Date: 2009 / Genres: Oral histories / Collection: Veterans of the Valley - TAMU

Date:: 2009-10-10
Main contributors:: Harper, Bill
Summary:: Bill Harper, Operation Ivy, Post WW II (Interviewed Oct. 10, 2010) Bill Harper does not have any real war stories to tell from his two hitches and more than five years in military service, but the one that he does tell is indeed a witness to history. November 1st, 1952, from the deck of the USS Estes near Eniwetok Island in the Marshall Islands, Bill Harper was one of those who watched the result of “Operation Ivy” -- the very first Hydrogen Bomb Explosion. Bill Harper has never discussed his specific duties in regard to Operation Ivy, and he never will. But he can describe in detail the incredible site and effect of the detonation of a bomb some 500 times more powerful than the Atomic Bomb that ended World War II some seven years earlier. And there are other fascinating stories to tell... like how he got to Texas by sailing down the Illinois and the Mighty Mississippi Rivers from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico.

Date:: 2009-03-05
Main contributors:: Smith, C. O.
Summary:: C.O. Smith, U.S. Coast Guard, Korea (Interviewed March 5, 2009) C.O. Smith, Texas A&M Class of 1950, is proud of the role that the United States Coast Guard played in World War II. On board the Coast Guard Cutter Bramble, C.O. Smith spent 4 years at sea, almost making it to Europe before mechanical problems sent them to Puerto Rico to dry dock and then through the Panama Canal and to the Pacific and Alaska, where his crew supplied Navy Seabees who were building the Loran Stations.

Date:: 2009-06-04
Main contributors:: Huss, Carl
Summary:: Carl Huss, Army Air Corps, WW II (Interviewed June 4, 2009) Carl Huss joined the Army Air Corp before US involvement in World War II started with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He was just looking to learn a trade, and indeed he did. As a radioman stationed first for nearly 3 years in Alaska, then in the Philippines near war’s end. He became pretty well versed in American- Russian relations during the War and that’s just a part of his fascinating story of service.

Date:: 2009-07-16
Main contributors:: Smith, Charles
Summary:: Charles Smith, U.S. Army, Vietnam (Interviewed July 16, 2009) Charles Smith grew up in Bryan and graduated from E.A. Kemp in 1960. He served 20 years in the U.S. Army and 22 years with the Postal Service. In the Army between 1960 and 1981, He served one tour in Vietnam as a Recon Squad Leader but his duty was cut short by a bout with Malaria. He also served four tours in Germany and one in South Korea.

Date:: 2009-02-12
Main contributors:: Jackson, Dale
Summary:: Dale Jackson, U.S. Army, WW II (Interviewed Feb. 12, 2009) Soon after Dale Jackson entered the Army at Age 18, he was shipped off to Omaha, Nebraska for Ordnance Repair School, learning how to fix military equipment and vehicles. Just 15 months after he entered the service, on 6 June 1944, he would find himself at another Omaha -- Omaha Beach, part of the 3rd Wave at Normandy on D-Day. He recalls that historical event with amazing clarity because he was there, because he was wounded there, because he served there. He says he was there when General Eisenhower addressed the paratroopers the day before the invasion and indeed identifies himself in one of the War’s most famous photographs.

Date:: 2009-11-19
Main contributors:: West, David
Summary:: David West, U.S. Navy, Vietnam (Interviewed Nov. 19, 2009) David West joined the Navy and started out chasing hurricanes from 1956 to 1958. Later he says as a Navy Seal he was wounded in Vietnam but says that chasing hurricanes was some of the scariest stuff he did in the service. He was sent to Vietnam in February 1969 Landing in Saigon. Wounded in Vietnam before training in Vietnam he was at Malta training with the British Navy. David West lived in Navasota before his death.

Date:: 2009-02-05
Main contributors:: Buell, Frank
Summary:: Frank Buell, U.S. Navy, WW II (Interviewed Feb. 5, 2009) World War II, of course, was fought primarily in Europe and the Pacific, but there was never any guarantee that the enemy from either side would not find its way to United States shores. Frank Buell got permission from his mother to enter the U.S. Navy at the age of 17. That was 14 June 1944, just 14 months before Japan surrendered. While waiting for an opening to go to flight school, we was assigned as a bombardier, flying B-24s and later PB4Y2s. Out of 24 crews, his was one of four assigned to stay stateside and train, while at the same time guarding the east coast from deployments mainly in Florida.

Date:: 2009-01-29
Main contributors:: Kennedy, Gordon
Summary:: Gordon Kennedy, U.S. Army, Korea/Vietnam (Interviewed Jan. 29, 2009) Gordon Kennedy had seen a lot of the world during his 31 years of military service. Service that included a 15-month tour during in Korea during that War, and then a year in Saigon, near the end of the Vietnam War. When he left his final tour of duty, in Jamaica, he had hardly even heard of Bryan, Texas...It was his next duty assignment as an intelligence specialist. He and his wife Lucille were married some 60 years.

Date:: 2009-06-25
Main contributors:: Marsh, H. J.
Summary:: H.J. Marsh, U.S. Army, WW II/Korea (Interviewed June 25, 2009) H.J. Marsh considered his timing quite fortunate. A 1945 high school graduate of San Jacinto High School, by the time he joined the Army, World War II was over. His unit served occupational duty in postwar Korea and while he says there was not much action at that time, his service was still valuable in keeping the peace that had been hard earned in the Pacific Theater. Korea, after all, was under Japanese rule during the war -- and after the war, the split between North and South Korea was even more defined. HJ Marsh says it was then that he first heard the word communism, during his service between World War II and the Korean War, which started in 1950.

Date:: 2009-08-06
Main contributors:: Wade, James
Summary:: James Wade, U.S. Army, WW II (Interviewed Aug.6, 2009) James Wade arrived in Europe and there was only two more months of fighting and left in World War II. But in that short time, plus the time he spent there in occupational duty, he saw plenty of what now you read about in history books. That included serving guard duty over the witnesses of the Nuremberg trials. The stories don't in there. Here is James Wade of College Station.

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