Bailey was born in Lancaster County, South Carolina on 12 September 1921.During the Great Depression Bailey's clothes were worn out, he went barefoot, had to walk to church, and he ate molasses and bread for breakfast. They had to drink a glass of buttermilk before they could get a glass of sweet milk.When Bailey was seven years old he was working on a farm plowing with a mule. By the time he was ten years old he was a full time farmer. He would pick his cotton then pick someone else's cotton. They would then take the cotton to the gin where they got 6 cents a pound. His family was sharecroppers and farmed for the man who owned the land they lived on. Bailey worked there until he was 16 years old when his father hired him out to a man named Jennings for 75 cents a day plus his dinner.When he was 16 years old his family got their first radio that was powered by a car battery.Bailey's family moved around North Carolina and South Carolina sharecropping schedules.Bailey left the farm to work as a carpenter's helper at a lumber company. He was promoted to carpenter. He built a hotel where he spent his honeymoon.Bailey quit working for the lumber yard and went to work at a cotton mill where he stayed for 1 year and 11months. On 1 December 1939 construction began on Camp Croft [Annotator’s Note: near Spartanburg, South Carolina]. Bailey went to work at Camp Croft as a carpenter. He watched as troops moved into barracks as soon as they were finished.When Camp Croft was completed h went to Wilmington, North Carolina to build a shipyard on the Cape Fear River.Bailey then went to Columbia, South Carolina to Camp Jackson to build trusses for recreation facilities.At the time Bailey's father was working with him and his brother was hired on with them too and they formed a crew.The crew went to Camp Gordon in Augusta, Georgia. At Camp Gordon they had to join a union, which they did. At Camp Gordon they built barracks.Bailey and crew then moved to Panama City, Florida to build Wainwright Shipyard. After completing the shipyard, Bailey went to a two week school to learn to be a ship-fitter. He worked in the shipyard with a female welder and built LSTs [Annotator’s Note: Landing Ship, Tank] and Liberty ships.After Bailey's third deferment came to an end he was informed that he couldn't get another. He and his wife returned to Lancaster.

Bailey checked in with his draft board and was put on a bus to Camp Croft. He told the army recruiter that he wanted to join the Marines. He joined the Marines and was sent to Columbia for a medical exam and was sworn in there on 12 October 1943.On 15 October, Bailey's son was born. Seven days later he was passing through the gate at Parris Island [Annotator’s Note: Marine Corps Recruit Depo in South Carolina].Bailey picked up his issue of clothing. He didn't know it at the time, but the Marin with a goatee who issued him his boots was Lou Diamond [Annotator's Note: US Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sergeant Leland "Lou" Diamond].Bailey completed eight weeks of boot camp. During marching training Bailey rocked on his feet after being called to a halt and was yelled at by a Captain.After they learned to march they moved to the rifle range. Bailey made expert at the rifle range.After eight weeks they were issued their dress greens and they were given a ten day pass. After Bailey returned from his pass he was assigned as a coach at the rifle range.With the exception of the two months spent in boot camp, the men were paid an additional five dollars per month for shooting a rifle.Bailey was sent to Camp Lejeune [Annotator’s Note: North Carolina] for combat training. During his training his wife was able to spend ten days with him. When his training was done he was put on a train and sent to Camp Pendleton [Annotator’s Note: California]. After two weeks at Camp Pendleton he was pu aboard a ship. It was now in the middle of December 1944.Bailey went by ship to Pavuvu where it was nothing but coconut trees and it rained every day. Bailey’s job was to make coffee on a 50 gallon drum. He also went out on marches.Bailey was put on a ship and after steaming around for six days he was put ashore on Guadalcanal. After eating a sandwich on the beach, he re-boarded the ship and steamed for Mogmog [Annotator's Note: Ulithi Atoll]. After three days on Mogmog, during which Bailey got fungus in his ear, he went aboard a ship that he was told was heading for Formosa [Annotator’s Note: present day Taiwan]. Once the ship went into the Yellow Sea an announcement was made that the ship was heading for the invasion of Okinawa.

Bailey had been walking around the ship [Annotator's Note: the ship that was taking him to the invasion of Okinawa]. He sat down on a spool and the wind blew the dollar bills he had just won in a poker game into the water. When he looked over the railing he lost his helmet into the water.Bailey couldn't sleep aboard ship. He would sit topside, look at the stars, and think about home and his wife. On the last night sitting up on deck he watched tracer bullets flying into the sky. It was about midnight on 31 March [Annotator's Note: 31 March 1945]. Bailey saw some planes go down. The closer they got to shore the brighter the tracers got. At daylight the Japanese fired artillery at them but no one was hit.At 8:30 the first wave of regular troops went ashore [Annotator’s Note: 1 April 1945]. Bailey was in the 32nd replacement draft and stayed aboard ship listening to the ship's speakers telling what was going on.Bailey went ashore around 4:30 on an Amtrack [Annotator's Note: an amphibious tank/LVT, Landing Vehicle, Tracked]. When he was going over the side a sailor asked Bailey where his helmet was. When Bailey told him he didn't have one the sailor put his on Bailey's head. Bailey went ashore with a navy helmet.Once ashore Bailey could see ships burning. He could see tracers at night. He stayed in his foxhole and watched the kamikazes. Bailey learned a lot in his first six days ashore. The tracers lit the night sky up like an umbrella. During the day the tracers just had little smoke streaks.The air attacks went on for 139 days [Annotator's Note: Bailey means 39 days] from the 1st of April to the 9th of May.On his first day ashore two Japanese Zeros [Annotator’s Note: Japanese fighter planes] flew right over him and landed on Yontan Airfield. When the pilots jumped out of their planes the Marines nearby shot them. Bailey doesn't know what happened to their planes.Bailey and Dunn were walking near the south end of Yontan Airfield and Dunn fell into a cave. I the cave, two Japanese soldiers were laying on home-made cots. Their bellies were swollen. They had been dead for three or four days. A bomb had hit the cave and there were items scattered everywhere. Bailey picked up 18 pictures.One day Bailey saw a Japanese kamikaze plane brake through the clouds. Bailey shot the plane twice and knows that he hit it. He watched as the plane flew out to a ship offshore and dove into it. The plane went in too high and hit a truck with a canvas top on it and bounced into the water without its bomb going off.The ship left two days later and Bailey could see the Japanese plane still out in the water. He tried to get out to it but had to get back in his foxhole because of an air raid. The hole was full and a guy in the foxhole with him was hit in the thigh and had to be evacuated.

Bailey was assigned to unloading ships. When he wasn't unloading ships he was walking around. He couldn't stay still.One day Bailey saw a Japanese plane that was heading right for him shot down by a Hellcat [Annotator's Note: US Navy Grumman F6F "Hellcat" fighter aircraft].On 9 May [Annotator's Note: 9 May 1945] Bailey was put aboard a truck and sent to the front. He was in the lead truck of a four truck convoy. During the trip they passed a battery of 155s [Annotator's Note: 155mm howitzers], then a battery of 105s [Annotator's Note: 105mm howitzers], then mortars, and when they got to where rifles were being fired, he knew they were at the front.At the front line, Bailey was assigned as a loader on a bazooka [Annotator's Note: shoulder fired M1A1 2.36 inch rocket launcher] team.When Bailey boarded the truck bound for the front lines he was transferred from the 32nd Replacement Draft to being attached to J, K, and L Companies, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division. He arrived at the front around 4:00 in the afternoon on the 9th and the following day they advanced into Death Valley.The ones who went in before Bailey couldn't stay. They had six rocket trucks with them that fired 60 rockets each.When the wounded were carried out Bailey recognized one of them who had stolen his clothes back at Camp Pendleton. Bailey had some words with the man but felt bad about doing that later.During the entire time they were advancing, the artillery they had passed fired continually.When they jumped off a .30 caliber machine gun opened up. The men took cover then advanced again. A knee mortar [Annotator's Note: Japanese military Type 89 50mm mortar] began firing at them and they got pinned down in the ditch. They were knee deep in water in the ditch.Bailey followed the ditch until it ended.The following morning the Japanese launched a banzai attack. A sword waving lieutenant led the charge. One of the Marines had a machine gun set up and killed all of the Japanese except one. After the attack ended, Bailey and Sammy Diego were told to bring the bazooka forward. When they arrived at the sight of the attack the surviving enemy soldier jumped up and took off running. The Marines opened fire with rifles, machine guns and eleven rockets from Bailey's bazooka. Sam told Bailey that all eleven rockets were duds except the last shot.

On the 16th [Annotator’s Note: 16 May 1945 on Okinawa] Bailey moved out but got pinned down again and took cover in another ditch. He watched as two boys started setting up their gun right above him when a mortar round landed next to them killing them.After crossing a ridge Bailey headed for a second one. A Japanese soldier was shooting at them but didn't hit anyone.It was raining. Bailey came across a tank with a wounded man tied to it with a head wound.Bailey looked in a tunnel with his flashlight and saw two Japanese soldiers sitting in there that had been killed the day before by a flame throwing tank. Seeing that made Bailey realize how hot napalm was even though he carried a flame thrower himself.The Marines pulled back but returned the next day and stayed. It was the 19th or 20th of May. The Marines advanced through a wide open field. There were 160 of them. Everything out there was firing.Bailey was firing at a tomb to keep any Japanese in there from firing. He then fired on an enemy soldier who was throwing grenades.Word was passed to pull back. An old Marine threw out smoke grenades and the Marines ran through the smoke. When they emerged from the other side they were fired at. Bailey was being shot at. He ran until he couldn't run anymore. He walked to a foxhole.The following morning there were 90 Marines left of the 160 there had been the day before.Bailey doesn't recall what took place between that battle and their advance toward Naha. He walked up on a ridge that looked down on Naha.Around Naha, Bailey saw his first helicopter. It was also the first experience he had with Japanese spigot mortars [Annotator's Note: Japanese 320mm Type 98 mortar].Bailey located a cave and went into it. Inside he found a Japanese flag and a half gallon of alcohol. There were clothes strewn around and Bailey believes that it had been used as an aid station.Bailey's group pushed off and followed a railroad track in a valley. All along the railroad track were piles of shoes, pants, shirts, and hats covered by tarps that the Marines pulled off to see what was under them.Bailey and another Marine went into a cave. The cave was full of water from all of the rain. Bailey went left into a room that had bunks in it. He saw a lantern in the cave which was still burning. Bailey's friend attempted to remove the lantern but it wouldn't move. The men left the cave through the low end and returned to their foxhole. About 30 minutes later the whole hill blew up.Bailey believes that the lantern was a trap. Word went out that Hill 57 blew up but Bailey wasn't at Hill 57. It was another hill.

Bailey continued on. After he passed Naha [Annotator’s Note: May 1945, Naha, Okinawa] he encountered civilians for the first time.The special weapons guys were ordered to burn down a number of houses to keep the Japanese from returning.Bailey followed a rock wall down toward the China Sea when he came across a Japanese soldier lying in a rice paddy. Bailey shot the soldier. He still sees the Japanese soldier to this day.As Bailey was nearing the shore, Japanese artillery started shooting at a boat. When Bailey got close the gun stopped firing. The next day Bailey and another Marine took a walk and went into a house. No one was in the house so he went into the barn where he saw a girl lying on the ground who had been raped repeatedly, then killed with a hand grenade. When Bailey was leaving he saw a Japanese soldier under the house. He went back and told his sergeant who took several Marines and went back to the house. They killed three Japanese soldiers.After that time Bailey started seeing civilians; women, children, and old people lying dead on the road. The bodies were covered with maggots.Bailey's unit caught up with the Japanese on Kunishi Ridge.

Bailey and the Marines got there [Annotator's Note: Kunishi Ridge, Okinawa] on the 11th [Annotator's Note: 11 June 1945] at 3:30 in the morning. Bailey was walking through a cane field when a sniper shot at him. He ran back.When they went across Bailey was carrying a flamethrower. A Japanese soldier ran through their line and dropped a hand grenade. Bailey could see that it was two enemy soldiers.After crossing the field Bailey came across a guy from Australia who had joined the Marine Corps to get into the fight.At the top of Kunishi Ridge, Bailey went left and took up a position that he remained in for the next five days. At some point Bailey and Donald I. Wydell went exploring and found a cave. Bailey went into the cave and found a rifle that had been burnt. He carried the rifle all the way to China where he had a carpenter build him a box to send it home in.Kunishi Ridge was hell. When a cave had to be blown Bailey had to go with the guys blowing it up. Many of the caves wouldn't collapse even with a 24 pound satchel charge.Just about every cave went all the way though the island. A cave that was a dead end would have more blowback [Annotator's Note: from an explosive charge].Bailey and Wydell returned to the cave where he found the rifle. The night they had arrived in the area, supplies had been parachuted to them [Annotator's Note: dropped to the Marines]. When Bailey and Wydell got to the cave they saw that the Japanese had stacked some of the parachuted supplies up in the cave. While they were there, Wydell saw a Japanese soldier. They went back to their lines and Bailey got five pounds of napalm. He went back to the cave opening and set off the napalm. The resulting fire burned until midnight.The next morning Bailey saw a Japanese running through the cane field toward where the explosions were about 400 yards out. Bailey grabbed his rifle and opened fire on the man. The first two rounds missed but the third hit him in the belly. Before Bailey could shoot him again he was told to cease fire by an officer. The Japanese soldier got up and ran off. Bailey doesn't know if he died or not.Bailey and another Marine threw a 24 pound satchel charge into a small cave. They continued moving east. Artillery fire was going off and had been going nonstop since 9 May.They found another cave and went in with Bailey's friend leading the way. The two men came across a pile of sandbags with a blanket hanging over them. Bailey went back to the cave entrance to get a hand grenade and as soon as he got back a Japanese soldier shot his friend in the back as he was reaching to grab the grenade from Bailey. Bailey fired 16 rounds from his carbine then they got out. Bailey threw two 24 pound satchel charges into the cave. When Bailey's friend was taken away on a stretcher that was the last time he ever saw him.After the war Bailey was in Bradenton, Florida where his friend was from. He looked up his friend's name in the phone book and located an uncle who told him that his friend had moved to the West Coast to live with his half brother and they hadn't heard from him since. 

On Kunishi Ridge on 15 June [Annotator’s Note:  15 June 1945, Okinawa] Bailey and several other Marines went along the ridge with satchel charges blowing up the overhangs that the Japanese were using to shoot at them from. Bailey came across a Marine that had been shot in the knee.The next day Bailey went east along the sugar cane field. He came across an interpreter trying to get some people out of a cave. The interpreter told Bailey to blow the cave so he tossed in a satchel charge. He's no sure how many people he killed. That was the last cave he blew up.Bailey returned to his position and ran back into Wydell. They decided to go back to the cave they had found before. A Japanese sniper had been in the area and had already shot 15 Marines. As they approached the cave Wydell said to Bailey, 'look at that gun barrel sticking out of that crack right there." About two seconds after Wydell said that, a second Japanese soldier in the cave below them blew his head off. Right after the first Japanese soldier killed himself, Bailey and Wydell heard the sniper above them arm a Japanese grenade. The sniper held the grenade against his head and killed himself. Either of the Japanese soldiers could have killed him and Wydell both but they killed themselves instead.Bailey was nervous that day. He thinks he may have turned white.

On the 17th of June [Annotator's Note: 17 June 1945 on Okinawa] they moved back off of Kunishi Ridge. A colonel was directing the men where to go. Bailey went behind a big rock to use the facilities when a Corsair [Annotator's Note: American Vought F4U "Corsair" fighter aircraft] flew by and strafed to the area where he was. That was the last scary thing Bailey experienced on Okinawa.Bailey's unit moved off of the front lines and were relieved by the 2nd Marine Division. Bailey's unit moved back to the area where the sniper had been. Bailey believes that evidence of the dead sniper is still in that spot.On the first night they were in position a Japanese soldier dug himself out of the cave after it had been blown shut and was shot by a Marine.Back at Pavuvu, Bailey got a 32 and a half cent silver coin off a Marine who had been in Australia. Bailey beat the coin with his GI spoon and made a ring out of. He wore the ring until 1980 when it fell apart.The only two Japanese prisoners Bailey ever saw were older. One was in his 40s and the other was in his 30s. Bailey believes that the older guys were more likely to surrender than the younger ones. It wasn't until the very end that the younger guys surrendered.Bailey got off the front line on the 18th [Annotator's Note: 18 June 1945]. General Buckner was on the front lines on the 20th or 21st when an artillery shell went off. A rock hit the general and killed him [Annotator's Note: US Army General Simon Bolivar Buckner was killed on 18 June 1945. He was the highest ranking American officer to be killed during World War II] making him the only general to be killed in the Pacific.At the entrance to a village, a girl ran toward Bailey but she turned and went the other way after a man called her back. Bailey and his fellow Marines had burned most of the village the day before.While they were in a valley, they came across a spring. When Bailey got there, there were ten Marines stripped down who were using their helmets to fill up and pour water on their heads. While they were bathing, two Okinawan women in their 20s came up and each filled up two buckets with water then left. Bailey says that the Marines were gentlemen on that day.Later that day, Bailey and Vincent Bennett were called to burn out a cave with a flame thrower. Down at the cave, a woman and a little girl came out of the cave with an interpreter. The little girl was lying down near several Marines and looked like she couldn't breathe. The interpreter told Bailey to burn the cave. Bailey signaled his partner with the flame thrower who walked up and burned the cave out. When he stopped firing the interpreter told him that there had still been women in the cave. Bailey and his partner didn't know that. That has stuck with Bailey to this day. While burning out the cave Bailey's partner was injured when he brushed up against a rough cut piece of wood but he kept firing. After they were finished Bailey didn't see his partner again until he got up north.The sniper's nest, blowing the cave up with six Japs in it, and burning the cave with the women in it stuck with Bailey.

Bailey has seen the Okinawan civilian jumping off of cliffs on television. It puzzles Bailey how two Okinawan women could walk into a spring full of naked Marines without being phased, but other killed themselves.When Bailey left the front lines on the 18th [Annotator's Note: 18 June 1945] he went back to his foxhole he stayed in it.During the fighting in Death Valley, one of Bailey's friends was wounded and evacuated to Guam. When Bailey was in his foxhole after leaving the front lines he saw his friend again.One time, Bailey and another Marine were climbing aboard a weapons carrier when the other Marine's rifle went off. No one was hit and no one said anything about it.When they moved to the shore they boarded an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] and went up north. They built a tent city and trained for the invasion of Japan.Bailey shared a tent with his friend Wydell. They were preparing for the biggest invasion in history, the invasion of mainland Japan which was scheduled for November. President Truman was the first president Bailey ever voted for.After the atomic bombs were dropped, the results were listed on the bulletin board in Bailey's camp. Everybody got drunk. The Japanese agreed to unconditional surrender. The peace was signed on 2 September [Annotator's Note: 2 September 1945] on the deck of a battleship [Annotator's Note: the American battleship USS Missouri (BB-63)] in Tokyo Bay.Soon after the signing of the surrender the bulletin board said that the 1st Marine Division would be going home. Ten days later, the board said that the 1st Marine Division was going to China to disarm the Japanese and send them home. The First Marine Division landed in China on 30 September. They travelled by train to Tientsin [Annotator’s Note: now Tianjin, China] where they stayed about a week before moving north.They were assigned to guard the British KMA [Annotator’s Note: probably the Kailan Mining Administration] coal mines.The first time they went out to disarm Japanese, they went to an airport. They found six Japanese sleeping in a large well. They woke them up, and the Japanese lined up in front of the Marines and bowed to them. That was the only time Bailey can think of that the Japanese would bow to them.Everything they asked them to do, they did it.At Tientsin they had a parade. The Chinese civilians were ten deep lining the road. The Chinese referred to the Marines as ‘ding how’ [Annotator's Note: or spelled ‘ting hao’ probably gesturing ‘excellent’ or ‘thumb’s up’] and to the Japanese as ding bu how [Annotator's Note: probably meaning the opposite of ‘ding how’]. It was a parade like no other.Bailey was one of the first Americans that the Japanese bowed to.

Bailey had a picture of himself with a flamethrower on his back. It was taken while he was waiting to go free one of their trains that had been shot up by Chinese communists.On the train Bailey was on, there was a Chinese colonel, a female, who spoke five languages. She would talk to the Marines, but Bailey never got to talk to her. Bailey could see from his train all of the bridges and railroad lines that had been blown up by the Chinese communists.Bailey had a pretty good time in China. They disarmed the Japanese and stored the weapons in a warehouse then had to guard the warehouse to keep the Chinese from stealing them.Bailey got to see a Chinese wedding there.Bailey saw kids who would stop and "do their business" on the street.The Chinese were good to the Marines. The Japanese were polite and would bow. When Japanese went home, Bailey went home.Bailey arrived in China on the 30th of September 1945 and left there on 9 February 1946. When he left China, it was the last rope ladder Bailey ever climbed. As they were leaving China, he could see the lights from passing cars on the street. After leaving, he didn't see another light until he got to San Diego, California.Bailey saw a USO show with three or four girls who danced on stage.Bailey was the loader on the bazooka but never fired it. He carried the flamethrower but never fired it. When J, K, or L Company needed a cave blown one of their men would bring a satchel charge to the entrance and Bailey would throw it in. Bailey doesn't want to dwell on the number of people who were in the caves. All of the satchel charges Bailey threw went off.When Bailey got home it was a Saturday. The following Wednesday he was working. He thinks that helped him with getting back to a normal life.Bailey has dreams about fighting in a place he was never at.Bailey wasn't affected by the war until sitting in church one day and he suddenly started thinking about the Japanese soldier he shot in a rice paddy. When everyone left the church, Bailey had tears in his eyes.

Bailey feels that war should be over with. His division fought the Chinese in North Korea. Young men are fighting today.After Bailey killed the Japanese soldier in the rice paddy he wrote that someone in Japan had him there that day and someone in Japan was the cause of him being there that day. They started it and he finished it.Bailey doesn't believe that the war changed the world. He thinks the world is in pretty bad shape right now.Bailey could tell the difference between the sounds of the American weapons and the Japanese weapons.Bailey feels that the typical Japanese soldier didn't want to be there any more than he did. He didn't feel sorry for them at all. He feels different today.Bailey gets emotional when thinking about the American government giving Okinawa back to Japan.Bailey thinks that having a "National World War II Museum" is important but feels that he has already paid his share.