Arthur McHardy was born Angus, Scotland in October 1924. He vaguely recalls growing up in Scotland. He was only five [Annotator's Note: when he immigrated to the United States]. He had to get immunized to come to the United States and he climbed a tree to get away from the doctor. He came to the United States in 1930 through New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. He remembers people being examined. This was the height of the Great Depression. His dad got a job making gears for automobiles. [Annotator's Note: There is a lot of static in the audio.] They did not eat well but they never accepted any handouts. McHardy went through high school but enlisted in the Marine Corps before graduating. After leaving the service, he returned to get his diploma. He was accepted into the Marines in December 1942 but was not sworn in for about a month. McHardy and his sisters were leaving a movie and heard people talking about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He thought he would be going to war. The guys he knew were as anxious to get in the service as he was. He was anxious to be a Marine. He was impressed by the Guadalcanal campaign [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands] and the 1st Marine Division.

Arthur McHardy went by train from Detroit [Annotator's Note: Detroit, Michigan] to San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California] for Marine Corps basic training. They ate at restaurants along the way. It was a long trip. The Drill Instructors got his attention real fast. The first week was rough. They got their shots. He remembers sitting on a curb wondering what he had gotten into. McHardy held up well after that first week. The Drill Instructors swore at them, gave them odd jobs, made them fall out in the middle of the night. It was good training. There were three different locations [Annotator's Note: points of origin] in his Platoon 83; Colorado, Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois], and Detroit. There were about 60 of them. Each morning before chow, they would do calisthenics with their rifles. They would eat and then drill. He trained with the M1 rifle [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand]. It was heavy but he handled it well. He qualified as a sharpshooter. [Annotator's Note: A telephone rings and the tape cuts away.]

After Marine Corps boot camp, Arthur McHardy was sent to Seattle, Washington to a Navy yard as an MP [Annotator's Note: military police]. He wanted to get into the real stuff and not do guard duty. He was then sent to the Aleutian Islands [Annotator's Note: Alaska] aboard a Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship]. They had five bunks and it was putrid due to guys throwing up. The toilets were troughs with sea water up on the deck. He went to Dutch Harbor [Annotator's Note: Dutch Harbor, Alaska] where he took a hot shower and used a whole bar of soap. That was late March into early April and there was snow. There are no trees or bushes, just tundra. They were starting to build Quonset huts [Annotator's Note: prefabricated metal building] there. He and some others found some sheet metal and made a toboggan. He was mostly working as Military Police. Sometimes he stood by docked ships to keep men from getting off. His best buddy looked after him and kept him out of trouble. He wrote his family. His mother saved all of his letters. Receiving mail meant a lot to him. That was what kept them going. There was nothing to do. He spent 13 months there. Some of the Army guys had been there for a couple of years and were "going Asiatic", losing it and out of it.

After being stationed in the Aleutian Islands [Annotator's Note: Alaska], Arthur McHardy was sent to Newport, Rhode Island. Men from the 1st Marine Division who had been on Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands] were there and told him stories. Another man from 2nd Marine Division had a nick in his ear and a scar under his eye from a sniper round. McHardy made a lot of good buddies there and met a lot of nice girls. He was mainly doing guard duty. He then went to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina for about a month. Replacement units were being formed for an invasion of Japan. He went to Camp Pendleton [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California] for a month of training. President Harry Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States] decided to drop the bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] while McHardy was on the way to Guam [Annotator's Note: Gusm, Mariana Islands]. They were all pretty relieved. There were six Marine Divisions that were going to be the bridgehead [Annotator's Note: during the planned invasion of Japan]. The Japanese were not going to surrender, and it would have been a real slaughter. Training at Pendleton had mostly been for ground warfare like digging foxholes and sharpening their rifle experiences. After he landed in Guam, he was in the 1st Military Police Battalion, 1st Marine Division. He was sent to Tientsin, China. He was in what was called the Japanese Concession in pane and paper houses. One building had little swimming pools that the Japanese used after they had showered. The Marines used them as baths. McHardy did not like Chinese food and on liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] would order steak and eggs.

[Annotator's Note: Arthur McHardy was stationed in Tientsin, China with the 1st Marine Division.] He was sent to guard a railroad station by himself. A Japanese sergeant got off a train with two swords. McHardy relieved him of his swords and sent him off. He was not to disarm them yet, there were 250,000 Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] there still. The Sergeant of the Guard asked him where he got the swords. When McHardy told him, he told him to give him one of the swords or he would turn him in. There were some civilians walking around. McHardy could not tell the Chinese from the Japanese, but the Chinese would spot them and say "booha" which means "no good." McHardy had no problems with them. He met a white, Russian girl and her mother at the train station. He made a date with the girl for the next day but could not find where she lived. He was in China for five or six months during the winter. He would travel by rickshaw. The Chinese were grateful for his presence. They would take tours out to the Great Wall. The Chinese Red Army started moving in and would shoot at them. He got to go up to Beijing [Annotator's Note: Beijing, China] and went through the Forbidden City.

Arthur McHardy returned to the United States through San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. He was disappointed there was no band playing. It was nice to be back home. He was sent to Great Lakes, Illinois for his discharge. In his 38 months, he had two furloughs [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. His family was delirious to see him. McHardy's Marine Corps service taught him to never leave a job undone and he had a successful life. He was only five when he immigrated to the United States and was barely 18 when he went into the Marines, so he was Americanized. He feels kids today should serve a year in the service. He thinks The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] is important. He gained weight in the service. He thinks his war service did him a lot of good. He wants future Americans to keep America and the Armed Services strong. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him to explain his sea bag. It shows the places he went. He also shows two swords he brought home as souvenirs.]