Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
6:29 | LCI-27’s first assignment would be to drop off Australian soldiers to fight in the New Guinea campaign, but Robert Hegel recalls being able to see some Pacific Islanders perform beforehand. Robert tells the story of reaching the battle and the men they put on the beaches of Lae.
Keywords : native population performance Sydney Australia Milne Bay New Guinea Australian Australian soldiers Lae
Robert Hegel was still a young man when WWII began. Despite dropping out of high school and joining the workforce, he answered the call to duty and joined the Navy in 1942 where they would train him to be a signalman.
Upon enlisting in the Navy, Robert Hegel was trained and put aboard LCI-27 to serve as their signalman. The war in the Pacific was underway and it would be a long journey there from the east coast.
Following the invasion of Lae, LCI-27 would make two more landings. The last of these would be to deliver U.S. Marines to the Battle of Cape Gloucester, where Robert Hegel recalls keeping the Captain up to date as best he could so they could get out safely.
Robert Hegel had been in enough combat to warrant thirty days of leave which would let him spend some time back home in Brooklyn with his family. When his time was up, he was lucky enough to get a position as an instructor, otherwise he might have found himself upon the beaches of Normandy.
The war in the Pacific was coming to a close, but Robert Hegel would board LCI-72 en route for Okinawa, where they'd have their first experience of a Kamikaze pilot. Before long, the bombs were dropped and they'd begin the occupation of Japan.
