Frederick Jenkins was born in Detroit, Michigan in July 1926. He grew up in the fields. His father was a college graduate and an electrical engineer. After the crash [Annotator’s Note: The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929, setting off the great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States], he had to take several small engineering jobs. He heard about the attack over the radio [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He was selling newspapers on that day. They were into Victory Gardens and rations. His mother built two-way radios for the Army. She came down with mercury poisoning. His father taught Army radio technician school. His brother went into the service and then a year later he decided to join the service. He went down and applied to the Marine Corps, but he was too thin. The Navy was glad to get him.

Frederick Jenkins thought it was hard to get organized. He had a school teacher as his company commander during boot camp at Great Lakes [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Great Lakes in Lake County, Illinois]. After he finished boot camp, he stayed at Great Lakes. He came down with a fever and he had to go into the hospital. They had to give him sulfa drugs to bring down the fever. Eventually, he went to engineering school. Then he went to Norfolk [Annotator’s Note: Norfolk, Virginia] for more schooling and met up with his shipmates. He went to class and learned about engineering work on ships. He was a throttle man on the ship. He got instructions over his headphones. He had to watch all the gauges. A kamikaze [Annotator's Note: Japanese suicide bombers] knocked out the engine room. They thought they were going down, but a destroyer came over and told them how to get through it. They had to abandon half of the crew to a different ship. They always maintained 50 percent fuel capacity during war operations. If they ran low, they would take on fuel from the aircraft carrier in the group. When they were available, they would pull up to fleet tankers.

Frederick Jenkins went through the Panama Canal [Annotator's Note: Manmade canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in between North and South America] and the sonar operators picked up a signal from what they thought was a submarine. A German u-boat [Annotator's Note: German submarine] sank a tanker on the other side of the canal. Along the side of Mexico, they picked up an echo from a submarine. They had two guys in the hole who were drunk on torpedo alcohol. They came up on deck with flashlights and gave away their position. After stopping in San Diego [Annotator’s Note: San Diego, California] they went to Guam and those four men were court-martialed. Jenkins liked being on the ship. His worked four hours on and eight hours off. He was lucky to get four hours of sleep at night. When he got off work at midnight, he would go by the bakery. They boxed and watched movies. He was with a bunch of good guys from the midwest. His brother was killed in October at Tarawa [Annotator’s Note: the Battle of Tarawa, 20 to 23 November 1943; Tarawa Atoll, the Gilbert Islands]. Jenkins found out about his brother’s death when he went home. His brother left home and they never saw him again. He was close with his brother. When they went to Okinawa [Annotator’s Note: Okinawa, Japan] it was their job to keep submarines out of the harbor. Jenkins got to go up to the hill where Ernie Pyle [Annotator’s Note: Ernest Taylor Pyle was a Pulitzer Prize–winning American journalist and war correspondent who is best known for his stories about ordinary American soldiers during World War II] was killed. They had to investigate a submarine that was spotted. They fired over their heads. They took four prisoners. They had to turn the prisoners over to intelligence. They got to meet the enemy and observe them. They did not have a lot of compassion for the enemy at that time. They were under the kamikazes [Annotator's Note: Japanese suicide bombers] while there.

Frederick Jenkins was in damage control in the machine shop where the kamikaze [Annotator's Note: Japanese suicide bombers] hit. They were firing at eight aircraft closing in on the port side of the convoy. They were in the second bombardment group. As they came in, they opened up their long guns. They knew it was enemy aircraft. They heard an explosion in the machine shop. It was a kamikaze hitting them. They would drop a hose in the area that needed to be evacuated and suck the water out. There was smoke coming out of the number two fire room. The young man who made fresh water for the ship died. The man who worked on the boiler died later from his wounds. They drilled every day on splitting the power and keeping things underway to keep the ship alive. In Albany Bay, several ships were destroyed. In the Leyte area of the Philippines, there were several ships taking on larger battleships. When they were near Okinawa, they ran into a typhoon. The waves were 15 to 25 feet tall. As they headed south, they went by a minefield. They exploded several on the surface after the war ended.

Frederick Jenkins was an engineer on a whale boat when the war ended. They left the ship as the she went out on picket duty. They knew they would have to stay overnight. They made themselves at home in a SeaBee [Annotator's Note: Members of US naval construction battalions] camp. They were watching a movie when it was announced that the war was over. They started firing anti-aircraft guns to celebrate. They rejoined the ship the next day. They were happy the war was over. They still had duties. They were one of the first ships in Japan. They were in the Nagasaki Harbor. They had to have a Japanese pilot guide them into the harbor. A typhoon blew up while they were in the harbor and they had to get out so they would not be run aground. The people there were scared of them. They dropped the atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] in an industrial area. The destruction was immense and they could see the area experienced major heat. Jenkins had the best time ashore in Sasebo [Annotator’s Note: Sasebo, Japan]. They went into houses and schools and helped the people pronounce American words. When he returned to the United States, they were in San Pedro [Annotator’s Note: San Pedro, Los Angeles, California]. Jenkins made himself at home. They started to decommission their ship there, then went down to San Diego [Annotator’s Note: San Diego, California]. People treated him well when he came home from the war. He found out some of his friends did not make it home. He was in the Navy until he was 21 years old. Their ship was scrapped eventually. His family was doing well. They had gotten off rationing. Jenkins got a job and started working right away. He ended up with a rug company.

Frederick Jenkins thinks the museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] is important because it makes people aware of what happened yesterday and how if it happened today, they need to support their young men. Not many young people are in the military today. The best way to protect democracy is to have a strong military and support them both during and after service. Young people become so stressed out from warfare that it took a while for them to wind down. The war made Jenkins more concerned about what is happening in the country and what the government is doing. He thinks people do not appreciate freedom and democracy and are depending too much on the government. Young people who died for their country should still make the headlines so people can remember them properly. People need to get involved with the government because they will lose their liberties under a socialist government.