Elmer Spraker was born in April 1927 in Malden, Massachusetts, the second of two children. After his mother died Spraker's father, an electrician for the Boston Terminal Company, remarried and Spraker gained four stepsiblings. Although he was only 14 at the time, Spraker remembers the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] and he was eager to get into the military. Growing up during the Great Depression, their family had little money, so he quit high school during his senior year and went to work driving trucks. As soon as he was 17, his father signed for him to enlist in the Navy. He went to boot camp at Sampson, New York, and said he learned very quickly that there would be no "nonsense." After boot camp he went aboard the cruiser USS Oklahoma City (CL-91) in San Francisco, California as a seaman and had the job of scrubbing the decks, painting, and generally "taking care of the ship."

The USS Oklahoma City (CL-91) sailed among several Pacific Islands, and Elmer Spraker admitted that he was a little wild at 17 years of age. He was "thrown into the brig" for insubordination, and was detained on Runit Island in the Enewetak Atoll [Annotator's Note: Runit Islandn, Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands]. When a group of minesweepers came to the island for supplies, he talked with members of the crew of the minesweeper USS Champion (AM-314), he "liked the lifestyle" they described, and asked to be transferred to that vessel. He started as a Motor Machinist's Mate Striker, and after six months training in the Champion's engine room, he passed the test for MMM third class [Annotator's Note: Motor Machinist's Mate 3rd Class or MoMM3c]. He liked the work, and "found a home" in the engine room as a member of the "Black Gang," so-called because they came out looking like they had "a bath in a bowl of oil." Spraker said he did the dirty work, but he was learning, and much preferred the situation over that of a seaman. The USS Champion was picking up and exploding mines in the Enewetak area for some time, and in this section, Spraker described the process of sweeping for enemy ordnance and detonating the explosives. The ship was degaussed [Annotator's Note: a process that removes a ship's magnetic field], so as not to set off any of the four types of mines. It was dangerous work, and Spraker said three of the vessels in his group were destroyed.

The USS Champion (AM-314) moved to the Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan] area, and Elmer Spraker said it was the first time the vessel had contact with the Japanese Kamikaze forces. "They had no fear of giving up their own lives," Spraker said, and would dive through fire from the minesweepers to their certain death. The crew on a minesweeper consisted of about 58 men who shared seamen's duties, and when he had time, Spraker studied to advance from third to second-class motor mac [Annotator's Note: at this time, Spraker was a Motor Machinist's Mate 3rd Class or MoMM3c]. The USS Champion was just finishing operations off Okinawa when the Americans dropped the atomic bombs and ended the war. Spraker was not yet eligible for discharge so he continued to serve aboard the USS Champion as it moved into the harbors of Japan. Some of the explosives were planted by American aircraft, and Spraker said the number of American mines were "out of proportion" to the ones laid by the Japanese. But they all had to be cleared before the occupying American forces arrived. Spraker described the dangers of pulling up cables and mines, and said the crew worked "together." He became part of the occupation force, and was in the Pacific just short of four years.

When he was on shore leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] in occupied Japan, Elmer Spraker had a glimpse of a defeated nation. He claimed there was an "aspect" of sabotage prevalent in the situation just after the war ended, and some of the population were doing things behind the scenes, trying to get back at Americans every chance they got. He remembers they would float mines in the path of the minesweepers, but by that time the crews were working daylight hours, and the explosives were obvious. He said the sailors found the Japanese women "pretty loose," but the general population was getting "back on their feet," and willing to take advice. Spraker said the Seabees [Annotator's Note: members of US naval construction battalions] did valuable work helping to rebuild the war-torn country. Meanwhile, Spraker lived aboard the ship that was "home" to the crew until the USS Champion (AM-314) went into dry dock for scraping and repainting in Japan. He had signed up for four years, and extended his commitment for one more when he got back to the United States. Upon his return, he became involved with "mothballing" three different ships at two duty stations in California. Asked what became of the refurbished ships, Spraker said he believed they were sold to foreign countries; the USS Champion went to South America.

Elmer Spraker thought he might transition into rebuilding maritime engines in the civilian sector, and in this section he describes the functions of the motors that powered the Navy's minesweepers. He and a buddy lived in a boarding house in National City, California, while they worked on the ships in dry dock until he was discharged in 1949 from San Diego, California. He took a job salvaging equipment from decommissioned ship for a while. He said he enjoyed his time aboard the USS Champion (AM-314), working with a crew that knew their job and got along with each other. He stayed in touch with some of his crewmates after the war. Spraker eventually drove back to Massachusetts, and returned to the trucking business.