David Harvey was born in September 1926. [Annotator's Note: Harvey says he was born "around here" but the town name is unintelligible. Later, the interviewer says it is Mound, Louisiana.] He had a good time growing up. During the Depression, they were sharecroppers. In 1939, his family went on a government program. There was a commissary and doctor and breeding animals for your livestock. They moved to East Carroll Parish [Annotator's Note: East Carroll Parish, Louisiana]. He had come back from hunting when he found out about Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941, Hawaii]. He waited until he finished high school then joined the Navy in 1944. At that time, people were standing in lines, signing up to help the country. He knew he was going sooner or later because of the draft. He signed up for the Naval Reserves for six months plus duration [Annotator's Note: the duration of the war plus six months] and went to San Diego, California in 1944. He was assigned to a destroyer [Annotator's Note: USS McKee (DD-575)] after boot camp. He had a five-day leave home. He was then assigned to the Pacific in Destroyer Squadron 25 and went to join Halsey [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral William Frederick Halsey Jr.] and Admiral Mitscher [Annotator's Note: US Navy Admiral Marc Andrew "Pete" Mitscher]. He was part of the invasions of Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan], Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Iwo Jima, Japan], and Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan]. They were on picket duty a lot of times, about 75 miles from the fleet to pick up the suicide planes [Annotator's Note: Kamikazes] coming in. Sometimes they would shoot them all down. They were hard to get rid of. Each aircraft carrier had three escorts; two on the sides and one at the rear. The two on the sides were mainly to take torpedoes. They would also pick up any pilots that could not land and went down in the water. One man on board was an Olympic swimmer. He would dive off and carry the men life jackets. He saved 14 pilots.

David Harvey would be assigned liberty depending on what side of the ship he was on, port or starboard. Passes were given out one half of the ship at a time. He thinks he had the best skipper [Annotator's Note: US Navy Commander Russell Bowes Allen] in the Navy. They only lost one man. Harvey went through two wars and did not get a scratch. He was a seaman first class on the deck force. They kept it clean and painted and stood guard on the bridge. In his last six months on the ship, he joined the gunner's mates. Their main battery was the five inch 38 [Annotator's Note: Five-Inch, 38 caliber gun]. They had 40mm guns [Annotators Note; Bofors 40mm antiaircraft autocannon], 21 inch torpedoes, and 300 pound depth charges. On the side of the ship was a K-Gun [Annotator's Note: depth charge projector] that the depth charge was placed into. It was hard for submarines to get through the depth charges, but they did get through. He saw several torpedoes headed their way. He watched them go under his ship three different times and that kind of worked on him. The aircraft carriers were floating powder magazines. His ship was the same way. Battleships had 18 inch armor plate that went around the vital parts. The Japanese figured if they could not get them from underwater, they would get them from the top and started the kamikazes.

David Harvey engaged kamikazes at Okinawa, Tokyo, and Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Japan]. The skipper [Annotator's Note: US Navy Commander Russell Bowes Allen was the commanding officer, or skipper, of the USS McKee (DD-575) during the entire time Harvey served aboard it] would be informed something was on the way. He would order battle stations. Harvey would sit and wait and hope the combat air patrol would take care of them. At the start, the pilots [Annotator's Note: the kamikaze pilots] were gung-ho and had just enough training to get to the ship. You could tell a lot of times their nerves would give out and they would turn away. They were often shot down then. You could see up to 200 men of war on the horizon, which is eight miles wide. They were scattered over 100 miles of ocean. They had a set plan for the day set by the admiral to keep on a zig-zag [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver] course. Their formation had the aircraft carriers USS Essex (CV-9), USS Lexington (CV-2), USS Bennington (CV-20), USS Saratoga (CV-3), and USS Franklin (CV-13). It was sad to see one of them burning. [Annotator's Note: Harvey says something unintelligible about problems.]. On 13 April [Annotator's Note: 13 April 1945], one kamikaze came in and dropped his bombs at their ship and then headed to a carrier to crash into. He got shot down first though and the bombs missed the ship. That happened several times. Harvey could see the pilot grinning. They were too close and too fast to shoot down. His ship was a Fletcher-class destroyer and weighed 2,100 tons and could outrun an aircraft carrier. They would run alongside in case pilots did not make it. Their swimmer would bring the pilots in and they would take them to their own ship. They did not have a doctor on board. There were nine destroyers in a squadron. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him what went through his mind during a kamikaze attack.] Survival. He wondered if he would get to see tomorrow. He would ask what he has done to deserve it, when would it be over. When the kamikazes first started, they would send out 200 or 300 for the whole fleet. They would pick an aircraft carrier. The cruisers and destroyers would try to shoot them down. Each attack would have the men at general quarters for at least six hours. The cook would make SPAM [Annotator's Note: canned cooked pork made by Hormel Foods Corporation] sandwiches at night. They mostly ate dehydrated potatoes, powdered eggs and milk. The bakers would work at night baking bread and the men would sneak in and steal a loaf of bread sometimes. They got some relaxation on Ulithi, Caroline Islands [Annotator's Note: Micronesia]. They would get two cans of beer that were hot. The hospital ship, USS Hope (AH-7), sailed with them sometimes. On watch, he would use his binoculars to look at the nurses and they looked like angels.

When David Harvey heard that the war had ended, they had 1,500 planes up off the carriers. The British and Russians had sent some ships in. The planes were on their way to bomb Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan] and were turned back, dropping their bombs in the ocean. The ship went into Tokyo Bay, 25 August 1945. On 1 September they picked up Admiral Mitscher [Annotator's Note: US Navy Admiral Marc Andrew "Pete" Mitscher] and Admiral McCain [Annotator's Note: US Navy Admiral John Sidney "Slew" McCain], took them to the USS Missouri (BB-63), and then escorted the USS Wasp (CV-7) back to Enewetak Atoll [Annotator's Note: Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands]. They did not stay for the ceremony. They then went to Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] and waited for their squadron. They went through the Panama Canal and were decommissioned in Charleston, South Carolina [Annotator's Note: on 25 February 1946]. Harvey was ready to get out. Everybody was ready for that war to be over. He had the best skipper [Annotator’s Note: US Navy Commander Russell Bowes Allen was the commanding officer, or skipper, of the USS McKee (DD-575) nearly the entire time Harvey served aboard it] in the whole thing. The skipper relieved their first commander and told them they were going to do everything together and were going home together, which they did. The skipper retired as a rear admiral and attended several of the reunions. Harvey went back to farming but in September 1950 he quit farming. He went to Riverside, California and started a rigging school. He got a notice to come back into the Navy. He did not want to fight Asians anymore because they do not fight fair, so he joined the Army on 1 September 1950. He got out 1 September 1953.

[Annotator's Note: David Harvey was discharged from the Navy in 1946. He then joined the Army for the Korean War on 1 September 1950]. Harvey went to a refresher course at Fort Riley, Kansas then went to jump school at Fort Benning, Georgia. They had what was called a birdcage there. He figured it was atomic storage. The Marines and the Air Force guarded it. When he went there for jump school, there were 1,200 troops. That became 24,000 and then 44,000 when he left. The 2nd US Army had moved in. Harvey was part of the 11th Airborne Division. He did not get sent overseas. He would train the Reserve troops coming in. He tried to go several times, but his captain and he took a liking to each other. He told his battery commander he wanted to go, but he kept him there for three years. He feels lucky. After the Army he went back to farming. He had gotten married and he could have stayed in as a second lieutenant but with the war over, he would have to compete with officers from military schools. Harvey could not go through it again [Annotator's Note: World War 2 service]. He had some pretty heartbreaking moments. They would go in on an invasion and shell the beaches. They would go in as far as they could with the amphibious craft. Once, as they came in, there was a tank on fire, and he could see the men trying to get out. Their skipper [Annotator's Note: US Navy Commander Russell Bowes Allen] pulled alongside, pulled them aboard, and stayed with them. [Annotator's Note: Harvey gets emotional.] Sometimes the shoreline would be half Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese], and half Americans. If they had to back off and come back again, they would be twice the size they were before, and the fish were having a good meal. There is no part of a war that you want to go back to. None. In Charleston, South Carolina when they decommissioned the ship [Annotator's Note: on 25 February 1946], he would go to town and see signs that said for the sailors to keep off the grass.