Frank Kern served as a corporal in A Battery, 1st Battalion, 10th Marines [Annotator's Note: 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division]. Kern was born in February 1921 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Most servicemen during World War 2 were brought up during the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945], did not have much, and did not expect much. His father was a butcher, and his mother was a housewife in a time when jobs were hard to find. Kern went to Bermuda to work on a boat for a year, and the war started while he was there. He went home to visit and signed up for the draft. Six months later, he opted to join the Marines because he says it was the only branch with available spots. Kern was in Bermuda at the time of Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], and was in disbelief that something like that could happen. Some of his colleagues went home to join the armed services. There were American occupation troops in Bermuda, someone he knew enlisted there. Kern chose the Marine Corps because it was the only option left, although he wanted to join the Seabees [Annotator's Note: members of US Naval Construction Battalions] as he already knew how to drive a tractor and operate an overhead crane from his time working at the Delta Shipyard [Annotator's Note: Delta Shipbuilding Company in New Orleans, Louisiana]. He joined the Marine Corps in February 1943 and was sent to San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California] for boot camp, then from there to Camp Elliott on the outskirts of San Diego. Kern had fun at boot camp and found it comical to shine shoes three times a day and put rocks in your pockets for training. His girlfriend at the time would send him gum with each letter she sent. Kern was scolded for chewing it, but ultimately, he had a lot of fun. Training was hard, but good. One Sunday morning they were in formation to go eat in the mess hall, singing cadence. Two women who were visiting commented to Kern that they did not know the drill sergeant had to sing to the troops. Training at Camp Elliott lasted for three or four months, then he left in July [Annotator's Note: July 1943] to go to New Caledonia [Annotator's Note: New Caledonia, Oceania].

Frank Kern, [Annotator's Note: with A Battery, 1st Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division], arrived in New Caledonia [Annotator's Note: New Caledonia, Oceania in July 1943]. There was a Marine Raider unit [Annotator's Note: Marine Raiders, special operations forces] there which needed replacements, so Kern was sent for a medical inspection. The doctor said he could not join the Raiders because his legs were too short, and he would not be able to keep up with the daily hikes. Kern was then sent to New Zealand where he was placed into an artillery unit, while antiaircraft troops were put into the infantry. Kern became a loader, who puts the shells in the gun, on a 75mm Pack Howitzer team [Annotator's Note: 75mm Pack Howitzer M1], which came apart into pieces for transport by a six-man team. It was an assault gun, sent in with the third wave of an invasion. At Tarawa [Annotator's Note: Battle of Tarawa Atoll, 20-23 November 1943, Gilbert Islands], there was no front line. His unit left New Zealand for Tarawa. Most of the troops had not experienced combat, but a few men were veterans of Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal Campaign, 7 August 1942 to 9 February 1943 at Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands] who explained what was going to happen. The veterans said that pre-invasion naval and aerial bombardment which would allow infantry to simply walk ashore was not true. They got into a Higgins boat [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat] at 9 o'clock in the morning. The group of 15 men in the boat had trouble getting to shore because of the tide, and Japanese forces began firing at them with machine guns. The coxswain [Annotator's Note: person in charge of a small boat and its crew] retreated, but the lieutenant said they had to go back in whether they liked it or not. They transferred to an amtrack [Annotator's Note: Landing Vehicle, Tracked or LVT; also referred to as amtrack or alligator] and were brought ashore. As the amtrack driver was departing, he ran over some of Kern's team's ammunition. They stayed on the beach most of the night. A sergeant instructed them to protect the beach and the many wounded from the Japanese. Five men were sent on patrol but went too far, and a Japanese machine gun opened fire on them. One man was grazed beneath his chin and the back of his head. Another was hit in the chest, two others were killed outright, and one soldier ran into the sea and was never seen again. Kern does not remember sleeping at all that night. They moved down the beach and were helped by infantrymen to get their gun over the sea wall. His A Battery team was joined by a team from C Battery [Annotator's Note: C Battery, 1st Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division] and began firing at the Japanese command post. It was defended by five feet of concrete and three layers of coconut logs. The shells bounced off the coconut logs, so they tried an armor-piercing shell which also did not work so they gave up and began firing at different positions and pillboxes [Annotator's Note: concrete dug-in guard posts]. A Japanese seaplane flew over in the night and dropped bombs but did no damage. They fired anti-personnel shells at the Japanese forces. The 2nd Battalion, 10th Marines [Annotator's Note: 2nd Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division] were on another part of the island and were also firing on the enemy, creating a pocket. Tarawa was two-and-a-half miles long and two city blocks wide. There was not even enough room for the entire division on the island. When the battle was over, they were put on work details, Kern assigned to burial detail. He began to help find and transport the wounded on stretchers. He came upon one badly wounded soldier in a shell hole who was looking at a picture of his wife and family and died while looking at it. They found another soldier who looked like he was sleeping, but when they picked him up to put him on a stretcher, saw that the back of his head was gone. When trying to pull men out of the water, some of their arms would simply come off because they'd been in the water so long. Kern also collected weapons and ammunition from the dead, and he noticed that all of the canteens were missing, which he later learned was because the 5-gallon metal containers of water has been painted on the inside without being allowed to dry, so it made the men who drank out of it sick. The Japanese were put on one end of the airstrip and the Marines on the other end. The only way to tell the difference between the bodies were the uniform leggings. Kern split his pants and traded a Japanese diary for a pair of Navy pants, but he was reprimanded for being out of uniform, and was told to wear his torn pants as they were or to sew them up. Unable to find needle and thread, Kern had no choice but to wear the torn pants and joked that he had "air conditioning" all the way to Hawaii [Annotator's Note: In December 1943, the remaining troops on Tarawa sailed to Hawaii to rejoin the parent unit].

Frank Kern, [Annotator's Note: with A Battery, 1st Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division] traveled to Hawaii with his unit. They arrived at a large cattle ranch located between two volcanoes. Having arrived from the Equator with nothing but their khaki uniforms and no coats available, Kern found it very cold, but they eventually got used to the climate. A 1st Sergeant remembered Kern and put him on mess duty. They began training for the next invasion. Kern found out they were going to Saipan [Annotator's Note: The Battle of Saipan, part of Operation Forager, 15 June-9 July 1944; Saipan, Mariana Islands] and were put on LSTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] which rock side to side instead of up and down which they had to get used to. When leaving Hawaii, there was a storm while the men were sleeping, some below deck and some above. Another smaller ship was on the deck, held down by cables. The storm caused the cables to break, and 29 men were lost despite the Navy using searchlights to try and find them in the water. Kern's unit arrived in Saipan and went in with the third wave. The Japanese had a large artillery piece in the mountains. Kern noticed little white flags which he realized were markers for the Japanese forces to calculate the distances and locations to aim for. The artillery piece was on a boxcar which gave the US Air Force a hard time spotting the Japanese artillery. It was not until the infantry arrived on the second day of the battle that they were able to take it out and avoid more killing. Saipan was very different from Tarawa [Annotator's Note: Tarawa Atoll, Republic of Kiribati]; the ground was dry and hilly. Kern's unit was then sent to Tinian [Annotator's Note: The Battle of Tinian, 24 July-1 August 1944; Tinian, Mariana Islands], three miles south of Saipan. Two battalions of artillery were attached to the 4th Division [Annotator's Note: 4th Marine Division]. All of the 2nd Marine Division was sent to a sand beach at what they called Tinian Town and carried out a fake landing. Kern was on the other end of the island, where there was a 24-foot beach. They had to go in single file landing from amphibious ducks [Annotator's Note: DUKW; six-wheel-drive amphibious truck; also known as a Duck]. Tinian was difficult for the artillery units because they could not keep up with the infantry. They had to move four or five times in nine days, each time digging the gun in and placing sandbags, which was a lot of work. In Saipan they only had to move once or twice. They then moved to the other side of the island where it was hilly, and where most of the Japanese forces were. This is where the battle ended. They then returned to Saipan to build a camp there, and to serve as occupation troops. The first night there it stormed, and they had no place to sleep except on the ground. The Japanese had been raising sugar cane on the island which they tried to sleep on top of but would roll off into the water in the middle of the night. Saipan was not too bad.

Frank Kern, [Annotator's Note: a corporal in A Battery, 1st Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division] stayed on the island of Saipan until his unit was shipped out to Okinawa [Annotator's Note: The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, 1 April – 22 June 1945; Okinawa, Japan]. Another fake landing was carried out, it happened to be April Fool's Day [Annotator's Note: 1 April 1945]. There was bombing, smoke screens and strafing, troops went up to the beach but turned around. The next day, the same actions were carried out while in the meantime, two Marine divisions landed on the other side of the island and went north. Two US Army divisions also landed and went south. There was no resistance on the north side. Kern's unit went around the side of the island and waited there for two weeks, floating in a circle for anti-aircraft protection. Kamikaze [Annotator's Note: Japanese Special Attack Units, also called shimbu-tai, who flew suicide missions in aircraft] planes dove at them. One night they heard an aircraft. An anti-aircraft gun at the rear of the ship fired at the Japanese plane which then dove into the gun, removing it from the ship, which saved the rest of the men on the ship. A few other LST's [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] were hit directly and taken out. After a few weeks on the ship off the coast of Okinawa, Kern was sent back to Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Mariana Islands]. They learned the war was going to end when they had been training to go to Japan. He was going to be in the first wave at Nagasaki [Annotator's Note: Nagasaki, Japan]. On Okinawa, more civilians were killed than soldiers because the civilians were working with the Japanese forces. This was one of the reasons why the US decided to drop the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945], because in the case of an invasion of Japan, the civilian population would join fight and would cause a lot of death on both sides. The atomic bomb saved their lives because his unit would have been in the first wave. Instead, they became occupying troops in Japan and had no trouble with the local population. Kern was invited to dine at a Japanese interpreter's home with a friend. They wanted to bring a bottle of sake [Annotator's Note: also spelled saké, Japanese alcoholic beverage] with them, so they asked a local man for something to drink. He gave them what looked like a beer bottle but when they arrived at the interpreter's house with the bottle, he smelled it they learned it was actually wood alcohol [Annotator's Note: a type of alcohol used to make antifreeze, pesticides, fuel, and other substances] which would have poisoned and killed them if they had drunk it. This was the only form of resistance Kern experienced. The only other problem he encountered was with Chinese slave laborers. They wanted revenge, so the US needed to get them out of Japan. The Red Ball Express [Annotator's Note: one of several American military truck convoy systems that transported supplies from the coast of France to Allied forces advancing across Europe] was sent to Japan for one year and posed some problems for Kern and his colleagues. They dealt in the black market and nearly ran Kern over on one occasion. Another time they had to fire on the truck, not to kill but to disable the truck. They had no more problems after that.

Frank Kern, [Annotator's Note: with A Battery, 1st Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division] was on the island of Saipan [Annotator's Note: in the Mariana Islands] when he learned the war was over. Air Force servicemen wanted to make a bet that the war was going to end, but earning only 21 dollars a month, the Marines had no money to do so. A week later, they found out a bomb was dropped [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945], and that they would be going to Japan. They stayed in Japan until the middle of December [Annotator's Note: December 1945] when they finally had enough points to come home [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home]. Kern did not have any problems with the local Japanese population during his occupation duty. They had an interpreter and local young men who worked with them in camp. The only issue he had was communicating with them. Kern finally left Japan, with two dollars and 50 cents between him and three fellow soldiers. Two of them were skilled blackjack players [Annotator's Note: playing card game that usually involves gambling] who played onboard the ship returning home, and by the time they got to the States they had about 40 dollars apiece. They arrived on Christmas Eve [Annotator's Note: 24 December 1945] at Camp Pendleton [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California], still wearing their combat jackets with large pockets. In the mess hall, there was a spread with pecans and oranges and bread, and they filled their pockets with the food. Kern was discharged in January [Annotator's Note: 6 January 1946]. Kern got a ride from San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California] to Dallas [Annotator's Note: Dallas, Texas], and from there caught a train to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana]. He met his girlfriend with her brothers and father which he said was intimidation, but it would not change his mind. At the time of the interview they had been married for 60 years.

World War 2 made a good Christian out of Frank Kern. When he got back home, he felt taken care of, was kept busy by the people around him and went right to work. He did not think too much about his wartime experience. His unit held a reunion in 1989 in Indiana, which over 100 veterans attended. He and his wife organized a reunion in New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] in 1995, which 60 couples attended. One of his veteran friends wrote a book, which Kern read. His daughter suggested he write his own book, and his granddaughter helped him type it. He brought it to the next reunion. It is more of a manuscript than a book, describing his childhood and when he was in high school, working in Bermuda, and going into the Marine Corps and finally coming home. He believes it is important for future generations to learn about World War 2. Kern was impressed with his visit to the National World War 2 Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana].