John Kelley was born in Dalton, Georgia in June 1924. He grew up in Atlanta [Annotator's Note: Atlanta, Georgia] where his father owned an awning company and sold insurance. His mother did not work while he and his sister were in school but worked at a florist later in life. Kelley was unaware of the economic hardship faced by his family during the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945] as he and his sister always celebrated birthdays and Christmas and had sufficient food to eat. His father told him one time that he made 30 to 40 dollars a week. Concerning the rise of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Kelley only knew what he had been taught about it in school. When Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] was attacked, he heard the news on the radio while eating lunch. His family had just returned from church. He did not have a strong reaction because of the limited understanding he had of the circumstances at the time. He knew more of the Lend-Lease Program [Annotator's Note: Lend-Lease Policy, officially An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States 1941 to 1945] and was, therefore, more aware of the situation in Europe. There were many famous and political people in America that were against joining the war. Kelley's father had served in a horse-drawn artillery unit during World War 1. Kelley always had an interest in joining the military, even before the attack on Pearl Harbor. He unsuccessfully tried to join the Navy and returned to school where he continued ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps] training. He was drafted on 5 February 1943 and volunteered for paratrooper training at his induction center. He attended 13 weeks of basic training at Camp Mackall, North Carolina. The barracks were wooden buildings with potbelly stoves. There were double bunks in the barracks and the bathrooms were in a separate building. When he completed his basic training, he was sent to Fort Benning, Georgia for jump school for four weeks. He did a lot of physical activities in the mornings and evenings for about a month before he left for Fort Benning, and because of this, he did not have to do a lot of physical training during jump school. He was trained on how to exit the door, hooking up to the cable, and simulations of falling. The last week, he learned how to pack his chute [Annotator's Note: parachute] and made five qualifying jumps. After earning his wings and jump boots, Kelley was officially a member of Battery D, 457th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, 11th Airborne Division. Kelley accompanied the advance party to Camp Polk, Louisiana to prepare housing for the soldiers who were set to arrive to begin maneuvers. The buildings were two-story, walled, and heated. The bathroom and showers were inside. He was in luxury compared to where he was before. The future of airborne units was in question at the time because of a disaster experienced in Sicily [Annotator's Note: Sicily, Italy] when over a dozen C-47s [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft] were shot down by friendly fire. Because of the successful maneuvers he took part in it was decided that airborne units would continue to operate in combat. Living in combat conditions during this time taught Kelley what to expect and how to react to a variety of situations upon entering combat. Each artillery battery consisted of four 75mm howitzers [Annotator's Note: M1 75mm Pack Howitzer], a .50 caliber machine gun [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun] crew, and a team of medics. Battery D was an assault battery and spent more time attached to infantry units than with the rest of the artillery.

When John Kelley and his unit [Annotator's Note: Battery D, 457th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, 11th Airborne Division] landed on Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines], he accompanied his battery up a ridge, but the 75mm guns [Annotator's Note: M1 75mm Pack Howitzer] were not strong enough to have an impact on the Japanese defenses. Kelley was most proud of when he took part in liberating 2,100 prisoners at the Los Baños Prison Camp [Annotator's Note: Los Baños Internment Camp, Los Baños, Philippines]. When Kelley went overseas for the first time, he boarded the USS Atlawn [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] in California in May 1944. This ship was commissioned in 1913 and took troops overseas during World War 1. They sailed solo across the Pacific and arrived at Oro Bay, New Guinea 28 days later. He was given boiled eggs, two slices of bread, and a cup of tea for breakfast. His quarters were two decks below the water line. The bunks were about four high. It was very hot in the sleeping quarters, so he slept on the deck of the ship. During the voyage, he was required to do physical workouts to keep in shape. While in New Guinea, Kelley underwent five months of intense jungle training in which his gun crew moved the 75mm howitzer [Annotator's Note: M1 75mm Pack Howitzer] up mountains. While not training, the men of the 11th Airborne pulled guard duty at the docks and helped to offload cargo and resupply the warehouse. They "liberated" anything they could get their hands on. After so much pilfering, a sign was placed at the dock barring all men of the 11th Airborne from cargo duty. Kelley was never fearful while preparing for combat. The training he received had prepared him for whatever he was to face. Combat was just another part of that training. At this time, he was given the opportunity to return to the United States to go to West Point [Annotator's Note: United States Military Academy, West Point, New York] and be commissioned as a second lieutenant. Kelley turned the offer down out of loyalty to the men he had worked so hard with. His first invasion was at Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines] in November 1944. Only one howitzer was placed atop a mountain where they were based. There was no combat at this point for Kelley and he spent time on guard duty or searching Filipino villages for weapons. The weather conditions were horrible, and it rained constantly. He learned how to waterproof his foxhole using banana leaves and always kept socks in his helmet liner to ensure his feet stayed dry. His First Sergeant, Sergeant Ball [Annotator's Note: unable to verify identity], got a case of jungle rot [Annotator's Note: immersion foot syndrome] and had to be airlifted to a hospital.

John Kelley did not see any combat action until he was on Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines]. He wore the same clothes for weeks at a time. His helmet had webbing in it, so he stored an extra pair of socks in there. He boarded a Higgins boat [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat] with his 75mm [Annotator's Note: M1 75mm Pack Howitzer] towed behind a jeep off the coast of Luzon before the invasion in January 1945. For the invasion, the ramp of the Higgins boat was lowered, and Kelley drove off into chest deep water. After drying the boat and the gun, his battery [Annotator's Note: Battery D, 457th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, 11th Airborne Division] joined forces with the infantry and entered the town of Nasugbu [Annotator's Note: Nasugbu, Philippines]. The people in Nasugbu, many of whom had evacuated from Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Philippines], gave their liberators food and alcohol. Later they cooked the food, and the alcohol was shared among the troops. They then pushed up Tagaytay Ridge against heavy Japanese resistance. After hours of fighting, they ran out of ammunition for the 75mm and were in a position in a shallow depression on a road. To save the gun, Kelley and one other man dragged the gun by hand downhill out of the range of fire. When not in combat, Kelley spent his days at a base camp cleaning his weapon, enjoying hot food, and resupplying. He used washers from shell canisters and taught the men in his outfit to play a game with them. This game became very popular among the men in his unit. They also found cardboard for target practice.

John Kelley took part in the raid on the Los Baños prison camp [Annotator's Note: Los Baños Internment Camp, Los Baños, Philippines] on 23 February 1945. There were 4,100 civilian and military prisoners there on the day of the liberation. Kelley and his gun crew [Annotator's Note: Battery D, 457th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, 11th Airborne Division] landed amphibiously and entered the camp around seven o'clock in the morning. Filipino guerillas had killed most of the Japanese guards. The Filipinos had scheduled the raid to begin at that time because they knew the Japanese guards were in the field doing their exercises and had stacked their guns in a gun house. The raid was very successful, and support came from the paratroopers, ground troops and amphibious invasion. To encourage the internees to leave, they were ordered to set the prison camp on fire. Based on documents seized in the raid, the Japanese were planning on killing all the internees the following day. Kelley was thankful that no prisoners were killed, and only one paratrooper was killed. The raid was so well-organized and successful that it was taught in military schools for years after the war. Upon liberating Los Baños, Kelley became aware of how terrible the Japanese treated their prisoners. He learned later in life how the Japanese tortured their prisoners through starvation and physical abuse. Although he did not like MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area], Kelley approved of the decision to leave the emperor on the throne because the Japanese people would have been much less peaceful in defeat than if he had been dethroned. Kelley's unit was awarded the Presidential Citation [Annotator's Note: Presidential Unit Citation or PUC, originally called Distinguished Unit Citation; awarded to military units for extraordinary heroism, on or after 7 December 1941] while on Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines]. On a night mission following Los Baños, Kelley's gun crew was alone on a mountaintop as night began to fall. Worried they would not make it off before dark and thus become prime for capture by the Japanese, Kelley suggested throwing the gun's breech block over the side of the mountain, rendering the gun useless to their captors. His sergeant, worried he would be court martialed, denied the request. Instead, Kelley told the leader of the Filipino guerrilla group with them not to stop pulling the gun until he said so or he would shoot them all. They made it off the mountain and back to safety before nightfall. On another operation, Kelley and two other men were engaged in a fire fight with the Japanese. They were close enough to throw hand grenades at the enemy. One of the men was hit and died in Kelley's arms. He and the second man carried their dead comrade back to their camp and asked why no one had come to reinforce them. Although they could see their position, they did not go to help because they thought they had all been killed because of the heavy enemy fire. This was the first time Kelley knew someone was shooting directly at him with deadly intent. On another mission, the mountain was so steep that they had to take the gun apart to climb. The Filipinos helped climb up with the pieces. When they reached their destination, they put the gun together. The Japanese pilots took tours over the Philippines to see how many dead Japanese they could find. Kelley met a former prisoner in a Japanese camp in Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Luzon, Philippines] at his church.

Near the end of the war, while the 11th Airborne [Annotator's Note: 11th Airborne Division] was flown to Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan] to prepare for the invasion of Japan, John Kelley was ordered to stay behind in the Philippines to close the base. In August 1945, Kelley was in his tent on the base near Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Luzon, Philippines] when the announcement was made about the surrender [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945]. He was outside by some volleyball nets when he was told about the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945]. He was glad that he would no longer have to face being shot and killed. Because the Marines had photographers with them, the event of Mount Suribachi [Annotator's Note: United States flag raised on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, Japan, 23 February 1943] got more hype than the raid at the Los Baños prison camp [Annotator's Note: Los Baños Internment Camp, Los Baños, Philippines] even though they were on the same day. Prior to the surrender, Kelley took part in the last airborne parachute jump of World War 2 on the northern tip of Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines]. The jump was made to prevent any Japanese from evacuating the island. However, when they landed, they encountered no enemy resistance and returned to their base after one day. They landed in an old rice paddy and had to cut down high grass to make their way through a field. As they did this, clouds of mosquitoes appeared. They had to apply insect repellant and wear their ponchos for protection. Kelley arrived in Yokohama [Annotator's Note: Yokohama, Japan] on 2 September [Annotator's Note: 2 September 1945] and passed right alongside of the USS Missouri (BB-63) during the surrender ceremony. He was sent to northern Honshu to the city of Akita [Annotator's Note: Akita, Japan] where he became a member of the occupation force. Most of the duty in Akita consisted of running guard duty at the bars and brothels in the area. He once spoke to a Japanese civilian who had been educated in America. Kelley asked the man why the Japanese had at first been so terrified of the Americans, then puzzled by them, and then completely ambivalent to them. The man told Kelley that the emperor had told all of Japan that if Americans arrived in Japan they would rape, torture, and kill every one of them. When they realized that was not the case, they became puzzled because the emperor was wrong. One night while he was on guard duty, Kelley's base burned down including the barracks, dining hall, movie theater, and other buildings, taking all his souvenirs and belongings with it. All he had left was his weapon and sleeping bag. He was moved to another facility and given enough supplies to get by. Kelley enjoyed his occupation duty overall. Not long after, on Christmas Eve 1945, he was shipped back to the United States. He was supposed to land in Seattle, Washington, but because there was a storm in the Pacific [Annotator's Note: Pacific Ocean], the ship docked in San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. He immediately boarded a troop train to Atlanta [Annotator's Note: Atlanta, Georgia]. When he went to be discharged, they asked him to go home because he was local. He caught a taxi and got home around midnight. The next morning his father drove him to Fort McPherson [Annotator's Note: in Atlanta, Georgia]. He agreed to wait to be discharged until 12 March 1946 with the rank of Sergeant. He turned down a promotion while in Japan because it would have required him to stay for two years to train replacement troops. For fighting in World War 2, Kelley received 50 dollars for base pay, 50 dollars for jump pay, overseas pay, and combat pay. By the time he was discharged he was making over 140 dollars a month. He thought he was rich. He sent most of his money home to save it. He attended North Georgia University [Annotator's Note: in Dahlonega, Georgia] on the G.I. bill. He was in a program where he could have received a commission, but he injured his knee playing football, so he could not complete the physical training. Some of his friends in college were drafted into the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953]. He also had friends who made a career out of the military. His decision to go to school helped him readjust to civilian life. He worked during the summers to keep himself busy. He also did the 52-20 program [Annotator's Note: a government-funded program that paid unemployed veterans 20 dollars per week for 52 weeks] at times because it was difficult at times to find a job.

John Kelley's most memorable experience of World War 2 was when he took part in liberating the Los Baños Prison Camp [Annotator's Note: Los Baños Internment Camp, Los Baños, Philippines]. He later met a daughter of a man who was a prisoner in the camp. He asked her if there were any more reunions. He received a call from a son of a friend who was on his gun crew [Annotator's Note: in Battery D, 457th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion, 11th Airborne Division]. Kelley is glad to have made these recent contacts. He also speaks to groups and classes about his World War 2 experiences. He feels horrible for the Vietnam veterans [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975] who were treated poorly when he returned home. So many World War 2 veterans went back to school and work, while many Vietnam veterans did not and suffered greatly from the effects of Agent Orange [Annotator's Note: chemical defoliant used by the United States]. Although Kelley fought because he was drafted, he would do it again if called and physically able. [Annotator's Note: The interview is disrupted and the interviewer must tell someone to leave at 1:24:50.000.] Because he lived through the war experience, it changed his life, but he cannot point to any specific thing. Kelley is glad he fought and glad he was not injured although he does not want to relive that part of his life again. He does not want to relive any part of his life again. He is happy living in the present. He is unsure what Americans today think of World War 2. Not enough people know about it. He hopes that America never has to go through another World War 2, but he cannot think of another time where Americans were so cooperative than during that war. He is glad to be able to do this interview. He believes without a doubt that there should be institutions like The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] and that we should continue to teach World War 2 to future generations. He thinks it is pitiful that some of his friends had no idea where The National WWII Museum was located. Kelley has visited several times because he knows this place helps younger generations learn more about World War 2.