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 Jim Mason, a Navy veteran, concerning his experiences as a corpsman at the Naval Hospital during the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941: also anecdotal information about Admiral Chester W. Nimitz.

Interview with Army veteran Charles C. Brabham Jr. The interview includes Brabham's personal experiences about the Southwest Pacific Theater during World War II, his youth in Dallas during the Great Depression, joining the 112th Cavalry at age 16, his mobilization and various assignments, and his medical evacuation die to malaria, dysentery, and hookworm.

Interview with George E. Fortenberry, who is an Army veteran and college professor from Arlington, Texas. In the interview, Fortenberry discusses his experiences in the Southwest Pacific Theatre during his time as a member of the 112th Cavalry of the Texas National Guard during World War II. He also describes what it was like growing up during the Great Depression and attending various different schools in both Texas and Oklahoma. Fortenberry discusses why he decided to join the National Guard, and also his experiences in early basic cavalry training. During much of the interview, Fortenberry reminisces about many of his various assignments and duties while serving in the war. Among these discussed include his assignment as a clerk to the veterinary section, time in Fort Bliss and Fort Clark, his shipment overseas to Noumea in New Caledonia, his transfer to the Medical Detachment as a clerk, and his time in New Britain, New Guinea and the Philippines. Fortenberry also recollects about everyday life in the Southwest Pacific, and includes details on tropical diseases and combat-related psychological problems that many of his comrades suffered through.

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 …