The Story of Hubert Voth as told by himself. . .
Hubert Voth was born on March 24, 1917 to Henry and Anna (Dicke)
Voth. One of ten children, he grew up on his parents' farm in
Featherstone Township. When he was 21, he began working
at S. B. Foot Tanning Company.
Sunday evening, December 7, 1941, we went to see some friends at the seminary. They said, “Did you hear that the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor?” We hadn’t. The next morning at work we all laid down our tools at about 10 o’clock while President Roosevelt informed us by radio that we were now at war with Japan. The following day Congress also declared war on Germany and Italy.
Several weeks later I received notice from my draft board in Red Wing that I was to report at the Goodhue County Courthouse on April 9, 1942 at 8:00 AM. I had learned that my brother Arnold had received his notice and had left with the March contingent. The draft was in full swing, and our group would fill two Greyhound buses. People lined the streets as we were paraded from the courthouse through downtown Red Wing to the St. James Hotel, where we boarded the buses to Fort Snelling.
We arrived at Camp Robinson in Little Rock, Arkansas. By now it was probably the end of April. I remember one of the first roll calls. The officer in charge kept calling “Vaat! Vaat!” I realized he was calling me. We were now full-fledged, uniformed recruits, members of the Medical Corps.
Training began in earnest. We spent about half of the day listening to long lectures and the other half either on the parade grounds doing close order drills or on long marches on country roads. Ambulances followed us to pick up the ones who dropped out; the heat of summer came early in the hot sands of Arkansas. As we stood at attention at retreat, the water would run down our arms and off our fingertips. On a bivouac, a soldier, looking for a place to set up his pup tent, felt something strike his leg. We all wore leggings, and for a good reason; it was a snake.
We boarded a troop train at Texarkana, Arkansas and headed for California. It was about 3:00 PM. It was hot, and cinders from the smoke of the coal-burning locomotives kept drifting in through the open windows. The clean uniforms we started with all had “ring around the collar” from the soot. We had looked forward to a furlough home; several had even married while at Camp Robinson. In some units the Army was able to provide such furloughs. Brother Arnold had at least one furlough - thank goodness! (This would be Arnold’s last trip home. He was killed in France, news that I would receive while stationed in the South Pacific.)
We boarded a troop ship and were off to the war. In eight days our ship docked in Honolulu, Hawaii. We learned that our destination was to be New Guinea. However, a troop ship head of us, on its way to Guadalcanal, struck a mine and sank, so we had to take its place. The following day we were still sorting things out when word came that the Japs were coming by sea to recapture that part of Guadalcanal that we had possession of. The officers gave us defense positions and said, “Do the best you can.” Medics were to only wear Red Cross patches and not carry weapons. (I don’t think weapons were available for us then, anyway.)
Darkness set in, and we could see on the horizon the red glow of battleship guns. Our Navy outlasted the Japanese, and things quieted down after several hours. According to the rules of the Geneva Convention, medics were supposed to be exempt from enemy attack; however, because these rules were ignored, the next day we exchanged our armbands for carbines.
Jungle warfare is no picnic. There are no roads. There are periods when it rains all day every day. The only consolation is that it is as wet for the enemy as it is for you. The Sea Bees had bulldozed an area and built an airstrip named Henderson Field after a pilot who had been killed there. Almost every night the Japs sent over one or two planes, from a nearby island they controlled, to bomb our positions. This sent us all scrambling for our foxholes. We had anti-aircraft guns, but they could only reach a certain height, and the Japs flew above that. We had fighter aircraft but without the instruments to fly at night. After what seemed forever, we were provided with a half dozen P-38s. The P-38 had a twin fuselage, was painted black, and was called the Black Widow. It was a beauty to watch. It had speed and was very maneuverable. If the planes weren’t directly over us, we could sit on the edge of our foxholes and watch the “dog fights” with tracer bullets aiming for the foe.
After several months, the Japs who were left had escaped or been killed, and the island became a base onto which supplies could now be brought to carry the fight to Tokyo. We were on Guadalcanal 15 months. We left Guadalcanal, boarded ship for New Zealand. We were going to leave the heat, the mud, the malaria, a disease called “jungle rot”. Our huge ocean liner (now a troop ship) slid quietly into the Auckland harbor and anchored. The ship’s railing was lined with GIs. Sailors were walking hand-in-hand with their girl friends. Everyone was speechless. We set up camp in the country on the land of a dairy farmer. It was summer here, not really warm, though. The people were very friendly and accommodating. They wanted us to feel welcome. Our stay there ended all too soon, and in about seven or eight weeks we were packing up to leave again.
Anyway, we ended up in New Caledonia where we trained further for the invasion of the Philippines. This lasted several months, and then we loaded the ship again and headed for the Philippines. We stopped briefly at Guadalcanal where we made a “dry run” landing, and then we continued on to the island of Truk, a small speck in the Pacific Ocean just large enough for fighter planes to use.
In the early morning I went up on deck and couldn’t believe my eyes! There were battleships, destroyers, cruisers, and aircraft carriers. I thought the entire United States Navy was there! By now, fairly confident that the war in Europe was coming to an end, the US was gearing up to take the Philippines and then Japan.
We pushed off for the upper island of Luzon and landed, I suppose, several days later. Our assignment was to liberate the Lingayon Gulf. It was a long, deep valley sloping upwards. We started at the bottom, and the going was tough. As we came through the Balete Pass, the hills were high on both sides, with the enemy looking down from well-fortified positions. There were caves into which they would retreat, and at night they would bring out their artillery and open up fire. It was on one of these occasions that another unit than ours came under fire at night, and we were called to help out. We were later awarded citations. I was awarded the Bronze Star, of which I am very proud.
We were making progress fighting our way up the valley when we were all cheered by the news that the war in Europe had ended on May 8, 1945. But we had not won the Philippines yet, and after that the dreaded invasion of Japan was waiting. Unknown to us, of course, was that the U.S. had developed a weapon called the Atom bomb. On August 6th it was dropped, and it wiped out the entire city of Hiroshima, population around 500,000. Several days later, another one was dropped on Nagasaki, and it killed another several hundred thousand. Japan surrendered on August 15th.
Editors Note: Hubert came home to Red Wing after being honorably discharged from the Army on October 25, 1945. He worked for a time as short-order cook in Minneapolis and then returned to the family farm. In January of 1947, he traveled to Texas to visit his brother and sister. While there, he met Irma Albers. They were married in December, and he brought her back to Red Wing where they raised six children. Hubert worked first for Kramer's Hatchery and then for Lloyd's Produce before beginning his career with the U.S. Postal Service. He carried mail in Red Wing almost twenty years. Irma died in 1984, and Hubert later married Audrey Simonson. They continue to reside in Red Wing.