He was assigned to the 5th Aircraft Repair Unit - Floating. This was one of six ships outfitted as a complete shop for anything that might need repairing on an airplane including a machine shop, a woodworking shop, a radio shop, an electrical shop, etc. They even had a publishing section complete with writers, photographers and printing equipment. For some reason unknown to Matala all of this became known as "the Ivory Soap Operation." He worked in the Synthetic Rubber Shop and spent his working hours repairing tires, retreading tires, repairing rubber escape boats, fixing Mae West life jackets - "anything that had to do with rubber" - and in addition was the Physical Training Instructor and was assigned to carry ammunition when they were at battle stations.

Their vessel, a Liberty ship named the Brigadier General Clinton W. Russell was "apparently" owned by the Army Air Corps, the manning crew were civilian sailors, the anti-air craft gun crews were Navy, and the repair crews were Air Corps. Their assignment was to follow an invasion fleet and repair damaged airplanes until permanent shops could be set up on land. To get the planes or parts on board they used two helicopters or "ducks." These were boats designed to float in the water using propellers for power and then drive up on the beach using treads for power. When the helicopters were not busy hauling supplies they evacuated wounded and took them to hospital ships. Most of the time their assignment at a particular beach would last a few weeks and then they would move on to another site. Their longest stay was at several different locations at Subic Bay in the Philippines and the work was pretty much constant.

One of their stops in the area was at Tacloban after the fighting where the 24-year-old Matala got "a real shock for a country boy." He had a few hours pass to go into town and around lunchtime joined what he assumed was a chow line, which stretched around the block. After a short wait he was told that the line led to a house of prostitution being run by the Army and dropped out. Now he says, "I am sure the authorities would deny ever having set it up, but I was there and saw it."

On several occasions the Japanese made three plane bombing runs over the bay but they were under orders not to fire on them. Matala explains that their real mission was to take photos of the number of ships in the harbor so the first two planes would drop 500-pound bombs and try to draw fire so the third plane could take the pictures. On the day after one such raid Tokyo Rose - the Japanese propagandist - reported that 30 planes had flown over and sank many ships. This of course, never happened but "we enjoyed listening to Rose - she played great music."

From the Manila area they moved to the sea west of Okinawa where in addition to the normal difficulties of the job, they had to put up with three typhoons that "bobbled us around like a cork." He had an opportunity to see Naha, the Capitol of Okinawa where "nothing was left but a flat field that looked like it had been bulldozed." Their small land base where they accumulated their supplies was next to a Prisoner Of War Camp for Japanese and "they seemed to have as much freedom as we did." Except for a few very wealthy families, most of the native people lived in huts and the non-fraternization rules were strictly enforced except when men gave the natives food from their packs. Most were starving and he describes the fleet of small boats that would lay-up next to their ship all night to scoop up the garbage they threw over the side.

By July of 1945 all activity was in preparations for the invasion of the Japanese homeland and thousands of units were arriving from Europe. Matala talks of one morning when he came on deck and "saw so many ships that I think I could have stepped from one to the other. I couldn't imagine the invasion not being successful." But everybody was concerned with the amount of casualties to be expected and, Matala says, "I would have kissed Harry Truman's feet when he dropped the bombs." They were still there on VJ Day when they broke out all the beer and the ships Doctor led a parade all over the ship until the beer and alcohol ran out. After nightfall guys with too much to drink began firing off guns and Matala decided that the safest place to be was below decks.

With their Ivory Soap days over they had plenty of points for discharge but transportation was in short supply. After a month or so they were put aboard a Navy troop ship and headed for Los Angeles. Then it was onto a plane to Newark, N.J. and then a train to Indiantown Gap where he was discharged in January, 1946.

All of this had started for Matala in February of 1943. He had graduated from Middletown High School in 1939 and enrolled at Lebanon Valley College. There he joined the ECO (Enlisted Reserve Corps) a program designed to allow people to graduate before they got drafted. But by early 1943 there was a huge shortage of manpower and in January all of the men at LV were called up at a time when Matala had one more semester to complete. Only three male students were excluded from the call - two with physical impairments and the third was a divinity student. The rest reported to the Annville Railroad Station and were transported to New Cumberland. From here Matala went through a series of assignments at St. Petersburg, Miami Beach, and Columbia, S.C.

At Columbia they had been put in a replacement pool and "sat around bored to death with nothing to do." He got irritated and told them to send him to the first school available no matter what it was. He was sent to the Firestone plant in Akron, Ohio where he was taught to work with the synthetic rubber. Then it was on to Charleston, S.C. and then to San Antonio where he was assigned to the repair pool. He picked up his brand new ship at Mobile, Alabama , which left for a shakedown cruise to New Orleans and then to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for supplies and water. Then it was through the Panama Canal and, since Liberty ships were notably slow and they had no escort vessel, they made a one-month trip zigzagging to Biak, New Guinea. The only excitement on this trip was the initiation into the "Trusty Shellbacks" (those who have crossed the Equator) and the morning he came on deck and saw a spit of land on the horizon, which turned out to be Christmas Island. After loading up with supplies and water at Biak they headed for his Philippine and Okinawa duty.

While at the Gap awaiting discharge, Matala had called LV and learned that the next semester started three days later and he informed them he was going to resume his quest for the degree that had been interrupted three years earlier. When this was completed he really didn't know what he wanted to do except to continue to play baseball, football, and basketball. A couple of his old coaches suggested he go into teaching and coaching so he signed up at Millersville to get his teaching certificate and then accepted a job with Lebanon School District and was assigned to Henry Houck. Here he met Ruth Gollam whom he married in 1950 and joined her in raising five children. He continued to play and coach all sorts of sports and was inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame. He retired from teaching in 1982.

And what did Matala get from all of his wartime experience? "An education. You find out how the other half lives."

Written by Richard "Dick" Evans.

You can send comments or questions to pa_veterans@comcast.net .