The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Ray Kuhlow. Kuhlow provides a history monologue during the 60th Anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Kuhlow served 21 years on active duty in the Navy, through World War II and the Korean War. He worked aboard the USS California (BB-44) in forward turret two, and they traveled to the Hawaiian Islands. He describes the maneuvers of the Japanese carriers and planes prior to and on the day of December 7, 1941. His ship pulled into Pearl Harbor on Saturday evening, December 6. Kuhlow explains in detail the events that unfolded that night and into the next day. He provides a description of how the Battleship Oklahoma and the Battleship Arizona were attacked. He also details his crew’s actions aboard the California in response to the Japanese attack on the island. His crew worked for months cleaning and repairing the ship, and in December of 1942 brought the ship back to the States for modernization and repairs. In February of 1943 Kuhlow went back out to the South Pacific aboard the California, participating in many engagements including the Marshalls, the Marianas, and the Philippines. He details their interaction …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Warren Deciores. Deciores was born in1909 and joined the Navy in 1928. He completed Hospital Corpsman School, graduating in June of 1929. He worked in the operating room of a hospital on Mare Island for his basic training duty. He later moved into administration. From 1935 through 1937, Deciores completed two years of medical work on Guam, including providing care to the island natives. He would pick up supplies in China for his work on the island. In 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Deciores was stationed at the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, in Virginia. He additionally served aboard the hospital ships, USS Refuge (AH-11) and USS Relief (AH-1). He traveled through both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. He continued his service after the war ended and retired in February of 1959.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Maurice Horine. Horine joined the Navy in August of 1942. He completed Yeoman schooling. He served as Yeoman Second-Class with a Carrier Aircraft Service Unit in Seattle through April of 1944. In January of 1945, Horine was assigned to the USS General M. L. Hersey (AP-148). They transported troops to the Philippines and the Mariana Islands during the final amphibious offensive against Japan. After the war, he returned to the US and was discharged in October of 1945.

Transcript of an oral interview with Ruth Fowler. Fowler was teaching in Big Spring, Texas, when she went out for the Civilian Pilot Training Program in 1939. She was accepted and was trained to fly. She evetually became an instructor. She also discusses rationing.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Wilbur Weeks. Weeks joined the Navy in July 1940 and was assigned to the USS San Francisco (CA-38) at Pearl Harbor as a deckhand. His pre-war duty involved working with the catapult for the ship’s observation planes. He later maintained guns and was promoted to third-class gunner’s mate. Weeks saw the first wave of enemy planes while his ship was in dry dock, and he boarded the USS New Orleans (CA-32) to help ready the guns. Having no significant damage, the San Francisco quickly readied for carrier protection duty. In the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, the ship sank one enemy ship and disabled another, but by the end of the battle the admiral and the highest-ranking officers had been killed, leaving only a lieutenant commander in charge. After returning to Mare Island for repairs, many crewmembers deserted, but Weeks remained until he was sent to gunnery school. He went aboard the USS Marvin H. McIntyre (APA-129) as a gunner’s mate and was eventually promoted to chief. Weeks returned home and was discharged in July 1946.

Transcript of an oral interview with Don Peterson. Mr Peterson was drafted into the Army but didn't want to do that so he joined the Navy because he wanted to fly. After Basic Training in Kansas City he got his wings in Corpus Christi. After flight training, he was sent to Astoria, Oregon and assigned to the USS Matanikua (CVE). He was assigned to the ship as a ship's officer, a line officer. He was also on the commissioning crew of another CVE (Commencement Bay), as part of the ship's company. He never had the opportunity to fly off a carrier or land on a carrier. He served as a test pilot in Bremerton, Washington while waiting for the Commencement Bay. The planes had come in for repair and maintenance. He went with the Commencement Bay to the South Pacific; he was the Flight Deck Officer and was qualified as the Officer of the Deck. Peterson tells the story of having to relieve the Captain as they were coming into port when he was the Officer of the Deck; afterwards, he was confined to his quarters. He was severely injured while serving as a Flight Deck Officer onboard the Commencement …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Ray Tirey. Tirey joined the Navy in July of 1943. He served as Third-Class Quartermaster during his ship travels. He deployed to Scotland, where he was assigned to a British Landing Craft, Tank. Tirey provided direct fire support during amphibious landings during the invasions of Normandy, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He was assigned to USS LCS(L)(3)-54 for the Pacific invasions. He was discharged around late 1945.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Lester Meis. Meis joined the Navy in January 1943 and received basic training in San Diego. He then received hospital corpsman training and was transferred to the Medical Field Service School at Camp Pendleton. Upon completion, he was assigned to a field sanitation unit attached to the 4th Medical Battalion, 4th Marine Division. At their base in Maui he surveyed latrines, dental clinics, and food preparation areas. He participated in D-Day at Saipan, unsure of what role to perform in combat. In Garapan he was commandeered by the Marines to help open a vault at Yokohama Specie Bank; afterward, soldiers were lighting cigars with 100-yen notes. Meis was sent to Aiea Heights after developing bronchitis and was mistakenly diagnosed with asthma. He was given a medical discharge in December 1944, which extended his benefits under the GI Bill. Meis earned three college degrees before the misdiagnosis was caught.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Robert Eustace. Eustace joined the Navy in 1943 and received basic training at Camp Farragut. He received further training at photography school in Pensacola. Upon completion, he was assigned to the USS Suwannee (ACV-27) as a photographer’s mate. Eustace flew in the backseat of a Douglas SBD Dauntless divebomber throughout the war in the Pacific. On 20 October 1944 the Suwannee was attacked by Japanese planes. Eustace contends that the antiaircraft fire did more damage to their sister ship than to the planes. On the 25th the Suwanee was hit by multiple kamikaze planes. Eustace photographed the attack and then tended to the wounded. He filled in as a helmsman and got the ship back to dry dock. He returned to the war and recalls pushing damaged planes into the water at Ishigaki. He then walked through Nagasaki after it was leveled by the atomic bomb and joined the occupation forces in Yokosuka. Eustace returned home and was discharged in May 1946.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Trenton Fowler. Fowler grew up in Corpus Christi and enlisted into the Marine Corps in 1943. Once he finished training, he was assigned to the 4th Marine Raider Battalion and shipped out on the French transport ship Rochambeau to New Caledonia. From there he went to Guadalcanal for training and then to the Emirau, Guam, and Okinawa campaigns, with stops at Guadalcanal in between each campaign. Fowler discusses the pros and cons of the Browning Automatic Rifle versus the M-1 Garand. He tells of the change of his unit's name from the 4th Battalion Raiders to the 6th Marine Division, before he went to Okinawa. He relates the experience of finding out his brother, a fellow Marine, had died at Iwo Jima.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with John Unger. Unger was born in 1920 in Austria and immigrated to Missouri when he was a child. In 1939, he joined the Navy and trained as a hospital corpsman. After various schools and duty stations in the US, Unger volunteered to go to Wake Island in late 1941. He recalls the Japanese assault on the island and his activities prior to being captured and made a prisoner of war. The Japanese used Unger to care for their wounded and eventually shipped all American military personnel to a POW camp China. Unger served in the camp hospital combatting illnesses such as dysentery and malaria. Sometime around early 1945, Unger and his bunch were shipped to Japan. Upon being liberated, Unger developed appendicitis and was taken aboard a hospital ship that returned to California. Unger also mentions being reunited with his wife and seeing his 4-year old son for the first time.

Transcript of an oral interview with Garvin Kowalke. He discusses joining the Army Air Corps, going to Air Cadet training to become a pilot, training on various aircraft (AT-17, UC-78, P-36, P-33, T-6, BT-13, B-17, B-29) before becoming a B-29 pilot. He shipped out to Guam and flew standard and fire bombing runs over Japan. He discusses having to ditch the plane on the way back to Guam once when the engines failed, seeing another B-29 crew have to bail out over Toyko Bay and get picked up by a US submarine that was in the Bay, getting pulled down to the fires when they were trying to hide in the smoke to avoid Japanese fighter planes, getting caught in a storm by Mount Fujiyama, collecting data such wind direction, speed and temperature over Hiroshima for future bombing runs, which turned out to be for the bombers who dropped the atomic bomb, then flying over the city two days after the bombing and gauging how high the radiation levels were at different altitudes. He also talks about being in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, becoming a B-57 pilot, and adopting a baby boy from Germany after the war, then a …

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 interview with William Bates. Bates joined the Navy Reserves in late 1939 as an aviation cadet. He was in primary flight training at Corpus Christi when the war started. He opted to quit flying and went instead to Midshipmen’s School at northwestern and earned a commission and was assigned to the USS APc-21. He describes his journey down the East Coast, through the Panama Canal and on to Australia and the Southwest Pacific. Once there, his vessel would escort LCTs and LSTs provisioning the ground forces in New Guinea. He was aboard the APc-21 when it was bombed and sunk. After returning to the US and some leave, Bates was assigned to the USS ATR-22. He then transferred to the USS Unadilla (ATA-182). He shares a few anecdotes about being at the Panama Canal and experiencing typhoons off the Philippines. Bates returned to the US in early 1946 and was discharged in September.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Henry Kalinofsky. Kalinofsky grew up in Pennsylvania and joined the Navy in 1941. After training, he joined the destroyer DE 581 McNulty and took several convoys into the North Atlantic and Mediterranean. The destroyer took convoys for the invasion of Normandy. Kalinofsky was a captain on a twin mount 40 mm. He was next on the ship USS LSM (R) 198. He describes being in a truck with German prisoners of war and sharing his cigarettes. Kalinofsky was then transferred into amphibious forces and sent to the Pacific Theater. He was a gunners mate 3rd class. He was involved in action at Le Shima. Next, his ship went to Okinawa. Kalinofsky describes targeting and being targeted by kamikazes. He also saw Baka bombs. After the atomic bombs were dropped, he returned to Guam, Pearl Harbor, and then the United States where he was discharged.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Henry Kalinofsky of Annapolis, Maryland. He discusses when he was first inducted into the Navy and being a plank owner aboard DE 581. USS MCNULTY. He also discusses his time aboard the USS LSM(R) 198 manning the 40mm Twin Mount and loading rockets in Okinawa, Japan, after the invasion of Normandy. Mr. Kalinofsky describes an attack he was involved in off the coast of Okinawa.

Transcript of an oral interview with Charles Screws. He was born in Sipe Springs, Texas on December 7, 1921. He joined the Army Air Corps in 1941. He recalls his assignment to Gunter Field, Alabama training American and British cadets in the BT-13 aircraft. He recounts graduation from Flight School as as a Flight Officer in November 1942, with the rank of Warrant Officer junior grade. He sailed aboard the SS Queen Elizabeth in November 1943. He recalls escorting bombers over occupied France in Janurary 1944, when he crash landed in a farmer's field near Dunkirk. He recalls being aided by a French farmer's family, where he was hidden in a hay stack for three days, and then being escorted by a farmer's wife on a train to Paris. In Paris he stayed for several weeks with a French family. He met up with ten other Americans and all boarded a train to a village in southern France where he shared a tiny hotel room with eighteen other evaders. He recalls his experiences in Pau, France including several instances in which he was almost caught by the Germans. He and another German evaders were driven to the foothills of the …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents a group oral interview with Charlie Screws, Todd Gerald, Henry Castle, Willie Walker and Sam Smith. These veterans speak about flying combat operations over Europe. Some served as fighter pilots and others as crewmembers aboard bombers. One mentions getting shot down and becoming a prisoner of war. Another mentions being shot down and evading capture. He managed to locate the French Resistance and escape to Spain. He was able to rejoin his unit in time for the Normandy invasion. Others mention aerial combat and flying bomber missions. Each veteran relates personal experiences and shares anecdotes about flying in formation, making attacks and flying in poor weather conditions.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Henry Castle. He was born in Abilene, Texas in 1923. He enlisted into the Army Air Corps on December 27, 1942 with orders to Aviation Cadet Flight Training. After extensive training, he was transferred to the Eighth Air Force in England in October 1944. Initially he flew P-47 Thunderbolts escorting B-17s and B-24s and later he flew P-51 Mustangs escorting B-25s and B-26s. He recalls many details of those aircraft and his various missions including dive bomb attacks to support Patton’s armor and infantry in the “Battle of the Bulge.” Castle recalls one crash landing on the English coast upon return from a mission. He describes the first time he shot down an enemy aircraft, a Messerschmitt 109E over Belgium, as well as several instances where he observed American bombers shot out of the sky nearby. He recalls that after the war ended he volunteered for the 9th Air Force as they were setting up the Occupational Air Force of Germany where he was assigned to a Mustang Fighter Group at a well-known Luftwaffe Fighter Air Field near Nuremburg. In late April 1946, he crossed the Atlantic on …

Transcript of an oral interview with Todd Gerald. He was born in Star, Texas on January 19, 1924. He joined the Aviation Cadets in July, 1942 and had flight training in PT-13's, PT-17's, AT-6's, AT-9's, RP-322's, P-38's and P-39's. He was transferred to Goxhill, England in June 1944 to train pilots and to Wormingford Air Field. He recalls flying fighter support in a P-51 during the D-Day invasion over the English Channel and several incidents during bomber escort duty over the North Sea. He recalls crash landing during one of his missions behind enemy lines in France. He was taken to a German POW camp in Alencon, France and then in a Convent in Chartres. He recalls several experiences at the two camps and then being taken to Paris. He boarded a train and was taken to Hamburg, Germany and then to Stalag Luft III in southeast Germany near the border with Poland. He was confined in the North Compound, where the Great Escape had occurred a year earlier. He recalls many details of captivity in the Stalag and eventually being marched from there to Musberg, Germany, where the prisoners were liberated by General Mark Clark of Patton's 7th Army …

Transcript of an oral interview with Willie Walker. He was born in Stephens County, Texas on February 5, 1920. After completing two years at Los Angeles City College, he was accepted into the Army Air Force. He completed cadet training in June 1942 and was transferred to the 81st Fighter Group at Muroc Army Air Force Base where he trained cadets flying P-39s. He sailed on the Queen Mary to England in October 1942. His squadron was sent to Tunisia in January 1943, to support General Patton in North Africa. He describes patrol missions, ground support and strafing runs. He recalls that the fighting in North Africa was over by May 1943, when his squadron began flying out of Tunisia in support of Allied shipping. After the Allied invasion of Sicily, his unit flew several missions from Sicily into the Balkans without experiencing much action. After the Allied invasion at Anzio, the 81st Fighter Group was pulled from Africa and sent into the Chinese theater. He states that since he had completed 251 combat missions in P-39s, he returned to the United States in March 1944 as an Instructor Pilot in P-47s, out of Camp Barkley in Abilene, Texas. His …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Lyman Mereness. Mereness joined the Navy in May of 1942. He received his wings in March of 1943. He served with the 8th Bomb Squadron. Beginning August of 1943, they served as the air group aboard the USS Intrepid (CV-11). Mereness supported the invasion of Hollandia and the Philippines Campaign, completing 39 combat missions. He was discharged in September of 1945.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Abe Santos. Santos joined the Navy in November of 1939. He served as a Fireman aboard the USS Astoria (CA-34). They participated in the battles of the Coral Sea, Midway and Savo Island, where the ship was sunk. He traveled back to Pearl Harbor aboard the USS Wharton (AP-7). Santos was placed on tugboat duty for six months, then transferred to Johnston Island as a Second-Class Machinist’s Mate. He assisted with airstrip construction. He later transferred back to headquarters at Pearl Harbor, and worked on staff for Admiral Robert L. Ghormley. He continued his service after the war ended.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Carl Peltier. He begins by discussing his reaction to the attack on Pearl Harbor and then joining the Marines when he was old enough. He trained in San Diego before shipping out to Hawaii where he joined the 2nd Marine Division. Further training included heavy weapons - mortars. Later, he landed on Saipan and describes his small arms and rations. He witnessed General Simon Buckner getting killed on Okinawa. He was later wounded on Okinawa. After the war ended, Peltier served in the Petagon during the Korean War.