On 7 December 1941, Edmund Aziz and his fiancée were watching a matinee in Detroit, Michigan. When they came out of the theater, they learned that Pearl Harbor was attacked [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Shortly afterward, Aziz and two of his friends went to Canada to enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Since one of the three failed the test, they all decided to return to Detroit and enlist in the Navy. He learned through physical tests that he had flat feet, and he had to receive a waiver from Washington D.C. to allow him to enlist. While he waited for his waiver, his friend went on into training. Aziz later saw an ad for a radar technician school and decided to apply. He passed the test and was given a promotion to seaman first class. He was then sent to boot camp at Great Lakes Naval Station [Annotator’s Note: Great Lakes Naval Station, Illinois]. After completing boot camp, he was sent to radio school for six months in Chicago [Annotator’s Note: Chicago, Illinois]. He graduated from primary radio school and became a third petty officer. Aziz then went to secondary radio school in San Francisco [Annotator’s Note: San Francisco, California] for six months and completed the course in April 1943. He graduated with a second class petty officer rating. He requested surface ship duty and was assigned to the USS Reeves (DE-156), which was commissioned in April 1943. He arrived to the ship one month later. He was the only radio technician on the ship to take care of the radar equipment. Shortly after he arrived, the ship went on a shakedown cruise.

When Edmund Aziz and his ship [Annotator’s Note: USS Reeves (DE-156)] returned to Norfolk [Annotator’s Note: Norfolk, Virginia], they were sent to Bermuda in a convoy of destroyers to train in fighting submarines. During their voyage over, the sonar equipment failed. Sonar was not part of his duty. The man in charge of the sonar was not trained in maintenance, so he told the skipper it was the equipment was shot. The skipper [Annotator's Note: captain or commander of a naval vessel or aviation unit] asked Aziz to look at it and see if he could find the problem. After reading the manual and doing some tests, he was able to pinpoint the problem, which was that the coils in the equipment had a short. They had to go down in a compartment that smelled horribly to collect the coils and bring them up onto the deck. Aziz was able to determine that fresh water was able to clean it. After several processes, Aziz was able to get the sonar to work. He was able to build and install a public address system on the ship which would help the crew receive messages at a faster rate. They soon learned that the PA system was affecting their navigation system and they had to redo it so it would work.

When Edmund Aziz was assigned to a ship [Annotator’s Note: USS Reeves (DE-156)] and he installed a public address system on the ship that later saved his life. He made 12 crossings of the Atlantic Ocean hunting submarines. The first mission was to take supplies into Casablanca [Annotator’s Note: Casablanca, Morocco]. In addition, his crew sank submarines, rescued survivors from torpedo ships, and delivered supplies. On the 11th crossings, he was supposed to get a leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] because he wanted to go home and get married. His ship was docked out by Coney Island [Annotator’s Note: Coney Island, New York]. The medical assistant gave him a shock of medicinal whisky to calm his nerves because the ship was delayed for deboarding. The skipper called Aziz in his cabin and asked him why “he was having a party in the sick bay.” Aziz denied the statement, but the skipper [Annotator's Note: captain or commander of a naval vessel or aviation unit] restricted him to the ship and denied him leave. The skipper later found out the truth and felt bad for making Aziz miss his wedding, so he promoted him to chief petty officer, which made Aziz the youngest chief petty officer in the fleet. He went home in July and married his childhood sweetheart. As he was walking down the street in Detroit [Annotator’s Note: Detroit, Michigan] he was wearing his new chief petty officer uniform and was arrested by the shore patrol for impersonating an officer. Aziz had to convince them to bring him to his home where his paperwork was located. They did, and finally believed him. [Annotator’s Note: Clock dings in background 0:36:46.000.] He had three months of a honeymoon while his ship was being converted to an Attack Personal Destroyer (APD-52). He was then shipped to the Pacific Ocean, stopping in Pearl Harbor [Annotator’s Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] and the Philippines on their way to Okinawa [Annotator’s Note: Okinawa, Japan]. His ship was assigned the duty to take about 20 underwater demolition team members into Okinawa two weeks before the invasion. They picked up the team members the day before the invasion on Easter morning 1945.

When Edmund Aziz was assigned to a ship [Annotator’s Note: USS Reeves (DE-156), later converted to attack transport (APD-52)], their duty was to manage a radar screen during the battle of Okinawa [Annotator’s Note: the Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg; 1 April to 22 June 1945; Okinawa, Japan] to target kamikaze planes [Annotator’s Note: suicide attacks] coming from Japan. Aziz had a few roles on the ship, and one of them was as photographer since he had some experience with it. He was also a radio technician. During the Battle of Okinawa, he photographed kamikazes hitting ships including his own ship. There was a very close call that his ship was hit by a kamikaze. The ship had to zig-zag to avoid the plane, and Aziz recalled the wing of the plane came so close to crashing into the ship. Aziz could see the pilot’s face as he targeted the ship. Luckily, the kamikaze plane when straight into the water where the Reeves just had been. [Annotator’s Note: Video break at 0:53:30.000.] Aziz and the Reeves were still patrolling Okinawa when he first heard that the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Japan [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. Nothing changed, but when the second bomb dropped, the Japanese surrendered.

Edmund Aziz and his ship [Annotator’s Note: with the USS Reeves (DE-156), converted to an attacked transport as APD-52] were chosen to carry Harold E. Stassen, the former governor of Minnesota, and POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoners of war] that were held at Tokyo Bay [Annotator’s Note: Tokyo Bay, Japan]. As they neared Tokyo Bay, Japanese pilots boarded the ship to guide them through the mines. Aziz was chosen to photograph the liberation of the POWs. Aziz went into Tokyo and drove through the demolished city in a jeep. They reached the POW camp. It had a tall chain link fence and it opened when they arrived. As soon as he stepped out into the camp, he began itching because the lice were so bad. The enclosures the prisoners stayed in looked like chicken coops. The Japanese did horrible things to the prisoners. He took pictures of various sites that he saw and noticed the chief guard wearing a sword. [Annotator’s Note: There is an interruption in the interview at 1:03:48.000.] Aziz asked the chief for his sword and kept it. Before they could board the Reeves again, they had to strip their clothes and get sprayed with DDT so they would not bring lice on board. The ship transferred 150 prisoners to a hospital ship. As he was standing on the signal bridge taking pictures, he saw the prisoners milling around. He saw a familiar face and recognized him when he went down to talk to him. He was a radio technician student he had trained with in San Francisco [Annotator’s Note: San Francisco, California]. This radio technician was assigned to the USS Tang (SS-306), and was one of nine survivors after it was sunk. He became a POW after the submarine sank.

[Annotator’s Note: Comments from others off camera can be heard throughout segment.] Edmund Aziz and his ship [Annotator’s Note: the USS Reeves (DE-156), later converted to an attack transport USS Reeves (APD-52)] were chosen to transfer POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoners of war], including Major Pappy Boyington [Annotator’s Note: Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, an American combat pilot and Marine Corps fighter ace, recipient of the Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross] who were held at Tokyo Bay [Annotator’s Note: Tokyo Bay, Japan]. Aziz was able to talk to Boyington because he stayed in the chief’s quarters. The Japanese were horrible to the POWs. It was as bad as the German’s treatment of the Jews in the Holocaust [Annotator's Note: also called the Shoah; the genocide of European Jews during World War 2]. [Annotator’s Note: Interviewer tells the interviewee about some of the POWs that boarded his ship.] The USS Tang (SS-306) was a great ship. His ship took different trips and avoided enemy torpedoes. They targeted submarines with their sonar equipment.