Sierra Mountain Times

SMT Interview: Tom Dahl, World War Veteran

A 31-year-old Tom Dahl in Hawaii for boot camp in 1943. 

American’s have so much to be thankful for…and a lot of our gratitude is owed to those who fought and died for the freedom’s our country possesses. Since its founding, millions upon millions have shed their blood on our land and on foreign soil to serve and protect this great nation. In honor of these brave men and women, a day has been set aside to pay tribute to what they have done for us. In 1919 President Wilson proclaimed this day, November 11, as Armistice Day, now known as Veterans Day, with the following words: “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…” 

Establishing this day not only preserves the historical significance of the date, but helps focus attention on the important purpose of Veterans Day: A celebration to honor America’s veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good.

Tuolumne and Calaveras Counties are home to thousands of veterans of World War ll, The Korean and Vietnam wars, and more battles in Iraq and Afghanistan…and these men and women deserve our respect. Take the time to get to know them and listen to their stories…for every veteran has a story to tell.  

I recently had the privilege to hear Tom Dahl’s story. Tom is a 97-year-old World War ll veteran who spent three years in the service – and although it was over 60 years ago, he remembers it like it was yesterday.

It is estimated that over 60 million people died in World War II, and most of those who weren’t killed by bombs or bullets have passed on as time takes its toll…and not many of the vets remain.

Tom, Tuolumne’s oldest veteran, grew up in the small logging town and still lives there today.

Born on January 3, 1912 Tom’s early years were spent amidst the outbreak of the First World War, and it wasn’t long before veteran’s returned home from the bloody battles and settled back down in town. 

“As I got older I knew a lot of the World War l veteran’s,” said Tom. “A lot of good men went over to fight.”

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be long until Tom’s generation followed in their father’s footsteps. But until that unimaginable time came along, Tom enjoyed life in the mountains and worked as a logger in the woods and helped build check dams in the high country. In fact on December 7, 1941 when Pearl Harbor was attacked he and his older brother Art were far from civilization.

“We were spending the winter up in the high country at Cooper Meadow doing some trapping,” recalled Tom of that fateful day. “We had a radio up there and on Sunday morning we heard the news and we came out right away to see if they might call me into service. It was such a tragic thing – it was a mean thing to do. Sitting ducks was all they were at Pearl Harbor. So I was angry…and all of us felt like we ought to join this fight.”

Tom Dahl during a Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) ceremony in Tuolumne.

Yet Tom’s time to serve would come soon enough – at the present time, he was needed at home.

“I was the oldest one at home at that time, and I guess that’s why I didn’t get called in until later,” said Tom. “My younger brother Gibb volunteered with the Navy, and I guess I would’ve signed up right away if I wasn’t helping the folks at home.”

Although Tom would’ve done the same, it wasn’t easy watching his brother go.

“I was concerned when he went in, because war is just hell alright, and I never did hear from him until years later,” said Tom. “My mother must have, but I didn’t hear from him again until after I got home from the war.”

Tom continued working in the woods until his time came to serve his country.

“I was working up in the woods falling timber in ‘41 and ’42 and in October of ’42, I got my call that I was being drafted,” recalled Tom. “When I was drafted, I had no bad thoughts about having to go. I had no aversion. I just went and submitted to whatever they told me and went wherever they wanted me and did what I could to help.”

Tom’s first order was to report to Fort Ord, an army post in Monterey Bay.

“When I arrived I was told, ‘well, you’re in the army now,’” recalled Tom. “From there we were shipped to Camp Stoneman, a port of embarkation near San Francisco Bay. We stayed there until sometime in November and then took a ship to Hawaii.”

Tom, who was 30 at the time, boarded the U.S.S Republic with thousands of other young soldiers on their way to boot camp.

“It took us seven or eight days to get to Hawaii and during that time was Thanksgiving and we had a big Thanksgiving meal on the ship,” said Tom. “That was a good meal.”

Boot Camp: The next three months on the tropical island were spent preparing soldiers for war. “You had to do a lot of things you normally wouldn’t do: climb over walls, swim a hundred yards out in the ocean and back, and rifle practicing,” said Tom. “However, I was used to shooting a gun and was a good shot with a rifle.”

Tom’s mountain hunting skills paid off and he excelled in his rifle training.

“I got a sharpshooter grade on the rifle range,” said Tom. “I remember one of the sergeants was patrolling up and down and I was shooting away and I heard him say, ‘Hey lieutenant, come over here and look at this guy’s target!’ He was pointing to mine…all the bullets were in the target. Our commander said the highest scoring in the shooting range would get $5 and I ended up getting it…that made me feel good.”

Other highlights during his time on Hawaii were the much anticipated weekends.

“Every weekend we’d get a pass and my buddies and I would go all over Hawaii,” he said. “I had a few friends from Tuolumne who I would meet up with. One was stationed at Pearl harbor, and I was stationed way up in Kahuku on the other end and I’d take a truck in and we’d meet up and then I’d hitchhike back to camp because I wouldn’t get to Honolulu in time to catch the truck back. But I had to be back by midnight. We went around every bit of the island to sightsee. I swam in Waikiki several times. The Navy had a near-beer joint in one of the hotels and my friends were Navy guys, so I’d go in and have a glass. You couldn’t buy a beer downtown…they wouldn’t sell it to a soldier. Near-beer was a weak concoction of beer. But I didn’t drink very much. We’d also go to the open air movies and Follies, which was a place to dance and do the hula.”

However, after basic training came to an end, so did his weekend passes, and Tom was assigned to the D company of the 47th Engineers. 

“Once in awhile we’d have some kind of troop come in and they’d sing, and an actress came in and sang songs for us…but we didn’t have passes once we left Hawaii,” said Tom. “We didn’t have free time on Makin or Saipan. We’d just eat our meal and read or re-read our letters.”

Makin Island: After boot training, Tom’s company was shipped to Makin Island, an atoll in the Gilbert Islands in the Pacific.

“It was a small long, narrow island and from our camp you could look at one side and see the ocean and from the other side and see the ocean,” said Tom. “It was previously controlled by the Japanese. The natives of the island were under Jap supervision before we got there and when the U.S. took them over, they were free. I guess the Japs gave them a bad time because they were really thankful for the soldiers.” 

The soldiers were also thankful for the natives.

“We couldn’t understand them, they just jabbered at you…but you’d point up a palm tree and boy, they’d walk up those trees!” said Tom. “It was amazing! They’d cut off a coconut and throw it down to you. We had coconuts almost every day.”

The soldiers were generous as well. 

“I didn’t smoke and I would throw them my cigarettes,” said Tom. “We would usually get a candy bar for lunch and a lot of the guys would toss them out to the kids…boy they’d go wild over those! That’s why the natives would like to catch a ride on the road because they knew they might get something from the soldiers. They didn’t care which way the vehicles were going…they’d hop on.”

Tom holding a bomb shell on Makind Island in the Pacific in 1943. 

Yet while the natives were friendly, the soldiers still faced opposition from the enemy.

“At first we were subjected to a lot of night raids and even day raids,” said Tom. “Every night “Charlie” would come by at the same time and drop a few bombs. We had a couple come pretty close to our camp. But after a few months on Makin they had the island wiped clean, and all the Japs were off, and the only thing left were natives.”

Although Tom arrived at the island when it was somewhat secure, he discovered that the initial attack on the island took its toll.

“The initial attack was pretty rough,” said Tom. “One time I was bulldozing an area out with a bunch of logs that they make barricades out of it and it was full of dead Japs. To this day I can’t stand an offensive odor because I ran into that.”

A view of Company D’s camp on Makin Island in 1943.

Tom and his crew spent about a year on the island unloading ships and building roads on the island.

“They needed the roads for transportation purposes…it was just trails before that,” said Tom. “I eventually worked my way up to operating a Caterpillar.”

When their tasks were accomplished at Makin, D company of the 47th Engineers were sent back to Hawaii for a short period to build and pave some more roads.

Saipan Island: In 1944 Tom and his company were shipped to the island of Saipan, about 120 miles north of Guam. 

“We were on this island for quite awhile,” said Tom. “In the early days there we mostly went on patrols.”

While on patrol the men always had their trusty Garand M1 rifle.

“We always had our gas mask and rifles with us,” Tom said. “The M1 was a good gun. It had a clip that held eight shots, which you could fire in a minute…it was just like an automatic. That was a good rifle.”

Thankfully for Tom, he never had to put it to use.

“On one patrol I saw a Jap soldier about 50 yards away dart into the brush,” said Tom. “I didn’t try to shoot him and I don’t think I could’ve got a shot. I saw a few stragglers. A couple of times on patrol we’d come across guys who had seven or eight Japanese men that had surrendered. But I don’t know if I was ever shot at…I never heard any.”

However, Tom did hear a bomb coming down and dove to the ground, saving the lives of several men in his company.

“I had a good sense of hearing and I could hear this bomb coming,” recalled Tom. ”I dove to the ground and the rest of them followed. I just dove. I knew something was going to explode…and it sure did. It tore our pup tents to pieces – they were just riddled with shrapnel about waist high…but no one got hurt. One of my big old friends from Honolulu said, ‘if it hadn’t been for that guy, we would’ve been in trouble.’ My hearing was a blessing to me and to them too. You can’t help but know that there is a God when you are in a war. You know you have someone watching out for you.”

Being closer to the war zone, Saipan was under more fire than Makin.

“We were subjected to quite a few air attacks, which could be very destructive,” said Tom. “One night they hit our cookhouse dead on. They must have seen the glare of the wood or something because they got a direct hit. I was only about 100 yards away, but no one was hurt. When the bombs start falling, the sirens go off and you just take cover, stay low and pray.”

Although Tom’s company avoided casualties from the bombing they did lose one member to a sniper while working on a road through Saipan. Because of the death toll on Saipan, Guam and the surrounding islands, company D began building a hospital on the island.

“We got a big supply of Quonset hut material and we erected a community that turned out to be a hospital area because there was a lot of action on the islands nearby and they’d bring the wounded to that hospital. Our company built a big long floating wharf so troops could land easier.”

A lot of the action could be seen from their camp.

“We could look across the bay and see Guam and other islands and watch the big old 29’s take off,” said Tom. “We’d see them take off every day.”

Amazingly, Tom had a chance to take off and escape the hell of war for a month…and during that time, his life was changed forever.

“When I was on Saipan and they had a program called R and R (Rest and Recreation), so I put my name in and I got chosen and I got a month furlough from Saipan,” said Tom. “So I went home.”

Back in good old Tuolumne, Tom spent his time with a local girl named Fran.

“She was once married to one of my friends in town, so that was how I knew her and while I was away she wrote me a Vmail letter,” said Tom. “So I wrote back and I guess that is what kind of sparked it.”

This spark quickly became a flame and things quickly escalated.

“During that time we visited her family and my family and one day one of the relatives said, ‘When are you guys getting married?’ ‘We will someday’, I said. ‘Why don’t you do it now?!’ So we decided not to wait, and got on a bus to Reno got married on the 29th of December, 1944. I guess man does a lot on impulse, but it was good for me,” laughed Tom. “I had to go back a few days right after we got married. But I was glad we did it. We’ve had a good life. She has been a wonderful helper and I love her and she loves me. December of this year will be our 65th anniversary!” 

However, when Tom left Tuolumne and returned to Saipan, there was no guaranteeing that they would ever see each other again.

Okinawa Isand: After returning to Saipan, Tom spent a few more months on the island before he and the rest of Company D was transported deeper into enemy territory to the island of Okinawa. 

“When we went to Okinawa for some reason, they disbanded the Company D 47th engineers and we were called company A 1397th Engineers,” said Tom. “We arrived on the island at the end of April of ’45, but I was only there for about three weeks…because I got hurt in the middle of May.” 

Before Tom’s fateful injury, which could have possibly saved his life from the dangers of Okinawa, he had a few experiences he’ll never forget. 

“From our camp we could look right down on the big bay on Okinawa where, Naha was,” said Tom. “Naha wasn’t conquered until quite awhile after I got hurt. We could see boats in the bay and watch Jap planes come in. I even saw them dive bomb right into one of our ships. The air was just full of black and at night time you could see all the flashes from the guns and explosions in the air.”

On one unforgettable night Tom and his men thought the battle was leaving the bay and coming to their camp.

“One night someone said, ‘Hey, look at the lights down there. There is something coming!’ So we look down into the valley, a good three to four miles long, and see all these little lights flitting back and forth coming up toward us,” recalled Tom. “We were about five miles up on the ridge from the bay and we thought it was an army of Japs. Yet we couldn’t figure out why they would be flashing lights. They had these little magneto flashlights that you would squeeze to get the light, so we figured they were using those to find their way up the valley. The whole thing was covered with lights and they were coming up in a wave! We were all there with our guns drawn waiting while our hearts were running out our throats. They kept coming up and pretty soon one went past us…they were fireflies! Boy did we start laughing! We only had about 180-200 people in our camp and we weren’t ready for an army that big!”

While fireflies may have caught them off guard, an air raid never did.

“We had an air raid siren in our camp and if it blew, boy you got in your foxhole,” said Tom. “The Sunday before I got hurt was Mothers Day and the preacher, who was also an officer, was giving the service when the air raid siren went off. He was telling us about his mother, and he only got about half way through when the siren sounded. He dismissed us and told us to come back next Sunday and he’d tell us the rest of it. But I got hurt and I never did hear the rest of it.”

A few days later Tom and another soldier were sent with the CAT and carry-all scraper to the main road that led to Naha.

“It had rained so hard that the road was about three feet deep with mud and both sides were just lined with supply trucks that got stuck and we were supposed to go down there and clear it,” said Tom. “As we were taking the carry-all off of the CAT, I beat on the pin awhile and then the other guy gave it a try. When he took a swing a piece of metal flew up and got imbedded in my left eye, and I was taken to the field hospital. I don’t know how long I was there, but they eventually flew me to Guam. I was there for just one night and the doctor said that he wished I had arrived there quicker, because by that time, I just had a faint impression of light in that eye – my vision was almost gone immediately in my left eye.”

On June 8th Tom was shipped to a hospital in Hawaii where they took out his left eye and gave him a temporary replacement prosthetic. He spent nearly a month recovering in the hospital. Although grateful his injury wasn’t worse, he was sad to be away from his company.

“My outfit might still be there,” he laughed. “I don’t know when my company got home. I lost all comradeship with my outfit. We were together from ‘43 to ’45 and I had two years to fellowship with them. I was really good friends with three or four of them and we’d watch out for each other and help each other and work with each other on various jobs. To this day I haven’t seen or heard from a single one of them.”

However, he did get to see his new bride sooner than anticipated. In July Tom was put aboard a hospital ship with hundreds of other injured and wounded men on its way back to the states. 

“The ship landed in San Francisco and from there they sent me to a hospital in Palo Alto,” he said. “Fran, my sister, and my mother came down to visit, which was nice. My eye had sagged a little by this time so they put a tiny piece of my thigh in there to build it back out…and they gave me a prosthesis.”

Although the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in August and the war was over by September, Tom wasn’t discharged until November 1945.

“They held off on to a lot of us until whatever they needed to have done, was done, so I was in for three years and one month,” said Tom. “We just had light duties around the hospital.”

Once recovered enough to walk around, during the last few months Tom tried to make it home as often as possible.

“Almost every time that I got a weekend pass, instead of going to San Francisco like we were supposed to, I would hitchhike home,” he said. “I could make it quicker than Fran driving down to get me. Every time I got a pass I would go to Menlo Park Bridge and this PG&E worker would come by and take me to the Pleasanton/Livermore area, and before I got on the sidewalk another car would pick me up and take me to Oakdale. Then I’d start walking along and soon enough I’d hear, ‘Where are you going soldier?’ I’d say, ‘Sonora.’ ‘Get in!’ And away we’d we go. If you had a soldier or navy suit on…nobody passed you up.”

His weekends went by fast.

“Back in town Fran had three sisters, and I had my folks and a sister and brother, so by the time I made the rounds, the weekend was shot,” he laughed. “But it was just great to be home. I was fortunate. I did suffer a loss of a useful member of my body, but I haven’t regretted it and it really hasn’t handicapped me. I did everything I ever did before…some of it a lot better. I am very grateful for the Lord’s protection over me. And He’s blessed me with a long life. I can’t complain about anything. There aren’t very many World War ll vets left.” 

Once discharged, Tom moved back to Tuolumne and became a member of the Veteran’s of Foreign Wars (VWF) Post 4748.

VFW members marching to Carters Cemetery in Tuolumne. Tom is on the far right. 

“When I got out of the service in 1945 they instituted the VFW here and they included a lot of soldiers that were coming home,” said Tom. “I’ve been involved with that for over 60 years.”

Returning to civilian life Tom reentered the workforce and got a job in 1946 working for Hetch Hetchy as a water worker.

“I got about 75 cents an hour and I took it,” said Tom. “That lasted a couple of years, and then I went to work up in the woods for awhile. In 1951 I got the job I had applied for earlier at Hetch Hetchy as the reservoir caretaker. Fran and I lived in a house at Early Intake for nearly 20 years. It was a wonderful experience.”

As Tom’s vision got worse over time he had to retire in 1973. He was 61 years old.

“Five years later they operated on my eye and with glasses I’ve been really fortunate enough to have had 20/20 vision up until about two years ago,” said Tom. “Just now it’s starting to fade away. I have been really blessed.”

Tom, 97, and Fran, 91, still live happily together in their cozy home in Tuolumne, and Tom can still be seen walking to the post office to get the mail. He is an extraordinary man who has lived a lot, laughed a lot, and loved a lot. Tom, we thank you for your service to the community and to this country. And to any other veteran in Tuolumne and Calaveras Counties, we salute you and thank you for the sacrifices you made to this great country. Happy Veterans Day!