Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Recital Hall.

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

Concert Choir and A Cappella Choir concert performed at UNT Winspear Hall.

Concert presented at the UNT College of Music Winspear Performance Hall.

Concert presented at the UNT College of Music Kenton Hall.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with James Walsh. Walsh was born in Wheeler, Indiana on 19 October 1926. He quit high school in 1944 and joined the Navy. He went to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois for six weeks of boot training followed by six months of amphibious training and gunnery training at Norfolk, Virginia. Upon completion of the training he went by troop train to Portland, Oregon. In September 1944 he went aboard Landing Craft Support vessel USS LCS(L)(3)-51. He describes the ship’s heavy armaments. In November 1944, Group 7, consisting of Walsh’s LCS and five other sister ships, sailed to Saipan before going to Leyte. They remained at Leyte until 19 February 1945 before participated in the invasion of Iwo Jima. Walsh led the first wave of Marine onto the beach and describes clearing the beach of disabled landing craft. The ship then participated in the invasion of Okinawa. Walsh tells of the ship being on picket duty and being attacked by kamikaze aircraft. Walsh saw the USS Laffey (DD-724) hit by several suicide aircraft while LCS-51 sustained damage caused by debris from a plane they shot down. The …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Walter Crafford. Crafford was born in Bridgeport, Nebraska in 1919 and graduated from high school in 1937. He was employed at a Consolidated Aircraft plant making B-24 bombers until 1942 at which time he joined the US Army Air Forces. Upon completing his pilot training he was sent to Pueblo, Colorado for crew selection and training. In December 1943 the crew was sent to Herrington, Kansas to pick up a new B-24 which they ultimately named Salty Sal featuring the picture of a (Alberto) Vargas girl as the nose art. Flying from Hawaii they joined the 7th Air Force, 30th Bomb Group at O’Hara Airfield on the island of Abemama. Crafford flew thirteen bombing missions over the heavily fortified island of Truk. Returning to the United States during November 1944, he was attending engineering school at Chanute Field, Illinois when Japan surrendered. He was discharged shortly thereafter.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Duane Howard. Howard was born in Miami, Indiana 30 November 1919. Although married with two children, he was drafted into the Navy in September 1944. After ten week of boot training at The Great Lakes Naval Training Station, Illinois he began three weeks of gunnery training. Upon completion of the training he was assigned to the merchant ship, SS O.B. Martin as a member of the Naval Armed Guard contingent. His job assignment was as a gunner’s mate on a 3 inch deck gun. He tells of the ship joining a convoy of forty ships and delivering their cargo to Calcutta, India. He also comments on visits the ship made to Leyte, Samar and New Guinea. In September 1945 the ship returned to San Francisco with veterans of the war in the Pacific. He was discharged during October 1945.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Burman Stewart. Stewart joined the Navy in February of 1944. Beginning in May, he served as a seaman aboard the SS Sea Runner (1944), a passenger and cargo ship. In June they transported supplies and Seabees for the Battle of Saipan, going ashore by tank landing ships. Stewart operated the cranes to lower and raise the boats into the water. Stewart and his shipmates served on the island of Hawaii until January of 1945, then they transported the 12th Service Marine Division to the Battle of Iwo Jima. In April they delivered a group of soldiers from Guam to the Battle of Okinawa. In June they transferred back to Hawaii, where Stewart served on the island until his discharge in January of 1946.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Wayne Holtzman. Holtzman joined the NROTC at Northwestern and graduated in February 1944 with a degree in chemistry and a commission in the Navy. He then boarded the USS Iowa (BB-61) as an antiaircraft gunnery officer. After performing an intense but brief shore bombardment at Iwo Jima, he watched the invasion. At Okinawa, the Iowa unleashed tremendous fire power on kamikazes, almost running out of ammunition. An enemy plane broke through the curtain and nearly struck the Iowa before it was finally pulverized, falling to the ship as a pile of flaming debris. As with other gunnery officers, Holtzman lost his hearing, having spent so much time beside the guns, and was reassigned to communications as a coding officer. Receiving top-secret messages, he inferred the war would soon end and that something big would end it. After the bomb was dropped, Holtzman watched the signing of the peace treaty and went to conduct reconnaissance at Yokosuka. He traveled to Tokyo, which had been completely leveled. After returning home and being discharged into the Reserves in June 1946, Holtzman joined the Air Force as a researcher, studying the factors …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Richard Redfearn. Redfearn joined the Navy in September 1939 and received basic training and gunner’s mate training in San Diego. Upon completion, he was assigned to Scouting Squadron 3 (VS-3). Redfearn describes creative offensive and defensive techniques employed by SBD crewmen in combat with Zeroes, such as luring a Japanese plane closer by pretending to have run out of ammunition. After completing missions at Guadalcanal with the USS Saratoga (CV-3), Redfearn returned to the States to attend the University of Texas under the V-12 program. He did not get along well with other students and felt that failing out of school was his only path to reassignment. When professors passed him anyway, thinking they were doing him a favor by keeping him in school, he had to convince them to lower his grades so that he could return to duty. He was then reassigned along with former Saratoga crewmen to the base at Patuxent and was soon promoted to chief. At the end of the war, he returned to Honolulu and oversaw the construction of military housing.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Judson Brodie. Brodie was born on 28 February 1922 in Aiken County, South Carolina. He grew up during the Depression and enlisted in the Navy in June 1940, attending boot camp in Norfolk, Virginia. After training he attended Aviation Machinist School. He graduated in March 1941, and was assigned to VS-41, a scouting squadron attached to the USS Ranger (CV-4). He changed his rating to Aviation Ordnanceman in June 1941 and was assigned to VF-42, a squadron of F4F-3 Wildcats on USS Yorktown (CV-5). After Pearl Harbor, the ship left Norfolk and sailed through the Panama Canal. The Yorktown then took part in the first carrier raid of the Marshall and Gilbert Islands. Brodie was aboard Yorktown for raids on the Solomon Islands and during the Battle of the Coral Sea. He saw the Lexington sink after the crew abandoned ship. Brodie describes the action during the Battle of Midway, including the fatal attack on Yorktown by Japanese planes. He returned to Pearl Harbor in late June 1942. He returned to the Mainland and enrolled in the V-12 Program at a small college in Missouri hoping to become …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Zeb Alford. Alford joined the Navy V-12 Program in July of 1943. He trained as an engineering officer. He entered the Naval Academy in 1944 and graduated in 1947, providing details of his schooling at the Academy. He served for two years aboard the USS Charles R. Ware (DD-865). He graduated from Submarine School in 1949. Alford retired from the Navy in September of 1973 as a captain.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Sydney Pinkston. Pinkston joined the National Guard in the 1930s, before he was old enough, but he was paid in cash and no one asked any questions. After the war started, he joined the Army at Fort Sill. From there he was assigned to a muleskinner outfit at Fort Carson, chosen for his size and strength, hoisting 121-pound Howitzer pieces onto mule’s backs. During the 45-day trip to Port Moresby, Pinkston shoveled manure into the ocean, doing so at night so as to avoid detection by submarines. He arrived with the 6th Ranger Battalion and helped train an Australian pack artillery unit. At times, he encountered the enemy, but he was always able to evade them. While participating in campaigns at Luzon and Leyte, Pinkston contracted malaria and worms, the latter treated by fasting, followed by a meal of porridge and castor oil. When the war ended, Pinkston was sent to Japan on occupation duty. He removed his Sixth Army patch, as Tokyo Rose had dispersed misinformation about them that terrified locals. He returned home and remained in the Army until the 1950s. He then helped to form …

Opera concert performed at the UNT College of Music Lyric Theater.

Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Recital Hall in partial fulfillment of the Graduate Artist Certificate in Music Performance.

A senior recital presented at the UNT College of Music Concert Hall.

Recital performed at the UNT College of Music Recital Hall.

A senior recital presented at the UNT College of Music Recital Hall

Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Recital Hall in partial fulfillment of the Master of Music (MM) degree.

A student recital presented at the UNT College of Music Recital Hall.