Albert G. Sutcliffe was born 12 May 1925 in Bisbee, Arizona. When he was about two years old his family moved to Los Angeles, California. His family lived on the edge of town; their neighborhood felt more rural than urban. Sutcliffe's father was a surveyor for the city of Los Angeles, his mother a housewife. His mother and father immigrated to the United States from Scotland and England, respectively. Sutcliffe was an only child. He had many friends from his neighborhood that he grew up with. These friends also joined the military during World War 2. In March 1943 his father was a first lieutenant in the reserves and was called to active duty for five years. He later retired as a lieutenant colonel. His father's first station was in Portland, Oregon. Sutcliffe and his mother moved there when he was in 11th grade. He was in school in Portland when the war started. He recalls listening to music when an announcement came through that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Sutcliffe ran downstairs to tell his father the news, who did not believe him at first. His father put on his uniform, grabbed his .45 [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] and had Sutcliffe drive him to the base. The gate was only being watched by two civilian guards. That night Sutcliffe took his mother to dinner at the officer's club, but armed guards stopped them half a mile from the gate, told them to get out of their vehicle, and searched them. Within five hours the military had gone from nonchalant to high alert. His father did not leave the base until after New Year's [Annotator's Note: 1 January 1942], Sutcliffe remembers opening Christmas presents in the back of the family car wondering where they would be next Christmas. In February 1942 the military transferred Sutcliffe's father again, so Sutcliffe and his mother moved back to their old home in Los Angeles. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Sutcliffe told his father he wanted to join the Marine Corps. His father told him that once he graduated high school he would allow him to sign up for the military. His mother had vivid memories of Scotland during World War 1 and would never agree to her son joining the military. In March 1943 the Los Angeles city school district made an edict, if someone had good grades five weeks into their senior term, they would be allowed to join the military and receive their diploma when their class graduated. Sutcliffe signed up for the Marines and his friend signed up for the Navy. Sutcliffe could not wait to receive his orders. One day he was in high school and the next he was in boot camp in San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. Their drill instructor was a 23-year veteran named S.S. Mann [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling]. He told them he would be tough but fair, and that if anyone had a problem with how he was doing things they could meet him outside the barracks after the bugle blew [Annotator's Note: "Taps", the final call of the evening in the US military, also used at military funerals]. The Marine Corps started drafting people at this time. The drill instructors were harder on the draftees than volunteers. There were people from a number of different states being trained. Boot camp had been cut down from 23 weeks to just eight weeks. Despite the cut in time, they spent the same amount of time in the rifle range. Sutcliffe made marksman, missing sharpshooter by one point, a regret of his. Sutcliffe achieved the rank of PFC [Annotator's Note: private first class]. They were given a 10-day furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] after boot camp and then sent to Jack's Farm [Annotator's Note: a training facility near San Diego, California]. Sutcliffe assumed that they were being trained as a replacement unit; they were referred to as the first copper detachment. He enjoyed his time at Jack's Farm. On his first liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time], he hitchhiked to Los Angeles then got on the wrong train to San Diego, making him arrive an hour late. Sutcliffe had to clean the mess hall for a week as punishment. His parents came to visit Jack's Farm. Because of his father's rank of major, they fell out the guard [Annotator's Note: relieve soldiers from their station] and assigned a lieutenant to show them around the base. Sutcliffe's mother and father went into the officer's club for a drink. He was not allowed inside and had to sit on the steps and wait for them. He was assigned to the S&S, service and supply, and unloaded boxcars for two weeks until he started bothering the first sergeant for a transfer to an infantry outfit. After a week he and the other Marines received a transfer [Annotator's Note: the microphone falls and the interviewer steps in to fix it]. They were brought by truck to where a different unit was camped out, and he was assigned to Company F, 2nd Battalion, 25th Marines [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division]. His new squad leader was a corporal named ‘Doc' Livingston [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling]. One of the soldiers, Bill Domenico [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] of Boston [Annotator's Note: Boston, Massachusetts], had been robbed in Los Angeles once, which caused the other soldiers to laugh when Sutcliffe introduced himself as from Los Angeles. They finally received word that they would be deployed and leave via San Diego aboard the USS Sumter (APA-52) on 13 January 1944.

Albert G. Sutcliffe and his unit [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division] departed San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California] and went to Maui [Annotator's Note: Maui, Hawaii]. They left Maui and anchored at Kwajalein Atoll [Annotator's Note: Kwajalein, Marshall Islands]. That next morning, on 31 January 1944, they climbed down the side of their ship into Higgins boats [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat]. This was especially difficult because the tide caused the boats to rise and fall several feet. They took the Higgins boats to an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank], and from there got into amphibious tractors [Annotator's Note: Landing Vehicle, Tracked or LVT; also referred to as amtrack or alligator]. The water was extremely rough that day. They turned the engine of their tractor off to save gas while the island was being shelled from their battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. Everyone was seasick except for Sutcliffe and the pilot. A cruiser was bearing down on them, and they narrowly missed being hit due to their engine being off. There were two islands codenamed Ivan and Jacob and between them was a channel that led to a lagoon. The 1st Battalion, 25th Marines set up artillery on those two islands to shell the enemy. Sutcliffe and his unit went across the lagoon towards Ennubirr island [Annotator's Note: Ennubirr, Marshall Islands], codenamed Alan. Their tractor landed on the beach and made it to the tree line which was about 10 feet from water. It was about a blind seven foot drop to get out of the tractors, all the while avoiding enemy fire and falling on top of your own allies. Sutcliffe's lieutenant told him to go to the right and find E Company [Annotator's Note: Company E, 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division]. He moved through the jungle and informed E Company of their position. In the time that he had left his squad they had run into a Japanese machine gun position. Two of his best friends he had met in boot camp were killed and two were wounded. The gunny [Annotator's Note: gunnery sergeant; senior staff non-commissioned officer in the US Marine Corps equivalent to a Sergeant First Class in the Army; E-7] and the lieutenant yelled to get off the beach. They made it through the island, and cleared whatever enemies were left on the way back. In Christmas of 1943 Sutcliffe's mother had invited his squad to Christmas dinner at her home in Los Angeles [Annotator's Note: Los Angeles, California]. 10 of them sat down for Christmas dinner, two of the men killed at Ennubirr had been there, and the two wounded as well. One of the men who was wounded was hurt badly enough that he was sent home, and he called Sutcliffe's mother and told her what happened. Sutcliffe was just 18 years old at the time and completely broke down after they cleared Ennubirr. That night they put artillery on Ennubirr to shell islands further in. The next day they were originally going to be sent further in but were instead not needed. While waiting for further orders they were tasked with unloading supplies, which they attempted to keep for themselves. An MP [Annotator's Note: military police] was assigned to oversee them, and it turned out to be a high school classmate of Sutcliffe's. They were moved island to island, landing on a total of eight different islands. On the last one, two Marshallese natives approached them holding a white flag. The natives told the captain that their people were on the next island, so the Marines sent an LCM [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Mechanized] to pick up the people up on the island. They had been on Roi-Namur [Annotator's Note: Roi-Namur, Marshall Islands] until the Japanese sent them away. Sutcliffe and F Company stayed on Ennubirr for almost a week before they were sent to Kwajalein, which had been taken by the Army. There were the bodies of 35 dead Japanese soldiers which had sat there for two weeks. Sutcliffe could not bear the smell. They went ashore and set up defenses until they could be relieved by a defense battalion. While they were there, they found 10 Japanese holdouts hiding on the island. The mess hall handed out food to the soldiers who would try to run to the beach to get away from the flies infesting the island. They stayed at Kwajalein for a couple of weeks until they boarded the USS Middleton [Annotator's Note: USS Arthur Middleton (AP-55/APA-25)] which brought them to Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]. This was the first time that they had seen the remains of the Japanese ambush there [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. From Pearl Harbor they returned to Maui to their rest camp on the side of Mount Kahālāwai. It was one of the best rest camps that the Marines had in World War 2, even though it rained constantly, and was infested with mosquitos. They received replacements, underwent some more training, and went to Kaanapali Beach in Maui for maneuvers. They were then sent to West Loch [Annotators' Note: Pearl Harbor's West Loch was used for storing Naval munitions].

Albert G. Sutcliffe was sent to Pearl Harbor's [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] in preparation for going to the Marianas Islands. There were many LSTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] docked there, they were attached to each other in groups of seven. The LSTs were so close together that you could walk across the tops of the ones attached together. On 1 May 1944 Sutcliffe and his platoon [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division] were bringing supplies from a Higgins boat [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat] to an LST. At about one o'clock there was a tremendous explosion, and Sutcliffe saw a Marine jump from the LST to the Higgins boat, which then began to back up. A second explosion happened, and Sutcliffe's platoon sergeant, a World War 1 veteran, told them that there was a fire and they were going to help fight it. They went to the back of the LST to climb up a ladder where they ran into an Army lieutenant. The tractors [Annotator's Note: Landing Vehicle, Tracked or LVT; also referred to as amtrack or alligator] onboard the LST were Army tractors, and the lieutenant was in charge of them. The lieutenant told Sutcliffe and the other Marines that the captain of the ship had given the order to abandon ship, when in reality the captain had not said that. They were surprised but followed orders and proceeded to get off the ship. One of the Marines, Johnny Atilleo [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] could not swim. Another soldier, Bill Romel [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling], was a former lifeguard and told Johnny that he would help him if he started to falter while swimming. After swimming for about 50 yards, Sutcliffe finally turned around to see what he was running from. All seven of the LSTs moored together were on fire, and there were continuous explosions from the munitions aboard them exploding. Sutcliffe made it to shore and hid under an amphibious tractor. Every explosion sent large pieces of debris flying into the water and onto the shore. Sutcliffe ran down a nearby road for about 100 yards until he heard the biggest explosion of all, the sky was full of debris coming down from the explosion. One soldier from his company by the name of Vanesse [Annotator's Note: US Marine Corps PFC Paul H. Vanesse, 6 July 1924- 21 May 1944] was hit in the legs by debris and died. Sutcliffe ran for a quarter of a mile before he found his platoon sergeant. They all gathered into some nearby dump trucks and drove to the main highway until they made it to the submarine base. Sutcliffe's platoon sergeant informed a general what happened, and transportation was arranged to get them to safety. The Marines were given clothes, Red Cross bags with toiletries, and coupons for beers which they redeemed at the PX [Annotator's Note: Post Exchange]. Going to sleep that night they could still hear explosions off in the distance. Over 160 people were killed, two from Sutcliffe's F Company, and 11 more too severely injured to be sent to the Marianas. Most of F Company was ashore playing baseball or on liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time], otherwise the Company's losses would have been much more severe. It took the Navy three days to get another ship to transport and have them outfitted. They went to Enewetak Atoll [Annotator's Note: also spelled Eniwetok, Marshall Islands], and from there to Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Marianas Islands].

Albert G. Sutcliffe and his unit [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division] were to be the second wave attacking Saipan [Annotator's Note: Battle of Saipan, 15 June to 9 July 1944, Saipan, Mariana Islands]. Their objective was to get off after the first wave and clean up any remaining enemies left behind. They were to drive their tractors [Annotator's Note: Landing Vehicle, Tracked or LVT; also referred to as amtrack or alligator] up to the tree line, but some could not make it that far and unloaded at the beach. On their approach in the water, their vehicle climbed on top of a coral shelf making them an easy target for enemy machine gun fire. They witnessed a Navy pilot bail out of his plane and parachute to safety in the water, the pilot's original objective was to attack Tinian [Annotator's Note: Tinian, Northern Marianas Islands] during the battle. Still experiencing machine gun fire, the Marines in the tractor had to jump over the side to exit the vehicle. The Japanese were firing on them with mortar, artillery, and continued use of machine guns. As Sutcliffe sought cover a Japanese soldier charged him, but he got the best of his attacker. There was a surveyor's marker in the tree, and at that point Sutcliffe realized that the Allies were aiming their fire toward the spot that he was taking cover. He ran until he encountered a railroad track, where he found a path that he and the six men that were with him followed. A shell hit behind the man nearest Sutcliffe, knocking the man into Sutcliffe and knocking Sutcliffe down face first. He lost his bazooka [Annotator's Note: man-portable recoilless 2.36-inch anti-tank rocket launcher weapon] and his rifle was nose down in the sand. Sutcliffe believes he was knocked unconscious; he was also bleeding out of his ears. The man who had been thrown into Sutcliffe had lost an arm. He immediately removed his belt to use as a tourniquet for the man's arm, losing more of his gear in the process. Sutcliffe ran back to the beach to find a corpsman [Annotator's Note: Navy medic] and brought him to the wounded soldier. The corpsman knew the injured man by name, Charlie Bass [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling]. Years later Sutcliffe ended up coming in contact with Bass' son, who wanted to learn about the circumstances of his father's death. When Sutcliffe and the corpsman tried to further help Bass it became clear his injuries were too severe, so Sutcliffe grabbed his carbine [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic carbine] and left. He ran into one of his best friends, Archie Cunningham [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] of Utica, New York who had been badly injured. He helped Cunningham to an aid station on the beach, potentially saving his life. Sutcliffe eventually made it back to his company. He was beaten, dehydrated, and still bleeding from his ears when the fighting finally stopped for that day. During the night the Japanese soldiers who were caught behind Allied lines retreated. Sutcliffe encountered one moving during the night, but he did not realize it at the time. While his platoon sergeant was directing them where to go, the Japanese attacked, wounding the sergeant. A man named McDonald [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] grabbed the sergeant and took him away from danger. As they advanced, they encountered a Japanese tank that had been embedded similar to a pillbox [Annotator's Note: type of blockhouse, or concrete, reinforced, dug-in guard post, normally equipped with slits for firing guns]. The tank fired on them, killing McDonald, and wounding Johnny Atilia [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] and Greenberg [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling]. Greenberg was one of the men that Sutcliffe's mother had over for dinner before they were deployed to the Pacific [Annotator's Note: Sutcliffe told a story of how his mother invited several men of his unit to Christmas dinner in Segment 02-Battle of Kwajalein of this interview]. Once they made it to the airfield, the remaining days of the battle blended together as it became slightly less dangerous. While they were clearing the Japanese out, they encountered an old man with a pitchfork and a little boy holding onto his shirt. The old man would not put the pitchfork down so eventually someone hit him behind the head and they stretchered the man away with the little boy in tow. Sutcliffe often wonders what happened to that little boy. [Annotator's Note: Sutcliffe becomes emotional.] One day a Japanese Zero [Annotator's Note: Japanese Mitsubishi A6M fighter aircraft, referred to as the Zeke or Zero] flew straight down their lines but the pilot did not fire on them. They came upon a jungle area on the edge of a hill where they made camp. Colonel Carlson [Annotator's Note: US Marine Corps Brigadier General Evans Fordyce Carlson] asked Sutcliffe where his CP [Annotator's Note: command post] was, and he told him. That night both Sutcliffe and Carlson were wounded by a mortar shell hitting near their camp. Sutcliffe was again bleeding from his ears and aware of a wound in his arm. Assuming he was wounded the least, he ran to find a corpsman to help. Eventually he was brought back to where they first landed for proper care for his wound. The ships were gone, and the doctor did what he could to find the shrapnel in his arm, but he could not dig it out. Sutcliffe was put on the USS Custer (APA-40) which had been converted into a hospital ship and brought to Enewetak [Annotator's Note: also spelled Eniwetok, Marshall Islands]. From there he was transported to the USS Intrepid (CV-11). He was taken back to Honolulu [Honolulu, Hawaii] and stayed in the hospital for a couple of weeks. Half of his company was already staying in that hospital before he got there. When he was discharged, he was put on the USS President Monroe (AP-104) and brought to his unit in Maui [Maui, Hawaii]. Without him, they had moved on from Saipan and then finished clearing out Tinian.

Albert G. Sutcliffe and his unit [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division] began training for their next assignment. On 26 December 1944 they went to Honolulu [Annotator's Note: Honolulu, Hawaii]. There was an Italian prisoner of war camp. A lot of the Marines could speak Italian, so they began harassing the Italian prisoners. The Army forbade the Marines from coming ashore, but they wanted to because there were bars that they could drink at ashore. They left Honolulu and went to Enewetak [Annotator's Note: also spelled Eniwetok, Marshall Islands], where a massive number of Navy ships were. They left Enewetak and arrived in Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Northern Marianas Islands], where they had just a few months earlier participated in the Battle of Saipan [Annotator's Note: Battle of Saipan, 15 June to 9 July 1944, Saipan, Mariana Islands]. The old tractors [Annotator's Note: Landing Vehicle, Tracked or LVT; also referred to as amtrack or alligator] were still there, and it was a grim reminder of what they had been through taking that island. They were heading towards Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Iwo Jima, Japan]. On 19 February 1945 they arrived at Iwo Jima. They were preparing to get into their Higgins boats [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat] that morning. One of the sailors on the ship they were leaving was a high school friend of Sutcliffe's who wished him luck. They got to about a mile offshore and started circling the island in their boat, watching the island get shelled. Their landing was delayed because there was too much fighting on the beach. When they were finally ordered to land, an LCI [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Infantry], was going towards them. The LCI had been hit, and the ship was out of control with dead sailors hanging off of it. As soon as they got off their boat Sutcliffe saw dead and injured Marines all around him. The Marines were cautious about running out of ammunition because of their experiences on Tarawa [Annotator's Note: Battle of Tarawa, 20 to 23 November 1943, Tarawa Atoll, Gilbert Islands]. So they loaded up carts with spare ammunition, but they did not perform well when pushed through sand. They dragged this cart through artillery, mortar, machine gun, and sniper fire. Their NCOs [Annotator's Note: noncommissioned officer] told them to get off the beach. The night before they landed, Colonel Hudson [Annotator's Note: US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel, later Brigadier General, Lewis Cheatham Hudson] told them that if they do not advance and are physically able, they will be letting their friends down. While taking cover with two other Marines, one of them was hit and Sutcliffe helped bandage his wounds. A man with a camera came and took his picture, the photographer turned out to be Joe Rosenthal [Annotator's Note: Joseph John Rosenthal, American photographer]. Rosenthal had been on the USS Lowndes (APA-154) with Sutcliffe prior to the Iwo Jima landing. He wrote to Rosenthal later on asking if the picture of him at Iwo Jima survived, but Rosenthal could not find it. Sutcliffe continued forward, seeing dead soldiers all along the way. He witnessed a soldier named Rivers [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] from headquarters company get shot in the head and die, so he continued to get out of fire. When he reached the top of a hill, he found the rest of his company. Sutcliffe camped out with another soldier named Jim White [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] that night. A Jap [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] snuck up and threw a grenade at them. The ensuing scrimmage caused them to camp on top of a ridge with the rest of their squad for the night. That morning Sutcliffe and White went back down to get the packs they left on the lower ground, and a shell hit the ridge where they had camped with Cockrell [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling], McManus [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling], and Lenik [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] killing all three of them. They sat there all day watching wounded and dead being taken away. Sutcliffe had become fireteam leader by default.

On D plus 2 [Annotator's Note: two days after landing day], they [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division] began moving ahead. Sutcliffe's squad leader asked him for a light for a cigarette and when he turned around his squad leader was dead. They crawled ahead to take cover inside of a pillbox [Annotator's Note: type of blockhouse, or concrete, reinforced, dug-in guard post, normally equipped with slits for firing guns]. Someone dropped a grenade inside the pillbox, but it did not go off. He was inside this pillbox with sergeant Gomes [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling], and Sutcliffe asked who was lying dead outside, to which Gomes replied, "Doc" [Annotator's Note: unable to identify]. Gomes said he would find the sniper that hit Doc but was hit in the head when he stood up. They were stuck in that position for a day or two. The fourth day the lieutenant sent Sutcliffe to the CP [Annotator's Note: command post] for something. It was there he saw that the Marines had taken Suribachi [Annotator's Note: Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima]. While still pinned down in the hole Sutcliffe cut his hand open badly on a can of C rations [Annotator's Note: prepared and canned wet combat food]. He went to a corpsman [Annotator's Note: Navy medics] for first aid, who was about to write a recommendation that Sutcliffe be relieved from being a rifleman. He saw the backs of his fellow soldiers towards the front and told the corpsman to forget it, and rejoined F Company instead. They stayed in their position and the next day watched the 24th Marines [Annotator's Note: 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division] advance past them, and then come back bloodied and wounded. A machine gun nest had been in the hole next to Sutcliffe, it got hit with a mortar and killed the four men inside of it. His platoon was down to about 10 soldiers after having moved forward about 50 yards. His friend Joe [Annotator's Note: last name unknown] was wounded and dropped his BAR [Annotator's Note: M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle; also known as the BAR], which Sutcliffe picked up and used to kill the Japanese soldier that wounded Joe. On the eighth day he was assigned three new squad members, one soldier that had landed with them and two who had been assigned to them after the battle had started. One of the new soldiers was fatally hit in the stomach and Sutcliffe made the call for a corpsman, who came forward and was then also injured. Sutcliffe and his two men went up a hill, where they were hit by artillery. One man died and Sutcliffe was hit in the neck. He went back and found Bill Domenico [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling], who immediately sent him to the CP for medical attention. The CP had just been hit by an explosion and they told him that he needed to get back on his own. On his retreat he was almost hit by sniper fire. He found a corpsman, his neck was bandaged, and he ran into a friend who had also been wounded. His friend told him that Archie [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] had been killed that morning. [Annotator's Note: Sutcliffe holds back tears.] He was put in a Higgins boat [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat] and brought to a triage unit. After two days, the ship Sutcliffe went on deck to look at the island one more time. He knew that no one else from his original unit was going to be left alive. He was the only one alive from the Christmas dinner his mother had thrown for him and nine other people he met when he first went in. The last one, A.D. Rich [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling], was killed after Sutcliffe left Iwo Jima.

Albert G. Sutcliffe was taken from the Battle of Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Battle of Iwo Jima, 19 February to 26 March 1945, Iwo Jima, Japan as a member of Company F, 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division] ] to Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands] for medical treatment. From there he went to Schofield Army Hospital in Oahu [Annotator's Note: Oahu, Hawaii]. The military gave him two choices: go to the Royal Hawaiian [Annotator's Note: a hotel] or go home. He chose the latter. 2 May 1945 he arrived in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] and then went to Los Angeles [Annotator's Note: Los Angeles, California]. He was attached to the local Guard [Annotator's Note: National Guard] and when the war ended, he was allowed to leave the military based on points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home]. Within three weeks he was attending class at the University of Southern California [Annotator's Note: in Los Angeles, California]. He graduated, got married, and retired from selling insurance after 30 years. Sutcliffe used the GI 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 go to college. Had he not had it, he is sure that he would have found some other way to go to college. He always wanted to go to USC [Annotator's Note: University of Southern California], and the price of an education was more affordable at that time. Sutcliffe's father was in Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Philippines] when the war ended. When Sutcliffe came home, he was extremely depressed and could not keep food down. The people he had met in the military had yet to come home, and he found that the ones who were home could not relate to his experiences in the war. He only had one nightmare about the war since he came home. He met his future wife and his friends returning home helped pull him out of his depression. Sutcliffe and his father did not discuss their experiences in the war in very much detail. He had trouble adjusting to life at home, and often lost his temper. Sutcliffe's mother asked him to write to the mothers of the boys that his mother had over for dinner one Christmas [Annotator's Note: before they were deployed, Sutcliffe's mother hosted him and people from his unit for Christmas dinner. Sutcliffe was the only soldier at that dinner who survived to see the war end]. He commissioned bricks for them when the Marine Corps opened its museum [Annotator's Note: National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia]. Sutcliffe did what he could to contact the families of the boys he served with. He thinks of those people every day. Sutcliffe also remembers watching the Marines he fought with move forward on Iwo Jima, despite the danger that awaited them. [Annotator's Note: Sutcliffe's voice breaks and the recording is paused.]

Albert G. Sutcliffe's gunnery sergeant Annotator's Note: in Company F, 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division] was Keith Renstrom [Annotator's Note: US Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Keith A. Renstrom]. Renstrom was relied on by the entire unit. He was a tough, but fair man. Sutcliffe was under Renstrom until Sutcliffe was wounded in Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Iwo Jima, Japan] and had to be sent back to the United States. He remembers doing what Renstrom ordered not because he would beat his soldiers over the head like some NCOs [Annotator's Note: noncommissioned officers] would, but because he was respected. One of Sutcliffe's most vivid memories of Renstrom was storming the beaches and him getting everyone off the beach out of harm's way. In Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Marianas Islands] Renstrom witnessed the suicides at Marpi Point [Annotator's Note: also called Suicide Cliff, on the northern tip of Saipan]. Sutcliffe hated the Japanese at that time. He joined the Marine Corps specifically to shoot the Japanese. He also wanted a blue dress uniform, but never got one. Dropping the atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] was the correct thing to do. The Japanese showed time and time again that they would rather die than give up. Sutcliffe felt sorry for the new recruits coming in during Iwo Jima. They were not experienced in combat; they did not have any close friends to protect each other in the units. It was hard to accept new people into the unit because they watched their old friends die and then were expected to make friends with new people who were just as likely to be killed as well. When he came home Sutcliffe kept in contact with Marines that he had fought with. He went to their final reunion at Camp Lejeune [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina]. His most memorable experience of World War 2 was coming home. Even though he volunteered to go, he could not wait to go home. The war became too much. Sutcliffe looked at the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] as a personal insult. Most of his friends and classmates joined the military. World War 2 changed his life in some ways, but not nearly as much so as the people that died. He has always been very proud of his service and thinks that people need to understand the human cost of the war. He thinks as the years have passed World War 2 means less as people are further removed from it. Everyone had a part to play in World War 2, many men served, many women got jobs to help out, and everyone at the home front was forced to ration. Sutcliffe remembers being impacted by Roosevelt's [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] death [Annotator's Note: 12 April 1945]. He was the only president that Sutcliffe had really known in his lifetime. He believes that it is important to have institutions like the National World War II Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana]to educate people.