HOOKS, Texas-As a rifleman attached to the Army's 93rd Infantry Division, stationed in a Philippine Islands jungle during World War II, Pfc. R.T. Fort remembers the dark being as thick as the jungle itself.
"You were never allowed strike a match for lighting a cigarette because the fire could be seen by everyone hiding everywhere around you," said Fort, who will be 100 next month. "We were also called riflemen, but we actually needed to carry Browning automatic rifles and Thompson submachine guns because the jungles were so thick you would need their firepower just to shoot through all the thick jungle foliage. It also rained a lot and there were mosquitoes and leeches and snakes to deal with. I developed a smoking habit while I was over there-but I was able to quit once I got out of the service."
Born June 22, 1919, in Hooks to Mathis and Minnie Ola Fort, he went to work for his parents, who had just started a farm in Arkansas, upon his finishing high school.
"I helped Dad raise chickens, pigs, turkeys, cows and horses," Fort said. "We raised cotton and we also had two mules for plowing the row crops. One of the mules was named "May," while the other was named "June."
Fort received his induction into the Army in October 1941, roughly two months before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
"I took my basic training at Camp Walters (near Mineral Wells, Texas)," Fort said. "When I heard about the attack, I thought that this would be the start of a long war."
Upon finishing basic training, Fort and his unit didn't go immediately overseas but instead took initial deployment to Arizona, where the outfit spent time in the early part of the war guarding major bridges and other public rights-of-way against any potential internal sabotage.
"We had to walk through some of the Mojave Desert in California in order to get to Arizona," he said.
Eventually, overseas deployment did take Fort and the rest of the 93rd across the Pacific.
"When we finally sailed out to the Pacific on our troopship, under San Francisco's Golden Gate, we could see all that endless water in every direction and a guy standing next to me started to cry, but I told him not to worry because God will take care of us-and when we sailed over the international date/ line in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, we got to have Sunday church services twice in a row aboard ship."
Fort remembers the troopship having to zigzag across the Pacific in an effort to avoid potential enemy submarines.
"We had to change course slightly every 30 seconds to keep throwing the enemy off if they were able to get a fix on our path," he said.
Fort's unit, along with other units of the 93rd, eventually landed on the long and narrow Palawan Island on the Philippines' far east side in late 1944.
"We had to sleep in two-man tents, but we had one of the largest field camps to stay with after we landed," Fort said.
Fort said he soon learned of Japanese tenaciousness as he observed enemy snipers hiding in their tree perches.
"The Japanese would go so far as to tie themselves to the tree branches in order not to be taken prisoner-should they get shot," Fort said. "This would allow them not to fall to the ground and be captured-should they still be alive."
Fort also learned that many Japanese not only would rather die than surrender, they would also fake surrender to draw their potential American captors into danger.
"We were told to be on the alert for Japanese soldiers throwing their hands up as a fake surrender, so that when we approached them they would drop to the ground with machine guns tied to their backs," Fort said. "This would allow for fellow soldiers, waiting behind them, to grab the machine guns and start shooting at us as we approached. We actually never ran into something like this, but we were told about it."
The 93rd gradually vanquished the enemy by taking out their pillbox fortifications one by one with flamethrowers.
"The Japanese did have some tanks and pillboxes to cover their positions and we had to shoot flamethrowers into the pillboxes to get them out of there," he said.
Fort said he was still on Palawan Island the day he heard that Japan had surrendered (Aug. 15, 1945) and the war had ended.
"I emptied my tommy-gun up in the air and we all went to the bigger islands in the Philippines to catch ship rides back home," he said. "We got back in under the Golden Gate Bridge."
Fort received his discharge at Camp Chaffee, Ark., in 1946 before heading back to California to marry the love of his life, his wife, Anna Benson, in 1947 in Santa Monica. The couple raised three children and have five grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
Following his military service, Fort stayed in California and went to work for the Los Angeles Public Works Department for 26 years-first as a maintenance laborer before being promoted to truck operator in 1962 and later equipment operator in 1969. He retired after working a number of years with one of the city's lot cleaning crews.
Fort also became a licensed barber and worked at Stan's Barbershop in Venice, Ca. He was also a deacon, trustee, church teacher, treasurer and choir member at the First Baptist Church of Venice for more than 60 years.
Following his wife's death in 2012, Fort decided to move back to his native hometown of Hooks. There, even at age 99, Fort still enjoys farming, fishing, gardening and telling stories. He is a member of Greater Saint John's Missionary Baptist Church.
"I told my buddies back during the war that God was with them, and he was with me too-and to this day, he still is."