Jack Skaggs was born in Norman, Oklahoma in 1922. He grew up during the Great Depression. His father was a truck driver who became manager of the company. The company went bankrupt when the trucks were destroyed in a fire without insurance coverage. His father then decided to buy 160 acres of farmland in Noble, Oklahoma. He purchased livestock and farm implements. His father could also perform carpentry work. Skaggs' mother was a seamstress and made good money working for wives of bankers and college professors. The family farm had pecan trees. His parents would spend their nights shelling pecans for sale to others. There were never any relatives working for government projects like the WPA [Annotator's Note: Works Progress Administration, later named the Works Projects Administration]. Skaggs did not miss a day of school or food. He never worried about the family finances. His parents took care of the worry and work because he was very young during the Depression. He attended grade and high school in Oklahoma. While doing so, he worked at odd jobs to earn spending money. The Oklahoma area where he was raised was a family oriented area. Some people had good jobs. His father-in-law worked for the Ford Motor Company, but also later delivered newspapers for 12 dollars per month. People worked at any job they could find. Skaggs had a friend whom he went to visit. He was surprised to see a dirt floor in his friend's home. The friend went on to join the Navy when Skaggs joined the Marines. That friend later had a very successful career.

Jack Skaggs joined the Oklahoma National Guard when he was 15 years old. He was in Headquarters Battery, 70th Field Artillery Brigade. He told the recruiter that he was 19 years old. He was never asked for proof of age. [Annotator's Note: Skaggs joined the National Guard in approximately 1937, four years before the outbreak of war.] Skaggs was a truck driver in his Guard unit. He attended two summer and one winter camp. The winter of 1939 was particularly severe at Fort Sill [Annotator's Note: Fort Sill, Oklahoma] where the unit was being readied for active service call up. In June 1940, Skaggs joined the United States Marine Corps and left for San Diego, California. He joined the Marines because his older friends were joining. They were subject to the draft but Skaggs was not because of his age. His friends attempted to join the Army and volunteer for duty at the Panama Canal. When they were told that they would be headed to Fort Sill, the proposition was not attractive to them. They elected to enlist in the Marine Corps. Only Skaggs and a friend were accepted in the Corps. They both went to the West Coast to the 45th Platoon of the Marine Corps. He had been in the 45th Division while in the National Guard, and then he went into the 45th Platoon of the Corps. After completing boot camp, he was assigned to the 2nd Defense Battalion, Battery A. He trained on 5 inch 51 guns [Annotator's Note: the 5 inch, 51 caliber guns]. In the spring of 1941, Skaggs was selected to attend Navy Fleet Fire Control School in San Diego. After completing the course, he returned to his old battery to be in the Fire Control Center. His unit was segmented into multiple other units to build the other units up. Skaggs was in the 2nd Artillery Group. Loaders, pointers, and other jobs were short handed. Deployment overseas excited Skaggs in August 1941. The unit was transferred to Pearl Harbor where they practiced firing 5 inch guns. They enjoyed the beach with its surf. The unit transferred in October 1941 to Wake Island. They shipped out on the USS Castor (AKS-1) which was a supply and troop ship. Destroyers escorted them to Wake. The two escorts were refueled while they were underway even though the first attempt at connecting the ships was not successful. The arrival at Wake was late in the day. There were no dock facilities for the ship so barges were used to shuttle men and supplies between the supply ship and the island. The lieutenant in charge of the new arrivals knew that he had to make a good appearance for Major James P.S. Devereux on Wake. [Annotator's Note: USMC Major James P.S. Devereux was the commanding officer of the 1st Defense Battalion on Wake Island.]

Jack Skaggs was assigned to L Battery on Wilkes Island in the Wake Island atoll. The battery had an old 5 inch 51 gun [Annotator's Note: 5 inch/51 caliber gun]. He personally carried a '03 rifle [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1903 Springfield bolt action rifle]. The battery had .30 caliber water cooled machine guns to protect them. The men had non-commissioned officers directing them who were well trained, but who had never fought in a war before. Most of the officers were good officers. The enlisted men had very little contact with their officers during the campaign. Many of the enlisted men on Wake were from the Midwestern United States. Their roots were from working class people. About 500 Marines were on Wake with approximately 35 from Oklahoma. Many had been in the CCC [Annotator's Note: Civilian Conservation Corps] before entry into the Marines. The men helped their families through the Great Depression by participating in the CCC. When Skaggs arrived at Wake, there was no ceremony. They were simply told to report to the first sergeant's office. They were immediately put to work carrying sandbags and telephone wire to build the island's defenses. During their time off, the troops could fish, collect sea shells, or find Japanese fish net floats that had washed ashore. Wake Island had about 1,200 civilians working for the Morrison-Knudson firm. Most of those individuals were from the western United States. Some of the civilians were general laborers and others were skilled craftsmen. They had their own mess hall which was far better than the Marines had. There was even a bakery for the civilians. While the civilians had fresh bread, the Marines ate hardtack [Annotator's Note: hardtack is a simple biscuit or wafer that is long lasting and, as the name implies, relatively hard to chew]. The Marines had virtually nothing similar because of constricted government funding. Although the general manager of the civilian workforce offered to feed the Marines in exchange for the daily ration dollars allotted for the troops but Major Devereux [Annotator’s Note: USMC Major James P.S. Devereux was the commanding officer of the 1st Marine Defense Battalion on Wake Island] declined the offer. The contractors did not work on defense facilities. Instead, the contractors worked on buildings even though Major Devereux had requested their assistance in constructing defensive installations. As a PFC [Annotator's Note: Private First Class], Skaggs knew that a conflict was coming. The men used short wave radio and listened to the broadcasts from the West Coast of the United States. Those reports kept them updated with current events. Skaggs did not worry because the United States Navy was in the Pacific to protect them. That was before Pearl Harbor. The main island of Wake had recessed concrete bunkers, but there were only foxholes on Wilkes Island where Skaggs was assigned. The military had no hospital, but one of the bunkers served as a hospital. There were only six corpsmen and one medical doctor for the whole Wake Island post. On Sunday, 7 December 1941, the day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, there was an unusual drill on Wake. The next day, Pearl Harbor and Wake were attacked. [Annotator's Note: Wake Island is west of, and Pearl Harbor is east of, the International Date Line. As a result, the nearly simultaneous attacks on Pearl Harbor and Wake occurred on 8, not 7, December, Wake Island time.]

Jack Skaggs heard about Pearl Harbor on Monday morning, 8 December 1941. [Annotator's Note: Wake Island is west of, and Pearl Harbor is east of, the International Date Line. As a result, the nearly simultaneous attacks on Pearl Harbor and Wake occurred on 8, not 7, December, Wake Island time.] The Army radio on Wake received messages from Hickam field that Pearl Harbor was under attack. The Army brought the message to United States Navy Commander Cunningham [Annotator's Note: US Navy Commander Winfield Scott Cunningham was overall commander on Wake Island]. Cunningham asked if the attack alert message was in code. When the response was that it was not in code, a request was made for verification of the Japanese attack. After confirmation of the attack, the defenders of Wake went to general quarters. The Marine bugler apparently blew the wrong calls on his bugle several times causing some confusion as to the circumstances. Skaggs drove a truck to the main island in order to retrieve communications cable for Wilkes Island. At about midday, 18 Japanese bombers dropped out of the clouds and unloaded their ordnance on the American facilities. Within two days, all the heavy steel structures were demolished. Skaggs returned to the barge to get them to Wilkes. There were ocean going tugs to help shuttle materials back and forth from Main Island to Wilkes and Peale Islands. Work was underway at the time of the attack to construct submarine pens in the middle of the lagoon. That effort was well progressed but not complete. United States submarines were in the area of Wake, but they were vulnerable to Japanese attack.

Jack Skaggs was on Wake Island during the first Japanese bombing raids on the islands. The Marines had assigned VMF-211 to the defense of Wake. It was a squadron of 12 Grumman fighters. [Annotator's Note: Marine Fighter Squadron 211 (VMF-211) consisted of 12 Grumman F4F Wildcat fighter aircraft.] The fighters had flown into Wake off of an aircraft carrier [Annotator's Note: the USS Enterprise (CV-6)] in the days just before the Japanese bombings. In coordination with the attack on Pearl Harbor, 27 Japanese bombers had been launched against the defenses on Wake Island. The defenders on Wake knew about the raid on Pearl Harbor about four hours before Wake was hit. Prior to the attack on Wake, four of the Marine fighters had been sent on patrol, but were unable to spot the enemy. The VMF-211 fighters had missed the oncoming enemy aircraft. When initially spotted by the civilians, the enemy bombers were misidentified as B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] Army Air Forces bombers. As the four patrol Marine aircraft returned and were refueling, the Japanese bombs fell on the airstrip. Two pilots attempted to get their fighters off the ground but were killed. Although the planes were brand new, they would be destroyed on the ground for the most part. Five or six were lost with one needing major repair. The Marine fighters were not only armed with .50 caliber machine guns, but they could also carry bombs. The Marine aviators did a good job of defending Wake. Because of Japanese losses, the enemy would seek revenge on the island defenders.

After the initial Japanese air attack, Jack Skaggs and a corporal were assigned to BC scope [Annotator's Note: military long range periscope binoculars] duty. They were searching the horizon for the enemy when, on 11 December 1941, they sighted a flotilla of ships. The officers on the island told the men that there were no Allied ships in the area so the ships had to be the enemy. Major Devereux [Annotator’s Note: USMC Major James P.S. Devereux was the commanding officer of the 1st Marine Defense Battalion on Wake Island] ordered the three batteries to hold their fire until he gave the order to fire. The ships approached the next morning. The batteries, with their 5 inch /51 guns [Annotator's Note: 5 inch 51 caliber guns] were very accurate up to 5,000 yards. The defenders watched the enemy ships tack back and forth and close on the islands. When the enemy came within 4,000 yards of the island, Devereux gave the order to fire. Skaggs' battery, along with another gun, blew the stern off a destroyer. The Japanese had presumed that the major American defensive weapons had been destroyed by the air raids, but they had not. One destroyer was lost. A cruiser lost its steering capability. The Marine pilots got into the action and other ships were sunk or damaged. As the Japanese withdrew, it was a good day for the Marines. The enemy sent in float planes afterward to bomb the bay, but no damage was done to the defense positions. On 23 December 1941, landings on the islands were commenced by the Japanese.

Jack Skaggs and his fellow Marines laughed at the Japanese bombing the lagoon. Nothing was being accomplished while the defenses were not being hurt. Until the 1950s, much of the artifacts left behind on Wake still existed in their original positions at the end of the war. After that point, the United States Air Force came in and stripped the islands of the old steel and sold it for scrap. Following the repulse of the Japanese Navy, the defenders on Wake beefed up their personal defenses as much as they could. Through the continuous daily bombings, the Wake antiaircraft range finder was damaged so sightings had to be performed manually. Nevertheless, island antiaircraft fire took a toll on the enemy aircraft. Communications links were damaged, and the troops experienced casualties during the bombings. Some casualties were not reported to families until years later. Skaggs contacted one family personally to let them know that their loved one was buried in the Punch Bowl [Annotator's Note: National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific]. Soon, the outnumbered Marine aviators lost the last of their aircraft and became ground troops to defend the island. Henry Elrod was one such airman. He was presented the Medal of Honor (Posthumously). [Annotator's Note: Captain Henry Elrod was recognized for not only his success with his Grumman F4F Wildcat fighter aircraft but also for leading troops on the ground after the Japanese landed on Wake Island.]

Jack Skaggs was on Wake Island on 23 December 1941 when the Japanese launched their amphibious invasion of the island. The landings started at night so the battle stations were not fully manned. There had been no early warning of the enemy's intent to land that day. Skaggs was positioned on Wilkes Island. By the time the assault was fully underway, there were 50 to 60 Marines in place in their positions. During the course of the action, Skaggs saw several of his comrades killed by the enemy fire. A man on each side of Skaggs' position was killed. The Americans attempted to surround the Japanese, but ran into difficulty on the beach when several of the enemy took refuge behind a coral rock. One Marine corporal took the initiative and attacked the enemy position. He eliminated the resistance there very quickly with his Springfield 1903 bolt action rifle. [Annotator's Note: Skaggs emulates very quickly squeezing off multiple rounds from a Springfield to show how it was done.] As the successful Marine was returning to the friendly lines, an enemy bullet killed him. His comrades had yelled at the returning Marine to watch for another enemy position that was firing on him, but the roar of the wind and the surf did not allow their voices to be heard. Skaggs also saw another corporal lose his life in hand to hand combat with an enemy soldier. Soon, all enemy resistance on Wilkes ended. The force of Japanese that assaulted Wilkes Island was all wiped out except for four wounded prisoners. The enemy leader was killed. The Marines were told to return to their foxholes. There was the potential for an aerial attack. Additionally, there were 43 enemy ships offshore and naval bombardment could be forthcoming. The Marines could tell with the Japanese armada that there was not much opportunity for them to win the battle.

Jack Skaggs and his fellow Marines on Wake Island felt that they would be killed after capture. A World War 1 veteran had a well camouflaged dugout. He offered for Skaggs to join him. They began to talk of escape. The Justine Voss was one of the two sea going tugs supporting Wake. The two men talked of getting onboard the tug and taking it away from Wake. This was a folly because neither man knew anything about ships or navigation. Major Devereux [Annotator’s Note: USMC Major James P.S. Devereux was the commanding officer of the 1st Marine Defense Battalion on Wake Island] came to Wilkes Island after the first day of action. He was on a truck accompanied by Japanese. Devereux said that Wake Island had surrendered. The fighting was to cease immediately. The personnel on Wilkes Island had not gotten the word beforehand. It surprised them because the situation on Wilkes was secure after the initial Japanese landings there. Skaggs had his 1903 Springfield with ammunition and grenades. He had fixed his bayonet to the rifle and was ready for further action. When the two men looked out of their dugout, they saw Japanese soldiers. At that point, the World War 1 veteran stepped out of the dugout and surrendered. He admonished Skaggs to do the same. Skaggs dropped his weapons in the dugout and stepped out, too. The men were stripped after the surrender. They were marched into an opening on Wilkes Island. The officers were separated from the enlisted men. No talking was permitted as an enemy soldier communicated with an offshore destroyer. The word came back from offshore that the Japanese would be allowed to take Marine prisoners.

Jack Skaggs surrendered on Wilkes Island. Meanwhile, there were about 1,200 civilians on Wake Island. Commander Cunningham [Annotator's Note: US Navy Commander Winfield Scott Cunningham was the overall commander on Wake Island] had advised the Japanese of those numbers at the point of the surrender. Only a few of the civilians actually participated in the defense of Wake Island. Some civilians manned guns and some were casualties of the battle. Cunningham premised the surrender of Wake on the basis of the civilian lives being spared. They would end up in prisoner of war, or POW, camps along with the Marine defenders of Wake. There was no problem with them in the POW camps, however, some Marines felt the civilians should have contributed more to the defense of the island. As years passed, some civilians were granted government benefits as defenders of Wake Island. Many Marines refused to recognize them as defenders and did not want them included as members of the Wake Island Defenders organization. While POWs in China, the civilians were worked as hard by their Japanese captors as were the military personnel.

Jack Skaggs and his comrades were loaded aboard the Nitta Maru for departure from Wake. They left on 12 January 1942. The ship was a former passenger ship that had been pressed into service to move POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war]. It was a Hell Ship. [Annotator's Note: Hell Ship was the reference used by POWs for ships that moved Allied prisoners around the Pacific. Conditions on the vessels was hellish and brutal.] The POWs were warned not to misbehave or they would be shot. The constant refrain by their captors was that they would try not to kill all of them. The beatings of the POWs were constant and brutal. The Japanese Navy personnel seemed the most vicious. The POWs had only a bucket for use as a latrine. Daily barley gruel was the only sustenance the POWs received on the voyage. It was obvious to Skaggs that the Japanese Navy was a very proud organization. They took pride in the way their ship looked as well as their own personal appearance. The ship first arrived at Yokohama, Japan but then transited to Shanghai, China. The POWs arrived in China on 24 January 1942. After the war, the POWs learned that five Navy and Marine aviators were executed on the ship during the voyage. The ship had no manifest of POW passengers. As a result, no one could tell who traveled on the Nitta Maru and who did not.

Jack Skaggs and his fellow POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] from Wake Island were marched about five miles to Wusong after arriving in China. [Annotator's Note: Wusong is a sub district in Shanghai, China.] The POWs were billeted in a former Chinese barracks camp with buildings that included bamboo construction. The bedding for the prisoners was not bad. It included a pillow made of sand with a cover. Cotton blankets were provided. The camp commandant spoke to the POWs through an interpreter. The interpreter spoke terrible English. Some translations by the interpreter were so ludicrous that it made the POWs laugh. There was an adverse reaction by the captors when that happened. With the International Red Cross being stationed in Shanghai, the camp personnel were wary of how brutally they treated their POWs. There were many other Americans in the camp. Some were civilians, and some were military personnel from other areas newly conquered by the Japanese. The POWs were given blankets for cold weather and hot food. The food could bring on an adverse physical reaction for the POWs. The interpreter was a mean individual who even threatened the Government General of Hong Kong. There were POWs in the camp who were members of either the British or the American embassies. The POWs were made to sign a No Escape Pact. The POWs were collected in eight man groups headed by a sergeant. Four groups would then be organized together as a section. The captives were required to learn a new word in Japanese each day or seven words per week. The words were basic terms that were required for rudimentary communication. Additionally, every POW had to learn to count to one hundred. For some, those requirements were not easy to fulfill. Those who could not comply were punished. When the interpreter learned that Skaggs had managed to get some eggs, the POW was interrogated. Skaggs would not give away his source for the eggs. As a result, the eggs were destroyed in front of him. Though Skaggs was punished as part of the POW group, he was not singled out for punishment. Punishing the group for an individual's misdeeds was the policy the Japanese captors maintained in attempting to control their captives.

Jack Skaggs worked on roads in Shanghai as a POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war]. The POWs could take food out to their work. Each section had a wood burning stove and a radio that was able to pick transmissions from Japanese broadcasting stations. The POWs were able to improve the reception of the radios so that transmissions from Allied controlled areas were received. At that point, the radios were removed by the captors from the POW quarters. The POWs also worked on constructing a new rifle range in the area of Shanghai. Progress was intentionally made very slowly. The POWs called the rifle range Mount Fujiyama. The work on it was constantly being sabotaged. The Japanese guards were changed in an unsuccessful attempt to improve progress. The prisoners were constantly counted while they were in column either moving in or out of the camp or work sites. One rainy day, the column of POWs returned to their camp to see the camp commandant hammering away at his interpreter and another officer with his sword. The POWs were moved to another camp in Kiangwan [Annotator's Note: in December 1942]. That location was closer to Shanghai. The International Red Cross made two trips into the POW camp. The food in the Red Cross packages helped the POWs, but much of the goods were pilfered by the Japanese overseers and sold on the black-market. POWs from a Navy gunboat were in Skaggs' camp. The gunboat, USS Wake (PR-3), was captured after it was boarded by the Japanese near Shanghai. [Annotator's Note: The USS Wake (PR-3) was captured on 8 December 1941, the same day Pearl Harbor was bombed.] An English ship that had refused to submit to the Japanese was fired upon and sunk. Skaggs' camp had rudimentary washing facilities and the men were allowed to grow gardens. POW sport activities were permitted.

Jack Skaggs saw several POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] accidentally killed by the electrical wire surrounding the POW camp. By spring 1943, every POW section would rotate its people to go get the soup, rice or tea supplies. The POW beds had to be made for inspection. Each person had to be accounted for by count off in Japanese. One man simply could never remember how to say his number in Japanese. As a result, a recount would be demanded by the captors. The POWs had coffee, corned beef, chocolate bars, and tobacco. All that created gambling and bartering. POW clothes were not comfortable or well made, but it was better than what they had brought with them. The North China Marines brought in heavy winter clothes with them. They also had trunks of food that they carried in with them. That group of Marines never shared their goods with the Wake Marines. That caused a great deal of animosity between the two groups that lingered after the war. There was never a sense of camaraderie between the two different groups of Marines. There were things done in the POW camp that did not comply with normal military practice. Cases of drunkenness resulted in men going to the brig. A Marine who was found to be a thief was turned into his captors by the POWs. After the war, Major Devereux [Annotator’s Note: USMC Major James P.S. Devereux was the commanding officer of the 1st Marine Defense Battalion on Wake Island] brought 120 incidents of violation of the code of ethics to the Marine Commandant. The Commandant tore up the paperwork saying the war was over and no one would be punished. [Annotator's Note: Skaggs laughs at the memory.] Devereux was not close to his men on active duty. At one reunion, a man that Devereux had court martialed got several men to agree not to sign a document of appreciation for the Major. Devereux would eventually become a Congressman for Maryland [Annotator's Note: from 1951 to 1959].

Jack Skaggs was transferred from the Kiangwan POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] camp to Osaka, Japan in August 1943. Some of the other POWs would eventually work in Northern Japan in the coal mines. That group did not leave Kiangwan until spring 1945. Four men escaped on that transfer. Chinese forces aided the POWs in their escape. In Osaka, there were six barracks with kitchen and a few other buildings. The camp was located in a major industrial area. Skaggs worked in a shipyard for Mitsui. Mitsui was a Japanese company that commenced operations in 1684. Skaggs pushed carts loaded with steel. Four POWs worked together to push the cart. The Japanese had assigned three guards to oversee the work of the POWs. Those guards were nice men. Skaggs would also work on a drill press. The factory leader brought in drugs to curb the dysentery suffered by the POWs. News of the war was provided by an Army radio and a Kobe newspaper printed in English. The camp kitchen was manned by American POW non-commissioned officers. A thief was caught stealing soap and was punished both by his fellow POWs and the Japanese. That thief turned in the POW who had the radio. Before being caught, the sergeant with the radio had disassembled it and put the parts in the latrine. Men were severely punished in an attempt to discover the radio. The radio was destroyed. [Annotator's Note: Skaggs does not say who destroyed the radio.]

Jack Skaggs could tell the end of the war was coming by April 1945 when the 7th Fleet wiped out the shipyard in Osaka. At that point, Skaggs' POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] group was moved to northern Honshu. Others were scattered elsewhere. POWs from other countries were already at the new camp before Skaggs entered it. The interpreter at the new camp was vicious and beat Skaggs. While still at Osaka, a Japanese guard showed him pictures of United States Navy carriers in the harbor at Okinawa. That information elevated the morale of the POWs. It was a time of great misinformation. British embassy people were released, as well as a few United States embassy POWs. As the war came closer to ending, treatment seemed to improve although some of the worst treatment came at the last camp at Noitsu. The POWs knew when the war ended. The sick were to be transported out of the camp first. The POWs never saw any civilians, only the honchos [Annotator's Note: honchos are interpreted as POW guards]. When the war was over, the Japanese Army commandeered food for the POWs. The guards left their rifles and exited the camp.

Following the Japanese surrender, Jack Skaggs and his fellow POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] made an American flag. That was after the Japanese guards left the camp. A Navy dive bomber recognized the POWs as a result. The men were excited with the recognition. A POW signalman communicated with the American plane. He told the airplane crew how many men and how many officers were in the camp. They told the plane that they needed food and cigarettes. The dive bomber crew replied that he would return later. A Navy dive bomber squadron returned with supplies. Using lime, a bull's eye had been drawn in the camp as a target for the drop of supplies. The 700 POWs received a large quantity of supplies from the drops. The last plane backfired as he flew away. B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] bombers flew over the camp later and dropped clothes. The POWs stayed back from the cargo drops so as not to be injured. The parachutes used for the drops were multicolored. During one camp cargo drop, an American was killed when he was accidently struck on the head by a dropped package that had broken loose from a parachuted bundle. Although he witnessed cases of Marine officer kindness to the troops, Skaggs felt that the Navy and Air Forces officers were closer to their enlisted men than the Marine officers. It took several days after the end of the war on 15 August 1945 for the American forces to reach the POW camp. By 7 September 1945, the POWs had been transported to Yokohama, Japan for transit to the United States. The returning POWs traveled on the USS Ozark (LSV-2) bound for San Francisco with a prior stop in Guam. Prior to departing Guam, Skaggs had a brief stay in a hospital there to check his physical condition. Some of the very sick POWs were flown back to the United States, but Skaggs continued his voyage on the Ozark to San Francisco. The POWs were paid in yen according to their rank. They received the equivalent pay of the same rank soldier in the Japanese Army. Because Skaggs was a corporal, he received the same pay as a Japanese corporal for his POW labor during captivity. Skaggs was discharged in Norman, Oklahoma where there were two Navy bases. [Annotator's Note: No date was given for his discharge.] One of the Navy bases taught flight training. During his life, Skaggs made many friends and contacts from the Oklahoma region.

Jack Skaggs realized that he had been on a long journey in his life. That journey has brought him pride and enjoyment. He has worked with fellow veterans of Wake Island on reunions. Some of those efforts have not been without conflict, but overall, he worked well with most individuals. The thing that kept him going while he was a POW was his youth plus the feeling that he would not die in battle or captivity. Even though he saw two comrades killed right beside him on Wake Island, Skaggs knew that he personally would survive the combat. He saw others struck down near him, but he knew he would not be killed in action. While he was a POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] in a hospital with beriberi, a series of Red Cross packages were received by the camp. The Red Cross packages were distributed to the sick. Skaggs was also given hot tea with Filipino unrefined sugar during that time. That further aided his recovery. It seemed to reduce his bloated condition. [Annotator's Note: Skaggs gestures to indicate that his girth shrunk.] He recovered after two weeks in the hospital. Within another week, he was back on the work details. Skaggs has subsequently been told that some of his heart problems have been due to the beriberi he suffered as a POW. Many who suffered with beriberi did not survive. Some POWs simply gave up hope and perished. One example was a sergeant who went to China at the same time that Skaggs was sent to Japan. The sergeant worried so much about his wife back home that he did not survive the POW ordeal. Skaggs remembers his wartime experiences, but those memories do not produce nightmares. The rehashing of the experiences with fellow POWs has helped him get through the bad memories.

Jack Skaggs was changed by World War 2. He was just a boy when he entered the United States Marine Corps, but he had no problem breaking away from home at 17 years old and joining the Corps. His mother had taught him pride and independence as he was growing up in Oklahoma. He was not an alcohol drinker or cigarette smoker, but he made friends anyway. Some of his friends were wild, but good men. He was raised to go to church and continued doing so after leaving home. He had a scout master who was a former Army sergeant major. Skaggs' neighbors in Oklahoma were good people. As far as the rest of America, the war offered a giant financial boost forward from the Great Depression. There were technological jumps such as the production of the atomic bombs. Medicine made leaps forward, too. The Japanese became a solid ally of the United States despite all the suffering that country experienced, as well as the suffering of the peoples they conquered. Skaggs met some of the Japanese who came to Oklahoma in the 1950s to train as air traffic controllers. He was asked by the local Chamber of Commerce to make them welcome and entertain them since he spoke some Japanese. He agreed and even had them over to his home for dinner. Skaggs views the efforts of The National World War II Museum to be important. The views of wartime veterans should be captured. The mission of the Museum is wonderful. Skaggs has also contributed artifacts to the Marine Corps Museum [Annotator's Note: The National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia].