[Annotator's Note: Frank Purvis graduated from Louisiana State University with a law degree in 1935]. Purvis was only 20 years old and had to be 21 to practice law. He did that in his own office. He was fortunate to have something to do. A bank was going into receivership and asked him to take over. His father would come and have coffee with him. One morning, a man came in and sat down and talked a while. Purvis' father got up and left and then the man looked at Purvis a moment and got up and left. Purvis was a little too young for him to get legal advice from. In 1936, the Federal Government had voted a bonus for World War 1 vets [Annotator's Note: World War 1 Veteran Bonus Bill, 15 June 1932]. When they got their money, they wanted to get everything straight. One came in and asked him to be his lawyer. Purvis asked what his legal trouble was, and he replied he did not have any, he just wanted to call him his lawyer. Purvis said he would do it for five dollars a month. The man said he would think it over and never came back. It was not long after that most of them realized that World War 2 was getting started in Europe. If you were young, healthy, and had no dependents, you were likely going to be called for service. He was offered a job as assistant attorney to the Secretary of State of Louisiana. He took it and moved to Baton Rouge. He got the job because he had good friends in government. Two months later, the attorney resigned, and Purvis got the job.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Frank Purvis what he brought with him. He explains]. Frank Purvis was born in Rayville, Louisiana in November 1914. He had one half-brother and one half-sister. His mother's first husband died of a disease he contracted fighting in the Spanish-American War [Annotator's Note: armed conflict between Spain and the United States, 21 April 1898 to 13 August 1898]. She next married Purvis' father. Her first husband had been dead 14 years when Purvis came along. He got along wonderfully with his siblings. His father was called a real Southern Gentleman and had missed World War 1 as he was in his 30s. He served as a civilian in Little Rock [Annotator's Note: Little Rock, Arkansas]. Louisiana was the site of a lot of troop training in the 1930s. His father helped with a lot of those facilities. He was an accountant and held public office. Studying and making good grades was one of the things Purvis did best. He was Valedictorian in high school and went to Kempler Military School [Annotator's Note: Kempler Military School and College, 1844 to 2002] in Boonville, Missouri. He went to LSU [Annotator's Note: Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana] and finished second in his class. His mother was a school teacher. During the Depression, she was the only breadwinner. She was the reason he got a college education. He attended LSU Law from 1932 to 1935. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him if he joined the ROTC, or Reserve Officer Training Corps, at LSU]. Purvis' training at Kempler was very similar to West Point [Annotator's Note: United States Military Academy, West Point, New York]. At LSU, they only gave him credit for one of his two years of training at Kempler. In ROTC, he was way ahead of the other students. Major Middleton [Annotator's Note: later US Army Lieutenant General Troy Houston Middleton] was head of ROTC at that time. He later became a General and was at the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator’s Note: Battle of the Bulge or Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. He knew Purvis needed four years of ROTC at LSU and he would not get that. They both decided it was best for him to stop that training.

Frank Purvis volunteered before Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. It was apparent that he was eligible, he had attended a military school, and he liked the military. There was a civilian pilot training corps [Annotator's Note: Civilian Pilot Training Program], the CPTP, at LSU [Annotator's Note: Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana]. He finished that course and applied to the Army Air Forces but was turned down due to his age. He then went to the Navy. The Navy had V-7 training [Annotator's Note: US Navy V-7 College Training Program] and you had to agree that you would not get married until after you were commissioned. He was in love and planning on getting married. This was August 1941. He had a friend named Ernest Lee Jahncke who was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. They went to see Captain Thompson [Annotator's Note: US Navy Captain Thaddeus Austin Thomson, Jr.], Commandant of the 8th Naval District, and told him Purvis' plans. Thompson said not worry about it but later forgot. Purvis was just waiting for something to happen. In his job, he was an insurance attorney for the State of Louisiana. He went to a meeting in New York and was attending a New York Giant's football game on Sunday afternoon. A snowstorm came. The public announcer starting asking for different officers to call their offices. People had radios in the stands and heard the news that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. The next announcement was for all reservists to report to the nearest recruiting station. Purvis figured he would report the next day at home in Baton Rouge.

[Annotator's Note: Frank Purvis was in New York when he heard the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] Frank Purvis went home the next day and reported for duty in Baton Rouge [Annotator's Note: Baton Rouge, Louisiana]. He then got orders to report to Northwestern University Midshipmen's School [Annotator's Note: US Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School] where he got V-7 training [Annotator's Note: US Navy V-7 College Training Program]. He was commissioned on 14 May 1942. He was being trained for duty aboard ship. He was learning navigation, gunnery, and seamanship. He was to be married when he got out. He took a train home on 14 May, they were married on 16 May, and on 17 May he was back in Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois] on duty. He had asked for a cruiser in the Pacific upon his commission. Instead, he was assigned to Northwestern University to teach. He taught ordinance and gunnery until March 1943. He was in the top five in his class, plus he had two years of military school. He wanted to do his part. It was a wonderful duty and he and his wife got to spend time together. Chicago is a wonderful town. He was doing what he was doing very well. Housing was extremely difficult to get. There was an apartment available right across from where he was teaching, and it was rent-controlled. It was great place to be. He and his wife had a good time there. There were a lot of couples as there were a lot of newlyweds in the same complex. His wife was wonderful and gets two-thirds of the credit for anything he ever did.

Teaching was fine, and Frank Purvis knew how fortunate he was. He was reading about and seeing guys in the real war. His brother-in-law was a graduate of West Point [Annotator's Note: United States Military Academy, West Point, New York] and had gone with the first wave to North Africa. His wife's sister was married to a man in the Army. Purvis could not see spending the rest of his life explaining why he stayed in Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois] and taught school. He started applying for sea duty. Once a month they could apply for a change of duty. After five or six months, the captain approved it. He had not done so previously because they really needed people to teach. He received orders for active duty and was sent to SCTC [Annotator's Note: Submarine Chaser Training Center] in Miami [Annotator's Note: Miami, Florida] to learn anti-submarine warfare. He finished and was ordered to the USS Snowden (DE-246) which was then under construction. The V-7 program [Annotator's Note: US Navy V-7 College Training Program] gave him general training and SCTC was specialized training to hunt submarines. The crew of the Snowden was pulled together and had 60 days in Norfolk, Virginia to assimilate and learn about their particular ship. The crew went as one unit from Norfolk to Texas to the Brown Shipyard [Annotator's Note: Brown Shipbuilding Company, Houston, Texas]. They boarded the ship and had the ceremony of the ships commissioning. His wife was seven months pregnant and she was seated on the deck. The crew on board a ship when it is commissioned are called plank holders [Annotator's Note: Plankowner; also called plank owner]. Purvis feels that he, his wife, and his unborn daughter are plank holders. The whole family was in it.

Frank Purvis had never been to sea before. The ship [Annotator's Note: USS Snowden (DE-246)] was commissioned with a complement of 198 men and 14 officers. They took the ship to Galveston [Annotator's Note: Galveston, Texas] for dry dock inspection and then to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] for supplies. They were then sent to Bermuda [Annotator's Note: on a shakedown cruise or trial journey] where the Navy had an anti-submarine warfare training activity going on. They learned to locate, track, and depth-charge submarines. They then returned to Norfolk [Annotator's Note: Norfolk, Virginia]. The ship was camouflaged. It took him awhile to get used to no lights at night. The officer's quarters had six staterooms with two bunks each. The ship is built out of quarter-inch steel with one inch of fiberglass insulation. The quarters were forward and there was a wardroom. Nothing was movable except for one chair. Shower and lavatory facilities were separate. The crew's space was on the lower space and they slept in hammocks. There were African-Americans aboard in the kitchen and food-handling. All of the ones he worked with were fine people and since he had been born and raised with them, it was just as natural for him to be with them as with anybody else. They never had any racial problems aboard the ship. There was nothing abnormal about it. They were very good sailors and they became very good friends. He was proud to serve with them.

[Annotator's Note: Frank Purvis was assigned to the USS Snowden (DE-246), a brand new destroyer escprt.] After they finished their shakedown cruise in Bermuda, they returned to the United States. The first trip was to the Charleston Naval Yard [Annotator's Note: Charleston, South Carolina] to get equipment installed and then to Jacksonville, Florida. From there they escorted a freighter [Annotator's Note: USS Almaack (AK-27)] taking orange juice to Panama. Purvis wondered if they were going to escort them to the Pacific, because that would mean he would not be home for two or three years. If they stayed in the Atlantic, the United States is on one end of every trip they made. He went back to the United States and then took a convoy to Gibraltar. There were 111 freighters and two divisions of DEs [Annotator's Note: destroyer escorts] and destroyers. This was a massive armada crossing at a very slow speed. Fortunately, they had no action with that convoy. They would be called to general quarters [Annotator's Note: battle stations] twice a day, an hour before sunrise and before sunset, the times when they were the most vulnerable. The odds of getting another call or two were high, 50 percent or more. Most of them were false. They also stood four hours of duty outside their regular work. It was a full day. Purvis started as an ensign and ended the war as a lieutenant. He carried a .45 sidearm [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] which he wore in enemy territory and ashore. They did not go into the Mediterranean at Gibraltar. British ships took over. The Snowden helped escort some ships to Casablanca [Annotator's Note: Casablanca, Morocco], made port, and went ashore there. They then got another 100 ships to escort back to the United States. Purvis thinks the average American sailor was very curious. Casablanca was a fascinating city, and everyone had seen the movie [Annotator's Note: Casablanca, 1942 American film]. You had to go see where Ingrid Bergman [Annotator's Note: Swedish actress] and Humphrey Bogart [Annotator's Note: Humphrey DeForest Bogart, American actor] were. Normally they only got to go ashore for an hour or two. Officers were also out on shore patrol duty. they saw a different side of the city there. They saw and learned things that the average American kid did not know about. There was no running water, raw sewage. It was hard to believe people lived in those conditions. There were also a lot of mansions. Most of the returning ships in the convoy were empty.

[Annotator's Note: Frank Purvis' first Atlantic crossing was aboard the USS Snowden (DE-246), escorting a large convoy of freighters.] They made part of a submarine killer task force. They had a baby aircraft carrier [Annotator's Note: USS Croatan (CVE-25)] and five ships. When they went on those, they never knew how long they would be gone. The carrier carried enough fuel for all of them. Refueling at sea is a dangerous thing. The Atlantic is notoriously rough. They were also at the mercy of the enemy if caught like that. Purvis' division was credited with getting five submarines. The task force was credited with seven. The Snowden sank a submarine [Annotator's Note: U-490] in the Atlantic around midnight one night. They picked up 60 men and officers off the sub. They had been depth-bombing them for hours. They were so badly damaged they surfaced, and [Annotator's Note: unintelligible] got all of their men off and then blew it up. They were picked up by three destroyer escorts. Once they were in an area deemed safe enough to slow down, all of the men were put on the carrier and taken to Casablanca. The Germans all wanted to go to the United States. They said they would give them any information and do anything asked of them if the Americans would not turn them over to the Free French [Annotator's Note: Free French Forces; French government in exile] in Casablanca. They were turned over to the French. Purvis interacted with some of them. The average American had gum and cigarettes and the Germans did not have any of that. These were kids. They were always very friendly. They had no problems. Some of them spoke English and had lived in the United States before the war. He does not recall what number the u-boat [Annotator's Note: U-490] was. The Snowden got credit for three submarines. The unit got five as a whole. The USS Croatan (CVE-25) carrier got credit for a total of seven.

Frank Purvis says there a lot of things that stick in your mind. One of the destroyer escorts lost a man overboard. The ship was in front of the convoy. When there are 100 ships going over you in the water, you are not going to live through it. You have maybe 12 minutes to get out of the water. They managed to pick him up. Those are the kinds of things you remember. Purvis was able to take a trip with his wife on the RMS Queen Mary II [Annotator's Note: about a year before this interview]. They were on the calmest seas he had ever seen. Somebody said to look at the waves. He looked in the wrong direction because having been on destroyer escorts, if someone said look at the waves, you looked up. With the Task Force [Annotator's Note: Task Group 21.15], there was a carrier [Annotator's Note: USS Croatan (CVE-25)] sent with them to develop night search with radar to locate submarines. Their duty [Annotator's Note: Purvis and the rest of the crew of the USS Snowden (DE-246)] was to protect the carrier and to pick up any aviators that might have crashed. You get a black night on a rough sea, and the TBFs [Annotator's Note: Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bomber aircraft] and TBMs [Annotator's Note: Grumman TBM Avenger manufactured by General Motors] would take off. The pilot had to fly the plane, watch the radars, and then try and get back to the carrier. When he gets back he's got the landing signal officer on the deck signaling him in. A lot of them did not make it. They would pick up the ones who survived. It was fascinating for Purvis to get know them. It was worthwhile service. They would get as close to them as they could get and drop a cargo net over the side. Some of the sailors would go down and help them up. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer says this might be a good place to stop. Interview goes black].

[Annotator's Note: The interview starts at tape break and the conversation is mid-sentence about Frank Purvis' new baby daughter. Purvis looks at some papers.] Frank Purvis got home on Christmas Day [Annotator's Note: 25 December 1945] and he will never forget that. His daughter had been born in October [Annotator's Note: 1943]. When he finally got home, she was two years old. His wife had gone to Baton Rouge [Annotator's Note: Baton Rouge, Louisiana] to live with her parents until Purvis got back. [Annotator's Note: Purvis reads some papers and says that he is trying to refresh his memory.] He continued to be a part of the Task Force [Annotator’s Note: Task Group 21.15] until V-E Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945]. Then they were detached from convoy duty. The submarines at sea were ordered by the Germans to surface and surrender. They [Annotator's Note: USS Snowden (DE-246)] were ordered to escort them to American ports. That is when they returned from the European war. They returned to the United States for refitting. The Japanese war was still going on and Okinawa was then a terrific battleground. The kamikazes were a real problem and they [Annotator's Note: Navy] were getting as much protection from them as they could. The Snowden came in and had the anti-submarine gear removed and replaced by antiaircraft gear. They then were ordered to the Pacific and reported to Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] in June 1945. They had orders to proceed to Okinawa. After they left Pearl Harbor, the atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945] was dropped and they were ordered back to Pearl Harbor. While there, the second bomb was dropped [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapon dropped on Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945] and Japan surrendered. Coming home, they brought a substantial number of infantry troops with them. They accompanied a large carrier back. One returning kid fell overboard playing volleyball on the carrier deck, an 11 story fall. They searched for him for a couple of hours. Purvis thought to himself that you fight for a couple of years and you lose your life that way. That's a sad episode. He had all the points he needed [Annotator's Note: to leave the service], plus a wife and a kid at home when he returned to San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. He had hoped that he would leave San Diego for Louisiana, but he was told to stay on the ship and take it back to Norfolk, Virginia. He was more frightened on that trip than he had been on any of them, because he was afraid he might fall off ship. He got orders for separation and he came to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana]. He had to stay in the reserve, which is where he was when the Korean War came along. Fortunately, he did not get called.

[Annotator's Note: Frank Purvis had served in the Atlantic for nearly the entire war then transferred to the Pacific around the time that the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan on 6 and 9 August 1945.] It was an amazing announcement that we had such a weapon. There was not a doubt that it was the thing to do. If the United States took Japan, they were going to lose a lot of men. None of them were happy for civilians to be killed but they were not sad for the Japanese soldiers. They were excited to see the end of the war. He returned to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] and then to Baton Rouge [Annotator's Note: Baton Rouge, Louisiana]. He was fortunate because his wife's father had built some houses in Baton Rouge, so they had someplace to live. Housing and automobiles were difficult to come by. They had no furnishings for their house. You could not buy a refrigerator. On a day where there were some advertised, he got up a four o'clock in the morning to get one first. These items had not been made during the war. Purvis was so glad to get back and got his job back. It was not a question, because while he was gone, a classmate had been elected Secretary of State [Annotator's Note: of Louisiana]. His readjustment to civilian life was much easier than it was for others. It was difficult sometimes to see people who had stayed out of the war, and had done well with their profession. He does not think everyone focused on that. There was too much joy in getting back to life. He says he has been very fortunate. He has worked since he was 12, and he goes to work every day. He would not take anything for his war experiences. It was tough to be away from the ones he loved and with the uncertainty of what was going to happen. He feels sorry for anyone who chose not to go. Everybody was in it. Everybody was suffering hardships and making sacrifices. His two children born after war were one boy and one girl. His son was in the war in Vietnam. His sister was in the Peace Corps in Africa. The difference between World War 2, Vietnam, and even Iraq, is that his wife and he would go out for a wonderful evening. How do you get up the next morning and write to your son in Vietnam or your daughter in the Peace Corps, "hey, I am having a great time." [Annotator's Note: Purvis gets emotional.] It makes it tough. He feels that a lot of people complaining about the wars now, do support the troops, but he finds it difficult.