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HM: So you were pretty busy yourself during the war, in the navy, then. Where were you stationed?

HC: Well, when I went in the navy I went to boot camp and I did a double thing there and then went to radio school next to Treasure Island, got shipped down to Elysian Park and a refresher course in radio in the navy armory there. Then got shipped up to Pleasanton, which is inland from Oakland, and finally they gave us orders to get a, get in a flat top as passengers, and they gave us a ride to Hawaii. Put us in a school there, a tent cabin, open on all sides and they'd roll down tarps when it rained. And finally got down to, went down to navy yard, scrubbed the bottom of LSTs for a while, and then finally placed aboard a communications ship, which meant, the communications ship was very interesting. I don't know if you, if it's of any interest, but it's interesting to me. When a troop transport, big one, a C3 hold, was completed in Brooklyn navy yard, after they launched that they move right back in, tore out all the troop compartments and everything, and installed radio equipment, and also staterooms because this is the ship that's gonna be a command ship on evasions, invasions. So then each invasion was the navy and then the Marines, and the, the navy, I mean the Marine General was Howlin' Mad Turner, no, Howlin' Mad... Howlin' Mad, anyway, and his officers, which I guess you would call his headquarters company, said they needed staterooms for those officers and also for the admiral. I was with Admiral Turner, Richmond Kelly Turner, and we finally got ready to go.

In the first invasion I was on was the Marianas, Saipan, Guam, and Tinian. And the second, and I think we had a new ship then, with more equipment, or at least since, the next invasion was Iwo, and after that was over we had a little rest and then went into Okinawa. And finally got back to Guam and the navy, in the meantime, for Iwo, the navy had, it was going pretty good for them, publicity wise, so they had a lot of the big time correspondents aboard, and that's what the extra cabins were for. And as a matter of fact, we were the first ship to have a teletype aboard. Up until then the receiving antenna and the transmitting antenna were miles apart because of the power generated by the transmitting, somehow they overcame that, but they decided to use that, not for navy traffic, but for the correspondents' stories. And I was the first one to stand the watch on a teletype, and among my accomplishments, I sent out the story about the flag being raised on Iwo Jima Isle. That's no claim for fame, I tell you, but it was interesting.

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