Francis Bucher was born in October 1922 in New Orleans, Louisiana. His was a friendly neighborhood where everybody knew everybody. The Great Depression was tough. His father died in 1930 when Bucher was eight. He had two sisters. When he was 12 years old, he had a paper route. He would get up at two o'clock in the morning and get the papers. He would then go home and go to bed, then he would get up and go to school. They did not know they were poor because everyone was. He rode the streetcar to school. He remembers listening to Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] rant and rave on the radio before the war. He was interested in Navies and followed the German battleship, the Admiral Graf Spee. The British fleet chased it to Uruguay where it sought refuge. The German captain [Annotator's Note: German Kapitän zur See Hans Wilhelm Langsdorff] scuttled the ship and then committed suicide in 1939 [Annotator's Note: 20 December 1939]. He was a great fan of the radio. There were great programs, everything was on it. On weekends, his mother would take them to the cemetery or to visit relatives. His father was part owner in a grocery store with his uncle. His mother received part-income from the store after he died. Bucher would go see his uncle for money to go to the movies. He would also get a little glass of beer, making him the happiest kid in the movie.

The war came along. Francis Bucher remembers first hearing that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] on the radio. That afternoon he went down to join the Navy. He needed his mother's authorization. She told him she would not sign. By June she allowed it and he joined 20 June 1942 and was discharged 30 December 1945. He joined with his friend. They went through training in San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. Bucher slept on the bottom bunk; his friend slept on the top. After training, Bucher went to Seattle, Washington where he got some small arms training. He later found out that there was a unit called the SOFA detail. It was mostly made up of a Seabee Battalion [Annotator's Note: members of US naval construction battalions]. They boarded a ship in mid-December to the Bering Sea and Dutch Harbor [Annotator's Note: Dutch Harbor, Amaknak Island, Alaska]. They stayed there about a week. The Japanese were moving in and the United States wanted to establish a base on Adak [Annotator's Note: Adak Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska]. Bucher went on the Coast Shipper, a World War 1 vessel with a Canadian crew. The crew did not allow the Americans to use their latrine and kitchen. The seas were very rough. They could cook in the galley, but their food froze up on deck where they had to eat. They reached Adak on either New Year's Eve or New Year's Day [Annotator's Note: 31 December 1942 or 1 January 1943]. The unloaded the ship for 36 hours with no food. There were six men to a tent with tar paper floors. They had a potbelly stove. Their coal would not last all night. They had to thaw their socks out and they stole coal from one another. There was one hut for showers using water from a frozen lake. They lived like that for several months until the Seabees built them a Quonset hut. [Annotator's Note: Bucher pauses for a long time.] This was early 1943. They had no foul weather gear. They wore any clothing they could find. He did not know they were planning the invasion of Attu [Annotator's Note: Attu Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska]. There were seasoned Canadian troops there already. In May, an invasion force was sent into Attu [Annotator's Note: Battle of Attu, 11 to 30 May 1943], ill equipped. The troops were sent in with summer gear. Bucher was assigned to the captain of the port.

The invasion of Attu [Annotator's Note: Battle of Attu, Alaska, 11 to 30 May 1943] was made with fresh troops from the United States. Most of them froze and a hospital ship was filled with frostbite cases. Francis Bucher said the Army had a ferocious battle at Massacre Bay. Attention was then turned to Kiska [Annotator’s Note: Kiska Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska] where he thinks there were about 15,000 Japanese. They had submarine bases. Bucher was on Adak [Annotator’s Note: Adak Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska] when the Japanese bombed the island. It was more of a nuisance raid and they did not really hit anything important. They did have a problem with Japanese submarines. The Navy asked the Army to bomb Paramushiro [Annotator's Note: Paramushiro Island, Kuril Islands, Russia]. They lost too many planes. The Aleutians Campaign was filled with blunders. This was not covered in the news. Bucher was attached to Commander Anderson [Annotator's Note: Charles E. Anderson, also known as Squeaky], captain of the port. He was a full commander and he told Bucher to call him "Squeaky" Anderson. He was an old Swede who had been in the Aleutians before the war. He had a fishing fleet up there. The Seabees [Annotator's Note: members of US naval construction battalions] were building a base at Andrew Lagoon [Annotator's Note: Andrew Lake]. The invasion of Kiska was going to be a big operation.

Francis Bucher was on Adak [Annotator's Note: Adak Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska] when the invasion of Kiska [Annotator's Note: Kiska Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska] was being planned. The Navy assembled a fleet to participate. The weather was horrific. They had 40 foot seas all the time. Storms would blow at 80 mile per hour and there was dense fog. They could not see their hand with an outstretched arm. The fleet was split to encircle Kiska to prevent retreat. A fog came in that lasted about two weeks. They shelled Kiska. Bucher was attached to Commander Anderson [Annotator's Note: US Navy Commander Charles E. Anderson, also known as Squeaky]. Word of mouth in the Navy travels fast. They knew the carrier USS Hornet (CV-8) had launched the planes of the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo Raid; first air raid on Tokyo, Japan 18 April 1942; led by then Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle] via scuttlebutt. The word went out that no prisoners were to be taken in the invasion of Attu [Annotator's Note: Battle of Attu, Island, 11 to 30 May 1943]. Bucher says they just did their duty and did what they were told. They were so charged up fighting the invaders of our country that they had no sympathetic feelings whatsoever. After the bombardment of Kiska, they went ashore. They did not find any Japanese soldiers. That night Tokyo Rose [Annotator's Note: nickname given by Allied servicemen to any English speaking female radio personality broadcasting Japanese propaganda in the Pacific Theater] said that they knew the exact day and hour of the invasion. [Annotator's Note: Bucher talks about who Tokyo Rose was and what happened to her.] After the invasion, Commander Anderson was sent to the Port of San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. Bucher wanted to go to the air base where he was trained. He went to Andrew Lagoon [Annotator's Note: Andrew Lake] and assumed anti-submarine flights with OS2Us [Annotator's Note: Vought OS2U Kingfisher observation floatplane]. PBYs [Annotator's Note: Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boat] did the long range flights. Bucher flew rear set as a crewman or observer.

Francis Bucher says the closest he came to death was when he flew with a drunk commander. He was in the hangar ready room with his back to the entrance and the other sailors saw him first and left. He asked Bucher to fly rear seat for him. Bucher got in the plane. The guy helping him get his harness on told him the pilot was drunk and had bitten his ear. It was too late for Bucher to back out. This airstrip was not completed by the Seabees [Annotator's Note: members of US naval construction battalions] yet. They flew some maneuvers and then came back over the airstrip. Bucher looked down and saw emergency vehicles all around. They were waiting for them to return. The pilot made a smooth landing, got in his jeep, and drove off. Bucher was told to never fly with him again. This was in 1944. He had not had a day of leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] since he joined the Navy. He got a call to go back to the United States. He island hopped to Anchorage [Annotator's Note: Anchorage, Alaska] for two days. He then flew into Seattle, Washington. He got to see a WAVE [Annotator's Note: Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service; United States Naval Women's Reserve] there for the first time. Admiral Reeves [Annotator's Note: US Navy Admiral John Walter Reeves, Jr.] told them that because they were the first Navy on Adak, they would get their choice of bases. He wanted to go to Ypsilanti [Annotator's Note: Willow Run, or Air Force Plant 31, Ypsilanti, Michigan] and work on B-24s [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber]. It did not happen. After his 30 days leave, he went to Pensacola [Annotator's Note: Pensacola, Florida] where he went into Assembly and Repair. After that, he went to Ellyson Field [Annotator's Note: Naval Air Station Ellyson Field, Pensacola, Florida] and he took a flight of SNVs [Annotator's Note: Vultee SNV or BT-13 Valiant basic trainer aircraft] under his control. He stayed there until the war started winding down. He then went to night flying training in the United States until the war ended. He was discharged in New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] at the Naval Air Station.

Francis Bucher was training pilots for night flying [Annotator's Note: at Naval Air Station Ellyson Field, Pensacola, Florida]. The weather had to be perfect. The night crew got a midnight chow pass that consisted of steak and good food. That was choice duty. He stayed there until the end of the war. He had chosen the Navy because he always loved airplanes and ships. He followed the Graf Spee [Annotator's Note: German pocket battleship Admiral Graf von Spee] and its battle with the British fleet. His duty in the Aleutian Islands [Annotator's Note: Alaska] was hard. The chow was terrible. For Thanksgiving and Christmas, they got a traditional feast. He had joined the Navy with a friend, but they did not stay together during the war. Another friend was sent to the Panama Canal. Bucher wanted to be stationed in the Pacific. When he signed up, he was told where he could go and he picked San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. He would write to his mother who would tell him about his friend's leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. He did not get leave. He did not keep up with the European Theater news. There were five or six bases in Pensacola and every field specialized in a different plane. He read the Adak Tribune when stationed on Adak [Annotator's Note: Adak Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska]. He got information on the war through the maps in it. There was talk of building a radar station on the Kamchatka Peninsula [Annotator's Note: Russia]. Bucher volunteered, but the Russians turned it down.

Francis Bucher says the atomic bombs being dropped on Japan [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] was the greatest decision Harry Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States] ever made. He saved at least two million American lives. The Japanese were going to fight to the death. It was a tremendous decision to make. He consulted with high ranking officials in religion and business. It is a horrible thing when you consider the consequences. We had asked them to surrender unconditionally. Even after the first bomb on Hiroshima, the Emperor wanted to surrender but Tojo [Annotator's Note: Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo] did not. Eventually, Tojo was tried and hanged [Annotator's Note: executed 23 December 1948]. The Americans and the Canadians were close friends. British ships always had an odor to them, maybe because they ate mutton. They got along well. Bucher saw most of the ships damaged at Attu [Annotator's Note: Battle of Attu, Aleutian Islands, Alaska, 11 to 30 May 1943] because they came in at Adak [Annotator's Note: Adak Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska]. He saw the USS Casco (AVP-12) and it had a hole in it as big as a dump truck. A PC [Annotator's Note: patrol craft], smaller than a destroyer, came in after ramming a submarine on purpose. [Annotator's Note: The tape pauses and then restarts mid-conversation. Bucher appears to be talking about life on Adak.] There was subzero weather at times and a wind that never stops. Every minute of every day all you hear is the wind noise. When he came back, silence was deafening.

Francis Bucher was aboard a World War 1 vessel on his way to Adak [Annotator's Note: Adak Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska]. The Navy used any ship they could get. A Canadian freighter took them to Adak. They were not allowed to use their latrine or use the galley to cook food. The cooks would put the pots of food on the deck for them. They built their own latrine out of wood and stuck it off the stern. You do what you have to do. His most memorable experience of World War 2 was flying with a drunken commander. That was the closest he came to death. He served out of national pride. The country was attacked. He had to respond. He does not know what it would be like today, but in his day you could not wait to get in the service. He had a friend who had joined the National Guard before Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] and was captured at Corregidor [Annotator's Note: Battle of Corregidor, 5 to 6 May 1942] and was in the Bataan Death March [Annotator's Note: forcible marched transfer of 60,000 to 80,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war in April 1942]. He came to see Bucher after the war. He told Bucher it took the doctors a year to put him back together. What was said about the Japanese bayoneting the soldiers was true. Another friend's mother would not allow him to join when Bucher did. She relented later and he joined the Marines. He was killed in the invasion of Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Mariana Islands]. His body was never found. His mother had him ask every Marine Bucher saw about where he saw him last. He heard two different stories; one he made it to the beach and one he did not. She blamed herself.

World War 2 changed Francis Bucher's life for the better. He matured a lot faster. He had a better understanding of world politics, how people suffer and die, and what it meant to serve his country. He was so proud to serve in the Navy. His service means today that we liberated [Annotator's Note: countries from] a couple of dictators that were diabolical and had no respect for life. He hopes America today understands what World War 2 is all about and the suffering that the servicemen went through. He hopes the people appreciate what the serviceman goes through. He was never wounded due to enemy action. The mother of his best friend who had joined with him went with Bucher's mother to communion and mass every night. [Annotator's Note: Bucher gets emotional.] He often wonders if his service was in vain due to the country today. The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] is definitely important. The people are not aware of what the war was all about, not a deep understanding. Bucher wears a World War 2 veteran hat and a lot of people come up to him and thank him. That makes him feel good. Not taking care of the veterans is a big crime. When veterans have to go on television and ask for money, it is ridiculous. They shed their blood and are not needed when it is over. They beg for money. The war should be taught to future generations. We have to learn from our mistakes.

Francis Bucher knows he cannot cover everything in two hours. The Army flew P-40s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft] and P-38s [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft]. There was a P-40 pilot who had been hit and crashed on his side of the island. Bucher was on the search party. They found the plane buried in the tundra and had been burned completely. He had no head, no arms, no legs. It sticks in his mind all the time. He sees it all the time. His body was like a roast still strapped in the seat. [Annotator's Note: Bucher gets emotional.] They had a couple of fatalities due to accidents. Bucher had cuts and bruises but no injuries due to enemy action. His first air raid was a false alarm. He was running to his gun emplacement and it was pitch dark. He hit a building and knocked himself out. [Annotator's Note: Bucher laughs.] He saw stars. The closest he came to death was flying with a drunken commander. Bucher still sees the pilot who had burned when he closes his eyes. The plane was buried halfway in the ground. It was a terrible smell. He sees it vividly. The chow was terrible but on Christmas they were always treated to a traditional dinner. He does not know how they did it. He spent 20 months on Adak [Annotator's Note: Adak Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska]. The weather was horrendous, and they had no foul weather gear. As several months went by, they got too much. When they left, he left a footlocker full of gear. They were issued a hammock in Bremerton, Washington. He kept it until he left the Aleutian Islands. They stole coal from one another to keep warm. Before they left the United States, they were given a lecture by a priest called Father Hubbard, the Glacier Priest. When they landed on Adak, they unloaded the ship for 36 hours with only coffee. [Annotator's Note: Bucher wants to tell the interviewer something off the record and the tape stops.]