Ray Akins - part 2: Interview

2009-10-08

Akins, Ray

Ray Akins, U.S. Marines, WW II (Interviewed Oct. 8, 2009) Most every World War II Veteran counts themselves lucky to have survived to tell their story when so many did not. Ray Akins’ service came near the war’s end, but included 82 days fighting in the Pacific’s bloodiest battle... Okinawa. The battle that killed more than 12,000 Americans and left another 36,000 wounded. As a member of a special weapons unit in the 1st Marine Division, his was the third wave to storm the beach that April 1st, 1945. Okinawa was to be a main staging area for the ground assault on Japan that never happened because of the dropping of the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Here are some of Ray Akins’ war Stories, but some of his stories of a legendary 38-year high school football coaching career, one that produced a quarterback named Marty Akins who went on to run Darrell Royal’s wishbone attack at Texas. And he’ll talk about Ray Akins, the proud Grandfather of another quarterback you may recognize... a fella named Drew Brees.

KAMU-TV (Television station : College Station, Tex.); Turbiville, Tom

MovingImage; interview; Oral histories

Akins, Ray; Veterans--United States--Interviews; United States. Marine Corps; United States. Marine Corps; World War, 1939-1945

Veterans of the Valley

Collections

English

In copyright-educational use permitted; For more information, see http://rightsstatementsorg/vocab/InC-EDU/10/

Items in this collection were donated to Cushing Memorial Library and Archives in 2017 by Tom Turbiville
Creation/Production Credits
From "Veterans of the Valley," a television series created by host Tom Turbiville and produced at KAMU-TV’s studio on the Texas A&M University, College Station campus
Local Note
reformatted digital

Catalog Key: 03-VOTV-Adkins_Ray-video02