TOM BUCHANAN
Age: 86
Born: Sept. 7, 1924
Hometown: Hollywood
Residence: Palm Springs
Military branch: U.S. Marine Corps; 3rd Marine Division and 1st Marine Division.
Years served: March 1942-September 1945
Rank: Sergeant
Family: Wife Helen; six children, Estelle Buchanan of San Diego, Tom Buchanan of Laramie, Wyo., Beth Dumont of Hopewell, N.J., Bobby Buchanan of Northfield, Vt., Jill Cross of Cathedral City and Jim Lindsay of Peekskill, N.Y.; 12 grandchildren; two great-grandchildren.
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II through the end of 2010 — the 65th anniversary of the end of the war. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
Coming tomorrow
U.S. Army Airborne veteran Lee Gulzow of Cathedral City.
LEARN MORE: Read about other Coachella Valley residents who served in World War II at mydesert.com/wwii.
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U.S. Marine Corps veteran Tom Buchanan was a radarman in the Pacific during World War II, and later became a sound effects engineer, working on TV shows including “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “The Young and the Restless” and “The Carol Burnett Show.”
The radarmen went ashore after the combat groups cleared the way.
Buchanan's experience in Okinawa was the most memorable of his post-invasion landings.
“We were aboard a troop ship and the kamikazes started coming down and diving into the ships,” he said.
The suicide bombers mainly targeted the big, heavily armed vessels of the U.S. fleet, including battleships and carriers.
“We were just a couple hundred yards away from an aircraft carrier when a kamikaze went through the deck. There was a huge explosion.”
“We said, ‘Get us out of there and get us on land,'” Buchanan said. “When we landed, the beach was secure.”
“We set up our radar gear at the end of one of the airstrips,” to track incoming flights, he said. “We dug the radar into the ground.”
The 9-foot-tall antennae were the only parts that protruded from the ground.
There were six men in his group — Buchanan was in charge — and they ran the radar operation 24 hours a day, each man taking a four-hour shift watching the scope.
Sitting there looking at the screen for hours on end was tedious, and at times, nearly sleep-inducing.
“Especially when nothing was happening,” Buchanan said.
The radar could determine if a plane was “friend or foe,” by picking up the IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) signal transmitted from the aircraft.
“The signal would read as a blip on the radar screen. The code would change every day so we would know it was ours. We could detect enemy planes out several thousand yards.”
“After the war was over, some of the Japanese planes were still coming and bombing and strafing,” he said “They refused to give up.”
On one occasion on Okinawa, after the Japanese surrender, “We picked up a plane coming in over the airstrip,” he said. “It was night.”
Alerted that the approaching aircraft was not transmitting an IFF signal, the radar group contacted field headquarters for further orders. Buchanan was told to keep headquarters notified about the situation.
Buchanan explained that the radar was “fire-controlled,” meaning they could lock-in 90 mm guns and two spotlights that would track the radar.
“The spotlight goes on and the guns fire immediately afterward,” he said.
“The guy kept coming and coming, straight on, straight on. When he was 600 yards away they said, ‘Take him out.'”
“When the lights went on, the gun went off and the plane disappeared. It just blew up,” Buchanan said.
Later, they were shocked to found out the plane was a friendly.
“It was an American (fighter) plane. Guess who got credit — or discredit — for (shooting) it,” Buchanan said, somberly.
“He apparently didn't turn on the signal. The plane probably was coming in to land at the airstrip.”
Buchanan prefers to dwell on his happier wartime experiences, when his group was stationed on Kauai before shipping out for invasion operations.
“The times I really remember — the times in Hawaii — how nice it was, how wonderful it was when we weren't training,” he said. “We had a basketball team, we played softball. The island of Kauai, the Garden Island, is a beautiful, beautiful island.”
While stationed in Kauai, there were reports that a Japanese transmitter might be hidden somewhere in Waimea Canyon.
The 10-mile long, 1-mile wide, 3,500-foot deep canyon has been described as “The Grand Canyon of the Pacific.”
“They sent a bunch of us in to see if we could find it,” Buchanan said.
He said the men stayed out there a couple of days before coming back to the base.
But, he assured, it wasn't all play and no work.
“We did hunt and we did look for any signs” of the transmitter, he said.
After the war, Buchanan launched a career in TV sound effects, joining CBS in 1950 and working for the broadcasting station until his retirement in 1987.
He said sound effects operations have changed dramatically through the years.
“Then, we mostly did it live and as it happened,” he said.
Now, he said, the background sound effects are added after all the shooting has been completed.
In the early days, doing it live, “You only had one chance and you didn't screw it up,” he said. “If you did, you didn't work anymore.”
Buchanan won four Emmy Awards the late 1970s and early 1980s for sound production-related work, including two Emmys for “The Young and the Restless,” and one each for “The “Carol Burnett Show” and “Three's Company.”
Buchanan was on the set of “The Ed Sullivan Show” during the first appearances of The Beatles, Elvis Presley and The Jackson Five.
