Joseph Fisher was born in January 1925 in Marshall, Texas. He had one brother who was two years older. He went through grade school in Marshall and then went to college in Shreveport [Annotator’s Note: Shreveport, Louisiana]. When the war broke out, he was working for the railroad as an apprentice machinist. His father served in the Army during World War One [Annotator's Note: World War 1, global war originating in Europe; 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918] as a master sergeant. He worked for the Texas-Pacific railroad. He got caught between two cars and never got out of the hospital. Fisher’s mother did not work until his father got hurt. She became a secretary of her church. Fisher did not really know his father because he was in the hospital his entire childhood. Fisher went to live with his grandparents on a farm. He went all the way through high school in Texas. He was 17 when he went to college in Shreveport. He was in Shreveport visiting his mother when Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] came over the radio to announce the attack [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. His brother was already in the Navy and had finished radio school. Fisher joined the Navy in December 1941.

Joseph Fisher joined the Navy in 1942. His big brother was in the Navy. They used to swim a lot growing up. Fisher was picked for the underwater demolition teams, but he did not want to do that. He went to boot camp and machinist school in San Diego, California. Then he went to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They went through school at a factory. They trained on engines. The outfit was on the Great Lakes [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Great Lakes in Lake County, Illinois]. Then they were assigned to a ship in California. Fisher was assigned to the USS Gaston Hall [Annotator’s Note: USS Gaston Hall (LSD-44)]. They went on a shakedown cruise [Annotator's Note: a cruise to evaluate the performance of a naval vessel and its crew] to San Pedro, California. Next, he was put on an E-9 unit as a machinist. They worked work on LVTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Vehicle, Tracked or LVT; also referred to as Amtrack or alligator] that were getting blown up. It was so cold that they had a mattress under them and a mattress on top of them. They rode on LSTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank]. It took them 47 days to get to Leyte in the Philippines. Bull Halsey [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey] had the newer ships up near Okinawa [Annotator’s Note: Okinawa, Japan]. The gunners were shooting at all planes. They ended up shooting down their own planes. During this time, they were told to dig their foxholes deeper. They were issued M1 rifles [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic carbine]. A kamikaze [Annotator's Note: Japanese suicide bombers] hit an ammunition dump down the beach from Fisher’s unit. In the morning, the sandbags looked like they had been peppered by a buckshot.

Joseph Fisher remembers that they would have air raids with one or two planes at a time. The Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] would go down the beaches shooting. After about eight to ten days, they secured the airfield and were able to do their jobs, which was to repair boats. They worked on LCMs [Annotator’s Note: Landing craft machine] and LVTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Vehicle, Tracked or LVT; also referred to as Amtrack or alligator]. Fisher’s unit was on Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands] when the atomic bombs were dropped [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. The United States dumped the guns in the ocean. When Fisher went to LSU [Annotator’s Note: Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana] he joined the reserves. He helped create a program for machinist training. He served in the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953] on an ammunition ship. It was an attack cargo ship. The Red Cross [Annotator's Note: Red Cross, an international non-profit humanitarian organization] got him out of the Navy so he could take care of his sick mother.

Joseph Fisher went back to college after he returned home. He used the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts, and unemployment] to study engineering. His first job was in Pensacola, Florida. He worked as a safety engineer for iron and chemical plants. He retired in 1984. He was a machinist’s mate third class. World War Two showed the inner strength of the American people. They stopped building cars and started building tanks.