John Hever was born in 1924 and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He was the second of four children and the only boy. Hever said he was a "street kid," because there were no parks in his area, and the children played sports on the roadways. His father worked for the City of New York's [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] Rapid Transit and Subway Systems as an accountant, brought home enough money to provide for his family, and was able to stay employed throughout the Great Depression. Hever clearly remembers the tent camps and bread lines in Central Park in New York City and was grateful for what he had. On the afternoon of Sunday, 7 December 1941, Hever had been ice-skating at the World's Fair grounds in Queens when he learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. The following day, he was in class when he heard President Roosevelt's [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] speech announcing that the United States was at war with Japan. On 25 March 1943, Hever volunteered for service in the Army, then reported for duty at Camp Upton, New Jersey on 1 April 1943. He was sent to Miami Beach, Florida for basic training and underwent aptitude testing. He went on to signal corps communications school at Camp Crowder, Missouri, and after completing the high speed operator training, he was attached to the 3rd Army Air Force. He then went around to different airfields, gaining experience for inevitable overseas assignment. While he was at Key Field in Meridian, Mississippi, he also had glider training. Afterward he was sent to Tampa, Florida for further training, then went by troop train to Los Angeles, California.

When John Hever arrived in Los Angeles, California, he was part of the unattached 931st Signal Battalion (Aviation)(SP), Company A but he had no idea where he was going or where he would be stationed. He boarded the USS General John Pope (APA-110) and steamed for Melbourne, Australia; the voyage took 21 days. When they crossed the equator on Thanksgiving Day 1944, Hever remembers the first timers went through a ritual to become "shellbacks." After a brief stop in Melbourne [Annotator's Note: Melbourne, Australia] to take on fuel and supplies, they sailed on to Bombay, India, a trip that took another nine days. There, Hever encountered appalling conditions. The people were very poor and the city was filthy. The soldiers had to purify their water, and traveled through a leper colony while traveling on a mini train for four days to Calcutta [Annotator's Note: Calcutta, India]. On arrival, the men were all given several hours to roam around the city, but before going off, they were handed written instructions as to where they could and couldn't venture. After their tourist adventure, they got back on a train and continued to their base in the small town of Patyia, India. There the soldiers moved into bamboo barracks, and there was little to do but keep the place clean.

According to John Hever, the signal corps in Patiala, India was there to provide communications between the airplanes and ground troops. It was done mostly by Morse code in the beginning, but after the Japanese presence dwindled, the communications were in "high frequency voice." They didn't lay any wires; from base the signalmen would conduct missions out into the mountains of Burma, and Hever's job would be to maintain and operate the radios in these camps. Among the down sides to operating in India and Burma was that they always seemed to be short of water, and they always had to stay ready to be part of the glider troops that would be sent into Japan once the aggressors had been beaten back to their own country. His training in gliders was very meager, and he recalled he was sick in his helmet on his only training flight in one. As the war progressed, Hever's unit [Annotator's Note: Company A, 931st Signal Battalion (Aviation)(SP)] moved from India into Soochow, China. There, they lived in tents and ate dehydrated and canned foods. In their downtime, the soldiers played outdoor sports like baseball and football. The terrain was not much different between India, Burma, and China and neither was the weather. Hever experienced monsoons in India and in China. Hever says, "Thank God for Harry Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States], he was a brave man," alluding to the use of the atomic bomb. He goes on to praise The National WWII Museum for its portrayal of the war.

On 28 August 1945, John Hever was sent by plane to Shanghai, China to work with the 10th Air Force that had taken over a former Japanese airfield and barracks. Hever had experienced only one skirmish with the Japanese while he was attached to the British 14th Army in Burma but the British ground forces "wiped them out." The base was "kind of remote." There was no canteen or Base Exchange and there wasn't much to do. There was still the problem of potable water, and Hever remembers collecting water in a Lister bag. There were no passes for leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time], which didn't matter, because there was no place to go. Asked to relate his most interesting experiences, Hever said there were none that he would call "pleasant," mostly because there was no place to "enjoy yourself." Most of the time, the soldiers had to entertain themselves. The Corps of Engineers came in one day with a road scraper, and leveled a softball field for them. And in Shanghai [Annotator's Note: Shanghai, China], the men put up a screen on which to project Pathe News; Hever said while the soldiers sat in front and watched the newsreels play, the Chinese sat behind the screen and watched it backwards. Until then, Hever hadn't heard that President Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] had died, and President Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States] had taken over. Hever praised Truman's stamina, "guts," and moral fiber. He made the decision to drop the atomic bomb, even though rumor had it that the Japanese were going to assassinate every prisoner they had in custody if they lost the war.

During his time in the China-Burma-India Campaign, John Hever rarely had contact with the local adults; but he did interact with the kids who were always looking for food, candy, chewing gum, or anything they could get. Through them, Hever picked up a couple of foreign words. Hever said there were still a lot of Japanese soldiers still in China, because they couldn't get home [Annotator's Note: after the war]. To get to the camps in Burma, the signal corps men were flown in, then the unit would walk up the mountains with their gear to get to a base where an army unit, usually a British Commonwealth outfit, would have a small base set up. They would stay at these bases for six to eight weeks. Hever liked working with the British for many reasons, one of which was that as soon as the signal men arrived at one of the mountaintop bases, the British made them acting sergeants. There was always decent hot food and a "cauldron" of hot tea. He also appreciated the fact that the British in Burma gave the Americans netting to wear over their heads and under their helmets to keep the flies, which were everywhere, away from their facial orifices. The British were working with South African troops, Australian troops, Indian troops and the Gurka troops who kept the base perimeters secure. No USO [Annotator's Note: United Service Organizations] entertainers ever came to their remote locations, and the men rarely got news of how the war was progressing. Hever spoke of one memorable occasion when the war was over. He was in Shanghai [Annotator's Note: Shanghai, China] on Armistice Day, when the Navy was bringing recruits through the port, and there was an Army vs. Navy football game and basketball game. Hever played in the basketball game, coincidentally, with a Navy man he knew from New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. The fellow brought him back to the ship for a meal, and Hever couldn't help but marvel over having cold cuts and bread for the first time in a year and a half.

John Hever never saw any Japanese soldiers until after the war was over. They had no weapons, and were walking around the Shanghai, China airbase where Hever was stationed, waiting to be returned to their country. He doesn't recall how he heard about the end of the war in Europe, but he had heard that General LeMay [Annotator's Note: USAAF then USAF General Curtis Emerson LeMay] had come from Europe to the CBI [Annotator's Note: China-India-Burma Theater] to command the air forces bombing Japan. To Hever, the only differences between the areas where he served in India, Burma and China were the languages. In the remote areas where the signal corps men worked, there was almost no contact with the few locals around, and there were no translators to interpret, anyhow. Hever carried an M1 [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand] at the beginning of his time in the service, and later switched it for a carbine [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic carbine]. He was waiting in Liuchow, China to be glidered into mainland Japan with the 10th Air Force for the invasion when he learned of the use of the atomic bombs. Hever thought it was wonderful news. A week or so later, Hever was in a theater when the news of the Japanese surrender, which everyone said would never happen, was broadcast across the screen. Hever is sure that more people would have been killed if the Allies had invaded Japan, and he is sure he would have been one of them.

After the war was over, John Hever was sent into Shanghai, China. He said he went into the city a couple of times and walked around. There were restaurants and places to get drinks, but they were advised to drink nothing but bottled beer that had a tightly sealed cap. The soldiers rode on rickshaws, and some of the people with whom they dealt could speak English. Hever said there were a lot of white Russians in Shanghai. But until the declaration was signed, "you weren't sure what was going to happen," so the signal corps men mostly stayed in a little group "to themselves." Their job in Shanghai was to string telephone lines for troops coming into the area. Hever was offered a promotion if he stayed, but he had "had enough," and said he would go home with the stripes he had. During the three year period he was in the service, he had been home only once, on a three day pass. Asked how he felt about the Japanese, Hever said, "They were the enemy and we were the good guys." He held what they had done to the Americans against them. Before leaving China, the 931st [Annotator's Note: 931st Signal Battalion (Aviation)(SP)] was decommissioned as a unit, and Hever was transferred to Company A, 422nd Signal Battalion when he went to Shanghai. He left Shanghai in late November or early December 1945 and weathered a terrible storm on the way back to the United States. During his time on the transport ship, Hever volunteered to work in the ship's brig [Annotator's Note: jail] so he could be below decks and avoid seasickness. The ship put in at Seattle, Washington on 17 December 1945.

John Hever noted that when they got to Seattle, Washington, there was no parade. The returning soldiers and sailors were fitted with winter uniforms, and spent 17 days, quartered on the boat, waiting for a train to take them east. Hever said Seattle was a nice city, and he got to know it a little while he was there. He joined a friend from the 931st Signal Battalion who was from Seattle and the two spent New Year's Eve with his friend's family. Eventually, Hever returned to the East Coast and was discharged at Camp Dix [Annotator's Note: Fort Dix] in Trenton, New Jersey on 17 January 1946. When Hever left service, he was a Technician 5th Grade [Annotator's Note: equivalent pay grade of a corporal]; the only acknowledgment he received upon his return was when he got home. Hever was glad to be home among his family and friends, and had no trouble transitioning back to civilian life. He bought a new brown suit to go on job interviews, and took advantage of the 52-20 Club [Annotator's Note: a government-funded program that paid unemployed veterans 20 dollars per week for 52 weeks] until he took a job with his uncle, pressing crystals that went into Bulova watches, for a year. Toward the end of that time, he met his future wife and through a new acquaintance at the same party, he got another job as a route salesman for Bond Bread. Asked if his military service affected his post-war life, Hever said his life simply took up from where he left it when he went in.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] was the event that spurred John Hever into joining the military. His life was transformed for three years. He traveled the country and the world and met people of different personalities and nationalities. To Hever it was a "learning experience." He has attended a couple of reunions, and stayed in touch with some of the people he met in the Signal Corps. He feels he is getting more appreciation for his service now than he did when he came home, and that the war is more meaningful to other Americans these days. Hever laments that "the guys" are going fast, and feels lucky to be among those remaining. He also feels lucky to have visited The National WWII Museum in New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana], and thinks it was a wonderful experience, especially the film "Beyond All Boundaries," in the way it preserves the war's history.