Allen Tillery was born in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1925. He was attending high school in Shreveport when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. At first, Tillery was not concerned because the draft age was 21 and he was only 17 at the time but when Congress amended the draft act to 18 he knew he would be going into the service. He graduated high school in 1942 and started classes at LSU. By that time many of his friends were going into the service. Also by that time people had to go through the draft board to get into the service. Tillery was told that if he volunteered to be drafted he could choose the branch of service he served in. He volunteered and chose the Marine Corps. Tillery joined the Marines because his older brother was in the Marines and was serving the in the Pacific with the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion and had taken part in the Makin Island raid. Tillery's brother told him stories about serving in the Pacific. He had taken part in some of the roughest fighting on Guadalcanal and Makin and had worked as a runner for the president's son, Jimmy Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: James Roosevelt was the oldest son of President Franklin Roosevelt], on Makin. By the time Tillery started at LSU in the fall of 1942, all of the men over 21 were going into the draft. On a daily basis guys would leave for service. Tillery knew he would have to go soon as well so he contacted his parents who told him to return home. When he got back to Shreveport he enlisted in the Marine Corps. He was sent down to New Orleans where he was sworn in then put on a train to San Diego for boot camp. Boot camp lasted about 90 days. Tillery finished boot camp in early 1943. He had gone through bayonet training as well as rifle range training at Camp Mathews. During his second week of boot camp, Tillery was watching a training field when a B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] aircraft crashed into the building he was in. There were a number of casualties, including Tillery, who suffered a cut across his lip. After boot camp they all lined up on the parade ground to get their assignments. Tillery was called out and sent to Japanese language school at Camp Elliot. Camp Eliot was a large camp that was used mostly to train infantry. Tillery was dropped off at his new barracks which was right next door to the code school where the Navajo code talkers were being training. Tillery never saw one in the Pacific. The Marine Japanese language school was three to four months which totaled nearly two years of college. The teachers were people who had lived in Japan. One of them was a tea merchant and the other was the son of a missionary who spoke fluent Japanese. The idea of the school was to teach them to question Japanese prisoners but not necessarily make them fluent. About six of the 20 who started the school graduated. There was one of these language men in the battalion headquarters of each regiment.

In early January [Annotator's Note: January 1944] Allen Tillery went to Linda Vista where he boarded the USS Manila Bay [Annotator's Note: USS Manila Bay (CVE-61)] for overseas deployment. There was no place for the Marines so they slept under the wings of the aircraft on cots. When they arrived at Pearl Harbor they could still see the ships damaged in the attack. That was Tillery's first real introduction to the war. Tillery had been promoted to corporal when he graduated from the language school but never received another stripe after that. Tillery got orders to report to a ship in the harbor. He was picked up in a jeep and taken down to the dock at Pearl Harbor. There were ships everywhere full of Marines. Tillery was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 22nd Marines [Annotator's Note: 3rd Battalion, 22nd Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division]. The Marines aboard had just come from Samoa and were preparing to deploy for operations in the Marshall Islands. Tillery was not well received by these Marines. Many of them had been in the Marine Corps for over a year and were still privates. Tillery was attached to the battalion intelligence section. The trip to Kwajalein took ten to 15 days. They did not go ashore on Kwajalein. The Army was taking the island so Tillery and his group just watched the fighting from the ship. Tillery was lonely when he went overseas. They stayed in the lagoon while the fighting was taking place on Kwajalein. That is where Tillery saw his first dead soldier. While walking around the ship he came across a burial at sea. That shook him up a bit. After a week at Kwajalein they were told that they were going to Eniwetok. They were to make three assault landings on Parry, Engebi and Eniwetok.

[Annotator's Note: Allen Tillery served in the USMC as a Japanese language specialist. For the campaign in the Marshall Islands he was attached to the 3rd Battalion, 22nd Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division.] They got up around three in the morning [Annotator's Note: on the morning of 17 February 1944]. When they did they could hear the shells from the battleships passing overhead. Before Tillery knew it he was going down a rope ladder into a Higgins boat [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel, or LCVP]. They circled for a bit then started for the beach [Annotator's Note: during the landings on Engebi]. They could hear shooting and bullets flying around. They hit the beach and the ramp went down. Tillery left the landing craft and ran up to an escarpment then fell into the bottom. Fear was the motivator that forced Tillery to exit the landing craft. It was fear of being thought a coward. By the time Tillery went ashore, many of the Japanese positions in his landing zone had been cleared out. As they moved inland, jumping from one hole to the next, Tillery was called by the lieutenant. He found the officer standing next to a Japanese bunker with a large hole in it. Inside were four or five oriental people stripped to their underwear. Tillery began to question them but when they started talking back he realized that he could not understand them. Finally he understood that they were Koreans who were brought there as laborers by the Japanese. Later that afternoon they went back to the ships then made the landing on Parry Island. Tillery missed much of the fighting on Parry Island. Then he landed on Eniwetok. That was the bigger island. They hit the beach and there was fighting all the way to the middle of the island where they dug in. Tillery tried to dig in but the coral was difficult to dig in. It was a lonely feeling. There were flares going off all night and they would occasionally hear Japanese yelling taunts at them. At about five in the morning all hell broke loose. An Army unit on their right had pulled back during the night and Japanese troops had moved in. The Japanese attacked the command post but the Marines were able to stop the assault. That was one of the most frightening nights Tillery spent during the war. The next morning Tillery was told to take three Japanese prisoners out to the ship. He was taken out to the Rocky Mount [Annotator's Note: USS Rocky Mount (ACG-3)], which was the admiral's command ship. When he got to the ship the prisoners were taken away and Tillery was called in to see the admiral. The admiral asked Tillery how things were going ashore. Tillery believes that it was Admiral Harry Hill. Tillery was sent down to the mess hall for something to eat then went back to the beach. When he got back to the beach he was told that he would be going back to Pearl Harbor. When he asked about his assignment to the 22nd Marines he was told that he had only been attached to that unit for this particular operation. Tillery got on a ship and went back to Pearl Harbor.

When Allen Tillery got there [Annotator's Note: to Pearl Harbor after the Battle of Eniwetok in Febraury 1944] he was again placed in the debarkation place. He spent about a month in Honolulu during which he went into town a few times. One day a jeep pulled up in front of his tent. Tillery was taken to headquarters to see Warrant Officer S. A. Guy. Tillery was asked if he was ready to fight and he replied that he was so WO Guy sent him to Headquarters Company, 2nd Base Headquarters Battalion. This was a unit that took over after the combat troops had finished. This operation was in the Mariana Islands of Saipan, Tinian and Guam. The trip out there took a long time. When Tillery reported to the unit he met up with a couple guys he had gone to Japanese language school with. They practiced their Japanese and studied Japanese on the ship on the way over. After about two weeks at sea Tillery was landed on the beach on Tinian Island which had just been secured, mostly by the 8th Marine Regiment. Their job was to take over where the combat troops left. They were to get rid of any Japanese soldiers who were still there and to get the island ready for the B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] that would be arriving there. There was a big Japanese airfield on the north side of Tinian where Tillery's unit fought a couple times. Eventually the B-29 units arrived, which took off and bombed Tokyo from Tinian. Tillery was on Tinian for about six or seven months. He was with the intelligence section of the Island Command. About a week after he arrived the general in command, General Underwood, called Tillery's lieutenant and told him that every day or two a Seabee [Annotator's Note: a member of a naval construction battalion] was lost. The general ordered the lieutenant to take out a posse and kill the Japanese troops still on the island. Additionally, the Japanese would attack the radar stations that were set up around the island. Lieutenant Chamberlain and Colonel Metcalf of the intelligence section put together a patrol of 15 to 17 men and went out to get them. They went out in a truck. On the first patrol they ran into two armed Japanese soldiers and in the ensuing fight one of the interpreters was severely wounded. For about six or seven months they would go out two or three times per week to hunt down the Japanese soldiers. Lieutenant Dale Chamberlain, who led the group, was later killed on Tinian. There were 8,000 or 9,000 civilians on Tinian who worked in the sugar cane factories there. These civilians would provide Tillery's group with information on the Japanese troops on the island. This went on for about eight months. On one occasion Tillery saw four or five Japanese soldiers disappear into a cave. Lieutenant Chamberlain told Tillery to tell the Japanese soldiers that if they did not come out they would be blown out. After yelling into the cave for five minutes or so they heard hand grenades being armed. The Japanese soldiers all killed themselves. The Japanese soldiers would never surrender. On one occasion Tillery managed to coax 50 or 60 civilians out of a cave. They were awarded a citation by the general when they finished which stated that they had killed about 45 Japanese soldiers, captured two or three, and freed between 200 and 400 civilians. After one of the firefights they engaged in, Tillery picked up a Japanese Arisaka rifle. One of his friends also picked one up. They had a Seabee make them a box in which they shipped the rifles home. Tillery kept the rifle in his home which flooded during Hurricane Katrina. The rifle was severely damaged so one of Tillery's sons sent it to a retired Marine Corps general in Philadelphia who specializes in restoring old weapons. The general restored the rifle and it looks just like it did when it was new. Tillery was able to travel around Tinian by jeep. While near North Field, he saw huge piles of aircraft drop tanks which the fighters used for additional range while escorting the B-29s.

Allen Tillery left Tinian in late December 1944 and was sent to Guam. When he got there he was assigned to the Japanese prisoner of war camp near Agana. The camp was a large barbed wire enclosure with guard towers on the corners with machine guns in them. In the camp were about 250 Japanese prisoners. The prisoners were from Okinawa, Iwo Jima and some who had been rescued after their ships were sunk. Tillery was amazed because he had never seen so many live Japanese before. The prisoners were wearing dungarees like the Marines wore. During the early part of the war Tillery spent his time killing or helping to kill the Japanese. He hated them. War dehumanizes people. Part of Tillery's job on Tinian was to approve or disapprove the items Marines wanted to ship home. One of the most common things the Marines tried to ship home was Japanese teeth. They Marines were not allowed to ship them home. One day a Seabee came in with an ashtray. The ashtray was made from a Japanese skull, a 20 millimeter shell casing and a piece of wood. When Colonel Metcalf saw the ashtray he nearly had the man thrown in jail. When they passed a dead Japanese soldier in the jungle they would just walk past them. When they killed a Japanese soldier they would just leave them there. Tillery wonders if he would have done the same thing if he were fighting in Europe and killed a German. That is how he was when he left Tinian. A Japanese soldier did not mean anything to him. All of a sudden Tillery found himself with 250 Japanese prisoners. He was there for about six months during which time he got to know many of them. Still he was aware of the atrocities committed by the Japanese. He got to know the men as individuals. Many of them were farmers with little education. It stood out to Tillery that the Japanese prisoners never spoke about the future. They knew that if they went home they would be outcasts. Instead, they talked about going to Brazil. The prisoners prepared their own food and Tillery would frequently eat with them. He spent a lot of time with them. The only part of the war he enjoyed was when he was there. On one occasion a truck pulled up with a new prisoner. The prisoner was very tall and broad shouldered. All of the Japanese prisoners stared at the man. Tillery asked one of the prisoners who the man was and was told that he was the Japanese Babe Ruth. That is when Tillery learned that baseball was a big thing in Japan. One day in 1945 Tillery walked into the middle of the compound and was approached by a Japanese prisoner who informed him that an American had died. That is how he learned that President Roosevelt had died [Annotator's Note: President Franklin D. Roosevelt died on 12 April 1945].

One day in late 1945 Allen Tillery was called in to the office of the colonel and informed that his application for the Navy's V12 program had been approved. Tillery had applied for the program about a year earlier. The V12 program was a program in which the Navy would take a Marine or a sailor and send them to college after which that person would serve for a period of time as an officer. He was told to pack his bag and that he would be leaving the following day. Tillery thought that he would have to spend at least another year in the Pacific. He packed up, said his good byes and flew out the following morning aboard a C-54 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-54 Skymaster cargo aircraft]. On the way back they stopped at Kwajalein to refuel then continued on to Pearl Harbor. After arriving at Pearl Harbor, Tillery was put aboard a ship and headed for the United States. While Tillery was aboard ship the news was passed that the A bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. By the time Tillery landed in San Francisco the war was over. While they were trying to search out the civilians on Tinian they often used locals to reconnoiter the area first. They used one scout one day who Tillery had given his watch to. He had done this to make sure that the person who reported to him was the right person. Suddenly the scout approached Tillery with a bag in his hand. In the bag were a skull and some bones. The man dumped them on the ground then indicated to Tillery that the remains were Shigematsu [Annotator's Note: Japanese Army Major General Kiyoshi Shigematsu]. He showed a medal which Shigematsu had won during the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles as proof. One afternoon Tillery was told to dress in a clean khaki uniform and to report to headquarters at six that evening. He and the other interpreter, Corporal Kraft, arrived at the designated time. There were a number of people there. There were several naval officers from Admiral Nimitz's [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz] headquarters present. A truck pulled up and some Japanese officers got out. Then they all got into a couple busses that took them up the hill to Admiral Nimitz's headquarters. They all went into a room and were told that the Japanese officer prisoners were going to be shown aerial photographs of the destruction of Tokyo and Nagasaki in an attempt to persuade them to call it quits. Tillery's job was to interpret for the Japanese officers. It was unusual to see Japanese officers as prisoners. The prisoners were shocked. They had heard this was happening but had not believed it until then. This went on for about an hour then it was over. Tillery would occasionally interview Japanese prisoners brought in by the Navy who had been shot down. One guy who was brought in told Tillery that he had worked for a very important politician. He was picked up and Tillery never saw him again.

For Allen Tillery, returning to civilian life was not much of an adjustment because it happened so fast. He thought for sure that he would have to go to Iwo Jima and they all thought that they would have to hit the beaches of Honshu. He landed in San Francisco and was immediately sent to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. There, he was given the option of going up to the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia and studying for three months after which he would be discharged as a second lieutenant. That sounded good to him as he was only a corporal at the time. He was also offered the option of being discharged the following day. That sounded good too. He chose the first option but after speaking to his mother and his girlfriend he changed his mind and was discharged. He stayed there for two or three days then went up to Quantico to visit with his brother who was stationed there then he went home. All he could think about was going back to LSU and getting back into college. He is just glad that he survived. Tillery took full advantage of his GI Bill benefits. He returned to LSU in January 1946 and completed his undergraduate degree then went through law school all on the GI Bill. The GI Bill was a wonderful thing. When Tillery left the Marine Corps and turned in his rifle he never wanted to touch a weapon again and he never did. He never wanted to hurt anything. The war was such a waste. Tillery saw the Japanese in a different way than most Marines. He killed several of them but also got to know many of them and they did not want the war any more than he did. Tillery believes that it is important for students to study World War 2. Many young people know nothing about it. Museums are very important. When he thinks about war he thinks about death. He saw a lot of dead soldiers, mostly Japanese. Unfortunately, being ready for war seems to be a necessity. To future generations Tillery says to be prepared. Tillery is not sure that the war changed him other than the hatred of war he has now. He is glad he survived. Lieutenant Chamberlain died in a night ambush. So did many others he knew in the Pacific and in Europe.