George Alaniz is from New Mexico. He was there when the draft started, and he decided to volunteer for the Army for one year. The person who interviewed him told him the Army had a good deal, so he joined the infantry. He is sorry he did. He went from Modero, California with three others into the same Division [Annotator's Note: 7th Infantry Division]. He went through basic training. He would be on a 25-mile hike every Friday. He did amphibious landing training at Fort Ord [Annotator's Note: Fort Ord, California]. He had fun there. He was sent for three months of desert training. The war had started before then. He was in a motorized division. They would train with no lights. They would make the beds at dark but would never know when they would move again. He was told he was going overseas when he only had three weeks left on his one-year enlistment. He then learned he was in for the duration [Annotator's Note: of the war]. He ended up with nearly four years in. He wrote his mother some letters before leaving because his mother did not know he was going to war. [Annotator's Note: Alaniz gets very emotional and has a hard time continuing.] Alaniz was put on a ship to Attu [Annotator's Note: Attu Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska]. He was told it was near Alaska and they had been training in the desert. There were a lot of storms on the way. They lost one landing craft hitting the beach at Attu [Annotator's Note: Battle of Attu, 11 to 30 May 1943]. It was pretty bad.

George Alaniz landed on the beach at Attu. [Annotator's Note: Alaniz was a rifleman in Company G, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division and landed at Beach Yellow in Massacre Bay, Attu on the afternoon of 11 May 1943.] After a few days, he was hit. He was treated and sent back to his company. He and a buddy had a shell hit in between them. They were both hit. They agreed then that if one of them got killed first, the other would go see his friend's family. [Annotator's Note: he gets emotional]. Alaniz was sorry that he did because it was bad to go see his friend's parents. [Annotator's Note: Alaniz gets every emotional and the tape is stopped. He returns saying he skipped a lot of things.] A lot of men were killed. The next day Alaniz and his company were to take the left flank but were pinned down. About a week later, they advanced through some brush. Alaniz's feet were numb, and he could not jump. He was shot in the back and the side. He was a scout. He had a smoke grenade and his .45 [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol]. He was ready to be bayoneted. He was picked up and gotten out of there. He left his weapons behind. His arm hurt and his legs were numb. All of the wounded were taken to the hospital on the beach. Alaniz thought he was being sent back to fight but he was put on a ship. His legs and feet hurt so much that he asked the doctor to cut them off. [Annotator's Note: Alaniz gets very emotional and is difficult to understand.] He was unconscious for two weeks. He thinks the man in the bed next to him died.

[Annotator's Note: George Alaniz arrived in San Diego, California after being severely wounded on Attu Island, Alaska.] There was a big celebration there. People were telling him he did a good job. He went by train to Santa Barbara [Annotator's Note: Santa Barbara, California] to the general hospital. He was in bad shape and could not walk. After about three days, his sister came to see him and brought her daughter. After two months, the nurses asked if he could walk. He started to walk but fell. They walked him for a little bit. That went on for a while. They would have to cut his food for him because his arm was bad. After four months, he was sent to Ogden City, Utah to another hospital. He was given penicillin for 29 days. He had to have surgery to fix an infection in his arm. He received a 30 day furlough home. He returned to the hospital and they said he needed another surgery because his bone had not healed correctly. He refused the surgery and was sent to Salt Lake City [Annotator's Note: Salt Lake City, Utah] to rest and then to Gainesville, Texas to Camp Howze. During the trip, a little Japanese boy wanted to give him an apple, but he refused it. The boy's mother asked him if he had fought the Japanese. He said yes. She asked him if the United States went to war with Mexico, would he fight for Mexico or for the United States. He said for the United States. She told him her husband was fighting the Japanese for the United States too. He said he was sorry. [Annotator's Note: Alaniz gets emotional.]

[Annotator's Note: After being wounded, George Alaniz was sent to Gainesville, Texas to recuperate.] Alaniz was assigned to a company there and started training. He told the sergeant he could not move around well. He helped with the training, but the sergeant did not like him. The captain favored him. He was assigned to be a day orderly in the the Eighth Service Command [Annotator's Note: Army Services Forces]. He would drive a jeep to take movies to the theaters. Gainesville was dry [Annotator's Note: sale of alcohol is illegal], but the commander would get beer. Alaniz went to Dallas [Annotator's Note: Dallas, Texas] and he liked it. He would go there every weekend. He had a date with a girl on a Sunday. He was stood up. He met some other girls and went with them to a park. He married that girl and they had six children.

George Alaniz was in Texas when the war ended. He was married and his wife was pregnant. He was discharged before the war was over. [Annotator's Note: Alaniz talks of his marriage and honeymoon at length.] He lived in Roswell [Annotator's Note: Roswell, New Mexico] but wanted to go to Santa Barbara [Annotator's Note: Santa Barbara, California]. An old boss of his came over and asked him to work for him. A man who worked with veterans came by and told him he could get more money. He went to Albuquerque [Annotator's Note: Albuquerque, New Mexico] and was told there that they wanted to send him to college. He told them he had only gone to the fifth grade because of the Great Depression. They sent him to Roswell to learn how to wire appliances. He learned to wire houses. He liked the work. He then was assigned to a four-year course as an electrician. He was in Roswell when Kennedy [Annotator's Note: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States] ran for President. Kennedy won and messed up Alaniz by cutting his disability and closing the base. Alaniz took a job in Michigan City [Annotator's Note: Michigan City, Indiana]. It got cold and snowy, so he quit and went home. There was not a lot of work, so he decided to go to California. [Annotator's Note: Alaniz describes looking for work there at length.]

George Alaniz landed on the beach at Attu. [Annotator's Note: Alaniz was a rifleman in Company G, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division and landed at Beach Yellow in Massacre Bay, Attu on the afternoon of 11 May 1943.] There was a lot of rock. He saw a Japanese that got killed. He wanted to take his cap because they had good cold weather gear, but he did not want to be shot. It was very cold, and Alaniz's feet froze. He was wet but was so sleepy he could sleep a little while. He had K-rations [Annotator's Note: pre-cooked combat ration] to eat. He threw away the cigarettes. It was a really hard fight. He had never heard of Attu until then. People wondered why we fought there. The Japanese were building a base and they stopped them. He was there for two weeks, most of the battle. All of the kitchen people got killed. The ground was hard to fight on, they never knew where it was solid. They fought the weather, the ground, and the enemy. It was altogether different from how they had trained. [Annotator's Note: Alaniz tells the interviewer he is sorry he got scared away and starts to cry.]