"Roscoe the Lion" Mascot 28th Marines-5th Marine Division Camp Tarawa and other 2nd and 5th Marine Division Sea Stories 1943-1945.

While working on my short history of Camp Tarawa, I stumbled on what I feel is a real human (or animal) interest story. When I first heard about Roscoe I was intrigued by the story of just how an African lion wound up as a living mascot of a Marine Regiment, how they acquired him, and how they got him aboard ship and here to Camp Tarawa on the Big Island.

So thanks to Alice Clark of the Pacific War Memorial Association's and Maile Melrose of Waimea Main Streets, Camp Tarawa oral history project, and their personal interviews with Major General Fred Haynes USMC (retired). Maile Melrose's interview was on March 19, 1995 in Waimea Hawai'i. Alice Clark's interview was on July 18, 1996 at the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah. What you will be reading came directly from both interviews.  I think you, as I have, will find the life and times of Roscoe a fascinating look back to a little bit of Marine Corps history.

          So here is how General Haynes remembers Roscoe.

Roscoe was a great lion. I'm sorry he isn't with us today, 50 years later. We bought him for $25.00 from the Los Angeles zoo (Griffith Park). He was a little bitty cub. I mean he was as cute as he could be. I don't think you could buy a lion from any zoo these days.

We took Roscoe to our initial training camp which was at Camp Pendleton California and when we were ordered overseas we, much to their dismay, conned the Navy into letting us bring Roscoe to Hawai'i and we settled him in at Camp Tarawa here in Waimea. He was still a fairly small cub, but when we went to Iwo, the Navy wouldn't let us take him aboard ship, which probably good luck for him.

He was a great howler: he could out-howl the band!  We had a good band in the Division. It was lead by Bob Crosby, Bing Crosby's brother. Then we would have these little parades over at the athletic field of about four hundred to five hundred men. Roscoe would drape himself over the hood of a Jeep and go over to the parade ground and the band would play and he would howl, or growl madly much to the discomfort of the band leader Bob Crosby. It was like being in darkest Africa to hear him let fly.

He was a big friendly guy, but we wouldn't let the average Marine go near him, only the three or four Marines who bought him and brought him to Camp Pendleton and really knew him. One or two of them had been wounded at Iwo and returned home, but there were a couple of them left when we came back and he was very friendly to them. They would go and feed him and he would growl a little bit that he was happy they were here.

There was an adjutant in our Regiment who was about five to ten years older than most of us who decided he would learn to play the bagpipes before we went to Iwo to pipe us ashore. Well he did and that lasted just several minutes and that was the last of that set of bagpipes. He got ahold of another set when we returned to Camp Tarawa. Now he was an insomniac and would play the bagpipes until two or three in the morning and of course Roscoe would join right in. So we moved both of them far enough away where they could enjoy one another's music and let the rest of us get some sleep.    

In any event we came back here, and here was Roscoe weighing about 300-350 pounds and he grew and grew and got to 100% African lion size, weighed 400 pounds and ate a huge amount of food. We got meat from the Parker Ranch for him and we also took scraps from the mess halls that we would go around and get for him. He was well fed and we had him here for at least four or five months and then distemper got ahold of him, he became quite ill, and the veterinarians put him to sleep.

General Haynes' last statements were: "He is buried somewhere here on the Big Island. It was down near the camp but I wouldn't recognize the spot if we tried to find it. So that's my story of Roscoe, a great lion, and he lies here on the Big Island of Hawai'i. We ought to erect a little memorial to this male African lion that has now become part of our Big Island history."

Here is another good one, should bring about a chuckle or two.

This conversation was overheard at a 5th Division Association Convention and recorded. This one is from Bert Clayton editor of the 5th Marine Division Magazine

CALLING ALL CARS

Mike: One night Ted and I went on Liberty to Coronado where we did the usual, a few drinks and dancing at the hotel Coronado. Apparently we got bored, so we took the ferry back to San Diego. We had talked about ice-skating.

Walking toward Broadway we passed a police precinct station. There in front sat a police car with the engine running and no one in it. Seems like we just looked at each other knowingly, jumped in and took off. I don’t remember who drove.

Ted: I drove first, and when I asked Mike where we should go, he suggested the Glacier Gardens the ice skating rink. I told him to take the wheel because I didn't’t know the way.

Mike: We didn't have long to wait before we heard a report on the police radio that a patrol car had been stolen. We headed out east of town to the skating rink where we quickly abandoned the car. As I recall we barely got our skates on before the place was crawling with cops. Nothing ever came of the event, however. Any time Ted and I went on liberty we had a lively time to say the least. Like most guys we didn’t have much money so we “improvised”.

Ted: Like Mike says, all we had to do was look at each other and we knew what the other one was thinking. Anytime we went on liberty, a good time was had by all!

Mike: I also recall that on some of our night field problems at Pendleton we entertained ourselves by removing sections of telephone line just for the hell of it.

Ted: Yeah, we’d actually hack away sections of their lines and throw the ends in different directions to give them a challenge. (It probably gave the wire guys some good practice, because you knew the enemy would do it every chance he got.)

Ted again: Clayt, your story about you and Harry and the tattoo incident in Honolulu, then having your picture taken with the hula girls reminds me of a time on liberty in Hilo when Mike, Joe and I walked into a photo studio and the three of us stripped down to our skivvies. The poor little girl in charge didn’t know what to think until we each grabbed hula skirts, wrapped them around our middles and told her we wanted our pictures taken. They were small individual snaps, but I still have one of each in my album.

Mike: Ted, Joe and I went on liberty in Hilo one time. We were never flush with money, but we would sometimes treat ourselves to a steak dinner at the old Paramount Grill. The meal ran about 95 cents as I recall. After eating, we’d set about getting stupid on beer or whatever. Sometimes we did a good job of it.

Ted: Yeah, you were sending a pay allotment to your mother and I was sending one back to my wife and son. So payday rolls around, we sometimes left the paymaster without a dime in our dungarees. As a result, we had to find inexpensive forms of entertainment. This sometimes took the form of “borrowing” vehicles from other branches of the service, it was sort of a challenge!

Mike: Late one night we happened on to an Army Command Car. We decided this would provide us with first class transportation back to Camp Tarawa 40-50 miles away.

Ted: Since this was an Army Command Car, we tucked our field scarves in our shirts like the dogfaces did and removed the USMC emblems from our “fore and aft” covers so they wouldn’t give us away. Off we drove. Mike was at the wheel, I was ridding “shotgun” watching out for any Military Police vehicles.

Mike: We headed up Saddle back Road (Saddle Road) through the pass. About ten miles out of Hilo we ran into one of those standard guard shacks. I don’t think they had missed their vehicle yet but I wasn't taking any chances. I remember slamming on the brakes and hitting reverse while the sentry up ahead was screaming “HALT”! I finally got us turned around and headed back down the mountain at full speed with a few rounds of rifle fire passing over our heads. Joe was busy trying to find the MPs frequency to see if we were being followed. Apparently not, as we made it safely back into town and we parked the vehicle about a block from where we found it. We were pretty sober by that time.

Ted: I recall we stayed overnight at the Marine hostel and returned to Camp Tarawa via the regular liberty truck the next day.

One of our favorite pastimes was watching for Navy jeeps. We would check out the movie theatre, which was a good spot to find one. We would wait until they parked their vehicle and went into the theatre. Then we would check with the cashier to see how long the feature film ran. That gave us an idea as to when we had to have the unit returned. We’d drop it off a block or two from where we found it. (They must have loved to stick it to Navy officers!).

Mike: These stories may make us sound like professional car thieves. Some of the stunts we used to pull on liberty were wilder by comparison but I don’t think Ted or I would readily admit to them. (Laughter).

By: Bert Clayton, 5th Marine Division/Former Editor Spearhead magazine.

Date unknown.

Note: I know the Mike in the story personally and beleive it or not Mike received the Good Conduct Medal when he was discharged.