Interview with the Rev. Ocie Turner, a minister at New Mount Zion Baptist Church in Dallas, Marine WWII veteran, and a longtime resident of the Hamilton Park neighborhood, from Mexia, Texas. Turner discusses his family background, education, serving in the Marine Corps at the Battle of Iwo Jima, working as a butcher in Dallas, working in the oil and gas industry, buying his house in Hamilton Park, the growth and development of the neighborhood, community organizations, local businesses, the schools and his children's education, and changes in the neighborhood over time.

Transcript of an interview with John Ruddick, a Navy veteran, concerning his experiences while aboard the destroyer USS Melvin during World War II in the Pacific Theater. Ruddick discusses the Marianas invasion, the Carolines invasion, the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the Battle of Surigao Strait, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Kurile operations, and the occupation of Japan.

Interview with business executive and Army Air Forces veteran William E. Cooper. The interview includes Cooper's personal experiences about being a B-29 pilot in the Pacific Theater, pre-flight and flight training, various assignments, and dropping supplies by parachute to prisoners-of-war. Cooper also talks about living on Guam, mechanical weaknesses of the B-29, his descriptions of Nagasaki and Hiroshima from the air after the dropping of the atomic bombs, his disappointment with not being able to fly combat missions, postwar duty as a test pilot on Guam, and his postwar civilian activities.

Interview with Major General Frederick Haynes, a Marine WWII veteran from Dallas, Texas. Haynes discusses growing up, becoming an officer in the Marine Corps, being a small arms instructor, assignment to the 28th Marines and training for combat, various experiences fighting the Battle of Iwo Jima, and reflections on battle.

U.S. Marine George Burlage was part of the largest surrender in American history at Bataan and Corregidor in the spring of 1942, where the Japanese captured more than 85,000 troops. More than forty percent would not survive World War II. His prisoner-of-war ordeal began at Cabanatuan near Manila, where the death rate in the early months of World War II was fifty men a day. Sensing that Cabanatuan was a death trap, he managed to get transferred to the isolated island of Palawan to help build an airfield for his captors. Malaria and other tropical diseases caused him to be sent to Manila for treatment in 1943 (a year later, 139 of his fellow POWs were massacred on Palawan). After another year of building airfields, Burlage survived a 38-day voyage in the hull of a Japanese hell ship and ended the war as a miner for Mitsubishi in northern Japan. By sheer luck, strength, and a bit of sabotage, he survived and was freed in September 1945 after the Japanese surrendered. He had endured starvation and torture and lost half of his prewar weight, but no one had killed him. After the war Burlage became a journalist and wrote about …