Ray Eshelman was born in Dayton, Ohio, in July 1925. He grew up there and attended school. He graduated [Annotator's Note: high school] in 1943 as the war was heating up in Europe. The draft was on. Almost everyone was going in the Army and Eshelman did not care much for that so he enlisted in the Navy in Cincinnati [Annotator's Note: Cincinnati, Ohio]. He then went to Great Lakes, Illinois [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Great Lakes, North Chicago, Illinois] and started his Navy career. His parents divorced when he was very young. He was raised by his grandparents until he was 11 and then by his aunt and uncle. He has a brother who is younger. He enlisted in the Navy but near the end of the war and only served two years. Eshelman is married, has three children, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks what life was like growing up during the Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945.] Life was very nice. Dayton was medium-sized. Most people got to know each other. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Eshelman where he was when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941. Someone off-camera helps him with the question.] He does not recall that at all. He was in high school. In those days, news was distributed somewhat on the radio, but mostly by newspapers.

Ray Eshelman knew everybody was going to be drafted. There was also a universal interest in joining the service and single people kind of looked forward to it. He was eager to go. The Navy fascinated him. Boot camp was the first time he was away from home by himself. Great Lakes [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago, Illinois] is a very large Naval facility. It was interesting and exciting because he was suddenly in an adult environment and meeting other young adults from all over. [Annotator's Note: An off-camera person helps him with the questions]. The training was a lot of marching and calisthenics. He was amused by all the marching in the Navy. In high school, he played the drums. In boot camp, he got into the Drum and Bugle Corps. He thought he would get out of some of the marching, but he got into more. After boot camp, he was assigned to the Hospital Corps. He got that training for six or eight weeks and got the rank of Pharmacist's Mate 3rd Class. He was sent to the Brooklyn Naval Yard [Annotator's Note: Brooklyn Navy Yard, Brooklyn, New York, New York] for several weeks. He was at the hospital there and it was exciting to be in the big city. He went into the city to the Roseland Ballroom and had a lot of fun. In Ohio, you had to be 21 years old to drink liquor. In New York, you only had to be 18. He did not realize the hospital was in one of the toughest neighborhoods around. He walked there at night a lot and was lucky nothing happened to him. He then went to Sampson, New York [Annotator's Note: Naval Training Station Sampson, Seneca Lake, New York] and was assigned to the dispensary. Several times while there, he was assigned to be with troops on trains being sent from Sampson to other places. He was the medical person on the train. His first trip south was to Jacksonville, Florida. He went to Washington, D.C. and had his first taxi rides there. He also went to Philadelphia [Annotator's Note: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] for the first time. Eshelman was assigned to an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank; USS LST-925] that was being built in Hingham, Massachusetts [Annotator's Note: at the Bethlehem Hingham Shipyard] near Boston [Annotator's Note: Boston, Massachusetts]. He went with the rest of the crew. Boston was a very unusual town. He was on the ship for a month, but was reassigned to Camp Bradford, Virginia [Annotator's Note: in Little Creek, Virginia]. There, he was assigned to LST-801 [Annotator's Note: USS LST-801], which was being built in Jeffersonville, Indiana across from Louisville, Kentucky. They boarded it and went down the Ohio River to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana]. They took the boat on a shakedown cruise [Annotator's Note: a cruise to evaluate the performance of a naval vessel and its crew] and ultimately steamed through the Panama Canal to San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California].

Ray Eshelman was in San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California] and went to Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]. They [Annotator's Note: USS LST-801] restocked there. There were still a number of the ships bombed out. They went farther west and stopped at Eniwetok [Annotator's Note: Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands]. They stretched their legs and ran up and down the beach a little. It was his first encounter with a lister bag [Annotator's Note: or Lyster bag; a canvas water bag used to hold purified drinking water]. They went to Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands] and stayed there for a period of time. They left Saipan and stopped at Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands] to walk around a little. On the way to Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines], one of the sailors came down with appendicitis. There were three hospital corpsmen including Eshelman. They were in a convoy with bigger ships, and one had a doctor who instructed them on what to do. They could not stop, so they transferred him to the bigger ship by a breeches buoy, which is a metal basket that goes between ships by ropes and pulleys. The doctor operated and the sailor was fine. They made to Leyte, which was the gathering point for the invasion of Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Battle of Okinawa, code-named Operation Iceberg, 1 April to 22 June 1945; Okinawa, Japan]. They took aboard the 77th Infantry Division. They had been in several bloody battles. On the way to Okinawa, there were so many ships that he could not count them. They were assigned to land the 77th Division on an island called Ie-Shima [Annotator's Note: Ie-Shima, Japan] where there was an airbase they wanted to knock out. They were there a week or two. The 77th secured the island and came back to the ship. Ernie Pyle [Annotator's Note: Ernest Taylor Pyle; American journalist and war correspondent] was traveling with the 77th Division. Pyle went ashore with them and was killed [Annotator's Note: on 18 April 1945]. They then landed the 77th troops on Okinawa itself. They stayed a month or two. At that point, the kamikaze planes really came into being. Every day they would be watching for them, spotting them, and firing at them.

The kamikazes were day and night [Annotator's Note: during the Battle of Okinawa, code-named Operation Iceberg, 1 April to 22 June 1945, Okinawa, Japan]. The airplanes were very small. At night the larger ships had huge searchlights. They would light the planes up and start shooting at them. It was probably the biggest pyrotechnic display Ray Eshelman ever saw in his life. A kamikaze came close to them and hit an ammunition ship that was about 100 yards away. It was sinking and the most mournful sound Eshelman has ever heard in his life is the signal a ship gives when it is sinking. After the ship went down, they picked up one of the sailors. The ship was a merchant ship. The hospital ship had a case of brandy to use as a stimulant. Eshelman gave some to the sailor. They left Okinawa and carried the 6th Marine Division to Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands]. On the way, they got into their version of a hurricane. The waves went over the top of the ship. On Saipan, the Executive Officer asked him if he would like to go back to the United States. Eshelman had been selected to be in an Officers Training Program. He left the ship and flew to Honolulu [Annotator's Note: Honolulu, Hawaii] then he hitched a ride on a Naval seaplane called a Coronado [Annotator's Note: Consolidated PB2Y Coronado amphibious aircraft]. He had to sit on a metal floor. He spent a week in Honolulu and then boarded a Victory ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship]. An LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] had a very shallow draft and would roll from side to side. That took getting used to it. The Victory ship pitched fore and aft and that took getting used to. They went into Goat Island, San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. He got 30 day leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] and went to Dayton [Annotator's Note: Dayton, Ohio]. He was assigned to Farragut Island [Annotator's Note: Farragut Naval Training Station, Bayview, Idaho]. He was on a troop train to Farragut, Idaho and they learned they had won the war in Japan. They stopped in Butte, Montana where the people met them and celebrated. Eshelman was assigned to the Naval Officers Training Program at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska. He was there October [Annotator's Note: October 1945] to March [Annotator's Note: March 1946]. He chose to get out of the Navy and was sent to Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois] and discharged in April 1946.

Ray Eshelman had been on USS LST-925 in Boston [Annotator's Note: Boston, Massachusetts, before reporting aboard USS LST-801]. He was familiar was what it was like. An LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] is an interesting ship with a 125 person crew. It had a huge open deck underneath the main deck and huge bow doors that opened side to side. The ship would pull on the beach and put down a ramp for tanks and trucks to drive off. It was ingenious. Eshelman had a cabin converted to a sick bay. They had medicine cabinets and supplies. He spent a lot of his duty time there. They had sick call every morning and they would treat any sick sailors. The rest of the day was spent on other duties. In downtime, he read, talked to other sailors. Eshelman got around to find out what others did. He was welcomed everywhere because liked the doctors. He was called "Doc" even though he only had six weeks of medical training. [Annotator's Note: Eshelman laughs.] [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Eshelman what some of the dangers of serving aboard his type of ship were.] Submarines were a danger. In Okinawa [Annotator's Note: the Battle of Okinawa, code-named Operation Iceberg, 1 April to 22 June 1945; Okinawa, Japan], it was the kamikazes. The kamikazes made them very nervous to say the least. It was the first time he had seen anything like it. You just took things as they came. You had to deal with it. Eshelman left the Pacific for officer training at the University of Nebraska [Annotator's Note: in Lincoln, Nebraska] in September or October 1945. He left June 1945 and got a 30 day leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. He felt good about coming back to the United States. He had made a lot of friends, but you get used to leaving people in the service. Eshelman was very, very happy the Japanese surrendered. He remembers being on a ship when the war was over in Europe. They knew they would get some help in the Pacific.

Ray Eshelman was never interested in a military career. He had a couple of choices at discharge. He could join the Naval Reserve and be on call for ten years. He could sign up for another tour for three or four years, or he could get out. He was fortunate because the Korean conflict [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 1950 to 1953] popped up. The Naval Reserve were the first called to go back in. He did not take advantage of the G.I. Bill. He got involved with the 52-20 Club [Annotator's Note: a government-funded program that paid unemployed veterans 20 dollars per week for 52 weeks] and stayed around Dayton [Annotator's Note: Dayton, Ohio]. He worked on the assembly line at the Frigidaire plant [Annotator's Note: Frigidaire Appliance Company]. Some friends of his had big ideas of going to California. The car dealers in Detroit [Annotator's Note: Detroit, Michigan] were sending used cars to the West Coast. Eshelman and his friends would drive them out. They made it to California. One of the guys had friends there who had a dance studio. In Glendale, California was an advertising agency that published a magazine. Eshelman got a job selling advertising for them. He became aware of the Pat Patrick Advertising Agency who specialized in radio car ads. Pat Patrick came up with a cooperative advertising scheme. Eshelman spent some time doing that. He went on vacation to Dayton. A close friend worked for L.M. Berry and Company. Eshelman joined and spent 40 years with them. He moved to Louisiana to work for them there. He stayed for 13 years. In 1960, he was transferred back to Dayton and retired in 1987 as President and CEO [Annotator's Note: chief executive officer].

Ray Eshelman did not take long to transition back to civilian life. He was looking forward to it. He did not miss the Navy at all. His most memorable experiences were the situation with a man who had appendicitis, the kamikazes [Annotator's Note: at the Battle of Okinawa, code-named Operation Iceberg, 1 April to 22 June 1945, Okinawa, Japan], and the ship sinking. Eshelman fought because once he got in the service, he had to. Everybody was patriotic in those days. The United States was it. He does not know that the war changed his life. He took it as it came. He elected not to go to college. He was eager to get started and get something rolling. He was very fortunate. He would not recommend it for everybody, but it worked fine for him. His service means a lot of thing. He is glad he did it. It made him grow up and prepared him for adulthood. He likes the Armed Services. They do a marvelous job. It would be good if a great number of the younger people got a taste of it. That will not happen. It does in some countries. World War 2 is relevant from the standpoint that if we [Annotator's Note: the United States] had not done that, the world would be totally different today. The Germans and the Japanese would be the rulers. The United States did it twice; World War 1 and World War 2. They did not get a lot of credit for the benefits to the countries with the Marshall Plan [Annotator's Note: American initiative passed in 1948 for foreign aid to Western Europe] that brought those countries back. Eshelman stopped thinking about the war, it has been so long since. He thinks there should be museums [Annotator's Note: like The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] to teach the war to future generations. People need to know what has gone on, historically. He thinks the United States is losing the battle within and is becoming more and more Socialistic internally. The Vietnam War [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975] tilted the milk bottle over. It turned a lot of people off. The feeling of strong loyalty and patriotism is winnowing as time goes on. He has been to the museum a couple of times. He is very familiar with the Higgins Company [Annotator's Note: Higgins Industries in New Orleans, Louisiana].