For the Tarrant County War Veterans Project. Survivor of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. Childhood in Oklahoma, Illinois, and other locales; father’s work as an oil field machinist; enlistment in the U.S. Navy following 1941 high school graduation; boot camp; assignment to drum and bugle corps; marriage to Mertie Jo Morgan; December 1943 assignment to cruiser USS Indianapolis; description of various missions in South Pacific; March 1945 kamikaze attack on the Indianapolis; return to States and preparation for invasion of Japan; return to Tinian in the Pacific theater with top-secret cargo: the components for “Little Boy,” the first atomic bomb; July 1945 sinking of the Indianapolis by a Japanese submarine; survivors’ experience in life rafts, including close encounters with sharks; rescue from the USS Ringness; survivor reunions; discharge; civilian career with Texaco and as a mechanic/small business operator; feelings toward Japanese.