Editor's note: This is part of a series of interviews with World War II veterans. The articles will continue in each day's edition until May 28, prior to the World War II Memorial Dedication and Recognition Day, May 29.

Conflicts don't stop in the evening. Planes still fly to harass troops. Searchlight battalions were employed during World War II to turn night into day.

Charlie Bertsch of Warsaw belonged to the 233rd AAA Searchlight Battalion, illuminating the South Pacific's black skies. The Army sergeant was in charge of a 22-man crew stationed on various islands in the South Pacific.

The 60-inch carbon arc searchlights worked in tandem with SCR-270 radars, huge arrays mounted to semi trailers. The 270s represented the latest in radar technology.

"The 270 radars were as big as this building," Bertsch, 80, said from his office at Bertsch Vending on Parker Street in Warsaw. "We controlled from 100 to 150 feet away. When they're on they say, 'Here I am, come get me."

He went to the Fiji Islands in September 1943, was in New Guinea about a year later and stayed in the Philippines at the end of the war.

Securing New Guinea, north of Australia, was key to an Allied victory in the South Pacific, leading to the liberation of the Philippine Islands. Operations there forced the Japanese to divert personnel, equipment and resources away from other holdings.

Soldiers had to hack their way into positions. Bertsch carries a reminder of the jungle on one hand where he accidentally cut himself with a Bowie knife while hacking his way through the "durn trash."

"Our job was to find, identify, illuminate and destroy the enemy," he said. The enemy was still all around on the ground and in the air. The battalion made beach landings, following the Marines.

"The Marines went first, pounded on their chests and said, 'You can't kill us' as they were getting killed. They had those guys so psyched up they really believed they couldn't get hurt."

Bertsch was hurt at one point, while unloading a FS ship. "The guy on the crane was unloading a steel beam. He got it wrong. I went to push it, to move it, and he picked up at the same time, taking me and the beam with it.

Bertsch and the beam were swung against the wall, catching him in the hips. His hips were displaced and popped back into place. After a couple of days in the hospital, he was back on duty.

"On Christmas Day of 1944 it was 158 degrees on the runway, so hot the natives wouldn't even walk on it.

"They were little people, and I've never seen anyone, anything that black. They loved to wear Japanese sabers. They'd do anything for a saber. They were headhunters, of course, and they fought everything and everybody. They fought us and the Japanese. Why wouldn't they? They didn't want to be invaded. They liked their lifestyle. Why would they want to live ours?

"The average American person thinks the world wants to live like we do, but they don't, necessarily. They want to be left alone. We can't understand that."

Bertsch joined the Army in January 1943, two years after graduating from Warsaw High School in 1941. He left Warsaw with a group of other Kosciusko County men. During his physical, an X-ray revealed an irregularity in his chest and he was held back while his buddies went on to the European Theater.

The shadow in his chest turned out to be of no concern.

After boot camp at Camp Perry, Ohio, Bertsch went on to Texas for training with the searchlights. In April 1943, he married June.

The searchlights were lit when two carbon sticks came together. Coming in two sizes, the big carbons were a foot long "and as big around as my index finger. The little ones were 6 inches long, as big around as my little finger."

The crews made sure the carbons stayed dry and the reflecting mirror stayed polished. Made of polished medal, the mirrors were installed at the back of a drum.

"We cleaned them with big cotton balls as big as your hand. They were more touchy than a mirror. So you didn't scratch them. If they were scratched, you'd get all kinds of funny lights. They wouldn't focus or go very far - only half a mile instead of two miles into the sky."

The radars were operated by remote control. When incoming aircraft were detected, the searchlight would be turned on.

"If we were good, we'd start firing the .50 caliber machine guns. We aimed at it with tracer bullets. If they were hitting the target, you'd keep it up."

There was little rest for members of the spotlight crews. They were up night and day.

"I was in some hairy situations, I got out of them," he said. "I wouldn't take a million dollars for what I experienced and I wouldn't do it again for a million."

The 233rd was stationed in the Philippines when word of V-J Day came.

"Our equipment was loaded on ships, we were ready to invade Japan," he said of summer 1945. "They planned a September invasion, had all the maps where the barbed wire and land mines were. We were to go in the fall and hold the beachhead until the spring, or so we were told.

"The (atomic) bombs dropped. We started jumping up and down and counting our numbers to get home. We had more than enough points to get back but couldn't get anyone to relieve us.

"So when the war was over, they would let us come home if we would convert liberty ships. They were cargo ships and we used lumber to make bunks, three high, the same length as a cot. The cots would be stretched between the frame."

While on Luzon, Bertsch remembers touring old Spanish dungeons under the town of Manila. Chains to secure prisoners still hung from the walls there.

In December 1945 Bertsch headed home, arriving sometime in January 1945. On the way across the Pacific, floating mines were spotted and the soldiers took to shooting at them to blow them up.

"We ran across several mines in the ocean. It was a funny experience. Everybody would be hollering and screaming. Everybody would shoot at it with a rifle. We were trying to hit the spikes. With that ship jumping around, that worked like a charm," he said, meaning no one hit anything but water.

"Finally the captain said get out of the road. He stuck a five-incher on it and that took it out, all right."

The cold weather came as a shock after the heat of the tropics. "We were freezing to death with our overcoats on."

In addition to the Bowie knife scar, Bertsch carries another from a drop of mustard gas, still visible after more than 50 years.

"The Army made sure we were prepared. At gas school they put a drop of mustard gas on all of us. We figured the Japanese would use it as a last resort, they were dedicated little people, dedicated to their country.

"You learned when the service did something you just forgot it and went on, because they'd do something else.

"I had medals but I don't know where or what they are. I wanted out and was glad to get out. They tried to get you to re-enlist or go into the reserves. I said, 'Gee, thank you, but I don't think I want to do it.'

"I wanted to decide for myself what to do instead of having somebody else telling me what to do."

After the war Bertsch returned to his old job and, after a year, found a new one with a contractor.

Then he went to work for the Curtis Candy Co.

"I wanted them to go into vending. When I had a chance to, I bought a couple of used candy vending machines and I put Curtis Candy in them. Candy was hard to come by after the war.

"Over the years I got different kinds of candy and quit Curtis Candy, going into vending full-time," said the founder of Bertsch Vending.

Until last year he attended every reunion of the 233rd Searchlight Battalion.

"Anyhow, I did it. I've had fun. If you can't have fun while you're working, it's going to be a long life." [[In-content Ad]]