They followed the infantry when islands were invaded and set up POW camps for captured enemy soldiers. They weren't on the front lines, but they became pretty good at digging foxholes to shelter from the Japanese bombs.
After the Army had secured the Philippines, the MP units came in to take custody of any prisoners. At first, they used barbed wire enclosures but then they gained use of an old prison building. Warren Parker was the truck driver, a plum job in the unit. He describes the unit's operation and how the men sought humor in their daily grind.
Like so many others, Warren Parker was training for the amphibious assault on Japan when the atomic bomb put an end to the fighting. He was in an MP unit so he wound up there anyway, attached to the 1st Cavalry, which landed in Yokohama. He recalls his short time there and his two friends, one who had more points and headed home first, and another friend who had a monkey.
