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BOCK, Leonard (b. 1925)

Oral Histories

OH 1193

His experiences in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Enlistment and recruit training at Bainbridge Naval Receiving Center, 1942-43; electrician’s school, Newport, Rhode Island, 1943; assignment to PC-1135; convoy duty to Aruba; Marshall Islands Campaign, 1944; sinking of a Japanese submarine off Wotje Island; Marianas Campaign, 1944; witnessing mass suicides by Japanese civilians jumping off cliffs at Saipan; transfer to PC-1128; Okinawa Campaign, 1945, and kamikaze attacks; sinking of PC-1128 and his survival during a typhoon, October, 1945; assignment to an APA and participation in the Bikini Atoll atom bomb tests, 1946; postwar adjustment to civilian life.