Col. William F. Roos, Springfield, Virginia: an interview by Professor Daniel McCool: Saving the legacy oral history

Page 39

COL. WILLIAM F. ROOS ovember 11 200 took off one day on the way to Tokyo and had engine trouble almost immediately after takeoff. He put it down in the ocean, and since it was loaded with bombs and gas, it sank immediately. He just barely got out through a window, but about half of his crew couldn't get out and went down with the airplane. But Guam-one other little interesting thing. Guam was of volcanic origin, but there was coral around the coast. And we set up rock quarries and drilled with these big drills all day long. We had a bunch of people that would drill those things all day long. And then they would set up charges in there. And in the late afternoon, why, they'd let them all off. And "Boom" they would go. DAN: They bore holes in the coral reef? BILL: They bore holes in the rock. The rock was what they wanted to get, not the coral, because the rock was of hard volcanic origin. And they would come out in big chunks like this (demonstrating) 8 to 1 0 inches. And, so, then they would have to load those things in trucks, and take them all down to a rock crusher. And then the rock crusher would crush them down into pieces about that big (demonstrating), about Yz inch. DAN: Okay. BILL: And then they would haul them down to an asphalt plant. And there was one asphalt plant on the whole island of Guam. And that was the days before people got excited about the smoke and soot going into the air. And you could see-around the whole island you could look and see that this smoke was going up when the plant was going. The battalion I was with was assigned to handle the asphalt plant, and I was designated to run it. And they just said, "Well, 37