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.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Lois Kerimis. Kerimis graduated from Rawlins College in Winter Park, Florida in 1938, at 21 years old, with a Bachelors in Foreign Languages. She and her family were moved by the YMCA to Honolulu, where she taught at the Punahou Academy and her father was the Activities Director of the Army and Navy YMCA. She shares experiences of their life living and touring the island before the war, where her family fed and cared for homesick enlisted men and officers. They were living in Honolulu when the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred 7 December 1941. She provides vivid details of this day, including witnessing a bomb dropping in the empty lot across from her home and lights out in the evening. Because Kerimis was fluent in four languages, including German, she was drafted by the Naval Intelligence on 8 December 1941. She served as a civilian employee, working with a Dictaphone interpreting phone calls in German between the Japanese and Germans. Kerimis left Hawaii in 1945.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with George Scholes. Scholes joined the U.S. Navy’s V-12 program in 1943, graduating with the rank of ensign from the Midshipman's School at Northwestern University in Chicago. Scholes trained in ordnance at the Washington Naval Gun Factory and Jacksonville Naval Air Station. He was assigned to the Aviation Construction Ordinance Repair Navy unit, ACORN-52, in Guam. The unit occupied the Japanese Naval Base at Truk Atoll, in the Pacific. They built an airstrip and repaired an airplane base once belonging to the Japanese. He served in the Navy for three years and was discharged in June of 1946.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Robert Brunson. Brunson left engineering school to join the Army Air Forces in December 1941, having already completed the CPTP. After basic training at Fairfax Field, he transferred to the Navy. His night fighter training at Quonset Point with VF(N)-75 emphasized navigating without landmarks. He transferred to VF(N)-101 and joined the USS Enterprise (CV-6) at Majuro, making the first strike on Truk. After the USS Intrepid (CV-11) was torpedoed, Brunson was one of just a few Corsair pilots remaining in the fleet, a group known as the Grasshoppers. He supported the Hollandia landing and participated in the Marianas Turkey Shoot. He also escorted seaplanes on search and rescue missions. Although the F4U was fast, due to faulty radar gear he only once got on the enemy’s tail. Brunson was badly injured when his wing caught the edge of the Enterprise. In July 1944 he returned to the States as a night fighter instructor, stationed at Vero Beach. He was discharged into the Reserves in June 1946 and resumed his studies at Kansas State, with a focus on aeronautical engineering. Brunson began a career in flight testing, but when …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with L.D. Cox. He discusses joining the Navy and serving aboard the USS Indianapolis (CA-35). He was on board when the cruiser was attacked by a Japanese submarine and survived five days in the water before being rescued.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Terry Santos. Santos was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on 10 October 1921. Upon joining the Army, he underwent basic training at Fort Ord, California. Upon completing basic he volunteered for paratrooper training. After graduating from jump school he volunteered for special warfare training which comprised training in special weapons, Morse code, semaphore and sailing. Completing the course, he reported to Ft. Benning, Georgia where he was assigned to the 11th Airborne Division. He then volunteered to serve with the Alamo Scouts and received jungle training, hand-to-hand combat training and all infantry weapons training. He then rejoined the 11th Airborne Division. Santos relates in detail an intriguing tale of the operation to liberate Allied internees from the Los Banos internment camp.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Paul Shafer. Shafer moved from the States to Baguio in 1937 after his father was offered a job with the Benguet Consolidated Mining Company. They lived extravagantly there, and Shafer attended a private school. As Japanese aggression heightened in China, American civilians asked the State Department whether they ought to return to home. Despite having evacuated military families in 1941, the civilians were asked to stay in the Philippines so as not to alarm locals. On 6 December 1941, Shafer survived an air raid and was evacuated to Manila. On 3 January 1942, Japanese invaded the city and Shafer was taken to Santo Tomas University. Apart from food shortages, his time at the internment camp was relatively normal, complete with a classroom education and recreational sports. Shafer remembers cozy homemade shanties and warm evening strolls. By 1944, however, internees began to die of starvation. Shafer and his family survived until liberation and returned to the States in February 1945.

Transcript of an oral interview with Frank Stagner. Stagner was a nine-year-old child living in Manila with his family when the Japanese invaded the Philippines. His father was a radio broadcaster and was asked to keep his station working during the invasion. When the station was destroyed, Stagner's father took the family into the hills where they were eventually captured by the Japanese. He relates the experiences he had just after being captured: getting back to Manila, being paraded through the streets by the Japanese, being interned at Fort Santiago where his father was interrogated, and being interned at Santo Tomas. He provides very few details of day to day life in the camp, but describes being liberated.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Georgia Payne. Payne was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1929. Her father, who as an American citizen, was born in Manila, Philippines. In 1934 their family moved back to Manila to work and be close to her father’s mother. They were living there in 1941 when the Japanese invaded the Philippines. She and her family were taken to Santo Tomas Internment Camp, where they resided for 37 months. Around early 1945 Payne and her family were shipped back to the US. She provides vivid recollections of her time in the camp, their liberation and their acclimatization back in the States.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Walter Riley. Riley was born in 1932 in Cavite, Philippines. His father was a Navy man who traveled to the Philippines and married his mother who was a Japanese American. They raised eight children, Riley was the youngest. They moved to Manila and were living there when the Japanese invaded the Philippines. Their entire family was interned at Santo Tomas Internment Camp. They were there from early 1942 until February of 1945. Riley shares vivid details of the occupation of Manila by the Japanese, the living quarters at the camp, their room and board arrangements, their work assignments, battling illnesses, their communication with the Japanese guards and their liberation in 1945. Riley served in the Navy during the Korean War.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Elaine Graydon. Graydon was born in Manila, Philippines in 1937. Her mother was a native and her father was born in Spokane, Washington. He worked as a mining engineer. When the war began, Graydon was only 4 and ½ years old. She recalls when the Japanese invaded, and she and her family seeking refuge. In early 1942, she and her family were sent to Santo Tomas Internment Camp, where they lived in a shanty. Graydon provides vivid details of her experiences in the camp as a child, including schooling, food and living accommodations, interactions with the Japanese guards, their daily work and tasks and liberation from the camp in February of 1945.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Edward Cadwallader. Cadwallader was born in Manila, Philippines in 1938. His parents were of American and Australian descent, and managed an apartment complex inherited by their family in 1930. Cadwallader was 3 years old when he and his family were taken as prisoners to Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila. From such a young age, he recalls the deprivation they had living in the camp, Japanese and American planes fighting overhead, shells exploding, picking up shrapnel, interactions with the guards, taking first communion in the animal husbandry museum of the main building, his schooling, American fatalities and vivid details of their liberation from the camp. After liberation they moved back to their apartment complex for 6 months, then on Cadwallader’s seventh birthday, they relocated to the United States.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Jay Bollman. Bollman was born in Manila, Philippines on 15 December 1935. He and his family were taken to Santo Tomas Internment Camp, and later Los Baños Internment Camp as prisoners of war. At a tender age of 6, Bollman recalls civilians getting strafed by the Japanese, air raids, bombings, their living and food accommodations, interactions with the Japanese guards, illnesses and diseases suffered throughout the camp and their liberation in February of 1945. They returned to the US in May of that same year. Bollman shares his family’s experiences through the prison camps and getting acclimated into life in the States.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Christine Adler. Adler was born in New York City in 1931 to Filipino and American parents. She tells of living in an orphanage until 1938 at which time she went to the Philippines to live with her father. Upon arriving in the Philippines she attended private schools. She recalls December 1941 when she was awakened by the sound of tanks and Japanese soldiers entering homes and taking anything of value. As her father worked with a guerilla group they left their home. Adler tells of fleeing with no shoes, few clothes and very little personal belongings and moving place to place to avoid detection. She recounts an incident where Japanese soldiers picked her up and took her to Fort Santiago. She and her father were later released. She describes seeing piles of bodies and witnessing torture being done by the Japanese during the occupation and of seeing the fires as Manila was set ablaze. She tells of the joy felt by the population upon seeing the American tanks and soldiers roll into the city and of the return of her and her father to the United States aboard …

Transcript of an oral interview with Samuel Smith. When he turned 18, Smith joined the Air Corps and was sworn in on December 7, 1942. He received his orders to report to active duty on April 6, 1942 in Fort Worth, Texas as an aviation cadet. He graduated from flight school June 27, 1944. Smith provides good detail of what he did in each phase of his training from pre-flight and classification to primary, basic and advanced. He then went to B-17 transition training in Roswell, New Mexico. From Roswell, he was sent to Lincoln, Nebraska where he picked up his combat crew and then to Sioux City, Iowa for combat crew training. When they finished their training, they were issued European type flying gear and put on a train for New York, their port of embarkation. They went to Europe on the converted liner USS Manhattan (renamed the USS Wakefield), docking in Liverpool. They were a replacement crew and assigned to the 303rd Bomb Group which was in Molesworth, England. His first mission was a synthetic fuel plant in Hamburg. After completing seven mission, his crew was made a lead crew. His next mission was to Friedrichshafen. Half of …

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.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Lois Kerimis. Kerimis graduated from Rawlins College in Winter Park, Florida in 1938, at 21 years old, with a Bachelors in Foreign Languages. She and her family were moved by the YMCA to Honolulu, where she taught at the Punahou Academy and her father was the Activities Director of the Army and Navy YMCA. She shares experiences of their life living and touring the island before the war, where her family fed and cared for homesick enlisted men and officers. They were living in Honolulu when the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred 7 December 1941. She provides vivid details of this day, including witnessing a bomb dropping in the empty lot across from her home and lights out in the evening. Because Kerimis was fluent in four languages, including German, she was drafted by the Naval Intelligence on 8 December 1941. She served as a civilian employee, working with a Dictaphone interpreting phone calls in German between the Japanese and Germans. Kerimis left Hawaii in 1945.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with George Scholes. Scholes joined the U.S. Navy’s V-12 program in 1943, graduating with the rank of ensign from the Midshipman's School at Northwestern University in Chicago. Scholes trained in ordnance at the Washington Naval Gun Factory and Jacksonville Naval Air Station. He was assigned to the Aviation Construction Ordinance Repair Navy unit, ACORN-52, in Guam. The unit occupied the Japanese Naval Base at Truk Atoll, in the Pacific. They built an airstrip and repaired an airplane base once belonging to the Japanese. He served in the Navy for three years and was discharged in June of 1946.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Robert Brunson. Brunson left engineering school to join the Army Air Forces in December 1941, having already completed the CPTP. After basic training at Fairfax Field, he transferred to the Navy. His night fighter training at Quonset Point with VF(N)-75 emphasized navigating without landmarks. He transferred to VF(N)-101 and joined the USS Enterprise (CV-6) at Majuro, making the first strike on Truk. After the USS Intrepid (CV-11) was torpedoed, Brunson was one of just a few Corsair pilots remaining in the fleet, a group known as the Grasshoppers. He supported the Hollandia landing and participated in the Marianas Turkey Shoot. He also escorted seaplanes on search and rescue missions. Although the F4U was fast, due to faulty radar gear he only once got on the enemy’s tail. Brunson was badly injured when his wing caught the edge of the Enterprise. In July 1944 he returned to the States as a night fighter instructor, stationed at Vero Beach. He was discharged into the Reserves in June 1946 and resumed his studies at Kansas State, with a focus on aeronautical engineering. Brunson began a career in flight testing, but when …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with L.D. Cox. He discusses joining the Navy and serving aboard the USS Indianapolis (CA-35). He was on board when the cruiser was attacked by a Japanese submarine and survived five days in the water before being rescued.

Transcript of an oral interview with Frank Stagner. Stagner was a nine-year-old child living in Manila with his family when the Japanese invaded the Philippines. His father was a radio broadcaster and was asked to keep his station working during the invasion. When the station was destroyed, Stagner's father took the family into the hills where they were eventually captured by the Japanese. He relates the experiences he had just after being captured: getting back to Manila, being paraded through the streets by the Japanese, being interned at Fort Santiago where his father was interrogated, and being interned at Santo Tomas. He provides very few details of day to day life in the camp, but describes being liberated.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Paul Shafer. Shafer moved from the States to Baguio in 1937 after his father was offered a job with the Benguet Consolidated Mining Company. They lived extravagantly there, and Shafer attended a private school. As Japanese aggression heightened in China, American civilians asked the State Department whether they ought to return to home. Despite having evacuated military families in 1941, the civilians were asked to stay in the Philippines so as not to alarm locals. On 6 December 1941, Shafer survived an air raid and was evacuated to Manila. On 3 January 1942, Japanese invaded the city and Shafer was taken to Santo Tomas University. Apart from food shortages, his time at the internment camp was relatively normal, complete with a classroom education and recreational sports. Shafer remembers cozy homemade shanties and warm evening strolls. By 1944, however, internees began to die of starvation. Shafer and his family survived until liberation and returned to the States in February 1945.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Terry Santos. Santos was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on 10 October 1921. Upon joining the Army, he underwent basic training at Fort Ord, California. Upon completing basic he volunteered for paratrooper training. After graduating from jump school he volunteered for special warfare training which comprised training in special weapons, Morse code, semaphore and sailing. Completing the course, he reported to Ft. Benning, Georgia where he was assigned to the 11th Airborne Division. He then volunteered to serve with the Alamo Scouts and received jungle training, hand-to-hand combat training and all infantry weapons training. He then rejoined the 11th Airborne Division. Santos relates in detail an intriguing tale of the operation to liberate Allied internees from the Los Banos internment camp.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Walter Riley. Riley was born in 1932 in Cavite, Philippines. His father was a Navy man who traveled to the Philippines and married his mother who was a Japanese American. They raised eight children, Riley was the youngest. They moved to Manila and were living there when the Japanese invaded the Philippines. Their entire family was interned at Santo Tomas Internment Camp. They were there from early 1942 until February of 1945. Riley shares vivid details of the occupation of Manila by the Japanese, the living quarters at the camp, their room and board arrangements, their work assignments, battling illnesses, their communication with the Japanese guards and their liberation in 1945. Riley served in the Navy during the Korean War.