| Interviewee | HATCHER, William (b. 1923) |
| Military Service | U.S. Army WWII Veteran |
| Interview ID # | OH 1681 |
| Date(s) of interview | |
| Description | For the Tarrant County War Veterans Oral History Project. Childhood and education in rural Tenn.; family’s experiences in the Great Depression; decision to attend University of Tennessee-Knoxville and major in mechanical engineering; memories of Pearl Harbor attack; decision to join U.S. Army Enlisted Reserve Corps in 1942; 1943 call-up; basic training at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia; instruction in engineering, communications, and radar repair at City College of New York and Chanute Field, Illinois; assignments to Truax Field, Wisconsin, and Boca Raton, Florida; meeting future wife, Jean E. Sheppard, at USO Club in West Palm Beach, Florida; transfer to B-29 unit and bases in Nebraska and Kansas; deployment to Guam with 29th Bomb Group, 20th Air Force, March 1945; details of high-altitude radar repair work; aspects of daily life for American soldiers stationed in Guam; descriptions of devastation of Japan, including Hiroshima; transfer to base on Tinian; return to U.S. in February 1946; wedding; return to UT-Knoxville using GI Bill benefits; work at Oak Ridge; decision to transfer to University of New Mexico for Mrs. Hatcher’s health; career with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Convair Corp. of Fort Worth; family history; social life in Fort Worth. |
| Interviewer(s) | Ben Hegi |
| Physical Description | 151 pp. |
| Terms of Use | Open |
