Harold Ronson was born in Brooklyn, New York [Annotator's Note: Brooklyn is one of the five boroughs in New York, New York] in April 1926. Those were difficult days. He was the youngest of four children. His father had tough times finding work. The children got little jobs after school. The saddest thing in his life was his mother getting a relief check from the government. In the 1930s [Annotator's Note: during the Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939] there were bread lines and soup kitchens. There is no question that it prepared him for life. Even at a young age, he knew there was something better. They were overshadowed by World War 2 coming on. One of his brothers was drafted in December 1940 a full year before Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He was only to serve one year, but just as he was to get out, the war started for America. He spent four more years in the service. Ronson joined the Navy because his three brothers were in southern England in 1944 preparing to invade Europe. His oldest brother, who was later wounded in Germany, told Ronson to join the Navy to avoid combat. Ronson did that and wound up on Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Battle of Iwo Jima, 19 February to 26 March 1945; Iwo Jima, Japan]. Ronson's father was a sportsman and managed to get to a Giants [Annotator's Note: New York Giants, American professional football team] football game on 7 December [Annotator's Note: 7 December 1941]. They announced for the soldiers to return to their ships and stations. They did not know why. He had never heard of Pearl Harbor. His father was a milkman, and it was difficult to get fuel for his truck. They had Air Raid Wardens who came in every night and turned off the lights. They collected tin cans and turned them in. They started studying the Japanese and there was a lot of propaganda about how barbaric they were. Germany was in it too, and they were surrounded by it. A few years later, people were joining the service and quitting school. His mother had passed away in March 1941. She gave them their character. She died at 43 due to poverty. Ronson and his brothers corresponded a lot. His older brother was a Ranger [Annotator's Note: US Army Ranger] and stepped on a land mine in Germany. He limped for the rest of his life with supports on his legs. His brother Bill was in the medical corps that went into Dachau [Annotator's Note: Dachau concentration camp complex near Dachau, Germany], and he spent six months there. He never came out the way he went in. In those days there was no psychological study. When Ronson came home, he just came home and that was the end of it. Mars [Annotator's Note: another brother] was General Hodges' [Annotator's Note: US Army General Courtney Hicks Hodges] secretary and went across Europe but saw no combat. His father wore stars in his lapel, and they had stars in the window [Annotator's Note: Service flag, or Blue Star Flag, official banners displayed by families who have members in the Armed Forces during any period of war or hostilities]. They were all patriots. Nobody questioned the war, and they believed all the propaganda. Some of it was true, and some was not. War is not for angels, and we [Annotator's Note: Americans] are not angels either.

Harold Ronson was the only one home living with his father after his mother passed away. His brothers were all serving overseas. He and some friends were at Muscle Beach on Coney Island [Annotator's Note: Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York, New York]. They walked by a recruiting station and went in to sign up. They were told they were not old enough and needed a letter from their fathers. They went into a restroom and wrote the letters. That is how Ronson ended up in the Navy. He hates to use the expression, but they all wanted to go kill Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese]. They did not want to go to school and the war was winding down. He went to Sampson Naval Training Base [Annotator's Note: Naval Training Station Sampson in Seneca Lake, New York]. He was told he was leaving for the Philippines right away. He had never been farther from Brooklyn than the Bronx [Annotator's Note: the Bronx is one of the five boroughs in New York, New York]. He took a train to San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California] and got on a rusting Landing Craft, Infantry [Annotator's Note: the USS LCI(L)-1012]. He thought it was taking him to a ship, but he stayed on for the rest of his time. He had only been through basic training. He had trained on rifles. They went to a firing range as they crossed the Pacific. They had four 20mm machine guns [Annotator's Note: Oerlikon 20mm antiaircraft automatic cannon] and a 40 caliber artillery piece [Annotator's Note: Bofors 40mm antiaircraft automatic cannon] on the bow. They got good training. He had never been on more than a rowboat in Central Park [Annotator's Note: in New York, New York]. Ronson was so young he shrugged off being on that boat. It had a flat bottom and did not roll. They went from San Diego to Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] in about ten days. It was difficult duty. He was a second class Seaman which meant he did all the dirty work. They all had a gun station. They stood eight hour watches, four hours during the day and four at night, every single day. They were not scared yet. They got to Pearl Harbor and went to Kahului [Annotator's Note: Kahului Naval Air Station, Kahului, Maui, Hawaii] to the Navy firing range. Pearl Harbor was impressive. Everybody went to see the Arizona [Annotator's Note: USS Arizona (BB-39)]. The leadership there did not have a clue as to what was going on. The Japanese got in there with nobody to challenge them [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. By absolute accident, the aircraft carriers were at sea and were safe.

Harold Ronson went to Eniwetok, Marshall Islands, which later became famous for the atomic bomb testing [Annotator's Note: Operation Ivy, eight series of American nuclear tests, two at Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands, 31 October 1952 and 15 November 1952]. They did not make their water, they carried water which was always rusty. This landing craft [Annotator's Note: USS LCI(L)-1012] was not built to live on. They got stuck on reefs all over the Pacific so they could not be used to land troops anymore. They put rockets and mortars on them [Annotator's Note: and redesignated the vessel LCI(M)-1012, Landing Craft Infantry (Mortar) on 30 April 1945]. His had 4.2 chemical mortars [Annotator's Note: M2 4.2 inch mortar] which is an infantry weapon. It was like a secret weapon. From Eniwetok they went to Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands] and Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands]. They had their first air attack in the summer of 1944. These islands had already been taken. He was scared to death and hugged the deck inside the gun tub. He was wearing a metal helmet and an officer hit him on the head with a metal rod and told him to get on his feet. He thought his head blew off. He never forgot it. It scared him and he learned from it. From there he went to the Philippine Islands. It took a long time because his tub was slow. They went in a flotilla of landing craft [Annotator's Note: LCI Flotilla 21, LCI Group 61]. They went to the central Philippines and landed on Cebu [Annotator's Note: Cebu Island, Philippines]. They wanted volunteers to go on the beach. Ronson went with a Thompson submachine gun [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber Thompson submachine gun]. He and the others sprawled out on the grass and a Filipino in a white suit selling souvenirs came out. He was peddling anything, including women, in the middle of a battle. They spent a month and a half in the Philippines and then went to Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: for the Battle of Iwo Jima, 19 February to 26 March 1945; Iwo Jima, Japan]. They did not know they were heading to Iwo Jima until they were more than halfway there. They had 4.2 chemical mortars and some troops. They were told they were dropping the troops on the beach and leading the first wave into the beach. Naval ships would stop firing as the landing craft were getting close to the beach and they wanted something to fill in. That is where the 4.2 chemical mortars came in. The shell was about 14 inches long with a circumference of about eight inches. They were also to blanket the beach with smoke mortars. Later on, they got smoke generators and would pull up next to ships to help mask the ship. Not a lot was going on in Ronson's head. He was a kid, and they were not briefed as to what the objective was other than this was the first island owned by Japan. All of the others that had been retaken, were someone else's to start with. These fanatics were told they had to die for it. The island was volcanic ash. He put his fist into it up to his elbow and he thought "wait until they land a tank on this." There were a lot of judgement errors made in the central Pacific, like Guam [Annotator's Note: Second Battle of Guam, 21 July to 10 August 1944, Guam, Mariana Islands], Saipan [Annotator's Note: Battle of Saipan, 15 June to 9 July 1944, Saipan, Mariana Islands], Tinian [Annotator's Note: Battle of Tinian, 24 July to 1 August 1944, Tinian, Mariana Islands], and Peleliu [Annotator's Note: Battle of Peleliu, codenamed Operation Stalemate II, September to November 1944, Peleliu, Palau]. Landing craft got stuck miles from the beach. War is statistical errors on both sides.

The cook [Annotator's Note: on the USS LCI(L)-1012] got sick, and one was needed. Harold Ronson put in for it as he had done a lot of cooking after his mother passed away [Annotator's Note: in 1941]. He wanted the job to keep busy. It was boredom on the tub with the same jokes and same remarks every day. Food was plentiful from supply ships. Once they crossed an imaginary line in the Pacific, meat no longer came from America fully butchered. It came from Australia as the complete animal. He walked in the galley one day and saw a couple of cows and almost fainted. They returned to Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] in 1945. He was there when they dropped the bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945]. They were preparing for invading Shikoku [Annotator's Note: Shikoku (island), Japan] in November [Annotator's Note: November 1945]. They had estimated a year or two before they would take Japan. Some admirals and generals wanted to surround Japan and let it rot. The heavyweights wanted a frontal assault. They estimated the Americans would lose a million men on the beaches and Japan would lose two or three million civilians. The bomb was dropped, and the war ended. Ronson volunteered to stay with the landing craft. He had seniority and said he would stay as the cook, thinking he was going home in a week. Instead, he was sent to northern Japan and southern China to bring home troops from Manchuria [Annotator's Note: Manchuria, China]. They ran like a ferry boat to Kyushu for a year. It was informative. The Japanese were scared to death of them. The propaganda was overwhelming.

Harold Ronson experienced one of the most anti-Semitic incidents in his life going into Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Battle of Iwo Jima, 19 February to 26 March 1945, Iwo Jima, Japan]. They had a doctor on board [Annotator's Note: the USS LCI(G)-1012] who moved every two weeks between seven landing craft. He happened to be on Ronson's craft on 19 February, D-Day [Annotator's Note: the day on which an operation or invasion takes effect] for Iwo Jima. Ronson was popular. He was a weightlifter and got along well with people. He wore the Jewish star around his neck which was enforced by the Navy. As Ronson was running up to his gun station, the doctor's aide said, "hey Jew boy, as soon as we secure the island, you can open a dry goods store." Coming from New York, he did not know what a dry goods store was, but he knew he was not a compliment. He jumped on the guy, and they wrestled D-Day morning. Ronson's captain called him a short time later and apologized for the Navy and that guy's stupidity. He also kicked that guy off the ship. Ronson had a Black [Annotator's Note: African-American] steward's mate and a Black cook. In Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii], all the cooks were Black except for Ronson. He determined in his future life to work hard to see if he could smooth that out a little.

When Harold Ronson got onto the beach at Iwo [Annotator's Note: Battle of Iwo Jima, 19 February to 26 March 1945, Iwo Jima, Japan], there were supplies scattered all over the place as well as wounded men. He woke up on D-plus-four [Annotator's Note: four days after d-day, the day on which an operation or invasion takes effect; in this case, 23 February 1945] with a swollen jaw. He went to the Good Samaritan hospital ship [Annotator's Note: the USS Samaritan (AH-10)]. He ran up to the deck and had a view that no human being should have to see of the wounded. Iwo was not clean rifle wounds. It was mostly explosives that tore up the body. He ran down almost hysterical and does not remember what happened to his mouth. He never forgot that scene. In fairness, they did not know how difficult the beach was. The beach was bombarded day and night. He saw heroism and heard of heroism. It was a special bunch of men. In 1943, Ronson went to high school in lower Manhattan [Annotator's Note: Manhattan is one of the five boroughs in New York, New York] which was a trade school. He got in a subway in Brooklyn [Annotator's Note: Brooklyn is one of the five boroughs in New York, New York] to go to Manhattan. He would stay on to go to Times Square to see Glenn Miller [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Major Alton Glenn Miller, American musician], Benny Goodman [Annotator's Note: Benjamin David Goodman, American jazz clarinetist and bandleader], Harry James [Annotator's Note: Harry Haag James, American musician], Frank Sinatra [Annotator's Note: Francis Albert Sinatra, American singer, actor, producer], and all for 15 cents. He was in Times Square in 1943 for a bond drive [Annotator's Note: campaign to encourage Americans to buy United States Treasury bonds to finance World War 2] with Cab Calloway [Annotator's Note: Cabell "Cab" Calloway III, American jazz singer, dancer, bandleader, and actor] singing "Minnie the Moocher" [Annotator's Note: jazz song recorded by Cab Calloway and His Orchestra in 1931]. John Basilone [Annotator's Note: US Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone] was with him. Basilone won the Medal of Honor on Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal Campaign, 7 August 1942 to 9 February 1943, Solomon Islands], and he became Ronson's hero. Ronson read his story. Fast forward to 1945 and they were landing at Iwo Jima. Somebody said Basilone was there after volunteering to come back. The next thing Ronson heard was that Basilone had been killed there on D-Day. Later in life, when Ronson would speak at schools, he would ask why Basilone had come back. He never came up with an answer. Heroism is a big thing but, unfortunately, it is limited to mostly working-class people. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Ronson what it was like to see all of the wounded on the Samaritan.] Ronson was hurt. He was a kid and could not understand who was doing this and why. He was never frightened of being killed. His worst day was his birthday, 12 April 1945, on Okinawa [Annotator's Note: during the Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, 1 April to 22 June 1945, Okinawa, Japan]. A Japanese bomber dropped a torpedo that went right under the landing craft. In combat, you are surrounded by it day and night. Not everything was smooth and perfect. The flag raising [Annotator's Note: United States flag raised on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, Japan, 23 February 1943] was three days after the landing. He was off the beach a few feet, and somebody said to look at the flag on Suribachi. They cheered and fired a gun as a salute. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Ronson what the Star-Spangled Banner, the national anthem of the United States, and the United States flag mean to him today.] Ronson has had a wonderful life. It is a great life. He has choices in his adult years, and he is a patriot. He works hard to make life easier for other people which is why he serves on school boards. He feels with his experience he can make a mark somewhere. Nobody feels stronger about heroics of fellow servicemen than he does. Unfortunately it does not permeate a lot of the society.

Harold Ronson went to Okinawa [Annotator's Note: during the Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, 1 April to 22 June 1945, Okinawa, Japan]. The reason they took Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Iwo Jima, Japan] was so the B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] could crash land there. They saved a lot of crews. Iwo was halfway between the Mariana Islands and Japan. Ronson was in a bar in New York one night and someone heard him mention he was in the invasion of Iwo Jima. A guy got off a bar stool and hugged him because he had crash-landed on that island. He made it sound like Ronson took the island by himself. They became friends. Okinawa was the last battle of the war. They [Annotator's Note: the USS LCI(G)-1012, later the LCI(M)-1012] landed on 1 April 1945 with the biggest armada in the history of mankind. It was the home of the kamikazes and Ronson went through hundreds in the three months he was there. Every night as the sun was setting, they would come out of the sun. He saw them sink an aircraft carrier. Ronson went to Ie-Shima [Annotator's Note: Ie-Shima, Japan] where Ernie Pyle [Annotator's Note: Ernest Taylor Pyle, American journalist and war correspondent] died [Annotator's Note: 8 April 1945]. Pyle was a hero to all of them. There were hundreds of damaged ships there. The American Navy never ponied up to it [Annotator's Note: slang for took responsibility]. He will never forget what he saw there. Wars are funny things. They always want to show a smiling face, but wars are not smiling faces. When they landed [Annotator's Note: on Okinawa], you could have eaten on the beach because there was no resistance. Once they got inland, the crazy Japanese were going to die for the emperor. They committed suicide. Okinawa had civilians. Ronson occupied Naha [Annotator's Note: Naha, Okinawa, Japan] and they committed suicide by jumping off cliffs. The ignorance of people is unbelievable. It is still part of the problem today. Okinawa was different because they were based there when the war ended. He was in Japan for a year. Japan had been carpet bombed and there was nothing standing. They were at Sasebo [Annotator's Note: Sasebo, Japan], a short distance from Nagasaki [Annotator's Note: Nagasaki, Japan]. Ronson salutes President Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States] for dropping the bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945], because he thinks the Japanese would still be fighting. Ronson does not know what can be done about the ignorance of the masses when it comes to violence. We can only try to educate people to evaluate killing other people rather than just doing it.

Harold Ronson came home in the late summer of 1946. There was no big band or homecoming. His father had remarried the year before and lived in his same apartment. Ronson had a seabag, rang the bell, and a woman answered the door. She asked who he was. His father explained and she said there was no room for him. Ronson went to live with his sister, whose husband had just come out of the Army. He lived with them for years until he went to school. Ronson never forgot it. No youngster should have to go through that. He went to work. He was a weightlifter and went to Muscle Beach [Annotator's Note: on Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York]. He got a few breaks in life and he made the best of it. He had some adages while in the military. He did not want to be in the military, and he did not want to be poor anymore. He kept asking himself what he had to do. He finally figured it out. Ronson is against wars. They are created. World War 2 took the world out of the worst Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945] in history. He saw a lot of guys die and for what? He is proud of his service and his brothers. He would do it again, but he would make more noise about trying to find peaceful efforts. He does not know if there are any, but that is how his mind is set. Ronson believes it is important for kids today to know and learn about the war. He is talking about kids going to good schools, whose families have set aside life for them. As he moved up the ladder, he got to know different people. They have to know what we did without complaining like today. They had better values because they had so little. There is plenty of good stuff around and he is not bitter. There are a lot of people doing a lot of good. This is not a completely negative country. He thinks it interesting when he speaks in schools that the kids are interested. He thinks The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] is important and is in his estate. There are two things in his life he is interested in. One is solving Alzheimer's [Annotator's Note: progressive disease that destroys memory and other mental functions], which took his wife and so many people he knew. The other is preserving what was done in the war. Ronson was no big hero but there were many in the infantry slogging through the mud. If there is a military, there must be a draft. The people who make the money off wars, have to fight too, and they do not today. People have to be willing to sacrifice. Ronson would like to tell future Americans to remember that we did the best we could do. We tried to make the world a better place, not by the gun, but by work. The gun part is the result of the failure of other things. We must have an economic system that allows for everyone. God does instill the same amount of intelligence in all of us. He would want to be remembered that he tried the best he could, sacrificed, and did not take a hand-out although some people must have it. He prays that the people in charge understand that we must help people who need help. When he did occupation duty in Japan, the first good-looking woman in Japan came up to him and said [Annotator's Note: something unintelligible]. Ronson says not to put that in the interview.