Calvin B. Moore was born in December 1923 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He had eight brothers and sisters. His father was a brick mason during the Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s]. Moore left Chattanooga looking for work that would pay more money. He worked after school as a paper boy. He started that when he was ten and did that for six years before leaving town. He and his cousin moved to Detroit [Annotator's Note: Detroit, Michigan]. He worked as a painter's assistant, window washer, and doing whatever he could find. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Moore if he recalls where he was when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] Moore was in a barbershop when that happened. Just before that, he returned to Chattanooga. One of his old teachers told him that the Marine Corps was accepting African-Americans now. He decided to join the Marines. His father was a kind of a politician as far as a Black [Annotator's Note: African-American] politician could go. If they went too far in politics, they did not get work. His father did not want him to join the Marines. Moore went back to Detroit and made a voluntary induction [Annotator's Note: volunteered to be drafted] and was put into the Marines. He was called up on 3 June 1943. The Pacific war was really just getting started. He boarded USS LST-123 out of boot camp in September 1943. He attended his sister's funeral in Tennessee first before leaving and then returned to Camp Lejeune [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina]. His company was on the parade field when he returned. He fell in as the band started playing. They marched off and got on a troop train to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana]. They went into Algiers [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Algiers in New Orleans, Louisiana]. Moore was in sick bay for three days. He was issued two I.D. cards. His job was cleaning the restrooms. He would do that in the morning and then have liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] the rest of the day.

When Calvin Moore arrived at Camp Lejeune [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina], there was no base for them [Annotator's Note: the African-American recruits]. Montford Point [Annotator's Note: Camp Montford Point in Jacksonville, North Carolina] was an area of the base that was undeveloped swamp with no buildings. They were issued tents, four or five men to each, with lumber for floors. The mosquitos were bad. They got screens and eventually mosquito nets. Some men found it difficult to be away from home. Moore was kind of a loner all his life. Chattanooga [Annotator's Note: his hometown, Chattanooga, Tennessee] was a mountainous area and he went alone into them a lot. His Marine Corps service started out racist. Two White [Annotator's Note: Caucasian] Marines picked up Moore and two others at Camp Lejeune. One of them told them they were going to catch hell from racism, but they should stick it out. Being from the South, Moore expected it. Their officers were White, and one told them he did not like them [Annotator's Note: African-Americans] but was assigned a job to teach them things. They met all kinds. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Moore how it felt to hear that as the first thing in the Marines.] When Moore got settled, he met just about all of his buddies from high school. In Chattanooga, high school started in tenth grade. In the South at that time, when you were 14 or 15 and were strong enough, you worked. He rolled bales of cotton there. The government was buying and storing rubber. He was working as a man. He completed boot camp in September 1943. There was no enjoyment in boot camp. You did what you were told. After boot camp, some went to specialty training. Moore went to the Pacific.

Calvin Moore left boot camp in September 1943. He attended his sister's funeral and returned in time to be shipped out to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Algiers in New Orleans, Louisiana]. Then he went to Panama. He was assigned to the 10th Depot Company [Annotator's Note: 10th Marine Depot Company] in Camp Lejeune [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina]. The company handled supplies like ammunition and gasoline for the Marine Corps. He trained in Panama in the jungle for three or four weeks. Then they boarded USS LST-123. It had an LCT [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Tank] chained to it. Moore slept on the deck because it got hot down in the ship. Once he got seasick. They lost one guy who got seasick, who was hanging over the rail and fell over. In rough waves, the LST could come all the way out of the water. They were all alone, the convoys would leave them behind. A Japanese ship came along, so the captain cut power and had the Marines get their rifles. He told them not to shoot or make noise. They drifted like that and the other ship finally left. They think the LCT being chained to the top confused the Japanese as to what kind of ship it was. They went to New Caledonia [Annotator's Note: New Caledonia, Overseas France] in January [Annotator's Note: January 1944]. They stopped at a lot of small islands on the way. They went ashore and met up with the 9th Depot Company [Annotator's Note: 9th Marine Depot Company] before going to New Caledonia. They did not stay at any one island more than three months at a time.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Calvin Moore which Pacific islands stand out to him the most.] Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan] is the top. His memory is fading, but Peleliu [Annotator's Note: Peleliu, Palau] stands out too. He started driving trucks at Peleliu. The Blacks [Annotator's Note: African-American Marines] would load the trucks and Whites [Annotator's Note: Caucasian Marines] would drive them. Some of the guys got to where they just did not give a damn and were not cautious. They would load the ammunition that was stamped "do not drop" by throwing it up to the truck. The White truck drivers started complaining about that and said to let the Blacks drive the trucks. So they did. They worked two days on and one day off. The Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] launched a shell right in front of their truck once. The driver could not stop and ran into the crater. Moore was bleeding from his hand. A piece of shrapnel had hit his watch and gone into his arm, just enough for a wound. The corpsman took care of it with sulfa powder. He did not even think about getting a Purple Heart [Annotator's Note: the Purple Heart Medal is an award bestowed upon a United States service member who has been wounded as a result of combat actions against an armed enemy] for that. It was on Peleliu and was artillery fire. Once the Japs dropped a bomb on a gasoline dump on another island. He was stacking gasoline drums into pyramids. Moore was talking to a buddy he had known from before the war. They were at the base of the stacked drum. They were using the gasoline in their Zippos [Annotator's Note: brand of cigarette lighter]. Moore was playing with the lighter and it lit. He went to put it out, but the ground was covered with gasoline. During that, a shell hit nearby and a soldier pointed his gun at Moore and called for a guard. They came over, took Moore's name and put him back to work. He had to report to his captain in the morning and told him he lit a cigarette without thinking. The guard was just a guy who did not like him. The captain told the sergeant of the guard to take his weapon and remove him from guard duty. Moore says God did not want him to go at that time [Annotator's Note: because he could have accidentally set off the whole gasoline dump].

Calvin Moore went to one place where a guy hit him with an axe. They were cutting black mahogany trees. He does not recall the island. They were cutting them for the captain for the ship to be used as dunnage [Annotator's Note: material used to hold cargo in place]. They knew better than that. The men were from 17 to 38 years old, from high school to doctors and dentists in their company [Annotator's Note: 10th Marine Depot Company]. That was very expensive wood, they could have used coconut trees. Moore continued to experience racism in the Pacific. He was on the rifle range and the White [Annotator's Note: Caucasian] instructor was on him about how he was shooting the M1 [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand]. Moore told him that one day, it might be him backing the instructor up. Moore would rather have been in a combat unit. They were in the most dangerous zone, he worked in a gasoline dump that was bombed [Annotator's Note: on Peleliu, Palau]. They were camped close by and the flames went over their tents. He was looking up at fire. He ran out and was tripping on the tent ropes. There were caves where people were buried in urns. They would take a flamethrower [Annotator's Note: ranged incendiary device that projects a controllable jet of fire] and shoot into the door, burning up the oxygen. Moore ran to one for cover, but the door was blocked. This was on Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan]. He did not have a lot of interactions with the local populations. On one island there were women being taken from one spot to another. They recognized two Japanese men in with them. Those guys [Annotator's Note: the White American troops there] shot all of the women to get those two men. They dared Moore and his men to talk about it. Moore would not have done that. He saw horrible things. At one camp, there was a garden and they were happy they would have dinner. They were moved out of there that same day and set up in a leprosy [Annotator's Note: contagious skin disease] camp. All they could do was move. They went in on a Higgins boat [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat], found a level spot and then found out it was a leprosy camp.

Calvin Moore was on Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan] when the Japanese surrendered. They were running bets that the war was ending, they had a lottery. They dropped the bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. He found out later that they had assembled for the invasion of Japan. They stayed on that beach for two weeks. He was then sent to Hawaii and then back to the United States. Moore was glad the bombs ended the war. He did not know really know what the bomb was about, it was just another bomb. He had taken part in the invasions of many of the islands, at least six of them in the Pacific. Japan was just going to be one more. Moore came home right away. He went to Hawaii for a little while. He took a ship to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] then in December 1945 he was discharged. He went into the Reserves automatically because he had been a volunteer.

Calvin Moore expected things to be different at home after the war. He went to Camp Pendleton [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California] briefly and boarded a train to North Carolina. In Kansas, the trained was stopped so a restaurant could feed the troops. They sat down and waited. They got no food and started asking what was going on. The owner told them that the wait staff would not serve Black [Annotator's Note: African-American] men, but he used "the N-word" [Annotator's Note: a derogatory term for Black people]. They were hungry, there was no food on the train itself. The owner did not agree with his staff but could not make them feed them. They told him they would serve it themselves. They did that. It happened again later too. Moore ordered some drinks and was told his money could not be used there as they did not serve Blacks. He got back on the train. Moore was discharged at Lejeune [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina]. He had made Corporal once but had a stripe taken for smoking in a fuel dump. He was in the Reserves but was never called to duty.

Calvin Moore used his G.I. Bill to buy a house and go to school. The G.I. Bill was important to post World War 2 America. He went to tailoring school and he would not have been able to do that without it. His transition to civilian life was smooth because he knew what he wanted to and had the G.I. Bill to help him out. His most memorable war experience was when his truck ran into a shell crater [Annotator's Note: after being shelled on Peleliu, Palau]. Moore decided to serve because the country was attacked, and able bodied men were called to defend it. He called himself a man and thought he should do his part. He thinks his life would have been totally different without the war. He became a tailor. He would have followed his sister's advice for him to be a social worker instead. He did not consider staying in the Marine Corps but he did join the Marine Corps League [Annotator's Note: congressionally chartered United States Marine Corps related veterans' organization in the United States] eventually and was very active. Moore cannot really say what it means to have been one of the first Blacks [Annotator's Note: African-American] in the Marine Corps. He is glad it happened, and he would do it again. World War 2 made a lot of changes to America. It was the beginning of major changes for Black people. It made a lot of people think about what was going on [Annotator's Note: in the country regarding race]. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Moore if he feels it is important for The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana to teach about the war.] Moore feels it is very important. If it is not taught and known, things repeat themselves. We do not need a repeat of the past. It is a reminder of the changes that are important for the future.