The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Donald Austin. Austin joined the Navy and was commissioned as an ensign before being assigned to the USS Pope (DD-225 in the Philippines. He was there when the war started. Austin was aboard the Pope when she was attacked and sunk. He was rescued by a Japanese destroyer and made a prisoner of war. He was held on Java and then Makassar. He was around when Richard Antrim intervened during a beating of a POW (Antrim was awarded the Medal of Honor). He shares several other POW anecdotes about their treatment, their daily lives, etc. in the camps. He also shares the experience of being liberated.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Ray Harrison. Born in 1922, he joined the Marine Corps in December 1941. He describes his battle experiences on Guadalcanal as well as the supply shortages and Japanese naval shelling. He contracted malaria there. He also talks about the Japanese night attacks on Guadalcanal and Tulagi. He describes landing on Tarawa. Assigned to man a machine gun on top of an amphibious tractor in the first wave of the invasion, he was injured and stranded in his disabled tractor. After making his way to a Higgins boat, he and others were picked up by a destroyer and returned to their original ship. He describes his experiences in battle on Saipan as well as witnessing the suicides of civilians. He also mentions the invasion of Tinian. After thirty months in the Pacific Theater, he was transferred to the recreation department at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina. He shares anecdotes about enlisting in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; eating coconuts on Tulagi; his summary court martial after a furlough in New Zealand; and teaching himself to be a sailing instructor at Camp Lejeune. He was discharged in December …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Joseph Lajzer. Lajzer volunteered for service in the Army. Lajzer was assigned to a tank unit and trained at Fort Knox and in Louisiana before shipping out to the Philippines in late 1941. He was present at Clark Field when the Japanese attacked. He describes his retreat to Bataan and his activities there until he was surrendered. He also speaks of the six days he marched on the Bataan Death March out of Bataan. Once he was in a prisoner of war camp, he was assigned to a logging detail. He also contracted malaria and relates stories about smuggling items past the Japanese guards and into prison camps. Lajzer describes being aboard a hellship and being trransported to Formosa (Taiwan), where he spent the remainder of the war until he was liberated. Upon returning to the US, he was sent ot a hospital for a while before re-enlisting. He retired in 1966.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Dr. Janus Poppe. Poppe was born in the Netherlands in 1916. As a teenager, he worked as a mechanic for a ship building company. After high school, he attended a Dutch Marine academy for two years. In the mid-1930s, he served as a Deck Officer aboard a ship that traveled around the world twice. He later worked for a shipping company in the Dutch East Indies. In May of 1940, he was traveling in the middle of the Pacific when word arrived from his parents in Holland that the Germans had invaded. Poppe was then trained as a navigator and bombardier. He was serving as a navigator and bombardier aboard PBYs when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Poppe shares several recollections of his encounters with the Japanese during the war, and patrolling around Indonesia. He additionally oversaw 200 Dutch Marines, assigned to patrol and defend Parafield, South Australia. Around 1943, he completed military flight school at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.

Lecture given Sunday, September 17, 2006, 7:00 PM at Abilene Christian University