[Annotator's Note: This clip starts mid-conversation with Lester Shapiro showing the interviewer some photographs.] Lester Shapiro discusses being with Merrill's Marauders [Annotator's Note: the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional) was nicknamed Merrill's Marauders after it's commander, US Army Brigadier General Frank Dow Merrill]. He had a Japanese flag he wanted to bring home, but someone stole it from him. The Chinese were our allies then. The Marauders captured Myitkyina [Annotator's Note: Myitkyinā, Burma; now Myanmar] and turned it over the Chinese who then were so busy looting, the Japanese took it back. The Japanese had snipers in the trees, and they must have hit one who had that flag. An original Merrill's guy had one and he had it stolen too. They were hardened, some of them criminals who had volunteered to have their sentences commuted. Shapiro was not a volunteer. He was fortunate because he was young. The other ones sent with him were married, had families, and did not even know how to load a gun. At that time, everybody felt if you brought home a flag, you could get big money for it. Shapiro was sick in a field hospital in Burma in July or August 1944.

Lester Shapiro gives his serial number. He came out [Annotator's Note: of the Army] a Technical Sergeant from the 40th Special Services Company. He enlisted 2 November 1942 at the University of Alabama [Annotator's Note: Tuscaloosa, Alabama] where he had Engineering ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps]. On 23 May 1943 he entered active service. He separated at Fort Dix, New Jersey on 24 March 1946. [Annotator's Note: Shapiro lists the medals he was awarded.] Between May and June 1944, there were two engineer battalions that were sent to Myitkyina [Annotator's Note: Myitkyinā, Burma; now Myanmar] on orders of General Stilwell [Annotator's Note: US Army General Joseph Warren Stilwell]. They flew in C-46s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss C-46 Commando cargo aircraft] and C-47s [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft]. They were chosen after they had an interview in a big field during monsoon season. Shapiro was fortunate he was a young guy. The older guys with families were trying to figure out how they were going to get out of it. A Quartermaster colonel was interviewing them. Shapiro answered his questions and then was asked if he wanted an M1 [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand] or a carbine [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic carbine]. Shapiro asked the difference and was told if he hit a guy with the M1, he will not get up. Shapiro chose the M1. That took place in Assam [Annotator's Note: Assam Valley, India]. He was then flown into Myitkyinā. The men on the plane looked like a bunch of sick fish. The battle of Myitkyinā lasted from May to July 1944 and by August 1944 the last Japanese holdouts were driven into the Irrawaddy River [Annotator's Note: Ayeyarwady River, Burma]. Frank Merrill [Annotator's Note: US Army Brigadier General Frank Dow Merrill], who the Merrill's Marauders were named after, was well-liked by the GIs [Annotator's Note: government issue; also a slang term for an American soldier]. They were not crazy about General Joe Stilwell.

Lester Shapiro's experience before getting to Burma [Annotator's Note: present day Myanmar], was guarding some oil reserves in Oran [Annotator's Note: Oran, Algeria]. That was not a pleasant place. You could not go out alone at night. He was hospitalized in Burma and was then sent to a rest camp in Calcutta, India. The camp was inside of a racetrack. He had a buddy there they called Frenchy. At that time, he knew nothing of Cajuns and Louisiana. That guy loved women. Shapiro had gone out on a pass [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] and when he returned, Frenchy was shooting up the place because he had gotten a "Dear John" letter [Annotator's Note: a Dear John letter is a letter from a female to a male serviceman serving overseas breaking off a romantic engagement] from home. Shapiro asked to be allowed to talk to him. He eased over and got to him. He had a tattoo of the girl's name on his arm. She wrote him that she had gotten married. He hugged Shapiro and cried. Shapiro thought it was odd that he was so broken up when he was dating all the girls in India. [Annotator's Note: Shapiro shows his discharge card to the interviewer.] The thing Shapiro wanted most on his discharge was his Burma experience and it is not on it.

Lester Shapiro was born in October 1921 in Rochester, New York. He went as a walk-on for a scholarship at the University of Alabama [Annotator's Note: Tuscaloosa, Alabama]. He enlisted there because he had Engineering ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps] and he wanted to be an officer. Instead, he wound up as a private in Burma [Annotator's Note: present day Myanmar]. He was called to active duty, they wanted to send him to electrical school. He did not want to go. He was told if he did not go, he might end up in the infantry. He was told if he did the schooling, he would be in the United States for at least a year and would come out with a rank of some kind. Shapiro said okay. He went to school in New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. He came out second in his class and was chosen to go to the next school. He went to Detroit [Annotator's Note: Detroit, Michigan] for diesel school and came out second there. The next thing he knew he was sent to Lion Mountain, Oran [Annotator's Note: Oran, Algeria] and standing guard duty over oil reserves. He took classes in Detroit, but he did not learn a lot. He was on active duty now. He never attended a boot camp. He had basic training, but they mostly spent time playing pool. A young guy was being taken by some pool players and Shapiro helped him win his money back. Shapiro was sad to learn later that the guy had been killed in combat. When Shapiro was in a field hospital on the Burma Road, there was a stockade where Japanese prisoners were kept. He wrote to one of his sisters that he was coming home in one piece or he was not coming home.

Lester Shapiro left the United States from California. Ninety percent of the men got seasick on the boat. When he left India to come home, he was on a Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship] that went to California. He was coming out of Burma in one piece. The ship entered a mined area and they were shooting them. He thought they might be sunk after all that. His first destination going over was Lion Mountain, Oran [Annotator's Note: Oran, Algeria]. His quarters were not that bad. He never had any trouble guarding the oil tanks. He left there for Bombay [Annotator's Note: Bombay, India; now Mumbai, India]. He had never seen so much filth in his life. He saw elephantiasis and it was horrible. They were there for a few days before going to Assam [Annotator's Note: Assam Valley, India]. There were women in cages, and it was terrible. They flew to Assam and there he was interviewed during a monsoon. From there he went to Myitkyina [Annotator's Note: Myitkyinā, Burma; now Myanmar] on a plane with another guy. The guy who he was with had joined Merrill's Marauders [Annotator's Note: the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional) was known as Merrill's Marauders in honor of the unit's commander, US Army Brigadier General Frank Dow Merrill] to get his sentence commuted. Shapiro was more afraid of him than the Japanese. The guy pulled Shapiro around by the hair and bossed him around. After a few months, Shapiro started bossing him. The guy got a little scared and Shapiro was not as scared. An old-timer from Arkansas, probably saved Shapiro's life. They were washing clothes and a tiger came out of the clearing. Shapiro was ready to shoot at him. This sergeant from Arkansas told him not to shoot him and just freeze. The tiger went right back into the jungle. Shapiro could not speak because he was so scared. [Annotator's Note: Shapiro talks with the interviewer about his discharge paper and the medals listed.] His discharge papers list "none" for his battles and campaigns.

Lester Shapiro was in a combat engineering outfit [Annotator's Note: 209th Engineer Combat Battalion] and was the first replacement group for Merrill's Marauders [Annotator's Note: the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional) was known as Merrill's Marauders in honor of the unit's commander, US Army Brigadier General Frank Dow Merrill]. Shapiro arrived in Burma in July 1944. It was mostly patrols. The Chinese traveled with their pots and pans and you could hear them coming a mile away. Shapiro lived off c-rations [Annotator's Note: prepared and canned wet combat food]. Once, he had a meal with a Chinese patrol. He thought he was eating chicken and it turned out to be dog. He is Jewish and is not strict or Orthodox. He believes in living in the present century. If you look at all of the trouble in the world, most of it is caused by religion. Some men were religious, and some weren't. Some got religious when they got scared. Shapiro felt that God would take care of him. Shapiro recalls being told they were in an area with a lot of snipers. If you saw something move, you let go. If there was nothing there, that was fine. He paid attention to people who had been there before him. He saw men who got hit. You were either fortunate or unfortunate. Shapiro had malaria and dengue fever. He also had jungle rot [Annotator's Note: also called Tropical ulcer] that grew towards his bone. He was given penicillin shots. When he got malaria, he was wrapped in three blankets and was still shaking. He was told after discharge that he would not get jungle rot anymore. At school it broke out again. He went to a Veteran's Hospital in Tuscaloosa [Annotator's Note: Tuscaloosa, Alabama]. They bandaged his hands and feet and immersed them in some kind of acid. By the next morning he was screaming in pain. He took his own bandages off and he had holes in his hands and feet. It was a long, painful recovery.

Lester Shapiro did not know anything about getting a Bronze Star [Annotator's Note: the Bronze Star Medal is the fourth-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy] until he was in a hospital in Calcutta [Annotator's Note: Calcutta, India]. When he was in the field hospital on the Burma Road, he would get his cigarette rations. They would put old banana peels in the cigarette cartons and sold them to the Chinese. That night they were at the movies, and those Chinese threw hand grenades into their camp. He had seen buddies who had their legs or arms shot off. He wrote his sister and said he was not coming home like that, or not at all. The hospital was just a straw hut. A lot of the GIs [Annotator's Note: government issue; also a slang term for an American soldier] who drove the trucks were Black men. They were mixed in the hospital. They would sing and it was a pleasure to listen to them. When he got to Calcutta, General Neyland [Annotator's Note: US Army Brigadier General Robert Reese Neyland] was in charge of the theater. Colonel John Trotter asked Shapiro to be his clerk. Shapiro used to go play ping pong. There were two Hungarians, Huffman [Annotator's Note: unable to verify identity] and Bellak [Annotator's Note: US Army Sergeant Laszlo Bellak], who were world champions and were playing exhibitions in the Burma-Chinese theater [Annotator's Note: China-Burma-India theater]. Bellak was leaving and Tibor wanted to keep playing. He spotted Shapiro and asked him to join them. Shapiro would play exhibitions with him all around the China-Burma-India theater. Shapiro also entered a tennis tournament and made the semi-finals. He then played exhibitions in India. After he left the service, he got married and lived in New Orleans. He wanted to go to Wimbledon [Annotator's Note: annual Tennis Tournament, London, England]. He got in and he won a match [Annotator's Note: Senior Wimbledon].

Lester Shapiro could have stayed in the service and been a Warrant Officer. He was discharged at Fort Dix [Annotator's Note: Fort Dix, New Jersey] and they asked if he wanted to join the Reserves. He said no. He stayed with his older sister and then went back to Alabama [Annotator's Note: Tuscaloosa, Alabama] and finished up. He met his wife there. When he came home, he told his siblings that he did not want anyone to tell him what to do or how to do it. He wanted to be an honorable person and live a decent life. In Burma [Annotator's Note: present day Myanmar], his older sister would ask why he did not write nice letters home. He would tell her what he would see. He said he was living in mud and water every day. [Annotator's Note: Shapiro gets emotional, looks at the camera, and the tapes goes black.]