Nevin Sledge was born in Alva, Mississippi in February 1921. His father was a farmer. They moved to the Mississippi Delta in Cleveland [Annotator’s Note: Cleveland, Ohio] where Sledge went to school. They were living on a farm. Sledge was the sixth of seven children. He is sure the Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s] affected his older siblings more than him. In 1931, his father lost all his money due to a bank closing. His parents grew most of their food. Sledge wanted to become a pilot. Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] started a program for civilian pilot training [Annotator's Note: Civilian Pilot Training Program or CPTP was a federal program to increase the number of pilots in the country]. This was Sledge’s first experience flying in college. He was driving a transport truck hauling beer out of Memphis [Annotator’s Note: Memphis, Tennessee] when he heard on the radio that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. They were not too surprised because they were building everything up. The Japanese attack motivated the entire country to support the war effort. Sledge wanted to fly.

Nevin Sledge wanted to be a Marine pilot, but he had to go through Navy aviation school. He went to the Navy and was sworn in on 8 April 1942. He was sent to Arkansas for secondary pilot’s training. They did 40 hours of flying. He had a good time in primary training in Kansas. In high school, he played in a band. He went to pre-flight school at the University of Georgia [Annotator’s Note: in Athens, Georgia] for 12 weeks. Sledge was made a platoon leader. In Kansas, Sledge and one other cadet were in charge of all the other cadets. Next, he went to Corpus Christi [Annotator’s Note: Corpus Christi, Texas] where they would turn out more pilots than Pensacola [Annotator’s Note: Pensacola, Florida]. They had no time off. The base had about 150 airplanes. At Corpus Christi, they had no time off and they worked night and day. After every eight hours of flight, they had a check ride with another pilot. Sledge was made a battalion commander on the main base. The cadets were going to parade in front of the President of the United States [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] and the President of Mexico [Annotator’s Note: Manuel Ávila Camacho, President of Mexico from 1940 to 1946]. Sledge led the 3,300 cadets in a parade past the two presidents. One month before graduation, they picked the men who would go into the Marines. The Marines had gotten some B-25s [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber]. Sledge put in his application for the Marines late, but was selected to go into the Marines.

Nevin Sledge was assigned to be an instructor after graduation. [Annotator’s Note: Sledge graduated in Corpus Christi, Texas]. He was a senior instructor in the squadron. He had to give check rides to men who returned from the Pacific. He learned from the pilots he had to check ride with. Sledge graduated on 19 June 1943. He was training and not understanding how to fly the plane he was in. He went and asked for a new instructor. With the new instructor, he was able to understand how to fly the plane. They flew into a cold front of a thunderstorm. Sledge knew they had made a mistake. [Annotator’s Note: Sledge describes the flight and how the storm affected the plane.]

Nevin Sledge had 319 pilots in his graduating class in Corpus [Annotator’s Note: Corpus Christi, Texas]. They were graduating twice a month like that. Then they went to the West Coast. They were flying the C-46 [Annotator’s Note: The Curtiss C-46 Commando]. They got new airplanes when they went overseas. The battle of Iwo [Annotator's Note: Battle of Iwo Jima; 19 February to 26 March 1945; Iwo Jima, Japan] was going on when they got to Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands]. They did not go to Iwo until it was just about over with. For the battle of Okinawa [Annotator’s Note: the Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg; 1 April to 22 June 1945; Okinawa, Japan] they were there from day one. They picked up the 22nd Marine Fighter Group from Eniwetok [Annotator's Note: Enewetok Atoll, Marshall Islands] for the invasion of Okinawa. Everything was radio silence. Sledge saw P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] with rockets under each wing. One of the planes lost a rocket and it landed under Sledge’s plane. It exploded 50 feet from their left wing.

Nevin Sledge admired the SeaBees [Annotator's Note: Members of US naval construction battalions]. They did everything better than anyone else. Sledge saw them turn a jungle into a runway in 11 days when he was on Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands]. They landed a B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] on the airstrip on the eleventh day. When Sledge went to Okinawa [Annotator’s Note: Okinawa, Japan], they had to sleep in tents. They could get any supplies they wanted by trading whiskey. Ulithi [Annotator's Note: Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands] was the staging area for the invasion of Okinawa [Annotator’s Note: the Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg; 1 April to 22 June 1945; Okinawa, Japan]. Sledge hauled a load of beer back to Guam. The biggest thing was getting fuel from one place to another. There was bad fighting on the southern end of Okinawa.

Nevin Sledge remembers that everything was secretive. One of the generals was killed by a sniper. A Marine general took over the 10th Army. The airfield on Okinawa [Annotator’s Note: Okinawa, Japan] was not good. He was there to pick men up. Twenty-six Marines got out of a truck and were moving slowly. They looked like they were in a daze. They were dirty and starved to death. They were not talking. They took them to Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands]. The men were given bread and spam to eat. The transport B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] were all lined up. The men slept under the wing of their planes. They were under attack by the Japanese. A plane crashed right before Sledge’s plane. The men who attacked were in their dress uniforms with their swords. Some men wanted to go into the fire to get the swords. Sledge was headed to Iwo [Annotator’s Note: Iwo Jima, Japan], and turned on the radio. They were talking about the atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. They were getting ready to invade Japan that fall. Three days later, Sledge found out that he was supposed to go back to Honolulu, Hawaii on a Navy transport ship to pick up a new airplane. Honolulu had two hotels at the time. One was taken over by the Navy. Sledge was taking a plane for a test flight when he heard that Japan had surrendered. He landed the plane quickly because he knew things were going to get out of control.

Nevin Sledge remembers people were going crazy in Honolulu [Annotator’s Note: Honolulu, Hawaii] after they heard the war was over. A few days later, he went back to Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands]. Sledge was discharged in November 1945. He was elected into the Senate in the 1980s. [Annotator’s Note: Sledge discusses his time in the Senate.] Sledge later became a Chevrolet dealer. Sledge thinks people should teach children how the world was and what the war did for the country. People in other countries no longer admire Americans.