Interview with Jerell E. Crow. He entered the Coast Guard in 1940 and trained in Florida and New York City. He served aboard a Landing Ship, Tank (LST) when those ships were first introduced. He traveled to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to the Neville Island Shipyard operated by the Dravo Corporation as part of a crew that brought an LST down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. From there, the crew practiced operations at Biloxi, Mississippi. Eventually, Crow travelled to San Diego aboard the LST through the Panama Canal. From there, he went to Guadalcanal and unloaded tanks. Eventually, his ship was hit at Saipan and he was wounded. He also served aboard an LST during the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Afterwards, Crow's LST was present in Tokyo Bay for the surrender. He visited Hiroshima while on occupation duty after the atomic bomb was dropped. Eventually, his LST made its way back to San Francisco where he was discharged.

Transcript of an interview with Merle Timblin, Civilian Conservation Corps worker and U.S. Army WWII Veteran. Timblin discusses his childhood in western Pennsylvania; father’s work as a farmer, coal miner, and WPA blacksmith; life on farms and in mining towns during the Great Depression; decision to enroll in CCC before eighteenth birthday; experiences at CCC camps in Arizona and Pennsylvania; lessons learned from the CCC experience; experiences in the European Theater of World War II as radio operator in the U.S. Army Fourth Armored Division, including fighting in the Battle of the Bulge; lessons learned from experience in the Army; decision to relocate to Niagara Falls, N.Y., and thence to North Texas; career as a machinist and mechanic.