Premonitions of Death

It was aboard ship, and we were all... just before we got to Japan, and a chap by the Corporal Doug Newol. Did basic training together, he was from Newfoundland, he had the bottom bunk and I had the top bunk I got used to that with my brother. And he said to me one night, he said "Come up on board, on the deck" and it was dark, and he told me a story, and he said "You know," he said "in the Second World War," he says "my two brothers were killed, and neither one lasted two weeks." And he says, "I'm afraid that's going to happen to me." So I kind of said, you know, "Don't worry Doug, we'll, we'll get through it, that's just you know coincident that, that happened." Well I went to "A" Company and he went to "C" Company, and on May the 2nd, on May the 2nd he had come up with a group to pick up food for the, for the "C" Company, and him and I happened to just run into each other, and all he said to me, he said "Ken. It's close." He was killed that night. And that was on the fourteenth day.

Interviewer: What impact did that have on you and your morale?

I didn't know that he was killed right then, but I got tasked in with removing the bodies, the casualties, we had a lot of casualties during the night. I think we had somewhere around like eighty people were wounded, killed, missing. And so on the 4th my company commander, Major Bates, called me up and he said "You're taking that party out there and picking up the bodies." And I went out, because I've asked people before if they've seen Doug Newell and nobody seemed to know him. But as soon as I got out there, they had brought a lot of the bodies into one spot and I just looked down, I seen his back, and I said "That's Doug Newell."

Interviewer: And that was all within two weeks, of coming up to the front.

Yep. Well this all happened in one night.

Interviewer: And it was within that two week period that Mr. Newell died.

Yep. That he died, yep.