The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Chester Reese. Reese joined the Army in 1936. He was assigned to the First Infantry Regiment in Wyoming. In 1939, Reese did not re-enlist in the Army, but joined the Marine Corps instead. After basic training, Reese was sent to Hawaii, where he was when the Japanese attacked. He unlimbered his machine gun, set it up and defended Hickam Field. Reese served as an enlisted man on the subsequent Board of Inquiry into the attack at Pearl Harbor. His job was to sort out people who wanted to testify to the Board. Later in 1942, Reese was attached to the 6th Marine Regiment and headed for New Zealand, then Guadalcanal. Reese received a battlefield commission on Guadalcanal. After leaving the Solomons, Reese returned to the US for training. In early 1945, he went to the Mariana Islands and cleared out Japanese outpost on some of the outlying islands: Sarigan, Anatahan, and Maug.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Robert H. Gayle. Gayle joined the Army in 1943 and had basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Not wishing to be a tanker, Gayle applied for the Army Air Force and was accepted. He trained as gunner and was assigned to a B-17 crew. He was assigned to the 2nd Bomb Group in the 15th Air Force at Foggia, Italy in September, 1944. He describes some of his early missions where the crew had to ditch in the Adriatic and were rescued; a mid-air collision in which he was involved; being shot up by antiaircraft fire and having to bail out over Austria. After parachuting into a snowfield, Gayle was captured by Hungarian troops and made a prisoner of war in February, 1945. The Hungarians turned him over to the Germans in Vienna. The Germans eventually moved him to Moosberg. He was liberated by elements of Patton's Third Army in late April. Upon being transported back to France, General Eisenhower visited the former POWs. He returned home and was reunited with family.