Ralph Burch was born in August 1923 in Port Arthur [Annotator’s Note: Port Arthur, Texas]. He lived close to the canals. He could lay in bed and watch the ships go by. He learned their passing signals. He had a good home. His parents were good people and hard workers. He lived in a good neighborhood. He built himself a boat out of apple boxes and took it across the canal. His family survived the Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s] because his father had a good job. They did not starve. Burch went to Catholic school. It was about a mile from the house. He went there until he was in the tenth grade and then he went to a public school. He loved his mechanical drawing classes. He went to school for drafting in the middle of 1941. He graduated and came home looking for a job. Jobs were hard to get. They were building ships. Burch started off as a shipbuilding apprentice. He was working on the Sunday when the war started [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. It was dirty work. He wanted to join the Navy. They told him they would not take him because he was in an essential industry. When his deferment [Annotator's Note: postponement of military service] ran out, he signed up for the Navy. He went to boot camp in San Diego [Annotator’s Note: San Diego, California]. He went to signal school out there.

Ralph Burch went to signal school in San Francisco [Annotator’s Note: San Francisco, California]. He was put in the Armed Guard. Most of them were gunners. He was sent to Mobile, Alabama to pick up a ship. It carried cargo and passengers. They loaded C rations [Annotator's Note: prepared and canned wet combat food] and K rations [Annotator's Note: individual daily combat food ration consisting of three boxed meals] on the ship. From Mobile, they went to New Orleans [Annotator’s Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] where they loaded. From there they went back to San Diego [Annotator’s Note: San Diego, California] to pick up more ammunition, then they went to Hollandia, New Guinea to unload. After they unloaded, they went to Sydney, Australia to pick up the Army. They set up bunks in the front of the ship for them. They carried all their equipment in one of the holds on the ship. He had a cousin in the Army and knew he was somewhere around Hollandia. His cousin was stationed at a base down the road from him. He was able to get together with his cousin a couple of times. There were no coconut trees over three feet high. The Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] had a canon on a moveable slide. The Navy leveled the coconut grove.

Ralph Burch remembers they had to be out on watch. [Annotator’s Note: The video starts to have audio problems.] He could swim in Hollandia [Annotator’s Note: Hollandia, New Guinea]. They would let their mattresses air dry up on the deck. They were not close to the fighting. Most of the gun crew was transferred to another ship. He was supposed to return to the United States, but they ended up staying out at sea for a while longer. His ship picked up scrap such as empty shells. [Annotator’s Note: The video starts to have audio problems.] He enjoyed watching the planes take off and land. He saw two planes crash. They would pick up the men who were in the water. They trained several men. After the war, they were going to decommission the ship. When he returned home, he went to school for engineering. His career was in insurance and real estate. He got married after he had a career. Their crew had people from all over the country. The Red Cross [Annotator's Note: Red Cross, an international non-profit humanitarian organization] had given them a sewing kit.

Ralph Burch thought seeing the Golden Gate Bridge was memorable when he was in San Francisco [Annotator’s Note: San Francisco, California]. He is a veteran. He has a lot of good memories. He was never shot at as far as he knows. At times, they would zig-zag [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver] in case there were subs around. Convoys were a way to protect the whole bunch. He thinks it is important to teach younger generations about World War Two. He thinks the country is going to hell. The politics are not good. They should be fighting for the good of the country and not each other. They are destroying the country.