“It may be a long and hard struggle, but we will do it [win the war]. When it has been done, our next job will be to ensure that the threat of aggression is removed from the world we live in. In order to do so we must be strong – strong enough to…

“I do not know where this country would have been after December 7, 1941, if it had not had the ships and the know how to build more ships fast, for which one Vinson bill after another was responsible.” Editor's Note: On December 7th, 1941, Japan…

“…they loaded us onto a transport, the General Meigs. And we went to sea. We were at sea for 12 days. Nobody knew where we were, where we were going, or what was going on. We just, there we were and we were on. There goes the 12th day we were at…

"Went to Charleston, South Carolina, got on another rocket ship, and took it out to the Pacific. We went through the canal, on to Pearl, and from there on to Enewetak and the outward islands ready to go and do the same thing again in Japan. I don’t…

"We went back out to the transport area, and we stayed there for three days in the off chance we might be needed again, in case there was a retreat or something of that nature. And at the end of three days they said our services were no longer…

"Well, life on the base there, it was pretty good. The duty was light; we were just waiting for the ships, and they weren’t there. So we played cards. We went into town. There was very little else to do. There was a problem that I had, and again…

"There were so many screw-ups that you can’t count them. I mean, we crashed into piers. One time we were on the Dart River, being as efficient as we were, our propellers got hooked up with some of these buoys and bent them badly. And there was…

"It was only about a day later that we were indeed given our mission, our assignment. We were to assemble at Poole, which is a nice harbor for landing craft because it’s shallow. Big ships can’t go in there but you could put a ton of landing…

“At any rate, I joined the Navy when I was 17, went to boot camp at Sampson, New York. Very cold up there. Why I joined the Navy? I have no idea. I had never even seen the ocean before. But I went to boot camp."

“We arrived in Scotland in the Firth of Clyde, and we docked about ten miles south of Glasgow within sight of Brown Shipbuilding, which was where the Queen Elizabeth was built in the first place. There were 15,000 men aboard, which was the most that…