The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Erwin Schilling. Schilling joined the Navy in 1939 with only an eighth-grade education, his family having been too poor to provide him transportation to the nearest high school. Upon completion of basic training in San Diego, he was assigned to the USS Twiggs (DD-127), on escort duty in the Atlantic. The water was particularly rough in the wintertime, and Schilling remembers the ship rolling 56 degrees. After about a year, he was reassigned to the USS Sturtevant (DD-240), which later sank off of Florida. While he was in a lifeboat, he saw enginemen covered in oil waiting in vain for rescue. Schilling was transferred to the USS Buchanan (DD-484) as a gunner’s mate. He was slightly sounded in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. Schilling was sent to gunnery school in Washington, D.C., and finished his Navy career aboard the USS Idaho (BB-42). He had no duties to perform at that time and enjoyed live music on deck each afternoon. He returned home and was discharged in October 1945.