Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans

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Bill Wheat

WWII | 11th Airborne Division

Bill Wheat details the many events that occurred between landing in Leyte and fighting in Manila. Bill and his men watched the Japanese take Manila from miles away. The unit sustained banzai attacks at night in Manila, and cleared the Japanese troops stationed in Intramuros (Walled City). (5:14)
Bill Wheat recalls the unfortunate fate of his first sergeant when the panicked driver of a friendly tank made a misinformed maneuver. (0:44)
Bill York

WWII | 3rd Class Petty Officer, LCT Flotilla 20, LCT Group 60, USS LSMR 526/527

Bill's brother, Johnnie York, a member of the 101st PIR-506th Airborne, is killed while Bill was serving in southern France. (5:59)
Bill's ship crosses the Atlantic Ocean as part of a large convoy of ships. Bill sees two Liberty Ships hit and sunk by German subs. (2:40)
Bill's LSM (ship) is attacked by German fighter planes. Bill fights back using a 20mm anti-aircraft gun. (3:18)
Billy Bryant

WWII | Construction Battalion Maintenance Unit 578

After he volunteered for the Navy in 1944, Billy Bryant completed basic training and, along with 800 other new sailors, took a battery of aptitude tests. The Navy decided all 800 of them would be SeaBees. On the train to California, he was put in charge of the men, leading him to think they must have decided he was very smart. That wasn't it. (3:58)
SeaBee Billy Bryant recalls how he was moved around California, working on different construction projects before he was shipped out to the Pacific. The aim was to expose the men to a lot of different skills. On the way to Okinawa, the first atomic bomb was dropped and the war was nearly over when he got there. (5:45)
The war was over but SeaBee Billy Bryant stayed for nine months on Okinawa building air strips and roads. There were Japanese holdouts in caves and fierce typhoons, but it was a great experience for him. (4:58)
Blake Bourne

Operation Iraqi Freedom | 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment, 172nd Separate Infantry Brigade

"Get up! The world's ending. I'm making eggs." His roommate's words woke Blake Bourne on 9-11 and his whole world changed over the next few days. Savagery threatened the Norman Rockwell world he had grown up in and it led to his graduation from Ranger school as an Army officer. (6:53)
He had joined the Army to go find the bad guys. It took him seven years after 9-11 but Blake Bourne was finally going to be deployed when he got a call from his commanding officer. Instead of a rifle platoon, he was going to command a support platoon. He wasn't even sure what that was, but when he found out, he was mad. (5:54)