RAFINO

RAFINO Report
ISSUE 22 - Summer 1999
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My 30 Years of Service
By Ming Rose 

(Ed: The following has been excerpted from a critical letter that Ming wrote to the Veterans Administration.  He sent us a copy for use in part or in whole in our newsletter.) 

I was born July 20, 1911 of poor immigrant parents from the Azores, and was named Domingos Rose Pereira.  I finished high school in the middle of the depression -- and walked the streets of S.F. looking for work.  No luck.  I caddied for 25¢ per nine holes of golf, picked prunes for $5 a ton, cut and dried apricots for 25¢ a lug, skinned and boned codfish for 19¢ a hundred pounds and corded wood for 20¢ an hour.  In school never had a date.  No car, no money, no clothes.

In 1933, prior to military service, I enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps, to receive $5 a month personally with $25 to go home to my needy parents.  I was sent to camp and later promoted to work in the headquarters which had control over twenty two camps.  I served three terms-all permitted.  Following that I got a civilian job at the Presidio of San Francisco, went to night school, studied Junior and Senior Accounting, and Commercial Law.  Out of 40 students who started only two of us ever finished.  He became a CPA and I a Senior Auditor.  At the same time I took military sub-courses and earned a Reserve Commission.

In 1941 I was called to active duty and started a Finance Office at Gardner field with several inexperienced E.M.  

In 1942 I volunteered for overseas duty and was sent to the EIGHTH U.S. Air Force in England.  As part of the 306th Bomb Group, we took over the first B-17 base from the RAF.  I had to open a U.S. bank account with Barclays Bank and started a Finance Office with several enlisted men.  We had been told all our supplies and equipment were awaiting us in England.  Never happened! Luckily, at Ft. Dix, just to be sure, I had visited a warehouse and had drawn boxes of forms and a typewriter.  The Catholic Chaplain, having taken a vow of poverty naively had allotted all of his pay, so we had to advance him funds until we could change his allotment.

I served at that base until 1943 when I was transferred to our HQ to establish a fiscal office because the Bomber Command was expanding and we ended up with 13 B-17 bases and five Fighter bases.  I never had a deputy but with just my two enlisted men we managed.  Eventually I had 135 points when only 100 were required to rotate back to the U.S., but my C.O. froze me in place as he wanted me to go with him for the occupation of Germany.  Of the three Bomber Commands and one Service Command, I was the only fiscal Officer to make Lieutenant Colonel along with receiving a recommendation for a Regular Army commission.  In London back in 1942 when the Germans were bombing nightly, we would repair to the Underground (subway) and put newspapers on the cement siding and stay there until the "all clear".  Thousands of Brits spent most every night in the 
Underground.  When the V-1 and V-2 rockets sailed in there was no safe place.  Also, during the time I was in that job I went along on three missions during which I almost lost my life.  In December 1945 General Doolittle, Commander of the EIGHTH U.S. Air Force issued orders deactivating the First Air Division--and then I finally got to go home. 

In 1947, I accepted a Regular Army commission and was sent to McDill Air Force Base as the Property Auditor.  All the accounts were not up to date so a GS-6 and I put in a lot of time bringing them up to date.  The commander who was not satisfied with his Finance Officer, offered me the job but I was scheduled to attend the First Advanced Finance and Accounting Course Class -- a one year course for ten officers. 

In 1952, I was sent to Korea to join the 2nd Infantry Div. Operation "Old Baldy" was going on.  The enemy was killing so many Americans that they to be piled up like cord wood.  Photographs of them were so gruesome that they could not be shown back home.  We were stationed at the 38th parallel and I, with my Thompson sub-machine gun in an old jeep, had to negotiate a gravel road to Seoul to obtain large amounts of different kinds of money because in addition to paying our own troops, we funded the French Battalion, the Dutch Battalion, and the Korean Service Corps attached to us.  On the way we had to pass many of these South Korean troops who looked like the enemy because they wore uniforms of the same Khaki color as those of the enemy.  One day we got hit and our Ordnance Company lost 14 men. 

The next day the North Koreans, dressed like our Service Corps, walked into the Dutch Bn HQ and killed the C.O. and his entire staff.  They did not employ perimeter guards.

While in Korea a new building was put up for us as we had been working in a large tent with a gravel floor and a small space heater for 45 men and three officers.  We also managed to obtain a generator to supply power for our 45 adding machines and address-o-graph machine.  However, we still had to use an outside "Chic-Sales" toilet.  For security we had erected a 10' wide by 10' high barbed wire fence around the office equipped with trip flares.  We also carried bombs to destroy the currency on hand in case the enemy over ran Seoul as they had in the past.

After my year in Korea I was transferred to Okinawa.  A year later I was transferred to Ft. Leonard Wood, MO.  There I was assigned an old O/Club building which was empty for use and had it made over into a modern Finance Office.

In 1955 I was transferred to Ft. Ord--restructured the Fin. Ofc. where I installed the first computer on an Army base.  Five years later, in 1960, I was sent to the 25th Infantry Division where we were trained for Jungle Operations and constantly on maneuvers.  We had to sleep with our weapons and duffel bags by our beds to be ready to go into action within fifteen minutes.  Following the word that the Chinese were going to cross into Thailand I was sent with two Battle Groups to Korat.

I retired from Military service as an LTC on Sep 30, 1964.