[Annotator's Note: There is audio feedback noise throughout this clip.] Gilbert H. Howland was born in April 1923 in Waltham, Massachusetts. His father worked for the Waltham Watch Factory. His parents divorced when he was five. His mother got him and his brother into a school she could not afford due to the Daughters of the American Revolution [Annotator's Note: a lineage-based membership service organization for women who are directly descended from a person involved in the United States' efforts towards independence that promotes education and patriotism] sponsoring him. His sisters stayed with their mother and moved to Boston [Annotator's Note: Boston, Massachusetts]. His mother worked for Lorna B. Lutz [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] who wrote 12 books. His mother did the typing for her. Howland was held back a year and graduated in 1939. His younger brother had graduated in 1938 and joined the Marines. He never met his father after he started at that school. Only his mother came to visit him. Years later, Howland sent her money when he could, as did his brother. He went into the Army after high school at 18. In the summers in high school, he had a job taking care of Siberian Husky sled dogs. He helped train them. The man who owned them had been chased out of Russia in the Revolution [Annotator's Note: Russian Revolution, 8 March 1917 to 16 June 1923]. He raced the dogs. They got a new heater for the place Howland was staying in. The heater stopped working. Howland was asleep and smoke filled the room. The next thing he knew, his head hit the floor. He crawled over to the door and fell into the snow. He got dressed and milked a cow. He went to the kitchen and passed out. They rushed him to the doctor. His mother said he had to come home. He got a job gardening. He earned his money. Later when he went to high school, he took a sheet metal working class. He later got a job doing that. He helped make cases for radios. He got fired and then on his 18th birthday he enlisted in the Army. He thought he had seen enough posters of that guy [Annotator's Note: Uncle Sam; a common national personification of the federal government of the United States] pointing at you [Annotator's Note: Uncle Sam "I Want You" recruiting posters]. He saw what was going on in London [Annotator's Note: London, England] and the Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] were raising hell. They went to Fort Slocum, New York [Annotator's Note: Davids Island, New Rochelle, New York]. He got a yellow fever [Annotator's Note: disease caused by a virus spread by mosquitoes] shot and passed out. He was revived and was put on the Hunter Liggett [Annotator's Note: the USS Hunter Liggett (APA-14)] and went to Panama. It [Annotator's Note: the voyage] took about four days. Somebody had caught the measles [Annotator's Note: highly contagious respiratory disease] on the ship. They were quarantined in tents on the parade ground. He was in the 33rd Infantry Regiment [Annotator's Note: 33rd Infantry Regiment (Separate)]. They spent ten days and the water got deep from the rain. It happens every day. He was in M Company [Annotator's Note: Company M, 3rd Battalion, 33rd Infantry Regiment (Separate)] which was a weapons company. They had machine guns, heavy mortars, 81s [Annotator's Note: M1 81mm mortar], and .30 caliber water-cooled [Annotator's Note: Browning M1917 .30 caliber water cooled heavy machine gun]. He was put on machine guns. He passed basic training and KP [Annotator's Note: kitchen patrol or kitchen police]. He paid seven dollars a month for a guy to shine his shoes. Everybody chipped in. They could get a tailormade uniform for seven bucks. His gun was the water-cooled and it was heavy. There were eight men in a squad. Three of the four regiments taking care of the Canal [Annotator's Note: the Panama Canal] were the 5th [Annotator's Note: 5th Infantry Regiment, 18 Infantry Brigade], the 14th [Annotator's Note: 14th Infantry Regiment, 71st Infantry Division] and the 33rd. They were at Fort Clayton [Annotator's Note: Fort Clayton, Panama Canal Zone; now Republic of Panama]. The 2nd Field Artillery [Annotator's Note: 2nd Field Artillery Regiment] and the Signal Corps [Annotator's Note: US Army Signal Corps] were there too. This was May 1941.

[Annotator's Note: There is audio feedback noise throughout this clip.] Gilbert H. Howland was raised on a farm and knew about animals. They [Annotator's Note: 33rd Infantry Regiment (Separate)] had a lot of animals he did not know about [Annotator's Note: in Panama]. A detail was formed, and they were sent to the stables where the mules were. They had to take the mules out and exercise them. They were not supposed to ride them. He did once and the mule threw him off into a puddle. The sergeant knew where he had been. He made friends with a bunch of guys. There were ten of them assigned together. Along came Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He was in the barracks at Fort Clayton [Annotator's Note: Fort Clayton, Panama Canal Zone; now the Republic of Panama]. They were sent out with their machine guns. The Fort was at a set of locks, and they went out to protect them. The morning after Pearl Harbor, there were barrage balloons [Annotator's Note: large, tethered kite balloon used to defend ground targets against aircraft attack] above the locks. They stayed out there a couple of months. Then the regiment was sent to Trinidad [Annotator's Note: one island of Trinidad and Tobago], which was British at the time. They landed at a camp there [Annotator's Note: Fort Read, Cumuto, Trinidad]. They had a tough obstacle course they had to go through. He just went along with it. When he was a kid, he did a lot of things. He planted and canned vegetables in school. He liked to be with a group of people, and he was a helper. Men were enlisting from all over. He was in the RA, the Regular Army [Annotator's Note: United States Army; during World War 2, individuals enlisted or were drafted into the Army of the United States which was the Reserve Army], not the Army as that came later. When they left Fort Clayton, Reserve units came in and took over their job. They built fortifications on Trinidad at Manzanilla Beach. They had rum [Annotator's Note: an alcoholic beverage] and Coca-Cola. He went to jungle school there and enjoyed it. It was beautiful out there at night. They had a long beach with coconut trees. They had grapefruit trees. He saw a big ship in the harbor when starting amphibious training and it was the original Lexington aircraft carrier [Annotator's Note: USS Lexington (CV-2)]. They had a net in the harbor for submarines. It was Port of Spain harbor [Annotator's Note: City of Port of Spain, Trinidad]. They trained on a little island there. He made corporal on the machine guns. He was called to give a company PT [Annotator's Note: physical training]. The obstacle course was really rough. He and some guys built a track. They played the British in soccer. Howland liked to run. He played baseball in school.

[Annotator's Note: There is audio feedback noise throughout this clip.] The Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] were in the Philippines and took Corregidor [Annotator's Note: Battle of Corregidor, 5 to 6 May 1942; Corregidor Island, Luzon, Philippines]. Gilbert H. Howland and his unit [Annotator's Note: 33rd Infantry Regiment (Separate)] heard about that. They started classifying guys who were Section 8 [Annotator's Note: category of discharge for service members deemed mentally ill] and sending them back to the United States. One guy had a .45 [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] and tried to shoot the colonel. A sergeant major grabbed him, and the bullet went into the ceiling. He had to guard prisoners who had gone AWOL [Annotator's Note: absent without leave] or done other things. He knew he was eventually going somewhere. He got a lot of time overseas and got to go home on leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. He took an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] around the middle of 1942. There were 500 of them on there and they zig-zagged [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver] to Puerto Rico. He got 15 days leave. They got called into San Juan [Annotator's Note: San Juan, Puerto Rico] and they did a lot of boxing there. A colonel came down and said that Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] had declared a mission. He wanted 3,000 jungle troops to go on it. Howland raised his hand with 123 other guys. The ones who volunteered got to fly home. He flew to Miami [Annotator's Note: Miami, Florida] and stayed at the Fleetwood Hotel [Annotator's Note: on Miami Beach, Florida]. He was readying to go to Boston [Annotator's Note: Boston, Massachusetts] and wrote his mother a postcard. One morning, something woke them up. Four platoons were going down the road singing "Wild Blue Yonder" [Annotator's Note: "The U.S. Air Force", official song of the United States Air Force]. They were Air Force. Howland and others yelled at them. It was funny, but it got serious after that. The next day they got new carbines [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic carbine] and went to the range. They had never fired them before. The next night they were put on a troop train with no idea where they were going. The colonel had told them that some of their unit in Panama and Trinidad [Annotator's Note: one island of Trinidad and Tobago] had already volunteered for the mission. Howland wanted to be with them. They went to outside of Pittsburg, California. People were coming from all over. Louis Prima [Annotator's Note: Louis Leo Prima; American singer, songwriter, bandleader, and trumpeter] was there, and they ripped up entertainment for the troops. It was beautiful. They took ferries to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. There was a ship there that was a fast boat, the Lurline [Annotator's Note: SS Lurline], from Honolulu [Annotator's Note: Honolulu, Hawaii]. They were on E deck, and it was just him and one guy in a little room. The swimming pool had bunk beds in it.

[Annotator's Note: There is audio feedback noise throughout this clip.] Gilbert H. Howland was getting the news of what was happening around the world. He went through the jungle platoon. By the time he got to Trinidad [Annotator's Note: one island of Trinidad and Tobago], he was almost a section leader of two guns. He worked them so hard they were asking him to stop. Most of the guys came from Panama and Trinidad. Not many came from other battalions. Howland felt he was needed. He had heard about Corregidor [Annotator's Note: Battle of Corregidor, 5 to 6 May 1942; Corregidor Island, Luzon, Philippines], and they had Section 8s [Annotator's Note: category of discharge for service members deemed mentally ill] going off from not doing anything. They were Regular Army [Annotator's Note: United States Army; during World War 2, individuals enlisted or were drafted into the Army of the United States which was the Reserve Army]. He got on a ship and landed in New Caledonia [Annotator's Note: New Caledonia, Oceania]. They did not know the 1st Marine Division was there at an advance camp. There was another outfit there that had been at Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal Campaign, 7 August 1942 to 9 February 1943; Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands], called the Americal Division [Annotator's Note: only Army Division with no number]. Five hundred of those men joined Howland's outfit [Annotator's Note: 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional); also called Galahad Force or Merrill's Marauders]. They still had no idea of what their mission was other than it was not going to be a picnic. They had studied the appearance of Japanese airplanes and ships and the physical differences between Japanese and Chinese people. They went to Brisbane, Australia and got water. A few men went AWOL [Annotator's Note: absent without leave]. They then went to Perth [Annotator's Note: Perth, Australia]. They got off the ship in formation. They walked to a park in Fremantle, Australia and then walked back to the boat. Three days later, they sailed to Bombay, India. That ship zig-zagged [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver]. They had an escort that was smaller than a destroyer. It was an Australian Navy ship. A ship that had mules and horses for them got torpedoed and they lost them all. In Bombay, they landed in a British camp [Annotator's Note: in Deolali, also called Devlali, India]. They did not have coffee and he could not stand the tea. They stayed a month or so in training. This was a Bengal Lancer [Annotator's Note: regiments of the British Indian Army] camp, the ones from the Charge of the Light Brigade [Annotator's Note: a failed military action by British light cavalry and against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava, Crimean War, on 25 October 1854]. They were put on a train to a river where there was no bridge. They took apart each train car, put them singly on a ferry across the river and then put them back together. It took four or five days to cross India to Assam [Annotator's Note: Assam, India]. They bivouacked [Annotator's Note: a bivouac is a temporary camp] and trained and met Brigadier General Wingate [Annotator's Note: British Army Major General Orde Charles Wingate]. He had gone into Burma a couple of years before that with a long-range penetration group. Marshall [Annotator's Note: US Chief of Staff and General of the Army George C. Marshall] and Stilwell [Annotator's Note: US Army General Joseph Warren Stilwell] liked him. Mountbatten [Annotator's Note: British Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma] was there and was the big man in India over all the troops. They trained with Wingate's outfit, combat team against combat team. Howland was in the weapons company, George Company [Annotator's Note: Company G], 2nd Battalion, Green Combat Team. They had 81s [Annotator's Note: M1 81mm mortar] and water-cooled .30s [Annotator's Note: Browning M1917 .30 caliber water cooled heavy machine gun].

[Annotator's Note: There is audio feedback noise throughout this clip.] Gilbert H. Howland and his outfit [Annotator's Note: Company G, 2nd Battalion, Green Combat Team, 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional)] got going. The Gurkhas [Annotator's Note: also called Gorkha or Gorkhall, soldiers native to South Asia recruited for the British Army and Indian Army] fought for the English. They had knives [Annotator's Note: kukri or khukuri, type of machete] and he got his son one. Each soldier had one, but theirs were manufactured and lighter and they would snap. They did river crossings. They made their own rafts out of their ponchos that they pushed across with their supplies. Then they had to get the mules across and that was difficult. They had gathered mules and horses from all over India and they had to train them all to carry ammunition. The ammunition weighed a lot and the animals got sores. After another two months, into almost 1943, their training was over. The Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] had cut the Burma Road [Annotator's Note: a road linking Burma with southwest China]. Everything was about getting things into China. The Chinese were fighting both Chinese and Japanese. That was the only road. The Flying Tigers [Annotator's Note: First American Volunteer Group, or AVG, Chinese Air Force; also known as the Flying Tigers; 1941 to 1942] were in there. There were some heavy bomber groups hitting the Japs. [Annotator's Note: Another interviewer asks Howland questions about training.] The training against Wingate's [Annotator's Note: British Army Major General Orde Charles Wingate] groups was done in a big area [Annotator's Note: in Deolali, also called Devlali, India]. Each group would try to ambush the other group. They bivouacked [Annotator's Note: a bivouac is a temporary camp] just like they did in combat, a little poncho and a little blanket. The muleskinners [Annotator's Note: professional mule driver] would put harnesses on the new animals and then load on guns and ammunitions to train them. The rest of them had bullseyes put up in trees. They would train them to zero-in on an area. Howland enjoyed that. He had had a .22 [Annotator's Note: .22 caliber as a boy] rifle and would go out and fire it at tin cans and bottles. They did a lot of hand-to-hand stuff and obstacle course training. Then one day it was all over.

[Annotator's Note: There is audio feedback noise throughout this clip.] The Ledo Road [Annotator's Note: overland connection between India and China] was built to tie into the Burma Road [Annotator's Note: a road linking Burma with southwest China] by going around where the Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] had cut it. Gilbert H. Howland started up the road when 110 miles of it was built. A colored [Annotator's Note: an ethnic descriptor historically used for Black people in the United States] engineered outfit was building the road. They walked it in about ten days. Each combat team was separate. There were only the men working on the road ahead of his. They were in the Naga Hills of the Himalayas. One night, they started lighting fires in the camp and they went into the jungles. They had Chindits [Annotator's Note: officially the Long Range Penetration Groups, special-operations units of the British and Indian armies] to help on the steep trails. They flanked the Japanese. His combat team, 2nd Combat Team [Annotator's Note: Howland was a member of Company G, 2nd Battalion, Green Combat Team, 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional)], engaged in their first action at Walawbum [Annotator's Note: Walawbum, Burma; now Walawbum, Myanmar]. They put in a trail block. The Japs had a straight line across the Hukawng Valley [Annotator's Note: Hukawng Valley, Burma; now Myanmar]. The Indian and Chinese troops of Wingate [Annotator's Note: British Army Major General Orde Charles Wingate] were on the other side. It was like World War 1, and they fought in a straight line. The monsoons would come, and one side would pull back. Howland and his men were going in the back and blocking the trails so the Japanese could not get supplies. The Chinese could not hold them. Major Brown [Annotator's Note: US Army Colonel Rothwell H. Brown, commander of the 1st Provisional Tank Group] had 15 light American tanks to help the Chinese push the Japs back. He pushed them right into Howland's outfit and they opened up on them. They [Annotator's Note: the Japanese] had a telephone line going up the main road. A Japanese-American with Howland's unit tapped into the line and found out they were pulling back. That made Stilwell [Annotator's Note: US Army General Joseph Warren Stilwell] and Merrill [Annotator's Note: US Army Brigadier General Frank Dow Merrill] say to get up there and block them. They went around them and down back to their headquarters in Kamaing [Annotator's Note: Kamaing, Burma; now Kamaing, Myanmar]. This was the 18th Imperial Division. They were Marines and they were responsible for the Rape of Singapore [Annotator's Note: Sook Ching, systematic purge of Chinese Malayans and Chinese in Singapore, 18 February to 4 March 1942]. The British surrendered there [Annotator's Note: 15 February 1942]. Howland and his men stayed most of the day. Ammunition was getting low. The I&R Platoon [Annotator's Note: Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon] had taken care of the Japanese ammo dump. The six I&R guys were great. They had fought on Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal Campaign, 7 August 1942 to 9 February 1943; Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands]. They saved their asses a few times.

[Annotator's Note: There is audio feedback noise throughout this clip.] When the fighting in Walawbum [Annotator's Note: Walawbum, Burma; now Walawbum, Myanmar] was over, Gilbert H. Howland and his outfit [Annotator's Note: Company G, 2nd Battalion, Green Combat Team, 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional)] had another job. They had to make another train trek further down the line. They pulled out and hit an elephant supply train with Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] taking supplies to an outpost. The I&R Platoon [Annotator's Note: Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon] got them. The elephant took off. Howland was in a weapons platoon, and he was back with his section. By the time he got to them, the men were blown up [Annotator's Note: bloated] with maggots already eating them. He did not want to be like that. They wanted to get off the main trials and into a creek. Howland counted crossing that stream 36 times before he hit dry land. They got to the road and got one good night to bivouac [Annotator's Note: a bivouac is a temporary camp] in elephant grass [Annotator's Note: major tropical grass]. It is a pleasant thing to go to sleep on it. The next morning they came to a village. There was a man stripped naked in the center of the village. He was from another platoon. He had been on recon [Annotator's Note: reconnaissance]. Howland took a look at him and went around to try and find the gun that killed him. He found it, but there was nobody there. They made a mistake killing that guy because he could have cut them all off right at the knees from that machine gun position. It was dirty business. There was big bamboo all over there. They set up their machine gun there. That night, reinforcements came up and found out the Americans were there. They came up by truck. At sunrise, they hit the gunner he had, Smiling Jack. They opened up first with snipers trying to draw fire. Then all they heard was "Banzai" [Annotator's Note: Banzai charge; Japanese human wave attacks] and they all charged across. This was the 88th Division and they were just cut down. Some Japs got in the foxholes with the guys, and they were wrestling. Somebody was moaning and it got under Howland's skin. Howland walked out there with a Tommy gun [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber Thompson submachine gun]. He fired a whole clip into the bushes. No more moaning. They had been warned to not try to get swords or souvenirs due to booby traps.