Military Service | Oral History

Military Service

OH 1736

Experiences with the 1st Marine Division in the Pacific Theater during World War II; family life and childhood in Ohio; enlistment with Marine Corps following bombing of Pearl Harbor; boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, and New River (now Camp Lejeune), North Carolina; deployment to the Pacific Theater aboard the USS John Ericcson and pre-combat preparations in Wellington, New Zealand, prior to Guadalcanal landing on August 7, 1942; physical and geographical descriptions of island, living conditions, combat experience, and enemy engagement; relocation to Australia for maneuvers and tra

OH 1376

His experiences in the Mediterranean Theater during World War II. Assignment as executive officer for PT-309, PT Squadron 22, at Bastia, Corsica, 1944; interception of and engagements with German barge traffic along the western coast of Italy and the southern coast of France, 1944-45; encounters with German “F-lighter” armed barges; invasion of southern France, November, 1944; engagements with German shore batteries; participation in commando landings; capture of Italian MAS torpedo boats.

OH 1131

His experiences as a machinist at the Pearl Harbor Navy Base, 1942-44; his experiences as a combat infantryman in Germany, 1945; Hermann Goering's headquarters in Munich; liberation of Dachau; his receiving the Bronze Star.

OH 0166

Realtor, advertising executive, member of the "Lost Battalion." His experiences as a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese during World War II. Fall of Java and capture; Bicycle Camp, Batavia, 1942; Changi Prison Camp, Singapore, 1942; building the Burma-Thailand Death Railway, 1942-44; Kanchanaburi, Thailand, 1944; Saigon and Da Lat, French Indo-China, 1944-45, and American air raids; liberation.