Ray Camp was born in December 1924 in Friendship, Tennessee. He lived there on a farm until he got drafted. He received his draft notice in December 1943. He was on the farm the Sunday he heard about Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He was trained at Great Lakes, Illinois. He was moved to a naval air station to become an airplane mechanic. Camp signed up for air crew training. He went to Florida for gunnery training. They had to fly four hours to get their flight time in. He was a tail gunner on a Navy bomber. He went to San Diego [Annotator’s Note: San Diego, California] for advanced training, and then to Honolulu [Annotator’s Note: Honolulu, Hawaii] for more training.

Ray Camp was in the South Pacific. He was assigned to VPB-121 [Annotator’s Note: Patrol Bombing Squadron 121]. He was a tail gunner. His pilot was from Texas and could maneuver the plane like it was a fighter plane. In Honolulu [Annotator’s Note: Honolulu, Hawaii], he would fly close to the mountains. When they were in San Diego [Annotator’s Note: San Diego, California] he wanted to go see a bull fight. He joined the reserve unit just to have something to do. He thought about staying in the service. He got married before enlisting.

Ray Camp was on Iwo Jima [Annotator’s Note: Iwo Jima, Japan] when the war ended. He went to work for the post office for 26 years. The Naval Air Station in Millington [Annotator’s Note: Millington, Tennessee] was a few miles away. He kept in touch with one guy in New York City [Annotator’s Note: New York, New York]. He met a woman whose husband flew P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] in Memphis [Annotator’s Note: Memphis, Tennessee]. They went to the museum together [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana]. His older brother was in Patton’s [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] unit as a forward observer. He had six brothers and they all did time in the service. He had three sisters.