[Annotator's Note: Throughout this clip, a person off-camera answers a lot of the interviewer's questions or gives information for Beard.] Oral Russell Beard was born in Needham Township, Indiana in May 1919. He lived on a farm. His mother was good at providing during the Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945]. She raised chickens. She could sell some to get money for groceries. His father grew wheat and corn, which helped feed the chickens. That kept them going. They killed their own hogs and one calf. They had their own garden. His mother was a good canner, so they did pretty well. It was horrible growing up because they did not have any money. He could see the stuff everybody else had. He felt that one day he would grow up and could get a job and get those things. He knew then that when he turned 18, he was going to have to go to war. The war was in China then [Annotator's Note: Second Sino-Japanese War, 7 July 1937 to 2 September 1945]. He feels he had a dream that played out. When he turned 18 or 19, Germany was in a mess, and he went to war. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks someone else off-camera and Beard, if they went into the service at the same time.] They went in the same year after volunteering. Beard was working at a photo studio and his boss was in the Guard [Annotator's Note: the Indiana National Guard] and talked him into it. He did not even know the Navy or Marine Corps existed. After he was in the service for three or four years, he wished he had been in the Navy. They got more money and ate better. He volunteered in December 1939 after Germany invaded Poland [Annotator's Note: German Invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939]. Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] was taking over and bombing England. Beard was assigned to the 139th Field Artillery, A Battery [Annotator's Note: Battery A, 139th Field Artillery Battalion, 38th Infantry Division].

[Annotator's Note: Throughout this clip, a person off-camera answers a lot of the interviewer's questions or gives information for Beard.] Oral Russell Beard just trained as soldiers at the armory in Franklin [Annotator's Note: Johnson County National Guard Armory in Franklin, Indiana]. Beard was already in the service when Pearl Harbor Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] was attacked. He and a friend had spent the weekend in New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana]. They heard it over the radio. They heard that they were supposed to report back to their base and headed towards Camp Shelby [Annotator's Note: in Hattiesburg, Mississippi]. The camp was completely out of control. They were acting as if the Japs [Annotator's Note: period derogatory term for Japanese] were going to bomb them next. Beard thought that was silly and went to bed. They got him out of bed. They had to pack and move out. It was the dumbest thing he had ever heard of. They stayed out all night in trucks and returned the next day. They did a little bit of everything in training. They marched in the rain. They were assigned different sections. Every night the guys would go to the canteen and drink beer. He stayed in Camp Shelby [Annotator's Note: near Hattiesburg, Mississippi] about three years [Annotator's Note: as part of Battery A, 139th Field Artillery Battalion, 38th Infantry Division]. He then went to either Florida for amphibious training or to Camp Livingston, Louisiana [Annotator's Note: now part of Kisatchie National Forest, Rapides Parish and Grant Parish, Louisiana]. In Florida, they would go on the beach in the mornings and practice in landing craft. He had a mean sergeant. There are pools of stuff in Florida that look like cow manure. The sergeant made Beard march through it. There is an island off the coast they went to in a landing craft. On the way back, the sailor got lost and they got stuck. He stayed in A Battery through the entire war. The training at Camp Livingston was for preparing to go overseas to Europe. They were supposed to sail on the Queen Mary [Annotator's Note: the RMS Queen Mary] but then were told they were going to the Pacific. When they did go overseas to the Pacific, they only had their rifles. They left from New Orleans on New Year's Eve [Annotator's Note: 31 December 1943]. They had air conditioning to start with, but it went out when they got on the Gulf of Mexico. The holds of the ship were just like an oven. They were zig-zagging [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver] until they were almost to the Panama Canal.

[Annotator's Note: Throughout this clip, a person off-camera comes in and out of the room.] Oral Russell Beard and his outfit [Annotator's Note: Battery A, 139th Field Artillery Battalion, 38th Infantry Division] were sent to the Mississippi River to guard it and keep the German subs [Annotator's Note: submarines] from coming up. They were there for quite a while. They would see ships going out of the Mississippi and the next day they would see the smoke going up. They returned to Camp Shelby [Annotator's Note: near Hattiesburg, Mississippi] and then to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] where they shipped out [Annotator's Note: on 1 January 1944]. They were not supposed to be up on deck, but he snuck up to get his last view of the United States. [Annotator's Note: Beard gets emotional.] It is still sad. It was sad, because he did not know if would come back or not. That was rough. They went through the Panama Canal. They had 13,000 rounds of howitzer ammunition on the very bottom of the ship. They hit rough seas the first night out of the canal, and it all shifted making the ship ride sideways all the way to Hawaii [Annotator's Note: 20 January 1944]. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer backs up the story to guarding the Mississippi.] They had their guns deployed on the riverbank, but he does not recall firing at a submarine. The smokes from the u-boat [Annotator's Note: German submarine] attacks burned for three days. He does not know anybody who got upset over it. Way down on the mouth [Annotator's Note: of the Mississippi River], there was a Navy water tower that was over 100 feet high. Beard was sent up there with a telephone. He was scared to death. There was nothing to hold him up on top. That was so he could see out over the water. When the tide came in at night, their buildings almost sat on the water. When it went out it was just mud and muck. They shipped out and passed through the Panama Canal. The food was pretty good. One of his boat trips, the Navy boys opened up 30 cans of peaches. The ship rolled and they all went on the floor. They went through the canal at night. It was nice because they had fresh water once they got up into the lake. Then they turned to Hawaii for 14 days. It was a horrible trip. He could not get any position that felt good. He was sick to his stomach the only time. All he had to look at was water, flying fish, and some sharks. After he was in Hawaii for six months, they were on their way out of Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] and the ship bounced three times. Everybody on the ship vomited and it was running everywhere. They had to go all the way to New Guinea like that [Annotator's Note: in August 1944].

[Annotator's Note: Throughout this clip, a person off-camera answers a lot of the interviewer's questions or gives information for Beard.] Oral Russell Beard got to Hawaii in January 1942 [Annotator's Note: as part of Battery A, 139th Field Artillery Battalion, 38th Infantry Division], just after Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] was calm and peaceful. It is a big harbor. He went to Honolulu [Annotator's Note: Honolulu, Hawaii] once and all of the ships were gone. He thought that was for a big invasion. Hawaii was great. The temperature was beautiful. He stayed at Schofield [Annotator's Note: Schofield Barracks, United States Army installation, Honolulu, Hawaii]. Back in the woods, there was a gun that could reach 25 miles. They trained every day, even on the ship. Coming home they did not have a word said to them and they were free to do what they wanted. He left Hawaii for New Guinea. The fighting was over with there. They landed on the southeast end of New Guinea [Annotator's Note: 2 August 1944]. They were so sick after two weeks on the water. It helped to get on solid ground. He only saw the natives. They went up the coast. One day, his outfit went down a road and left him there to guide the next guys coming in. Way down the road, he could see an object coming towards him. It was a tall native. He stood straight up and had a spear. Beard had no weapon. He started talking to Beard in his language and then went on. They were rough looking. The women did all the work. They had supplies stacked in the jungle and Beard had to guard them. One night, the sergeant told them to be on their toes because someone had given the natives whiskey and they had killed three officers. Beard was scared. When the next shift came, he went back to the outfit and told them how scared he had been. He got his men to go with him to keep the next guards' company until daylight. Other than that, the beaches were black sand, and the water was warm. Somebody dammed up the river and made a swimming hole where they camped. There were no crocodiles or mosquitoes. He saw pictures of guys that had elephantiasis [Annotator's Note: enlargement and hardening of limbs or body parts due to tissue swelling]. They were in bad shape. He stayed there three months [Annotator's Note: until December 1944]. He was the switchboard operator, and the switchboard was set up in his tent. He got to stay back with it instead of training.

[Annotator's Note: Throughout this clip, a person off-camera answers a lot of the interviewer's questions or gives information for Beard.] Oral Russell Beard was on the switchboard [Annotator's Note: for Battery A, 139th Field Artillery Battalion, 38th Infantry Division] by himself, and a call came in. They had fired an artillery shell that did not have the right amount of gun powder in it, and it fell short. It landed right in the middle of the infantry and killed 21 guys. [Annotator's Note: Beard gets very emotional.] He still thinks about that. He thinks that happened in Hawaii. Beard had to transfer the calls to the guns and officers. He had to be on duty all the time. He left New Guinea for Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines, in December 1944] in a convoy up the north shore of New Guinea one morning. He could see something blue and figured it was a mountain peak. They sailed all day. They were out sailing one night, and a Japanese plane was on the outer edge of the convoy. The Navy ships started firing tracers. Everybody was on deck and Beard looked around an everyone had taken off and dove into a hatch to get away. The food was cooked by the outfit's cook, but they had no kitchen. They set up the stoves on the top deck. They had good cooks. One evening, they were asked what kind of meat they had for dinner. It had been horse meat. It was good though. They had no opposition on the landing. One ship was out in the water that had been bombed. Christmas Eve [Annotator's Note: 24 December 1944], they all went to bed on the ship. About midnight a Japanese plane went over. The officers got scared and decided to unload them. They went down in the dark. He could see a light on shore they were supposed to follow. They kept going and going and were lost. At daylight, they found they were out in the middle of the ocean and went back.

[Annotator's Note: Throughout this clip, a person off-camera answers a lot of the interviewer's questions or gives information for Beard.] Oral Russell Beard [Annotator's Note: and Battery A, 139th Field Artillery Battalion, 38th Infantry Division] loaded up from Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines] and went up the west coast of Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines] to Lingayen Gulf [Annotator's Note: Lingayen Gulf, Philippines]. There were a lot of ships in that convoy. The Japs [Annotator's Note: period derogatory term for Japanese] were not there because they had taken to the mountains. They did not leave Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Luzon, Philippines] and burned it down. Beard and his outfit went down to Olongapo [Annotator's Note: Olongapo, Philippines in January 1945]. One evening, a huge explosion took place. He looked around and everybody had left for their foxholes. They had 155s [Annotator's Note: M1 155mm howitzer] up the road and somebody had fired one into the side of the mountain. The road out of Olongapo was called Zig Zag Path and the Japs had it well-covered. They had to dig them out with flamethrowers [Annotator's Note: Battle of Zig Zag Pass, 1 to 14 February 1945]. The forests were blown off at the ground level. They stacked up 300 dead Japanese and burned them. While his guys were guarding the road, they heard two guys talking in English about the girls in Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois]. Somebody got the idea that they were not American and threw a grenade, injuring them. They listened to them moan and groan all night. They were Japanese and the next morning they were put out of their misery. Beard never used his carbine [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic carbine] other than for practice. He was back from the Japs. He did run a line once to the infantry forward observer. He got in his foxhole. The guy had a hole in the back of his helmet and kept looking forward. Beard asked him what happened. He told him he got shot but the bullet followed the liner and came out the front. [Annotator's Note: Beard gets emotional.] He felt sorry for the guy but there was nothing he could do.

[Annotator's Note: Throughout this clip, a person off-camera answers a lot of the interviewer's questions or gives information for Beard.] Oral Russell Beard [Annotator's Note: and Battery A, 139th Field Artillery Battalion, 38th Infantry Division] went down Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines] to land at Mariveles [Annotator's Note: Mariveles, Bataan, Philippines in February 1945]. The infantry was supposed to land and take control. They did not know the Japs [Annotator's Note: period derogatory term for Japanese] were not there. When Beard got down there, the infantry was not there. There were only battleships pounding Corregidor in preparation for the paratroopers [Annotator's Note: Battle for the Recapture of Corregidor, 16 to 26 February 1945, Corregidor Island, Philippines]. They landed anyway and went inland. The first night, the Navy was bringing in supplies. Tracers started going off and they did not have foxholes. They got in shell holes and were in the open. They were told a Japanese sub [Annotator's Note: submarine] had come over from Corregidor and fired at one of the ships. He was there when the paratroopers came in on Corregidor and overshot the mark. Their parachutes got caught in the trees and the Japanese killed them all. They were brought to Mariveles for burial. Beard and the men set up a cemetery. Nobody would go out and dig the holes for the men. There was a volcanic mountain that went up there on Bataan. The battleships just plowed Corregidor with their shells. Beard and his outfit were supposed to get in when the tide was low and were late. When they got out, they had to hold their guns above their heads. Their Caterpillar [Annotator's Note: brand name of a tracked bulldozer] went underwater so they had nothing to dig with on shore. [Annotator's Note: Beard returns to the story about digging burial holes for the dead paratroopers.] The guys that died on Corregidor were not well preserved. In the daytime the air came off the ocean and went up the mountain. At night it reversed, and the smell came across them all. The next day they dug the holes. They left a cemetery and three of his guys in A Battery too. The captain said he did not want anybody exploring the caves. The next morning guys did. As they were leaving one, somebody lit a cigarette, and it blew up. Doyle [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] was one of them and was a good kid. He was from Beard's home. Donnerman [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] died there. They were burned. He never heard what caused the explosion.

[Annotator's Note: Throughout this clip, a person off-camera answers a lot of the interviewer's questions or gives information for Beard.] A bunch of landing craft came in one day while Oral Russell Beard was still in Mariveles [Annotator's Note: Mariveles, Bataan, Philippines]. A bunch of bigwigs waded ashore and he [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area, 20 October 1944] did too. Beard was not too close, and he knew he was seeing history. MacArthur got the thing done. [Annotator's Note: An alarm sounds and the tape cuts.] There was a stockade set up with about five Japanese in it. They were almost naked. He would have liked to have shot them all. [Annotator's Note: The alarm sounds again.] Every night they [Annotator's Note: Battery A, 139th Field Artillery Battalion, 38th Infantry Division] could ring up the news [Annotator's Note: the Japanese radio news] and the Japanese would say how many ships they sunk. It was greatly exaggerated. Tokyo Rose [Annotator's Note: nickname for all female, English-speaking radio broadcasters of Japanese propaganda during World War 2] would do the talking. When Beard heard that, it made him sad. He does not think anybody paid any attention to her. The news was the other way around really. He had lots of contacts with Filipino civilians. They would come around at night and take their extra food. [Annotator's Note: The alarm sounds again.] The kids would line up and the men would give them their leftovers. All they had to eat was rice. Beard was in downtown Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Luzon, Philippines], and the Filipinos would be eating rice with cockroaches in it. The Americans got smart on Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines] and would get up early. The Japanese would get up early to cook their rice. The Americans would order artillery fire on them. A lieutenant got up early and saw some Japanese asleep. He went back and got some men who shot 21 of them while they were asleep.

[Annotator's Note: Throughout this clip, a person off-camera answers a lot of the interviewer's questions or gives information for Beard. The interviewer asks Oral Russell Beard how he found out the war was over.] It kept adding up. The first atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, 6 August 1945] went off. He had a feeling it was because the soldiers were coming in from Europe, they had taken so many islands, and Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan] was being bombed. When they dropped the first bomb, Beard told himself that had to be the end. Then they dropped the other one [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapon dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, 9 August 1945]. Beard was supposed to land at Hiroshima [Annotator's Note: with Battery A, 139th Field Artillery Battalion, 38th Infantry Division]. When there was no more Hiroshima, that was a relief. At night you could feel it in the air. They had searchlights going in the sky and soldiers were firing tracers into the sky. Then the Japanese quit. Beard shipped out from Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Luzon, Philippines] on 13 October [Annotator's Note: 13 October 1945]. He was discharged on 5 November [Annotator's Note: 5 November 1945] at Camp Atterbury [Annotator's Note: Camp Atterbury in Edinburgh, Indiana] as a Corporal Technician T5 [Annotator's Note: US Army Technician Fifth Grade or T5; equivilent to a corporal; E-4]. He waited until 1950 to use the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] and was not called for the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953]. His most memorable experience was all of the water in the ocean. He traveled for 14 days with nothing but water over and over. You cannot imagine how big the ocean is.

[Annotator's Note: Throughout this clip, a person off-camera answers a lot of the interviewer's questions or gives information for Beard.] The war caused a shortage of everything. When Oral Russell Beard came back [Annotator's Note: to the United States in November 1945], there were plenty of jobs because everybody wanted to buy something and there was nothing to buy. Beard got a job the same day he applied. The pay got so good; you could not give it up. That helped him a lot. He had a family and was able to save money that he is now living on. It gave him family values. His children all have jobs. [Annotator's Note: The person off-camera says that he and Beard met each other again at Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg, Mississippi and they discuss that.] They had Army reunions every year. The war was a horrible situation. A buddy of his in his outfit [Annotator's Note: Battery A, 139th Field Artillery Battalion, 38th Infantry Division] told him the Army is everything you would never hope for and that was the war too. The Japanese did not have anything by the time Beard got there. A group of guys from his outfit killed 21 Japs [Annotator's Note: period derogatory term for Japanese] in the Philippines. You could smell the natives in New Guinea. They stunk. The steam, heat, and jungle with no baths. Beard does not recall being able to smell the Japanese. Beard thinks World War 2 means the end for America today. All the smart people produced during the war are gone. MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] was a smart guy. Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; 34th President of the United States] was a smart guy. There is nobody smart running the government now. We [Annotator's Note: America] are borrowing money from China, and we should not be doing that. It was a good war, and we came out in good shape, but things have gone downhill. The war helped Beard out. He retired from General Motors [Annotator's Note: General Motors Corporation] but now they are going downhill. Beard thinks it is important to have the Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana]. He would never have known anything about it if not for his friend. He is really glad he went to it. It helped to revive everything. During the war, they were paid in cash. Beard went through the war, and one would think all he thinks about is combat, but he has more funny things he remembers than anything else. He was on the ship overseas and he got aggravated because they were doing something all the time. Coming back was different. Going over, they gambled all day. Coming back there was not one card game. They wanted to bring their money home. [Annotator's Note: The offscreen person says there was a lot of gambling at Camp Shelby. It was run by a Jewish guy who wound up with all the money.] Beard's outfit also had a Jew who wound up with all the money.