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

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Jack Phelps. Phelps joined the Army Air Forces in 1942. He completed flight officer training and navigation school. Phelps served as a B-25 bombardier and navigator with the 12th Air Force, 340th Bomb Group, 489th Bomb Squadron. He completed 39 missions in the European Theater. He flew over Italy, including Brenner Pass and Sicily, targeting enemy airfields, railroads and bridges. Phelps was stationed around Mount Vesuvius when it began erupting in March of 1944. He continued his service in the reserves after the war ended.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Marian Kelly. Kelly joined the Army Medical Corps in October 1944 and was assigned to the hospital in Manila. There were two dozen women and 3,000 men aboard the transport ship, so Marines were stationed as guards to protect the women. At the hospital, she treated wounded soldiers from all over the Pacific. As a physical therapist, she found spinal cord injuries particularly frustrating because there weren’t known techniques for rehabilitation at the time. She spent her spare time exploring nearby islands and found Corregidor to be full of artifacts. While in the Pacific she also served on Morotai. Kelly married a captain in the Army and was discharged in 1945, as married women were prohibited from serving. She and her family returned to the States in 1947.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Woodrow Graham. Graham joined the Navy in 1942 at the age of 27 and received basic training in California. He attended yeoman school at the University of Indiana and was trained in coding and decoding messages at Harvard. Upon completion, he was assigned to the Navy Department in Washington, D.C., where he worked in the medals and awards division, sending out Purple Hearts. He was reassigned to Admiral Nimitz’s office at Pearl Harbor, operating a machine for encrypted communications. Graham worked closely with Nimitz and found him to be humble and hard-working. Graham was invited to the signing of the surrender at the end of the war but chose to go home instead. He returned to work for his former employer and received a big promotion.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Thomas Knighten Starnes. Starnes graduated from business school in 1941 and joined the Navy that fall. He was a civilian pilot and assisted in gunnery training in Las Vegas. When preparing for deployment to the Pacific, Starnes was instructed that in the event of impending enemy capture he should kill as many Japanese as he could but also warned that the Japanese would not take prisoners, so he was to save one bullet for himself. In 1944 he was assigned to the 58th Fighter Group, 69th Fighter Squadron, as a P-47 pilot. He supported invasions by strafing and dropping napalm. Following an attack by Japanese holdouts, Starnes recruited native Filipinos to help him hunt them out of the underbrush. He captured 27, among them simple cooks and butchers, and had them burned and killed. Toward the end of the war, flying missions over Japan, Starnes witnessed the mushroom cloud form over Nagaski. Upon returning home, he was given the opportunity to fly jets, but he elected to be discharged instead.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Robert W. Wells. When Wells finished high school in Nebrasks, he joined the Marine Corps in June, 1944. From San Diego, he sailed aboardthe USS Bayfield (APA-33) to Guadalcanal to join and train with the Sixth Marine Division prior to invading Okinawa. He landed on Okinawa off the USS Clay (APA-39) on 1 April 1945 and fought for a month until his appendix had to be removed. His surgery occured just behind the front lines and then he was sent aboard the USS Hope (AH-7). He was evacuated to Saipan just before his unit made an assault on Sugar Loaf Hill. He returned to his unit on Okinawa in time for the island to be declared secure. His unit then proceeded back to Guam. Wells also recalls training experiences on Guadalcanal, then provides more details about his combat experiences on Okinawa, where he operated a fifty caliber machine gun. On Guam, while training to invade Japan, the war ended and Wells was sent to Tsingtao, China for occupation duty. In China, Wells drove the car for the battalion's colonel. Wells was discharged in August, 1946.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Glenn E. Neff. After Neff finished high school, he entered the service in March, 1945. Neff discusses several anecdotes about his training days at Camp Robinson, Arkansas. While he was training, the war in Europe ended. Neff headed for the Pacific and contracted pneumonia aboard the troopship and spent most of his time on the voyage in sick bay. En route to the Philippines, the atomic bombs were dropped and the war ended. Neff's group went on to Leyte and he describes his impressions of camp life near Tacloban. While there, Neff recalls participating in some mopping-up operations, and pulling guard duty to a Japanese prison stockade. After several months in the Philippines, Neff was transferred up to Guam. At Guam, Neff encountered his high school algebra teacher and another classmate from back home. They toured the island together. Also on Guam, Neff put up a lot of communication wires in the coconut trees and laid cables underground. Neff left Guam and returned to the US for discharge in November, 1946.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Mary LaCroix. LaCroix joined the Army Nurse Corps in February 1945, just after she graduated from nursing school. She received basic training in map reading, rifle shooting, and the use of gas masks, including live drills with mustard gas. She was assigned to oversee the orthopedic ward of Camp Lee's hospital until her transfer to Hawaii in April 1945. There she worked in the operating room, primarily on casualties from the invasion of Okinawa. She deployed to Okinawa with the 318th General Nurses just as the war was ending. The women were unwelcome there and suffered terrible living conditions at a former concentration camp with polluted water, a food shortage, and the ever present danger of snipers. She survived two typhoons before being transferred to Japan, where she set up a Red Cross Hospital. She was prohibited from boarding a ship back to the States by an admiral who refused to transport women. But eventually she boarded a ship and returned home to be discharged in February 1946.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Ralph Nelson Smith. Smith joined the Merchant Marines in the spring of 1945 at the age of 17. Upon completion of training at Catalina Island, which included hand-to-hand combat and jumping into flaming gasoline-covered water, he was assigned to the SS H. Weir Cook (1944) as a messman and storekeeper. In August 1945, he sailed out of San Francisco in blackout conditions but soon learned of the Japanese surrender. Despite that, the ship was targeted by torpedoes that narrowly missed. One night, Smith awoke to find the ship engulfed in flames, which threatened to detonate their 690 tons of dynamite on board until the fire was put out. For his return to the States, Smith boarded a freighter packed with 5,280 men. Rather than waiting in the four-hour chow lines, Smith subsisted off peanuts and fruit, losing 20 pounds in two weeks. He was disappointed that although the Merchant Marines suffered such high casualties rates, survivors were essentially not considered true servicemen, receiving no benefits such as clothing, transportation, or medical care upon their return.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Dell Sheftall. Sheftall joined the Army in May 1943 and received basic training at Camp Maxey. Upon completion, he was assigned to the 103rd Infantry Division and sent to France. There he was part of a night combat team, capturing German officers for interrogation. He narrowly escaped the Battle of the Bulge, replaced by a unit that was annihilated by the enemy soon after Sheftall left. While at a rest camp in the Bavarian Alps, he discovered and liberated a makeshift camp made up of prisoners from Dachau. The war ended while Sheftall was stationed in Le Havre awaiting deployment to the Pacific; he returned home shortly thereafter.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Albert Wakeman. Wakeman joined the Navy in 1944. The son of a machinist who fashioned guns for the Navy during WWI, Wakeman advanced to diesel school upon completion of basic training. He was assigned to PT-175 with Squadron 11 at Emirau, New Guinea, as a machinist's mate. At Morotai, as Wakeman manned his battle station against a Japanese barge, an officer rushed over to help him load the 40mm and was immediately shot in the forehead and killed. Wakeman later sustained third degree burns during an accidental explosion while lighting a fire on the beach in an effort to launder his clothes. The end of his service was uneventful and pleasant; in the Philippines, he attended church and enjoyed Sunday dinner with the locals. Wakeman returned home and was discharged, earning two master's degrees on the GI Bill to become a professor of English and Greek.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Sulo J. Alto. In March, 1943, Alto joined the Navy. He trained at Camp Perry, Virginia, then was assigned to a Navy supply depot at Fort Endicott, New York. Eventually, he boarded the USS Custer (APA-40) and headed for Hawaii via the Panama Canal in January, 1944. Alto served in the 94th Naval Construction Battlaion. Alto attended the big barbeque and picnic Admiral Nimitz hosted on Oahu for Texans in 1944. Alto's unit eventually headed for Guam to build a headquarters for Admiral Nimitz. He was discharged in March, 1946 and returned home to go to college.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Ernest W. Sears. When Sears graduated from high school in 1942 he received a farm deferment and did not enter the Navy unitl 1944. He trained as a radioman for beach landings. He was home on leave when his unit shipped out, so he was assigned to the USS Lexington (CV-16) and joined her at Bremerton, Washington in March, 1945. He served in the radio control room aboard the Lexington for the duration of the war and speaks about being on duty during the signing of the peace accords, and dropping food and supplies to the Allied POWs in Japan. Welson Sears (Ernest's son) fills in some details during the interview. When he was dischaerged from the Navy, Sears enrolled at Texas Tech University and went to school using the G.I. Bill.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Daniel Crowley. Crowley left school at 16, electing to go to work. In October, 1940, he joined the Army Air Corps. He describes his journey to the Philippines, where he landed in March, 1941. He was stationed at Nichols Field. Crowley recalls being shipped across Manila Bay to Bataan in Christmas Day and fighting the Japanese there until the US forces surrendered. Instead of surrendering, Crowley made it to Corregidor. Whe nCOrregidor was surrendered, Crowley was sent back to Manila and paraded through the streets with other Americans before being sent to Cabanatuan. From there, Crowley was sent to Palawan and, with others, was forced to build an airfield in the jungle. Before the massacre at Palawan, Crowley was sent back to Cabanatuan, then placed aboard a hell ship and sent to Japan, where he was forced to work in a copper mine.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Earl B Barnawell. Barnawell joined the Navy around 1942. He graduated from Hospital Corps School. Beginning April of 1944, Barnawell served as an operating room technician aboard USS Herald of the Morning (AP-173). They traveled to the Marianas, transporting supplies, debarking troops and evacuating the wounded. Barnawell additionally served with occupation forces in the Far East.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Clifton E. Woolridge. Woolridge was worlking for his father in a printing press in Boston before he volunteered for service in the Army. He relates several anecdotes from his training days. He wound up in an engineering outfit attached to the 83rd Infantry Division. He discusses shoring up the levee in Wabash, Indiana in the spring of 1943 and saving the town. Woolridge digresses and speaks about his activities with the reunion group before delving back into stories from his training days. His unit went to England in April, 1944. He went to France inJune one week after D-day and his primary job was to drive the captain of his comapnay around in the jeep. Woolridge also relates some experiences he had during the Battle of the Bulge. Woolridge was discharged in November, 1945.

15th Annual African Cultural Festival concert performed at the UNT College of Music Voertman Hall.

Ensemble concert performed at the UNT College of Music Voertman Hall.

A Latin music concerts per formed at the UNT College of Music Voertman Hall.

A choir concert performed at the UNT College of Music at Winspear Hall.

Symphonic and choral concert performed at the UNT College of Music Winspear Hall.

A new music recital performed at the UNT College of Music Recital Hall.

An ensemble concert performed at the UNT College of Music Kenton Hall.

A jazz choir concert performed at the UNT College of Music Kenton Hall.