The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Alton Halbrook. Halbrook joined the Marine Corps in 1938 while enrolled at John Tarleton Agricultural College (Tarleton State University). After training at San Diego, Halbrook was assigned to duty in Shanghai before serving as a sea-going Marine aboard the USS Augusta (CA-31). Due to seasickness, he returned to the 4th Marine Regiment in China. Halbrook shares several stories of duty in China prior to the outbreak of war with Japan. When he asked permission to marry a Greek girl in Shanghai, the Marines shipped him to Cavite in the Philippines in early 1941. Halkbrook was present at the Cavite Navy Yard when the Japanese attacked in December, 1941. He recalls being supremely confident, cocky even, that when it came to a fight with the Japanese, the Americans would prevail easily. His illusion was shattered the day following the attack on Cavite when he was burying his dead friends. During the battle for Bataas, Halbrook hauled supplies from Manila until he was assigned to beach defense on Corregidor. Before Bataan fell, Halbrook volunteered to command a hastily organized unit of Philippine Army riflemen and went back to Bataan. He …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Lyndon Baines Johnson. Johns tells an anecdote of waking up sick in the hospital on Fiji and being transported to Hawaii where Admiral Nimitz invited him to return to the US with him in his plane. Johnson declined as he was not feeling well enough to travel. He then mentions that Nimitz'z plane crashed upon landing in the San Francisco Bay.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Lyndon Baines Johnson. Johns tells an anecdote of waking up sick in the hospital on Fiji and being transported to Hawaii where Admiral Nimitz invited him to return to the US with him in his plane. Johnson declined as he was not feeling well enough to travel. He then mentions that Nimitz'z plane crashed upon landing in the San Francisco Bay.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with T. G. Crews. Crews was born on 26 February 1917 in Erath County, Texas and enlisted in the Marine Corps in July 1937 after graduating from high school. He was sent to China in 1938 as a member of the North China Marines tasked with guarding the American Embassy in Peking and railroads. He was in China on 8 December 1941 when the Japanese took 204 Marines prisoner. Crews was among the Peking Marines taken prisoner. In March 1942 the prisoners were loaded into boxcars and taken to an internment camp north of Shanghai. Approximately 1100 Marines and civilians previously captured at Wake Island were already there. He soon came down with malaria and dysentery. He spent three years as a POW around Shanghai. On 9 May 1945 approximately 1,000 POWs were taken by rail to Fengtai, China a district near Peking. The conditions there were the worst he had experienced as the POWs lived in large warehouses on dirt or brick floors without bedding. The latrines were open and the water was bad. Crews’ weight fell to less than 100 pounds. On 19 June 1945 the prisoners …

Photograph of a ship that appears to be the U.S.S. Nimitz at dock with red, white and blue decorations.