The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Ralph Mauller. Mauller joined the Navy around 1942. He completed Midshipman???s School and served aboard the USS Ozark (LSV-2). With his commission as a deck officer, he also served as a Chaplain aboard the Ozark. They participated in the invasions of both Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He provides details of their mission at Iwo Jima. He was later assigned as Troop Transport Officer aboard the USS William P. Biddle (APA-8). He was discharged around 1945.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Hiroshi Sakahara. Sakahara is second generation Japanese-American. He provides some details of his family history and life growing up in Tacoma, Washington during the Great Depression. In 1941 he joined the Army and volunteered for the 442nd Infantry Combat Team, 5th Army. They fought in Belgium and Italy on the front lines opposite the Germans. He served as an ammunition carrier and later carried the Browning Automatic Rifle. In the Spring of 1944 through May of 1945, Sakahara pulled guard duty until Germany surrendered. He was discharged in June of 1945.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Thomas Nelson. Nelson joined the Navy in 1941 and served aboard the USS San Francisco (CA-38). He was on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 and witnessed the Japanese attack. He provides details of this experience. He worked as a 1st Class Radio Operator aboard a TBF. On 26 October 1942 his plane was shot down during the Battle of Santa Cruz Island and he was captured by the Japanese. He shares stories of life in a Japanese POW camp, and sabotaging trains, barges and a metallurgy plant. In April of 1944 he was discovered alive by the Red Cross and released following the war.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Peter Hammersen. Hammersen joined the California Army National Guard in September of 1939. He joined, as a charter member, Company A of the 115th Medical Regiment, 40th Infantry Division. He worked as a surgical technician in various hospitals, including the 48th Station Hospital at Vila, Efate, Henderson Field at Guadalcanal and finally the 37th Portable Surgical Hospital in New Guinea. Hammersen shares a number of anecdotal stories, and he was discharged in late 1945.

The National Museum of the pacific War presents an oral interview with Howard Jones. Jones was born in 1925 in Missouri. He joined the Navy in December 1942 and trained at Great Lakes, Illinois. After boot training and gunnery school, Jones was assigned to the USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) as a 40mm gun crewmember. Jones was aboard the Bunker Hill from 1943 to the end of the war. He recalls being off Tarawa, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He describes the kamikaze attack on the Bunker Hill off Okinawa.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Arlos L. Awalt. He was born in Brady, Texas, drafted into the Army, and inducted at Ft. Sam Houston, in San Antonio. After basic training at Camp Wolters in Mineral Wells, Texas, he took a troop train to New York Harbor and boarded the Louis S. Pasteur to Southhampton, England where he was assigned to the 106th Infantry Division, 424 Regiment, in the 81mm mortars in H Company, a heavy weapons company. They went right into the Battle of the Bulge where he suffered frost bite and pneumonia. Later assignments included the following: the occupation army in charge of prisoner of war camps interviewing POWs and displaced persons, serving at General Eisenhower's headquarters building in a little red schoolhouse in Rheims, France (where peace was later signed), in the Grand Hotel in Bad Nauheim, Germany where General Patton was officed, and in Renea Lanay, France. He served 22 months in the Army, 19 overseas - returning as a corporal. He received the Bronze Star, the Combat Infantryman's Badge, and two medals from the Belgian government.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with C F Bednorz. Bednorz worked for Douglas Aircraft in mid-1941 assembling C-47s. He joined the Aviation Cadet Program and provides some details of his flight training and the planes he flew, including the BT-13, B-17, B-24 and UC-78. He completed training in May of 1944. Bednorz was assigned to the 7th Air Force, 11th Bomb Group, 42nd Bomb Squadron and served as a B-24 pilot. In January of 1945 he traveled to Harmon Field in Guam, where he began his combat flying. In April they were transferred to Yontan Field in Okinawa. He provides details of his 33 missions, including witnessing the mushroom cloud over Nagasaki after the second atomic bomb was dropped, and effects of radiation from the blast. He was discharged in early 1946.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Zedic Colbert. Colbert worked with the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1940 working road construction and fighting forest fires. In August of that same year he joined the Army, assigned to a special weapons platoon in the 1st Cavalry Division. He provides vivid details of training as an infantryman, including working with horses. He traveled to Australia in July of 1943, and later to New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago and the Philippines, sharing his combat experiences. He was wounded by shell fragments and received a Purple Heart. Colbert was discharged from the Army in August of 1945.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Frank Herzog. Herzog joined the Army in April of 1943. He trained in the Signal Corps to work as a lineman. In October of 1943 he traveled to England. He provides details of his travels and accommodations overseas, aboard the troop ship Alexandria. In October Herzog was assigned to an Army Air Forces B-26 unit and prepared for the Normandy landings scheduled for June of 1944. They traveled to a chateau in Northern France, where he worked with the Red Cross as a baker. He shares his experiences at the base in France, watching the B-26s, hearing the machine guns and witnessing bombings by the Germans. He completed infantry training in England, though Germany surrendered before he went to the front lines. Herzog served as a POW guard after the war ended. He remained a Private throughout his service and was discharged 1 January 1946.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Arthur G Whitehead. Whitehead joined the Navy in October 1942, attending boot camp and receiving hospital corpsman training. Upon completion, he was assigned as a pharmacist’s mate, tending to wounded Marine fighter pilots. Whitehead was stationed in Ewe, Hawaii, before traveling to American Samoa, where he slept in a wooden hut plagued by mosquitos. Moving next to the Ellice Islands, Funafuti, his ship became stuck on the coral reef at low tide, in danger of Japanese submarine attack. He then was sent to Kwajalein, where he remained for nine months. On his first night, enemy planes struck a loaded bomber on the air strip, causing a massive explosion. Whitehead declined the Purple Heart he was offered for the resulting burn across his back. Whitehead transferred back to the States, where he began training on the relief of wounded during landing operations. The war ended as Whitehead arrived on Okinawa, which was surrounded by debris from a recent typhoon. He also visited Nagasaki. After a stay in Sasebo and Guam, Whitehead returned home and was discharged in February 1946.