John Treen was born in 1926 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana where he resided until his family moved to New Orleans when he was nine years old. During the Great Depression, he can remember going to school with a little girl that wore the same dress every day. He did not wear shoes during the summer because they could only afford one pair of shoes for the winter. He attended Fortier High School and graduated when he was 16 years old. Treen attended Tulane University [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] and decided to enter the Navy's V-12 Program, which is an officer training program. [Annotator's Note: The Navy's V-12 College Training Program was created to increase the number of commissioned naval officers during World War 2.] The Navy switched his major from Business Administration to Engineering. Treen objected to this, but the Navy saw how high his test scores were and thought he should be an engineer. He later persuaded the Dean of Engineering to let him transfer to midshipman school. He was sent to Northwestern University Midshipmen School [Annotator's Note: Evanston, Illinois]. He received his commission and was one of the youngest officers in the history of the United States Navy. Once he was finished with training, he was put aboard the destroyer escort USS Doyle C. Barnes (DE-353).

John Treen spent his time on board [Annotator's Note: on board the USS Doyle C. Barnes (DE-353)] as the radar officer and sonar officer, decoding messages and standing watch. The men on board referred to him as a teenager because he was only 19. He was assigned to be top watch. They went out on weather cruises, sending messages back to Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Philippines] with a weather report. One time at sea, they ran into a typhoon in the Pacific and Treen had to stay as top watch for 16 hours straight because the other officers were so seasick they could not do their duty. When the war ended, Treen's ship was sent to Kuching in British North Borneo, also known as Sarawak [Annotator's Note: Kuching, Malaysia], to pick up the Americans that were liberated from a Prison of War camp. Treen was astounded by the physical appearance of the prisoners. They were being starved to death. The Japanese threatened to kill the prisoners if they went into the jungle to looks for food. Some did anyway. The local people of Borneo also helped some of the prisoners get food even though the Japanese threatened them as well. They brought the prisoners back to Manila and had to keep a close watch on them because they were worried that they would overeat. [Annotator's Note: Treen asks to take a break at 0:13:14.000 to gather his composure. Interview resumes at 0:14:53.000.] He was astounded by the primitive lives of the local populations in the Philippines. He also was surprised that the natives were speaking English. He did not realize that English was the official language in the Philippines. Treen learned that many of the natives despised the Japanese because how they were treated.

John Treen and his ship [Annotator's Note: USS Doyle C. Barnes (DE-353)] were sent to Shanghai, China. He was put on shore patrol duty because he was the junior officer on board. He went to a meeting with the lieutenant in charge of shore patrol and was given a map with red Xs on it. The X's were the Japanese prostitution houses in the city. Treen's job was to go into these houses and push any American sailors out. He did what he was told for a while but then figured it was worthless, so he stopped and just drove around Shanghai. He saw two of Chiang Kai-Shek [Annotator's Note: Chiang Kai-Shek was the leader of Nationalist China at the time] soldiers being held up by other men who wanted to kill them for trying to take down communists. He told the two soldiers to get in his jeep and took them to where they wanted to go. Treen spent most of his service out at sea because he was assigned to a patrol craft. They were scheduled to be a patrol craft to Japan during the invasion, but they found out that the Japanese had 11,000 kamikaze planes hidden in caves that would be used against them in the invasion. When Truman [Annotator's Notes: Harry S. Truman, 33rd president of the United States] gave orders to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Treen recalled celebrating and partying because it was a relief that they would not be invading Japan anymore. He believed the decision to drop the atomic bombs was a good decision because more lives of Americans and Japanese would have been lost if there was an invasion. The war ended soon after the atomic bombs dropped, and Treen recalled celebrating that victory. Treen's ship returned to the United States in May 1946. When he returned, he was made the executive officer of a destroyer escort; he was only 20 years old. Treen commented that his Navy experience was really educational because he met so many people and learned about different ways of life and became so appreciative of the standard of living we have in the United States. After the war, Treen joined the Naval Reserves because they paid him 1,000 dollars a year.

John Treen met a friend at College Inn [Annotator's Note: Ye Olde College Inn Restaurant, New Orleans, Louisiana] one afternoon who told him about the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]. He remembered thinking that he was going to join the military as soon as he could. He wanted to join the Navy because his dad was in the Navy during World War 1, and he wanted to have a place to sleep and regular meals every day. Treen read a lot, played a lot of cards and listened to the radio when there was a radio station nearby. He would go on liberty while in port. While in Shanghai [Annotator's Note: Shanghai, China], he went out to the restaurants because he enjoyed the food. They would get news about the war through military radio messages. When he was at Tulane [Annotator's Note: Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana], he was very interested in what was going on with the war in Europe and Japan. He knew if he joined the Navy, he would most likely be fighting in the Pacific. Treen viewed the Japanese as cruel and inhumane, especially after witnesses the Americans he liberated from the Prisoner of War camps. He also believed that they were very intelligent and very well organized. He also feels that the Japanese today are not cruel or inhumane and has met Japanese since the war and find them to be good people. When Treen was on his way to meet his ship [Annotator's Note: USS Doyle C. Barnes (DE-353)] in Borneo [Annotator's Note: Borneo, Malaysia], he had to stop at several islands. He had an incident when he flew from the Halmahera islands [Annotator's Note: Halmahera Islands, Maluka Islands] to the Philippines. He was flying in an Australian plane and the pilot told them that it was very likely they were going to crash because the government is no longer wanting to pay for maintenance. Treen was frantic the whole way there. He found out later that the Australians were pulling pranks on the Americans. He felt the Philippines welcomed the Americans because they wanted the Japanese gone. When he interacted with the Chinese, it was mostly in restaurants or when he was shore patrolling in Shanghai. He thought a lot of their rules were strange and primitive. Treen thought the Chinese were very cordial and felt that they were welcomed in their city.

While serving as an officer aboard the USS Doyle C. Barnes (DE-353), John Treen would correspond with his family and sweetheart through letters. Since mail had to be censored, Treen was responsible for reading his men's mail before it could be sent out. He did not like doing that at all. He had to censor anything that gave details to their future moves, present location, or any assignments given to them. He recalled decoding messages of instructions to ships and people, promotions, and all kinds of military information. Overall, being on the ship was boring for the most part, but he really enjoyed going on liberty and visiting the different ports. Treen's most memorable experience of World War 2 was getting the soldiers from the prison camp [Annotator's Notes: in Kuching, Malaysia]. He decided to fight because it was his duty and he wanted to do his part; to contribute. The war changed his life because it gave him an understanding of the world, which made him appreciate the United States so much more. Treen believes he grew up faster having a lot of responsibility at a young age. His service was an important and happy part of his life, and it makes him feel like he served his country when it needed it. He feels having institutions like The National WWII Museum is so important because so many young people have no idea about what went on, and he thinks they need to know what the cost was for the United States. Treen feels that the time he spent in the service was well worth it.