Kenneth L. Prince Oral History Project
Interview with Kenneth Prince
Date of Interview: March 10th, 2009; Sandy, Utah
Interviewer: Lauren Bailey
Transcriber: Lauren Bailey
Bailey: This is the Kenneth Prince Oral History Project, session number one with Mr. Prince on March 10th 2009. We’re here in his home at 515 East 9400 South, Sandy, Utah. Interviewer is Lauren Bailey, Brigham Young University.
Bailey: You were born December 18th, 1921.
Prince: That’s correct. In a little farmhouse about a mile out of Price.
Bailey: What do you remember about how you used the media when you were young?
Prince: We had nothing like the media today. Nothing. We used to take the paper and we had a radio. We used to, I remember when we were little kids, living on a farm you had chores to do; milk the cows, get the coal and wood in, feed the cows, and we would sit in front of the radio and listen to Orphan Annie and Daddy Warbux and our Dad would have to shoo us out of the house to go get the work done.
Bailey: What other specific radio programs did you listen to?
Prince: We used to listen to the news. We used to listen to KSL nearly all the time.
KSL, I think they were there before. Another radio program that we used to listen to was KALL, which was a local radio station in Price, K-A-L-L, and it was a, their studio was between Price and Helper and it was all local.
Bailey: What do you remember about the first time that you watched or purchased a TV?
Prince: It was after we were married. And we lived in a little apartment, a basement apartment. The first TV we had was in about 1950.
Bailey: What was it like?
Prince: It was black and white. It was about 17 or 18 inches and the channels were KSL, channel 5, KDYL, channel 4- I think that’s pretty much it.
Bailey: What was your favorite program?
Prince: Well the news has always been big. Ball games have always been big. I have never particularly cared for soap opera! (Laughs)
Bailey: Is there a specific sports team that you follow?
Prince: I was very careful, as I am now, to never miss a Utah game. (Laughs)
Bailey: How come?
Prince: Well, you want the whole story?
In 1938 I was a junior in High School and I was a good football player. At Carbon. Carbon High School in Price. And we came and played Jordan in the state championship in 1938. We beat ‘em. We were, uh, a friend of mine and I, were both interviewed by coach Ike Armstrong from Utah and his assistant Car Sleckmen. That was a highlight in my life. To be in High School and to be wanted by a college to play football. That they offered me a scholarship, even though I was a junior in High School, they offered me a scholarship. And I would have taken it, but the next year, in the last game of the season I had a very severe knee injury which closed my football career. (Laughs)
Bailey: What did you do to your knee, specifically?
Prince: Well, I will never forget it. We were at Box Elder High School ballpark, about 7 miles north of Price. We had scored first on them and then they scored on us, and it was on the extra point kick that somebody come up behind me and put their shoulder into this knee and it ended up that big- and I had trouble, I still have trouble with it.
Bailey: Did you have surgery?
Prince: No, well I, no, I, after we were married I did. I had it operated on. And once after that I had a scope, but uh, it still bothers me.
Bailey: Then you went to the University of Utah?
Prince: After the war I , after the war, I went to the university. I went to Junior college for two years, and then I went to the University of Utah and graduated at the end of summer school in 1947.
Bailey: So you’ve been a Ute fan ever since?
Prince: Absolutely! (Laughs)
Bailey: What’s the biggest news event, or one of the biggest news events, that you can remember?
Prince: There would be nothing that would, uh, top uh, the beginning of World War II. I was living In LA with my brother France, and it was on a Sunday morning and I worked Sundays, and I was working in a Safe-Way grocery store in what they call “the hill”, in LA. Up on the hill. And I’ll never forget the newsboys were out shouting and selling papers that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor.
Bailey: So you found out through the news boys?
Prince: Yes.
Bailey: How did that event change your life?
Prince: Well, uh, I was madly in love. So I quit my job in LA and came home to Price. The girl was living in Salt Lake so I came to Salt Lake and got a job and I stayed here, oh, until I went into the service in ‘42. (Laughs). That never panned out.
Bailey: Then what happened?
Prince: I went over seas and while I was gone she got married.
Bailey: What did you do over seas?
Prince: Uh, the first trip overseas, because of my knee, I was in a program where, when you finished, you had to spend 9 months overseas on ship. After that was over you came back and went to school for 9 months in Great Neck Long Island. After that you had a choice. You could either go to the Navy or the Merchant Marine. I chose the Navy because I wanted to, well it was just a better mix for me. And uh, while we were over seas the first time, we were the first cargo ship that went from New Maya, New Caledonia to Guadalcanal. Guadalcanal was the point where we stopped the Japanese from any further expansion.
Uh, one day I was talking to the armed guard personnel that were on board and we were back on the fantail of the ship. And I’m walking forward and I look out and here comes his torpedo wake right at our ship. And I started screaming, “Torpedo, torpedo!” And I ran up the stairs to get as high as I could so when it hit I’m out, you know, your out of the way a little bit. And the thing went under the ship and exploded on the beach!
Bailey: Oh my gosh!
Prince: (Laughs). We also had a lot of air raids. And uh, that particular day the Japanese submarine surfaced right in the middle of all the ships. And our arm guard crew shot several shots at ‘em but didn’t, never touched it.
These two marine planes came over and they dive bombed and they, then they came by, flew over us and waved like, “we got ‘em, we got ‘em.” And one of them went up, turned over and just did a loop and Kept going, and the other kid went up, did a loop, came down and went right in the water, and they lost him.
Bailey: Wow.
How did you keep contact with your family?
Prince: The first nine months we were in the Pacific and then we came back to Panama. Went through the Panama Canal and ended up in a place called Sparrows Point, Maryland. For nine months I never saw a soul that I had known before, and I never hear a word from my family.
Bailey: Was that the same when you were in New York?
Prince: When I was in New York my Mother used to write to me once in a while.
But uh, when I was through in New York I had a friend, his name was Floyd Roach and he was from Park City. And, uh, we went all through our training together and uh, when we were through training we had to move out so the next group comes in. We went into New York and we stayed in the YMCA for 25 cents a night. (Laughs). And then we studied for our exam and when we passed it, he got his commission right away. I had to wait till I got a variant for my knee, so I was later than he was. He was on a ship- it was it was unbelievable. They were on a ship. Down near the tip of South America they were intercepted by what we call a German Raider. It was a ship that a looked like a Merchant ship but once they found a victim they- all the boars came down, and the guns came up, and it was a raider. This raider captured them and, uh, set them in a lifeboat with a compass and some food- that’s the direction you go to be rescued. And they were. Then he came back, and uh, when we finished school he was transferred to a destroyer in Mare Island, California. That destroyer took off to go to Hawaii and they’ve never, to this day, determined what happened to them. They just disappeared.
Bailey: How did you get word of these things that were happening?
Prince: You either- newspaper. Newspaper.
Bailey: Did the papers take a long time to produce the information?
Prince: Uh, when you’re overseas you just didn’t- All you heard was the scuttlebutt- the gossip. There was no- I can never remember reading or hearing anything but just local gossip
Bailey: How did the media portray these events? The war?
Prince: Oh, uh, the media portrayed exactly what the military wanted them to.
Bailey: What’s that?
Prince: Very positive. Everything’s you know, “we’re winning, we’re winning, we’re winning.” There was a big emphasis on what we called war bonds. You could buy a bond for 18 dollars and 75 cents and it, when it, if you held it till the end of the war it would be worth 25 dollars.
And uh, we got involved in that but mostly- you heard very little radio, no television, and uh, most of the, most of what you heard either came from the paper or the gossip. Local gossip.
Ken and Emma 60th Anniversary
