The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with George Kirk. Kirk was born in Moline, Illinois on 17 April 1921. After graduating from high school in 1939 he enrolled at the University of Iowa. While there he participated in the Civilian Pilot Training Program and received his pilot’s license. In June 1942, he joined the Navy and had four months of training at St Louis. He then entered flight training at Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, Texas and had advanced at Kingsville Naval Air Station, Texas. He was commissioned in May 1943. After gunnery, formation and night flying he went to Norfolk, Virginia and was assigned to VF-8 and began flying F6F fighter planes. The group began practicing carrier landing on the USS Charger (CVE-30). Upon being carrier qualified, VF-8 was assigned to the USS Intrepid (CV-11). Upon arrival in Hawaii, VF-8 was off loaded from the ship and moved to the Navy base on Maui. On 1 March 1944, Air Group 8 was assigned to the USS Bunker Hill (CV-17). In recalling various combat missions, Kirk depicts the coordinated attacks by dive bombers, torpedo planes and fighter planes against various targets. He took part in …

Transcript of an oral interview with James Jones. He discusses joining the Army, being shipped to France to join the 3rd Army in Germany in early 1945, being in charge of a machine gun section in the 387th infantry regiment of the 97th division, then returning to the States for leave when he heard of Japan's surrender. Then he was shipped to Japan to be part of the occupation force after the war. He ancedotes about having to search the woods in Czechoslovakia for werewolves, riding in boxcars, meeting Russians and German farmers, escorting German prisoners who surrendered to camps and trying to put out a barracks fire while in Japan.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Manuel Machado. Machado joined the Navy in August 1942 at the age of 16, forging a birth certificate to appear older. He received basic training near Stanford University, and after spending a year guarding the San Francisco water supply, his forgery was discovered. He was nearly discharged, but after appearing in court, he was sent to another boot camp. Upon completion, he was assigned to the gunnery crew of the USS Enterprise (CV-6). As part of an elite lookout team, he helped prevent several kamikaze attacks. In the Philippines, an inexperienced officer forced Machado to be on the lookout when he should have been resting his eyes, resulting in an enemy aircraft coming close enough to bomb the ship; fortunately, the bomb did not detonate. When the ship’s number one elevator was hit near Okinawa, Machado rescued a gunner who was unconscious and surrounded by flames. After the Enterprise was repaired, Machado participated in its Magic Carpet voyages and eventually returned home. He was discharged in 1946.

Transcript of an oral interview with John Karl Rankin. Rankin begins by talking about living on a farm in the Oklahoma panhandle during the Dust Bowl days. He describes a massive dust storm striking the farm on his fourteenth birthday. He also shares anecdotes about cowboying on his uncle's ranch in Colorado as a teenager. In August, 1942, Rankin joined the Marine Corps, where he went to radio school and then radar school. he was attached to the First Marine Air Warning Squadron. Once he shipped overseas, Rankin's unit set up their radar station in the Marshall Islands. Rankin describes the radar station being attacked one night by a Japanese bomber. Rankin also discusses going ashore on D-day at Okinawa to set up another radar station. Later in April, 1945, Rankin's unit was sent to Ie Shima where he witnessed a massive air raid of Japanese kamikazes on the American fleet at Okinawa. After the Japanese surrender, Rankin describes being caught in a typhoon that went through Okinawa, and again in another one on the way back to the US. When Rankin was discharged, he enrolled in the UNiversity of Oklahoma at Norman and became a Methodist minister.

Transcript of an oral interview with Allan D. Morrison. In 1942, Morrison finished high school in Bozeman, Montana before enrolling in the Civilian Pilot Training program. His eyesight disqualified him as a pilot, so the Army Air Corps sent him to McDill Field in Florida for advanced communications training in early 1943. He had never even had basic training and finally got shuffled to Chicago for radio school. Morrison developed an illness that prevented him from graduating and moving on, so he stayed in Chicago for a while before moving on to Sioux Falls, South Dakota where he finally graduated as a radio mechanic. His first assignment took him to Annette Island in southeastern Alaska. While there, he operated an SCS system, which allowed aircraft with the right equipment to make instrument landings on the field at Annette Island (in case of fog, etc.).

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Al Wiseman. Wiseman joined the Navy in 1942 and was assigned to the USS Greene (AVD-13). He served as a deck seaman and stood lookout while on watch. Wiseman discusses traveling as an escort to Brazil and then travelling to the Mediterranean. He describes taking part in the invasion of Southern France. The Greene was then sent to the Pacific and performed escort duty near Okinawa. He describes seeing several Japanese air attacks on ships that were nearby. Wiseman traveled to Japan at the end of the war to pick up POWs. He also visited Nagasaki. Wiseman describes how his ship was critically damaged when it ran aground during a typhoon in October of 1945. He served on two more ships working in engineering before getting out of the Navy in 1948.

Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Voertman Hall in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree.

Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Recital Hall in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree.

Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Voertman Hall in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree.

Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Recital Hall in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree.

Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Voertman Hall in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree.

Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Organ Recital Hall in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree.

Lecture presented at the UNT College of Music Organ Recital Hall in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree.