The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Bill Ott. Ott joined the Navy in 1944 upon graduating high school and received basic training in San Diego. Upon completion of gunnery school and air/sea rescue training, he was assigned to a rescue boat stationed at Elba. There he was part of an eight-man crew that recovered B-29 and seaplane crews attempting to land at Kwajalein and Elba, respectively. When the tower notified them of a crash, Ott’s boat rushed to the scene and deployed a swimmer who loaded people, dead or alive, onto a floating stretcher. It was Ott’s responsibility to shoot at sharks if necessary. Once aboard, survivors would be treated by the crew’s hospital corpsmen. Typically, less than half of an aircrew survived a crash, but Ott felt it was important also to recover bodies for proper burial whenever possible. After two years abroad, Ott returned home and was discharged in early 1946.