The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Earnest Cochran. Cochran joined the Navy in May, 1940. When he finished boot training, he was sent to North Island Naval Air Station outside San Diego and trained further as an aviation machinist. He moved to Pearl Harbor with Utility Squadron 2 (VJ-2) in August, 1941. Cochran was on Ford Island when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Cochran left Hawaii for a school in Chicago in 1943. Then he moved to New Caledonia to serve in Utility Squadron 9 (VJ-9).