Nicholas J. Zuras was born in Washington D.C. in July 1918. He grew up during the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s], and although his family was well off, as a teenager he witnessed Bonus Marches [Annotator's Note: by the Bonus Army, made up of World War 1 veterans and affiliated groups; Bonus Army Conflict; 28 July 1932; Washington D.C.] and was aware of the difficulty people were having. Zuras' father had a produce and grocery business. His mother was a Greek immigrant, and theirs was an arranged marriage. Zuras went to a technical high school, and in the summers, he worked for a construction company. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Zuras if he remembers how he learned about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] Zuras says it was headlined in newspaper. Everyone was concerned, he said, because America had no military to speak of. Zuras was too young for the draft, and considered himself lucky. He joined the CCC [Annotator's Note: Civilian Conservation Corps], a program that was kind of a military upbringing. In 1936, he graduated from high school, and went to several colleges, ending up at East Carolina [Annotator's Note: East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina] on a football scholarship. When he got out of college, the war had started and Zuras was subject to the draft. He decided to join the Air Corps and went to the Spartan School of Aeronautics [Annotator's Note: now the Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology, Tulsa, Oklahoma], but washed out. He was given money to go home and join the bombardiers. All the billets for bombardiers were filled, however, so he entered the V-7 Program [Annotator's Note: V-7 US Navy College Training Program, 1940 to 1945] at the University of Northwestern [Annotator's Note: University of Northwestern Ohio in Lima, Ohio]. After an intense curriculum of math, navigation, and ordnance, he became a 90 day wonder [Annotator's Note: derogatory slang for a newly commissioned graduate of Officer Candidate School; in Zuras' case, he was commissioned an ensign], and an officer. He was sent to a Navy training camp in Virginia, for amphibs [Annotator's Note: amphibious forces training]. It was a dull form of training, and he moved to LCS(S), Landing Craft Support [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Support (Small)]. From Lido Beach, New York, he boarded an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] headed for England.

There were a lot of submarine threats on Nicholas J. Zuras' transatlantic journey to Plymouth, England, where he stayed at Vicarage Barracks [Annotator's Note: Vicarage Receiving Barracks, also called Vicarage Road Camp, United States Navy Base, 1943 to 1945, Plymouth, England]. During his early training in Landing Craft, Support he had very little idea of what he would eventually be doing, but he learned to fire rockets from a 36 foot armor plated boat with twin 50s [Annotator's Note: .50 caliber M2 Browning machine gun] on the turret. It was mind-boggling when they started firing rockets. [Annotator's Note: Zuras describes the rockets and the manner in which they were fired. He notes that four of those boats, LCS(S) or Landing Craft Support, (Small), also called Rocket Boats, were carried on the LST, or Landing Ship, Tank on which he deployed. He got across the Atlantic [Annotator's Note: Atlantic Ocean] without being seasick. The camp where he stayed in England was near a bridge that the Germans attempted to destroy. That gave them first class exposure to what the war was like. Life during the six months before the Normandy invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] included training in different parts of England. Zuras ended up in a port city where they came across the E-boats [Annotator's Note: Allied designation for German fast attack craft, Schnellboot, or S-Boot], which were the German equivalent of the American PT-boats [Annotator's Note: Patrol Torpedo boat]. They took part in a dummy invasion, where many participants lost their lives because of faulty instructions about how to use their Mae Wests [Annotator's Note: common nickname for inflatable life preserver]. Zuras was one of the crew pulling the bodies out of the water; it was his first experience with the casualties of combat. It finally hit home that he would be taking part in the invasion landings. Zuras was summoned before the camp commander and was asked to attend an upcoming Army dance. At the event, the English girls were dancing with African-Americans and there was a fight. Zuras realized then that he had been given the job of protecting the enlisted men at the dance hall.

Neither Nicholas J. Zuras nor his crew were told about the Normandy invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. The sailors of the Landing Craft Support [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Support (Small), LCS(S), also called Rocket Boats] teams were bussed from Plymouth [Annotator's Note: Plymouth, England] to Weymouth [Annotator's Note: Weymouth, England] where they were given briefings, and participated in live training, including firing their rockets. They received orders to board LSTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] in Portland [Annotator's Note: Portland, England], and on the night when they were boarding the 494 [Annotator's Note: USS LST-494], German bombers strafed them. The enemy pilots were flying between the anchored LSTs, so that when the LSTs attempted to return fire, they were inadvertently firing at each other and causing some casualties among the American troops. Zuras had to relay the information to his fellow officers to put gun stops on the 20mm guns [Annotator's Note: Oerlikon 20mm antiaircraft automatic cannon] on the edges of the ships. Soon the order came to head toward Normandy, and the first loaded LSTs embarked. They encountered a huge storm and had to return to port. They were sent out again 24 hours later, with English sub-chasers [Annotator's Note: submarine chaser; an anti-submarine warfare vessel] on all sides. The stormy weather persisted, but they made it to the designated landing site off Omaha Beach [Annotator's Note: Omaha Beach, Normandy, France] and were told they would be launched at six the next morning. Davits [Annotator's Note: small cranes on board a ship] dropped the smaller boats into the rough seas, and they followed an English sub-chaser toward the shoreline. They used a sump pump to keep from going to the bottom of the Channel [Annotator's Note: the English Channel]. The weather conditions made the thought of firing their rockets scary. American bombers, with their striped wings [Annotator's Note: a series of black and white stripes, referred to as "Invasion Stripes" was painted on the wings and fuselage of Allied aircraft tking part in the Normandy invasion to identify them as friendly aircraft], flew over. Then orders came from the bullhorn on the sub-chaser for the small boats to line up abreast. The boats moved in unison toward the beach, and another sub-chaser cruised in front of the line to keep them a certain distance from the shore. When they were within two football fields from the beach, the boats split out toward their designated beaches. They started firing when they got about 75 to 100 yards out. That's when they started getting German machine gun fire and began evasive maneuvers. When they got within 50 yards of the of the beach, they turned off the motors and started getting real fire. The next wave of Allies was approaching and mingled with Zuras' group before heading toward the beach.

Nicholas J. Zuras obtained binoculars in Weymouth [Annotator's Note: Weymouth, England]. The wooden decks of the boats [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Support (Small) or LCS(S), also referred to ask rocket boats] were slippery, and it was always wet on the English Channel. He had asked the ramp owner to paint the deck with sand paint for traction. On the final day of the painting, the dock owner suggested he go to the admiralty office, where they were handing out civilian binoculars to anyone who wanted a pair. When Zuras walked into the admiralty office, he was given binoculars without even asking. At the time of the invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], he used them to scan the shore. He could see Pointe du Hoc [Annotator's Note: Pointe du Hoc, Normandy, France] where the Army Rangers were climbing up metal ladders. It was disturbing to see the soldiers were being shot as they approached the top. Zuras thinks it was a screwed-up invasion. In the pre-invasion briefing they were told that the 16 inch guns [Annotator's Note: 40.6 cm SK C/34, also called the "Adolf gun", 16 inch German naval gun] had to be eliminated, otherwise they would annihilate the fleet. Zuras wondered why they didn't bomb Pointe du Hoc or use the battleships to eliminate the guns. He also saw the boats that were moving in, and the men being slaughtered getting off the ramps of the landing craft. Zuras could see that the flare of the 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery] was below the horizontal, but he had no radio, so there was nothing he could do. The Landing Craft Support craft were disoriented, but they kept firing about every 25 yards. By the fifth wave, they had exhausted their supply of rockets. What he could see was disheartening. The ramps were exploding, and the troops that were running off were "all over the damn sky." It was unbelievable. After their ammunition was exhausted, they just floated for a while then turned around and headed out. The 1st Division [Annotator's Note: 1st Infantry Division] had been sacrificed.

Nicholas J. Zuras headed back out to sea [Annotator's Note: after firing all of the rockets on his rocket boat at Omaha Beach, Normandy during the Normandy, France landings on the morning of 6 June 1944]. Boats in his group picked up DD tank [Annotator's Note: Duplex Drive tank] crews whose tanks were adrift or sunk. The noise of the rockets was like that of an automobile with a cut-out muffler. He does not know if their rocket activity on that first foray made any difference in the storming of the beaches. At a post-invasion briefing in Weymouth [Annotator's Note: Weymouth, England] about a week later, the officers were told the landing force was successful. During the assault, a rocket misfired and landed on the bow of his boat but didn't explode. In some respects, they were unprepared for what happened. There were no ships to convey them back to Weymouth, and they went back under their own steam. They stayed in Weymouth until his boat and crew were ordered to Southern France for another assignment off the LCI-86 [Annotator's Note: LCI(L)-86, Landing Craft Infantry (Large)], picking up mines and performing a variety of other activities. Often the mines they spotted turned out to be Mae West jackets [Annotator's Note: common nickname for inflatable life preserver]. On Omaha Beach [Annotator's Note: Omaha Beach, Normandy, France], he did not have enough time to worry about the beach defenses on his first run. But on a second trip, he could see those things, and he even went into the German pillboxes where he picked up German messages that were left behind. In the Weymouth briefing the officers of the rocket boats reported what they saw and how they handled the survivors they picked up. Zuras was "damn near run over" by a light cruiser and a destroyer that came bounding through the rocket area firing all their guns on the cliff. The second group that came in had no problem at all. The last day he was on the beach, there were no casualties, and the troops were flying up the cliff. If he had had a radio, Zuras believes, he could have pointed out the problem and saved lives [Annotator's Note: during the first groups to go ashore under heavy German fire].

Nicholas J. Zuras was on the USS Barnett (APA-5), which formed part of the landing force in Southern France [Annotator's Note: Operation Dragoon, Provence, Southern France, 15 August 1944]. He was grateful to have been issued a radio before he left the ship, but was dismayed that their mission came under friendly fire. At the time, Larry "Yogi" Berra [Annotator's Note: Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra; professional baseball player, team manager and coach] was on his crew, and he suffered burns when he backed into armor plating as the rockets were going off. His burns made him eligible for a Purple Heart [Annotator's Note: the Purple Heart Medal is award bestowed upon a United States service member who has been wounded as a result of combat actions against an armed enemy]. Berra didn't accept the honor, because he didn't want his mother to be upset. The invasion of Southern France was a dead run with no enemy fire. The rocket fire was a barrage, with no accuracy. From Southern France, Zuras was sent to Portland [Annotator's Note: Portland, England], where he boarded an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] bound for the United States. He had a 90 day leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time], and when he met his brother in New York City [Annotator's Note: New York, New York], he learned that his mother had passed away. Zuras could not understand why he had not been notified. When he returned to duty, he was hoping to get a stateside assignment after having been through two invasions, but he was sent to the Far East instead.

Nicholas J. Zuras made his way through Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii], and proceeded to join an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] to travel to Buckner Bay [Annotator's Note: Nakagusuku Bay] off Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan]. There, he and his fellow shipmates watched as a Kamikaze plane approached their ship, then veered off and hit the USS Pennsylvania (BB-38). It scared the hell out of them. The Pennsylvania was taken to Pearl Harbor for repairs. Zuras was made a gunnery officer on the USS LST-375 and went through a Japanese bomber attack before returning to Pearl Harbor. He was in Haiphong, French Indochina [Annotator's Note: now Haiphong, Vietnam], picking up troops, when the war with Japan ended. There was little celebration because they were low on ordnance. He and a buddy went ashore and collected souvenirs. When the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945] were dropped, Zuras was in Sasebo, Japan. Once he had enough points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home], he headed back to the United States from Tonkin Bay, French Indochina [Annotator's Note: Gulf of Tonkin, portion of South China Sea], and sailed to San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. He was discharged and met his brother in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] before taking a bus home.

Nicholas J. Zuras thinks it important that students today know something about what happened during World War 2. Camouflaging things like that is suicide. And he feels it important that there be museums like The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] to tell the history of the past, in order to make judgments for the future.