Jack Vandervort was born in Bigheart, Oklahoma in December 1921. During the Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States], his father worked for various oil companies and traveled around quite a bit. The family traveled with him. Vandervort had a sister who died very young. He attended Oklahoma University [Annotator's Note: University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma] for six months. When he heard about the Pearl Harbor attack [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], he was in school. He knew he had to sign up for the draft. He decided to go with the Merchant Marine [Annotator's Note: US Merchant Marine] instead. In the papers, they said you might want to make a career of it. The pay was a lot better than the Army, so he decided to give it a try. He went to Saint Pete [Annotator's Note: Saint Petersburg, Florida] and started his career. He liked going to school but did not like being on the boat. His ship was so old that they were in slow convoys. They went from New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] to Beaumont [Annotator's Note: Beaumont, Texas] and got oil. He went ashore for three or four days. They moved into the Gulf [Annotator's Note: Gulf of Mexico]. They waited out there for a convoy for 25 or 30 days. They would take the oil to New York and then repeat the trip. He was on the SS Oklahoma. He had signed up to be a cabin boy and was not a deckhand like he had trained. He made out the menu for the officers. A guy helped who was the steward and told him how to do the job. Vandervort swept the captain's room and made his bed. It was very easy duty and it beat the hell out of the Army. Waiting for the convoys was unpleasant because they were not allowed to go ashore. Navy crews were in the gun turret, and they could go ashore. Vandervort made one or two trips. He told the steward he was not coming back. He told him he would be drafted then. He was drafted six or eight weeks later.

Jack Vandervort chose to leave the US Merchant Marine. He did not like it too well. He was drafted and went to Camp Wolters [Annotator's Note: later Fort Wolters in Mineral Wells, Texas] and took his physical. They asked which branch he wanted to serve in and he selected the Army. He was sent to Camp McQuaide [Annotator's Note: now the Monterey Bay Academy Airport in Santa Cruz County, California] on the Pacific Ocean. They trained on permanent gun emplacements there. He then learned what work was like. He had rifle training and was a marksman. Basic was extremely hard in the sand on the beach. He thought he would not make the 20 mile hike. The sergeant told them to scatter like they were being bombed. They were in a strawberry patch. They had taken over the Japanese farms [Annotator's Note: during forced relocation and incarceration of Japanese Americans in concentration camps in the United States from 19 February 1942 to 20 March 1946]. He learned a lot carrying around the old Enfield rifle [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1917 Enfield bolt action rifle]. They hiked and shot the big guns. A ship would pull a target for them. He does not think they ever hit the target. It was pretty small.

After basic training, Jack Vandervort got two weeks' vacation. He went to ASTP [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program; generally referred to just by the initials ASTP; a program designed to educate massive numbers of soldiers in technical fields such as engineering and foreign languages and to commission those individuals at a fairly rapid pace in order to fill the need for skilled junior officers] after being selected. He did not volunteer for it. His discharge paperwork says he was in 533rd Field Artillery Battalion when the war ended, but he was not really in it. He was sent to the CIC [Annotator's Note: US Army Counterintelligence Corps] in Baltimore, Maryland. He was going to school there and it was interesting. For ASTP, he went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [Annotator's Note: in Champaign and Urbana, Illinois] for three or four weeks. From there he went to Kalamazoo College [Annotator's Note: in Kalamazoo, Michigan]. They had one dormitory. The professors had all left for the summer when they got there. His company was about 200 men. The captain in charge had them march through town to the dorm. It was a waste of time, but he did not mind it. The food was great. They played basketball and went on hikes. They swam at the YMCA [Annotator's Note: Young Men's Christian Association] too. This was summer of 1943. The professors returned. One professor would bring them up to date on the war once a month. They then spent three months of school and then the ASTP was disbanded. They then had a choice of where they went. Vandervort had gotten married while there. He talked it over with his wife. He did not want field artillery and wanted to try the Air Corps. Vandervort's friend went to dental school. Vandervort to Georgia where there were veterans who had already come back from the war. They lived in tents. Something was wrong with his eyes, and he had to go back to the Army. The Army was getting ready for the big invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. He then went to Fort Sill [Annotator's Note: in Lawton, Oklahoma] to go through basic training again. The guns he had previously trained on at Camp McQuaide [Annotator's Note: now the Monterey Bay Academy Airport in Santa Cruz County, California] were stationary guns. One guy going back with him got sick. Vandervort got off the train to help him and then missed the train when it left. He got the next one and when he checked in, they said he had deserted but they did not put any charges on him. He did have to take basic training again.

Jack Vandervort was sent to basic training again. [Annotator's Note: Lawton discusses the reasons in the clip titled "Basic Training to ASTP to Air Corps" of this interview series.] Lawton [Annotator's Note: Lawton, Oklahoma] was really hot, and it was another hard basic training. He knew a lot more than the other guys, like having to take that 20 mile hike again. The second week of the training, they were all called out and told the invasion had started [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. He finished his training and was told he qualified to go for officer training. He was told he would have to have infantry training with that. He was not well-trained for it though. They started off on the Garand rifle [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand]. Each week they studied a different weapon. This was at Fort Benning [Annotator's Note: Fort Benning, Georgia]. He was not doing well. He washed out in the 12th week and went to the 533rd Field Artillery Battalion in McLean, Texas. Then he was sent to Baltimore [Annotator's Note: Baltimore, Maryland] for CIC [Annotator's Note: US Army Counterintelligence Corps] training. It was an interesting school. They did not have to go on hikes. Then they started discharging everyone and he was told he could stay in the training if he signed up for two more years. He did not want to do that, and he left. He was sent to Texas to be discharged when the war ended.

Jack Vandervort was discharged in Texas where he had also been drafted. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Vandervort how it felt to never have left the home front.] He had no feelings about it. You just do what the Army tells you to do. It never bothered him. You stay busy in the Army. He does not know of anybody who took basic training twice. He did use the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment]. He did not go to school, but he took correspondence courses in accounting. He also got a G.I. loan to buy a house in Texas. He started to work there. He got acquainted with an engineer who wanted to go into business for himself. They met at the same company where they were in different departments at Helmerich and Payne [Annotator's Note: Helmerich & Payne, American petroleum drilling company in Tulsa, Oklahoma]. Vandervort set his books up for him while going to night school at Tulsa University [Annotator's Note: University of Tulsa in Tulsa, Oklahoma]. It was a hard life, and he was getting old. The engineer did well. Vandervort had a really good job figuring out what it cost to drill oil wells. He was told there was no future to it though. He had good bosses. His boss got hepatitis [Annotator's Note: inflammatory condition of the liver] and never came out of the hospital. The new guy told him he would have to quit if he kept doing work for the engineer. He took his family to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] to think about it. He did quit and went to work for the other guy who was an alcoholic. He died. Before that they had traveled around his private jet. Vandervort had to stay sober to take care of the money. It was hard to take care of drunks. When the man died, Vandervort continued to work for his family until he was 66 and quit. He continued to see the family from time to time over the years.