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The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Dr Buckner Fanning. After graduating from high school, Fanning enlisted in the Marine Corps and went to boot camp at Paris Island. He states that the Marine Corps changed his life. Fanning went to Camp Lejune for basic training and was slated to go to Quantico to be commissioned. However, he didn't want to go there (neither did his buddies) so the Marine Corps sent them to Camp Pendleton where they were assigned to the 6th Regiment, 2nd Marine Division. They went to Guam which had been partially secured. They had training (for the invasion of Japan) on Saipan and were held in reserve for Okinawa. They heard about the atomic bomb while training on Saipan. As soon as the peace treaty was signed, they were waiting outside the harbor at Nagasaki. Fanning describes landing in Nagasaki, the conditions there, what they did, and finding a little Methodist church that he started attending even though he couldn't understand a thing they said. While he was in Nagasaki, he was selected to represent the 2nd Marine Division at the firing competition in Hawaii. Later, they were moved them to P_____, Japan which was called the Athens of Japan. They were then shipped to Sasebo and then on home where they were discharged. Buckner became a pastor after the war.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Jim Yawn. Mr Yawn was born in 1918 and had two years of college by the time he was 20 which was the minimum age to get into the Navy flight program. He was sent to Miami, Florida for primary flight training; they had to fly thirty three hours before they were appointed as a cadet. They were transferred to Jacksonville for basic training and then to California after they got their wings. He asked for and received a transfer to the Marine Corps. After getting some time in PBYs, F-4Fs, SB-2Cs and a few other aircraft he had some crew training at El Centro and finished it up in Mojave, in the B-24. They were assigned an aircraft and left San Francisco at night so they could reach Hawaii in the daytime. Yawn talks about walking aboard the Arizona and it was still smoking; he said it was an eerie feeling. Yawn flew across the Pacific and ended up landing on Guadalcanal but most of the squadron was at Espiritu Santo; he was part of VMB-254. They did reconnaissance work over the New Georgia group, Rabaul and Bougainville. Then, they went to Bougainville where they lived in tents. Adm Finch told his commanding officer that they needed to find the Japanese Fleet. He said, ""we think they are at Truk Island and you guys have to make a run to Truk"". They found the Japanese there and took photographs; the first ones taken of the Truk area in over 20 years. The plane had three cameras in the bomb bay area facing downward and some in the waist hatch which took shots out the sides. Yawn was the mission commander for this mission and received the Distinguished Flying Cross. They went to Eniwetok after that and took off for Guam where they got hit pretty bad by Zeros. Photographs of the terrain of Guam was needed for the upcoming invasion. Yawn continued on to other islands and had R&R in Australia. After coming back to the States, he was ordered to the Grumman plant in New York to pick up a twin engine fighter p

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents 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 Group bombed a target on the German side of the lake and the other half a ball bearing plant in Switzerland. The Swiss were selling ball bearings to the Germans. Their toughest mission was number ten, Hamburg; bombing the submarine pens or a synthetic fuel plant. He lost his right wingman and then looked around and saw a bomber explode here and one there. Smith talks about a ME-262 coming straight at them during this mission; he decides to dump his airplanes, pulling the throttles all the way back and pushing the stick forward. That was the first fighter attack his crew had ever experienced. Up until then all they had experienced was flak. The ME-262 attacked them from the six o'clock position next but the tail gunner shot him down; the aircraft split into two pieces. They flew a total of 24 missions. Ver

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with William C. Beyer. Beyer grew up in Texas and joined the Marines in January 1942. After training, he was assigned to the third division in artillery. He departed on the USS Mount Vernon for New Zealand. He anecdotes about meeting with some Maori people. Then he departed on the Cresent City for Guadalcanal in May 1943. From Guadalcanal he left for Bougainville in November 1943. He describes being caught in a foxhole for two days without communication. He also listened to Tokyo Rose on the radio. The Army relieved the Marines January 15, 1944, and his unit returned to Guadalcanal. On July 21, 1944, they landed on Guam and went into battle. Next Beyer left for Iwo Jima. The Third Marine Division was assigned to the central area of the island. He witnessed the raising of the flag. On the 50th anniversary of the war, Beyer and his wife returned to New Zealand and Guam.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Bob Burrell. Eleven days after finishing high school in 1941, Burrell was sworn into the Navy and reported to Newport, Rhode Island for boot camp. After boot camp, he was sent down to the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida and was here on December 7, 1941. He volunteered for submarine duty and was sent to submarine school in New London, Connecticut; finishing in May 1942. Burrell describes his experiences at the school including using the Momsen lung. After graduation, he was shipped to Pearl Harbor and assigned to Submarine Division 42. In September 1942, he went aboard the USS Nautilus as a Third Class Yeoman. He was a sonar and radar operator during combat. The Nautilus rescued 29 men, women and children on New Years Eve 1942 when they snuck into Teop Harbor which was off of Bougainville. In April 1943, the Nautilus went to Dutch Harbor to take on 104 7th Army scouts, training them like they had done with the Marine Raider Battalion earlier. They were training for the invasion of Attu Island and took them there. The Nautilus then headed to Mare Island Naval Yard for overhaul. After overhaul, the Nautilus went back to Pearl Harbor and then to Tarawa, Abemama and Makin to take photographs. Burrell describes the mission where the Nautilus had 75 Marines on board and were to land them on Abemama but were attacked and hit by U.S. forces (a cruiser and two destroyers). They survived the hit and delivered the Marines. He also discusses the fire the Nautilus experienced while docked at Pearl Harbor. Burrell put in for new construction and they sent him back to New London, Connecticut; he was the first person assigned to the commissioning crew of the USS Boarfish. The Boarfish was commissioned in September 1944 and sent to the Pacific; her first patrol was made off of French Indo China. Burrell had made nine patrols, six on the Nautilus and three on the Boarfish, when he was transferred to the