Ervin Lloyd Rasmussen was born in Elgin, North Dakota in January 1926. His father had a farm, but they moved in 1941 to L.A. [Annotator's Note: Los Angeles, California] when he went to work for Lockheed [Annotator's Note: Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in North Bethesda, Maryland]. Rasmussen worked on the farm when he was young. He had one brother and four sisters. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Rasmussen where he was when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] They lived in L.A. then. He went to Long Beach [Annotator's Note: Long Beach, California] to an amusement park. Traffic was shut down. Rasmussen knew what it meant, but it did not register to any degree. At 17, he filled out a draft card. He went in just before his 18th birthday when he was drafted. A Naval officer was at the induction center and asked Rasmussen what service he wanted. Rasmussen said the Navy and that officer got him in. He went to San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California] for basic training and then took a troop train to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] for basic engineering. Four days into the trip, they had to stop in Texas to let other trains go by. He ended up in Gulfport [Annotator's Note: Gulfport, Mississippi] and trained on engine lathes. His father had taught shop at the local school so Rasmussen had been involved in that kind of work from a young age. That school lasted 12 weeks. He was then assigned to Pier 92 in New York City [Annotator's Note: Brooklyn Navy Yard, Brooklyn, New York, New York].

[Annotator's Note: Ervin Lloyd Rasmussen served in the Navy and was assigned to Pier 92 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in Brooklyn, New York, New York after completing his basic and advanced training.] New York City produced electricity by using coal and steam. Rasmussen was allowed liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] to go out and see how it was done as part of his training. He was then assigned to an APA [Annotator's Note: attack transport ship] that had fireboxes to create super-heated steam. That steam was used to make electricity to power the engines. When he was aboard ship, he was in the engine room. He was first sent to Shoemaker, California [Annotator's Note: Camp Shoemaker in Dublin, California]. There were 45,000 men there. The mess hall had six doors and double lines. He then went on a ship. He would buy candy bars for the men. He made good money selling them. He then went to Eniwetok [Annotator's Note: Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands] and was assigned to the USS Butte (APA-68). He went on a shakedown [Annotator's Note: a cruise to evaluate the performance of a naval vessel and its crew] to the Aleutians [Annotator's Note: Aleutian Islands, Alaska]. It was a rough ride. On the Butte, he was a fireman for the forward engine room. The ship held 1,800 troops. He thinks the ship was amazing. He had fresh water for showers. He had a hot plate and a key to the food so he could make sandwiches and ate better than the troops aboard. They went to Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands] once and nearly went to jail. They were in dungarees and the uniform for the day was dress whites. Rasmussen was steering the captain's gig [Annotator's Note: a small boat used on ships as the captain's water taxi] and was held when they landed to get the mail.

Ervin Lloyd Rasmussen was on many islands [Annotator's Note: in the Pacific Ocean] but the names escape him. There was a terrible typhoon. They [Annotator's Note: Rasmussen and his ship, the USS Butte (APA-68)] went to Australia and brought back supplies for food. The typhoon was worse than the war itself. [Annotator's Note: Rasmussen describes engine problems they experienced in detail.] They limped into Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Luzon, Philippines] and dropped anchor. The anchor had broken away and water came over the top of the bowline in the storm between Formosa [Annotator's Note: Republic of Formosa; present day Taiwan] and the China coast. He thought the ship was going to roll over. He got the engine troubles fixed and they went into Manila. There were bananas floating all over the harbor. Manila was devastated and buildings were just piles of bricks. The harbor was full of sunken ships. The Filipinos responded well to the Americans. A friend of Rasmussen's was a prisoner of the Japanese. The friend later became a doctor in the United States.

Ervin Lloyd Rasmussen was in Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Luzon, Philippines aboard the USS Butte (APA-68)] preparing for the invasion of Japan. They took part in the initial landing on Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan]. He lost most of his hearing then. The Navy does not recognize that fact. He was the engineer on a P-boat or personnel carrier [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP]. The battleship guns made his ears ring, and he could not hear a thing. As an 18 year old, he thought it would go away. Rasmussen ran a landing craft to the beach with the troops. He later went ashore. His ship went to Bremerton [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Bremerton, Kitsap Peninsula, Washington] for repairs. He got two weeks liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. He went to the Alameda Naval Air Station [Annotator's Note: in Alameda, California] and caught a ride to Monterey [Annotator's Note: Monterey, California]. He then hitchhiked to Hollywood [Annotator's Note: Hollywood, California] and went to the USO [Annotator's Note: United Services Organizations].

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Ervin Lloyd Rasmussen where he was when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945.] Rasmussen was aboard ship [Annotator's Note: USS Butte (APA-68)] then. They hauled two loads of Battling Bastards of Bataan [Annotator's Note: nickname for survivors of the Bataan Death March, the forced march of thousands of Filipino and American prisoners of war off of the Bataan Peninsula and into captivity in April 1942]. They had a mock drill, and it made the guys go bonkers, so they stopped it. Those men were in bad shape. Rasmussen's rank was frozen, and he had to stay on the ship until June 1946 when he was discharged. His parents had moved to Oregon, so Rasmussen went there to work for his father. He went to GM [Annotator's Note: General Motors Company] school for car repair training. He did not use his G.I. Bill. In 1946, his ship took the 1st Marine Division to Korea for occupation duty. They also went to Hong Kong [Annotator's Note: now the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China] and took the Chinese Nationalists from there to Manchuria [Annotator's Note: overlapping historical and geographic regions of Russia and China]. At Tsingtao [Annotator's Note: Tsingtao, China; now Qingdao, China], they had a narrow gauge railroad. They had to have two guys with .45s [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] by their side near the Chinese wall [Annotator's Note: the Great Wall of China]. They had liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] there. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if Rasmussen thinks The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana does an appropriate job with talking about the war.] He thinks it is fantastic. He does not think Americans today know what he went through but thinks they will learn if they go to the museum.