Jennings Paul Hill, Sr. was born in [Annotator's Note: unintelligible], West Virginia in 1924. Growing up during the Great Depression was rough. His father lost his business and there were a lot of children. They had a farm and were able to raise most of their food. They bartered for things they did not have. Before the war started, Hill was working in a defense plant making armor plate for ships as a machinist. He could have stayed there through the war but decided to join the Navy. They took him in the Naval Reserve but said they really needed him in the Merchant Marine. He had some experience on boats and they had ships but not enough crews to man them. He went to Sheepshead Bay, New York in Brooklyn for training [Annotator's Note: United States Maritime Service Training Station]. He left there in April 1943 and went to Mobile [Annotator's Note: Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding Company, Mobile, Alabama] to crew a new tanker, the SS Buffalo Wallow. They went through Baytown, Texas and took a trial run to New York before heading to Aruba, West Indies. There, they loaded aviation gas for North Africa. They crossed in a convoy with eight tankers and 16 escort vessels. They did not zig-zag [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver] because they were in a hurry. They had a couple of flurries of activity and dropped some depth charges. They did not take chances. They went to Oran [Annotator's Note: Oran, Algeria], North Africa. Hill was an able-bodied seaman [Annotator's Note: able seaman (AB) naval rating of a merchant ship equivalent to a private in the Army] which means you do pretty much everything. It is one step up from ordinary seaman.

[Annotator's Note: Jennings Paul Hill, Sr. went to Oran, North Africa aboard the SS Buffalo Wallow in 1943.] They returned to the United States in a convoy. They did not get leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] like the military. If you wanted time off, you left the ship and did not get paid. He was next assigned to the SS Andrew W. Preston, a Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship]. They took all types of cargo like machinery and ammunition and they even had two locomotives they were taking to the Russians in Murmansk [Annotator's Note: Murmansk, Russia]. They went in a convoy on the route called "The Murmansk Run" [Annotator's Note: shipping route used by the Allies to deliver supplies to the Russian front]. They were at battle stations twice in the North Atlantic. The escorts dropped some depth charges. They went to Scotland and made up a convoy for Murmansk. Before they got to the most dangerous part of the trip by Norway, their ship broke down. They were left behind. No one stopped and the German battleship Graf Spee [Annotator's Note: Admiral Graf Spee, Deutschland-class "Panzerschiff" or armored ship, German Kriegsmarine] was out there somewhere. It took about 24 hours to get back on their way. They saw some icebergs, went east and got into Murmansk five or six days after the convoy did. They had rough weather and water was freezing on the deck. Heaters were required to melt it when they got into port. It was always cold and rough. There were about 40 ships altogether in the convoy. They unloaded the deck cargo in Murmansk and then went to Archangel in northern Russia [Annotator's Note: Arkhangelsk, Russia] to unload the rest. All they worried about was the cold weather. They could only stand watch for 15 minutes. In Murmansk, it would get to 60 below [Annotator's Note: 60 degrees below zero Farhenheit]. The seamen were more worried about the cold weather than any other danger. They lost some people due to them breaking down [Annotator's Note: psychologically] due to it. One was so bad they had to put him off the ship. When they arrived in Murmansk earlier, the convoy was still there. They then joined three or four more ships to Archangel. The return trip was rough but uneventful. They were alone then and more concerned than they would have been otherwise. The submarines likely did not want to waste torpedoes on empty cargo ships. They were also moving faster due to being empty. They returned by a straight course to New York.

After his return [Annotator's Note: from a convoy run to Russia], Jennings Paul Hill, Sr. took some time off and then got assigned to an old junker to take cargo to Liverpool [Annotator's Note: Liverpool, England]. That was uneventful trip. The ship was rusty, probably 50 to 60 years old, and very noisy. He might have gotten his hearing problems on that ship. His bunk was where the steering gear was, and it was noisy day and night. The seas were rough. He was afraid the ship was going to break in half. On a normal ship, there were around 45 crew as well as 12 to 15 Navy gunners. The gunners loved it, they got the best food they ever had. The cargo ships were covered by Admiralty Law [Annotator's Note: also called maritime law] which meant they had to provide good food. He was next assigned to another Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship] to England in a large convoy. They were attacked by submarines south of Iceland. They were on the outside of the convoy. The Germans had become aware that the ships carrying ammunition and supplies were on the inside of the convoy, so they would float into the convoy. One torpedo missed Hill's ship by about ten or 15 feet and got the ship inside. Six or eight ships were sunk. Depth charges [Annotator's Note: anti-submarine weapon] were being dropped on all sides and inside the convoy. The rest of the convoy made it in alright. It was unnerving, but he got to a point where he did not worry about things too much. He just did his job. His battle station was the forward gun. He never had a submarine in his sights. There were 40 or 50 ships in the convoy which was usual. The ships stay roughly four ship lengths apart. He lost two buddies. They never did find out exactly which ships were sunk. He probably would not have known if he had not seen them go down. In England, they heard the complete story. The one close to him just blew up. The Germans attacked at night. Some of the submarines were sunk. The subs were still traveling in packs then. They were called wolf packs.

At the beginning of the war, the ships [Annotator's Note: United States Merchant Marine ships] traveled by themselves and they lost a lot of them. Jennings Paul Hill, Sr. believes he heard that 40 ships were sunk off the coast of Virginia. It is called the graveyard. People do not realize that submarines were sinking ships near our ports. They hit a ship in New York Harbor [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. He felt sorry for those early guys. Some of them spent months in lifeboats. Merchant seamen were kind of a riff-raff [Annotator's Note: term for disreputable or undesirable people] crew. He does not mean that in a bad way. His first skipper [Annotator's Note: captain of a ship or boat] on the tanker was 77 years old and had been retired for 30 years when he was called back. A lot of people had medical reasons they could not get in the military. One guy had a peg leg. Hill met some heroes during the war. One guy had been burned twice in fires on ships. He was an accountant and could have worked ashore, but he came back on ship. That is a hero. He was leery of them at first, but generally they were really good people. As he gained experience, he went to officer's school and got a deck officers license. He was a navigator on a banana boat after the war. His duties stayed the same during the war. They worked four hours on and eight hours off. On a watch, there were typically three deckhands, two able-bodied seamen [Annotator's Note: able seaman (AB); naval rating of a merchant ship equivalent to a private in the Army] and one regular seamen. One able seaman would be the look-out and the other would handle the wheel. The ordinary seaman would make coffee and then take over for the look-out. They did their jobs exactly the same way all the time. During the day watch, they spent time chipping paint and all kinds of nasty work. The return to New York was uneventful.

It is hard for Jennings Paul Hill, Sr. to remember a lot. He does not remember the names of half the ships he was on. The SS Andrew W. Preston and the SS Buffalo Wallow he remembers well. The Buffalo Wallow was his first ship and the Andrew Preston was the one that made The Murmansk Run [Annotator's Note: shipping route used by the Allies to deliver supplies to the Russian front]. On that run, his mother had gotten word that he was presumed lost at sea. The word SNAFU [Annotator's Note: snafu means a confused or chaotic state] was coined during World War 2 and it describes how communication like that could happen. He found out about it when they got to Scotland and had no mail. They said the ship was not supposed to be there. He sent a telegram to his mother then. He made two or three short voyages to Panama. His final voyage as a deckhand was to the Philippines. That was uneventful. He was on a Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship] carrying war materials and a lot of beer. The Army lieutenant in charge of unloading the beer, took a few cases and had a party for the crew in Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Philippines] in 1945. They stayed there a week or more. Hill had a cousin in the Army there, so he and a buddy went up to see him. They kept looking for souvenirs and found some skeletons of Japanese soldiers with knives in their chests. They had committed harakiri [Annotator's Note: Seppuku, referred to as harakiri, is Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment]. He found a flag he brought back. A friend of Hill's was on the Bataan Death March [Annotator's Note: Bataan Death March, the forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of 60,000 to 80,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war, April 1942] and could tell some stories. People can stand a lot when there is no other chance. You are only scared when there is a chance at freedom. Once you see there is no way out, you calm down. The war ended while he was there. They were set to deliver some cargo. They went to some islands and anchored in the coves. The scuttlebutt [Annotator's Note: another word for rumor] was that they were getting ready to raid Formosa, now Taiwan. The war ended and they brought the supplies to San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. He went from there to New London, Connecticut to Officers Training School [Annotator's Note: United States Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, New York]. He had applied for it before he left the United States. When he returned, he went straight there by train.

Jennings Paul Hill, Sr. learned the war had ended by radio. The ships were having a big time and celebrating. The weird part was sailing with lights on after years of being in total darkness all the time. He could sleep in the bunk with the porthole open and read. He enjoyed his time and liked the sea and the friends. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks the interviewee what he did in his down time. He smiles broadly and asks, "do you really want to know?" He then laughs and says he is kidding.] He would go home if he could. Sometimes, he would just get on a train and go somewhere. He and a friend were in Galveston [Annotator's Note: Galveston, Texas]. They figured they had never been to Paris, so they went to Paris, Texas. On the ship, he would read and play cards. He went to Officers Training School [Annotator's Note: United States Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, New York] for three months after the war. He was Third Officer. Previously, all of their work was volunteer work and they chose their own ships. After officers training, he was sent to a ship in Baltimore [Annotator's Note: Baltimore, Maryland]. It was going back and forth with supplies to the Mediterranean. He got on banana boats later and he loved it. All of the United Fruit Company's [Annotator's Note: United Fruit Company Steamship Service] ships had been lost in the war and had been replaced with yachts called the Great White Fleet. He stayed with the Merchant Marine until 1953. He made no trips in support of the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953]. He was supposed to sign on for a Vietnam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975] trip. He had been off of ships for a while. He had to take some training on new navigation equipment. He was going to go to Japan to move troops back and forth between there and Vietnam. He took 20 some shots [Annotator's Note: medical shots] in New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] and they sent him to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] instead. [Annotator's Note: The interviewee asks to use the bathroom. When he returns, he repeats his previous story.] After he took the shots in New York, he was driving to Cleveland [Annotator's Note: Cleveland, Ohio], where he lived. He was then sent down to New Orleans instead. In 1953, he married his first wife.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Jennings Paul Hill, Sr. to tell him about an incident with a ship that happened before Hill entered the United States Merchant Marine.] He was on a ship taking cargo up the east coast [Annotator's Note: east coast of the United States]. The ship was hit by a submarine. It did not sink but they sounded "abandon ship." Hill went into the water and was picked up several hours later. The ship was not large or important. They were not sure it was a torpedo, it could have hit a mine. He left after that and went to work in a factory. Then he decided to join the Navy. He was in Cuba on a little side trip on a molasses tanker. He and some others were ashore. They saw a beautiful little goat; they took back to the ship. The goat belonged to the provincial governor. They had to give the goat back. They had a lot of fun on shore time. They did a lot of drinking, but never on the ship. They were intent on being ready. Hill grew up during the war. It made him more aware of the people in the world at large. He became a student of history and he read a lot. He would like to have had the G.I. Bill but they did not get those benefits. He was in Tuscaloosa [Annotator's Note: Tuscaloosa, Alabama] when the Merchant Marine was finally recognized [Annotator's Note: 1988, when a federal court ordered P.L. 95-202, GI Bill Improvement Act Of 1977, enforced]. It meant he could start using the VA [Annotator's Note: Veterans Administration]. That is where he got his hearing aids. He thinks the war temporarily changed the world for the better. Not too many things change the world. There is always war about something. They talk about things going on in the Middle East now. Hill was there when he was 19 and the same thing was going on then. World War 2 was initially good for some Americans. If you happened to be Black, you were in trouble. It did make Americans more aware of what women could do. In the North of the United States, they became more aware of people as people. That did not happen in South. It finally did sort of. Hill said, "Tom Brokaw [Annotator's Note: Thomas John Brokaw, American television journalist and author] called us 'The Greatest Generation', but I'm not sure about that" [Annotator's Note: "The Greatest Generation", 1998 book by journalist Tom Brokaw]. 600,000 military lost. That was a hell of a price to pay. The Merchant Marine lost more people percentagewise than any other branch. He finally got off the banana boats after he married his first wife. He went to Cleveland [Annotator's Note: Cleveland, Ohio] and went to tool-and-die school. He finally became a research engineer in hydraulics. He did pretty well for himself for not having any education. He did not get a high school diploma until 1985 at the University of Alabama [Annotator's Note: University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama]. Hill thinks the museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] is the best thing ever done to recognize the World War 2 veterans and he means all veterans equally. He is just in awe of it.