Carl Trim was born in Greenville, Mississippi in September 1926. His parents divorced soon after and Trim and his brother were moved to Little Rock, Arkansas and placed in an orphanage until their mother was able to support them financially. Trim says he lived a normal "Great Depression era childhood." He lived in a two bedroom apartment with his mother, brother, and grandmother and attended Central High School in Little Rock. He says his family was "pore" which is two steps below poor but so was everyone else at the time. Trim's mother remarried in 1939 and Trim's stepfather made sure that he and his brother were informed about the outside world around them. Trim also was required to bring newspaper cutouts of current events to school and read them to the class, so he was aware of Hitler's [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] rise to power during the late 1930s. Also, Trim says he heard news out of Asia at this time, as well, including the Rape of Nanjing [Annotator's Note: Nanjing or Nanking, China] and the sinking of the USS Panay. He recalls the national mood of isolationism. Trim had just returned from church on the morning of 7 December 1941 when he heard the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]. He says he sat in silence listening to the news and knew the country was facing tremendous change. To prepare him for military service, Trim's stepfather enrolled him at the Columbia Military Academy for one year during his high school career. Trim says he bought saving stamps and war bonds to aid in the war effort. He also worked at Kroger to make extra money for himself. Trim left high school during his senior year in hopes of joining the Marines only to find that his local recruiting station was no longer accepting Marine recruits. He went down the hall of the recruiting office and volunteered for service in the Navy. Trim's brother was serving in the Army in Europe and he figured he had to join to do his part as well.

After his induction in Little Rock [Annotator's Note: Little Rock, Arkansas], Carl Trim was sent to Farragut, Idaho for basic training. Trim jokes that the training center was picked by Mrs. Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt] because there were no women for hundreds of miles around them. After eight weeks of basic training, Trim was sent to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] to board the carrier USS Saratoga (CV-3) to await transport overseas and assignment to a ship. Upon arriving at Pearl Harbor, Trim checked into the Navy replacement depot and requested an assignment aboard a PT boat [Annotator's Note: motor torpedo boat] only to find that all the PT boats had left Hawaii for service further in the Pacific. Wanting to be on a small ship, Trim settled for an assignment on board the submarine chaser USS SC-513 [Annotator's Note: The interviewee stops the interview to silence his cell phone at 0:17:28.000.] Trim says the crew consisted of 25 men and four or five officers living in close quarters when out on sea patrols for 30 days at a time. He says the ship was so small and light that when the biggest guns on board were fired, the ship would go off course by two degrees. According to Trim, the ships were designed to chase subs and intercept them while submerged. Had they met a sub head on, they would have lost that fight. The crew was assigned to four-hour, rotating shifts with one hour each on wheel, sonar, radar, and bridge duty. The ship was headquartered at Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] but would often stop at various islands to be replenished after 30 days at sea. When not hunting Japanese subs, Trim says his ship was often assigned to escort American subs out to sea. Trim says he is thankful that submarine warfare had begun to decrease by the time he entered the Navy. His ship only drew seven feet of water which allowed for any potential enemy torpedo to go safely beneath the hull of the ship. He says one big problem on board ship was cooking and eating in rough seas as the light wooden hulled ship would be tossed around in the surf. Trim says duty was both fascinating and boring; often operating under radio silence, the camaraderie on the ship was usually very high.

Carl Trim says the tensest time on any trip at sea was when the captain would call everyone to general quarters [Annotator's Note: also referred to as "battle stations"]. If the radar pinged, everyone would be called to quarters until it would be determined that the ping was a whale or a school of fish and not an enemy submarine. While in port at an unknown island, Trim says a new guy in the crew, Bruner [Annotator's Note: unable to verify identity], fell overboard and was "cut him to ribbons" by the ship's [Annotator's Note: USS SC-513] propellers. Trim recalled how one time he was able to get fresh fruit and enjoyed it very much; the rest of the time he and the crew ate out of cans. When news of VE-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945] reached Trim in the Pacific, he says he was relieved that his brother was finally out of harm's way and began to wonder when his victory day would come. One day in late July 1945, Trim recalls SC-513 being at sea surrounded by several other ships, including carriers and battleships. A captain's barge pulled alongside Trim's ship and requested his captain and yeoman come aboard. When the pair returned, Trim learned that they had met with Admiral Nimitz [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Sr., Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet] who informed them that the war would soon be over thanks to an unknown "special weapon." A few days later, news of the atomic bombing reached Trim, and he knew he would be going home soon. The ship returned to Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] and continued to patrol in blackout conditions and under radio silence until the threat of subs was eliminated. Trim says they patrolled until November 1945 from which time they completed harbor patrols at Kaneohe, Oahu [Annotator's Note: Kaneohe, Oahu, Hawaii]. Trim arrived in the United States in December 1945 and the crew decommissioned their ship. He was married while home on furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] in January 1946. He was discharged in May 1946 with the rank of Coxswain or Boatswain's Mate 3rd Class.

Carl Trim did not find it hard to adjust to civilian life. He attended college, while his wife worked. In 1948, Trim joined the Army and attended officer candidate school before graduating and deploying to Korea in 1950. In 1951, he returned home after 13 months and remained in the Army for over 20 years. Trim's most memorable experience is when he heard about the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. He fought because he felt a need to go and everyone else were going as well. World War 2 changed his life because he was able to go to school on the G.I. Bill. He believed America changed because of the advancement in technology from World War 2.