Bruce McCormick was in Richmond, Virginia. They had to see if they were qualified medical-wise [Annotator's Note: for induction into the military]. They were standing in line and the guy that was letting them in had an Army stamp in one hand and a Navy stamp in the other. The guy in front of him went into the Army. And then he got a stamp for the Navy. He was sent to boot camp in Maryland. It taught him a lot. He was strong enough to handle the situations during his service. Some of them got malaria [Annotator's Note: disease caused by a parasite that commonly infects a certain type of mosquito which feeds on humans]. Everybody got homesick. When he finished boot camp he went to Mobile, Alabama where they commissioned the USS Sitka (APA-113), named after Sitka, Alaska. He was an electrician in engineering, and he was unrated. They needed someone in the First Division. There were 29 boats that needed handling. He became a coxswain [Annotator's Note: person in charge of a small boat and its crew]. His job was to see that the troops got safely to shore on their Higgins boats [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat]. They took the Higgins boat inside an LCM [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Mechanized] and then put in on the hatch. He took his watches in the engine room as an electrician. Every once in a while he would do mess cooking. He did not get to finish school until later in the Navy. Bieng unrated, they could use him wherever they wanted. Many times overseas they had to share their food during island hopping [Annotator's Note: a military strategy employed by the Allies in the Pacific War against the Empire of Japan during World War 2 that bypassed heavily fortified enemy islands instead of trying to capture every island in sequence en route to a final target]. He was a good swimmer. He had to be careful on the beach. If they were recovering mines, after they located them they had to call them in and the recovery team would come in and blow them up. They got torn up by coral reefs. It was rough. There were a lot of casualties there from previous battles. He did not get many stars on his ribbon because he did not do the shooting and the killing, he did the saving. They provided the troops the best they knew how and replaced the troops when they were ready to come back. Sometimes they would experience losing men, whole boatloads, from the underwater mines, or from Japanese submarines sinking them. After McCormick boarded the Sitka in Mobile, they went to Norfolk [Annotator’s Note: Norfolk, Virginia]. They installed five inch 38s [Annotator's Note: five inch, 38 caliber naval gun] fore [Annotator's Note: the forward part of a boat or ship] and aft [Annotator's Note: the rear of a boat or ship] and 40mms [Annotator's Note: Bofors 40mm antiaircraft automatic cannon]. He went to TAD [Annotator’s Note: temporary duty] to Little Creek [Annotator's Note: now Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek – Fort Story in Little Creek, Virginia] for amphibious training. He qualified for the trident. Little Creek, Virginia, and Coronado, California were the only two places for Navy SEAL [Annotator's Note: Sea, Air, and Land or SEAL; United States Navy special operations force] training. They did not send him to California because he had to go back to his ship. This training saved his life on the beaches in China. North of Manchuria [Annotator's Note: Manchuria is an exonym for a historical and geographic region of Russia and China in Northeast Asia] they were freezing to death and down south they could fry an egg outside. He loved most China out of all the places he had been. He went back to Japan after the war. His job took him to Europe. In 1944, he had gone through a lot. He had also been through a lot in Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953].

Bruce McCormick was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania and lived there until 1939 when they moved to Chesapeake, Virginia. He was born in 1926. He had six brothers and one sister. He was the oldest. His father worked for his uncle who had a business in Worcester, Mass [Annotator's Note: Worcester, Massachusetts]. His mother took care of them. It was hard times [Annotator's Note: he is referring to the Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States]. His brothers all went out on their own and got married. His parents have passed away. All five brothers were in the Navy. Three are deceased and the others are in Washington state. They work for Boeing [Annotator's Note: Boeing Company]. It was a big McCormick family. Their mother washed them all in a washtub. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks McCormick where he was when he learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] He was at home. The draft got him in 1944. He was working for the government at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Virginia. He was glad to get it under his belt. The Navy drafted him and he stayed in. He re-enlisted two or three times.

Bruce McCormick had the opportunity to go to Little Creek [Annotator's Note: now Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek – Fort Story in Little Creek, Virginia] for more training. They had Thompson subs [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber Thompson submachine gun]. They had training in beach obstacles. It was hands-on when he was in China. They went to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana]. The old man [Annotator's Note: slang term for the captain of a ship or commander of a unit] wanted his own launch [Annotator's Note: a small motor boat generally used for short trips]. They went down the Mississippi [Annotator's Note: Mississippi River]. They got their fantail stuck in the mud. He went and looked at the fantail and there were water buffalo licking off their rudder. To get off the mud they had to put their davit [Annotator's Note: A davit is any of various crane-like devices used on a ship for supporting, raising, and lowering equipment such as boats and anchors. Davit systems are most often used to lower an emergency lifeboat to the embarkation level to be boarded] boats over the side, tie off on them and pull themselves out that way. After that, they went to Galveston [Annotator's Note: Galveston, Texas] to a boat shop. Then they went back to Norfolk [Annotator's Note: Norfolk, Virginia] and had the guns put on. Then they went through the Panama Canal [Annotator's Note: Manmade canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in between North and South America]. He made four trips through there. After they went through the Panama Canal they were in enemy waters. They were threatened by a Japanese sub. They had to go down to Australia then go up. When they were in the shipyard a train pulled up and had the 6th Marine Division out of Quantico [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Virginia]. They jumped out of the train and got on their ship. They were supposed to go to Midway [Annotator's Note: Midway Atoll, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands] and invade until they found out the Japanese had already been defeated there. Then, they went to the Philippines. They had the death march, Bataan [Annotator's Note: the forced march of 60,000 to 80,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war carried out by the Imperial Japanese Army in April 1942]. They had a lot of prisoners helping them unload and load the ship there. The march was a bad thing. They took the troops in by Higgins boats [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat]. He was a coxswain [Annotator's Note: person in charge of a small boat and its crew]. They cracked up a few of them. They were not sturdy boats, but they served their purpose. They took a lot of guys to Europe. Some came back and some did not make it back.

Bruce McCormick was in a convoy when the war ended. The fleets mustered in the Philipines. Then they got together to go to Japan for the invasion. They had a job and they did what they were told. After the fact, they found out that if the bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] had not gone off, it would have been devastating. When they got in there they had to wait for the USS Missouri (BB-63) to sign the peace treaty. They went into Yokohama [Annotator's Note: Yokohama, Japan]. They went in for a tour and the town was as flat as a floor. Where they tied up, the pier was intact and the warehouses were intact, but just on the other side, everything else was burned out and flat as the deck. He found out later that when Doolittle [Annotator's Note: then US Army Air Forces Colonel, later US Air Force General, James H. Doolittle] went in there he went in during typhoon season. He took incendiary bombs and he went in there and burned the whole town out. The Japanese tried to climb into the sewers to escape, but it burned them all up. It was the same when he went to Saipan. They used flamethrowers, but they do not do that anymore. He put a lot of time into the Philippines, Luzon, and Manilla. They took some replacements in there. Then they went to Ulithi [Annotator's Note: Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands], an island in the South Pacific that was used for refueling. They experienced fire from the shore and then the firing stopped. They put up white flags because a heavy cruiser came up. Then they dropped the Marines off in there. He and his friend Tom Brady were not supposed to leave the sight of the ship but Brady was a Master at Arms on the ship. The Japanese knew they had to have anything that showed authority. Brady had a badge. They went in the hills looking for the White Russians, the girls. They spent a little time in there and they almost got captured. They kept them hidden in there. Then, a couple of other guys showed up. He and Brady had their cognac and vodka and they put them in the rickshaw and the woman told the rickshaw driver where to take them. They went through two cemeteries to get back to the main road. Some of the Marines were still up in the mountains. They had a star on the door so they found the Americans. It was the same guys they brought there. He climbed into the back of the truck, but Brady was intoxicated. The Marines had to pick him up and toss him in the back. They got through security on the deck. There was a rope up because someone had gotten in and decapitated the security guard. Those were the good times.] They went back to Luzon and picked up American troops and took them home. The best part was they had a lot of Army nurses on board. When they landed in Seattle [Annotator's Note: Seattle, Washington] and all the girls were getting off, all the soldiers flocked to watch. The ship was sitting tilted. The old man [Annotator's Note: slang term for the captain of a ship] told them the men needed to move to the other side to balance the boat.

Bruce McCormick went to China. He was non-rated. He asked his Division officer if he could take a test to get Third Class. The old man [Annotator's Note: slang term for the captian of a ship] said they were there it fight a war, not to get rated. They were there to get Chiang Kai-shek's [Annotator's Note: Former President of the Republic of China] army out of Indo-China. They were in trouble because the Japanese were going in there. They were fighting the Communist Chinese like crazy. They were overwhelmed. They wanted their people out of there. McCormick's crew was designated to get the people out of there. They took them to Manchuria [Annotator's Note: Manchuria is an exonym for a historical and geographic region of Russia and China in Northeast Asia] through Indo-French Vietnam. They were in five places in China. They could see the Great Wall of China [Annotator's Note: The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against various nomadic groups from the Eurasian Steppe]. They went to another island after that. They did not have troops or food. The old man radioed a merchant ship to see if they had food. They did. They took their boats and went over there. They loaded the LCVPs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat] up with lamb. Then they went back to the ship, but a storm started and they could not bring the boat aboard. It was too rough. The next morning the First and Second Division went to pick the boat up and all the meat was floating in the boat. They had to get the water out. They processed the meat and the men would go through the chow line baaing like sheep. That was the last time they went to China then they returned to the United States.

Bruce McCormick returned to Camp Pendleton [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California] in 1946. He went into the Reserves. He had a friend who served on the USS Missouri (BB-63) who said they should join the Reserves. He had an apprenticeship. He went from the Reserves up to First Class. When he went aboard the USS Missouri he was an electrician. After that, he transferred to the Air Reserves and got with a squadron. He changed from electrician to radioman then later his rate changed to Anti-submarine Warfare Technician. When he got into the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953], he was an anti-submarine warfare aircrew combat trainer. He went aboard the USS Kula Gulf (CVE-108). He flew off her as a trainer teaching ASW [Annotator's Note: Anti-Submarine Warfare]. Then, during the latter part of Korea, he went aboard the USS Saipan (CVL-48) and did similar things. He trained crewmen and flew over the two carriers. Then Vietnam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975] came along. He went to several NATO [Annotator's Note: North Atlantic Treaty Organization] exercises out of Norfolk [Annotator's Note: Norfolk, Virginia]. It was extensive training. He did a lot of flying training the men. Then he went from fixed-wing to helicopter ASW. He volunteered through the reserve program. His last time in Vietnam, he had a lot of flying and rockets. He ended up in Chelsea Naval Hospital in Boston [Annotator's Note: Boston, Massachusetts] because his lung collapsed. He stayed active. He went back to his squadron. One year from that day, he ended up in Portsmouth Hosptial [Annotator's Note: now Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, formerly Naval Hospital Portsmouth, and originally Norfolk Naval Hospital; Portsmouth, Virginia]. They had to take his lung out and patch him up. He retired in 1968. He went back into civil service. He was First Class. He went up for E-9 Chief [Annotator's Note: the highest enlisted pay grade in the Navy or Coast Guard], but he did not get it. He did well in the civil service as an electronics aircraft examiner. he retired as a GS-13 [Annotator's Note: a United States federal government employee pay grade]. He had an office in Atsugi [Annotator's Note: Atsugi, Japan]. There was a carrier there and they would have plane problems. He would have the Japanese work on the planes. He had an office in Naples [Annotator's Note: Naples, Italy]. He did the same thing there. He became a pilot. He had his own airplane. He went to a couple schools. He is part of the experimental aircraft group [Annotator's Note: Experimental Aircraft Association or EAA]. It was rewarding coming back from the war. The payoff was he became a minister. He had three churches. He worked with youth groups. He lost his wife after 65 years.

Bruce McCormick was in the military for a long time. A lot of his friends who were soldiers in Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953] went up north with improper equipment and clothing. They came back home with frozen feet, arms, and legs. There was not a big change. Things were still the same. During Vietnam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975], guys came back and you never knew who they were. He did a few liberties [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] with them. To see a country after the Japanese had torn it a part was something. That is what he remembers. The mutilation that the Japanese did to the Chinese women was unbearable. He saw the Japanese and what they did. He had a bad feeling about the Japanese. He met a professor about a flag. He went to Atsugi and he got to know who the Japanese really were. The hatred he had for the Japanese went away after the war when he bacame a Minister. The Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] took him thorugh a lot of good memories and sad memories. He saw the Japanese hiding in the caves and where they were burned out of the caves. It was realistic. When he got to the CBI [Annotator's Note: China-Burma-India Theater] part he knew what he was seeing. When he got to the end of the tour it all came back. During the period when Scouts and Raiders [Annotator's Note: United States naval special warfare force during World War 2] were commissioned in 1942 in Europe they worked themselves into Japan. There were examples of the mule division. He had a friend who had been one of them. They would take the mules through to fight the Japanese. When they left, there was nobody to take care of the mules and they had to shoot them. New Orleans is growing. He has been in New Orleans three times. He spent some time at school in Key West [Annotator's Note: Key West, Florida]. He met a retired Navy SEAL [Annotator's Note: Sea, Air, and Land; United States naval special warfare force] who was amazed at what the Scouts and Raiders did. They wanted to decorate him in Little Creek, Virginia. They wanted to acknowledge him as a SEAL. It was a big deal. There were 40 or 50 Navy SEALs that came up and shook his hand. After 60 years they found him. Little Creek put up a monument of one of the men in their suits and flippers. The city of Chesapeake [Annotator's Note: Chesapeake, Virginia]. Had a ceremony for him. They have bricks with name on them. The Daughters of the Revolution represented him and had his name put on one.